Today's Idle Champion Spotlight is a bit special for us. We are always honored to be able to include legacy characters in Idle Champions, most recently with Artemis Entreri, and before that with the Companions of the Hall. Today we are very excited to introduce you all to Prince Brightflame, better known as Melf, an elven Fighter/Wizard created and played by Luke Gygax, son of one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax.

Yes, THAT Melf! Creator of such spells as Melf's Acid Arrow and Melf's Minute Meteors.

We had our work cut out for us - but at the same time, we were blessed with the opportunity to work with Luke to bring his lifelong D&D character to life! Would you like to know more? Read on...

I. Prince Brightflame

Born into the royal family of Celene, he assumed the simple name of Melf eschewing a life of comfort as a noble to study the arcane arts and train as a swordsman. He delved in the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk, the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and many other harrowing places honing his skills, knowledge and amassing powerful magic items. Melf sees himself as a weapon of weal hurtling toward the heart of the darkest evils in the realm. He is opinionated and has a touch of conceit that he is blissfully ignorant of possessing.

Melf is a Fighter and Wizard Support Champion. His legendary spellbook is filled with versatile Support Spells, offering a variety of potential damage buffs and speed boosts. When you want to add Melf to your formation, you can swap him with Arkhan (Slot 12).

II. Melf's Stats

Race: Elf	Alignment: Neutral Good
Class: Fighter/Wizard	Gender: Male
Age: 210	Affiliation: none

STR: 17	DEX: 15	CON: 14
INT: 19	WIS: 11	CHA: 10

Role: Support
Eligible for Patrons: Mirt the Moneylender, Vajra Safahr, Strahd von Zarovich

III. Designing Melf

Having the opportunity to bring Melf into Idle Champions was a real treat for us at Codename Entertainment. Not just because we were bringing a legendary character from Dungeons & Dragon's past into the spotlight, but because we try to work directly with the creators of each character whenever possible. This time around, we got to work closely with Luke Gygax!

Luke was excited to hop on board and help us out, and he would regale us with tales of Melf, telling stories about playing Dungeons & Dragons as a child with his father as his Dungeon Master. To the rest of the world, Gary Gygax is the icon who helped to create the greatest role-playing game of all time. But to Luke? He was playing D&D with his Dad, who just happened to be 'the' Gary Gygax.

Over the course of our conversations and email exchanges Luke shared stories with us about how each of Melf's items came to be in his possession, often in incredible detail despite the events having occurred during games in his childhood. Melf has been a character for a long time, and Luke still has all of his character sheets, some of them written completely out on lined paper decades ago. Wow!

So what does all that leave us with? Well, we honed in on some of Melf's legendary artifacts and spells, choosing to craft for him an extremely versatile set of formation abilities that can be tailored to a variety of formations and situations. Melf's Adaptive Support Spell and Melf's Augmented Support Spell help you to refine your DPS buffs in a way that best works for you. At the same time, Melf's Speedy Supplement offers a mix of options for increasing the speed at which you complete adventures and variants.

Melf's legendary weapon, Zagyg's Needle, starts off being his Basic Attack, but once you combine it with his Ultimate Ability, Melf's Minute Meteors, things really start to get interesting, adding massive damage and AoE to Melf's attacks.

At this point you might be asking yourself, "Where is Melf's Acid Arrow?" -- but if you look closely, you'll find it ;)

IV. Melf's Abilities

Basic Attack

• Zagyg’s Needle — Melf leaps out and attacks the nearest enemy with his magic spear. If Melf has any Minute Meteors active, he fires one at a random enemy as well.

Formation Abilities

• Melf's Adaptive Support Spell — Melf creates a new spell to assist the formation. He customizes it based on the Champions in the formation and where Melf is placed within it. It increases the damage of Champions adjacent to Melf by 100% and that value is augmented based on some other parameters, each of which applies multiplicatively.
• If there is another Elf (aside from Melf) in the formation, increase the effect by 50%.
• Increase the range by 2 if Melf is not in the front-most or rear-most columns in the formation (affects all champions within 3 slots).
• Increase the effect by 10% for each unique race in the formation.
This ability is buffed by upgrades and equipment (buffs apply to the final calculated value, not the individual increases).

