Introduction
I originally started making this back in late 2018 as a little gameplay mod that fixes some of the things I didn't like about Heretic. As time goes on over the past few years, it eventually evolved into a gameplay mod (albeit somewhat ambitious with the classes and RPG stuff) after several layoffs, burnouts and a few restarts later. Heretic Silverspring Fortress is an enhancement gameplay mod for Heretic, it aims to overhaul most of the gameplay with the addition of playable classes, RPG system, and some other aspects inspired from Heretic II and the rest of Hexen series. As of now, this mod is currently in W.I.P and things are subject to change.
Features
Improved-ish vanilla gameplay
New monsters with exception of the randomizer
Playable classes with some new weapons and their playstyle
Lite RPG System, leveling and magic system
Alt-fire for all weapons, tomed as well
A few new artifacts
Various additional particle effects
Classes & Weapons (Outdated ATM)
Spoiler:
That's right, Heretic Silverspring Fortress contains player classes! Albeit, inspired by Hexen and a couple of Heretic/Hexen mods. Anyway, they'll be similar to Hexen’s classes with somewhat less restrictions but still has some regardless. Each class will have their own 6-7 weapons, 2 from the start (excluding the Gauntlets which I don’t have any idea what to replace with or keep it instead). With that being said with the classes, it’s not final yet since I am looking for any suggestions/ideas or alternatives that would help and finalize it from there.
Note: The weapons are using hexen’s original and custom manas at the moment. I’ve been struggling to decide if I should use heretic’s ammo pickups including custom for other weapons than manas from Hexen. So, I'd like to know if I’m better off what I’m currently using or go back to heretic’s ammo pickups and find a way to make it function for all classes.
* = Unfinished
*** = AHHHHHHHH! Very Unfinished
Ranger
Info: Much like the base class from Heretic, Well-rounded from its balanced speed and weapons. No natural resistance and weakness. Starts out with Trident and Elven Wand.
1. Trident or a different weapon?* (Melee Weapon)
2. Elven Wand (Blue Mana)
3. Ethereal Crossbow (Blue Mana)
4. Dragon Claw (Green Mana)
5. Serpent Staff (Yellow Mana)
6. Phoenix Rod (Red Mana)
7. Raven Staff (Purple Mana)
Warrior
Info: A fighter who likes to get close and personal against his enemies. Average speed, excellent at melee and has the most health. Packs resistance to physical attacks and no weakness (yet). Starts out with Vorpal Blade and War Axe.
1. Vorpal Blade*** (Melee Weapon)
2. War Axe*** (Blue Mana)
3. Flail*** (Green Mana)
4. ? (Yellow Mana)
5. Hammer/Warhammer or ?*** (Red Mana)
6. Firemace or ?*** (Purple Mana)
Cleric
Info: A priest who are master of the healing arts, and offers utility support to his comrades. Mild average speed, Best at defensive but average at offensive. Packs a bit of resistance in general and no weakness (yet). Starts out with Mace or Short Sword and Ice Mace.
1. Mace from Hexen or Short Sword*** (Melee Weapon)
2. Ice Mace/Wand*** (Hexen II, Blue Mana)
3. ? (Blue Mana)
4. ? (Green Mana)
5. Holy Staff*** (Yellow Mana)
6. ? (Red Mana)
7. Lightbringer* (Purple Mana)
Mage
Info: A sorcerer who excels at magic from not only wands and staffs but spells as well. Slowest speed, weakest but by far the most powerful at range. Packs resistance from magic but weak against physical attacks. Starts out with Staff and Sapphire Wand.
1. Staff (Melee Weapon)
2. Sapphire Wand (Blue Mana)
3. Wand of Embers (Blue Mana)
4. Frost Fang (Green Mana)
5. Hellstaff (Yellow Mana)
6. Apotheosis* (Red Mana)
7. Bloodscourge* (Purple Mana)
Necromancer
Info: A magician who focuses on dark magic and arts of necromancy. Less slowest and weakest than the Mage, Not the most powerful at range but excellent at summoning to do his bidding and curses his enemies. Packs some resistance from magic but little less weak against physical attacks. Starts out with Sickle and Gargoyle Wand.
