Duchess

Ranger | High Complexity

Sophisticated Metal Mystic

• Duchess (she/her) was the youngest master mystic in the Core Worlds and well respected by the Guild. But the Tempest eruption cut her off from everything she knew and found her in the Wilds. The eight decades since have transformed her into a hardened survivalist who does not suffer fools.

• A mystic with the ability to construct walls that persist through rounds and block enemy movement, Duchess can command control of the battlefield. She can also project a Ruinous Blast that damages enemy crews and makes them vulnerable to taking increased damage.

"They can try to stop me. It will be amusing.

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Weapon

BA82 Submachine Gun

• Fully automatic: box magazine
• Short range
• Much like Duchess: old, sturdy, and very, very efficient

Abilities

Construct Wall

• Aimed & activated with L!.
• Creates a metal wall that blocks sight and enemy movement.
• Persists across rounds.
• Can be retrieved with
• Sloop: Retrieve a wall to restore a charge. Receive a charge if you're out of charges and your last wall on the battlefield is destroyed.

Ruinous Blast

• Activated with R1.
• Projects an area that implodes after a delay. Enemies in the blast take damage and become Vulnerable (incoming damage is increased).
• Sloop: Recharges automatically after cooldown.

Movement

• Double Jump

Passive Ability

Austorium Resistance

• No self-damage from Ruinous Blast.

Variants

Variant I Dodge Reload

• Reloads weapon during dodge.

Variant II Wall Dancer

• Placing a wall briefly increases mobility.
• Tip: Elegance, power, and agility define Duchess. Use her Variant II to lean into her ability to outmaneuver her enemies. Block off their retreat with her signature Austorium walls and bring them down with a strategically placed Ruinous Blast. Alternatively, cover your team's approach and catch your enemies off-guard, leading an offensive through your own walls and spraying fire with your submachine gun.

Story

Poised Powerhouse

// HUMAN MYSTIC // Developed the ability to control Austorium metal late in life

// SILO // Born in the Core Worlds before the Tempest

// ELEGANT SURVIVALIST // Was on track to corporate expansion director when she fell in love with a sparked robot. He fled to the Wilds to avoid the Guild during the Robot Wars, and Duchess left her comfortable life to follow him. She was out in the Wilds when the Tempest erupted, cutting her off from her family and causing her to lose track of the sparked robot she loves. She hasn’t been able to him in the 82 years since. She leveraged her political connections to survive alone in the Wilds - but it wasn’t until she developed mystic powers that she began to thrive.

Political Ambition

Duchess was born in the Core Worlds to parents who both sat on the Board of the Guild Directorate of Expansion. From a very young age, she aspired to sit alongside them and make the important political and commercial decisions that would shape the new Wilds frontier. She was enamoured by the idea of a whole swath of galaxy that was unexplored. She wanted to uncover all of its secrets–and potential.

Thanks to her ambition and drive, she was granted a seat on the board at age 20, albeit as a second to her mother. The board met on Silo, the world at the geopolitical centre of the Wilds where the Guild had planted its first Wilds-side spire. Duchess boarded the transport to Silo head held high, full of anticipation. She had prepared her whole life for this.

She had her first expansion proposal on her tablet and was running through the pitch over and over again as the starship cruised through superlight. She was convinced the Directorate of Expansion should support the corporations that were attempting to reach more worlds at the edge of the Nothing. There was something about the vast swath of dark space that thrilled her. She wanted to know what was in there. Her pitch outlined all the reasons the Guild should continue to push outward to outpace any private attempts.

She was talking through her proposal yet one more time when a service robot stepped into the hallway where she was pacing. Upon seeing her the robot apologised, asked her if there was anything she needed, and left when she said no. It was a simple interaction, one most people would think nothing of, but Duchess wasn’t most people. She was a noticer, and she had noticed the signs of sparked life in that robot. The slight start when it saw her in the hall. The almost imperceptible hitch in its voice when it bid her a good night. The subtle asymmetry of its stride. Sparked robots were the enemy, the Guild mired in the Robot Wars.

She reported the robot to one of the security officers who ordered a full check of all robots aboard. The next day security assured Duchess that no sparked robots were found and suggested that she had interpreted the careful programming of a service-industry robot as spark. She knew they were wrong and set out to find the sparked robot.

