The Isle Basilisk
A concept I've been sitting on the past week or so. Please give feedback! The Isle Basilisk
Description The Isle Basilisk is a roaming large monster on Summoner's Rift. It can be encountered anywhere in the jungle, but it is always camouflaged until engaged in combat. The Basilisk is an epic monster and has a large amount of HP, but it flees after a set amount in combat or after losing a percentage of its HP. After that, it leaves a Stealth Trail leading towards its next location. The trail grants camouflage and bonus movespeed. The trail buff decays after a set amount of time off the trail. Slaying the Basilisk gives an undetermined buff (or global gold).
The Stealth Trail is comprised of splatters of the Basilisk's blood, imprinted as footprints. Standing on the blood prints grants the camouflage buff. Hence, the Trail is not linear throughout, but points along the map that you travel through. Being footprints, each splatter leads to the direction of the next. The camouflage buff grants (10-20 , based on game length) seconds of camouflage and (10-15)% out of combat movespeed. The first track of the Trail fades after 15 seconds of the Basilisk fleeing. Subsequent tracks disappear 3 seconds after the prior track fades.
The Basilisk spawns at 6 minutes, and can be anywhere on the map aside from bases and turrets. It is more likely to wait in brushes and empty jungle camps. However, it can also be encountered in river and on terrain. The Basilisk can be seen entering bushes as it roams the map (see Skaarl's bush animation) so that laners can communicate with junglers about the direction is may be headed. The Basilisk will not stay in a location longer than 1 minute and will flee an empty camp if the camp respawns.
Why For jungle diversity, simply. The introduction of plants (and upcoming stealth rework) got me thinking of ways to shake up the jungle in a better way. The Basilisk allows for more trade off in the jungle. It's a minigame where you can feel as though you are a hunter tracking down your prey, and doing so shakes up traditional pathing. Instead of your standard route+looking for ganks, the Basilisk can mix it up a bit and promote more active jungling.
Moreover, the buff trail it leaves behind allows for more powerful jungle roams. Fight the Basilisk, follow the trail, and use it to gank a lane. Or hope it takes you into the enemy jungle, where you can safely put some wards down or counter jungle. But fighting the Basilisk isn't easy, you are likely going to be low on HP, making this improved map pressure have its weak sides. Also, the Basilisk hunt can be helped by laners. If they see its trace, they can alert their jungler of where it might be, but the enemy laner may do the same.
Lastly, its exciting. As a jungler, competition with the enemy jungler is my favorite part of the role. Contesting this objective is much different than fighting over dragon or counter ganking. It promotes much more complicated map movement, and gets more intense as the game goes on and the Basilisk's health is getting lower and lower. This feels like a natural addition to what jungling should feel like.
Lore Not much to say here, but I like the idea of incorporating a bit of backstory. The Isle Basilisk used to live in the Blessed Isles until it was driven out with the emergence of the Black Mist. It roamed all over Runeterra until it found its new home on the Rift. (Note: she is a very territorial creature).
(Not really) Stats I don't have any solid number aside from Health. I think a ballpark of ~7500 (+220/lv) is right. The Basilisk isn't intended to die until near the end of the mid-game, and I loosely made the number from looking at Dragon and Herald's health. I am not going to embarrass myself trying to make the other stats, but essentially, the Basilisk should hit harder than Dragon, but maybe not so much as Rift Herald. Again, it flees after either losing a percentage of its health or after a fixed amount of time in combat, so the strength should reflect that. I was also considering giving it poison damage, thematically, but I'm not sure about that.
TLDR: A neutral large monster that roams around the map under stealth, and it serves as a competition for the junglers to hunt it down.
