Tundralisk Coat+Mask art. Sketches to get the ideas across, nothing too special.

3* chromalisk --> 4* Tundralisk Coat --> 5*: 3 different, interchangeable forms: Lasting Night, Brief Day, Glorious Aurora. (Sound familiar? See Polar Wolf costumes). Wait, what's that?
That's right, form changes.

==Lore==========================================================================================

Chromalisks are special beasty creatures who adapt to their environments. Most notably, they can change their skin to camouflage themselves. Until now, Spiral HQ has not been able to replicate this amazing ability (see the Deadly Virulisk Suit description on wiki).

Tundralisks are reclusive, rare critters who live in hostile, freezing environments. Their thick hides protect them from the eternal cold of their habitats. Because their hides are so thick, the suits made from the tundralisk retain some of this...changing ability. It is not lost.

But we can only get this ability from the most ancient of tundralisk skins, shed from a time lost to the swirling snows of the icy clockworks. These Tundralisks had tusks...and horns...and deep, cold tempers...but we don't see them around anymore. Perhaps they are all sleeping beneath the ice, waiting... (This whole paragraph is my own lore, just so I can stick horns and jaw tusks on the helmet art, lol). Actual Tundralisk monsters in-game don't have those.

==Item Lore======================================================================================
4* "Tundralisk" coat/mask:
So many of the reptiles are cold-blooded. HA! None of them know it as we do.

Lasting Night Tundralisk Coat/Mask:
The night of the polar regions seems everlasting. Only those who are of the dark can survive this ruthless cold, this unending freeze, this epoch of silence, in which you can only hear the wind as it caresses the still forms of the forever slumbering.

Brief Day Tundralisk Coat/Mask:

The sun has risen. Now is the time to act, before it leaves us in the night once more. Such is the cycle of the polar regions. Strike! Feast! Gather strength for the endless dark!

Glorious Aurora Tundralisk Coat/Mask:
This light in the darkness...strange beauty defies the nothingness of the deep freeze. The epitome of change, the symbol of hope, we bathe in this glorious light before we sleep.

==Art Notes======================================================================================

Tundralisk Suit+Mask sketches: From left to right: Night, Day, Aurora.

NOTE: ALL of these are the same color theme behavior+shade range as the "polar" items, so things can match up, except the Aurora and 4* forms (4* isn't in the pic, it's not needed really), which matches the Tundralisk chromalisk skin more so than it does polar...might be a unique shade, not sure.

No brown belt pack (that package on the left of the waist area). I really really don't like that thing, so I left it out. These are just sketches, so here are some more details:

Actual tundralisks in-game don't have jaw tusks or horns, I just added those in because I wanted to.

Anyway, more accurate stuff:
The helm is far more beak-like than the other salamander helms. This is because the Tundralisk monster has a beak-like mouth. These beaks help wearers of the helms break through tough ice barriers (which are so cold that fire flees from them), enabling access to potential nutrients - such as an unfortunately frozen slime.

Feathers and fur bear a close resemblance to the coats of tundralisks in-game.

Notes on claws:
all the claws have a sheen. The white claws have a bit of a twinkle on them, like the tip of a final flourish. Yikes!
The black claws have a sheen, but they do not twinkle. Ninjas and twinkling don't go together if you're trying to be sneaky. The sheen cannot be helped, because they are constantly coated in a thin layer of ice slick.

The aurora claws glow like the arcane and constantly shift from greenish/bluish hues to pinkish/yellowish hues, randomly, like the Aurora Borealis. Same with the fur and swirl decals, but less vibrant, and less frequent. It's a lizard changing its skin to "camoflauge" in an almost religious manner with the Polar Twilight.

The 4* tundralisk claws are clear, like unpolluted ice.

The back of these helms are very much like the Equinox galacitc guardian and celestial nav helms, but they are tinted appropriately and have less of a cosmic-like look. The Night helm seems like a portal to the polar night sky. The day helm is more like a 4* quicksilver helm face than equinox. The aurora is almost exactly like equinox. The 4* is clear like the claws, which might look kinda weird (cause you can see the "brain" haha, well, it's actually that spandexy or whatever material that outlines the inside of gear).

The tails on these are much larger, and extend a bit lower and curve back up than other sala suits.

Every hinged crack and gap in this armor has bits of tundralisk-style fur sticking out. This is better seen in my sketches than it is in the main colored images of the sets, IMO.

Spikes (such as those on the tail, and the hand guards) and tusk teeth as well as toes follow the behavior of the claws, but are less intense.
The only prismatic part of these pieces are the eyes.

I would even move to have the eyes not show up at all inside the mouth, but that would look more creepy than cool, probably.
More snowy decals on the front cloth, for sure. But nothing too showy or pretty...cold Swirls and flakes...Dark Blizzards, not Winter Wonderland.

What else...oh yeah, switching between forms just sorta blips into them, like you've put on a vog coat over your skolver coat, nothing special. Normal behavior there.

These armors are very "tall" by default, taller than other salamander suits.

==Mechanics=====================================================================================

The crafting recipes for the 5* forms differ only slightly by one material. You set the baseline form (what it appears as in Haven, Terminals, Subtowns, Lobbies, etc.) depending on which you choose to craft.