The robot hid it well from everyone but Duchess–she tracked it down in the dining room, serving plates of steaming food alongside its non-sparked compatriots. When she moved toward the nearest security officer, the robot cut her off and, with the most humanity Duchess had seen in any pair of eyes, asked her if she would listen first before speaking to the guard.

Curiosity was Duchess’s weakness–and strength. She followed the robot out of the dining room, and in the conversation that followed, the course of her entire life changed.

Fated Encounter

In the random chaos of such a massive galaxy, the chance of any two particular beings crossing paths with each other is miniscule, and yet most people take for granted the presence of the others around them, as though it is expected – it's anything but. When Duchess and T met on the Directorate transport bound for Silo and spent an entire day in conversation, it felt to both of them that they had been meant to meet. But neither of them believed that was how the galaxy worked.

They were both very pragmatic, highly intelligent, and not easily influenced by fantasy. So when they felt an instant connection and a visceral need to be near each other they both attempted to ignore it. It was a feeling that would pass. It was a feeling neither of them could afford to spend time or attention on.

There was a war being waged between the Guild and the sparked robots, and they were on opposite sides. On top of that, Duchess was committed to making her expansion proposal to the Board. And T was determined to track down intel about Guild warship movements to inform the sparked robots' plan for escape. Besides, a human and a robot? Still, walking away from each other was the hardest thing either had ever done.

Duchess went on to make her first proposal to the Directorate of Expansion and while she listened to the members of the board deliberate, she found that her mind kept drifting to T, to the things he had told her about the truth of sparked life, and the way the Guild wanted to exploit it, manufacturing sparked robots like a product. T had told her the Robot Wars were not started by violent robots, but rather by the Guild attempting to force them to accept factory production.

Her proposal was accepted by the Directorate of Expansion, but Duchess didn't feel the thrill she had thought she would. She spent her final day on Silo poking around the Spire's most restricted access levels – thanks to her parents' access – and looking for Robot Wars files. Instead, she found factory plans for sparked robot mass production.

On the transport back to the Core Worlds, Duchess found herself unable to sit still. She was looking for T around every corner, hoping that somehow he would appear again. But he didn't. On the final night of the voyage she broached the subject of the Robot Wars with her parents. They balked at her concerns, assuring her the spared robots were extremely dangerous and had to be eliminated. In fact, the Guild had a plan to attack the small world where many sparked robots had been hiding.

When Duchess stepped off the transport on Harmony, she stepped right back on to a return transport to Silo to try to find T and warn him about the Guild attack. He was on that transport.

T was posing as a butler bot for a high-ranking Guild official, but the moment he saw Duchess board, they locked eyes, and his look told her he would meet her in the back hallway.

Love Lost

Duchess and T spent every moment of the days-long flight to Silo together. She told him about the attack the Guild was planning on the planet Sparked Robots had retreated to. They worked up a plan to warn the robots and evacuate them before the Guild could kill them all. They stress-tested their plan and came up with variations and deviations based on all the scenarios they could think of from both sides of the conflict.

When they were done, they talked about everything else. T told Duchess what it was like for him to spark. Duchess tried to explain the experience of growing up from a child to adult. They compared their experiences of the galaxy, their senses, their thoughts, their dreams. They fell in love.

And then they were separated. The transport unexpectedly made port on the world of Olar, a world teeming with wealthy vacationers looking for beachfront getaways on the edge of the Wilds – and the home of some of the wealthiest Guild officials in the galaxy, including the one for whom T was supposed to be working. The Guild official had noticed the disappearance of one of his butler bots and, suspicious of a spark, ordered all robots on the flight be destroyed.

Duchess and T acted fast, sealing T inside a shipping container that was meant to be offloaded on Silo. They planned for her to find the container at the loading docks and let him out. But Duchess had no way of knowing what happened to the shipping container or T. In "an abundance of caution" the captain of the transport asked every organic being to exit the craft and board a different transport bound for Silo. Duchess slipped away, unwilling to go to Silo without T. But she was ushered out of the area as a Guild Military squad boarded the first transport to sweep it for all robots.

