Character Design: Rebecca Peake! (Or, Less a punchline, more a line of punches)

"So what happens if I agree?"
"Well, Miss Peake," said the venerable man, sitting back in his chair, "If you should agree to our proposition, it will have transpired that when this awful young man came at you with a knife, there was-"

"Wait, he didn't have a-"

"I would strongly advise you not to challenge the course of events, for your own sake." continued the older Templar, a hint of annoyance entering his voice. Rebecca took the hint.

"As I was saying, " he went on, irritation slowly leaving his voice, "it transpired that there were no witnesses to your self-defence, and it's your word against his over what happened. You will opt for trial by jury, things won't look good for you, but then, just before judgement is made..."

He paused, leaning forward over the table towards Rebecca, hands arched together, "He will stage a miraculous recovery from his wounds, make a written statement from the infirmary confessing his attempted murder, he will opt for trial by combat, and he shall be killed in prison two days before his trial. No-one will question his death."
A silence descended over the room.

"And what if I say no?"

"Then it will turn out the bar was full of witnesses to your assault on the man, that he died from his wounds on the way to the infirmary, and there is no question as to your guilt. Your trial will be a mere formality in the face of overwhelming evidence, your... contraptions, " he said, gesturing vaguely towards the brass gauntlets that Rebecca had been forced to surrender at the start of the meeting "...will be taken to our resident Techmaturgist for analysis, and you shall be sentenced to death for your crimes"
A silence descended upon the room once again.

"The choice is yours.", he said, leaning back again.
Another pause. Rebecca's stare remained level, scrutinizing the Head Templar's face. His expression remained stony, betraying nothing to her.
"...I accept."
"Congratulations. Welcome to the Templars, Rebecca Peake"

Rebecca Peake, the Barroom Brawler, is a Beatstick with focus on single target lockdown and multitarget crowd control. Her kit is based around either taking on and blocking a single opponent from taking any actions, or striking the whole enemy team at once at the cost of dealing less damage.

Passive: Below the Belt- Rebecca aims for pressure points and nasty blows. When Rebecca deals damage, the target is slowed for a brief time.
This has a use for both parts of Rebecca's kit. When she's against a single opponent, slowing her enemy stops them getting away from her as easily. Against multiple, it stops them chasing her as easily. Win win!

IMPORTANT NOTE: GO READ HER R NOW, OR NOTHING WILL MAKE SENSE.

Q: Right Hook/ Running Toss- Rebecca punches the foe in front of her, dealing significant damage. With Unstoppable Force active, the next enemy Rebecca hits takes significant damage and is knocked into the air.
Right Hook is Rebecca's main single target ability. It deals a fair amount of damage pretty quickly, so no real downsides apart from needing to stay in close quarters to use it.
Running Toss is similarly just a light "help your allies" tool. If you're coming up to an enemy who's trying to run from one of your teammates, hitting this could help your friend catch up, but it's not much.

W: Forceful Blow/ Explosive Punch- Rebecca punches with incredible force, dealing moderate damage in a short wide cone and knocking back struck enemies. With Unstoppable Force active, the next enemy Rebecca hits takes significant damage, and all enemies in a small radius around Rebecca take significant damage, including the struck target
Forceful Blow is a major part of what makes Rebecca a pain in single combat. By knocking foes away, she stops them aiming their abilities as easily and in general puts them in places that they don't want to be. In combination with Dynamic Entry (see below), this doesn't even stop her being in range either.

Explosive Punch is what will be dealing most of Rebecca's damage while Unstoppable Force is up. It deals a fair amount of single target damage, but deals much better overall damage when used on a cluster of enemies, so it's pretty obvious how to use this.

E: Dynamic Entry/ Outta the Way!- Rebecca closes down a foe, dashing to them and dealing significant damage. With Unstoppable Force active, the next enemy Rebecca hits takes moderate damage and is knocked behind Rebecca.
Dynamic Entry is a handy tool for making sure nothing can get away from you ever. Essentially, hit this if there's a foe escaping, dash to them and apply your passive, and they can't do a thing about you. On the other hand, you could use it on a foe you already caught, after knocking them away with Forceful Blow, in order to do bursts of damage between Right Hooks.

