Poltergeist
A design idea by Markus
Background
I dislike the Revenant. It is a mid-round antagonist with no clear goal and no background, it might be the perfect role for being as annoying as possible and seeing how many you can shock in Medbay as Nukies attack. You rarely see them stalk their vicitm or try to kill them more indirectly. I want to see one particular victium be hunted for their actions, doesn’t matter why.
Goal
To design an antagonist which will not directly and immediately be able to kill their target and requires slow and creative thinking in order to achieve their goal.
Method
The Poltergeist is meant to be a mid-round antagonist and would require at least one player to have died, preferably at the hands of someone else. Whatever ghost becomes the poltergeist will have access to all their say logs between them and their murderer. They are then instructed the simple objective of getting revenge on their murderer. Once this goal has achieved, they will finally find peace and disappear, returning to be a regular ghost.
Abilities
Similar to the revenant, their abilities is slowly unlocked as time passes. They can only pick up things when no one is close to them and store small items along with assembling them. They can not directly interact with machines. The abilities are sorted in the order they would become available. They will have the same access their victim had.
Throw Item
A basic ability to telekinetically activate and throw things around. Such as activating a welder and throwing it into a welder tank.
Voice Manipulation
Mimicing voices to be heard over any radio channel of their choosing, only able to be heard by their murderer.
Tripping
Able to trip their target at will while they are running.
Physical Manipulation
To copy and act as any existing crewmember, only able to be seen by their murderer and does not work for more than 30 seconds.
Shock Wave
A semi-powerful shockwave throwing things around and possibly throwing everything onto a given target.
Electrical Interfarence
Able to manipulate a select few machines like APCs, Autolathes and so on. Must be done without anyone seeing (not including the murderer).
Gore Memory
Able to appear as the victim but covered in blood with one out of five limbs missing. Only visible to the murderer.
Possession
They can take direct control of someone who is stationary at 80% health or more and who isn’t holding a weapon. This allows them to act as that person and do whatever they want for a limited time. Such as beating their murderer as much as possible. Taking damage will reduce the available time you have as them.
Counter
The main counter roles would be the Chaplain and Curator. The Chaplains word alone would push away the poltergeist. The poltergeist can be seen with the ghost camera.
Finding the body of the victim and burning it wilk damage the poltergeist while also making it strong and less restricted until it inevitably dies.
Feedback
This is a shorter less developed idea I had earlier today, even if I developed it further, there is a lot of things currently lacking. Such as counter play. I don’t think I want to make the poltergeist killable, in other words they have to get their kill on their murderer. But I am not certain. I think this will make it more interesting if you die and get RRd early. As while your soul may be gone, it has yet to rest and the stories if you continues. This would probabky mean the victim does get DNRd automatically. As it would be weird to have the soul of someone haunt their murderer… while the victim is alive and well.
What do you think?
I’d love to hear from @Fronsis, @Huk and everyone else who read this far! 