Night: everfrost. Day: sunsilver. Aurora: Silverweave (there are fabric bits on the suit).

Your 5* tundralisk coat and mask will change between three forms, depending on the environment you've got the coat equipped in. The items will change form if it's equipped as armor or if it's equipped as a costume. They'll reset to the form you crafted them as when you get out of combat levels.

-If there's a light bulb in the level: Day form (aurora isles, many wolver dens, etc).
-If there's a night sky in the level: Night Form (fiend cities, lichen lairs, etc).
-If there's a weather effect like rain in the level: Aurora (overides bulb).
-Freeze/Poison Stratum: Night.
-Fire, Shock: Aurora.
-Any other: Day. The items "want" to be day the most, as that's the time of opportunities. But this form is incredibly weak compared to the other two, defenses wise.

The only way to control form changes external to the environment is with relevant trinkets - one for the helm, and one for the body. These lock the form in to one of the three, making it ignore the environmental pressures. Which means you can have night on with aurora, which would never happen naturally in the clockworks. See below section: == Related Items ==

==Form Stats=====================================================================================

But Dracora! Some of these boosts aren't UVs! Me: neither is MSI or general, uniform dmg bonus, but things have those. Black Kat Cowl has both, actually!

=== Night ====

Shadow/Piercing. Status resit: Freeze, Curse. (Pretty much an ever so slightly different Radiant Silvermail, BUT WITH A HELM).
Curse+Shadow resistance: Inspired by the White Walkers in "Game of Thrones."
Defenses: moderate.

Inherent Boosts:
JUST the mask has: CTR boost (for any weapon) low.
Both suit and mask have:
DMG bonus vs. ALL ICE TYPE MONSTERS (inclusive of all monster "types" grems/construct/beasts/slimes/fiends/undead): low.
Reasoning: CTR: the night has plenty of time to wait. We're already ready.
Reasoning: ICE type boost: nothing knows the polar habitat like one who is cold-blooded and survives. All secrets of survival are known to such a creature.

Penalty: this suit takes a lot of flak from Fire.

Would Use In: Heart of Ice prestige mission.

=== Day ===

Pure piercing. Some minor freeze resist due to its nature.
Defenses: completely shoddy.

Inherent Boosts:
Just the helm has: MSI MED.
Both suit and mask have:
DMG bonus vs. ALL ICE TYPE MONSTERS (inclusive of all monster "types" grems/construct/beasts/slimes/fiends/undead/typeless): MED.
Reasoning: MSI: the day doesn't last long. Move quickly. Scavenge.
Reasoning: ICE type boost: nothing knows the polar habitat like one who is cold-blooded and survives. All secrets of survival are known to such a creature. The desperation of the Day-form, trying to take advantage of the short time it has to forage and hunt, makes it have a larger boost of this kind than any other tundralisk form.

Penalty:
Stun and Poison low for both pieces. The hunger of this form makes it eat anything it finds, but not everything is edible. Stomache aches are common due to food poisoning.

=== Aurora ===
Piercing/Elemental. Status: Freeze, Shock resist.
Defenses: extremely bulky, similar to plate.
boost: none, except that it doesn't have the speed penalty of plate, because this is a meditative form, full of focus and power that can be channeled anywhere as needed.
It's a sort of combination of plate and magic, applied to the polar regions.
penalty: none. just a solid set of items.

== Related Items ==================================================================================

Trinkets:
Heart of Night, Thought of Night
Heart of Day, Thought of Day
Heart of Aurora, Thought of Aurora

For suit/mask, respectively. These trinkets lock the form in. So, you sacrifice trinket slots for a loadout that is very scenario-specific, combining offenses and defenses into a single item (helm or armor) instead of across two trinkets (say, a ctr and dmg boost for a single weapon type). You can also have a Day mask with a Night body, which never happens naturally in the clockworks.

To make these trinkets less of a "scenario use", "otherwise useless" item to players with no interest in lizards, they could have some low stat boosts, sub-par to things such as the Hearthstone pendants, but duo, to make them interesting, like the Grand Solstice ring.

Trinkets are 5* only, since only the 5* tundralisks form change.

== More Thoughts =================================================================================

Yes, it is too much fun making powerful items. I'm thinking more about lore than I am about how these stats might affect minor parts of the game such as lockdown - so please don't dwell on those. The stats are completely arbitary and only feed into the potential lore of the items.

These are very similar, and were actually inspired by, the Polar Wolf sets. I don't care if this idea gets put into play as actual gear or costumes, I just want a lizard suit with white claws, clear claws, and black claws, really.

Tundralisks need more love.

Perhaps I'll put some thought into an electrolisk suit, but lore for those isn't as intense to write as it is for something like...a night that lasts months and has freezing weather the whole time. Needs something...more...cloudy...thunderstormy...and robotic as well...hmm.

== TL;DR ====================================================================================

New chromalisk suits that offer decent piercing/shadow/freeze resistances.
New inherent bonus type: DMG increase vs. a STATUS TYPE, not a MONSTER TYPE. In this case, ice.
New behavior of special items: Form Changes (inspired by the ability of chameleons, chromalisks, etc. to change the color of their skin).