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[The Unicorn Killer]

    I have some great new idea's for some "fun" plants and animals. Fell free to post feedback or more idea's on this thread.
 Plants:

    Fireweed:
  Fireweed is a plant that only grows by magma or over it. That itself causes lots of "fun" but the rewards from farming this rare plant is worth it. You can make an EXTREMELY strong ale from it that ties over dwarfs for half a year. You can also into Spheres of Fire. These can be used to make siege engines that spray FIRE! However, if you try to put it in a stockpile with other burnable material it will BURN and cause extensive damage. If you weave it into cloths it's both magma and fireproof.
   
   Venus Flytrap:
  Well, this plant is both great and horrible. There are a regular and giant version. The regular can be put in a fortress and exterminate pests eating your food. The giant flytrap is like carp that can't move. It eats dwarfs of course. It grows in tropical area's and evil biomes. It could also make for some interesting traps.

   The Giant Tree:
  Personally, I think this would be a great idea. I actually got the idea from seeing the wagon in Dwarf Fortress mode. So it's really a 3x3 thing of wood that goes up 5-30 levels depending with large branches coming off it. They can be chopped down at the base but be warned, the tree could fall on unexpected places and causing "fun". The best strategy would be to cut off small branches and collect them. If possible, Elves could live in these and you could explore them in adventure mode. Also maybe a possibility of deep underground root systems/dungeons.   
   Animals:
   

   Were-Clans:
  I know there are were-creatures but I am saying like, civilizations of were beasts. All credit goes to this mod I found, forget the name that adds these. I saw it and thought it was a great idea. There can be anything from clans of where (insert creature here) to complex cities of (insert creature here). Some of these are aggressive until you become one of them, like a were-wolf camp. Furthermore, there could also be animal man civilizations.
   
   Demi-Gods:
  Here I got the inspiration from an option on adventure mode. Basically, there is a small chance a dwarf in fortress mode will be born as a demigod.They have advanced boost like awesome combat skills, fire-proof, or can breath under water. In adventure mode, they are found in all races and live in villages or towns of their race. They are the first companion that is very good at combat and don't die off easy but are extremely hard to find and identify.

   Drow:
  Drows are dark elves that live in evil biomes and deep, DEEP underground. They are civilized but will attack any dwarf or adventurer on sight. It is possible to gain their trust but only by losing the trust of the elves... by killing them. They live deep underground and only in large cities. Cities are incredibly rare and full of jewels and precious metals. Like dwarf, they like to mine and they will dig large mining tunnels. They are fierce fighters and make great companions in adventure mode. However, if they are exposed for a extended period of time to sunlight. They will get sick. So to keep to dungeons and stuff with them as companions. 


        These are all the idea's I have, feel free to post new plants or animal ideas, feedback, and improvments to my ideas. I really hope that Toady One will see this page and that it becomes popular and maybe even a hub for new plant/animal ideas.
 
                               Thanks,
                        The Unicorn Killer

[aka010101]

Weighing in on this:

Fireweed: another reason to have magma around? YES. I think the ale from it would have to be just extremely valuable, like... probably like thee same as sunshine. Having it be a sort of pitch like flammable substance also sounds like a recipe for fun, so that'd be good.

Venus Fly Trap: Not sure if want, but it should be fairly easy to implement and maybe you could work it into fortress defense if used right. Deathpit full of deadly plants anyone?

Giant Trees: Your timing is excellent sir. Go listen to the latest DF talk, toady is working on just such a thing as we speak, so we'll have to wait to see what HE does. But they are going to happen sooner or later, mostly to give the elves a place to live.

Were-clans: I'm down with were-creatures sometimes forming groups. Wouldn't be something i'd want ALL of them to be part of, you'd still want lone infiltrators, or unwitting were-creatures infecting people, but it'd make a fun challenge to take down a whole tribe of were-badgers or something.

Demi-Gods: As a race, no. As historical figures, that you may occasionally meet, or have visit your fortress, MAYBE even staying if something important happens, i can get behind, but that's gonna need some work before it's really viable.

Drow: Not sure if want... drow are a little overplayed as of late as a fantasy race. It'd be an open invitation for Drizzt clones.

There's my two cents worth, hope you found it helpful.

[The Unicorn Killer]

Thanks for the feedback. For demigod I was just kinda searching for ideas. My first main (and I think best) idea's are fireweed and the huge trees that are being added (YAY!). I also have a new idea.
 
     Rice:
  This or other plants that people use today. I picked rice because you can a) Make rice wine, b) store rice and eat it as it is, and c) Rice would be easy food for beginners, no need for a kitchen, just eat!

[The Unicorn Killer]

and on a totally unrelated subject, I just had a great idea. I'm nit sure if this is already in the game but dwarfs get happy thoughts from good smells. Like miasma's twin. For example, if you are cooking a lavish meal and your bedrooms are below that, the good smells go to the dwarfs and make them happy!

[kaenneth]

How about Alots?

