This is my first mod, and it's a mod that I've been working on and off (mostly off heheh) on since late 2017. Normally I forget about it for a few months, then get inspired and implement a couple more ideas, then forget about it again. I think I've posted a couple builds on it on Tumblr, but didn't really gather the confidence to create an account and post it here. It started because I thought it'd be cool to see ents in Dwarf Fortress, and eventually sprawled into a content pack including new races, creatures, weapons, unique "magic" racial abilities, and an alchemy system that I'm still trying to get to work.
New RacesMountains of sorrow includes 7 new civilized races and a special mutated caste caste that shows up among some civilized races.
Dragonborn: Dragonborn are not a proper race, but more of a mutation present in a few civilized races. They're endowed with fire-breathing powers, and immunity to fire damage. They'll generally make up 1/500 of a race's total popualtion, with one exception which will be discussed below. Having a dragonborn dwarf in your military can be a blessing and a curse. I once watched one singlehandedly take out a forgotten beast in my mines. I also once watched one start a fire that wiped out the rest of his squad.
Ents: Ents are large humanoids evolved from trees. Just like trees, they can live for extremely extended periods of time, and while they start out small (roughly the size of a mouse), with old age they can reach really gargantuan sizes. They usually don't use any weapons or wear any armor, but have the ability to spit chunks of wood as a ranged attack. Their society can be seen as a more extremist version of elven society, they zealously protect plant-based life, but care a lot less about animals.
Drow: Deep elves. The drow build hillocks and underground fortresses like dwarves, but their culture doesn't place the same importance on craftsmanship and metalworking. They are seen as charismatic and charming but also unthrustworthy and mysterious. While they're not necessarily evil, their strange set of ethics is likely to put them in conflict with other civilized cultures. Drow have the racial power of "demoralizing gaze", which makes an enemy within eyesight take more damage from all materials for a short time, as well as "charm", which they can use to temporarily boost their social attributes.
Cactaii (singular Cactuu): Cactaii are a race of small four-armed arthropods who make their home in the desert. They're sometimes seen as prone to crime by other cultures, due to the fact that their ethics don't really find theft unacceptable (they probably wouldn't even have a concept of theft if it weren't for contact cultures). Their religious pantheons are largely based around the worship of gods related to fire. This is thought to be the source of some of their unusual characteristics: while cactaii don't have any unique racial abilities, they have an unusually high dragonborn population. They're also the only race that has access to firearms by default, and are regarded as their inventors.
Orcs: Orcs are tall, strong creatures, who would look pretty much like exceptionally big and strong humans if it weren't for the big pair of tusks coming out of their mouths. While some orcs build dark fortresses like goblins do, some have a culture a little more similar to that of human, building cities in generally temperate plains. They highly value warfare and martial prowess, and their pantheons are based on subjects that other races would find unpleasat, like death and murder. Just like drow, while they're not necessarily evil, their ethics are likely to put them in conflic with toher cultures. Orcs have the ability to enter a "berserker rage", which allowsbriefly increases their strength and makes them immune to extertion, pain, fear, and paralization, but makes them take more damage from all materials and produces a slight sense of nause once it's over.
Halflings: Halflings are small humanoid creatures who place a lot of value on friendship, family, and merrymaking. They're smaller than dwarves, and while this can put them at a disadvantage at combat, they are naturally skilled at stealth, as well as being immune to traps and naturally adept at opening locked doors, which makes them extremely good at infiltrating places. Halflings have the racial ability to "rush" away from combat, which briefly increases their movement speed, makes them immune to pain, exertion and paralyzation, and makes them take less damage from all materials, but makes them nauseous and more vulnerable to al materials once it's over.
Jotun: The jotun, or "giants", are a race of giant humanoids (roughly twice as tall as a human), with two protruding tusks that make most people speculate they might be related to orcs. They have an affinity to cold biomes like mountains, tundras and glaciers. For most of their history, they led a nomadic lifestyle, moving from place to place with the change of the seasons (expanding their territory during winter and retreating back to glacial regions during summer) and worshipping large pantheons related to different natural phenomena. While they have started to settle into a more stable society, they are still seen as largely primitive. They're less technologically advanced than other cultures (their primitive metalworking makes metal armor a rare sight within their society), they're no stagnant cavemen either. From their worship of natural forces, and as a vestige of their nomadic days, Jotun have the ability to talk to animals (it's a simple interaction that temporarily adds the [CAN_SPEAK] tag to an animal they choose. It doesn't really have any gameplay usefulness aside from roleplaying). (Also, interestingly enough, I've never seen Jotun build cities in any of the world I've generates with this mod. Most of their population seems to be contained in a couple hamlets. Idk if it's a product of the inhospitable biomes I chose as their starting sites, but I'd definitely call it a happy accident since it enhances the "nomadic up until recently" vibe I was going for with their culture)
Nekel (Singular neke): Nekel are a race of snake people who build their homes in swamp. They're seen as strange, magical an mysterious, and tend to worship deities aligned with water and the moon (along with deities with more sinister connotations like death and dusk). They have a variety of shapeshifting-based magican powers. Two of their most common transformations are a giant copperhead snake to intimidate enemies, or into a coatl (see below) to reach high places or flee from combat. They can also have the ability to transform enemies into a random vermin (interestingly... from the testing I did in the object testing arena, they never seem to decide to do this despite having the ability to, I guess their AI simply prioritizes physical attacks, but it's still something you can do in aventurer mode), and can decide to transform into a random animal (which can lead fo !FUN! situations like your neke adventurer turning into a fish and drowning before the transformation wears off). They also have the ability to teach neken magic to friendly reatures, a process which wil grant them the same powers but will initially produce intense nausea.
