Hooktusk and the depth of HS character design

Submitted 2 years ago by

With the reveal of Pirate Admiral Hooktusk being one of the most flavourful cards I can think of, I thought it would be nice to step back from card power, tilt-factors and meta-relevance to focus on an aspect of the game everyone agrees is great: theme and flavour. Since Hooktusk was probably my favourite character in all of HS already (and because I have 2 weeks off work and a ton of time to kill) it felt fitting to do a deep dive on the character and appreciate all the little details the HS team put in.

All are welcome to point out what I missed, or show their own appreciation for their own HS character... in far fewer words I expect.

Her visual design (original card)

Show Spoiler

The HS-original pirates are an eccentric bunch. Skycap'n Kragg comes in flying a giant parrot, wielding a lance with a hook on the end, and cramming a few extra 'r's in the charge keyword (kicking off a trend that continues in pirate cards to this day). Then Patches the Pirate gets fired as a cannon ball onto the field, wearing more eye patches than most organisms have eyes, and originally having another eye pun in his attack voiceline. Both are perfect examples of HS whimsy done right. Indeed, Kragg's appearance in the TGT trailer was practically the original statement that HS no longer follows WoW lore closely. (The irony of course being that he was later made canon in WoW.)

Captain Hooktusk's eccentricities are a bit more subtle, and aren't defining features so much as clues to her personality. Between her portable cannon, her ridiculous belt anchor beneath a shark emblem, her obnoxiously elaborate and bright pink hair, and of course, the hooks on her tusks, we immediately know she's not interested in hiding in the shadows like most rogue characters. She's here to be noticed, with enough flair to overshadow her contemporaries in RR - which is impressive given the set's whole theme was showmanship.

She's also flexing pretty hard that she can carry a cast iron cannon with one hand while the other juggles a cannonball like its nothing. Coupled with that grin, it's a really disconcerting mix of playful and threatening. Finally, she's happy with a low cut shirt revealing cleavage. Unlike Jaina, I get the feeling Hooktusk would actually seek to exploit that feature, and if you told her to cover up she's gladly fire that cannon at you.

Luckily, RR gave us a couple of images of Hooktusk in action too. She's swinging around in Cannon Barrage and rappelling with her crew in Raiding Party. Again, there's no stealth here. It's all show and would be a joy to watch… so long as she isn't coming for you.

Her personification

Show Spoiler

When we factor in her various voicelines, she goes from an awesome deign to an instantly lovable character. Consider her entrance voiceline: “Cheatin’?! I never fight fair!” This is not some generic “For the Horde”-esque entrance. No. She’s clearly just been accused of cheating and says the “Cheatin’?!” as though insulted. Not because it isn’t true - she immediately admits she always cheats - but because she’s amazed they even needed to point it out.

Add in her Rumble Run voicelines, and we develop her cheating ways further: as the fight starts she says “I’ll fight fair. Dis time. Promise.”… She doesn't. Obviously. Her responses to her shrine dying add to her little mind games. While everyone else gets cross or worries how to proceed, she says things like "Ya think that's a good idea?", making poor Rikkar (the player's character) question whether he made a terrible mistake. Other times she'll just pass it off with "Eh. It was just a distraction anyways." Whether she actually thinks that or not is entirely unclear to us, and there's nothing more dangerous than an enemy you don't understand.

A personal favourite is when you threaten her, and she replies with "Bwa-haha. Oh… you were serious?" She's just having fun mocking you. But she knows to be serious when she needs to be. Emote her in Tamsin's chapter of the Book of Mercs and she'll reply with "Loose lips sink ships." Which demonstrates her playful demeanor is a facade hiding a mind that knows exactly what she's doing. Kind of like a more playful Jack Sparrow, which is high praise.

To top it off, her voice actress does a stellar job. Writing quotes down is one thing, but you really need to listen to them to truly appreciate them.

