Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Norwegian Chris]

So there is a lot of speculation going on, with the recent announcement of vampires being added and all, but most of what I've seen has been related to the way the vampire ¨infection¨ spreads and how single vampires relate to their non-vampiric counterparts. Let's skip all that and say your entire fortress has been turned into vampires, how would this work? There are a lot of things like relation to sun light, how to maintain a steady supply of blood, etc. etc. and I will try to underline some of my ideas below and would like to see what you guys can come up with as well, so here goes:

1. Acquiring blood
Let's assume that vampires will not be able to feed of off neither each, how will you keep your fortress running without ¨starving¨. It's simple really; prisoners. There could be a system in which you assign sapient prisoners to areas much like the Pen/Pasture option we already have after which you could go ahead and ¨farm¨ them with a new labor which could be called ¨Drain Blood¨. In order to restrain them, you would deliberately keep them weak by periodically draining them, which would make them physically incabable of resistance. Sure, you could of just assign them to cages/chains, but that wouldn't be very fun.

Then there is the aspect of blood quality. One would assume that goblin blood would be very appealing to Dwarven Vampires and what will most likely spark thoughts of ¨Urist McVampireface has drunk some legendary blood lately¨ would be from other Dwarves. This would work the same for vampires of other races; elves prefer elven blood, humans prefer human blood, etc. Of course there would be some blood that would be more sought after than this, such as maybe Unicorn blood (Voldemort anyone?) but this would probably be left to individual tastes much like the different Dwarves prefer different booze and food. Eg. ¨Urist McVampireface loves the color blue, gold, troll blood ....... but absolutely detests goblin blood¨

As for the method of feeding, the vampire-dwarves wouldn't have to feed directly of off their prisoners seeing as how that would obviously make the wait to reach a blood source long and this would spread the effects of vampirism to said subject which would in turn make their blood unfit for consumption. The blood would instead be stored in barrels, just like booze, filled through the aforementioned ¨Drain Blood¨ labor. Of course there is always the risk that an unskilled Blood Drainer would mess up the process and drain to much blood, thus killing the subject, but that is all part of the fun 

2. Reproduction
Seeing as how vampires are effectively ¨undead¨ one would assume that certain... bodily functions... would become inert after vampirism sets in. How would one keep the population from dropping. Sure vampirism grants immortality, but should your vampire-dwarves die of other reasons than old age (which is mostly the case anyway) then how would you keep all your vampire-dwarves from dying our. Certainly not from migrants seeing as how as soon as the mountainhomes learns of the fate of your fortress, they would prohibit anyone short of professional vampire hunters to approach your fortress. This brings us back to the aforementioned ¨farming¨ of sentient races. What if you had a pair of captured dwarves that you could breed, and as soon as their little fully bearded bundle of joy falls and hits the ground it is taken away and turned into a vampire to join your other undeadites. Surely, this may seem macabre, but it at least it is somewhat probable. Of course there is always the chance of them growing up spiteful of their overlords for the treatment of their biological parents which would in turn relinquish your control over said delinquent as he either:
-Attempts to kill all of your vampires singlehandedly, which would most likely be the most likely be the most futile attack on your fortress evar.
-Tries to convert other vampires to his way of thinking and try to bring down your fortress.
-Flees, then comes back later with a band of like-minded individuals bent on taking down you bloodsuckers.

3. Relationship to other Civilisations
Surely after it is discovered that your fortress now hosts a population of vampire-dwarves there would be no more trade caravans or outpost liasons. This wouldn't happen automatically mind you, after one trade caravan returns home with nothing more than a warning of what now resides in their new money-maker, or one doesn't return at all and after sending in a scouting party to find out the fates of their compatriots, then you would suddenly find yourself in quite an awkward position. Now bands of vampire hunters would attack you just like with ambushes or sieges. If we assume that vampires are biologically more adept at defending themselves than non-vampiric dwarves, we can also assume that these vampire hunters will be a little more prepared than an average ambush consisting of six goblins wearing nothing but the usual S&M ensemble of leather and whips. Although the armor they wear is more or less ambigous, their weaponry would probably consist of silver weapons, holy water and other such vampire slayer accesories. They could also be wearing vampire repellents such as crucifixes and garlic which would make melee combat quite a challenge and only ranged weapons or war animals would have much luck in defeating the invaders. Melee combat wouldn't be impossible but your soldier-vampire-dwarves would likely severe penalties to skills and attributes which would ultimately make it highly inadvisable to fight them head-on.

4. Sunlight
The most iconic feature of vampires is their uncanny ability to burn to a crisp when subjected to direct sunlight. This, however, presents a challenge gameplay wise. Of course dwarves dig into the ground where the sun is non-existant, but without access to the surface, running a fortress is nigh impossible. Sure you could have a self sustaing ecology with underground treefarms and all that jazz, but eventually you will almost definitely need to go outside, unlike in real life, to acquire the usual stuff but also to maintain your supply of living blood pouches. I have no idea whatsoever how this would work, maybe one month is considered ¨daytime¨ while the next is considered ¨nighttime¨ or maybe it's ¨nighttime¨ all the time, but I have no more speculations as to how this would work as of this time so I wont waste your time anymore with my talk of how time would impact the times in which your vampire-dwarves could spent time on the surface as opposed to their time out of the sunbeams' way. 

As of right now those are all the features I would expect to be different in running a vampire fortress as opposed to the regular dwarf fortresses of today. Should any other little tidbits of vampire related issues arise in that thing you call a brain, then please, don't be shy and share them with the world so we can discuss their implementation to DF (seeing as how that is what this forum is made for)

[Moonshadow101]

I don't think vampires necessarily have to be instantly incinerated the second they step into sunlight. I can imagine that first they get a bad thought, then they get a very bad thought, then they get light burns, then they get heavy burns, then eventually they die. Your woodcutters are going to be pissed off, and they might be a bit burned if you sent them to cut a very distant tree, but otherwise they're fine.

Alternatively, there is the rather obvious option: Any body part covered by a piece of clothing can't be burned by sunlight. Sunlight isn't magical afterall: a Vampire wearing proper clothing should be fine. Of course, this would first require the clothing system to be fixed.

As for reproduction, the "Immortality Cult" idea mentioned on the front page today seems like a winner. Even if the mountainhomes discover your little secret, you might still get migrants: desperate fools who are willing to trade their souls for eternal life. Of course, whether you actually grant their wish or consign them to the feeding pens is your own choice. I suspect legendary cheese makers might not get their wish to make cheese for all eternity.

As for the feeding pen concept, I suspect chains would be necessary to avoid the situation becoming unmanageable. If you only had one or two prisoners, fine, leave them locked in a room. But I imagine my Vampire Baron has his own person den of ten prisoners just for himself, to say nothing of the fifty or so allocated to "the masses." Making sure every single one of them has been drained recently so that they don't just walk out seems like a really annoying amount of micromanagement.

[Bdthemag]

I think with being in direct sunlight, a vampire should gain unhappy thoughts. After awhile they start taking a small amount of damage. By the time they're about to die they throw a tantrum and attack anything in range.

[EmperorJon]

Cave adaptation? 

[Dutchling]

Not all vampires will take damage / unhappy thought in sunlight. Each curse will be randomly generated.

[Naryar]

Or simply put the night/day cycle into fortress mode. As a day is 12 seconds at 100 FPS, nighttime will roughly be 6 seconds, so you can get out 6 seconds during the night.

As vampires are faster than most other creatures, 6 seconds might be enough to do some quick work outside if you build loads of accesses to your fortress.