three suggestions, each with their own merits or faults, that now see the light of day once more. What will the new dawn bring for them? YOU decide forum! ALSO! Even if you have nothing to add to these ideas -- throw in a "+1" or "Love this or that" It helps this thread stay afloat, and show OOO that there is indeed a community interest in these things
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1: Grimalking
ok, now I know how many of you have been hurt in the past by Grimalkins, but read on.
I propose a massive Grimalkin, with a more tattered appearance, and a tarnished circlet around his ears as an alternate tier 1 boss. again, hear me out.

Phases

The chase (floors 1/2):

after entering the boss floor, the Grimalking rises from behind you, and your party needs to run, navigating through a maze like construct to get away. There would be obstacles like blocks and maybe a sparse enemy or two that would also attempt to block your way, cats of course. This chase would continue for a while until you come to a fairly large room.

The room (floor 3):

This is the actual -- technically -- boss fight. Around the room there are several light spawners scattered, as well as many unlit torches. The goal of the fight is to dodge the Grimalking's attacks while getting the light to all of the torches. Once all the torches are lit, the Grimalking will be stunned, start to shade in pink, and be vulnerable to attack. After a little while, the candles will all go out, and the Grimalking will be invincible again. After enough damage, the Grimalking will let out a screech, fade, and the boss token will drop. The Grimalking will, in this stage, melt through the floor like regular Grimalkins, just a little bit slower though to allow time to dodge. When he surfaces, he will either try to bite the knight in front of him, or fire 3 balls of darkness forward, and at 45 degree angles in front of him. He also - rarely - will let out a roar, bathing the candles in a sphere of darkness, putting them out and resetting the stage. There will be 2 bloogatos that spawn in the middle of the arena, next to the Grimalking. They are set on a spawner so that they will reappear between 20-40 seconds after defeat. The candles will be the eternal blue kind, but you will still need to throw a spark to activate them. They also will go out, but they will stay on until after the Grimalking's stunned period.

Stratum/awards

• Level 1: Darkest Keep-Perilous Penumbra

  same aesthetics as candlestick keep, only with more cats, and the Grimalking follows the group.

  Level 2; Darkest Keep- Lachrymose Labyrinth

  This is the labyrinth, a sparse few cats inhabit it, the main threat is the Grimalking, which follows you quicker, but does actually slides along the floor after the party, not popping out of the ground in this level.

  Level 3: Darkest Keep- Grimalking's Grotto

  The actual boss floor, a large, darkened room with a few stalactites and stalagmites growing around. The walls and floor are the same as Candlestick Keep, but much more broken and fractured.

• Boss medal: shadow shilling: a coin radiating an evil energy

• rewards:

  1. 10 coins: tarnished circlet: The grimalking's crown, it appears as a bronzed helmet, like the Spiral Circlet, that gives protection against shadow
  2. 8 coins:Grim blade. A short sword appearing as a blade with a banded hilt(cloth), and a jagged blade with a black streak down the center;is a fast sword with a four hit, all shadow damage, combo. The charge attack creates a Grimalkin that bites down onto all enemies in front of the wielder.
  3. 10 coins: Grimalcape: An armor colored dark bronze, with larger plated shoulders, it adds 1 to life and gives protection against shadow
  4. 12 coins:Grimalkinade. 2*, A simple purple bomb with a gaping maw etched into it. releases a purple mist that gives a chance to curse enemies hit with it along with regular damage, deals a damage bonus against beasts.

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Shadow Lair

• Aesthetic/Functionality changes:

  before boss:

  everything is shaded darker, torches are a deep red color, and there are patches of darkness that inflict small damage as long as a knight stands in them. As you go deeper, these patches become more numerous.

  At boss:

  During the chase, enemy bloogatos may spawn; along with navigating twisting passages, different blocks such as breakables and explosives dot the path, making running from the Grimalking more difficult. When in the actual fight arena against the Grimalking, the arena is larger -- causing more distance between the torches to be lit. breakable blocks dot the arena, not cutting off things, but taking away direct routes to things such as fire sparks and torches.