Mountains of Sorrow also adds a few new creatures, most of which are extinct and/or made-up megafauna that can be used as mounts/pack animals/war animals.
Ground sloth: Gigantic, bipedal variation of sloths than can found in forest and savanna biomes.
Sand snake: The name "snake" is actually a misnomer, as they're actually gigantic worms that dwell in desert biomes, which means they'll sometimes be used by cactaii.
Mammoth: Enormous, wooly version of elephants that can be found in cold biomes. As such, mammoth leather is a staple of jotun culture.
Coatl: Enormous winged snakes that have a deep connection to neken culture.
Like I said, only cactaii have access to firearms by default, however dwarves can gain access to them through some custom reactions at a metalsmith's forge (in the future I plan on creating a specially dedicated gunsmith workshop).
With an unit of wood and a bar of metal you can craft either a pistol or a musket, with muskets having a longer range but being heavier and slower to recharge. You can also craft a special type of dagger called bayonet, which can be commbined with a musket to create a bayonet musket, which is pretty much a musket that can be used as a sword as a secondary attack.
I originally intended for bullets to only be craftable through a special reaction which would require gunpowder made at an alchemist's lab, but since my alchemy system doesn't seem to be working correctly as of right now, I decided to let them be crafted as any other type of ammo.
AlchemyI created an alchemist's lab and a few custom reactions to use in it, but from the testing I've been done in game, these don't seem to do anything as of right now (the dwarves will gather the appropriate material and take them to the workshop but the reaction never seems to produce anything). The core of what I have is very blatantly inspired by LFR, but I eventually plan on taking it in a very different direction. The reactions I have coded right now are:
Perform alchemical experiment: Requires a couple non-economic stones and some fuel. It has a small chance of producing toxic gas which can give dwarves a nasty syndrome, and a bigger but still small chance of producing an object called "alchemical research paper". The core idea is that these represent alchemical knowledge you have discovered through experimentation, so the more you have the more complciated reactions you can eprform.
Turn stone into gold: Requires some alchemical research papers (which are not consumed in the process), non-economic stone, and fuel. Converts stone into a gold bar.
Make gunpowder: Requires brimstone and saltpeter and some alchemical research papers, and produces a bag of gunpowder, which is eventually supposed to be required to be used in the production of bullets.
The problem here is that, during testing, I had one of my dwarves perform the first reaction on repeat and it never seemed to produce either toxic gas or an alchemical research paper, and without any alchemical research papers I could never test the other two reactions. I'll update if I get it working. The idea is that eventually alchemy should be a complex system capable ofproducing a wide variety of potions (which would mechanically be different types of booze that give positive effects to your dwarves using the syndromes system)
Notes and future plans-Expand and fix the alchemy system
-Finish the ents. Despite being the race that started all of this, I never quite finished the idea I had for them. Most of their physiology comes from copying the anatomy of a bronze colosus and making the appopriate material replacement. My original idea was to give them hair and beards made of leaves, but I still don't have a decent enough understanding of the tisue layer system to add that.
-Give unique racial abilities to vanilla races the same way I did for races added by this mod.
-Note: while the thread title says "0.47.xx", it's wortnothing that I've been working on this mod since 0.43, and I've succesfully transferred my work over without any problems every time there's been a major update, so it's probaby safe to assume it's compaible with every 0.4x.xx version, or at least every version since 0.43.
InstallationSimply download the file linked at the bottom of this page and unzip it to your /raw/objects/ foler. Most* of the content added by this mod is contained inside its own files, so you can easily combine it with other mods without creating any conflicts.
* The only file this mod will overwrite is creature_standard.txt, however, you may choose to not do so if you have any other mod that modifies that file and don't want to overwrite it. The only disadvantage of not overwriting your creature_standard.txt file with the one provided with this mod is that dragonborn dwarves and humans won't show up, so it definitely isn't completely mandatory to enjoy this mod.
Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L700J1yM2zPNuZNFZH7Z-nAVUGBnk_Xp/view?usp=sharing
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Topic: (0.47.xx) Mountains of Sorrow - Races and miscellaneous stuff pack (Read 2976 times)