Outta the Way is sort of the opposite of Running Toss, in that it's used to disrupt people from chasing your allies more than catch them. That said, it's pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. Not much complexity to it.

R: Unstoppable Force- Rebecca hurtles forward at massive speed, dealing significant damage to enemies she passes. With Unstoppable Force active, the next enemy Rebecca hits takes moderate damage, and Unstoppable Force ends.
Read it. Right, now read it again. This is important. I'll wait.
Done? Good. So, this turns Rebecca from a single target powerhouse to a multitarget threat. While it may look good as an escape on paper, it really isn't for a number of reasons- One, it only stops when you run into a foe, which may just make matters worse, and two, it's interrupted by snares, slows, knockups, any of that lot. Beyond that, this works how you think it does- run through a crowd of enemies, use your other abilities to disrupt them, turn off Unstoppable Force when you get to a flimsy foe, then punch them to death. Simple enough, right?

I'm not going to bother saying it.

Watch this space, by the way. Relatively big announcement coming soon!


EDIT: For character development reasons and not being one dimensional reasons, Rebecca's backstory has been changed. Enjoy!

Character Design: Persephone Argent! (or, A v ^ A v ^)

Persephone's parents originally thought that they'd had twins. Even so, they had to admit that it was a little strange that only one of them was crying at any given time. Or for that matter, that only one of them was moving at all at any given time. All the same, they didn't realize what was going on with their darling Persephone and Kore until they- or rather, she- learned to talk. Even parents as oblivious as hers could hardly ignore the way that each sentence jumped erratically between their daughters without missing a beat.

As she grew, she learned to control her power. How to shift seamlessly between herself and Kore. How to dissipate and gather her to and from wisps of cloud and mist. Vital skills, all in all. Skills that the Templars recognized. Nurtured. Weaponized.


Be warned. Lightning shall strike the same place twice.

Persephone Argent, the Maid of Storms, is a Nova/Assassin with focus on clone manipulation. Her kit is based around dealing high burst damage to multiple targets, or even higher burst damage to a single target, through herself and her clone.

Passive: Two Bodies, One Spirit- Persephone lives her life in two halves. Persephone has a stationary cloudclone of herself on the battlefield at all times, which is immune to all abilities, displacement, all damage, and all statuses.
This is the core (pun unintended) of Persephone's skillset, but of itself it isn't that exciting, so I'll go into more detail about why it's fun in the other ability descriptions.

Q: Stormsurge- Persephone and Kore launch a burst of energy towards the cursor, dealing moderate damage apiece.
This is on a VERY long cooldown for a Q ability, so Persephone has very little sustained damage. However, she can use this for a lot of burst. There are two ways to try and use this- first, to try and strike the same foe twice, as an Assassin, or to strike two different foes, the Nova way. Either way, clone position and targetting is very important.

W: Stormburst- Persephone and Kore overflow with power, dealing moderate damage in a small radius around them.
Again, there are two ways to use this. Either position your clone to hit as many people as possible with the burst, or position yourself so a single target gets hit by both bursts. The distinction between Assassin and Nova is there once again. Additionally, this can be usefully used to stop people camping your clone, which can be one of Persephone's weaknesses- by hitting Stormburst before Gemini Shifting, she can clear out anyone who planned to catch her off guard.

E: Cumulogenesis- Persephone spawns a new clone at target location, destroying her old clone.
This has obvious applications with the other abilities, but two that are probably less obvious without looking at them in game. These were originally bugs, but I decided to leave them in because they just seemed to work. First, as it was dubbed by the testers, "Landmining", wherein Kore is placed under the ground, making her invisible, but still able to use Stormburst, giving undetectable damage- it's also possible to Gemini Shift to her, which places you on the equivalent point at ground level. The second, "Thunderclouding", places Kore as far above the ground as possible, making Stormburst next to useless, but greatly increasing the effective range of Stormsurge, and allowing you to use it effectively even when nowhere near her. These both seemed consistent with the storyline (given that Kore is essentially a cloud, it makes sense that she can float, after all), so I left them in as a bonus.