• Battle changes:
  the Grimalking is quicker, giving less time to dodge his fade and bite attack. The Grimalking fires 8 balls of darkness, 1 at every 45th degree, instead of three in front of him. The Grimalking will roar slightly more often - still fairly rare though - and this roar also carries a low chance of stun, as well as knocking out the lit torches. The Grimalking has a new attack: he will begin to cough and wretch, and then spew a patch of darkness on the floor - this patch of darkness inflicts low damage for as long a knight stands on it. These patches fade once the Torches are lit, and the Grimalking becomes vulnerable.

• Reward changes:

  you know me. I have no clue what the heck the rewards for shadow boss would be

EDIT: thanks Eeyup for the whole stunned and damage thing; thanks to ghret for seconding cats, talking about howlitzers, and a slight build onto how the candles will function; thanks to Kentard for coming up with the alluringly alliterative level names, also put up his Grim Blade moveset and reminded me of attacks. Thanks to Gpyro for slapping me into recognizing how inflated the reward prices were (bumped the grim blade from 15 to 8 and tarnished circlet 20 to 10 -- grimcape kept the same due to recognition of similar pricing with Snarby), he also got me to reorganize the attacks to remove the extra creature spawns(decreased but not gone, I still think 1-2 monsters fighting with the boss would be a good, easy intro to more advanced tactics later on); thanks to The-Trial for reminding me of tossing bombers a bone -- god forgive me for the terrible pun I gave it...; Rawrcake for the switch from cakes to bloos, it WOULD make the fight more interesting (also slightly decreased their spawn time, since its only 2 of them); very much thanks to Nixk for his sketch of the boss -- it looks amazing and I really do like it, better than what I could do.
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2: Sandman
EDIT (new intro): There was an old thread made by a Knight whom will not be named. This thread was the train wreck of suggestions, and pretty fun to read due to the poster's demeanor. Eventually the joke that a giant pineapple fit his criteria (or lack thereof) for a boss, I had a brainstorm and decided to get to work.

Stratum:

first floor: tundra of trance

As you enter this level, a purple powder sprays towards you, but it takes no effect and you continue this floor as normal (actuality it is inducing halucinations onto the nights). A vast frozen plane, imagine it like any part of the clockworks, imagine it like the cooling chamber, but with ice caking everything, and a blowing wind with slight snow particle affects obscuring the screen. The floor is populated by freeze enemies.

second floor: Sleepy sand dunes

An area filled with large piles of sand, through which buildings can be seen poking through. The floor itself looks like the rooftops of buildings, with wooden walkways placed up in between them. ice enemies and sleep enemies (tribal devilites! the info is in encounters!) populate this area.

third floor: the deep sleep

A dry expense of desert, there are a few shelves partly submerged in the sand drifts, with all sorts of items either on them, or near their base(you cant pick them up, they are tiny). A sand particle affect slightly obscures the screen. The setup is mainly large, open rooms, containing both freeze and shock inflicting enemies. The sand completely covers the ground, it is pale in appearance. The backdrop is also blowing sand, but behind this veil is seen rows and rows of shelves containing items of food and stuffs. *SURPRISE ENCOUNTER* at the end of this level, a miniboss appears before the elevator, in the last large room. it is a pineapple, with a hammer. it will all make sense somehow, trust me. the whole of its information is below, in the boss section.

fourth floor: the distant memory

It looks pretty much the same as the last, but now the sand is red, the enemies are flame and shock, and the imagery gets weirder the deeper you progress. the background/platforms appear to fade between different stratum. sometimes appearing more like stone and sometimes like grass. The shelves are replaced with statues of monsters that turn to follow you as you move past -- to avoid confusion, they will follow the first to pass them, once that person is out of their range they will turn to follow the next person, if multiple people are within it's range, it follows the first who entered it. The music will (heck I don't even know if most of this is possible) start to break up every now and then,*trying my best to explain* it will fade in and out, or speed up or slow down. It doesn't have to be random, it can simply be a remix of a previous song used in the last few floors, simply being effed around with to make it sound distorted.

