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[Morhem]

Wow, thanks for quick changes! Actually tried to add Phoebus set myself, but failed miserably.

Tried creating new fort. Dug a little chamber in nearby mountain, made a stone door to cover the exit, when.. 3 taken wonderbolts appeared. Majority of the group was killed in seconds, my War Tigers held the wonderbolts while survivors fled to the chamber and locked the door, but door was smashed by newborn undead taken, and survivos was killed by their own friends. This mod makes me shiver.

Can i ask how spell system works? I have magic archive with default "horn light" spell, and weather factory.
Ponies working in them, producing light flashes and gusts, but.. what next?

[Lycaeon]

Ouch...that's the Nightmares for you. I've set them at very low frequency, so hopefully that doesn't happen too often (Not until you're ready for them at least).

According to their cutie marks, viewable in descriptions, unicorns will have difference chances of learning a spell from an archive reaction. Nearly all unicorns will be novice-level, requiring multiple tries before learning apprentice level spells (Of which the horn light spell is one). Spells have their level (apprentice, adept, master) listed next to them in the archive. Probabilities for learning spells are listed below.
Caution: Novice unicorns will suffer from negative spell effects, and non-unicorns are vulnerable to magic-poisoning.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Apprentice Level Spells:
     Novice: 10% (Average 10x tries needed)
     Apprentice Sorcerers: 20% (Average 5x tries needed)
     Adept Sorcerers: 40% (Average 3x tries needed)
     Master Sorcerers: 80% (Average 1x tries needed)
     Alicorns: 100% (1x tries needed)
Adept Level Spells:
     Adept Sorcerers: 10%
     Master Sorcerers: 20%
     Alicorns: 40%
Master Level Spells:
     Adept Sorcerers: 1%
     Master Sorcerers: 10%
     Alicorns: 20%

I will put up a cutie mark guide later so training takes less guesswork. The spell research guide is included in the readme.

The pegasii arc is not yet developed, so the weather factory is currently a placeholder, and the reactions only trainable by cloudlord and skylord pegasii, as well as alicorns.

[Morhem]

Is there a way to know if unicorn succesfully learned a spell?
And how magic actually works? Will ponies use it automatically, while in combat?
*Started training of "spellsword" unicorn military squad.*

[Lycaeon]

Not at the moment...your best bet would be to do the training reactions the number of times as advised by the guide and hope for the best. As spell tomes aren't consumed by training, there's no need to worry about running out of tries. Unicorns with offensive or defensive spells will automatically use them when attacking.

Here's a list of the cutie marks for unicorns that imply prowess in a school of magic, with probabilities in the second post above. All are prestige talents, however, so most fortress populations will only have a couple of unicorns capable of adept or higher level magic. Most of the available spells are apprentice-level, but even they are more effective when used by magically talented unicorns as opposed to novices.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Currently working on the next update, including some tile graphics fixes from the Phoebus conversion and a possible revamp of the way spells are learned from tomes. Taken prometheans are way too lethal in trios, so they will need to be toned down as well as given an Artifact to drop like the wonderbolt's flight suits. Royal guard armor may work.

[Morhem]

Speak of wonderbolts, 5 min ago my entire, fully functioning fort was devastated by 3 of them, but it is my fault - i dont have any military, and even no light sources. I was counting on my walls, but there was a tiny hole in the roof of the new tower, still under construction....

And a new question. I guess i just met a changeling - one of the ponies was found in his bed, devoid of blood, but there wasnt any crime... guess becouse killer is NOT member of my fort. And the question - am i right? Its changeling? Or just something wrong with some vamp?
And if it IS changeling, is there ANY way to find him?

UPD: Nevermind. It was just 2 hundred years vamp unicorn with blood of 2k ponies on his hooves.