• Melf's Augmented Support Spell — Melf augments his Adaptive Support Spell for each Champion it affects.
• Increase the effect by 50% on the non-dominant gender in the formation (applies to non-binary champions all the time).
• Increase the effect by 50% for each slot away from Melf a Champion is (multiplicatively)

• Melf's Speedy Supplement — Melf provides one of the following effects at random. A new effect is chosen at random every 50 areas (though it could pick the same one multiple times in a row).
• Increase chance to spawn an additional enemy with each wave by 25%.
• Increase enemy spawn speed by 25%.
• Increase chance of double quest drops by 25%.
This ability is buffed by equipment; note if the chance of double quest drops gets above 100% it will then always cause double quest drops with a chance to cause triple quest drops, etc. Likewise with spawning additional enemies with each wave.

• Melf's Righteous Determination — Melf knows exactly what evil is. Whenever an enemy spawns it has a 50% chance of being deemed "evil" by Melf. Enemies that are deemed evil take 100% more damage from all Ultimate attacks.

Specializations

• Bonus Adaption — Increases the effect of Melf's Adaptive Support Spell by 100%.

• Extra Supplements — Increase the effect of Melf's Speedy Supplement by 100%.

• Absolute Righteousness — Increase the effect of Melf's Righteous Determination by 100%.

Ultimate Ability

• Melf's Minute Meteors — Melf summons six Minute Meteors that float around him. They are fired when he attacks normally and deal BUD-based damage to all enemies in a small area.

V. Melf's Legendary Equipment

Slot 1: Global DPS	Slot 2: Global DPS	Slot 3: Adaptive Support Spell
Slot 4: Speedy Supplement	Slot 5: Righteous Determination	Slot 6: Ultimate Damage

VI. Conclusion

What do you think about Melf? Will he fit into any of your formations? Let us know your thoughts, that we may flay them! If you have feedback, let us know in a Community Q&A or Champion feedback post on the Idle Champions Subreddit, on the Steam forums, or on the Official Idle Champions Discord!

It's time for the latest Idle Champion Spotlight, and this time around we're talking about a Tanking, Support, and Healing Champion who can create heavy armor with Netherese Steel stored in his very bones!

And did we mention that this Half-Orc Champion has his very own flumph ally?

Read on and learn all about Briv Steelmarrow...

I. Savage Paladin

Relentlessly brave but markedly uncouth, Briv Steelmarrow is a stalwart champion of the weak, innocent, downtrodden, and oppressed. Centuries ago, a cabal of Netherese mages experimented on Briv’s clan, gifting him with a magical metal inside his bones that he can pull through his skin and shape for attack or defense. Once a slaver, Briv sought atonement by joining the Order of the Lost Cause, an elite group of knights that travel across Faerûn, taking on quests that only fools would pursue.

Briv is a Tank, Support, and Healing Champion. He uses his Unnatural Haste ability to speed up area progression, and his Steelbones boosts his defense while buffing Champions behind him. When you want to add Briv to your formation, you can swap him with Calliope (Slot 5).

II. Briv's Stats

Race: Half-Orc	Alignment: Chaotic Good
Class: Paladin (Oath of Heroism)	Gender: Male
Age: 42	Affiliation: none

STR: 16	DEX: 14	CON: 16
INT: 10	WIS: 8	CHA: 18

Eligible for Patrons: Mirt, Vajra

III. Briv's Design

It's always a joy to work with a passionate creator to bring their character to life as a Champion in our game, and working with D&D Beyond's Adam Bradford was no exception. Adam was quick to provide numerous examples of Briv character art, including the official art by Max Dunbar, which really went a long ways towards helping to paint the visual picture of Briv Steelmarrow.


Art by Max Dunbar

Briv's abilities were an interesting challenge. With Netherese Steel in his bones, Briv has the ability to shoot it out of his pores to create heavy armor at will — or even violently expel it as a kind of shrapnel weapon, pulling it back into his body afterwards. These abilities became Steelbones, the core of Briv's design where he gains stacks of Steelbones when he is attacked, Netherese Steel, where Briv increases the damage of Champions behind him based how many stacks of Steelbones he has, and Netherese Explosion, where he uses the steel in his body to create an explosion out from him.

