Nianyu (Spellthieves)
For those who don’t know, Spellthieves is a 1 chapter fangame made for CELICA, made by RandomWizard. I think Parhesia wanted people to write about full campaigns, but I’ve always asked for forgiveness before I ask for permission. I won’t try to sell you on it too hard, but I think the quickest and most efficient way to describe it is that someone read this forum thread and just tried their absolute damndest to get on here. Every unit (except Bjorn) has some utterly insane nonsense going on that makes them play way differently than their vanilla counterparts. Mages that cast with mp, mages that prepare spells, stance changing ninjas, prf-item using artificers, terrain casting shamans… I could write an article on each one, imo. Sadly, I can only talk about one. In the squad of freaks and weirdos, it feels only natural that the one non-combat unit stands out amongst the rest.
Nianyu is a necromancer. Their stats are unremarkable (weak, middling speed, decently bulky). Their starting inventory contains a quarterstaff, which is a new melee weapon for Spellthieves, that’s “all-class”. It also contains some items that are completely irrelevant to Nianyu, and you’re better off giving them to your real combat units. Like all player units in Spellthieves, they even get shove! Though, Nianyu has better things to do. Even though Nianyu lacks any ability to use swords, axes, or lances, they can still use the quarterstaff, since it’s all-class. How convenient! This patches up their whole “no weapons at all” issue quite well! In fact, in the first group of enemies, Nianyu is able to do a staggering…
SEVEN DAMAGE MAX!!!
Nianyu stocks are up. I prefaced this that Nianyu is not a combat unit, so I should probably mention what they actually do.
Reanimation Aura is Nianyu’s personal aura skill as a necromancer. Unlike most other aura skills that buff up allies to make them do more damage, your army only benefits when units actually die near Nianyu. Nianyu really wants to get up close to their enemies to watch them suffer, then leave ASAP once they kick the bucket to resurrect more units. RA includes enemy units, reinforcements, player units, temporary units summoned by your other units… Even your game over conditions! Though you see the dreaded red screen of failure before you can see Bjorn’s ghost bitch slap some enemies. The one caveat RA has is that units must be living, which doesn’t matter much (I’m pretty sure the only undead enemies are the ghosts themselves). It also makes the enormous 7 damage Nianyu deals to enemy units kind of relevant, as thresholds that aren’t quite reached by your real combat units can be patched up by Nianyu for an easy ghost. A reminder that Nianyu has no other skills than shove and RA, which means that other than standing next to enemies and looking pretty, they really don’t have that much to do.
Lets take a look at the ghost stats now.
Those who know about how summons work in FE8 should intuitively understand how a unit like this works. Ghosts are disposable sub-units that do Nianyu’s bidding, including throwing their undeath away frequently and without regard. Having 1 hp and 0 defense makes enemies love attacking the ghosts over your squishy mages. Additionally, Ghosts actually have decent Atk, at an actually unironically impressive 17! Your ninja, Nokt, has 18 atk with extra utility, and your soldier, Bjorn, has 22 with a steel lance. With a non-zero speed stat at 12, ghosts are fairly damaging to squishier enemies, especially enemies that can’t counter. The Spellthieves’ singular map is loaded with archers and “orthodox mages”, which can’t attack on player phase, or can’t attack at one range. These goomba units give the ghosts something to do, and when you position Nianyu properly, make more ghosts! It’s so fun!
Ghosts, unlike other disposable units in Spellthieves, actually stay around forever. It’s not uncommon for Nianyu to start farming corpses for an extended period of time, and expend them all in a glorious player phase → enemy phase combo, only to start farming them up again. You never know when you’ll need your horde of corpses to dogpile a crucial enemy, or tank hits from a horde of unsurvivable melee units, or shove your actual mages to a proper position.
Oh, remember how I said all player units in Spellthieves get shove? I really meant ALL player units.
Ghosts are SO versatile and SO disposable you ALWAYS want more. Even used in their least efficient way, ghosts still get you 1 less enemy attack on a player phase, which is a godsend in such a difficult game chapter. This makes Nianyu almost like a payload you gotta maneuver around enemies to get as many ghosts as possible, and more ghosts kill more enemies or push more Nianyu’s to make more ghosts to snowball just out of control enough to get shut down next enemy phase. The cycle repeats itself. It is an utterly captivating unit design that I really haven’t seen anywhere else. Nianyu’s kit is only bolstered by the sheer insanity of the rest of the Spellthieves, who have movement techniques, AOEs, clones that die into ghosts, mass refreshes, mass STR buffs, and Bjorn!