Updates to her visual design

Show Spoiler

New card, new promotion, and new look. Kind of. Pirate Admiral Hooktusk looks mostly the same with significantly bulkier arms. Presumably since she's been swimming a lot more lately. Admittedly the extra bulk made it more plausible she was going to be a warrior card, which would have sucked for me personally. I'm glad that didn't happen.

There are more subtle changes that are probably more important: her ponytail now ends with a shark tail like shape; and when she's underwater (see the Sunken City trailer and the minion art, but not art for the Plunder options) she has light blue stripes (likely representing gills) on her arms and a dorsal fin like shape behind her head. I suspect these are visual representations of Gral's power letting her swim fast and breathe underwater. If so, that's a pretty cool bit of character progression.

Her eyes might also have white goggle-like barriers over them underwater. That's what it looks like in the trailer, but I haven't seen a high enough resolution image of the card to tell there.

Her new card design

Show Spoiler

Her first card, Captain Hooktusk, won me a lot of games (yes, despite it being an 8-mana card in an aggessive deck), and I get the flavour: her opponent thinks she's alone for a fair fight, only to get jumped by her crew. So she's cheating thematically, but mechanically… not so much. She turned up at a time recruit was still in Standard, so it felt well within the rules of the game, and hence took me a while to work out what the flavour was.

The new Pirate Admiral Hooktusk is much clearer on the matter. Two of her options were utterly ruled out in the early days of HS, and even if a couple of similar effects have existed since, it is absolutely going to feel like cheating when it is done to you. But it's flavourful cheating. She's always stealing something. She's boarded your ship, tied up the crew, and is making off with the goods. Furthermore, they actually call back to her Treasure from Below shrine in Rumble Run, which is just so fitting here.

The art depicts this story beautifully, using the option 'cards' to go beyond the power pose of the base minion and show what happened after she burst into Faelin's ship. It didn't go well for him, Finley or Ini (I think that's the name of the female mecha gnome). Poor Ini is faced with Hooktusk pointing the cannon at her and juggling a cannonball, calling back the the original RR card and showing she actually does that outside of a photo shoot.

I don't think any other card has been able to tell the story surrounding the base artwork so well, especially not in so self-contained a way. I hope they find ways to do this sort of thing again in future. There must be so many little stories to tell this way that we'd never know if we only get single snapshots.

Misc stuff

Now we're here, it is clear Hooktusk was added to Tamsin's Book of Mercs chapter to softly re-introduce the character before she made a bigger appearance in Sunken City. However you feel about the Book of Mercs, it's neat to retroactively see the thought that went into them.

Now I've done this for Hooktusk, I feel kinda guilty for not paying more attention to a lot of cards. I'm sure there's a lot to find in them!

  • AngryShuckie's Avatar
    1705 1735 Posts Joined 06/03/2019
    Posted 2 years ago

    With the reveal of Pirate Admiral Hooktusk being one of the most flavourful cards I can think of, I thought it would be nice to step back from card power, tilt-factors and meta-relevance to focus on an aspect of the game everyone agrees is great: theme and flavour. Since Hooktusk was probably my favourite character in all of HS already (and because I have 2 weeks off work and a ton of time to kill) it felt fitting to do a deep dive on the character and appreciate all the little details the HS team put in.

    All are welcome to point out what I missed, or show their own appreciation for their own HS character... in far fewer words I expect.

    Her visual design (original card)

    Show Spoiler

    The HS-original pirates are an eccentric bunch. Skycap'n Kragg comes in flying a giant parrot, wielding a lance with a hook on the end, and cramming a few extra 'r's in the charge keyword (kicking off a trend that continues in pirate cards to this day). Then Patches the Pirate gets fired as a cannon ball onto the field, wearing more eye patches than most organisms have eyes, and originally having another eye pun in his attack voiceline. Both are perfect examples of HS whimsy done right. Indeed, Kragg's appearance in the TGT trailer was practically the original statement that HS no longer follows WoW lore closely. (The irony of course being that he was later made canon in WoW.)