1. Sickle (Melee Weapon)
2. Gargoyle Wand (Blue Mana)
3. ? (Blue Mana)
4. Scepter of Souls (Green Mana)
5. Staff of Demons*** (Yellow Mana)
6. Lich Staff*** (Red Mana)
7. Blood Scepter (Purple Mana)
Rogue
Info: A thief who specializes in combat through stealth and nimble tricks. The best at movement and capable of backstabbing, traps, or other trickery that a Rogue can do. Packs resistance from poison but slight weak to physical and magic attacks.
1. ? (Melee Weapon)
2. ? (Blue Mana)
3. ? (Blue Mana)
4. ? (Green Mana)
5. ? (Yellow Mana)
6. ? (Red Mana)
7. ? (Purple Mana)
Bestiary
Spoiler:
Remember Heretic monsters? They’re sometimes easy and rather disappointing for the most part aside from some BS spamming on the highest difficulty, Black Plague. Even that, not a great idea to spam more deadlier versions of the same enemies where it gets really repetitive in the expansion (I’m talking about you, Shadows of the Serpent Riders. The expansion of Heretic). Anyway, Heretic really lacks monster variety, it goes the same with Hexen but that one is a different story. The vanilla monsters have received various changes from a range of tweaks up to overhauls with permission from The Raven's Craze for Heretic by Krazy Commando.
RPG System (Unfinished)
Spoiler:
Self explanatory with the RPG System in Heretic Silverspring Fortress, You gain experience by killing monsters and eventually level up. Leveling up allows you to increase your attributes from opening the stat menu. Not only that but each class gets their own abilities/spells from specific levels. All of that can be accessed from a RPG menu and some of the info can be shown from the HUD. At the moment, it's currently being under revision into a lite-ish version than what I came up with a while back.
Screenshots
Spoiler:
Do keep in mind that some of the screenshots are outdated and will likely get updated in the future.
Will there be any compatibility to other mods like Brutal Heretic?
Nope, this mod changes everything along with addition of the RPG system. Some companion addons could work but I haven't tested these out as much so, use it at your own risk.
Will this mod be playable in custom mapsets?
Vanilla style mapsets are playable at best. Custom mapsets that includes custom monsters, weapons, it'll require custom patches to work and that varies on if some of those are possible to do so.
Will there be a sequel to this mod?
Of course, It’s going to be Hexen! (obviously). Although, I can't say when will that happen as if I manage to wrap up with this mod someday.
Help Wanted!
Since this mod is still under W.I.P and the only person working on this, I really need assistance on 2 issues:
1. The Classes/Weapons as I really lack resources since I’m not really good at making sprites and Heretic/Hexen never get enough stuff nowadays. In other words, sprites for player classes and weapons.
2. RPG System, I severely lack knowledge on how to make RPG mechanics and I'm looking for someone who could help me out on that.
Any kind of help will be much appreciated, even outside of 2 issues that I’m currently dealing with.
Re: [WIP] Heretic Silverspring Fortress
Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2022 7:46 pm
by Conmeister
Hello Everyone!
It has been almost 2 months without any updates ever since I posted this thread back in October. To be frank, I was slowly getting burned out and decided to take some time off which you know, stuff happens. That and I was fairly busy with other things including college for a while. As of recently, I finally have some free time for now which I've been able to make a decent amount of progress with some of classes/weapons, pickups and bestiary part (half of the heretic's vanilla bestiary changes are done though). A more notable part is that I cleaned up some of the errors that I made in my thread so It looks at least better than before but, I still feel like the Bestiary section leaves something to be desired. Albeit, I'll be attempting to streamline it so only time will tell from there.
With that being said, this mod isn't dead yet. All I can really say is progress will get pretty slow sometimes especially the main 2 issues that I still have which is the reason why it's nowhere complete and ready for a release yet. I guess it's an unfortunate reality where some of this stuff aren't easy to come around with, let alone the RPG stuff as well. Then again, it's just me on that matter. Anyway, more updates are bound to come, whenever I make progress, that is.
Re: [WIP] Heretic Silverspring Fortress
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 2:35 pm
by Nihlith
That looks awesome. I might have something you're interested in. A while ago I made alternate normal death sequences for some monsters. I think it's a bit much that every time you kill a chaos serpent, golem or ophidian the damn things explode into paste even when the bare minimum of force was used. I whipped up some new death animations so that the base death animations could represent exploding the monsters with big damage. Here's a video of what I'm talking about:
They're real rough, but I've gotten quite a bit better at image manipulation since I made them. If you're interested I could clean them up a bit and put them on imgur or something.
