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[GoombaGeek]

As a zombie, my adventurer is very successful. No-one except a very confused mummy will talk to him and a single townsperson attacking him tends to end with the entire town converted to huskdom, but unfortunately, after numerous escapades, every single bone in his body is broken. While he can still kill things, he must crawl everywhere and swims twice as fast as he shambles.

To make it even more fun to play as an unkillable dust-monster, I have an idea! When a husk enters a dust cloud of the type that husked them, the arcane forces of the dust replaces any missing body-parts, but in skeletal form only. And the bones are not naturally regenerated - they are made of the dust that spawned them, in my adventurer's case they would be a verdant green. I think this would have a few interesting gameplay effects, not counting "making husk adventurers have a way to heal badly":

1. Husk adventurers now have a "safe ground" that they are encouraged to return to, and so do un-controllable husks. Perhaps their AI could be set to "protect their biome", caring for the land that raised them.
2. Husks can heal! Aaaaah! Luckily, the dust body parts would be prone to scattering even on weak impacts, spreading the husk-dust and destroying the limb. You're still doomed, but after a while, the husks will get weaker while never dying like they're supposed to.
3. If they lose all original body-parts, they die (or get bisected). Imagine the creatures this could create, like the following scenario:

STORY THAT'S SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU THINK HOW COOL THIS WOULD BE
Protected by a magic artifact amulet, or a space-suit (either works, we suppose), you grit your teeth and plod into the cursed dust cloud, looking for the creature you've been tasked to kill. More dead than alive, and more undead than dead, the ancient no-longer-bones of the Forest Titan tower before you, making no noise as its dusty joints squash together in motion. Your visor is beginning to cover with the bright pink dust, but you've spotted it - the eye of the beast, the only part remaining of its former life, squirming in its prison of cloying powder. You lunge for it. The titan's worn pink skeleton, held together only by the most vile of magic, blends in seamlessly with the whirling plume, but the eye sticks out like a sore thumb. As you smash away its limbs, they are whisked away by the cloud and reform almost immediately, but it's too late. With a sickening thunk, your steel whip smashes its lost eyeball to sprecht, and the monster collapses immediately. You have slain the Zombie Titan of the Forest, but you are not yet safe... the dust is clogging your ventilation system, and you feel faint...

Obviously, that was a future goal. But wouldn't that be cool?! We'd get even scarier husks, more weak points and stuff that would look pretty cool if it wasn't in ASCII!

[Revanchist]

I like the idea of having a mystical creature "strengthened" by it's birthplace, seems fitting.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Saw the title: How is that possible?

Read the thread: GoobaGeek, you've done it again. That's insane in a good, dwarfy way. However, to play the required wet blanket, give a thought to Fortress Mode. Husks should be made non-overwhelming before being made stronger. Just my opinion.

[GoombaGeek]

Saw the title: How is that possible?

Read the thread: GoobaGeek, you've done it again. That's insane in a good, dwarfy way. However, to play the required wet blanket, give a thought to Fortress Mode. Husks should be made non-overwhelming before being made stronger. Just my opinion.

Well, the territory idea would be a good place to start, with non-adventurer husks unwilling to leave the evil lands. A border-fortress could find refuge on the good side of the region. But I think how husks work and spread should be redone. Here's my new system:

- Dust works like a standard water/blood/etc. coating... and only body-parts coated with the dust become husks.
- Husked body-parts turn on whatever they're attached to. Their goal is not to maim but to spread more dust - once covered, the dust still never washes off and spreads infinitely (otherwise dwarven bathtub = zombie cure, and that's no fun). A husked arm could behave like a separate entity embedded in the creature - it will attack and try to spread dust on the rest of the body. As soon as a vital part (upper body, lower body, head) is husked, that's it for them: the husk dust spreads, presumably throughout the blood, and they're done. A bare-footed player stepping on a dustpile will have their legs kick themselves out from underneath him as they struggle to huskify him (until realistic flexibility [Goblin Wrestler cancels grip of Goblin Wrestler's left back molar on Hapless Dwarf's uvula: physically impossible] is implemented, this would get terrifying and impossible).
- A quick-thinking player can opt to hack off their own arm (as long as it behaves like a separate entity, you could possibly attack it?) before it husks them, and slay it as it wriggles towards them, unfit to die. Or, a clever werebeast (can they get husked?) can intentionally pick up some husk dust, have their arm huskified, chop it off and put it in an empty bag (while wearing gloves) before a full moon. Once they regen and transform back, they'll have their own little husk-buddy in a bag ready to be let out at a particularly dangerous enemy (wait, if they're dangerous, why are you risking the chance of them becoming husks?). Perhaps necromancy or special materials will be able to bind the husk-dust to a husk, making it "sterile" but still a nearly unkillable foe.

