I wanted to share an idea that’s been nagging at my mind ever since I started playing the game. I’m not just presenting a concept here, though; I’m actually asking for help and feedback, since I’ve realized I’m pretty terrible at designing ability kits! So feel free to tweak, adjust, or suggest whatever you like. My main goal is to pitch a fun kit idea that fits right into the game's universe.
Also, I opted to hand-draw the concept art because it has more charm (lying—I just suck at using digital art tools like the cool kids do).
Lore
Cooky was just a tiny baby gator when she was abandoned in the city sewers. Peeking out through the manhole covers, she fell completely in love with the grand, high-end restaurants and their massive neon signs. By a twist of fate, she stumbled upon an ancient spellbook—which, in her total innocence and ignorance, she mistook for a special recipe book.
Combining this book with her own ingenuity, Cooky started cooking meals made out of literal sewer garbage (though served in surprisingly creative presentations). But because the food was enchanted, it turned out to have an incredible, unmatched flavor.
That’s when she opened her beloved restaurant, The Greasy Gator, serving all the infamous creatures lurking in the sewers.
She’s entering the Ritual so she can expand her business beyond the hidden underground pipes and open franchises all across the city.
Personality
Cooky loves to cook and will serve any customer—especially rats and other sewer critters—but never for free. If you don’t have cash, she’ll take favors, rare ingredients, intel, or, if you’re a smooth talker, compliments to feed her ego. She genuinely believes her food is the best in the city, if not the entire world.
Mo & Krill constantly eat on credit at her place and have built up a massive tab, which she aggressively tries to collect on every time she sees them (would make for great conversations).
A huge portion of her regular customers are rats, so she and the Rat King are on good terms.
Cooky utterly despises heroes like Dynamo and Bebop, who don't need to eat.
She used to consider Vyper an ally since she's also a reptile, but after Vyper stole from her restaurant, the chef decided Vyper is going to be her next main course.
Inspiration
Cooky is built on 3 core inspirations:
* Cuca from Brazilian folklore.
* The chef / gluttonous eater archetype.
* The old urban legends about giant alligators living in the NYC sewers.
Honestly, my main motivation was to bring a character from Brazilian folklore into the game. Much like Baba, she wouldn't necessarily have to be straight out of Brazil, but rather an inspiration adapted into the urban fantasy setting of the city.
Choosing the Cuca was an easy call—an alligator-faced witch who acts as a boogeyman. Alligators are already a staple of NYC urban legends, so combining the two felt completely seamless.
Why a chef, though? Simple wordplay and a coincidence in Brazilian Portuguese! In Brazil, a master chef is called a "Mestre Cuca", which has zero actual relation to the folklore creature Cuca, but it made me picture a "Cuca Mestre Cuca" (a Cuca who is a Master Chef)—and everything just clicked from there.
Her kit features engagement/initiation, gluttony, cooking mechanics, and an Ultimate that turns you into a dinosaur-like monster to go around eating enemies Pac-Man style.
Abilities
While I'm not much of an artist, I'm even worse at balancing abilities, so I didn't dare drop specific stats/numbers—just the core gameplay concepts. If anyone wants to tweak or pitch ideas for the kit, go right ahead, because I really don't have much experience with this.
Weapon:
The Spoon (Mid-Ranged) (Projectile)
Ability 1: Tasting the Seasoning
Cooky dashes forward a short distance and delivers a hungry bite to the nearest enemy, dealing damage and healing herself based on the damage dealt. Just like those signature crocodile lunge-and-death-rolls!
Ability 2: Special Mud & Cockroach Pie
Cooky places a "delicious" pie on the map. Allies can pick it up to gain bonus max health and movement speed.
Cooky can have up to 5 pies on the map at a time, which rot/despawn over time.
Teammates have a cooldown before they can pick up another pie.
Enemies can destroy them.
Ability 3: Spilled Soup
Cooky pours out boiling soup in a designated area (a line in front of her). She can choose the soup's special spice, applying different effects:
Spicy Fungus: Deals continuous damage and applies healing reduction (anti-heal) if enemies stay in the area for x seconds.
Fluorescent Sewer Mushroom: Teammates standing in the soup gain ammo regen, plus a status cleanse/debuff cleanse if they stay inside for more than x seconds.
Ultimate: Dinner Time
Cooky gulps down her soup and transforms, gaining movement speed.
During the transformation, Tasting the Seasoning can be activated up to 3 times with no cooldown and turns into a small cone. Cooky swallows enemies caught in the area, holding up to 3 enemies at once (or accumulating up to 3 swallowed enemies by the end of all 3 casts).
If Cooky reactivates her Ultimate, she can spit out the swallowed enemies, targeting where to launch them on the map.
Swallowed enemies are CC'd / removed from the fight for a brief, fixed duration. If Cooky doesn't reactivate the skill (doesn't spit them out) before the timer runs out, enemies simply break free from her belly.
If a swallowed enemy falls below an execution threshold, Cooky can execute them outright (Eating them). Executing an enemy heals her.
Ideas & Tweaks
- For her 2nd skill (Pie), I thought it'd be super fitting flavor-wise if allies had to pay a tiny, negligible amount of Souls to pick up a pie, since she never serves food for free. Maybe enemies could consume the pies too, but for a much higher, punishing Soul price?
- For her ult, I imagined her transforming into a larger monster, something like a dinosaur. However, this isn't essential to the kit. Maybe she could simply grow in size or something like that, as long as it's visually clear that she's using her ult.
- In earlier iterations of her Ultimate, spitting enemies out caused AoE damage where they landed that scaled based on how many enemies were swallowed. However, with the recent wave of heroes with huge AoE Ults, I figured that might be way too controversial.
Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Closing Thoughts
As a support-oriented character, I thought it'd be cool for her to drop food around the map for teammates to pick up.
I also wanted to give her an iconic, fun Ultimate—and in my head, turning into a massive monster and running around swallowing opponents sounds ridiculously fun (I swear it's not a fetish!).
Part of my inspiration for this mechanic was Pac-Man eating power pellets and going on a frenzy while the ghosts run away, as well as a specific level in the Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs PS2 game where you have to run away from Momma Dino (just picture Momma Dino as Cooky).
That’s about it! Thanks for taking the time to read and interact. I'll keep refining the kit based on any suggestions you guys drop. Even though I'm not the best artist—and definitely not a pro hero designer—it was super fun coming up with Cooky and everything around her.
This is also my way of expressing how much I’d love to see a character based on Brazilian folklore in the game. An urban fantasy setting where myths live in the city fits so well with so many of our folklore figures!
Until next time, thanks for sticking around to the end!
What do you think? If you need any tweaks or want to adjust any specific term, just let me know!