Re: [WIP] Heretic Silverspring Fortress
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 9:56 pm
by Conmeister
Nihlith wrote: ↑Sun Jan 22, 2023 2:35 pm
That looks awesome. I might have something you're interested in. A while ago I made alternate normal death sequences for some monsters. I think it's a bit much that every time you kill a chaos serpent, golem or ophidian the damn things explode into paste even when the bare minimum of force was used. I whipped up some new death animations so that the base death animations could represent exploding the monsters with big damage. Here's a video of what I'm talking about:
They're real rough, but I've gotten quite a bit better at image manipulation since I made them. If you're interested I could clean them up a bit and put them on imgur or something.
I don't usually consider about adding alternative death sequences for some monsters but this is something that I actually wished to have for not only golems, ophidians but chaos serpents as well. Although, what about the Undead Knight's extreme death frames? I wonder if someone made those before. Besides that, I'm interested with those sequences except I hope there an alternative sprite sheets that uses Heretic/Hexen color palette than Doom's. It's just a personal preference when it comes to custom sprites that wouldn't fit Heretic/Hexen very well to me.
Re: [WIP] Heretic Silverspring Fortress
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 7:59 am
by Nihlith
I don't think the undead warrior normally has an extreme death sequence but I can see what I can do and clean up the other ones. All of the sprites end up in global color pallet because I make them in GIMP and import them into SLADE but you can change them to any games pallet you want once you import them to slade. If you do end up using them make sure you put me in the credits. What do you think about alternate death sequences for saber claws? I always thought they should bleed when they die.
Re: [WIP] Heretic Silverspring Fortress
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 11:06 pm
by Conmeister
Nihlith wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 7:59 am
I don't think the undead warrior normally has an extreme death sequence but I can see what I can do and clean up the other ones. All of the sprites end up in global color pallet because I make them in GIMP and import them into SLADE but you can change them to any games pallet you want once you import them to slade. If you do end up using them make sure you put me in the credits. What do you think about alternate death sequences for saber claws? I always thought they should bleed when they die.
That is mostly true so regardless, I still look forward with the results. Oh yeah, I did forget to mention about alternate death frames for Sabreclaws which if I have to say something about it: It looks odd when they don't explode from their original which I've been used to the original death frames but, I admit that some of them are pretty neat and I believe that has already been done before. I once considered using that for a custom variant for those alternate death frames which I don't have an answer for that, yet.
Re: [WIP] Heretic Silverspring Fortress
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2023 10:08 pm
by Nihlith
Conmeister wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 11:06 pm
That is mostly true so regardless, I still look forward with the results. Oh yeah, I did forget to mention about alternate death frames for Sabreclaws which if I have to say something about it: It looks odd when they don't explode from their original which I've been used to the original death frames but, I admit that some of them are pretty neat and I believe that has already been done before. I once considered using that for a custom variant for those alternate death frames which I don't have an answer for that, yet.
I broke out the old death sprites and saw that I made them before I started working in layers, which makes them harder to edit so I started over. I'm making progress but I've been a little more busy than I thought. I think I'm about 3 of 7 to 3 of 9 in.
As far as the extreme death for the undead warrior, there's a guy called Logi who posted a cool monster called a converted legionary on realm667. the monsters extreme death sequence involves exploding into limbs head and torso. I think you could modify his extreme death sequence without too much difficulty. The editing is a cinch too, you just cut up the original sprites.
Re: [WIP] Heretic Silverspring Fortress
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 5:05 pm
by Conmeister
It seems that I have forgot about this mod in ZDoom Fourms for 2 years despite I released v0.1 and v0.2 on the moddb page for Heretic: Silverspring Fortress few months ago. Let's dust this off with a quick update.
To put it short, I begun toning down some features that were too much, mainly the with the player classes, RPG, and magic system that I previously came up with. I will be looking for other ideas or alternatives before I move forward in future versions. As far it stands, the mod is still basic but playable with 1 class, modified vanilla bestiary, some custom monsters, and randomizer at present with options to tweak around. There are still plenty of work to do but, I'm happy with what I have as is for now.
Download links for v0.2 are available at the first post, enjoy!
