The "Sin Skin" Files
For those of you familiar
with the Diablo 2 expansion "Lord of Destruction" published by Blizzard some
four odd years ago, skip the opening as it develops a context for the discussion
of unique monsters and why Sin Skin is so important.
Diablo 2 is a computer game that can be played alone or alongside other people.
Each player controls a character, the gaming ego. Characters are heroes in a
world filled to the brim with evil monsters, whose malign intentions are one and
whose malign powers are myriad. Most areas you visit as a hero are populated
with three or four different kinds of monsters. Next area, next three or four
kinds of monsters and so on. Your job is to slay them, find stuff, use better
stuff to slay more powerful monsters and get better stuff and so on. However, in
each area there may be a number of monsters that outshine the others in wicked
power. They are powerful enough to have minions of their own with slightly more
power and intelligence than the mass of other monsters of their type. Each is
called a "Unique Monster," and they have random superpowers and random names. A
discussion of the powers they have would be a distraction from the core issue,
and that is Sin Skin himself.
Most monster names are generic. Players know each of a group of ten or twelve
Flayers that are attacking him as "Flayer." A unique monster, however, has a
name rather than a title, and since everything else about it is generated
randomly by the game engine, well why not the name, too? Unique monster names
range from the comical to the disgusting, and everywhere in-between. The intent
is to make each one sound like a violent, ruthless, worthy foe, and the result
is that they are usually comical spice in a bland world of thousands of the same
monster.
With time, I could develop my own random generator to give you a feel for the
names I'm talking about, but for now all you get is a straw poll of what I feel
are the most representative names, and a discussion of my all-time favorite.
For gross-out factor, many of the Unique monsters sport monikers with the words
"pus," "bile," "puke," and "snot" in the lead position. This first spot becomes
a nickname that one can imagine the other monsters might call him. The second
position will have some history of the monster's past and current activities to
it, or maybe a completion of the nickname. These are like "the flayer," "the
mauler," "the hungry," or "head," "maim," "wight," and others. So the grossest
names become "Puke Eater the Hungry" or "Pus Fester."
More comical names I've seen: "Night Wight," "Seethe Frost the Cold" (who was
enchanted with fire) and "Snot Head."
When my roommate encountered Night Wight for the first time, he told me to check
it out, and then proceeded to sing a parody of the jingle from Lite-Brite
commercials of old. Night Wight indeed. I had to hold my head in disbelief when
I ran across Seethe Frost the Cold. Here he had at least two indications of his
intimidating cold abilities, and none of the abilities themselves. What, was
that a former life? As if he decided to try new things but didn't want to change
his name. 'Yeah, they still call me Seethe Frost and all, but I think I've
really turned a corner by using these fiery abilities." And Snot Head, well, it
sounds to me like the other monsters are in middle school, and are making fun of
him with this name; picking on the top dog. 'Hey, Snot Head. Go kill some heroes
why don't ya? (other monsters laugh at Snot Head).' Which leads me to my
favorite funny name, Sin Skin.
I enjoyed a chuckle the first time I met Sin Skin, it was a funny name. The
second time he defeated me once before I rallied and won, and in that earned a
special place in my gaming heart. I would then on remember Sin Skin. In a game
that is mostly devoid of fantasy involvement and people playing "in character,"
I began to come up with reasons why all these unique monsters I came across bore
this name. My favorite was that the name itself is tied to an evil spirit that
possesses monsters. So I can't really kill him. I can only battle him over and
over, each time chiding and humiliating him. He became a nemesis. I was even
glad to see the name, and it became a whole lot of fun to play the part of my
game ego fighting a lifelong foe. Sin Skin. I wish I had thought of taking his
picture sooner.
Recently, I began to catalogue my encounters with the beast by taking
screenshots while I had his name on the screen. So far I only have two. I know I
used to encounter him more often, perhaps he grows weary of facing me?
Above is the first encounter I have had with Sin Skin this season. This was on battle.net ladder, using an ego named "Phadriel." Sin Skin is one of the Finger Mages on the right. He is the more orange looking of the pair, the red one being one of his minions. Beneath his name is an explanation of what superpowers he has. This was not an epic or even very interesting fight, he attacked my Valkyrie minion there and I shot him full of arrows. Really this describes most of my fights with monsters as Phadriel.
Phadriel found Sin Skin once again. This time inside a tower basement. Here is Sin Skin guarding several barrels strewn about the room. You can make him out, partially obscured by the wall toward the bottom of the screen. The sparks all around him are weapons of his. He had surprised me when I charged into the room, but my faithful bodyguard, Fazel, rushed up to Sin Skin, absorbing his blows while I shot him with my bow.
This time, Sin Skin really shows his fatigue with combat with me. The vessel he occupies is not itself a monster, but a monster generator, so he couldn't use any of his abilities against me, or for that matter attack me at all. All he did was spit out those little crow critters like the ones slightly to the right and above Phadriel in the picture, there. Monster generators self-destruct after pumping out their limit of monsters in this game, so I could have simply waited around for Sin Skin to die had I so chose. Poor guy.
Well, that's all for now. Look out for Sin Skin updates!