The Vessel (Hollow Knight Character Mod)

Getting bored desperately waiting for Silksong and StS2 release, the Vessel has decided to visit the Spire again, this time with both the Forgotten Light and the Void on its side. Maybe it will be able to climb to Ascension 20 again before both games are released, I don’t know.

Jokes aside, this is a project I started roughly 3 years ago, but never fully finished it until now. With sequels releasing later this year, I decided to finally flesh out this character mod before it becomes obsolete.

This is my first ever StS mod and my first time actually coding for a project, so please don’t expect fancy graphics or mechanics that the other larger mods have; I don’t have nearly enough experience to make something like that. Still, I tried my best to make the gameplay as fun as I could while keeping the character relatively balanced, so I hope you enjoy it.

The source code for the mod is available on GitHub here. [github.com] Spaghetti code warning, user discretion is advised.

As of version 0.6, the mod comes with 75 standard Vessel cards (4 starting, 18 common, 35 uncommon, 17 rare), 12 Vessel-exclusive standard relics, and 3 custom events (with 3 event cards and 1 event relic).

• Character: The Vessel
• Starting HP: 70
• Starting Gold: 99
• Starting Deck: 4 Strikes, 4 Defends, 1 Focus, 1 Vengeful Spirit.
• Starting Relic: Broken Vessel (At the start of each combat, gain 2 Soul.)

As of the latest version (0.6), only English and Simplified Chinese (ver. 0.4.2+) are supported. Launching the game with an unsupported game language set will load English text by default, which may cause broken text for some languages.
If you would like to contribute and provide translations for other languages, please DM me on discord (you can find me by joining the StS discord server). Thanks!

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Attacking enemies with non-Spell attacks (e.g. Strikes) now also grants Soul, which is required by many cards. The Vessel can hold up to 6 Soul on default, and Soul is retained at the end of each turn.

Spells are a set of powerful attacks that always cost Soul to cast, and do not give Soul on attack. They are still affected by effects like Strength and Vulnerable, and can trigger on-attack effects like Thorns.

The Radiance has also gotten bored in the dream world and decided to join the Vessel to climb the spire. When a target is inflicted with new stacks of Infection , it takes damage (can be blocked) equal to its Infection stacks. Similar to Poison, Infection stacks decrease at the end of its turn, but a target can receive Infection damage multiple times in a turn.

Basically, blockable Pressure Points that decay but there are a lot more cards to apply it.

While the Void isn’t a standalone mechanic, it is designed to be integrated and to support the other archetypes in the Vessel’s deck. Be wary of the Etherealness of the Void cards, however…

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All custom artwork is constructed using the assets from Hollow Knight. Please support Team Cherry, the developers of the Hollow Knight game. If you haven’t played it, play it now before Silksong releases, NOW:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/367520/

The mod is also inspired by The Bug Knight Mod by VenIM.

Big thanks to the Slay The Spire Discord for all the technical help, and special thanks to the playtesting group from 3 years ago who helped me establish the theme of the character and provided initial feedback.

Many thanks to @Timale for providing Simplified Chinese translations to the mod.

While you can leave comments here (or in the discussion section), you will likely find me easier on the Slay The Spire discord server. Feel free to ping me under the dedicated post in #modding-forum or #modding-gameplay, or just DM me.
If you would like to provide localization for other languages, please DM me on Discord and check the readme on the GitHub page. Thank you very much!

• Balance changes: Always ongoing!
• More custom relics (if they don’t destroy the balance of the game)
• Animations and SFX for cards
• Localization support for other languages

x.y.z (Current: 0.6.1)

• x: Major revamps/content update
• y: Balance changes, etc.
• z: Minor bug fixes, gameplay changes, etc.