REM: Lost Dream

This is the boss floor. It is a hallway, with the sand particle effect from the deep sleep floors in effect, and sand in piles across the floor. At the end of the hallway is a large room, pillars created to look like hourglasses, and the whole floor looks like a large matress. In the middle is a hunched figure sitting in the middle, his robe entangling him sleeping. As the nights approach, the Z's above his head dissappear, and he flies up from the floor to fight.*Sandman boss*

NOTES:

1. A sloombargo has a chance to be fought at the end of any one of the floors, except for deep sleep, when Pineapple Patriarch is already slotted to appear
2. yes, this is wierd. then again. its a sleep boss, which means dreaming. cmon, the game needs a BLAM.
3. any and all feedback appreciated, but cmon, lets keep it constructive so I can improve this if we can?

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Encounters:

1. • Name: Tribal Devilite (enemy)
   • Description: A devilite wearing a wooden mask, and carrying a wooden tube with it, purple markings adorn its green body.
   • attacks:
     1. Blow Dart:shoots a dart through its tube, causing minimum damage and a chance of sleep
     2. Doom Dart: rarely used when low on health, poison damage with chance of sleep
   • rewards: heat, maybe a capsule. that's it. cmon its just an enemy.

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2. • Name:Pineapple Patriarch (Miniboss)
   • Description: A large pineapple adorned with a gilded top(those green leafy bits are gold) with a blue hammer floating next to him, he stands about 3 times the size of the knights. Even though he appears spiked, coming into contact with him won't cause any damage. He appears tough, but his health is fair bit lower than a boss'.
   • attacks:
     1. Hammer drop: swings his hammer in a vertical loop once before bringing it down in front of him, direct contact causes medium damage as well as a chance of shock, but being within a *very* close proximity causes push back and *very* low damage.
     2. Hammer swing: Swings the hammer in front of him, blocking damage from that side, and causing medium shock damage to any knight who comes into contact with it.
     3. Pineapple rush: hops quickly from one side of the arena to the other, causing medium damage to any knight who gets caught under it, along with kickback.
   • Tokens and rewards: HAHAHA its just a mini boss. what you get are some capsules and some heat.

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3. • Name: Sandman (Boss)
   • Description: A creature about two to two-and-a-half the size of a night, it moves almost floating across the ground. A long cloak hides it from view, draping the ground around it. The cloak also extends past the creatures arms, never revealing its hands. it wears a dark red scarf wound tightly about its face, hiding it from view, and atop its head is a battered top hat.
   • attacks:
     1. sweeping dash: begins to twirl in a circle, flying across the arena and ramming into knights in its path, causing small damage and a chance to cause sleep.
     2. Powder toss: throwing its arms forward, it tosses a light purple powder a linear distance of about 5 feet in front of it, causing sleep on any knight caught in it.
     3. Sand Wave: This attack is only used when Sandman is low on hp. This attack hits for heavy damage, and has a high chance of inflicting sleep on any knight it hits. Sandman floats upward, his arms raised above his head while sand begins to swirl about. After a few seconds a wave of sand will appear from one of the four corners of the arena, moving in the opposite direction. Once the sand reaches the middle of the arena, it stops and dissipates. There will be a few seconds of pause between the sand appearing and moving, so that knights have a chance to outrun it.
   • tokens and rewards:
     • token; bag of sand: this silk bag is drawn with a thin, white string. Inside of it a pale sand reflects the light around it.

