Kaelo’s Ruinbound

The Winged Regent

The fifth boss: a knight in storm-plate with one wing whole and one broken and held together by lightning. 700 health, 20 armour. She fights with a blade in one hand and a tower shield in the other — and the shield is not for show.

She hits as hard as you are tough. Her heavy blows add 6% of your maximum health to their damage, the rest 4%, lightning on the floor 3% — never more than her own attack — and the second phase and the Sky hit 10% and 20% harder. Armour and gems do not make her a pushover, and they do not make her melt either: no single hit takes more than 30 health off her (regentHitCap in the config). Between attacks she barely pauses, and keep away from her and she rushes you.

She sleeps on her throne in the court of the Storm Citadel and wakes when you come within a dozen blocks in plain sight. In Peaceful she stays asleep.

First, blade and Aegis. A three-blow run with the Skysplitter, a shield bash that knocks a raised shield out of your hands, a call of lightning onto every player in reach, and a rise into the sky with a dive back down — where she lands, lightning runs out along the floor, sparks fly from her and a bolt strikes wherever one comes down — and the landing itself breaks a raised shield. Stay at her side after the dive and she answers at once — with the shield, or later with the turning cut — instead of pausing. Blows from the front are turned by the Aegis to a third of their weight; keep hitting her only from the front and she answers with the shield out of turn.

Two moves belong to the shield alone. The Wall of the Aegis: she drives it into the floor, it grows to three blocks with a field of storm around it, and lightning gathers to break forward in a fan of five — get behind her and strike while she gathers it, and the storm is lost and she staggers. The Charge: a line on the floor, then a run behind the shield — make her hit a wall or a parapet and she is stunned.

At two thirds of her health blade and shield become one. The storm drags her down three times — each time lightning is pulled into her chest — and then it breaks out of her. The Tempest is a two-handed sword, and with it come a full-turn cut that carries her at you — stepping back is not enough, jump it — Wings of the Storm — three low rushes through you, each leaving a line of lightning burning on the floor — and the Split: a blow into the ground and three cracks that fire a moment later.

At a quarter — the Sky. The rain that started with the Tempest becomes a storm, clouds ring the court, and she opens with Heaven's Rift: she hangs over the court and hurls row after row of lightning at it from her blade, faster and faster; every bolt throws a spark that strikes again where it lands. Then the sky strikes into her, she falls into the middle of the court, lightning runs from there to the walls, and a vortex of storm turns round her while she rests on one knee. After that her attacks come faster, lightning falls in a wall across the way you are running, and the single dive becomes three in a row — the third is the sky falling: a heavy bolt, two waves, and lightning drawn between the three places she landed.

Fewer circles on the floor. A blow she strikes with her own body is told by the body and the sound. Lightning from the sky is told by a ragged patch of storm on the spot where it will fall — and the storm is drawn in her own hand-made style now: the bolt, the lock-on ring and the burst on the floor are pixel art, not the vanilla lightning.

She does not simply fall over. Lightning from every side is drawn into her chest, she drops to one knee with the Tempest driven into the floor, and the empty armour settles on the hilt and comes apart. What is left: two Storm Cores, the Aegis of the Storm and storm essences.

The Storm Citadel

A new building on mountain tops — stony, jagged and frozen peaks. A broken crown of stone behind the throne, a round court under the open sky, a stair down the slope and a paved road leading away from its foot. The Eye of the Storm Citadel points the way (a lightning rod, an eye of ender, two storm essences, a feather).

Nothing spawns in her court, and snow does not lie there. There are chests behind the crown, in the armoury and along the walk, and barrels of supplies.

The Regent's Seal (a Storm Core and four storm essences) laid on the empty throne calls her again.

The guard of the Citadel

Six Sky Guard footmen stand dark at their posts on the stair and round the walk and wake as you come near — with a sword or a spear, a shield to shove you with, and a guard they raise after a blow to the face. Led away, they walk back to their posts and go dark again.

The Standard-Bearer holds the landing before the gate, and the gate stays shut while he lives. A wide sweep of the standard, a long thrust, a charge that stuns him if it ends in the wall — and once, at half his health, he drives the standard into the floor: three waves of lightning run out from it in turning arms, each turned against the last — keep moving — and two footmen come to his side. He cannot be led away from his post.

Her arms, in your hands

• Aegis of the Storm — a shield with two things she taught it. Raise it just as a blow lands and the attacker is struck back, thrown and slowed. Sneak and right-click to plant it: for four seconds a wall of storm stops arrows and throws back whatever walks in, then lightning breaks forward in a fan.
• Skysplitter — every hit leaves a charge of storm on the target, up to three. Right-click: rise and dive onto the point you aim at; the landing strikes all around and breaks every charge nearby into a bolt.
• Tempest (the fused blade) carries the Skysplitter's charges and dive together with the Stormward's half.

The storm blades are made of her core now. Skysplitter: a Storm Core and two storm essences. Stormward: a Storm Core and two tempered ingots. They no longer take an Astral Core.

Boss cores come from bosses

1.0.7 let every boss core be crafted "the long way". That is gone: the Draconic, Astral and Void Cores have no recipes any more — the Last Oath Smith, the Star Devourer and the Void Elemental are the only way, as the Regent is for the Storm Core. The Void Elemental drops two Void Cores now: one to open the Tear Scar again, one to spend. The recipe that made a core out of four gems is gone too. The Legacy Core is crafted as before.

Valthera Coins are no longer added to other mods' loot or to vanilla chests and mobs. They are found in the chests of this mod's own buildings.

Smaller things

• The Last Oath Smith does not stand like a statue between blows: he rolls his neck, looks round, taps the floor with his hammer.
• Kaelo's cape swings out on a turn and trails on a dash.
• Carried in the Star Devourer's jaws, a player hangs and struggles instead of standing upright in the air.
• Stuns and freezes from other mods no longer hold bosses, the Rift Warden or the Standard-Bearer.
• The Regent moves like the big bosses of the genre now: her wings sweep with the blade, heavy blows rest in the ground before she lifts the weapon, she is alive in the air instead of hanging like a statue, and an afterimage trails her fastest falls.
• The Regent has her own fight theme and a custom storm-and-armour sound set: awakening, phase changes, lightning, Aegis impact, blade charge, wingbeats, takeoff, damage and death.
• The config file has health and damage multipliers for the Winged Regent and the Standard-Bearer.
• The log is quieter: nine defineId called for ... warnings at every start are gone.

The Storm Citadel generates in new chunks only.