Skryal

Comic:

* Chapter 4

## **Skryal, The Great Ice Worm**

Skryal is an old ice demon, resembling a large centipede. He has one big eye, pair of antennas on his head, and a pair of long, thin arms ending with 2 mandible-like fingers. His lower legs are much stronger than his upper ones, which he uses to move around and dig. As an ice demon, Skryal is an incredibly powerful cryomancer. He’s able to instantly freeze a large area and control the shape of ice around him. Additionally, he’s also proficient in energy manipulation, being able to alter the composition of souls.

Despite his formidable powers, Skryal most often prefers to use the power of words. He’s quite talkative, and eager to work with others as long as they pay him appropriately, but can get really angry if people try to trick or cheat him. He can be very intimidating if he wants to (and being a giant centipede helps with that a lot) but truly he hates pointless violence. Skryal refrains from fighting anyone unless he’s forced to. He only ever kills in self-defence, if any other means of diplomacy fail.

Skryal is a demon and biologically has no gender. He uses male pronouns. As a demon he feeds on negative emotions, preferring **sorrow**.

## **Story**

Hundreds of years ago, the dreadful Great Ice Worm was a menace for people of Kinao Tundra. He would often harass small settlements, threatening to destroy and kill them all, but never seemed to carry out his threats. While most people feared him, there was a small group who decided to rise against the Worm. They took their weapons and went to his lair hidden deep in the forest. They expected an epic battle, but to their surprise, the Ice Worm did not wanted to fight them, offering a deal instead.

The demon named Skryal ripped all of their fear and hatred for him directly from his would-be opponent’s souls and let them go free, asking to return once they amass a new portion of negative emotions he could devour. Many decades passed since that first deal, and nowadays people from Nirai and nearby towns have no idea about Skryal’s questionable past. His presence is known, but never mentioned out loud. People do visit his burrow, but never talk about their reasons why. They believe that the demon is honest, and means no harm for them, but at the same time know that if he ever wants to kill them, they stand no chance. What enforces this deep rooted subconscious fear is the fact that over the years a few self-proclaimed heroes announced how they will slay the demon before marching towards his burrow. Most of them came back with deep necrosis. Some never came back.

For Skryal these incidents are greatly annoying, as these morons coming to his den with weapons drawn only scare off any potential “clients” as he likes to call them. People visit him with various problems he solves for them in exchange for their emotions. Deed for a deed. Humans are happy and demon is sated.

When he found a knight who was about to end his life in the forest, Skryal did not hesitated for a moment and made his greatest deed so far. He convinced the knight to stay as his guardian and in exchange, he permanently fractured his soul, making him unable to feel grief anymore. The knight named Freamer stays in his forest to this day, repelling anyone stupid enough to raise a weapon against his new demonic boss.

## **In-game**

While Skryal is self-sufficient enough thanks to his decent damage and durability, he performs best when assisted by teammates. All of his abilities benefit both him and his allies, allowing them to move across the entire map and granting a stong shield. On top of that, having a friend close grants both them and Skryal himself a nice damage resistance buff, which combined with his fighter-like stat distribution makes him even more dangerous.

Abilities
 Breath of Rime
All enemies hit are slowed by 30% and blinded for 4 seconds, while he and his allies gain 8 points of shield for 3 seconds.
 Frozen Burrow
An ally standing on a Tunnel beggins to channel for 2 seconds, afterwards blinking to the other Tunnel and gaining 20% speed for 2 seconds.
Enemies trying to use Tunnels will instead destroy them.

## **Trivia**

* Skryal was released as a playable character over 2 years after his debut in the comic.
* After his release in 2.9.0, his desing was updated with a large amount of details, including a pair of antennas, pincers on the end of his tail and a chitin armor on the back.
* His ability to create re-usable portals for his team was inspired by teleports of the Engineer from Team Fortress 2.
* This ability also shares a name with his map, released in a prior update.
* Skryal is classified as a specialist due to his stats being those of a fighter, yet his abilities being clearly of a support.