     • Rewards:

       1. 20 coins: Nap Wrapper. 5* armor, looks like the player is wrapped in bandages with the ends sticking out at some places to look like a mummy. Offers Normal, Shadow and Sleep defense.
       2. 20 coins: Dream veil.4* helmet, bandaged wrapped around the player's head and right eye with the end leading out the top right of the back of their head. Offers Normal, Shadow and Sleep defense.
       3. 15 coins: Blade of Broken Dreams.3* 3 hit combo and for charge attack a ghost like figure striking 2 hits and vanishing. w/ elemental damage.
       4. 20 coins: the book of boredom. 4*, When charged it will explode an average radius, pages with the letter Z on them will fly around in the radius and it will cause strong sleep status.

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Shadow Lair

• Aesthetic/functionality Changes

  main stratum

  the sand is a blood red color, and the music has deeper reverb and stutter from the start of the stratum. At random points during the later stratum (lets say floor 3 and beyond) The screen may randomly flash the "eye of the swarm" for a second. In the third stratum, the food that appears to be on the shelves is rotting, flies and mold are visible on them. In the fourth stratum, it switches only between the current sand dune, and flashes of the "unknown corridor".

  Miniboss: Molding Patriarch

  the Pinapple Patriarch appears rotting, and areas of its "front" appear rotted to the point of a face similar to that of when a spookat is defeated (that creepy mouth open, eyes with rings look). The hammer it carries is rusted as well.

  Boss: The Nightmare

  the cloak is tattered and torn, revealing skeletal arms, the top hat is a fedora, the face looks like a rusted knight's proto-helm. The scarf is nonexistent.

  Battle Changes:

  Miniboss: Molding Patriarch

  nothing drops from him upon defeat. All attacks and movement is quicker. One new attack: mold dispersion: the patriarch appears to squish flattish into the ground, a green mist surrounding him. This mist causes poison on any knights caught in it.

  Boss: The Nightmare

  the boss moves faster, and attacks are quicker. Chance for sleep is even higher than normal. New attack, fear: The boss looks upward, lets out a screech, which has a high chance of stun, and causes a bunch of breakable rocks fall - a knight getting hit by one of these rocks causes high damage - the rocks must be broken, and they dont disappear.

  Reward changes

  of course, dont have these.

EDIT: thank you for the support Eisnayk, that tribal devilite is in there. Thanks Canine-Vladmir for the name of the boss floor. Thanks Apsuenbwyfer for the two current reward clothes swag (I did nerf a little because I'm not sure if this guy's tier 2 or 3 yet); thanks to Zxeroadvent for the idea of shifting stratum and the name (I put these in, I think you might want to form that whole all the thrown out ideas of OOO as a boss for your OWN thread!); thanks to robodoom for the sword suggestion;
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3: Animus Tectum
Latin for hive-mind dontcha know. Right, I figure, with the swarm leaking out through the clockworks, it makes sense to make use of the core. With a little lore note from Hasturnotsayingit3timesdangyou, maybe whatever resided in the core was an energy being. Consider it the source of mist or CE if you want, but with the knights' tampering with the core, the swarm was able to slip through and start to envelop the being creating a type of cohesive master swarm unit. the Hive-Mind.

• Appearance

  A large writhing mass of darkness, with different appendages randomly emerging and dissipating back into its central mass. Every now and again the form of a creature appears surfacing, bathed in swarm, before again drowning under a black cloud.

  attacks

  • smash: A tentacle emerges from the main body, smashing a straight line across the field of battle. Dodge by simply moving out of it's path of impact.
  • Dissipate: Breaks apart its main body, transforming into a mass of the swarm, it then flies about the arena, causing impact shadow damage to any knights in its path, after about 5 to 10 seconds, it reassembles elsewhere on the field-of-battle. Dodge: move out of its path, its random, so watch out.
  • Summon: With a screech, several swarm ridden enemies disentangle themselves from the main body of the creature, and attack the knights. Dodge: you kill the enemies, which are the same as the ones you fight in the unknown passage.
  • Hide: Clouds the screen with swarm(little black squares) making it harder to see which is simply swarm and what is truly the creature. Dodge: Can't dodge, it affects the field for about a minute or so.

