Path of Exile - The Maw of Mischief Unique

Posted: 24 Sep 2020 02:18 PM PDT

Prior to Heist's launch, we revealed the Cursed Words divination card which redeems for the Maw of Mischief Unique Item. I was generously given the opportunity to design this card by one of our players and was also able to design a unique item that the card redeems for. In case you missed it, check out the Cursed Words card below!

We have so far kept the Maw of Mischief item secret but it's coming out soon so it's time to finally reveal it!

Death Wish is a channelled skill with thirteen stages that selects one of your minions per channeling stage. While channelling, the selected minions have immense Attack, Cast and Movement Speed and have the ability to pass through enemies. When the channelling is released, these minions will explode.

Each explosion deals a flat amount of fire spell damage in an area. It also deals 13% of the minion's maximum life as fire damage in the same area. The life-scaling portion of the damage does not scale with spell damage. Each explosion will deal more damage the more stages you built up.

In addition to the benefits of the skill, wearing the helmet makes your minions aggressive which means they'll target enemies from further away and find their way to enemies for maximum pay-off when the explosion occurs.

Here's a video of the Maw of Mischief in action!

When I started to think about what I wanted to design for a Divination Card, it felt very appropriate for it to have some sort of representation for what my role within the Path of Exile community has been for the last 7 years. I wanted something that spoke about the relationship I have with the community and tied to various elements related to that.

Initially, as many of you speculated, I wanted to create an item that was mostly a joke that did mysterious things that would cause players to scratch their heads. We discussed various things like creating an 'Orb of Confusion' as a throwback to one of our past Halloween Boards. We talked about the possibility of adding it into the map device alongside maps and it spitting out patch notes that were both real and fake.

Ultimately, we worried about unfairness to other Divination Card creators who wouldn't have the same opportunity to create such things as well as the novelty wearing off after a while. Also, most players play the game without interacting with the forums or other community areas and would likely not be 'in' on the joke and simply find it strange.

I returned to the drawing board of creating something more serious. After thinking about it for some time, I realised I wanted to theme both the card and unique item around the feeling of anticipation. As a community manager, a lot of what you're working with boils down to managing people waiting - either with excitement or sometimes with a sense of dread (in the case of fixes or nerfs). This manifests both as teasing new content and communicating fixes and potential balance changes. Two sides of the same mindstate - anticipation.

We nailed down the basic function of the unique item first. I wanted to create something that works with allies, essentially groups of people as a representation of the community. I also wanted something that included a sense of anticipation which resulted in the channelling function creating a delay and then a payoff. I also wanted something that generated explosions because explosions are neat.

In terms of name and flavour, we were working from the idea of words having the ability to bring both joy and despair. I feel that the flavour summarises this perfectly.

The line that divides hope and fear,
Life and death, crowd and mob
Is as thin as a whisper.

It refers to both the power of words and the place that community managers occupy in the scheme of things. 'The line that divides' talks about the space between these two worlds of the community and the development team. 'As thin as a whisper' brings it back to being about communication. We followed a similar train of thought in naming the skill, 'Death Wish' as a sort of play on words about whispers that cause people to frenzy in anticipation, in this case culminating in deadly explosions.

The 'Maw of Mischief' name sort of came about quite naturally in talking about my role as a speaker. It's a bit obvious really - words come from the mouth and they're sort of cheeky sometimes. I also liked that the idea of a 'maw' sort of inherently called for creepy art for the helmet's look which was something I was hoping for.

After nailing down much of the unique item, the Divination Card came about sort of easily. While I wanted the unique item to stand alone as a contribution separate to my identity, I felt I could have a little fun with the Divination Card. We stuck with the theme of anticipation and words. The anticipation coming from the card being the only way to gain the unique item and the pursuit of its hidden meanings.

I chose the number 13 for the channelled stages and divination card stack size because it is a sp00ky number and because I joined GGG in 2013.

'Cursed Words' is sort of a cheeky play on 'curse-words' as well as referring to the words you might speak to cause someone to pursue their hidden meaning, perhaps for fun or perhaps to their detriment. I chose the art because it was a wonderful opportunity to put my own personal stamp on Path of Exile, it happened to work well with the themes of the card and item and being in line with the style Divination Card art is usually done in. Plus for many of you, it is instantly recognisable.

I feel incredibly humbled to have been given this opportunity to contribute to Path of Exile in this way. Working with the Grinding Gear Games team and alongside the Path of Exile community for so many years has brought so much joy to my life and created amazing memories that I'll hold onto forever. Being able to create the Maw of Mischief puts this time into the legacy of Path of Exile and I'm beyond grateful for that. As my role in the company continues to mature over time, I am sure I'll always look back on this period with fond memories.

I wanted to say a special thank you to James and Nick for helping me work my ideas into these formats as well as to Aneruok for gifting me the Divination Card design. I also want to thank you, the community, for joining me in so many wonderful moments and for supporting Path of Exile so that we can continue to create these moments. I hope you enjoy the unique!

Thank you.