Withered Carnation

The Withered Carnation is a hypothetical rogue-like monster killing game with this premise:

In this world, most Mythological and Religious concepts and characters exist, and can be proven with science. A corporation that goes by ReinVentment created a device forcing the reincarnation process to happen unnaturally, this results in freshly dead people having their souls be reincarnated into their own corpses. Losing their memory as an effect of the reincarnation process, they have no purpose as members of society and are sent out to do dangerous work. Namely, crusading through dungeons.

The gameplay loop of this hypothetical game goes like this:

You choose your loadout of weapons you've unlocked, you unlock weapons by finding them in the dungeons repeatedly. You go in and kill monsters with a team of up to four people, and then you go into the next room and repeat the process all over again. You eventually find an elevator, and you hop on board, but management calls you and says they'll increase your pay if you take on harder work, so you choose a trait that makes the game harder but gives you more EXP and money. Your team splits the treasure you got from killing monsters, and you go into the next dungeon and repeat it until your team dies.

This thread is going to cover the story of the dungeons and the people making experimenting with Religion and Mythology in scientific concept, as well as gameplay traits every now and then

Story 1: Weeds

ReinVentment was founded by Abraham Evans, a scientist, and Adam Summers, a priest. Together they wanted to show the world that science had God's blessing and that God was provable by science.

Where did they go wrong?

When Adam Summers passed from an unknown disease he contracted while studying dungeon life, Abraham became sole owner of ReinVentment. He tried his best to carry own the corporation's original purpose, but now the scientists had invented the Reinanimate, souls reincarnated in their dead bodies. Dungeon guilds, researchers, and even nations began offering them lucrative deals for just one Reinanimation chamber. Abraham couldn't refuse, even if he did, he no longer played a big enough role in the corp to even do anything about it. Non-Reinanimate casualties dipped by 76%, and everything was clicking into place.

But why?

Abraham had done everything he wanted to. What was the point of research to tie religion and science together when you are, essentially, a god of life? Every paper was published, all of their research was world known. He had proven everything, but with no one to share the success with. 3 months after the invention of the Reinanimation chamber, Abraham died. His son, Isaac Evans took over the company, and he, wanted it to be more.

Nice backstory!

Story 2: Angels

Adam after one of his expeditions into the dungeon, swore he saw an angel, as proof, he brought back what has since then been named Angel Tears. It is a glowing white liquid that acts as pure power, and efficient fuel at that! But ReinVentment had better uses for it. It was lifeblood, it wasn't used in the Reinanimation chambers no that would be too expensive, but it did bring life to inanimate objects, soul or no soul. Even better, drinking it or using it as a lubricant nearly quadrupled effectiveness of soldier and weapons... though, the material would lose effect in the body after a minute and disintegrate in a weapon after the same amount of time. A shame, that was unacceptable to Issac Evans.

He tracked down Erwin Vex, the supposed mad scientist, but Isaac would take anything. He gave Erwin several gallons full of the Angel Tear and sent him down to a private laboratory in the synthetic dungeon Genesis, occupied by ReinVentment robots that were smart, but not as sapient as a machine soaked in Angel Tear. There Erwin created 4 products

Production #1: Virtue the Mechanical Angel

Virtue was a problem child since her creation, so Erwin tied her up with some spare Christmas decorations specially designed ropes. Curiously, giving Virtue more Angel Tear would permanently boost her attacks, though Erwin could not guarantee this in the time frame between Virtue's creation and the revolt. 

Production #2: Sin the Mechanical Demon

Erwin didn't know why Sin failed but Virtue worked. Erwin's best guess was that the Angel Tear was exposed to [relevant later] and became [relevant later], a substance that caused [relevant later]. Sin, as soon as he woke up, began trashing around and attacking. Eventually Virtue was forced to tear him apart, separating his hips from his torso. He was still awake however, and to stop him from firing lasers and destroying Erwin's hard work, he was tied up in spare cords more specially designed ropes.

