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[WillowLuman]

I'm going to guess that dwarves are short and stocky, while elves and goblins are long and lanky, and humans are like Shaq to all.

As for their origins, seeing as DF will eventually generate fantasy worlds rather than recreating a very specific one but with a different map, I'm going to guess the origin of species is ambiguous and left open to interpretation. The three basic conventions are creationism, standard evolution, and supernatural evolution.

Whatever party responsible for creating the world could have created them all as separate lineages. Dwarves, elves, and goblins could have split off from humans due to living with certain influences (demons, the underground, nature spirits, deities of various spheres, primal magical forces, etc. The other races could have come from various spirits or other supernatural entities interbreeding with humans, or are the descendants of such entities who took humanoid form or became anthropomorphic for whatever reason.

Elves could literally be descended from whatever natural force they worship, sprung from the soil as it's envoy to mankind or something. Dwarves could be likewise for the more mineral parts of the earth. Both could then have gone there own way after forgetting about the whole ambassador thing.

[metime00]

Pulping was one of the things I've been most excited for but I'm concerned about the ability of pulped things to heal. Wouldn't the muscle be damaged to the point of irreparable disuse, even if it healed to not be a danger to the victim (no internal bleeding, infection etc.)?

Will the nerve damage and bones shattered to dust from the pulping of a limb by repeated hammer strikes render that limb permanently unusable? Will bones be able to heal being completely pulverized?

Granted, I am very tired and not particularly aware of the ability for the body to heal from a similar situation in real life, but I'd imagine there'd be a point for blunt trauma to render bones to nothing and muscle unusable.

[WillowLuman]

Muscle can heal from a surprising amount of damage, but there's a point where it just becomes a useless mass of scar tissue. If a bone gets pulverized to dust, there's really nothing that can be done, barring superhuman regeneration.

[Toady One]

I guess the idea is that "pulping" is really all about the undead and reanimation.  Sometimes the damage is too much to heal from, and sometimes, perhaps more rarely, it is just several breaks that you'd be able to heal from in real-life but which preclude animation from working.  In both cases, it'll have the over-the-top combat announcement, but the exact natural of the injuries will determine if the dwarf can successfully convalesce.  There'll be a time in the future where you might be able to grind a critter into a new sort of tissue slurry material, but I decided it wasn't worth it at this point, and it wasn't really what I was looking for to solve this problem.  The parts are still essentially pulp when they sustain this much damage, and I don't think useful healing will be that common, especially with nerves as they are.

[Neonivek]

Hmmm

Toady have you gave any more thought into creatures being made out of Sand, Water, or Air but who aren't weak or fragile?

[King Mir]

I think a better term for this is not pulping but mangling.

[Chronas]

I recall you said that even the most mangled limb will not automatically sever.
But suppose the main structure of a limb (in a man's case, the bone) is ruined beyond all integrity so that the limb is hanging by a few muscle threads, would a sufficiently damaged limb be easier to sever by blade or even by 'pinching'?

Also, will 'colliding with an obstacle' still burst a creature apart to its component limbs, or will it also use the new system and become a gooey, unbutcherable mess -ruining many an efficient butcher's tower?

[Neonivek]

I think a better term for this is not pulping but mangling.

Pulping is better for the image. It essentially is when something is just a useless pile of meat or chalk or dust.

While a Mangled arm could be really damaged but still functional enough for the undead.

[arkhometha]

Or if elves (whether passively or actively) enable trees to grow extra huge and old. Although the sort of elves normally depicted as living within tree trunks are the sort that are about knee-high to a human. Tolkein-based elves tend to build homes cantilevered off the trunks.

As I mentioned, trees from Elven trees can be larger because of elven "magic". To quote a Toady Devlog:

  There are lots of orchards now, and the elves grow other important trees for various purposes. The orchards are currently stuck with the products from the old tree raws (chestnuts, mangos and coconuts), but that should be diversified significantly. The residential etc. trees aren't strictly natural, so you'll get some places that are flatter and smoother grown into them, but even those trees still use the standard tree growing algorithm and there's plenty of regular vegetation to go around.

Also not even humans are guarantee to have common ancestry with apes in DF. As HugoLuman stated, they could have come from gods creation. Elves, that are normally seem as more "magical" creatures, probably didn't come from them.


And wouldn't be better if we asked Toady about trees directly? Like, will we be able to modify the raws for trees so to make them more realistic and how close to reality (in both of height and width) the new trees are?

[Wastedlabor]

Pulping is better for the image. It essentially is when something is just a useless pile of meat or chalk or dust.

They should have quality modifiers so we can tell how likely they are to rise again.

This is a fine useless pile of Giant Mosquito. It's made of finely pulped Giant Mosquito meat, finely pulped Giant Mosquito brain and finely pulped Giant Mosquito ichor.

[WillowLuman]

Also, will 'colliding with an obstacle' still burst a creature apart to its component limbs, or will it also use the new system and become a gooey, unbutcherable mess -ruining many an efficient butcher's tower?

Actually, things colliding with an obstacle haven't butchered or exploded into gore on impact for a long time now. They just fracture whatever part they landed on.

[King Mir]

I think a better term for this is not pulping but mangling.

Pulping is better for the image. It essentially is when something is just a useless pile of meat or chalk or dust.

While a Mangled arm could be really damaged but still functional enough for the undead.

But it's not a pile of chalk or dust. It's just a body part with so many broken bones, that it can't be made to grasp or bite anymore. That's why the term pulping is confusing; it's not a pulp. Turning things to dust isn't in this release.

[Neonivek]

I think a better term for this is not pulping but mangling.

Pulping is better for the image. It essentially is when something is just a useless pile of meat or chalk or dust.

While a Mangled arm could be really damaged but still functional enough for the undead.

But it's not a pile of chalk or dust. It's just a body part with so many broken bones, that it can't be made to grasp or bite anymore. That's why the term pulping is confusing; it's not a pulp. Turning things to dust isn't in this release.

If something with a rock arm has been "Pulped" it has been dusted

They should have quality modifiers so we can tell how likely they are to rise again

Well something that is pulped simply cannot rise again.

[WillowLuman]

No, Toady explicitly said that pulping does not mean completely pounding out any structural integrity until the flesh is liquid goop. A rock arm that's "pulped" would just be smashed apart, not completely pounded into dust. "Graveled" maybe, but not "dusted." If we had to liquefy everything to defeat it for good, then Necromancers would wipe out all life and they game would be unplayable.

[King Mir]

Which is precisely why I suggest the term mangled over pulped. It's closer to what Toady has described.