Original Ideas for Hermit’s Powers

Before I started writing the book, Hermit started off with wildly different Powers in my head. Read on to learn my thoughts!

Inspiration

Growing up, my family played a bunch of Diablo, specifically Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. One of my favorite characters was the Assassin who could use some shadow magic. The main thing she could do was turn her shadow into a double of herself who would then help her fight. While this has basically nothing to do with Hermit and his Power, the idea of shadow magic was always alluring.

His Shadow

As you might guess, one of my initial ideas was that he could grant his own Shadow autonomy. I didn’t want it to be able to attack though, but rather he could send it away to gather information. As I fleshed out the other characters’ Powers, it became more clear to me that I wanted to set limits so that they weren’t gods living in an otherwise normal world. Ultimately, I decided that the Shadow he projected had to stay connected to him.

Fading

I also conceived that Hermit’s ability to Fade would be much different. I won’t detail what it actually is to avoid spoilers, but I will tell its original form. He was able to Fade between realms so that he could easily enter the Pits. This was really only a brief thought before the plot had taken any sort of form. I flirted with the idea of one of the characters being captured and taken to the Pits and Hermit would have to rescue them. Again, if you’ve read the book, that’s not even close to what happens which is why it was scrapped as soon as I outlined the plot!

Offense

The decision on his Shadow offensive Powers set the stage for all the resulting Powers. That’s because there basically is no offensive Powers to Shadow Spinning. None besides using it to distract or obscure vision – but Shadow itself can’t hurt you. I realized that Hermit shouldn’t both be very resilient and incredibly offensive – he would be way too strong. And so I nerfed him and made Shadow, and Light, have no offensive Powers.

Next up

Next post will be continuing this exploration with N’Halia and my original ideas for her Power.