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[Mr Crabman]

So there's a whole thing planned eventually (when "the centaur problem" gets worked out) for creatures to be able to be magically combined to make hybrids, like centaurs, chimeras, and other such things, allowing creatures to be merged into either new species that fill the world (either as part of mythgen, or afterwards by wizards), or as unique "experiments", or just more unique procgen body plans for species/beasts.

My suggestion is about an extension to this idea, which is inspired by a book from a series I was a huge fan of as a kid:



The villains on the cover, Kragos and Kildor, were a demon ram and stag (well, technically the lore said they reincarnated into different pair of species each time they were born), which could roam around individually as a "normal" ram and stag (but obviously more demonic), but at will could combine into the 2-headed form shown in the cover (which was their "true form"), and separate themselves again when they felt it useful.

So basically, as well as just being able to merge creatures to create new species, or horrific experiments, or cool procgen monsters, there should be some some cases where 2 or more individual creatures can willingly merge and unmerge themselves (by the way, for the rest of this post I will refer to combined creatures of all kinds as "chimeras").

This doesn't even necessarily have to always be different creature types like in the example; you could have for instance a coven of 10 human sorcerers who combine into a many headed, many-armed chimera at will (the rules for splitting may vary; maybe they all have to merge and unmerge at the same time, or maybe just 1 or a few can "exit" while letting the others).

Some creatures may have their true form be the combined one (as with the example I gave above), and others may be "true" individuals who can just happen to combine themselves at will using magic that is either innate to them, or is just something they learned. Another idea to consider is one where some (evil?) creature is on its own, but forcefully merges into other people/creature's bodies; in other words, while some chimeras must work together to merge/both have the magic in them (and maybe like Kragos and Kildor, maybe they can merge only with each other specifically), but some might be able to do it even if the other half has no magical abilities (they might need to get their permission to merge though, or might just be able to force it).

The version where each "soul" stays independent while merged would probably make most sense when the creature has multiple heads; if it were instead for example, a centaur-like chimera with a 100% human head, presumably the "horse" part would only have their mind working while separated, while the human half would generally be the dominant one that is "awake".

Maybe it would even retain full control/synchronization over the horse at all times even while separated? Making it less of an "independent creature" but more a spiritual extension of the human half, though this would make most sense if the centaur was the "original form", since if the horse used to be independent it probably should stay independent (but then again, maybe in some worlds they could gradually "lose their soul" to the human after spending long enough merged).

Another alternative for chimeras with only 1 head when combined, would be that while combined, their minds/personalities/memories also "merge", or you could just have a split personality thing going on where one talks in the others head and still perceives things independently. It should also be considered what should happen if the heads are also "merged", in that for example, the head takes on some (but not 100%) horselike qualities; maybe that could be a determining factor for how it works, or maybe the rules for handling souls could vary from world to world based on mythgen/magic-gen.

Of course, not all chimeric creatures could split at will obviously; after all, you want some worlds to have "normal" centaurs (though depending on the mythgen for how centaurs work, it may or may not be possible for other magic users to split them apart; maybe they are hapless victims of an evil wizard and you can break their curse and "free" them into being normal individuals), and normal chimeras who, even in spite of having multiple heads, only have one personality/soul controlling them all.

[SixOfSpades]

A sexy idea, but one that sounds like a nightmare to code. The chimera would have to keep track of which body parts came from which origin creature, so that any injured body parts leave with the correct donor.
In that same vein, would an attack that strikes a fatal blow to the vital organs of one part of the chimera always result in the death of that donor, or would it possible for the "dead" donor to rely upon the systems of its merged fellows, and perhaps heal enough to survive on its own?
I see that Kragos + Kildor has only 2 arms & 2 legs--did the others vanish upon merging? If so, where did they go? If K&K is slain while merged, will the missing limbs reappear? If Kragos, just before he merged with Kildor, was holding something in the hand that he knew was going to disappear with the merge, then would it still be in that hand once they separated? What if that arm was injured--would the injury remain, exactly as it was at the moment of merging, or would it have healed with the passage of time?
If one donor of a chimera has a syndrome, is it guaranteed to spread to the others as well? What about vampirism? What about lycanthropy? Can one donor change with the full moon, while the others do not? If so, might the were-creature attack its merged fellows?

In short, this is an interesting idea that can open a HUGE can of worms. Personally, I don't think it's worth the headaches of having to sort through all those unanswered questions, especially if it's something the player can cause/do. A far simpler kludge, that's almost as sexy, would be to have the occasional Forgotten Beast actually be multiple beings that simply act as one. For instance, a "monstrous humanoid covered in hungry heads! Beware its projectile mouths!" Its primary means of (ranged) attack is to throw its heads at people, the heads can move & attack on their own, and if not in combat they will try to return to their host body.
An even simpler workaround, that would take almost no effort at all, would be to simply make chimeras exist in Legends mode only. Even if you never see one in-game, at least you can still read about them happening around you.

[Mr Crabman]

A sexy idea, but one that sounds like a nightmare to code.

Eh, in my opinion it's not much more of a nightmare than the centaur problem in general (of combining them to begin with); the extra feature of separating the creatures again actually seems relatively easy once you figure out how to combine them, and Toady already wants to/plans to solve combining them (ie, he doesn't want to manually write centaur or griffon raw files/body plans, he wants to generate them by combining human and horse, and lion and eagle).

Sure, it also has its own challenges, but these all seem to need solving elsewhere too (for creatures with multiple souls in general, werebeasts, and shapeshifters).