[Morhem]

Also, is something called "posessed" part of this mod? I got another trio of wonderbolts slaughtered a caravan (2 died), remaining one fighting with changeling ambush (there is tooth and random bodyparts all over, but fight continues, all changelings wounded, but noone dead), and... one of my citizens caught in crossfire, died, and become..... posessed.
He have "ghost" sprite now, but still listed in my units, he gained !!ALL skills!! from competent to legendary, his "Thoughts and preferences" is 3 pages long, and he is self-resurrecting.

[Lycaeon]

If you haven’t disabled the procedurally generated features, you’ll still get ordinary DF vampires, werebeasts, and necromancers occasionally. Apart from somewhat diluting some mod features like Touched citizens, they don’t interfere with the mod itself if they are lowered in advanced world gen settings. There are, however, Changeling infiltrators, and the Touched are able to turn corpses into Taken within your fortress itself, making disposal of dead bodies a priority. Finding them is half the fun, but equipping most of your citizens with torches will increase your chances of surviving a Taken incursion.

I may reduce taken wonderbolts to single attackers like the other Nightmares instead of threes, though they shouldn’t be difficult to defeat if your soldiers are equipped with flares or flashbangs.

The Possessed are a unique form of Taken that retain individual thought and identity, derived from ponies with prestige talents. The repeating resurrection and ghost tile are small bugs I’ve fixed for the next patch. Thanks for pointing them out.

[Morhem]

By the way, posessed was fighting both wonderbolts, and changelings, and as they was unable to kill him, saved my fort, by letting my rangers fire at attackers from safe distance. And the most weird thing, in his "thoughts and prefences", the list of the things he like was kinda 3 pages long.
Uh, and i guess wonderbolts in threes is fine, but maybe they should be killable with some efforts without light sources. Or let attackers from other civ carry torches, becouse 3 WBs took down whole orc sieging force without a scratch..

[Pokon]

One question: what files would I need to pull if I just wanted Changalings? I attempted to to do it myself, but I am ashamed to say it did not exactly work out as planned.

[Detahramet]

I have encountered a bit of a problem with the pathing:
Given the the only crops  i can grow from embark are are outdoor crops, i have build a wall around the farm. This causes a Tiny little problem:
Pegasi path on top of the wall, but not back down. I unfortunately did not relies this until after i had one dehydration death atop the wall. You may wish to fix that at some point, assuming you don't just merge this mod entirely with fandom is magic.

[Lycaeon]

That's a problem present for all flying fortress citizens - the only way around it is to build a ramp up to the wall.

And I have pretty much retired from Dwarf Fortress modding for the time being, hence my decision to release the contents of my mod for consumption by any interested modder. The fact that the main mod itself is relatively complete as I first envisioned it means that there is plenty of hidden fun stuff other pony modders can use, in addition to the fully developed cutie mark and magic systems. 

[Detahramet]

Interesting. On another note entirely, given that you seem to be a skilled modder, do you ever plan on posting tutorial on how to mod?

[Lycaeon]

I don't have plans to post any tutorials, however, there are plenty of guides to modding available on the wiki (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.31:Modding_guide) and these forums. I'd say most knowledge comes through actual experience as you go through the files and figure out what each tag means, though I always keep various token pages on hand, like: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.31:Creature_token. One relatively simple technique I always use is the search function in the overall folder for the game...that way I can locate all the notepad files that use a specific token or tag.

Another hint is to go through other people's mods, and look to see how they accomplish their goals with certain tag/interaction combinations. Use of the search function through the whole folder will allow you to link any associated files and see how they're related. My own mod would be a good example of this, as the interaction files are heavily rooted throughout the others.

Notepad++ is an invaluable tool for any modder, as it allows you to compare similar files to locate differences, in addition to multi-file editing and various other tools. In the end, however, once you've put in enough time modding, it should start to come naturally.

Good luck!

[Detahramet]

Ya know, for the longest time, ive been wondering:
Why exactly does speeches produces clouds (like mist or miasma) of light?
and what does this light do?

[Lycaeon]

The light gives the pony a syndrome that allows them to give nearby ponies various boosts (As a simulation of listening to music/a speech/comedy).