    Captain Hooktusk's eccentricities are a bit more subtle, and aren't defining features so much as clues to her personality. Between her portable cannon, her ridiculous belt anchor beneath a shark emblem, her obnoxiously elaborate and bright pink hair, and of course, the hooks on her tusks, we immediately know she's not interested in hiding in the shadows like most rogue characters. She's here to be noticed, with enough flair to overshadow her contemporaries in RR - which is impressive given the set's whole theme was showmanship.

    She's also flexing pretty hard that she can carry a cast iron cannon with one hand while the other juggles a cannonball like its nothing. Coupled with that grin, it's a really disconcerting mix of playful and threatening. Finally, she's happy with a low cut shirt revealing cleavage. Unlike Jaina, I get the feeling Hooktusk would actually seek to exploit that feature, and if you told her to cover up she's gladly fire that cannon at you.

    Luckily, RR gave us a couple of images of Hooktusk in action too. She's swinging around in Cannon Barrage and rappelling with her crew in Raiding Party. Again, there's no stealth here. It's all show and would be a joy to watch… so long as she isn't coming for you.

    Her personification

    Show Spoiler

    When we factor in her various voicelines, she goes from an awesome deign to an instantly lovable character. Consider her entrance voiceline: “Cheatin’?! I never fight fair!” This is not some generic “For the Horde”-esque entrance. No. She’s clearly just been accused of cheating and says the “Cheatin’?!” as though insulted. Not because it isn’t true - she immediately admits she always cheats - but because she’s amazed they even needed to point it out.

    Add in her Rumble Run voicelines, and we develop her cheating ways further: as the fight starts she says “I’ll fight fair. Dis time. Promise.”… She doesn't. Obviously. Her responses to her shrine dying add to her little mind games. While everyone else gets cross or worries how to proceed, she says things like "Ya think that's a good idea?", making poor Rikkar (the player's character) question whether he made a terrible mistake. Other times she'll just pass it off with "Eh. It was just a distraction anyways." Whether she actually thinks that or not is entirely unclear to us, and there's nothing more dangerous than an enemy you don't understand.

    A personal favourite is when you threaten her, and she replies with "Bwa-haha. Oh… you were serious?" She's just having fun mocking you. But she knows to be serious when she needs to be. Emote her in Tamsin's chapter of the Book of Mercs and she'll reply with "Loose lips sink ships." Which demonstrates her playful demeanor is a facade hiding a mind that knows exactly what she's doing. Kind of like a more playful Jack Sparrow, which is high praise.

    To top it off, her voice actress does a stellar job. Writing quotes down is one thing, but you really need to listen to them to truly appreciate them.

    Updates to her visual design

    Show Spoiler

    New card, new promotion, and new look. Kind of. Pirate Admiral Hooktusk looks mostly the same with significantly bulkier arms. Presumably since she's been swimming a lot more lately. Admittedly the extra bulk made it more plausible she was going to be a warrior card, which would have sucked for me personally. I'm glad that didn't happen.

    There are more subtle changes that are probably more important: her ponytail now ends with a shark tail like shape; and when she's underwater (see the Sunken City trailer and the minion art, but not art for the Plunder options) she has light blue stripes (likely representing gills) on her arms and a dorsal fin like shape behind her head. I suspect these are visual representations of Gral's power letting her swim fast and breathe underwater. If so, that's a pretty cool bit of character progression.

    Her eyes might also have white goggle-like barriers over them underwater. That's what it looks like in the trailer, but I haven't seen a high enough resolution image of the card to tell there.

    Her new card design

    Show Spoiler

    Her first card, Captain Hooktusk, won me a lot of games (yes, despite it being an 8-mana card in an aggessive deck), and I get the flavour: her opponent thinks she's alone for a fair fight, only to get jumped by her crew. So she's cheating thematically, but mechanically… not so much. She turned up at a time recruit was still in Standard, so it felt well within the rules of the game, and hence took me a while to work out what the flavour was.

