An elderly lightfoot halfling walks down the cobblestone street of Waterdeep's Dock Ward, the soft tap of her quarterstaff echoing through the evening air. Her footsteps soft and deliberate, she leans heavily on her staff as she takes in the last of the sunset along the water.
A dark-haired human carrying a hand crossbow, a red-skinned tiefling with an eyepatch and a dagger, and a shirtless, burly, tattooed mountain dwarf have their mark in their sights. As one they move from three directions towards the halfling centenarian, blocking her path.
"Your purse," croaks the human thug in front, his voice indicating a nose broken many times. "Hand it over."
As if to emphasize the threat, the dwarf begins cracking the thick, calloused knuckles on his hands while giving the halfling woman a predatory stare. The tiefling licks his dagger's blade menacingly as he creeps towards her from behind. Stifling a laugh, the human casually lifts his weapon to point it in the direction of the woman — except she isn't there.
*CRACK*
The dwarf's eyes roll into the back of his skull as a trickle of blood flows down his temple, and he falls forward, crashing into the cobblestone street. Standing where the dwarf's shadow once was, the elderly halfling woman carefully folds up her shawl and places it neatly on the ground, revealing hands and forearms wrapped meticulously in ceremonial cotton gauze.
With a snarl the tiefling attacks, rushing towards the woman with his dagger at the ready. In the same moment, the human aims his hand crossbow and fires.
To this elderly Way of Shadow Monk, however, these thugs are moving in slow motion. She snatches the crossbow bolt from the air as easily as if she were picking an apple up from a fruit stand, and in a blur of movement she sends the bolt back towards her attacker's foolishly-unarmored knee. The bolt strikes true, and a nasally shriek fills the evening air as the human drops his weapon and falls backwards into the street.
Before the human hits the ground, the elderly monk has already closed the distance to the rushing tiefling, vaulting off the ground with her staff towards his face. He has barely enough time to register surprise before the monk lands a stunning kick to his face, snapping his head back. Consciousness fades long before his body collapses in the cobblestone street.
Dusting herself off, Rosie Beestinger resumes her walk along the water, pulling her shawl back on and clutching it closely to her chest. It's getting chilly out, wouldn't want to catch a cold!
Are you as excited as we are to have Rosie Beestinger coming to Idle Champions? If you want to know more about
Grandmother Night, you've come to the right place!
All photography by Tyler Curtis
Not your grandma's grandma...
"Rosie Beestinger came to us highly recommended—by basically everyone. By which I mean at least one hundred halflings all entered her name in our Winter Intern drive. They all seemed a little nervous, and their handwriting was very shaky. Who knows! Maybe they were very, very cold. Winter, right?! She’s a monk or something. Let’s see how she does." ~Omin Dran
Weighing in at just under 30 pounds and with a grandmotherly demeanor befitting her advanced age, Rosie Beestinger is easily mistaken for someone on the wrong side of the “aggressor/victim†relationship. But this is a mix-up that few people make more than once.
Rosie Beestinger. Grandmother Night. Matriarch of the Beestinger family. Adoptive grandmother of Strix. Possible mob boss. This lightfoot halfling Way of Shadow Monk is over 100 years old and her story is still going strong. Played by the always-amazing
Kate Welch, game designer at Dungeons & Dragons, Rosie is the most badass centenarian monk you'll likely ever cross paths with.
For more info, check out the
Acquisitions Incorporated: The "C" Team each week or catch one of Rosie's many amazing live appearances (Dylan highly recommends last year's
Force Grey one shot at Stream of Many eyes).
Rosie's Stats
| Race: Halfling |
Class: Monk |
Alignment: Chaotic Good |
| STR: 8 |
DEX: 16 |
CON: 12 |
| INT: 12 |
WIS: 14 |
CHA: 14 |
Rosie Beestinger is a sassy DPS Champion. Her damage increases for each Champion in the formation younger than she is, and she catches and deflects incoming missiles. When you want to add the Rosie Beestinger to your formation, you can swap her with Tyril (Slot 10).
The Art of Rosie
Every time we do an Idle Champion Spotlight we praise our art team here at Codename Entertainment, and today is no exception! Senior Artist Alexis Theroux did an absolutely wonderful job with Rosie Beestinger, both with her Champion and animations (we're especially fond of her Shadow Step/Flurry of Blows attack) and also with her portraits.
If you'd like to check out more of Alexis' art, you can find her on
Instagram.
Designing Grandmother Night
We are big fans of Acquisitions Incorporated, both the original show and The "C" Team, so any chance we get to work on a character we love is a fun day at the office.
When it came to working on Rosie Beestinger, we connected with Kate Welch (as well as Shadow Chancellor Elyssa Grant) and spoke at length about just what makes Rosie tick. We drew inspiration for Rosie from these calls, ongoing design correspondence (usually over email), and of course, the wonderful abundance of podcast and live show performances Kate has been a part of. There was definitely no shortage of inspiration!