…I guess this essay degenerated into me gushing about the Spellthieves.
There’s a couple more things I want to cover that are still cool or relevant, but things I believe are merely adjacent to Nianyu as a character.
Enemy Necromancer
Nianyu isn’t the only necromancer in town. This guy right here, on the northern path uses the EXACT SAME GIMMICK as Nianyu. All of his friends within 2 tiles, when killed, will spawn an enemy ghost! Everything that I have said in this essay minus them using shove is applicable to Mr. Enemy Necromancer. Instead of maximizing units killed in Nianyu’s range, you should minimize enemies killed in Mr. Necromancer’s range. The ghosts he spawns are frail and die in one hit, but hit like a truck, especially when they gang up on you. Mr. Necromancer can’t attack, so you should prioritize him amongst his friends. It’s really obvious game design and fits with the themes of Spellthieves, but it’s just so… cool. Most games would be scared to throw such an avante garde challenge your way, and stick to normal units, but Spellthieves aint your normal fe fangame.
…It feels a little mean to the creator to talk about this, but there’s a bug with this system. What happens when a unit dies… with Nianyu’s aura… and Mr. Necromancer’s aura?
This fucking thing!
It works just the way you think it does. A mixed ghost can’t be selected by a player, but it can most certainly be killed! By attacking a mixed ghost, you “purify” the evil ghost inside of it, and make the blue ghost selectable! While it’s totally a bug, I can’t help but find this interaction of “exorcising” a unit super cool. In fact, it feels balanced enough that if you just change the system so that it works like this without the buggy effects, I’d argue it fits right in.
Malefic Aura and Nianyu's Inventory
By leveling up once (1 time) Nianyu will gain this skill.
Now, I’m gonna level with you, I don’t think I felt this skill contribute too much to Nianyu’s performance in game. Maybe if I played Spellthieve’s singular map over and over again, I would feel how powerful this skill is, and how it changes the game, but I didn’t do that.
I kinda hyped up Nianyu’s combat performance earlier in this essay, but it’s really, really bad. To get this skill, you really gotta try whacking things with their quarterstaff a whole bunch. Ongorzul and Cardinal have other all-class melee weapons for Nianyu to use, and both of them have real attacks they want to use so they’re not bogged down by having a crummy weapon but… Is it necessary?
If you’re a real Spellthieves gamer, yes. All of Nianyu’s inventory is actually very attractive to most combat units. The quarterstaff actually passively increases a unit’s MAG stat by 2, a Hoplon Guard removes enemy crits, and a Vigorflow Ring passively increases stats (under certain conditions). All of these items are better suited on other characters, and since Spellthieves has no battle preps, you have to juggle these thoughts in between clearing through wave upon wave of enemies. If you trade off these Nianyu items, you may want to replace their wimpy Quarterstaff with a frying pan, or even a pocket knife. It’s… cool…
Shadow Clone and Minor Illusion
I’ve been hinting at this throughout the essay, but Nianyu isn’t the only unit that can summon extra guys to fight for them. Both Nokt and Ongorzul have mechanics that let them do this! Nokt has Summer Jutsu, which summons 2 clones in adjacent tiles that like ghosts, have 1 hp and 0 defense. Unlike ghosts, these clones inherit Nokt’s Katana, and disappear the following turn. Since they’re super strong, your optimal strategy with them is to attack the turn they’re summoned with their lives being expendible to worthless. The nature of Nokt’s skills means that you can only summon 2 of these every 3 turns, and even less if you’re not using All Of Nokt’s Toolkit All The Time. Ongorzul’s is even less flashy, letting him summon a green unit that doesn’t move, can’t be shoved, has 0 in every stat, and also disapears at the end of turn. The upside is that he can use it every turn, IF you selected the Minor Illusion cantrip at the start of the game.
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.
Yes, both Nokt and Ongorzul can contribute to the Nianyu ghost army. It might seem overpowered, since Nianyu’s bottleneck is how many things they can see die in a turn, but it’s reasonably balanced. Ongorzul needs to pick a maybe 3/10 cantrip to activate it’s effect with Nianyu in range, and Nokt needs suuuper intelligent Nianyu positioning to snag KOs and ghosts alike. It adds a whole bunch of depth to Nianyus kit, and when you figure it out for the first time, your first thought is “no freakin’ way!” Awesome tech.
In conclusion, Nianyu rocks. In a game full of bonkers units, they stand head and shoulder above all others with how awesome their utility is. I don’t think I’ve seen a unit that warps the game in such a unique way as Nianyu.
Times Nianyu’s Name Said: 42
Times Word Ghost Said: 27