The Knight
A restless wandering vessel, born and discarded in the darkest reaches of Hallownest, and the playable character from the game Hollow Knight, has found itself in the world of Rivals of Aether. Perhaps seeking strong opponents, or simply following a purpose.
The Knight is a small lightweight fighter equipped with a long ranged Broken Nail, a selection of spells, and a Charm or two. It does not move around very fast, but its moves themselves are lightning quick!
The Knight is free to use its spell-based moves, although whether they are enhanced into their Shade counterparts or not is determined by a universal “Shade Charge” cooldown system. After using a Shade Spell, the Knight is only able to do the baseline versions of those spells until the dark energy has been re-absorbed, after 3 seconds. These enhanced spells are often extremely good, but are put on a leash by the cooldown, and how using them limits you from using other options.
The classic projectile from Hollow Knight, a devastating soul blast that even knocks you back on your feet. With Shade Charge it’s Shade Soul, which is larger with overall much better stats across the board, including lifetime and speed.
Although not a spell, this ability also utilizes your Shade Charge. At base, this is a non-damaging straight-forward dash, useful for recovery and mixing up your movement. With Shade Charge, this becomes the Shade Cloak, a much faster and longer reaching dash that, while still lacking a hitbox, also makes the Knight completely intangible whilst dashing.
The Shade Cloak can be dodge cancelled, jump cancelled and even attack cancelled, while the Mothwing Cloak can only be dodge cancelled.
Plummeting into the ground, the Desolate Dive both damages opponents as it falls and as it lands. If used with a Shade Charge, it becomes Descending Dark, and the plummeting hitbox turns into a multihit that drags the opponent into the ground with you. Descending Dark has no landing hitbox, but shortly afterwards a large abyssal shockwave will erupt around the Knight, for several hits of meaty damage.
The Knight is rocketed upwards with the strange power of bright pink crystals. This move can be held to charge and launch the Knight higher. A word of advice is that as soon as you hear a “shine” sound and a flash from the crystals, you can release the move already, as it is already at max charge. You may also press the Attack button during the dash to cancel it earlier into Pratfall.
A standard Strong attack that blasts damaging souls above the Knight, although this one specifically is also enhanced with a Shade Charge, turning into Abyssal Shriek, which is much slower, but has absurd firing power.
Other notable moves: Forward Strong (Great Slash), Down Strong (Cyclone Slash), Back Air (Thorns of Agony)
By pressing Down Taunt, the Knight will pull out the Dream Nail and slash it forwards. This attack deals no damage and no knockback, but, alongside giving you your Shade Charge back if you hit anyone, it also allows you to read that opponent’s mind.
If they have the compatibility, up to three different enemy quotes can be read using this move! At base, the Dream Nail has unique text for all of Base Cast and a dozen or so Workshop characters, but you as a Workshop mod can also add compatibility for it, by adding the following simple code to your init.gml:
A compatibility list and tips on writing dream dialog can be found in the dedicated Forum Post on the topic.
Reiga (animation, coding, moveset design)
Thank you very much to AtalksToSelf, who made the Greenpath home stage for this character! Check it out in the required items!
The Knight and the Hollow Knight IP are property of Team Cherry.
