This mod adds Starch, a monster hunter who stands near the bridge just outside the Shadow Vault. He gives monster kill quests, meaning that he asks you to kill 3 to 7 of a type of monster on each floor of the infinite dungeon.
Rewards from his quests include map fragments. Transmute 4 fragments and you get a new map to The Briny Reef and a unique boss fight: Leviathan! This giant tentacle monster is a boss found in the game files that was not implemented in the final game.
Monsters
Just to keep things interesting, the targets of Starch's bounty quests are eight new monsters. The new monsters are not new models, but I've done my best to make them look different and given them some interesting abilities. They only appear as part of these quests and do not spawn anywhere else. Also they have a cool purple aura.
Introducing the Zombified Alchemist. He comes with a miniature robot minion and (sort of) glowing focus glove. And he spams beams at you.
This Tu'Tara Musketman has a gun and throws poison gas grenades.
...and of course there's the dreaded Quylthulg. Roguelike players will know what I'm talking about.
New in version 2
Version 2 introduces The Briny Reef, a new map with a salty ocean theme and a few new-ish monsters. Including of course Leviathan at the end. You access this new map by either 1) Collecting map fragments from Starch's quests, or 2) The map is a one-time drop from Medea, so you can access it while playing through story mode as well.
Installation
Simply drop the Starch2 folder into your mods folder.
If you have the old version of Starch installed, remove it. You should make sure you've dropped any active Starch quests before replacing the mod. I don't know if failing to do so will cause any problems, but it's better to play it safe.
Compatibility:
This mod should be highly compatible and should not interfere with or alter any other part of the game. The NPC is added via a merged layout, and everything else (the monsters and the new skills and particle systems they use) are new files with new names that should not overlap anything else.
The one exception is that I've modified Spawnclasses/MEDEA_TREASURE.dat. If you don't want Medea to drop the map, simply remove that file.
I can't guarantee compatibility with other mods that make sweeping, overriding changes to items or game systems!
Game balance:
This mod is fairly conservative in terms of player rewards. The quest rewards are similar to the other random questgivers and monsters themselves don't drop too much treasure. Leviathan does drop boss-quality treasue, but I made it fairly hard to get large numbers of the new map, so you can't just farm the boss infinitely. Well, actually you can, but you'd have to do Starch's quests in the SV in between.
As for how difficult the bounty monsters are, they're supposed to be stronger than an average monster, but not too tough. I tried to make the Leviathan similar in difficulty to a main story boss. I'd appreciate feedback as to whether he's too easy or hard.
Download it here:
http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=440
Thanks, and please report any bugs or problems!
