Tiamat: A Closer Look

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By: TitanAjax | 2021/2/2

WHO IS TIAMAT?

One of the oldest mythologies in the entire world describes the creation of this mortal realm we know of. The stone tablets of Babylon describe the very beginning of it all – there was only chaos.

Until Tiamat arrived. She destroyed the chaos, and filled the cosmic void with the water of the salt sea. From her came everything, including the first gods, who quickly rose against her in defiance. From her anger she spawned a variety of monsters to fight back against the betraying gods.

Now Tiamat joins the gods of SMITE to once again wage war with any deity that might stand against her.

OUR VISION

Tiamat is described as a woman, a mother, a goddess, but with the appearance of a dragon or sea serpent. This has led her to have quite an array of visual interpretations. We specifically wanted to focus on her monstrous form, and we set out to make a divinely unique creature for our first Babylonian goddess.

Themes

Theme – Creation – Tiamat birthed the gods, monsters, even the planet itself. She is a primordial force of creation. She can use this power to destroy, undo, or unmake anything in the universe.
Visuals – Monstrous yet Elegant – A dragon, but also so much more. Tiamat has influence from a variety of aquatic creatures within her visual design, as well as the jewelry of Babylonian royalty.
Personality – Conflicted – Tiamat is a primordial beast. She is primal, and fueled by instinct. However, she strives so hard to be calm and collected. As much as she yearns to be the political mastermind, she is bound to show her true self eventually.
Perspective – A Savior? – When things looked their darkest, this new goddess arrived to bring back light to the Earth. The gods are grateful to her… for now.

The Goddess of the Salt Sea arrives in the SMITE universe on the brink of destruction. Cthulhu, the great dreamer, has slowly rotted the minds of even the most powerful gods. Losing followers in droves, the desperate gods turn to fighting among themselves, causing widespread chaos. Amaterasu, and thus the sun itself, has fallen. Zeus and Olorun struggle to hold the world together and push back against Cthulhu in any way, but they have ultimately failed.

When Tiamat awakes she recreates the world to fit her desires. She banishes Cthulhu back to the depths from which he came. She restores the gods to their former glory. She wants them to trust her. Trust is the first step to worship, and she intends to have all gods soon bowing down to her supreme rule. Will the gods of SMITE accept this paradise she has created? Or will they foolishly rise against her like the gods of the old days did?

ARTISTIC PROCESS

Designing Tiamat’s visuals brought many unique challenges. We knew we wanted a generally reptilian start, but there were a lot of additional decisions to make beyond that.

We experimented a lot – adding a variety of symbolic and thematic visuals. In these iterations you can see – Energy symbols inspired by Cuneiform, mammalian features like fur, as well as aquatic features like fins, and tendrils.

Tiamat was planned to include all of these, so nothing was specifically added or cut, but instead a lot of work went into exactly how we would feature them.

We experimented with a variety of body shape details as well as different ways of representing the wide array of animal features. We focused more toward a presentation that felt wise and enlightened. This would provide a strong contrast for when she unleashes her rage.

Tiamat does not destroy things, she undoes them. Where other dragons would leave ash in their wake, Tiamat instead leaves an alternate reality, a world where the target of her ire never existed at all. This combination of beast and elegance comes together in the final art concept for Tiamat, a visual representation we are quite excited to provide for such a legendary goddess.

Perhaps the most difficult of them all was the posture. Tiamat should be designed to be a primordial and beastly force, yet she also needed to carry herself with enough grace and poise to meet our goals.

GAMEPLAY

The design team had been hard at work on her kit before this concept phase had started, and had planned for her to be a stance changer. We always aim for story, theme, visuals, and gameplay to align – and for Tiamat we focused all of these around her conflicted personality.

Tiamat will have 2 stances – based around herFlying and Ground postures. Her Flying Stance will be elevated and elegant, while the Ground Stance will be her on all fours, raging and roaring. Her conflicted personality will be literally translated to her kit – by allowing her to show both sides of herself in gameplay.

Tiamat is a flexible Mage. Likely playable in the Mid lane but potentially flexing in Jungle or Solo. When in Flying Stance Tiamat will focus more on long range magical damage. When in Ground Stance her passive will pivot to provide her with stacks of a buff that provides damage mitigation, and her abilities become closer range.

Unique Gameplay Features

A Unique scale and shape, larger than most gods but not as large as Jormungandr and Cthulhu
A completely new type of stance switching tied to movement abilities
A Hybrid class that can be a DPS mage or a battlemage
The ability to choose between 3 unique pets to spawn within a single ability
The ability to duplicate jungle buff drops, gaining one herself but still leaving one on the ground for allies to pick up
A unique line attack that charges up firing more rapid fire shots based on the charge

The Mother of Monsters, The Goddess of the Salt Sea, Tiamat, the first Babylonian Goddess will be ruling over the battleground of the gods this February. Will you serve graciously or will you rise up to dethrone her?