Tome of Primordial Hunger

Do you wish to let loose and unleash your inner desire to consume the world wantonly? Did you ever want to spread across the landscape like a verminous swarm of locusts? Did you want a bit more Animal and Dragon specific support and also a way to get some Status Resistance without being forced to go Order? Well, your wishes may be fulfilled with the Tome of Primordial Hunger!

This (beta) release of a brand new T2 Tome includes 5 new Spells for you to unlock and, probably, enjoy:

Juvenile Lindwurm
Introducing a new T2 Support Unit: Lindwurm’s, mountain-dwelling draconic animals closest related to their Dragon ancestors, yet have they long given into their primal desire of feasting on all that lives, growing too fat and heavy with rock covering their hides to fly. You can draft these hungry lizards in your towns after unlocking this research. Surprisingly beefy for a Support, this unit is best used close to the front, passively regenerating Status Protection and able to regurgitate all stacks to buff your Units with Regeneration and Debuff your enemies with Sundered Defense!

It Evolves into the Great Lindwurm, a T4 Support Unit now additionally healing and dealing Blight damage with their Regurgitate ability, while also able to exhume toxic fumes from between the cracks of their rocky hides that strengthen allies and weaken enemies. Being covered in stony scales, they also benefit from Stone Skin upon entering Defense Mode! Careful, though, as Spirit Damage goes right through rock!

Ravenous Omnivore Enchantment
An enchantment affecting all Animals and Dragons, this grants you two separate abilities which allow you to consume corpses or plants. They share a cooldown, albeit you can double-dip eating with Herbivores and Ritualistic Cannibals! Each plant or corpse eaten grants 10 + 5 per tier in temporary healing, as well as a +1 to Status Protection.

Additionally, to fully enjoy any all-you-can-eat buffet, the enchantment grants +2 Status Resistance to avoid food poisoning!

Resilient Metabolism Transformation
Something for your Racial units, this Transformation allows them to be much less picky about what they eat, granting them +2 Status Resistance and -10% Upkeep (A tad boring, I may come up with something more interesting later… or feel free to suggest stuff!).

Feeding Frenzy
A tactical spell spreading a mindless desire to consume all onto units in a 2 hex radius, so much so they proceed to eat their opponents alive! This buff spreads 2 stacks of Status Protection and also grants Life Steal for 2 turns. However, all units also turn Berserk for 2 turns, so this spell is best used carefully!

Consume Landscape
A Siege Project to enjoy while sitting down and waiting for your enemies walls to come down. Instead of waiting around, however, you unleash a horde of ravenous beasts that devour the surrounding lands, reducing your opponents food income by -3 per Population of their city! Additionally, with a belly well filled, all your units start combat with 2 stack of Status Protection!

Special Province Improvement: Feeding Trough
What’s the fastest way to grow an army? To feed them copious amounts of food, obviously! This Special Provice Improvement grants +20 Draft, but at the cost of -5 Food income. Additionally, any surrounding Farm will now instead grant +10 Draft, but its food income will be reduced by -5. This structure thus allows you to quickly draft at the cost of your towns overall growth!

And this’ll be it. If you run into issues, please let me now, so I can fix them! Also, ignore the weird icon for the Lindwurm Units. I cannot figure out why it is they way it is.

Also, tome too good or too bad? Let me know! I’m always open to criticism! I bet some stuff is way too good (or too bad) in here, and, concious about balance (to some degree) as I am, I always appreciate feedback that explains if anything is overpowered or underpowered from the stuff you get in this tome.

Hope you enjoy!

Possible Balance Issues:

-A Great Lindwurm with Support Enchants might end up way too oppressive as they are freakishly tanky (by design) for a Support Unit, albeit Shrines and Pyre Templars probably can blast them to Kingdome Come, no issue.

Also, being able to possible slap the enemy with +5 Sundered Defense while also giving friendly units +5 Regeneration might be a bit too much, even if they need to build up Status Protection for it.

-Resilient Metabolism is a bit lame. Since it is just a Tier 2 Transformation, I didn’t want to go too overboard with it, but -10% upkeep isn’t too exciting, even if +2 Status Resistance is pretty good.

-Feeding Frenzy might not get used. Going Berserk is no joke. Also, I can see that, thematically, getting Status Protection with this spell, specifically, doesn’t seem very fitting. I simply didn’t want to make a total AoE copy of Unleash Beast via causing this spell to give Strengthen. It’s also a big AoE, so giving +2 Status Protection and Life Steal, Berserk seems a good way to reign it in.

-Ravenous Omnivore scales too hard on Dragon Lords. Since they are Dragons (d’uh), they get access to this enchantment, which they can use to heal for the max amount. Miiiiight be a tad too good.

Mod picture is AI generated, btw. I slightly dislike myself for it, but I just suck horribly at drawing.