Talk:Billie Lurk/@comment-27866320-20170118220058/@comment-26097530-20170119181645

I think you're probably right about Billie being the DLC character, but based on the plot of The Wormwood Deceit (If you haven't read it yet the whole graphic novel is $3USD on Comixology.  (Hopefully it's not too much more with exchange rates and VAT.) ) and some of the tweets Harvey Smith sent me (check out Footnotes 13-15 above) it seems more likely that if Billie is the main DLC character she'll have a different system for powers than previous heroes. Here's what I suspect at the moment based on the tweets from Harvey and scanning the last page of Wormwood over and over again like a crazy person.



1. Billie probably won't be marked. - When Harvey replied to me he said "She is not marked." So, at the very least, at the end of Wormwood (which is the last point in the timeline so far, see below), Billie hasn't been marked. This doesn't mean she won't be, but the statement that "we envision her empowered by certain artifacts later in her timeline/history" implies that they are going in a different direction with the character.

2 The dialogue of that scene strongly implies that Billie has the Timepiece - Wormwood is set before D2, but she refers to herself as Billie Lurk rather than Meagan Foster, she talks about "events playing out" implying foreknowledge of the events of D2, and when Martha asks where they're going Billie says "Another time."

3. We can see some of the other artifacts Billie has already acquired on the page in Wormwood - Looking at the full shot of Billie (Currently the last image in the gallery on this page) we can see her right hand appears to be disintegrating as though somebody hit it with an extremely localized Shadow Kill, and it also appears to be held to her arm by a sort of splint. At first I thought that maybe that maybe this implied that KO-ing Aramis was the canon conclusion to Crack in the Slab, but that in rescuing Martha, Billie was changing the timeline to one where she lost her arm again. Thinking again though, my current suspicion is that Aramis and Paolo are both killed in D2, that Billie acquired Granny Rags hand from Paolo, and that she has bound it to herself (both literally and figuratively) I considered that it could be Daud's hand, but Corvo and Daud are both marked on their left hands, I don't know if we ever see which hand Vera is marked on, but the position in the comic image makes this one look like a right. She also has that sweet double bladed sword (if you look closely at the handle it has what could be a sword catcher in the style of a Japanese jette OR could be a valve control (Whale oil arc/stun sword? Whiskey powered flame sword?)), and her eye makes her look like Cable from the X-men. (I suspect that it is Broken Tom's eye or something like it.)

4. Based on this I'd say that if Billie is the playable DLC character she will likely have access to more powerful bone charms and artifacts, and fewer rune abilities. If my guesses that Billie won't be marked and has Granny Rags hand are correct, it implies Billie could have access to up to six powers from the hand(Granny Rags' powers from D1): Blink, Devouring Swarm, Bonecharm Crafting, W indblast,   and  cloud of mist*, and possibly Vitality (as a substitute for immortality since that doesn't really work gameplay wise). Granny's last power, Apprentice, would only apply in the sense that, from a narrative standpoint, it would be the way Billie accesses the other powers (although a power that strengthens the bond between Billie and Vera could be interesting) Based on the set-up of the arm rig I could also see having a version of Pull where Billie literally throws out the hand and it comes back to her. (Also, it would be cool if the hand acted like a version of the Heart, but it only says crazy things. Perhaps, because of the magical link, Vera could be the foil character, appearing to Billie like the Outsider does to everyone else, and being more or less crazy depending on your chaos level.)

Since Harvey specifically said that they picture her as being empowered by artifacts it's easy to draw a parallel to Broken Tom from the Wormwood comics. Aside from the whale oil gauntlets (that we can be pretty sure Billie doesn't have) Tom only has two powers that are explained at all: 1) He's protected from Outsider powers by embeding bone charms in his body (many bone charm powers we've already seen decrease damage, does affixing them internally increase their power? Perhaps Billie could increase the power of a charm by choosing to bond with it permanently?). 2) His eye that can track a target backward and forward in time (Essentially the Premonition level of the Dark Vision skill.) If more of Billie's powers are tool based, you could imagine an almost Metroid/Legend of Zelda like situation, where there are places you can't go until you have the right artifact.

5. It's possible that Officer Martha Cottings will be the character to bear the Outsider's mark in the DLC (Maybe two character DLC to go with the two character game?) being rescued from certain death by a literal deus ex machina is the sort of thing that happens to fated heroes. Also, being a person out of time makes Martha an anomaly, which seems like the sort of thing that would intrigue the Outsider.



6. To me, the Biggest clue that Billie will be important going forward is Harvey’s vague answers. – When he’s asked questions about characters that are done in the story (at least for the time being) Harvey has been pretty quick and clear in his answers, but the replies to my question were intriguingly vague, and when I asked about the timeline change vs artifact hand question (see 3 above) he liked the tweet but didn’t reply at all.

Wow. Sorry for the crazy long post. I start thinking about this stuff and the amateur game designer in me starts immediately trying to connect narrative and gameplay, thinking about how systems can be tweaked to add new layers, etc.

*Power unnamed in game.