• Field-of-Battle
  A large, red void, laced with swarm presence (dark splotches across the screen). The only thing identifying the platform your standing on is that it is a sold red, against the lighter swirling golden orange of the rest of the core.
• Tokens/rewards
  • Token
    I need this, someone think of something dark and rhymy...
  • Reward
    1. 30 tokens: Swarmed Leviathan blade. 5*, a sword wielded by an ancient force stolen away within the core. as the swarm leaked in, their influence corrupted this once proud blade into a symbol of chaos. A three hit combo and a charge attack like a fang of vog but with shadow fire instead of regular fire, it inflicts shadow as well.
    2. 35 tokens:Swarmed suit. 5*, A vitasuit that has been possessed by the swarm -- it runs fully on their power. It appears a dark red and black vita suit, with spikes composed of sheer darkness on the shoulders, along with a vitapod containing writhing swarm on the back.
    3. 40 tokens:Swarm-born. An aesthetic to apply to armor, it gives the appearance of radiating swarm. Dark particles trail behind the armor and floating about the knight, before dissipating.

EDIT: thanks to Robodoom for the ideas for the rewards -- they truly helped complete this idea(Also, you mentioning the swarm on the armor gave me the idea for the aesthetic!)
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4.Tortodome
A leviathan of untold proportions residing within the planet. It's size unparalleled by the creatures around it, it lazily swims about the constrained waters of Aquaeon. while we're at it... a tier this thing would command would be nice as well.

Stratum Idea 1

first floor: something rhymey with beaches

Sand covers the floor, planked fences sealing the sides of the walkways. Shallow puddles of water dot the area, sometimes a starfish or other unmoving sea-life within it. shankles and scuttle-bots appear in the area, mainly electric but with some ice crossover.

second floor: behemoth's back

the area has palm trees spotted across a yellow-green stone like floor. Massive moss patches are everywhere on the ground. Lichens appear here, along with shankles and a few rare electric scuttle-bots.

third floor: Industrious Innards

The sky looks dark yellow-green, a lot like the floor from the last level. the walkways are stone, yet suspended from above by steel wires. Massive gears and pistons can be seen in the background forever moving. Lichens, and electric scuttle-bots appear in this area, along with a few rare lichens and -- this is totally optional on OOO's part. a Tortodrone mini-boss. Near the end of this level, there is a thin corridor, ending in a large circular room, with a domed structure containing a mechanical brain. a chair sits at the far edge, with hands feverishly working a control panel. the person working this massive construct is the boss.

Stratum Idea 2

first floor: Something rhymey with beaches

Sand covers the floors of this wide open space, and the sky above is a light blue. lopsided wooden fences block the sides of the walkways, instead of the usual fencing. shankles and scuttle-bots abound on this level, along with a few rare lichens. puddles with various aquatic life -- starfish, clams, not moving stuff -- dot the land. A few sparse palm trees are in the areas.

second floor: Waterfront something rhymey for the waterfront/surface of ocean

floating wooden platforms are the ground for this area. there are no railings, but posts securing the platforms to the ground appear every now and again. Every now and again, a large shell will surface from the water to break the path the knights came from, stopping them from backtracking to previous areas -- imagine this like party buttons, but without the button. the ocean has a slight waver affect, but nothing major.

third floor: something oceany... and rhymey...MAKE IT HAPPEN

unmade, but needs to be... lets do this.

final floor: Kappa's Keep

a giant shell, dotted with moss growing in clumps and palm trees. the terrain itself is the battle area! 1 room only here! *see Tortodome boss, idea 2*

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Encounters:

