At the start of the month, we launched Training Ground, giving you the chance to train your fighter with one of our Megastars and earn Taunts, Fighting Styles, and Combos — as well as STARKADE Credits.
(If you haven’t put your fighters into training yet, you can do so via your dashboard at starkade.com)
But who are these Megastars, and what are they fighting for?
A quick introduction:
STARKADE tells the story of a world in which fighting is BIG business.
Talented fighters from every region make their way to the Legion Arena to wow crowds and earn their fortune.
But there’s a bigger prize out there. A bigger Arena.
If they’re good (and lucky), fighters could be invited to the STARKADE Arena by the mysterious, celestial Magna Prime. They’ll battle against the most powerful and spectacular fighters from this world and beyond.
And the winner will be offered a single wish that could make their dreams come true, or tip the whole of existence on its head.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be introducing each of our Megastars in turn. Maybe it’ll cause you to switch allegiances, fight for justice, or dive into the darkness like a dog bellyflopping into a swimming pool in August.
Next up: Get ready to get weird, because we’re introducing the chaos collective known as The Calamities.
The Calamities
The Calamities Legion Aeon 1/1 NFT
“We aRe nOT loST. WE are OTHER.”
TAUNT: Chaos Fire
FIGHTING STYLE: Maelstrom
COMBO: Maelstrom
WARNING: Contains spoilers for the Lost Fighters story arc, which you can read in full at discord.gg/starkade
Once, they were everyday fighters.
Headed for the Legion Arena, to master new skills, rise through the rankings, and possibly build a career as prime-time Legion stars.
And now…what?
This is what we know about the birth of The Calamities. Imprisoned in the darkness beneath The Otherdome, many Lost Fighters talked of transformations, and a serum which “affects everyone differently”.
So perhaps these tentacled horrors were the result of a warped experiment? Or perhaps these abilities were always lurking beneath the surface, waiting to manifest themselves?
Either way, they’re here now.
Fifteen armoured, terrifying beings. Capable of wielding chaos in a way that no one has seen before. Individually, and collectively.
Their first battle in The Otherdome gave us a glimpse of their potential. And it turned what we thought we knew about the world on its head.
Before this, we were told that the Legion and STARKADE Arenas were the only places where fighters could access otherworldly powers, such as the ability to command lightning. But these warped fighters were able to summon mind-melting chaos in a ramshackle fighting tent in the middle of nowhere.
Battling as a single entity, they seemed able to strengthen each other, and compensate when any one Calamity lost energy or health.
However, no one ever completely controls chaos.
We’ve seen evidence of attacks that have backfired, and spectacular events that have taken place completely unintentionally. And we’ve seen the look in a Calamity’s eyes that tells us that they fear their powers just as much as they relish them.
Each of them was once someone else, with a past and a personality. How much of that still remains? Are they a person tethered to chaos, or have they been engulfed entirely?
Are The Calamities destined to serve some greater collective purpose? Or will they each have to go on their own individual journeys to discover their place in the world?
Will they fight their final battle side-by-side? Or will their paths end with a showdown that pits them against each other?
What are their special abilities?
From what we’ve seen so far, The Calamities are able to wield their powers as individuals, and as one blended splodge of violent delirium.
When they combined their abilities in The Otherdome, they were described as a horrifying foggy mass, working together like organs in a body. They were able to act unpredictably and effectively, and could both steal and unleash powers during battle. If they’ve got enough energy, they can even set off an unstable chain-reaction of chaos that can shatter their opponent’s sanity like a cat knocking a porcelain ornament off a mantelpiece.
These powers still seem to be intact to some extent when a Calamity fights solo. But there may be a hidden cost we don’t fully understand yet. Does a single Calamity have more autonomy over what they conjure up? Or less power or control? And are the ties that bind them telekinetically ever truly severed?
How long will my entire training take?
You can train with The Calamities in five weeks, which is among the quickest Megastar training regimes.
Are we likely to be friends afterwards?
That depends. Do you think you can be friends with the wind? Or the colour purple? Or the feeling you get when you think you’ve forgotten to shut your front door, and you walk five minutes back down the road to check because you can’t get the thought out of your head?
Essentially, The Calamities are manifestations of chaos, which makes them entirely unpredictable by nature. We don’t even know if they’re friends with each other.
It all comes down to one question: Is there enough of a person left in any of them to allow them to feel friendship, loyalty, trust, hope and love? And are they even the same person long enough for that to matter?
Should I be rooting for them to win?
Remember that day where you got up late for work in a daze, accidentally squeezed toothpaste into your cereal, and forgot where your office was for long enough to really irritate the bus driver?
Well, a Calamities world would be more disorienting than that.
Imagine the most confusing existence possible. Nightmarish figures pushing through the membrane of reality. The sun curdling onto the horizon like a terrifying egg breakfast. Having a 20-minute conversation about trains with your sentient armpit hairs. The Cleveland Browns winning the Super Bowl. Twice.
It’s like having a wound in your brain that never heals, and a 24/7 slithering light show in your eyeballs.
There isn’t enough morning coffee in the world to deal with that.
Are you #TeamCalamities? Will your fighters be absorbed into chaos, and give themselves to the unpredictable vortex of weirdness?
To sign up with The Calamities — and to see the other Megastars on offer — log into your dashboard at starkade.com to sign up for Training Ground. Or browse all of our Megastars, Legion fighters and Lost Fighters in our fighter directory at starkade.com/fighters
