Gwiti Ha'atel sprites - Update: Dread Lich finished!

[Longbow]

Jetryl has a replacement for the current Ancient lich sprite planned

Cool, has he done any work on it or is it another low priority thing...

[Iris]

Low priority. But he certainly wants it to be less human than the current one (he said sometime ago that it would kind of like the Dread Lich of TDH).

[Orcish Shyde]

I had actually planned to base the Dread Lich off the Draug - put the "dread" back in "dread lich", however ambitious removing the axe and turning staff into shield would be. Somehow the ancient lich looked less scary than the normal lich to me.

Though as a placeholder, if anyone actually uploads a TDH version with my sprites, I'd replace the old Dread Lich sprites with the Ancient Lich sprites. Temporarily.

Myself I wouldn't make a new Ancient Lich based mainly on the TDH Dread Lich, as there's really no justification for the spider legs thing. Maybe if it's lost its legs and is now a flying unit, though that would potentially require rebalancing any scenario where an Ancient Lich features.

[Iris]

He wants to make them less human, that's for sure.

[Orcish Shyde]

The Ancient Lich already looks like a skeleton, how much more inhuman does a former human have to look? I mean, he's already dead, so odds are the only way his number of appendages is going is down.

Meanwhile, I have now a revised base frame and a defence frame for Demilich:

[AI]

The only reasons I see for a dead human to use a human form are:
-Bound to the form by spells (but a lich can use magic and change these)
-Habit: when you've used a human body all your life, it tends to be the easiest one for you to use.

Both of these obstacles can be easily overcome by a powerful enough lich with enough time on his hands.

The TC jewel looks good in red, though it's hard to make out in blue...

[Orcish Shyde]

Sorry about the long hiatus, National Novel Writing Month & Windows' bugginess distracted me.

2 replaced frames and 3 new ones today, so I'll have to describe the change to the base and defend frames (unless I'm wrong about there being a limit of 3 attached images per post): I've removed the TC jewel entirely, since it looks frankly pants on a blue guy, and changed the shading on the golden belt a bit.

It strikes me that we may still need to sort out exactly 3 new portraits, whether for TDH or for other campaigns - because right now, it's a story about how Darken Volk levels up into Ro'Sothian and then into Malifor if you ask the unit pics.

A long-dead necromancer would very likely stick to a human form because it's what he's used to, and any disadvantages it might have e.g. lack of flying capability can be addressed with magic of some form. I'd imagine an ancient lich would be less human, more ghostly - since a lich has already given up all the things that make it worthwhile to not be a ghost, replacing lost body parts with entirely magical, ethereal constructs would reduce the chance of losing the body part again and increase the lich's resilience compared to a normal skeleton chassis.

[AI]

Or rather, how Darken Volk, Malifor and Ro'Sothian borrowed Gwiti's portrait.

[Orcish Shyde]

Exactly. The only issue is that TDH is no longer mainline, and thus noobs might not realise TDH did it first. What I don't know is whether that entails new portraits for TDH or new portraits for DiD & NR - bearing in mind that what I'm hoping for is that one day The Dark Hordes is a mainline campaign again.

EDIT: "What I can't decide" sounds far too arrogant

EDIT EDIT: Though come to think of it, Kitty's generic portraits for Dark Sorcerer/Necromancer & Lich would probably fit Volk & Malifor (respectively) better than the Gwiti pics - but that's a campaign development thing.

[Orcish Shyde]

Actually, since I've posted so many times anyway, might as well double post to show that the Demilich is officially complete with melee frames.

Also included, an image of all the Demilich frames - though I'm in no hurry to make similar ones for Initiate or Deathmaster.

[cobra]

Awesome! Excellent job! Keep up the good work Orcish Shyde.

[AI]

Committed in r2693.

[Orcish Shyde]

I know the current Ancient Lich is going to be replaced, and now I've gone to edit it I can see why. I never noticed while playing, but he hardly moves!... anyway, here are the base, defend, and melee frames for the Dread Lich; my only concern is the jewel, since I doubt you're going to have another Ancient Lich on Gwiti's team to get confused with him.

[Orcish Shyde]

Given the lack of movement, I was surprised to find how hard it was to get mainline quality recolours done on the Ancient Lich. I dunno how to perfectly replicate transparency in GIMP.

Anyway, with this Gwiti is finished! (until Jetryl makes a new Ancient Lich)

[AI]

Committed in r2722, which concludes the Initiate line, at least for now.

Remaining things to do:
-Initiate death animation (low priority)
-TCed initiate (I can fix that myself if you don't want to)

The only other pressing art issue I see in TDH is the Dark Spirit (Leganoth), he's currently using a recolour of an obsolete version of the spectre sprite. Unfortunately Jetryl hasn't animated the new spectre yet, so I'm unsure what we should do with it.