Morgan Le Fay: A Closer Look

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By: TitanCupcake | 2021/5/25

WHO IS MORGAN LE FAY?

Arthurian legends tell of an enchantress. In the older texts, she is the Queen of Avalon, a healer, and an ally to many. However, as those tales were told throughout different times and places, the enchantress became more and more sinister.

Morgan Le Fay is an expert of dark magic and a rival of Arthur. She originally studied under Merlin, and even was a member of the Pendragon family by some accounts. However, as her powers grew, so did her desire for control. She turned against the family, and through the use of magic that could manipulate one’s body and mind she became a fearsome enemy who could slay any knight.

Morgan Le Fay has been watching as Arthur and Merlin rise among the ranks of the Olympians, and she is not about to let them gain more followers without a challenge.

OUR VISION

Morgan Le Fay can have a wide variety of depictions and motivations, ranging from altruistic good to cruel evil. Her more benevolent representations tend to come from earlier Welsh mythologies, similar to early depictions of Merlin. The English texts that are best known as the official source of Arthurian Legend show the depiction of her that is much more commonly featured in modern artistic media, and one we expect SMITE players to be much more familiar with.

CORE THEMES

Theme – Dark Magic – She etches powerful sigils to inflict pain and suffering on her enemies. She can summon dark entities and warp the mind.
Visuals – Royalty and Power – She is elegant and dignified. Her armor is finely crafted and she wields a sword as a magical conduit – symbolic to her rivalry with Arthur.
Personality – Cunning and Vengeful – She would just as happily win a battle through a conversation than fighting. She doesn’t need magic to sow distrust and win her way.
Perspective – Mystery – The other gods would see Morgan as an enemy, but Merlin and Arthur’s loss of composure around her has done more harm than she has. She doesn’t seem to be out for violence, but the gods don’t know who to trust.

Morgan Le Fay has two goals: to rise to power, and to see Arthur and Merlin disgraced. A storm is raging from the clash between Tiamat and Gilgamesh, and the gods are more cautious than ever. When she arrives, Merlin and Arthur can hardly contain their rage, showing the gods they too have the same flaws as King Gilgamesh, the same flaws that angered Tiamat.

After dealing such a hefty blow to the Arthurian duo’s reputation, she slinks away to converse with Tiamat directly. These two goddesses are destined to help each other. Tiamat’s only fear is the Olympians uniting against her, and Morgan would love nothing more than to see them all at each other’s throats.

ARTISTIC PROCESS

The name “Morgan Le Fay” often conjures an image in people’s minds. One that was wearing cloth, and uses a staff or a sort of focus or orb as a way to conjure her magic. These options felt disappointingly stereotypical to our team. We set out from the get-go to portray her with a twist: heavier armor and a magical sword.

In her mythology there is a story where she conspired to steal Excalibur, wield it against Arthur himself, and defeat him. So we felt especially comfortable leaning into this idea of a sword-wielding mage.

We tried a variety of clothing options as well as different shapes and sizes for the sword. Almost all of them featured the heavier armor set. A cloth and leather option were also included but upon seeing them in person the teams love for the armored version only grew stronger.

Her sword would be the evil twin of Excalibur, so it needed to be impressive and complimentary to her visual design. The armor was fine tuned to compliment this weapon, and to display her themes of magic, royalty, and battle readiness, without making her feel like a tank. Morgan Le Fay will be sporting slightly higher base HP and Physical Protections than a usual ranged mage, but will be less equipped for the solo or duo lane than the usual mages who flex into those positions.

The result felt like a queen dressed for battle, ready to face her foes head on.

After a few more iterations we arrived at the final product. It should be noted that although Morgan takes a more stoic pose in these concepts, her use of her sword includes much more movement and magic in the game. This magic blade floats behind her, as if in an invisible sheath, and is able to be summoned to her hands in the blink of an eye to aid in her spellcasting.

Morgan Le Fay is a Mage designed for the Mid Lane. She focuses on ranged damage and her kit rewards the hitting of opponents with as many different types of magic as possible. She is generally immobile, so positioning is important, although she does have a few tricks up her sleeve if enemies get close.

UNIQUE GAMEPLAY FEATURES

A magic sword that floats, or can be wielded by hand, and has multiple different empowered states: creating a weapon worthy of standing against Excalibur, as well as a unique animation set for the goddess.
A single ability that has 3 options for 3 different kinds of magic, as a note to her studying with Merlin. Her magic types are Mind, Body, and Soul
A new type of ability designed to punish gods who leap or dash, without crippling them
No leap or dash of her own, nor shielding – but the ability to self peel through multiple aggressive options (and of course lifesteal from items or some healing through a specific ability hitting enemies)
An interwoven passive involving marking opponents with various hexes, which consistently powers up Morgan.
An Ultimate ability, which scales depending on the number of enemies afflicted by these hexes.
A seemingly simple damaging ability, but one that uses a fully animated dark dragon to convey its new and uniquely shaped hit area

The time has come for the Dark Enchantress to grace the battleground with her presence. Will the gods be able to survive the onslaught of magic that is headed their way? Only those with the strongest resolve will be able to face Morgan Le Fay!

Source: https://www.smitegame.com/news/morgan-le-fay-a-closer-look/