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[somebears]

that sucks.

[Gamerlord]

Eh, don't worry. We can always make warpstone part of it all and just say that the warpstone makes them sterile.

[fire1666]

heh pulling wool over eyes are we >:-]
ill be on again after sleep and ill post about your ideas btw, they look really nice!

[fire1666]

ok im back and now its time to discuss the ideas thus far, this is going to be a very long post...
Firstly Dwarf Kitty stated the following in his post:
Jumping into this.   
 
You know how some legendaries in worldgen strive to extend their lives by any means necessary, then become vampires and such?  They gotta figure those things out somehow.  What if the Revenant civ is an alliance of like-minded cults and cultists?
 
The base race are living souls who seek the darker magics.  Embrace death and become necromancers, extend life indefinitely through vampirism or lichdom, or raise the Carp God.  Loosely allied, they find safety in numbers.  Even the drow distrust them.  (Challenge:  Create a civ that contains representatives from the other races.) 
 
Their pets are anything from shades and ghosts (humanoid as well as ghost dogs and kitties) to Lovecraftian deep one abominations.
 
Citizens must study to become or be transformed into supernatural creatures, such as vampires and werebeasts or lichs.  (Think the transformations of the golem forge or the Masterwork temples.)  Anything that comes from the living and still has a semblance of life.
 
The cultists have sacrificed the ability to reproduce naturally, either as a vow of celibacy or enforced through more macabre means.  Reproduction (to answer Isngrim's question) would then be through recruitment or conversion.  Migrant waves would be of fresh recruits or converts.  Any invaders captured would be either converted or sacrificed.
 
Fallen untransformed citizens and fallen invaders could be ressurected as zombies or part-zombie convert slaves.  Ideally, these become citizens, but pets would work well enough if the other reproduction avenues are in place.
 
Also, corpse bone and flesh and blood would be important materials.  Maybe sanctify their weapons and armor?  Give the butcher shop or slaughterhouse an "extract blood from fresh corpse or victim" reaction, then use bone and blood as reagents in forging.
 
The soul shard would have to be harvested easily if you're going to require them for items.  Perhaps a certain type of mage would take a sentient being's corpse and magically distill it down into a crystal.  If the soul distilled had already become a ghost, the ghost disappears as if memorialized.  Or the shard is dropped from some corpse-munching animal like the golden goose drops gold bars.
 
Ooh, idea:  Revs create special dark glass for various uses, take raw dark glass and sentient being's corpse to make soul shard!
 
And I vote that blood or bone meal is the special ingredient to make dark glass.


The ideas above are very good and i like the idea that bone and blood would be important for the faction in question those being the revenants, thus I have adopted the usage of those into the mod (I have a supprise coming for you guys shortly ).
Not over keen on the like-mindedness with the carp god cult BUT I will have the cult playing a slight part in the revenants for alternateive reasons Hehehe.
The pets idea sounds good but i was not thinking on lovecraftian monsters but more on the line of bone golums (large monster created from at bare minimum 60 bones[wait intill my next post, you might like the methods of getting said resources]) and (much later) Death pact ( large constructs that can take an ungodly ammount of damage and can be merged into a squad[civilian transformation]) but ghostly animals could be a possibility.
You touch on my idea of civ transformations in your 5th paragraph.
Loss of reproductive organs would cause them to die at world gen I think *correct me if im wrong*
I am planning on have a building at teir 1 that allows migrants to be summoned but it will be VERY expencive but I will also have a use for said migrants (yes im talking to you legendary + 5 beekeeper >)
dead civilians becoming slaves? Dfhack i think but im useless with Dfhack gamerlord MIGHT know more about it then I do but thats up to debate.
Soulshards WILL be used BUT not from that method, I have a slightly better way of aquireing them and you guys might like it

Now for the ideas posted by somebears, no seriously some bears just told me this its a bit crazy I know hehehe (dont hit me!)
I am very pleased to see that you are going down a teir route for your suggestions, this makes it easier for me and gamerlord to see where you want the suggestion to be on the list of buildings and teirs HOWEVER as gamerlord stated, most of your ideas will need Dfhack somthing that I dont fully understand in the slightist.
but on a possitive note their will be reactions to trans a caste to another caste but that is only if the castes work D:, speaking of this Gamerlord please update me on the civ files I need to PM you about them.
you also talk about some castes being able to do some things better then others, thats also exactly what im goiong to be doing too but on a different level.
Now be right back, typing my massive page now for my main ideas AND todays to-do list for me.

[fire1666]

okie so I though about the ideas and instead im just going to post my to-do list, you will all see the general gist of the teir one stage of the mod.
- Create a new crop for revenants and use it for food both eadable raw and cooked but not brewable and grows subsurface.
- Create a workshop that can create the special crop from other crops if nessesary and can transmute the specal crop back into some other basic underground crops e.g. plump helmets or pigtales.
- Create a workshop that can process the crop into soul essence (first way of getting soul essence also the slowist) and can transmute some soul essence into other things at a specific ratio e.g. wood = 4 SE / bone = 6SE HOWEVER this is backwards compatable and resources can be converted back into soul essence (second way to get soul essence).
- Create the dark glass sumoner which will use SE + bones and possibly blood to create dark glass, this forms the building blocks for the Reveants.
- Create the dark glass shapper / shapping forge which will be used to create basic weapons from dark glass along with basic armour and ammo for ranged weapons
- Create a soul collector which uses soul essence to create the weakest weapons cheaply and quickly while also providing a use for SE to make ammo as well
- Create the first ritural structure.
- Create reactions for the ritural structure, risky but worthwhile since it allows you to unlock Teir 2
- Create a structure that can summon migrants by using large ammounts of soul essence (500) this is very risky BUT can pay off
- What we have all been waiting for... Create a structure that can KILL migrants for soul essence rangeing from only 5 all the way up to 100
- ask someone nicely to work on the creature file
- TEIR ONE FINISHED

[fire1666]

also major note for everyone
im completly overhauling the files on the weapons so dont do ANYTHING with the weapons doc gamerlord

[Gamerlord]

Gotcha. Anything you want me to do?

