Darkest Dungeon The Flagellant Class Revealed

The new adventurer class coming to Darkest Dungeon in the Crimson Court DLC has been revealed as the Flagellant, in an exclusive PC Gamer article. Flagellants are intended to be mechanically complex frontline fighters/healers with a focus on high risk-high reward gameplay.

Here’s the Flagellant reveal trailer:

And an excerpt from the article that explains what the Flagellants are all about:

The Flagellant is designed to push the envelope of Darkest Dungeon’s Affliction System, the soul-grinding blend of stress, fear, paranoia, and other ‘quirks’ that can render stoic adventurers psychologically broken and even dangerous to their fellow dungeoneers. Because of his single-minded devotion, he cannot develop a virtue, and he’s also restricted to a single affliction called “Rapturous,” a form of berserking in which he does damage to both enemies and allies.

These mechanical complexities place him “on par with the Abomination,” developer Red Hook Studios said, and “a rather tough hero to play well” because of his dependence on “a charged-up risk/reward dynamic.” That’s because the Flagellant is most effective when he’s most badly wounded: The lower his health sinks, the more powerful his abilities become.

He receives huge buffs when at Death’s Door, and has a greater resistance to it than other characters, so he can stay in that state longer—and if he dies, he unleashes a final act of retribution, healing allies while stunning and damaging enemies, a noble sacrifice that might sometimes be more useful than keeping him breathing. Not for the faint of heart, then.

The studio said the Flagellant’s visual design was inspired by Rorschach from Watchmen, and pro wrestlers like ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage and The Ultimate Warrior. He face was actually fully covered in a blood-soaked hood in early designs, “but exposing the mouth and nose provided an important window into just how much he revels in his martyrdom,” Red Hook explained. “While Darkest Dungeon steers clear of elemental magic and wizardry, we fully embrace the occult, and in this case, chose to illustrate his unsettling power with a constantly dripping red right hand.”