So how does this make life easier? Well...
- Partial husks will be temporarily incapacitated as their husked section tries to beat them up, allowing more time to react and get everyone inside.
- The usage of special techniques could be used to prevent the spread of husks. Perhaps masterwork scepters could be wielded by priests/especially pious dwarves to bind the dust in (in the case of my 302 kobolds living in the open in an evil biome, this would have helped to avoid an unstoppable apocalypse when only about five kobolds were hit by a single cloud)? The solution depends on how magic is ever implemented. Maybe it just so happens that palladium foil absorbs 900 times its volume in husk-dust. A technical solution is just as fun, and imagine a royal crown saturated with zombie dust, a result of a fell mood indeed.
- Emergency surgeons get to remove infected body-parts, and your bored military gets to kill them. This makes proper healthcare suddenly much more vital (I mean, those bones will just set themselves eventually anyway, now lay down on that table and stop complaining about the nasty water you pansy) to the evil fort.

Even better, only elves can cure husks. Ahahahahaha! Where is your God of Highly Flammable Cellulose now?! Keep them happy or suffer ruination! (That was a joke. Burn them. Burn them all.)

[GreatWyrmGold]

Aside from the elf joke at the end, that sou D's suitably horrific and something that an average modder would kill a thousand smiths to get their hands on. I advise you to add ttghose details to the OP.

[Revanchist]

This just keeps getting better. Yay. I think that, given a choice between asking elves for a cure and dealing with an apocalypse has one clear answer.

Sending your whiniest noble to negotiate peace while the lava cistern fills up.

[Owlbread]

Perhaps it could depend on how the character was husked - by dark magicians, mist or dust or some such. If a dark magician enthralled a footsoldier on a battlefield who was dying from blood loss after losing his arm, a new arm could appear that is made of some kind of icy-cold black fire or something rather than just growing new bones. You could have several ways of growing new body parts. Under different circumstances (I don't quite know what), maybe he could gain limbs made out of solid silver or something.

As a complete aside, I've just had a vision of a liberated, semi-invulnerable Dwarven thrall with a silver fist becoming a night creature hunter and punching werewolves to death.

When I think of the dust binding together to make new bones, I think of the Thing from Fantastic Four. This is a really good idea, thank you sir.

[GoombaGeek]

As a complete aside, I've just had a vision of a liberated, semi-invulnerable Dwarven thrall with a silver fist becoming a night creature hunter and punching werewolves to death.

One finger of each metal, so their weakness is always... at hand.

But I think every new gameplay suggestion should invoke a few stories. Otherwise you're boring!

[Revanchist]

I think you'd need more than five (or ten, counting hands, or twenty counting toes also) to cover every weakness. Maybe. I haven't really checked the weaknesses yet.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Perhaps it could depend on how the character was husked - by dark magicians, mist or dust or some such. If a dark magician enthralled a footsoldier on a battlefield who was dying from blood loss after losing his arm, a new arm could appear that is made of some kind of icy-cold black fire or something rather than just growing new bones. You could have several ways of growing new body parts. Under different circumstances (I don't quite know what), maybe he could gain limbs made out of solid silver or something.

As a complete aside, I've just had a vision of a liberated, semi-invulnerable Dwarven thrall with a silver fist becoming a night creature hunter and punching werewolves to death.

And I just had an image of such a hand strangling its owner to death due to him failing his master. Weird. Sounds good, though.

I think you'd need more than five (or ten, counting hands, or twenty counting toes also) to cover every weakness. Maybe. I haven't really checked the weaknesses yet.

I'm pretty sure vampires are currently only vulnerable to metals, specifically weapons-grade metal. That's maybe dozen. Anyways, there's only maybe half a dozen kinds of night creatures in most worlds.

[Revanchist]

Perhaps it could depend on how the character was husked - by dark magicians, mist or dust or some such. If a dark magician enthralled a footsoldier on a battlefield who was dying from blood loss after losing his arm, a new arm could appear that is made of some kind of icy-cold black fire or something rather than just growing new bones. You could have several ways of growing new body parts. Under different circumstances (I don't quite know what), maybe he could gain limbs made out of solid silver or something.

As a complete aside, I've just had a vision of a liberated, semi-invulnerable Dwarven thrall with a silver fist becoming a night creature hunter and punching werewolves to death.

And I just had an image of such a hand strangling its owner to death due to him failing his master. Weird. Sounds good, though.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Didn't that happen in Harry Potter?

EDIT: Added spoiler.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Perhaps it could depend on how the character was husked - by dark magicians, mist or dust or some such. If a dark magician enthralled a footsoldier on a battlefield who was dying from blood loss after losing his arm, a new arm could appear that is made of some kind of icy-cold black fire or something rather than just growing new bones. You could have several ways of growing new body parts. Under different circumstances (I don't quite know what), maybe he could gain limbs made out of solid silver or something.

As a complete aside, I've just had a vision of a liberated, semi-invulnerable Dwarven thrall with a silver fist becoming a night creature hunter and punching werewolves to death.

And I just had an image of such a hand strangling its owner to death due to him failing his master. Weird. Sounds good, though.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Didn't that happen in Harry Potter?

EDIT: Added spoiler.

Yup. Not sure how many people read it, got far enough to recognize the allusion, AND wouldn't have reached that point, though.

[GoombaGeek]

Every 8-year-old on the planet.

[GreatWyrmGold]

got far enough to recognize the allusion, AND wouldn't have reached that point, though.