    The new Pirate Admiral Hooktusk is much clearer on the matter. Two of her options were utterly ruled out in the early days of HS, and even if a couple of similar effects have existed since, it is absolutely going to feel like cheating when it is done to you. But it's flavourful cheating. She's always stealing something. She's boarded your ship, tied up the crew, and is making off with the goods. Furthermore, they actually call back to her Treasure from Below shrine in Rumble Run, which is just so fitting here.

    The art depicts this story beautifully, using the option 'cards' to go beyond the power pose of the base minion and show what happened after she burst into Faelin's ship. It didn't go well for him, Finley or Ini (I think that's the name of the female mecha gnome). Poor Ini is faced with Hooktusk pointing the cannon at her and juggling a cannonball, calling back the the original RR card and showing she actually does that outside of a photo shoot.

    I don't think any other card has been able to tell the story surrounding the base artwork so well, especially not in so self-contained a way. I hope they find ways to do this sort of thing again in future. There must be so many little stories to tell this way that we'd never know if we only get single snapshots.

    Misc stuff

    Now we're here, it is clear Hooktusk was added to Tamsin's Book of Mercs chapter to softly re-introduce the character before she made a bigger appearance in Sunken City. However you feel about the Book of Mercs, it's neat to retroactively see the thought that went into them.

    Now I've done this for Hooktusk, I feel kinda guilty for not paying more attention to a lot of cards. I'm sure there's a lot to find in them!

    7
  • DragonDraena's Avatar
    640 436 Posts Joined 08/10/2021
    Posted 2 years ago

    I have no WOW background, but I'm also enjoying Hooktusk. Fun voice lines, great art. I assumed her arm decorations were tattoos (pirates would have tattoos, right?), but gill-upgrades makes sense too. 

    It's not easy to tell a story in just one piece of art, but there are a few series to enjoy, like the ranked spells from the Barrens. I particularly like the Druid one.  

    1
  • AngryShuckie's Avatar
    1705 1735 Posts Joined 06/03/2019
    Posted 2 years ago
    Quote From DragonDraena

    I have no WOW background, but I'm also enjoying Hooktusk. Fun voice lines, great art. I assumed her arm decorations were tattoos (pirates would have tattoos, right?), but gill-upgrades makes sense too. 

    It's not easy to tell a story in just one piece of art, but there are a few series to enjoy, like the ranked spells from the Barrens. I particularly like the Druid one.  

    I first assumed they were tattoos too, until I noticed the faint shark fin which definitely disappears when she's not in the water. It's a bit tricky to tell for sure whether they are consistent when in and out of the water until we have higher resolution images to look at. Take their Supplies! and Take their Gold! only really show her right arm, while Pirate Admiral Hooktusk itself only really shows the left. Take their Ship! would resolve it, if we had a high enough resolution version to be convinced the 'gills' are absent. I think they are, but the contrast between the two colours is pretty small so I'm still unsure. Either way, she's definitely got some shark magic going on.

    I also liked how the ranked spells told their own little stories. Spells generally have an easier time of it since they depict actions, while minions have to fill the frame with 1 particular character, so we usually can't see what's going on around them.

    2
  • Koetti's Avatar
    1095 863 Posts Joined 11/21/2019
    Posted 2 years ago

    Reading this reminded that Matt Dixon once posted this gif of him creating Hooktusk

    Matt Dixon Showcases The Art Process Behind Captain Hooktusk - News -  HearthPwn

    0
  • AngryShuckie's Avatar
    1705 1735 Posts Joined 06/03/2019
    Posted 2 years ago
    Quote From Koetti

    Reading this reminded that Matt Dixon once posted this gif of him creating Hooktusk

    Yeah, I've always had that gif in the back of my mind. I just had fun reading through the Reddit thread Matt discussed the design process on (https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/al4ljx/captain_hooktusk_process/).

    I haven't had any luck finding out who her voice actor is though. It's a shame HS still doesn't credit anyone other than the card artists in-game. Even artists for hero portraits go un-credited, which is so weird when they tell us for cards.

    1
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