First and foremost, Rosie Beestinger is
Sassy, and we wanted to make that a core part of her kit. This grandma has no problem putting anyone in their place, and the idea was that we would take a slightly different approach from Gromma's
Grandmotherly Love and Rosie would get even more badass the more youngsters were around her. Not only does she keep up with the kids, but she shows them how it is done.
If you have ever seen
Kris Straub's awesome
introduction to The "C" Team, you know Rosie's entrance moment: she's an unassuming kind old lady until someone has the audacity to fire an arrow at her, which she catches it easily and gives the shooter the look of death. You don't mess with this grandma. We knew immediately that we wanted to include
Deflect Missiles in Rosie's design, and we're excited to have her tossing those missiles back at enemies in your formation. And to boot, she'll also catch some of the arrows fired at her allies!
Busy Beestinger came together both as a play on words and because we wanted to try something unique with our latest team-focused Formation Ability. Rosie attacks a half second quicker once you unlock this Formation Ability, and for each one of her fellow #cteam members in the formation, she'll attack even more quickly. Float like a flumph, sting like a Beestinger!
Rosie's last two Formation Abilities are tied together, making it clear that she is a DPS Champion first and foremost. With
Shadow Arts, Rosie's usual barrage of attacks starts to include her Beestinger Staff to add an AoE attack every fifth attack. With
Timeless Body, that
Shadow Arts attack becomes every fourth attack instead.
With her Specializations, Rosie can double down on boosting her DPS with
Matriarch, increasing the potency of her
Sassy self-buff for each female Champion in the formation younger than she is, or she can go for a powerful increase to her AoE damage with
From The Shadows.
There really was only one Ultimate we considered for Rosie Beestinger, and it came straight from Kate:
Grammamancy. Rosie roots all enemies in place, stopping them dead in their tracks — then she takes advantage of the situation and pummels the crap out of them! And as an added bonus, the cooldown on
Deflect Missiles is removed for the duration of
Grammamancy, allowing Rosie to take all those pesky fireballs and arrows and swiftly returning them to their senders.
Formation Abilities
- Sassy — Rosie deals +100% increased damage for every Champion in the formation younger than she is.
- Deflect Missiles — Rosie catches/deflects the next ranged/magic attack against herself or any adjacent Champion and redirects it back at the attacker. Damage done is 100% of Rosie's normal damage. This effect can only trigger every 2.5 seconds.
- Busy Beestinger — Rosie's attack speed cooldown is lowered by .5 seconds (stacking additively) and her damage is increased by 100% (stacking multiplicatively) for each member of the C-Team in the formation, including herself.
- Shadow Arts — On every fifth attack, Rosie does a whirlwind attack with her staff, hitting all enemies in a small AoE for 50% of her base damage.
- Timeless Body — Reduce the number of attacks before Rosie performs a Shadow Arts attack by 1.
Specializations
- Matriarch — Increases the effect of Sassy by 25% for every female Champion in the formation younger than Rosie.
- From The Shadows — Shadow Arts now hits for 200% of Rosie's base damage instead of 50%.
Ultimate Attack
Grammamancy — Rosie roots all enemies in place and becomes a blur of movement, pummeling up to 10 enemies on screen for massive damage and, once she returns to the formation, removing the cooldown on Deflect Missiles for the next 15 seconds.
Equipment
As always, Kat (aka @TehArtMonkey on
Instagram and
Twitter) did a fantastic job with the equipment icons. When a player already has a detailed Cosplay and numerous pieces of official art and fan art, it goes a long way towards helping us flesh out the aesthetic of the equipment.
- AI Cartographer's Gear — You can't have a cartographer without their gear!
- Necklace of the Greater Will — Rosie's handcrafted necklace. Each ball represents a single regret.
- Belt of the Beestinger — No outfit is complete without the right belt.
- Beestinger Staff — Walnut Dankgrass found Rosie this staff, which has since been used to knock out countless foes.
- Stuffed Jar of Eyeballs — Everyone needs to collect something! You wouldn't happen to have any spare eyeballs, would you?
- Emerald Loot Bag — Who doesn't like emeralds? Rosie just happens to have a whole bag for them for no reason at all.
Final Thoughts
We are really happy with the approach we've taken to bring Rosie to Idle Champions. When we get a chance to work with an amazing creator like Kate Welch, it's always a great experience, and it is always an honor to work together to bring their character to life in Idle Champions.
The third member of Acquisitions Incorporated: The "C" Team has joined the fray, bringing a powerful DPS Champion to join her Support Champion friends, Donaar and K'thriss. Rosie will get better with every youngster you include in your formation, which considering her advanced age, is most non-elf/non-dwarf Champions in the game. She punches with fists honed over a century of experience. She lives life to the absolute fullest. And we think that once players have a chance to use her in their formations they will see the benefit of considering a centenarian Shadow Monk DPS in place of say, a Firbolg Druid ;)
As always, feel free to send us feedback on via the
Idle Champions Subreddit,
Steam forum, or the
Idle Champions Discord!