The chimera would have to keep track of which body parts came from which origin creature, so that any injured body parts leave with the correct donor.

Tracking this shouldn't be too hard; producing the combined chimera to begin with (ie, solving the centaur problem) will probably necessitate creating the individual creatures first (in the generating code, not necessarily in the lore, since the mythgen might say the "combined" version came first), and so it would be possible to record which parts came from which creature, and indeed even which parts are combined from each creature (eg, maybe it only has 1 heart, but its size is taken from one of them, and immunity to acidic blood from the other).

In that same vein, would an attack that strikes a fatal blow to the vital organs of one part of the chimera always result in the death of that donor, or would it possible for the "dead" donor to rely upon the systems of its merged fellows, and perhaps heal enough to survive on its own?

I'm not 100% sure what you mean here; bodily speaking they would be one creature (though with tracking of each body part's origins, but this wouldn't affect the actual mechanics), so if you destroy the heart, both will die, and if it has 2 hearts and you destroy one, both would live (provided 1 heart is able to sustain the whole body).

The only exception I can think of here is the brain/thought center, is that what you mean? This is mostly a question I think of how souls/minds are handled, and whether the soul can remain in the body if the head is destroyed but the body remains alive, or if it can return when the head is restored.

While I'm not sure about this (so I've asked in the FotF thread to find out), it's possible Toady may be planning for ettins and hydras to have a soul/mind for each head, and I know for a fact he's said he has a currently unused "multiple souls per body" system for some future purpose or another, so I think he may need to solve this issue regardless; if you destroy the brain of one ettin head, and you use a healing spell (as opposed to a proper resurrection spell), can the original ettin come back? Will hydra's regrowing heads each have a new personality every time, or the same personality but with no memories, or just be the same?

So yeah, chances are this problem needs to be solved regardless of this suggestion. It could plausibly go either way frankly, or may even vary from world to world (or even creature to creature) depending on mythgen.

I see that Kragos + Kildor has only 2 arms & 2 legs--did the others vanish upon merging? If so, where did they go? If K&K is slain while merged, will the missing limbs reappear? If Kragos, just before he merged with Kildor, was holding something in the hand that he knew was going to disappear with the merge, then would it still be in that hand once they separated? What if that arm was injured--would the injury remain, exactly as it was at the moment of merging, or would it have healed with the passage of time?

The others pretty much vanish I suppose. Or, maybe they stay "metaphysically tied" to the arm, so each arm "represents" 2 arms (even if maybe the bodily mass of the arms themselves goes elsewhere to make the creature as a whole larger); would be the same as a mad wizard merging a man and a horse, or a lion, snake and goat, or just shapeshifting magic in general (like, if you make yourself some wings and then make them go away, what happens to the wings? Shapeshifter baggage is tricky to solve).

If slain while merged, I'd assume it would depend on the creature; there are only 2 ways it could really go, the body would almost definitely stay in one piece if their true form was the merged one, but if they were naturally separate and just using magic it would depend on the mythgenned "metaphysics" of the magic involved; perhaps the magic makes a lasting change that must actively/willfully undone (so their bodies stay merged), or maybe it has to be sustained by the casters will or "their life force" and so they just turn back to their true separate forms when they stop sustaining the magic (maybe they were cursed, and all curses undo themselves on death in this world?).

As for held items, technically Kragos and Kildor couldn't hold anything because they only have hooves (the fact that their chimera form is humanoid is a bit of artistic license I guess), but to answer your question, I'd guess either the object would just fall out of he hand as it merges into the body, or it would just stay in one of the remaining hands if that body part exists on the new body; for example, Kragos holds a goblet in his left hand, Kildor holds a goblet in his right, and when they merge, they have a goblet in each hand, even if technically both "merged arms" appearance are derived from Kragos. Of course, if both have the same hand full, one of the objects would just have to fall to the ground/be dropped.

As for arm injury, Toady has mentioned something about changing werebeasts to potentially sustain wounds between forms (so if you injure the beast form, the human/dwarf has a corresponding injury), so a similar problem arises there, and for normal shapeshifters.

Maybe the injury would somehow "carry over" to the merged form in whatever way makes sense, and heal there when they split again (because as mentioned above, the arm may be "magically associated" with the matching arms).

If one donor of a chimera has a syndrome, is it guaranteed to spread to the others as well? What about vampirism? What about lycanthropy? Can one donor change with the full moon, while the others do not? If so, might the were-creature attack its merged fellows?

This I think is also part of "the centaur problem"/merging, so it's not really a mark against this suggestion specifically (which is just about splitting); it will depend on however Toady decides to solve this problem for merging creatures. To make a guess, I'd imagine it would probably depend on how the syndrome spreads, as if it spreads through the blood, then yeah, probably would affect both, but if it's just a curse on them as a person that cannot spread, probably not.

The question of whether an individual can shapeshift in general while merged though is an interesting one, and I'd guess yes (because Toady, the madman, has mentioned wanting to solve things like "turning someone's hand into a spider", so transforming specific body parts on the chimera probably will happen). I'd guess the werebeast half would attack the other (well, if hypothetically the syndrome couldn't spread), but then the other half would quickly split off to more easily defend itself.

A far simpler kludge, that's almost as sexy, would be to have the occasional Forgotten Beast actually be multiple beings that simply act as one. For instance, a "monstrous humanoid covered in hungry heads! Beware its projectile mouths!" Its primary means of (ranged) attack is to throw its heads at people, the heads can move & attack on their own, and if not in combat they will try to return to their host body.

Funny enough, I was writing a suggestion along these lines just now actually! (not finished yet though)