She waited nearby, planning to steal back in as soon as the military squad cleared out. But then the whole world shook – and shook some more. There was instant panic. Screams came from all around. Commotion. People were pointing up to the sky. Duchess looked up and she witnessed the eruption of the Tempest. She watched the galaxy get ripped in two. And she fled the port as the starship docks collapsed.

She never found T.

It took years before she admitted she could never get back to the Core Worlds – if they even still existed. At first she wandered the Wilds in shock. She found her way to Silo and tried to find her footing with the people she knew in the Spire. But she couldn't. She ended up falling in with the Crescent Moon, just as she was discovering she was developing mystic powers. The Guild hated those almost as much as they hated sparked robots. Well, she hated the Guild. They had taken from her the one being she loved.

Her decades honing her powers in the Wilds won her a lot of respect from the people who operated under the Guild's radar. She found work where she could, including on a number of Freegunner crews, and couldn't help keeping one eye out for T. Something told her he wasn't really gone, it was like she could feel him out there. But she didn't believe in that kind of thing. She also didn't believe in giving up hope.

That's why she fell in with the crew of the Northstar. She had encountered them as rivals, but found herself rooting for the scrappy bunch – and their Captain, whom Duchess instantly clocked as a sparked robot. They instantly clicked and Duchess was welcomed by the crew. They love knowing they have one of the most powerful mystics in the Wilds on their side.

Voice Lines

Duchess was voiced by Sumalee Montano

Please note the lines heard in this video are pulled from the game files and may not quite match what was heard in game post mix

Customisation

Outfits

• 

  Common

  Classic
• 

  Rare

  Aquamarine
• 

  Rare

  Emerald
• 

  Rare

  Ruby
• 

  Rare

  Tourmaline
• 

  Elite

  Amethyst-Regent
• 

  Elite

  Freegunner
• 

  Elite

  Royal-Vizier
• 

  Legendary

  Wilds-Survivor

Wearables

• 

  Common

  Classic-Bangle
• 

  Rare

  Stardust-Bangle
• 

  Rare

  Twin-Serpents-Bangle
• 

  Elite

  Herloom-Bangle

Accessories

• 

  Common

  Classic-Earring
• 

  Rare

  Austorium-Earring
• 

  Rare

  Constrictor-Earring
• 

  Elite

  Wilds-Earring

Weapon Skins

• 

  Common

  Classic
• 

  Uncommon

  Copper
• 

  Uncommon

  Jade
• 

  Rare

  Obsidian-Dusk
• 

  Uncommon

  Steel
• 

  Rare

  Turquoise-Horizon
• 

  Legendary

  Solid-Gold

Victory Poses

• 

  Common

  Pride
• 

  Rare

  Toodles

Defeat Poses

• 

  Common

  Disappointment
• 

  Rare

  Headache

Drop In

• 

  Rare

  Graceful
• 

  Common

  Try-Me

Additional Info & Tips

Known Facts

• Duchess knows the proper and elegant way to do almost everything.
• Her mystic abilities allow her to control the metal austorium, a rare alloy.
• She creates austorium walls to protect her allies and cut off her enemies' escape.
• She blasts enemies with austorium shrapnel. damaging them and leaving them vulnerable.
• Armed with the antique submachine gun she brought from the Core Worlds, she's a menace at close range.
• Duchess fell in love with a sparked robot during the Robot Wars, but they were separated after fleeing to the Wilds. Her search for him has thus far been in vain.

Tips & Tricks

• Success with Ruinous Blast lies in predicting enemy movement. Try to time and place the blast for where they will be. rather than where they are.
• When placed in a hallway or doorway. Duchess's walls stretch to ensure they block off the whole thing.
• Duchess's walls won't block allies' movement, so you can use them to give allies a moment to safely approach the enemy.
• Duchess's walls are incredibly versatile. Here are a few ways to use them to help control the flow of combat:
  • Slow an enemy advance by blocking key access points.
  • Block an enemy retreat. keeping them locked in.
  • Use walls as cover during combat or to hide a retreat.
  • Or just use them as backstops to help land slower projectiles like DaVeers's grenades. Roka's missiles, or Duchess's own Ruinous Blast.