With Unnatural Haste we gave Briv a unique new ability that allows you to actually skip areas(!), consuming stacks of Sprint in the process. There is a minimum number of stacks needed for this ability to be able to proc (50), and each time it triggers it will consume a percentage of your stacks. How do you get Sprint stacks, you ask? When you reset, all stacks of Steelbones you have are converted into Sprint stacks, which persist through resets until they're consumed by Unnatural Haste. This will offer players quite the boost through those early levels after you complete a long Free Play. Don't worry about missing out on gems or loot — you will still earn anything you may have missed from areas you skip!

A pet flumph named Phlo accompanies Briv wherever he goes, and he has a unique ability, Healing Phlo, where Phlo stores healing power whenever Briv is struck by an attack. After 10 hits or 10 seconds, whichever comes first, Phlo heals all Champions in the party for 50% of the damage that Briv received during that time!

Flumphs really are the best.

IV. Briv's Abilities

Basic Attack

• Mocking Cleave — Briv leaps out and attacks a random enemy with his greatsword, cleaving all nearby enemies as well. On each enemy hit, there is a 20% chance that they will stop attacking another Champion and attack Briv if possible..

Formation Abilities

• Steelbones — Whenever Briv comes under attack, metal shoots out of his pores, covering him in heavy armor. This effect persists as long as Briv remains under attack, and for an additional five seconds afterwards. While armored, Briv takes 10% less damage and gains a stack of Steelbones whenever he is hit by an enemy attack.

• Netherese Steel — Briv increases the damage of all Champions behind him by 0.01% for each stack of Steelbones he has gained.

• Unnatural Haste — Briv has a 25% chance of sprinting forward quickly on steel-springs after completing a new area, skipping the next area entirely. This action consumes 4% of his Sprint stacks, and requires at least 50 stacks to occur. When you reset the adventure, all stacks of Steelbones that Briv has gained convert into stacks of Sprint, which persist between resets until they are used by this ability.
  
  Note: if the chance of springing forward surpasses 100%, it is divided by 2 and becomes a 50%+ chance to spring forward 2 areas. Likewise for surpassing 200%, 300%, etc.
• 100% / 2 -> 50% chance to skip 2 areas
• 200% / 4 -> 50% chance to skip 3 areas
• 300% / 6 -> 50% chance to skip 4 areas
• If you skip a boss area in this way, the gems, chests, red jewels, etc. from it are collected automatically.

• Healing Phlo — Briv's pet flumph Phlo appears next to Briv and telepathically stores healing power whenever Briv is hit. After 10 hits or 10 seconds, whichever comes first, Phlo heals all Champions in the party for 50% of the damage Briv took during that time. The 10 second timer only starts when Briv takes a hit and does not fire if the healing is triggered by taking 10 hits. It would start again at 10 seconds on the next hit after healing triggers.

• Oath of Heroism — Briv increases the max health of all other Champions by 25% of his max health.

Specializations

• Metalborn — Unnatural Haste uses 20% less Sprint stacks whenever it activates.

• Tempered Steel — Increase the effect of Netherese Steel by 100%.

• Go With The Phlo — Increase the heal of Healing Phlo by 50%.

Ultimate Ability

• Netherese Explosion — Briv forces all of his remaining Netherese Metal out of his body, shooting it in all directions in an arc in front of him, damaging enemies that it passes through. He then draws it back into himself, dealing double damage to enemies it hits on its way back to him.

V. Briv's Equipment

Slot 1: Global DPS	Slot 2: Max Health	Slot 3: Netherese Steel
Slot 4: Unnatural Haste	Slot 5: Ultimate Damage	Slot 6: Ultimate Cooldown

VI. Conclusion

Briv Steelmarrow is an absolute beast of a Champion, a savage paladin who can offer tanking, healing, and support, all in one package. We are excited to see how well he fits in to the Idle Champions meta. If you have feedback, let us know in a Community Q&A or Champion feedback post on the Idle Champions Subreddit, on the Steam forums, or on the Official Idle Champions Discord!