I would really like to see more snakes, spiders, and assorted bugs in KF. While thinking about some related rune ideas, I thought of a possible serpent racial ability based on the consumption of corpses. I know that Race: Serpent was done away with a while ago but, I suppose, serpents could be made into a sub-theme of beasts with this particular racial (i.e. all serpents would have the racial but not all beasts). With that said, here is the idea... Hunger- For each friendly champion with Hunger, the following effects occur when this champion kills an opposing champion with a basic attack (in order): this champion loses -2 DEF until the end of the next turn, auto-collect the Nora Globe, on-death effects of the opposing champion are cancelled, this champion permanently gains +5 MAX HP, this champion permanently gains +2 DMG, and you gain +5 nora when the next champion with Hunger enters play (this effect stacks). I know that is a lot of text to work through so, for simplicity's sake, here is what you get in a different format... When this champion kills an opposing champion with a basic attack: 1 Serpent in Play- This champion loses -2 DEF until the end of the next turn and 2 Serpents in Play- You auto-collect the resulting Nora Globe and 3 Serpents in Play- On-death effects of the opposing champion are cancelled and 4 Serpents in Play- This champion permanently gains +5 MAX HP and 5 Serpents in Play- This champion permanently gains +2 DMG and 6 Serpents in Play- You gain +5 Nora when the next champion with Hunger enters play and 7 Serpents in Play- You gain +10 Nora when the next champion with Hunger enters play and 8 Serpents in Play- You gain +15 Nora when the next champion with Hunger enters play and (you get the point)
This ability is kind of like an on-kill version of Fang and Fur. The more serpents that are in play at one time, the more powerful the cumulative effects are when a serpent gets a kill. Since all serpents would get this ability for free, the first effect actually penalizes one for getting a kill (it is an incentive to play more than one serpent at a time). One interesting thing about this ability is that, after enough serpents are in play, the Call Serpent spell can become better and better (because you get nora when it enters play). This ability may very well be too complex but it is a start!
It's rather complicated... but I share your interest in some kind of KF snake theme. Some random ideas (not necessarily racials): Snakebite: This champion has Poison 3. When this champion enters play, the duration of the Poisoned condition on enemies is increased by 3. Example: You attack and give an enemy Poisoned 5. Deploy a Snakebite champ and it becomes Poisoned 8. Slithering: Each time this champion moves 12 spaces, a Snake Egg is spawned on the space most recently occupied. Example: As the champion moves it leaves a snake egg behind when it takes its 12th step, 24th step, etc...
The only issue I see with it is the ease with which snakes can be deployed -- I really hate the Yeti effect, and think it's too easy to build insanely strong armies too fast that do too much... Perhaps if the racial benefit were scaled so that there was an initial small benefit, and there were a time limit to the large benefit?