[ravaught]

+1 to Fireweed, Flytraps, big trees

Demigods could be cool, but only if Dieties randomly secreted themselves into your fort and had a tryst with one of your Dwarves. That could actually be pretty cool in its own right. a month or so after the diety leaves it could have a chance of triggering a strange mood(You know, because they lost their godly lover and what not). Giving birth to a demi-god child could also have a chance to trigger a strange mood or drive the Dwarf gibbering mad(Unless the one giving birth was a diety).  The demi-god child could wind up with a single skill(reflecting the province of their divine parentage) already at or near legendary as soon as they come of age. Could be that they get no bonus to professional skills but start with really high social skills due to their divine charisma. Or maybe its a case of either/or. They are either supremely gifted at a trade, or extremely sociable, but never both and whichever gets a bonus the other gets a penalty. So your godly lengendary smith would be a right pain the beard to all the other Dwarves, no matter how much they respect his work.

While I am not a huge fan of Drow as such, I think that underground civs with cities and all are a good idea. Could even bracket the civs into z-level regions, so that they can only be found between 50-75 or 100-175 z-levels down. It would add some later game reason for exploring the deep and some good reasons for NOT exploring to quickly.

[Nonsequitorian]

How about Alots?

That's Alot of Hyperbole and a Half right there!

[Jheral]

     Rice:
  This or other plants that people use today. I picked rice because you can a) Make rice wine, b) store rice and eat it as it is, and c) Rice would be easy food for beginners, no need for a kitchen, just eat!

If getting rice means getting rice paddies, I'm definately for it! :p

For the rest, I like the Fireweed, Flytraps and Giant Trees.

Were-clans could be very interesting too. Demi-Gods, however, would kind of require a better framework for gods in general, and Drow are very overused, to the point of being boring (they'd pretty much be underground goblins anyway, and we could have those be real gobbos instead).

[jaxy15]

     Rice:
  This or other plants that people use today. I picked rice because you can a) Make rice wine, b) store rice and eat it as it is, and c) Rice would be easy food for beginners, no need for a kitchen, just eat!

Aboveground plump helmets?

[dizzyelk]

     Rice:
  This or other plants that people use today. I picked rice because you can a) Make rice wine, b) store rice and eat it as it is, and c) Rice would be easy food for beginners, no need for a kitchen, just eat!

Umm, you'd need a kitchen. Have you ever tried eating uncooked rice? Not very tasty.

[jaxy15]

Umm, you'd need a kitchen. Have you ever tried eating uncooked rice? Not very tasty.

We'd need a kitchen? Dude, we're talking about DWARVES. They'd happily eat scorpion meat.

[Escapism]

It doesn't really fit with DF:s general atmosphere to have übermagical plants such as your fireweed. Feels a lot more like your generic MMORPG. The venus trap one could be interesting, though. If they were stealthed they could become the new carps/evil dusts for jungle embarks. Trees are planned as far as I know; the main reason as to why elves have no dwellings at the moment is supposedly that Toady wanted to do multi-tile trees

The demi-god idea is pretty sweet, though. Would allow gods to make an impact in the world. It should be a pretty rare event, and I think that the demi-god should, instead of just starting with bonus lvls in skills associated with the sphere, have a natural affinity for them. I.e. bonus xp, allowing higher skill levels than your ordinary dwarf can achieve, which in turn are capable of producing items of a higher quality than lower skilled dwarves (or just being extremely awesome at fighting, or having some other kind of bonus as OP suggested). This would make it a bit more mysterious, and you would have to keep an eye open to see if one of your dwarves happen to be a demi-god and what kind of skills it has an affinity for. Maybe having a demi-god born to your settlement would also mean that the patron god could sometimes perform miracles. These things could add a lot of flavour to the game, if you allowed the demi-gods to have a serious impact on gameplay.

t would also be pretty cool if this was incorporated in world gen, so that demi-gods tend to become important historical figures and instigate important events.

[Taffer]

It doesn't really fit with DF:s general atmosphere to have übermagical plants such as your fireweed. Feels a lot more like your generic MMORPG.
...

Not sure if we're playing the same game. Unicorns, goblins, eyeballs on the ground, blood raining from the sky, necromancers, animal people, etc.. a magma plant seems more normal than some of the above. We already have fire imps and magma creatures, why not a magma plant?

I think a plant that requires magma is a great idea, myself.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I think it's partly the wide variety of uses, especially the "Spheres of Fire" part and the "makeable into clothes that make you fire/magmaproof" part. Especially the latter--why don't they burn the wearer, if they're hot enough to burn other food they're stockpiled with?

[Escapism]

I think it's partly the wide variety of uses, especially the "Spheres of Fire" part and the "makeable into clothes that make you fire/magmaproof" part. Especially the latter--why don't they burn the wearer, if they're hot enough to burn other food they're stockpiled with?

Yeah. I also think that being able to magically create an item that creates "AoE fire damage" clashes a bit with DF:s atmosphere where magic is actually fairly rare. Of the examples Taffer gave, only the necromancers are truly capable of "magic". An unicorn is hardly more than a horse with a horn, even though they could be considered to be magical cretures. They don't have a 10 sec cd/75 manacost ability to shoot a rainbow from their horn to deal 100 damage. Sure, that could be mostly because Toady haven't gotten around to implementing magic as of now, but from what I can understand from the DF talks/FotF I've read, he wants to keep magic pretty rare and also wants to keep it from being represented as it is in many fantasy games today (I think he gave a "Sword of Fire +3" as an example of what he didn't want DF magic to be like; I think we all know what he means).