R: Gemini Shift- Persephone switches to her other body, swapping position with Kore after a short delay, dealing light damage to herself in the process.
I'm going to assume you can see the implications of this ability. It can be used for chasing, for positioning, for repositioning Kore without waiting for Cumulogenesis to cooldown, to run away from fights while waiting for cooldowns, all that sort of thing. One thing of note is that this is on the lowest cooldown of any of Persephone's abilities, meaning that any Persephone players will have to learn to use this properly to be in with a chance of doing well.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No clue, but it's definitely not an artist.

Guess what's coming soon! That's right, it's gameplay videos and screenshots!
Any thoughts? Any questions?

Character Design: Elijah! (or, Fava Beans and Chianti at the ready!)

Elijah was hungry.

Elijah was usually hungry, but this time it was worse than most. Most of the time, when Elijah was hungry, he'd go out and get something to eat. But this time he couldn't. As it turns out, trying to turn a passing Templar, disguised for a stakeout, into a snack, is frowned upon. The corpse didn't even stick around long enough for him to take a bite either, and several other Templars had jumped on him moments later. He still managed to take three of them down before they tied him up, too. But he didn't get to eat them, either. As a direct result...

Elijah was still hungry.

It's these clone summon things that make it no fun. The body isn't real, just a construct. The real Templar is in a summoning circle, somewhere underground. Sure, they feel the pain, but they don't die, and the construct just dissolves when it "dies". Still, Elijah finds some contentment in the fact that he caused the Templars some pain.

On the other hand... Elijah was hungry.

Elijah, the Bloodied Butcher, is a Bruiser with focus on augmented attacks and battle regeneration. His kit is built around closing down on an enemy and hitting them with his cleaver, empowering his attacks with his other abilities as he goes.

Passive: Carnivore- Elijah feeds of his foes, healing himself for 25% of the damage he deals.
This one's for sustain, mostly. It's what allows him to go toe to toe with tougher opponents in prolonged fights, and it's a reward for sticking at a fight to the end, rather than disengaging.

Q: Cleave- Elijah swings his cleaver, dealing moderate damage to a foe in melee range.
This is Elijah's main damaging ability. If he gets up close, he can deal devastating damage with Cleave, but the cooldown is longer than most Q abilities, so he has to stay in there for a while.

W: Bleed for Me- Elijah prepares a jagged strike, causing his next Cleave to apply bleeding to the target, dealing significant damage over 3 seconds.
Bleed For Me is not intended as a direct source of damage, but rather something to hold him over between Cleaves against foes who might be able to get away- basically, there are some foes who really need to have constant damage on them (trust me on this), so this is pretty handy.

E: Go for the Throat- Elijah prepares a lightning-fast strike, making him dash a short distance forward the next time he uses Cleave.
For a melee Templar as slow as Elijah, either a really nice piece of crowd control or a gap closer is needed to stop him being utterly irrelevant against ranged enemies. As a gap closer, this one seems to be fairly well balanced- while it gives him a dash, it costs him a Cleave, so he has to wait for the cooldown again before he can hit someone, once he's dashed.

R: Slaughter- Elijah slashes for the kill, dealing moderate damage plus a proportion of the target's missing health to a foe in melee range.
Now this is beautiful, even if I do say so myself. In a similar vein (hah!) to Cordelia's Chomp, Slaughter is intended to be used as an execute which doubles as sustain, however, it has bonus functionality as a tool for healing- due to his passive, he could hit a tank on about half health, not kill them, but still heal himself for a noticable amount, which may well save his life in a prolonged fight. On the other hand, it can also be used as an instant kill against weakened foes. All in all, relatively versatile, for a direct damage move.

Ceci n'est pas un artist.

Gameplay videos! Gameplay screenshots! All of this and more, coming at some point in the future!

Any thoughts? Any questions?

