Introducing: Gwen
Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 1:40AM Gwen is a former healer who is now afflicted with Shadow Plague.
Gwen grew up helping and healing animals and people, alongside her sister Gloria. They both practiced martial arts together, and travelled the Realm to help others.
While nothing could ever get Gloria down, Gwen was often affected by the personal tragedies they witnessed. They can't save every patient. That said, Gwen was always better in crisis situations because she is the more decisive of the two. Gwen knows that every decision about treating a patient or not treating one is a risk. In a tough situation, one might be tempted to do nothing, or to avoid taking any action that might backfire, but the correct decision is the one that maximizes the patient's chances, whatever that may be. Gwen has a practicality that her more idealistic sister sometimes lacks.
Gwen's understanding of the odds surprised many during her visit to the Pandalands. No one expected the foreign healers to be any good at Pandánte, yet Gwen won quite a bit of gold from Pandas. They were excited by the unexpected turn of events, and they were very grateful for her healing skills as well.
After Gwen's encounter with the undead in the Dreadlands though, she was never the same. There she contracted Shadow Plague. Her skin changed color and her humanity started to fade away, kept in check only by her sister Gloria's healing powers. Gwen grew restless and antsy. At times her adrenaline seems to be in overdrive. Gloria suggested they end their journeys across the Realm, but Gwen insists they keep moving. She isn't always lucid, so it's unclear what she's looking for, if anything.
In gameplay terms, Gwen is dying--she's a character on a clock. During what time she has left, she acts with great speed and desperation. Here's her Shadow Plague from Flash Duel:
Shadow Plague being indestructible means that even Menelker's Into Oblivion ability can't get rid of Shadow Plague. Shadow Plague means Gwen has more cards than her opponents throughout the whole game, but she can never win the final tie-breaker of a match. At that point, her clock has run out.
She has Shadow Plague in Puzzle Strike as well:
Shadow Plague is notable in that it's the worst character chip in the game by far. It's purely a drawback that she must play around. The text on the chip means that she'll add a wound to her deck every turn she draws Shadow Plague (because she'll normally discard Shadow Plague during that turn's cleanup step) unless she spends an action to avoid getting that wound. She can also use the "+pig" icon on other chips to stash Shadow Plague across turns, which means she delays having to discard it.
In exchange for this drawback, Gwen's other chips are incredibly strong. They give her more arrows and more chips than any other character would be allowed to have, and she can cause opponents to discard as well. She's an interesting tension of power with a price.
Gwen is straying close to the boundary between humanity and the undead, and she's ready to rush you down while she still can. Next time we'll cover Vendetta, an assassin who is more calm and more undead than Gwen.
Reader Comments (4)
More than with any other character, I'm wondering here what came first: The game mechanic (a character with a big drawback, but with buffs on her other cards/chips to balance that drawback out) or the flavor (a character is inflicted with a terrible, unhealable disease that makes her progressively less human).
Hard to tell, isn't it? The answer is the mechanic, and it was in Yomi since near the beginning, like 6 years ago, but it was cut once the first release was just going to be 10 characters. I decided to save it for the expansion. Gwen's character flavor was created in response to Gloria's healing mechanics, so the two could be paired together story-wise.
So, when will Pandánte be in release version?
;)
I worked on it a while, but couldn't get it where I wanted to, so maybe that's on hold for a bit.