Dulled Hourglass (My Normal Obsession)

WARNING: THIS PAGE CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS AND MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
The Dulled Hourglass is an important item in My Normal Obsession that switches The Overworld to its Archamian variant - a "worst case scenario" of sorts. Every Archamian character, except for Frim, suffered (or is suffering) from a disease, wound, incident, or physical trauma (sexual trauma in Sawyer's case). This item is not to be confused with the Archamian Sundial, a DLC-exclusive item that transforms the world and all playable characters into their Dulled, or "best case scenario" variants.
== Lore ==
Lore-wise, the Dulled Hourglass is a relic of Dulled origin that was initially used as a way to prolong time to both torture capture soldiers for longer and gain an edge in wars, as their opponents would be much more prone to exhaustion. Velum, seeing the immorality of such an item, ultimately decided to forfeit it, intensively guarding the hourglass with her life. Despite protests from the Dulled, she simply returned to The Overworld in hopes of burning the Dulled Hourglass in the River Styx, which would effectively remove its time-bending properties.
== Archamian Variants ==
=== Archamian Sawyer (alt. title: The Violated) ===
"A survivor of a sexual tragedy, now a scarred and broken mess. He sacrifices versatility for strength."Archamian Sawyer is drastically different in terms of his stats, as he better DPS at the cost of greatly reduced defense. His attack speed is cut to a third of a second, and he can ONLY use classless weapons. Archamian Sawyer also has a much stronger phobia of Venom and acid.
His icon depicts him with much more severe burns and a condom stuck in his skull, which is the result of a Death Row employee sexually assaulting him after he was splashed with acid, where his eyehole was non-consensually penetrated. He hates Archamian Animus with a passion, calling her "obnoxious" and "disgusting". However, he deals 10% more damage if she's on his team (and vice versa), either out of hate or secretive admiration. Animus does not share this resentment, instead brushing it off or staying silent altogether.
=== Archamian Animus (alt. title: The Mistaken) ===
"A survivor of an execution attempt, now permanently weakened. She's incredibly prone to infection."
Archamian Animus is an interesting case, as her personality is completely flipped. She's a lot more emotional, possibly even depressed, and tends to break down easily. Archamian Animus is also a lot more mature and usually refrains from speaking, likely due to her slit throat. She's a lot weaker than her Harandalian twin, although she's still very powerful if utilized correctly. She has a large patch of HellRot and exposed tissue on the right side of her face, likely from a powerful blade or shotgun blast. When taking damage, Archamian Animus has a chance to contract an infection that lasts an entire day and can only be cured with a Panacea. Said infection reduces her damage, maximum health and Stamina while also increasing the crit/Headshot chance of all enemies that target her.
=== Archamian Doctor (alt. title: The Preserved) ===
"A still breathing corpse doused in formaldehyde. When critically injured, he must heal with the flesh of dead enemies."
Archamian Doctor appears to be a rotting corpse preserved in formaldehyde. His movement speed and defense greatly increase when he's at or near full health, but these stats are reduced when his health lowers (at the benefit of increased Stamina and attack speed). He is one of the only characters who cannot use Trinkets, he cannot use Oblations, he has toxic breath + good damage, and he's an expert at Necromancy. When he's critically injured, his mask will fall off, revealing his rotting skull underneath. His defense will increase and he will go into a crazed frenzy as he rapidly loses health, healing using the flesh of fallen enemies. If he does not kill anything within 18 seconds, he will collapse and die.
Shopkeepers are deeply afraid of Archamian Doctor, and all his dialogue is met with an eerie groan or the buzzing of flies.
=== Archamian Ratilla (alt. title: The Mutilated) ===
Archamian Ratilla is based on her old design before she was changed to be a pastel goth, and has blood dripping from her bra. She is heavily mutilated due to poorly performed surgery, therefore has contracting gangrene. She has potentially lethal contact damage that inflicts the Contagion status effect, as well as a high chance to inflict Bleeding when using blunt weapons. She has a laughably small health pool and very little Stamina, but hits like a truck and gains increased base defense when at less than 60% max health.
=== Archamian Arjun (alt. title: The Flightless) ===
"A hopeless, helpless child with only a sword to his name. He has a knack for revenge."
Archamian Arjun is one of the strongest melee characters in the game, only wielding one-handed swords. His resistance to magic is still relatively high, however, he is weak to more common elements and possesses subpar Stamina, so he must use his sword to block attacks (as opposed to doge-rolling, since it consumes 66% more Stamina). Despite this, he can land several attacks in a short amount of time, obliterating large crowds in seconds. Archamian Arjun cannot inflict Gash or Bleeding, and his vulnerability to projectiles is still very high, but he has better defense than his Overworld counterpart.
When taking a large amount of damage, Archamian Arjun will land a guaranteed critical hit.
=== Archamian Nova (alt. title: The Trojan) ===
"A sentient machine infested with both potent malware and a physical disease. It seems he lost all morality."
Archamian Nova has very glitchy vision and a hell of a trigger finger, boasting shitty precision with infinite piercing, better damage, and a swift rate of fire. He loses his ability to lock onto targets, and can instead perform melee attacks by pressing F near an enemy. Nova also appears to be infested with malware, always speaking in either ads, threats, or vulgar flirts. Archamian Nova also has insanely good Stamina and better movement speed than his Overworld counterpart, albeit his defense is still the same.
=== Archamian James (alt. title: The Convict) ===
Archamian James has an interesting story, wearing an orange prison uniform instead of his standard jeans and red sweater.
=== Archamian Ahriman (alt. title: The Soulless) ===
"A fading soul nearing the end of its life, leaving nothing behind but a mindless husk. Its only intent is to kill."
Archamian Ahriman is more of a glass cannon, as he has dangerously low defense, but higher damage and resurrection chance. His Souls mechanic is completely replaced with Faith, which increases his defense and gives him the ability to negate damage. Archamian Ahriman's greatest weakness is critical strikes, as they can easily kill him. Due to his antlers being broken off, however, he can wear helmets to increase his health. Faith is gained from killing enemies and boss minions, and unlike Souls, Faith has a ~43% chance to drop from an enemy. Killing a boss or miniboss always fully replenishes Archamian Ahriman's Faith.
Interestingly enough, Archamian Ahriman has more Magic Power than his Overworld counterpart, but this is never explained and does not make much sense in terms of the series' lore. One possible explanation is that his soul fading left more room in his body for Magic Power, but evidence to support this theory is very scarce. Additionally, he loses his weakness to Thunder, but it's still his least favorite element. More information about Archamian Ahriman is listed on his respective wiki page.
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Category:My Normal Obsession
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