Character Design: Cordelia Strange! (Or, Weed Killer Goes Both Ways)

No-one knows what Cordelia really is. Not even Cordelia herself.
All she knows is that she has to care for her children. Her children love her. She loves her children. She protects her children. Her children protect her.
It doesn't take much work to make more of her children, but it takes care, effort, time, love, to nurture them to their full potential. A single seed, a hole in the ground, and they begin to grow. And they do grow so fast.
She teaches them, as they grow. Teaches them how to think. How to learn. How to speak to each other. How to find food. How to hunt it. 

They need to learn to get along with their siblings. Not to starve the younger ones of light. Not to choke the elder ones' roots.
Humans need to learn to get along with their siblings too. Whatever they brought... it hurt them. It hurt her children. Before her eyes, they lit up, a brilliant, flickering yellow, spreading to each brother and sister it touched.
She tried to save them. All of them.


She couldn't save them.


They took her in when they heard her trying to comfort her children. She could talk. She was a living being, not an unintelligent monster. They couldn't just burn her like the rest.

It took years for her to stop wishing that they had.

She grew a new grove, in time. But the nightmares, the screams of her children... they didn't go away.

Cordelia Strange, the Plant Queen is a Cannon with focus on rapid shooting and self healing in battle. Her kit is built around firing as many thorns as she can, as fast as she can, and kiting enemies away from melee range. (For those of us who aren't aware, Kiting refers to keeping an enemy chasing you while also keeping it at a range where it cannot attack you.)


Passive: Coup de Grass- Cordelia knows how nature finishes off the weak. Cordelia deals increased damage with all of her abilities against foes who are snared, silenced or slowed.
I'm gonna be honest- this is probably going to need a little tweaking. It's intended to give her better synergy with crowd control centric supports, such as Twig, the Migh... *ahem*, you saw nothing. In any case, it holds little synergy (though some) with the rest of her kit or her feel, so it probably needs some more work, but it should be good for purpose as it is- support synergy is always worth thinking about, as well as internal synergy.

Q: Thornspitter- Cordelia flings a gravity-affected thorn, dealing significant damage to the first foe it hits. If the thorn strikes an enemy, the cooldown of Thornspitter and Sweet Blooms are reduced by 0.5 seconds.
As Cordelia's signature ability, this is where all of her damage is coming from. The way this works means that it fires at roughly double rate when hitting an enemy. Not much damage, but fires very, very fast- exactly the Cannon's Modus Operandi, in other words.

W: Sweet Blooms- Cordelia's flowers bloom, invigorating her. For the next four seconds, Cordelia heals herself for a slight amount of health every time she uses Thornspitter.
Sweet Blooms isn't healing for much at a time, but just like the damage stacks up, so does the healing. Due to the way Thornspitter works, this effectively heals twice as much when used in battle than out of it, and since it gets a reduced cooldown from thorn hits, it's essentially at it's best when used for battle healing- a bit of added durability, rather than means of regenerating.

E: Coiling Vines- Cordelia flings vines out in front of her, dealing slight damage to the foe they strike and snaring them for 0.5 seconds.
This might at first look like it has good synergy with Coup de Grass, but unfortunately, you can only fit one boosted damage thorn into that time, and were the snare any longer it would make Cordelia too powerful. Believe me, there's been rigorous testing here. Coiling vines is intended as a tool to try and keep melee enemies- so Bruisers and the like- out of range, so Cordelia can continue kiting them with thorns. Not good for holding them down, but great for a quick interrupt.

R: Chomp- Chomper lunges out and tries to swallow a foe in melee range. If the targetted foe is below a quarter of their maximum health, they are instantly killed, Cordelia is healed moderate health, and the cooldown on Chomp is reduced sharply.
This one's an interesting one. If a foe is in melee range of Cordelia, something's already gone horribly wrong- since this is where she's weakest, she needs an emergency tool to get away with the fight. Being able to Chomp them for some quick health is a useful tool, and forces foes to engage with a good amount of health remaining. Additionally, it gives Cordelia some power against Tanks- if she's able to whittle off the first three quarters, the last quarter is gone instantly, making things much easier for her!

