Cu Chulainn (a different person's take)

[Juntzing]

So, because of a tabletop supers RPG I participated in at various stages I'd had the idea of a 'Vegeta/Goku' pair based on reincarnations of Cu Chulainn and Sun Wukong being best frenemies, and with the recent WuKong rework, it got me thinking about Cu Chulain as a 'Frame.

And then I discovered there was already a Cu Chulainn idea.

Oh well, here's mine:

Since the Hound of Culann is noted for having both acted as a surrogate guard dog and also to have raised a surrogate guard dog, definitely include a Kubrow power of some sort. Since he's noted as having had berzerker tendencies that are translated as "Warp-Spasms" which are described as transforming him into something monstrous and no longer human, some sort of Valkyr/Wukong style berzerk ability (probably an ultimate since both pre-existing versions on canon frames are ultimates). Since he's noted for possessing a mighty spear/being a mighty spearthrower (the Gáe Bulg , translated as Spear of Mortal Pain/The Belly Spear/Gapped-spear, and described as being able to enter a man through a single point like a javelin, but to unfold to have 30 barbs/blades), maybe an Exalted Polearm who's charge attack is a thrown attack similar to speargun alt-fire or glaives? Finally, he was described as being surrounded by a burning aura - at one point exploding a barrel of water from the heat pouring off his body, boiling off a second and warming the third and last barrel to a pleasant heat when his fellows needed to calm his frenzy.

So, powers:

• Summon Kubrow (like Venari, but not so flexible), it lets him designate a target to defend or attack, and the Kubrow-analogue will do so until the target is dead and then follow Cu Chulainn around similar to a Charger specter, until it either dies or Cu Chulainn uses the power to designate a new target for it. Spawning the Hound costs Energy, commanding existing Hound does not. No duration, the Hound lasts until it runs out of Health, and should be moddable, accepting Companion or Kubrow mods.
• Burning Rage gives him a damaging aura and a damage multiplier to all attacks (also boosts the Hound) and should be channeled or have a discrete duration. Eternal Skirmisher is a channeled ability. Once activated it drains stacks of Boiling Blood each second to activate a health regneration effect, but only costs energy to initially activate and does not hamper energy recovery from any source while active. (with thanks to keikogi) With Eternal Skirmisher active, Cu Chulainn has the duration of status effects he suffers halved.
• Gáe Bulg summons his Exalted Polearm. Charging the power instead throws the weapon, and when thrown it causes a guaranteed Slash proc or guaranteed Critical Hit (given the Hunter Mod Set I think a guaranteed Slash proc is more useful). Otherwise it is a weapon with a high critical multiplier and large Slash portion of it's IPS
• Warp-Spasms gives him a large armour boost, damaging aura, boosts Gáe Bulg's attack speed and critical chance, and converts the Warframe model into a decidedly more bestial model, including digitigrade legs, heavier build, and gratuitous spiky growths vaguely lupine features. Maybe it should reduce the activation cost of Burning Rage while it's active. Warp Spasms should be a channeled ability or a fire-and-forget ability. Warp-Spasms consumes Y stacks of Boiling Blood per second, but no energy after the initial activation cost is paid.

Passive: Boiling Blood - Cu Chulainn's blood boils as battle progresses. Whenever Cu Chulainn kills enemies he gains stacks of Boiling Blood. He loses stacks of Boiling Blood at a rate of Z per second whenever he does not have an active combo going. In and of itself, Boiling Blood acts as a boost to the crit multiplier for every set of [10 or 20 or whatever interval does well] stacks accumulated.

Similarly to Nezha, the mythical Cu Chulainn is traditionally described as being beardless/slight of build/beautiful so would probably best be represented as a relatively slender and short Warframe, much like Warframe Nezha (who is quite slight compared to other male Warframes)

Cu Chulainn was usually noted for his inhuman stamina, fighting off an army over the course of 3 days, and his berzerker fury, such that even when mortally wounded, nobody would approach him to cut off his head until his Warp Spasm dissipated (and even then, he managed to cut off his killer's sword arm after being decapitated) so I expect a stat spread similar to Nezha (emphasizing Health and Armour over Shields) but I have no idea what would be a good, balanced set of actual numbers.

Edited June 26, 2019 by Juntzing
A bit more refinement, and thanks for the suggestions

[keikogi]

As a fate fan ,I find the lack of protection form arrows disturbing.

[Juntzing]

21 hours ago, keikogi said:

As a fate fan ,I find the lack of protection form arrows disturbing.