• 1. Tortodome, Idea 1:
  • Description: the innermost workings of the clockwork leviathan known as the Tortodome, the mechanical brain is one of the pinnacles of Gremlin engineering -- along with their mecha pilot. The mecha gremlin will defend his ship with all his power, he must be dispatched to truly destroy this machine! The mecha-gremlin appears fairly similar to other gremlins, but is totally grey-scaled, with the edges of the sheet metal that constructed him slightly visible along with the screws holding him together. He wears goggles, behind which glow red eyes.
  • attacks:
    • Mechabrain;
      1. signal alarm: a siren blares and red lights flash for a moment, and one or two scuttlebots rush to the room.
      2. piston mash: A piston distends from the ceiling onto a knight, dealing heavy damage and a medium chance of stun, a shadow alerts knights to where it will drop.
    • Mecha-Gremlin
      1. Wrench slam: a powered up version of the swing that most Gremlins use in combat -- he swings quicker, and twice, when low on hp.
      2. ballistic rockets: rises his wrist, firing off one rocket -- two when he's lower on health -- that follow knights for a few seconds before exploding.
      3. Rend controls: rushes towards the front of the arena, where the controls are, and hits all the buttons, throwing knights to either the left or right side of the arena, with a low chance of stun. Enough damage can cancel his run, stunning him for a few seconds.

• 1. Tortodome, Idea 2:

  description

  • Phase 1: The shell of the beast is massive. Trees and moss cover the beast. planks of wood, stuck within the shell, create impromptu walls, creating passageways along the back. The shell is too strong to be damaged by the knights directly... but there must be some way in...
  • Phase 2: the shell is broken, and the beast is angered. Destroy the exposed gears while avoiding the direct assault of the beast himself
  2. attacks
     • Phase 1:
       1. Summon Lichens:...this one is pretty obvious, the lichens sort of slorp up from the shell cracks and the moss around.
       2. Summon tortodrone: This is totally optional OOO, but it would be very cool. A very rare instance where a single tortodrone is raised from a shell tile -- imagine 1 part of the shell lifting away, then a raised platform identical to the shell releasing it.
     • Phase 2:
       1. Missile Macros: a couple missiles -- 2 to 5? -- appear from the sides, following the knights for about 30 seconds before exploding.
       2. Overtime: The exposed gears begin moving faster, immune to damage and doing low damage on contact. The knights will begin to be pushed towards the back of the arena during this time, which lasts about 30 seconds.

APPLIES TO BOTH TORTODRONE POSSIBILITIES
Token/ awards:

1. Tokens: Shell of the ancients

2. Rewards

   1. need tokens; need name:a heavy armor, it impairs speed but gives a large boost to defense, also gives a boost(+4) to health. it looks like a turtle shell.
   2. need tokens;tortodome protector: a jewel recovered from the tortodome. It is incredibly strong, but high grade Spiral tech has been able to sculpt it into a crude helmet. It glows with radiance. High resistance to stun and pierce, overall defense.
   3. need tokens; turtle mine: A bomb that is covered in tortodome like tiling, it causes a large explosion -- chance to stun. need aesthetic idea
   4. need tokens;Cyborg Slicer: A piece of the tortodome's flipper, the combat has left it jagged. With a handle welded on, it makes a pretty formidable sword. elemental damage with a low chance of stun.
   5. need tokens;Eye of the tortodome: A massive eye pried from the wreckage of the tortodome, it is heavily resistant to stun, as well as pierce.
   6. Trinket: ... maybe?

This recently came to me and I couldn't pass it up. It may need tweaking on the attacks, a tier for it to appear, stratum names... a bit. I have faith in this community though, and I truly think we can turn this into a beaut of an idea after a little bit. work time! and does anyone know why the spacing is wierd on this one, I couldn't find any errors in the formatting...

EDIT: Thanks to robodoom for the name of the place, and the sword idea, as well as the name of the token -- Im going to use your stratum suggestions, just with some tweaks to the naming too. thanks for the shield idea, debuffed a bit, but the health is a nice fit for the slow-you-down armor, but a heavy resistance to stun and one or two others is nice. I did use the basic helmet idea, but I saw the chance for a pun and took it... it hurt to write it; thanks to vanillateddy for the reward ideas, I couldn't think of a name but hey, its good to at least have the basics ready;

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so forums... each of these ideas is fairly well rounded, with their own merits. but a large part missing from them is the opportunity to include a shadow lair... this is something a community can change.