Usual disclaimer applies, people!

Gameplay videos and screenshots coming really quite soon probably maybe possibly.

Thoughts? Questions? I'm here to listen!

Character Design: Bastion! (or, You Can't Stop The Rockman)

Pygmalia found herself running, in tears, across the high gardens, searching through bleary eyes for the statue that she knew would be there.

A visit from the Enlightener is not one that you forget in a hurry. Her power, as it is, is to speak the truth. Not the truth that you want to know, but the truth that you need to know. Whatever it may be.

Pygmalia, the sculptor, was not a Templar. She wasn't cut out for the job. Her combat skills were non-existent, and she didn't have any magic potential to speak of. However, she did work with the Templars- after all, they're the ones who need the lavish carvings, the beautiful sculptures, the masterwork statues- so she spent a fair amount of time around them. In fact, that was how she'd met her fiancée, Peter Bastion. 

Pygmalia stopped before the statue. It was here. The Enlightener's words echoed through her mind.

Bastion was a strong man. A leader. Handsome, intelligent, charismatic, strong as an ox. Five years ago, they met. One year ago, to the very day, they'd become pledged to be married. Six months ago, he'd lead a group out to the Törska Mountains, in search of the homeland of a new race of savages who had been spotted near Kayne's walls. Three months ago, the party was due to return. Today, they were due to be married.

Instead, Pygmalia had received a visit from the Enlightener.

She'd said only four words.

"He's not coming back."

Pygmalia fell to her knees, hugging the legs of the statue of Peter. Her magnum opus.
Who can imagine how she felt when he knelt to embrace her too.

Bastion, the Stone Soldier, is a Tank with focus on damage mitigation and area of effect crowd control. His kit is built around getting into the middle of a group of enemies and holding them down for long enough for his allies to kill them.


Passive: Rock Solid- If Bastion hasn't taken damage in the last 3 seconds, the next attack to hit him deals no damage.
Rock Solid is Bastion's means of catching and holding the enemy's attention, as well as his means of dealing with Assassins and Novas. By mitigating only the first attack to hit him, he can utterly invalidate Assassin and Nova burst, but it's ineffective against Cannons, Fighters, Bruisers and Beatsticks, forcing him to single out high priority targets to avoid getting shredded anyway.

Q: Rock Hammer- Bastion strikes an enemy in front of him with his hammer, dealing significant damage to them.
Rock Hammer is basically a basic attack. It doesn't do much damage, it's on too long a cooldown to use as a decent source of damage. All it's really there for is to give him something to do between crowd control bursts.

W: Epicenter- Bastion smashes the ground with his hammer, dealing light damage to nearby enemies and slowing them for two seconds.

Epicenter is Bastion's primary crowd control ability. By getting into the middle of a group of enemies and hitting this, he stops them running if his team is winning, or stops them chasing if his team is losing. Win win situation!

E: Stone Slam- Bastion bashes his body into a foe, dealing moderate damage and snaring them for a second.

Stone Slam is Bastion's main "singling out" ability. By Slamming a squishy foe, he's making them an easy target for the rest of his team, and dealing a some damage while he's at it.

R: Boulderdash- Bastion curls himself up and rolls to the target location, dealing significant damage to and knocking foes he strikes on his way past into the air. When he arrives, he smashes the ground, dealing moderate damage to, slowing, and knocking into the air nearby enemies.

Boulderdash is Bastion's primary positioning tool. Essentially, he should be using this to get into the middle of a group of enemies so he can hit them with the rest of his abilities easily, and to exploit the crowd control on the arrival effect. More specifically, he should be aiming to use this to get slightly behind a group of enemies, partially so he hits foes with both the pass through and the arrival damage, and partially so he's closer to the people at the back, who are likely to be the weaker members of the team.

Still not an artist, I'm afraid.

Gameplay videos and screenshots will, once again, be put here once they're produced.

Any thoughts? Any questions?