Sorry, nothing to do with anime interpretations - only pulled ideas from historical sources, otherwise I'd have been adding things to make it more like Vegeta-lite. (My headcannon is that if Goku is based on Sun Wukong, then Vegeta is based on Cu Chulainn)

[CuChulainnWD]

I used to play Werewolf The Apocalypse. I always considered CuChulainn's Warp spasm to be that of a WereWolf, So why not make him Lupine like as he is the Hound, was nick named the Hound. He would be the opposite number of Valkity. Spikes are so cliche.

Edited June 24, 2019 by CuChulainnWD

[keikogi]

7 hours ago, Juntzing said:

orry, nothing to do with anime interpretations - only pulled ideas from historical sources, otherwise I'd have been adding things to make it more like Vegeta-lite. (My headcannon is that if Goku is based on Sun Wukong, then Vegeta is based on Cu Chulainn)

Man vou slaped so many spikes on that , so I thought bit was a Cu alter reference.

On a serios note. 

You could turn burning blood into a passive. And them add a melee buffing skill that would increase combo bonus or combo ramp up. It would be a nice way to reference his long figths.

[Juntzing]

On 2019-06-24 at 2:49 PM, CuChulainnWD said:

I used to play Werewolf The Apocalypse. I always considered CuChulainn's Warp spasm to be that of a WereWolf, So why not make him Lupine like as he is the Hound, was nick named the Hound. He would be the opposite number of Valkity. Spikes are so cliche.

Given the existence of the Fianna tribe, I wouldn't be surprised if he was some sort of 'historical figure' in OWoD in Werewolf:The Medieval-ling back in the day.

[Juntzing]

On 2019-06-24 at 10:18 PM, keikogi said:

On a serios note. 

You could turn burning blood into a passive. And them add a melee buffing skill that would increase combo bonus or combo ramp up. It would be a nice way to reference his long figths.

Maybe something like "recovers the combo multiplier in health from each melee hit upon reaching combo multiplier of *2 or higher"?  I have no idea if that would be too much or too little. But I do like the idea. And now I have to think of something to replace it among the active powers...

As for the specifics of model-swapping, yeah, the idea was to have Cu Chulainn be the Kubrow-equivalent of Khora, so having a somewhat Lupine model swap for Warp-Spasm would prolly work better than the tri-partite jaw and the spikes. I was borrowing from Lephantis for the head, since the Warframes are cousins to the Infested...

Edited June 26, 2019 by Juntzing
Additional thoughts concerning the suggestion about moving a power to his passive

[(PSN)Lord_Vahlon]

I'm gonna be honest i would purchase this frame with real money right now if i could he sounds like a total badass. I already love venari so having another frame that (he can have two dogs!!!) comes with a unique designed pet is awesome not even mentioning that with his second ability he can make that pet and himself the legendary guard dogs they were in fables. The other abilities are just thematically perfect and also make for an intimidating warrior frame, his weapon bond with Gae bolg sounds badass (like Thor and Mjolnir) i can imagine calling the spear back after impaling a few heavy enemies to do a combo and clear out the fodder like an absolute beast. Nothing to say about his warp form cause like you did this whole concept perfect i could only fanboy more if he actually makes it in game one day.

[keikogi]

 

29 minutes ago, Juntzing said:

Maybe something like "recovers the combo multiplier in health from each melee hit upon reaching combo multiplier of *2 or higher"?  I have no idea if that would be too much or too little. But I do like the idea. And now I have to think of something to replace it among the active powers...

I tought about it and personally I would go for something like this.

Passive: Boiling Blood

Cu becomes more excited each time he kill an opponent. The more exited he gets the harder he hits. Cu can get so pumped up that he mere preseng burns enemies around.

Cu has a boiling blood meter , kiling a enemy with a ranged , melee and gae bolg grant 1,3 and 5 respectively. Each stack grants 0.25 % bonus damage. If Cu has more than 50 boiling blood stacks he will emit a damaging aura. Cu loses boiling blood stacks per second.

Visual note: displayed like a red bar on the right corner. At 50 stack the bars starts moving like it was filled by boiling blood.

Skill: Tireless Skirmisher

Cu heals based on combo counter , aditionaly he heceives bonus crit damage based on his blood book stacks.

 

 

 

[Juntzing]

Gae Bulg will always be a spear that has an unfolding bouquet of razor-spikes in my mind. While I have trouble envisioning exactly *how* it would look, the description I like the most was a spear which could grow seven heads, each bearing seven blades. "Spear of Mortal Agony" indeed!