I heard that Toady is looking up to creating new monsters with unique characteristics and gameplay mechanics. In here I would like to contribute a concept for a monster that cannot be made fully functional according to original slavic mythos with just modding. Russian wiki contains the most information about this monster.
Appearance:
https://www.google.com/search?q=lady+midday&client=firefox-b-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjVyMWmyNzuAhUQyaQKHVxUAPMQ_AUoAXoECAUQAw&biw=1366&bih=626 Always same size as she had when she dies. Same with visual traits.
Lady midday has 10% chance to turn back into the exact age of reaching adulthood (12 year old in vanilla game).
Description: A demon taking shape of a formerly alive female who roams fields in search for children to kidnap and adults to damage. Beware her arguments and riddles.
(The description than will state what her appearance is like.)
Equipment:One of following weapons: stickle, brand, pole or scythe (
accomplished skill in all of them, always exceptional quality, always iron)
Always white clothing (humans and dwarfs), always green clothing (elves), always grey clothing (goblins)
May or may not have flower crown (50% chance)
Has a bag on her back for carrying kidnapped children inside (superior quality). Kidnaps one at the time.
Skills:Accomplished in all combat skills and weapons. Will also regain any other skills she had before transformation.
Legendary biter. Some mythos about her describe her as having iron teeth. That's where the idea of powerful biter skill comes form.
Legendary tracker, observer and ambusher.
Professional conversationist.
[AT_PEACE_WITH_WILDLIFE]
Can cast a spell that temporarily increases body temperature of her victims to the point of heat illness. This may kill a creature.
All immunities of being a [DEMON] in Dwarf Fortress so far.
[NOBLEED]
Regains attributes of her deceased human/dwarf/elf/goblin counterpart but with following changes: Maximum strength, 300 points to toughness, 1000 points to agility, 500 points to any other combat related attribute and maximum disease resistance.
[SWIMS_INNATE]. If she had swimming skills in her life she will lose them.
Making of Lady Midday:A [MIDDAY_DEMON_RISK] female creature has to die in the exact day of her wedding (either before, during or after marriage) to become Lady Midday and this is guaranteed to happen. Female dwarfs who become Lady Midday won't return as ghosts to haunt Fortress. Depending on the race they will have different clothing colours and never regain they're original inventory. Upon spawning/despawning they're inventory always resets completely and they may carry a different weapon.
Assuming above conditions lady midday is a very rare entity. Not all americans, germans and so on are interested in them since they come from slavic folklore but Dwarf Fortress community features fair amount of Russians. Once one however is made it should be very persistent and relatively very hard to kill.
Spawning: Spawning is completely dependent on [ACTIVE_SEASON] of the creature. Lady Midday cannot be encountered at all during seasons out of it. Traditionally lady midday in slavic mythos could only be encountered during summer but in unmodded Dwarf Fortress I think the season should merely determine race restrictions. Formerly human lady midday will be active during summer while dwarven ones will try spring.
Just like bogeymen, lady midday appears and disappears at will during her assaults but unlike bogeymen she has her own histrory. Lady midday always assaults upon chat announcement "
It is noon." a random creature who just appeared to be completely alone in the field where food is produced out of vegetables and fruits. This must be a [DEFAULT_SITE_TYPE] of lady midday.
Lady Midday can make her assault in any part of the world regardless of how far she died away from it and it can be a completely different civilization, even of another race. When the screen announces "
It is noon." but she doesn't spawn near player besides of all conditions being met than either the world has no lady midday or she assaults somebody else.
Lady midday has a strong preferense for assaulting the weak. She will target children in the first order but will always make up to one encounter per day.
Lady midday never cooperates or assaults together with other lady middays.
Lady midday's spawning is not being determined by whenever the player is cursed with bad luck or blessed with good luck.
Lady midday will not appear to players being too well prepared for fighting her.
Dealing With Lady Midday:A child cannot survive encounter with her. If a dwarven child goes missing and was last seen in the field he may had felt victim to lady midday. Children, regardles of they're race who got caught by Lady Midday are lost forever which equals to instant death but some will take years before returning as ghosts to haunt the fort or may not return at all in any form.
Lady Midday upon encountering an adult will have a 50% chance to strike a conversation if they aren't sleeping. The player will have to immediately join it to avoid violent conflict or heat illness. Oddly enough she always has same level of attributes related to conversationist skill as she had before transformation.
Upon joining said conversation she and the player will enter "reciting poetry" state that will last short amount of time. If the player has he's conversationist skill and attributes related to it high enough he will always or nearly always make lady midday despawn away in peace. Player will also receive about 1300 experience points in conversationist skill for repelling her this way and attributes related to conversationist skill will all rise by about small amount (without crossing the cap).
If the player refuses, ends earlier or fails conversation there will be a 50/50 chance of him either suffering from heat illness or lady midday entering into "
No Quarter" conflict state with him. When trying to kill the player she will cast heat illness to aid herself.
Players can still save themselves from failing the conversation by a rare case of someone entering the scene to witness the player speaking with lady midday. She will always despawn in that case regardless of how powerful she is over them.
If lady midday doesn't strike a conversation she will instead not appear at all and a creature will instead suffer from heat illness.
Lady midday will outright kill any adult she catches sleeping in the field.
If by any reason she suffers a major injury during combat she will despawn into dust but won't be killed. The only way to slay her is to struck her down with a single powerful attack before she manages to disappear. Upon reappearing the other day in the same field or basically anywhere else she will always be fully healed like a werebeast, regaining even chopped of limbs.
Since she doesn't have her head protected with anything it would be the best to fight her with cutting weapons. Lady midday also lacks [EXTRAVISION]. An intelligent undead having blindness spell can make her despawn immediately by causing a major condition that is blindness itself. This can prove itself as an excellent way of saving yourself in case of losing the fight. Intelligent undead who casts invisibility on himself will also make lady midday despawn as she cannot target invisible opponents.
Lady midday is smart enough to wait for her opponents who are flying away from her attack range to get knocked out by the heat illness effect.
If by any reason someone else enters to intervene in the midfight lady midday will either continue to fight or retreat into nothingness depending on the martial potential and equipment of her opponents.
Alternatively, however it's nigh impossible in most cases to do the player can battle her until 3 hours pass from her appearance in order to witness her disappear on her own without particular reason other than spending too much time in the sun than she is being supposted to.
Other Information:In advanced world generation her existence is determined by "Allow Midday Demon" set to "Yes" or "No".
There is no maximum amount of lady middays but in advance world generation it can be set from 1 to 10000. "0" equals no cap.
Turning off demonic experiments in advanced world generation will make her outright kill children without kidnapping. Lady midday will also lack a bag for doing so.
If you inquire random folks about any troubles a new option may appear asking about "Midday Demons". They must mention them first.
Some dwarves like lady midday for her fashion choices, flower crowns, bags, scythes, stickle, brand, pole, riddles, arguments or terrifying features. You can invent more prefstrings yourself.
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Topic: Lady Midday (Read 598 times)