Character Design: Darryn King! (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomber)

Verity stepped up to the hatch with the newest concoction. One part charcoal, two parts sulphur, and two parts whatever it was that she'd managed to synthesize. Theoretically, it should be highly volatile, but given how successful the last few attempts had been, she wasn't holding her breath about it. 
She opened the hatch, passing stoppered vial through to her brother. "You ready?", she called through, closing it again.
"As I'll ever be," came Darryn's voice, muffled by the reinforced door.
"On three!"
Here goes nothing.
"One!"
Verity stepped back from the hatch, sparing a glance across to the empty powder pouches on the table where she'd been working.
"Two!"
...Wait a second. She thought she'd only put in half an ounce of sulfur. Why was the pouch empty?
"Three!"
There was silence for a second, then suddenly, with a mighty roar, the door was blown open by a lateral pillar of flame, obliterating the steel barring across it. Yelping, Verity jumped back from the blast, barely avoiding being burned to a crisp by the inferno. Then, just as quickly as it had come, it died away, leaving a smouldering door hanging off its hinges, and a charred path through the laboratory where the flames had erupted through the room. Coughing from the smoke, Verity slowly rose to her feet.
"D-Darryn?"
"Whatever that was," said the badly burned figure standing in the smoking remains of the testing bay, "It was awesome! Got any more?"

Darryn King, the Wily Bomber, is a Nova with focus on self-damaging explosive attacks. His kit is built around dealing massive damage to himself and those around him as a high risk, high reward combination.


Passive: Safety Second. When Darryn inflicts damage to himself, all of his abilities used in the next two seconds deal double damage.
Darryn's passive is what holds his kit together. His damage output is fairly mediocre to begin with, but when he's getting right up close and personal to his opponents, he will consistently be doing double damage, in return for the increased damage he's doing to himself.


Q: Cross Slash. Darryn swings his sword, dealing significant damage to a foe in melee range
Darryn should use this ability for his primary damage when in melee range. While it doesn't do much damage, it's the only one of his abilities that won't damage himself, meaning that he won't hurt himself more than he hurts the opponent when using this at close ranges, unlike his other abilities.


W: Heavy Grenade. Darryn throws a heavy grenade which explodes when it lands or hits an enemy. The explosion deals moderate damage to enemies caught in the blast.
This ability is Darryn's main source of damage. It has the longest range of any of his abilities, allowing him to use it from a distance, it deals area of effect damage, meaning multiple enemies at once can be struck with it, and with the double damage from Safety Second, it deals a lot of amount of damage, too.


E: Reckless Barrage. Darryn throws four small bombs in random directions around him. Each explode on hitting an enemy or hitting the ground, dealing light damage in a tiny radius.
Darryn's main use for this ability is not to deal damage to enemies, but instead to deal damage to himself. The small bombs deal little enough damage that they're able to be used to proc Safety Second relatively safely, without too much risk of killing himself with the self-damage.


R: Ground Zero. Darryn throws The Big One straight upwards. When it lands, it explodes, dealing heavy damage to everyone in a wide radius.
This one is all or nothing. Ground Zero can be used in one of three ways. One, to deal massive damage to a wide radius, but most likely kill Darryn in the process, two, to force enemies to run away from an area, or three, to clean up the aftermath of a big fight and finish off anyone who might be trying to escape. The delay between throwing and the explosion makes this hard to land, but when it does land, it hits HARD.

I am not an artist. This may be obvious.

Gameplay Footage/Screenshots coming as soon as I can generate them.

So! That's the first character, any thoughts? Any questions?

Character Design: A quick overview!

So, before I launch into a set of individual character designs, I'm going to quickly go over what I'm trying for overall. Essentially, my top priority is that each character will be fun to play as, fun to play with them on your team, and fun to play against. These are fairly difficult to get in balance, and I honestly doubt I'll manage them all for every character, but that's life. They're in order of priority, there- essentially, if a Templar is not fun to play, nobody plays them, and the time spent developing them was essentially wasted. So I'm trying to avoid that.