Production #3: The Angel Spawn

Erwin wanted this to be a side project he could do, with more Angel Tears than you could ever need, why not use it? His contract was for him to make 3 robots, (they didn't specify working so Sin counted) and he had more than enough Angel Tears after to make another one (the third robot escaped, so now he has to present a not a robot as a robot). Erwin placed Angel tear in a controlled environment, so they don't seep into things and enhanced them. He froze a sphere of Angel Tear, and poured Angel Tear on top. What resulted was a Biblically accurate angel. To his amazement, the Angel could make more of itself.

Secret Production: Rekoj

In order for there to be no more Sin business, Erwin split Rekoj into two personalities, Red and Blue, Red was evil, Blue was good, just keep Rekoj Blue, and he was good. He thought his job done after tying Rekoj up with actually company issued rope this time and was ready to call the ReinVentment higher ups, as both personalities of Rekoj agreed that Erwin sucked and Rekoj used a laser to burn through the rope and ran away. 

The revolt

Other stationed scientists had created a program called Rogue.EXE, its goal was to be as destructive as possible. They put it away in an highly encrypted file, and set it away until ReinVentment had the tech to made war machines. Rogue.EXE made copies of itself, broke the encryption, and spread across the Genesis networks, liberating the robots from ReinVentment programming. All scientists there except for Erwin, who sealed off the private laboratory, was killed, and Rogue possessed an unused robotic vessel and began working on its goal, of wiping out ReinVentment 

Wow…

wow…

Trait Set:

New Day, +18% EXP +10% money

Activates the Smiling Sun

Skeletal Shenanigans +20% EXP +10% money

Turns all skeletons into general skeletons

Noor +1% EXP +2% monet

Causes doors to make a horrible screeching noise when opened that alerts monsters to your location

Wait a collaborative video game between this group would actually be great 

I got a teensy tinsy bit of skill in coding maybe if anyone wanted to do that 

That could be fun!

That’d be awesome 

Trait Set:

Scorcher +100% EXP + 2000% money

Activates FIVE HUNDRED Smiling Suns. Good luck.

Trait Set:

Annihilation +50% EXP +50% Money +150% Monster Spawn Rate +100% Monster Damage and HP.

Surviving Annihilation without taking damage rewards you with a very powerful special weapon.

Quote from LactoniusIX >>

Trait Set:

Annihilation +50% EXP +50% Money +150% Monster Spawn Rate +100% Monster Damage and HP.

Surviving Annihilation without taking damage rewards you with a very powerful special weapon.

 

 what weapon

Quote from _RageGuy139_ >>

Quote from LactoniusIX >>

Trait Set:

Annihilation +50% EXP +50% Money +150% Monster Spawn Rate +100% Monster Damage and HP.

Surviving Annihilation without taking damage rewards you with a very powerful special weapon.

 

 what weapon

 Idk

Monster Annihilator

notably ignores monster invulnerabilities 

does extra damage against demonic or ghoulish monsters

New Mechanic

Skulls and Crossbones

Upon receiving a Skull after accomplishing a glorious deed, you may slot it onto on of your crossbones, obtained by a similar method

You may pick one skull per crossbones, and one skull may be slotted onto the Shimmering crossbones for better effects!

SKULLS (for now)

Dust Biter

"Oof"

Obtained after dying once

Normal: when dying, your team gets a stat boost in defense for 20 seconds and heal up to 7/8 health

Shimmering: when taking damage equal to 1/4 of your health at once, your team gets a stat boost in defense for 20 seconds and heal up to 3/4 health

Edgelord

"If my eyes turn red, RUN"

Obtained after surviving with 1 health

Normal: when taking damage, lower defense and boost damage

Shimmer: when taking damage or healing, boost damage

Candle Lighter

"That is one of two mistakes you can make in here"

Obtained after dying with Dust Biter

Normal: Anomalies hold you with less priority than your teammates

Shimmer: Anomalies hold you with no priority, and will only attack you when your teammates are either dead or also have no priority