The insanity that has ensued since my initial post is quite pleasing. Though most of it is probably beyond the scope of what I can achieve without the help of someone who knows what they're doing.
Splint - pretty sure I read that catapults and their ammo are hard coded so sadly corpse throwers are not a possibility, but the rest of your insane suggestion is appreciated.
Whilst carrying out the tedious physical labour which is currently keeping me in frapaccinos my mind is free to wander, and today I narrowed down my current scope to 3 items.
1. NRDL's syndrome pet using Hugo's code.
2. Butchering sentients. Considering what we know about butchering, I'm thinking of making dwarves, elves and humans into animal types which roam about the map like regular wild animals. These could be classed as wild, feral and savage and exist in good, neutral and evil biomes respectively. I'm assuming this could be achieved by pasting the various sentient characteristics into the animal template.
3. I was thinking a system for arbitrary torture and execution could be modded in using the punishment system. I assume a dwarf gets tagged when it commits a crime, so maybe there is a way to add that tag manually to dwarves and pets using a menu or something. I'm thinking there would be a dungeon full of miserable creatures which are either killed or maimed by a hammerer type. It would be good to mod in other weapons for really sadistic torture, small blades which do very little damage etc. Probably way beyond my skill level but if someone can give me some advice on this it would be appreciated.
Other ideas I'd like to explore are:
- Diabolical nobles (think Vlad the Impaler) which order arbitrary executions and torturing. Ideally these nobles would make the torture system described above completely automated.
- Evil/insane doctors - "Well if it isn't my old friend Mr. McGregg — with a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg"
Advice on the feasibility of all these ideas is needed.
Keep the ideas coming people!