More specifically to the game, I want to make sure that every character brings something unique to a team, while still fulfilling a wider role- to this end, each character will have a focus, and a role. Focus will be something that is unique to them, that you essentially don't get with anybody else- as a couple of throwaway examples, invisibility, or ranged explosive attacks- you get the idea. The wider role will be the purpose they serve in the team. In the interests of making classification of roles easier, I've decided to put down what I have planned rolewise here.

1. Assassin- Assassin types deal incredible amounts of damage to a single target very quickly, but have to wait a long time in between attacks, and die very easily.
2. Nova- Nova types are similarly squishy and similarly have long cooldowns, but deal slightly less damage to a greater number of people, either through multitarget attacks, or through area of effect attacks.
3. Cannon- Cannon types (full name Glass Cannon) are also relatively easy to kill, but they deal significant amounts of damage very quickly. They deal less damage than Novas and Assassins, but they have much, MUCH quicker cooldowns, so they can deal damage rapidly to several targets as needed.
4. Fighter- Fighter types are similar to Cannons, but with two major differences: One, Fighters deal slightly less damage, and two, Fighters have a means of escaping death if they get caught by the enemy team- be it a dash, a blink, a speed boost, anything like that.
5. Bruiser- Bruiser types are fairly middle of the road. They're tougher than Fighters but weaker than Tanks, they're less damaging than Novas but more than Cannons, they cool down quicker than Assassins, but slower than Cannons. Essentially, they're the bread and butter of the game. Nothing in particular that they're good at, but relatively few weaknesses.
6. Beatstick- Beatstick types are similar to Bruisers, but different in a couple of respects. They're slightly weaker, and deal slightly less damage, but they make up for it by being much more mobile than Bruisers- essentially, they're the sort of people who engage fights, who chase down people trying to flee, and generally annoy the enemy team.
7. Tank- Tank types do not die. Ever. They generally deal very little damage, but make up for it by being virtually indestructible, applying lots of disables and crowd control to enemies, and being able to save their allies from harm.
8. Support- Support types are not very strong of themselves. They are fairly tough, but they have essentially no- or sometimes, literally no- damage, but make up for it by making their allies significantly stronger, by buffing allies, debuffing enemies, healing allies, and other such useful skills. 
9. Assistant- Assistant types are similar to Support types, but trading some utility for the ability to deal some damage on their own- they're able to both assist their allies and deal some damage of their own at the same time, but aren't the best at either.

Finally, the last thing I want to make sure of is that each character has a distinct personality, and that their gameplay doesn't segregate from their personality. Essentially, I want them to be characters, not just a blank face you can play as. This is relatively low priority compared to the above, but it's still a major concern.

So, that's the overview, stay tuned for the specifics!

Coding, interviews, and character design

First on the agenda:
Significantly more work has been done on the code. It is now up to a server/client system, meaning that it is now possible to play with multiple people. You can obtain it here, however, it's still not much to look at. However, it isn't all that's been done. I've been doing some secret stuff that I will be releasing shortly, but I'll be touching on that later.

Next up, I got to have a talk with someone in the games industry regarding the project, my code, where I should go with this, etcetera. It was enlightening. I'm not going into much more detail (I have my reasons, I swear), but suffice it to say that the project is definitely heading along the right lines!

Finally! As some of you may recall, early on in the concept stages, I had a minor rant about player freedom, amongst other things. You may even recall that at the time I said that I'd probably go with option B- lots of unique, individually characters with individual roles and abilities. You may have also noticed me mentioning that the Templars of Kayne concept has its roots in MOBAs, which have lots of unique, individual characters with individual roles and abilities. You probably realize from those last two sentences had something in common. If you're thinking that the secret stuff that I mentioned earlier involves lots of unique, individual characters with individual roles and abilities, you'd be entirely right. As I've been starting to code the characters, I've decided I'm going to try and keep this updated with character designs, reasoning for the designs, backstory tidbits, design philosophy, all that sort of stuff. So here's hoping!

EDIT:
I now realize I should have given more explanation on how to make the game snapshot work. Extract the folders, go into server/dist and run server.exe, go into client/dist and run client.exe, et voila! (You may also like to look at config.txt while you're there)