I didn't get the Queen of Thorns. "She useless," I thought, after losing a couple of games. "Who would want to play as her? Why is she even in this game?" Of course, the beauty of Demigod is that at one time or another, I've thought that about pretty much every single demigod.

After the jump, read how I learned to stop worrying and love the Queen of Thorns.

Perhaps more so than any demigod except the mammoth Rook, the Queen of Thorns stands out on the battlefield. She lives inside a giant flower carried on the backs of four beetles. There are long thorny vines waving all over the place. Plus, she's all but naked. What a way to attract attention! Erebus and Regulus can keep their heads down in a crowd, but not the Queen of Thorns. She might as well put up a big sign that says, "I'm here, shoot me!"

But the power of the Queen of Thorns is that she can summon an army unlike any other. Furthermore, she can be distinctly annoying to both enemy generals and enemy assassins.

Four of the eight demigods in the game are counted as "generals", meaning they can buy special items that let them summon a handful of units. Although they can pay to improve the quality of the units, they can never get more than two melee, two ranged, and two healing units. Considering the amount of activity in Demigod with the armies surging back and forth, this might seem like a modest force. The real advantage, of course, is that it's entirely under your control, whereas the rest of the armies march their predetermined course to the enemy citadel.

However, generals are also special for skills that will bring additional units into their personal armies. Oak and Lord Erebus can raise creatures from units killed in a battle. Sedna can summon her yetis. And the Queen of Thorns can summon Shamblers, the only summonable creatures with ranged attacks (they seem to scamper more than shamble, but Scampers just sounds so...so...undignified, and not befitting a Queen's entourage so much as the children's table at a Thanksgiving dinner). No one can amass an army based on hanging back and shooting so well as the Queen of Thorns. She can get up to four of these spikey viney branchy Shamblers, and there's a whole skill track that makes them more powerful. What's more, there's a line of skills that lets the Queen of Thorns build up a "compost" bonus to Shambler attacks based on nearby dead bodies. The Queen can even eat her Shamblers to heal up. I'm imagining this tastes like a shot of wheat grass.

But a Queen without her Shamblers is still a fearsome thing. There are two complimentary tracks on the skill tree that have nothing to do with Shamblers and everything to do with being really annoying to the other player, whether he's a general or an assassin. Generals rely on bringing bigger armies to bear. But the Queen of Thorns has a massive area of effect attack called Ground Spikes. This inflicts damage in a large radius, bigger than anything the Torch Bearer can achieve with his fire spells. Ground Spikes also strip away armor, making damaged enemies even easier to finish off. Then there is the Bramble Shield, a line of skills next to Ground Spikes. Bramble Shield is a glowing field that essentially serves as a health buffer. It has to be stripped away before any damage is applied underneath. The Queen can cast this on herself, but it's also really useful for protecting wounded allies or guys on the front line. And since it's a big glowing effect, it effectively says to other players "Are you sure you want to waste your time attacking this target when I'm just going to put a shield right back up?" In games against human players, there's a sort of deterrent effect to a well-placed Bramble Shield.

Once Bramble Shield and Ground Spikes are maxxed out, the Queen of Thorns can acquire the Goddess of Thorns title, which causes the Bramble Shield to damage nearby enemies and gives the Queen extra armor from Ground Spikes. In essence, it gives her defensive spell an offensive tweak, and her offensive spell a defensive tweak.

The Queen can alternate between two modes. In her normal mode, she hovers on tiny implausible wings above her giant flower. She is, after all, a daemon faerie, so there are special physics that apply to her and her breasts. But she can also retreat into her flower, curling up and closing herself into the bulb so she gets an armor boost and regenerates health and mana faster. From this hunkered down mode, her flower's vine attacks damage an area, hitting multiple enemies with each attack. She's also the only general with a ranged attack. Oak, Sedna, and Lord Erebus have to stand next to an enemy to attack it, putting themselves in harm's way. Not the Queen, whose vines travel underground to damage a distant target. She is remote, inaccessible, and cloistered. When played well, you cannot touch her. She's just as a Queen should be.

Up next: keep filthy beasts off the carpet
(Click here for the previous game diary.)