[fire1666]

gamer I need you to work more on looking into a caste sytem or just taking notes on reactions that can transform a civilian into another creature i could also use help with graphics for the revenants so if you can or if you know somone who can let me know.
also on a side note the weapons doc i sent you is now obsolete replace all the SHADE with REV and your basicly updated it
i propoply wont be able to make too much progress today but i will try my best to furfill the to-do list for TEIR 1 then i think i might open it for a PRE-PRE-PRE alpha test for people to see the current product and how it will work roughly

[Dwarf Kitty]

Thank you, fire1666!   
 
(Teeny-tiny correction:  I'm female.    )
 
 
Mostly what I was trying to do was come up with ideas that would work within the system we have, such as having a use for the migrant system and using transformations since we already know that works elsewhere in MDF.  And also to start putting together a story behind the civ, since that will help guide the rest of the design.
 
I've never dared mod DF, but I'll be happy to play Threetoe to your Toadys.  Let's generate the story of this new civ.  Give me your vision, and I'll use my Legendary Wordcrafting to come up with something we can all get behind.  Feel free to PM me or email or post it here for public discussion.
 
What I am imagining is a civ darker than the drows.  Drows are a unified culture with history and tradition.  The Revenants, not so much.  A loose alliance of cults (not necessarily the Carp God one, but it's probably welcome), curators of the darkest magics.  But this can be up for debate.   
 
Hey, at the very least, I can edit fire's effusive typing.   

[fire1666]

Hey, at the very least, I can edit fire's effusive typing.   

Hahaha, my typing is way to fast sadly and my keyboard is to be honest, crap...

[Dwarf Kitty]

Okay, fire1666 PM'd me with a bit of his vision:
 

 Here is information on the race called The Revenants, feel free to tweak it and work on it as much as you see fit!

The Revenants are actualy broken down into two main castes, Human cultists of Revesara (Re-veh-sar-rah) and Revesara's chosen called the Revenant. while our good old friends the dwarfs where busy building massive epic castes and fortresses, Revesara started to form her own kindrid to fight the dwarfs and all the other races in the world of ThreeToe.
The primary caste is comprised of Cultists of Revesara, they are very weak and very bad at just about everything related to combat But they have one advantage. Where there is one of them, there are many more coming shortly. One of the first buildings you are able to make can use a reaction to summon said cultists to the site as you see fit, sending them to work in huge armys of your milita or ,at another building, they can be sacrificed into soul essence.
The Revenant are the "Super Soldiers" of Revesara, they are alot stronger then the cultists and are immune to pain and (if possible to code) immune to bloodloss, they have none. these units strive for Revesara's power and the distruction to all those who do not worship her (Quagmire:heheheheheheheheheheh). they can be upgraded into several main types of units, Revenant warrior's / Heart seekers or Magicks
Warriors = very good at melee combat
Heart seekers = professional marksmen
Magicks = (if possible) equipt with spells that can wreck havok on enemy units.

 
I'm seeing a few problems here.
 
One, I worry that, overall, this will look like merely another take on the drow.  On the other hand, the Drow mode is spinning off of what is in the trader caravans.  The Revenant civ has no such expectations of continuity from existing MDF features.   
 
Drow:  Spider-worshipping, likes to use poisons, heavy magic users, seems to love purple.  They might be getting their own deity.
 
Revenants:  Favor death and death-like stuff.  Also magic users, somewhat by necessity to wrangle the "pets."
 
It seems to me we are making Revesara as a goddess of death, and a dark one at that.  I think that's fine.
 
 
Two, the human part.  I think that either my brainstorming idea of a multi-racial group of believers, or a whole new race would fit in better.
 
Hmm, we could combine the two.  Drow are often considered to be dark elves, politically and evolutionally branched off of forest elves.  Suppose we do something similar where the cultist alliance I suggested happened earlier in time?  This Revenant race would then be a dark, twisted version of either pure humans or a genetic mix of the humanoid races.
 
 
Three, the whole summon more cultists part.  If that's the only way to get new members, it will feel like either powergaming or a very slow and cumbersome way to get new cultists.  I'm sure that, even in the well-developed Orc Mode, players rely on the occasional migrant wave with a variety of useful skills and personalities.
 
I'd much prefer keeping in the migrant system.  Of course, we can sterilize them or make it really, really hard to conceive.  After all, babymaking isn't very deathly.  And we could have an early workshop where someone can make cage traps and then convert the captured sentient creature into a new cultist or cultist slave.  Then, the arduous path to making a new citizen would make sense.
 
 
The sacrifice for soul essence is perfectly fine.  Just balance the need for this dark item creation reagent with the resource.  Make the harvest either plentiful enough from one victim or spread the harvesting to all living creatures.  (A new use for the kitties!)
 
 
Upgrading citizens to special units is fine.  Keep in mind that the training/study will take them out of commission for a while, and in Dwarf Mode, players often use a single unit as both military and civillian jobs, especially early on.
 
Most unit upgrades (especially early ones) should preserve the civillian usefulness so that they can be flexible for the fort and the player's needs.  New mages keep their crafting skills.  Your marksman caste would have vanilla DF archery skills, and the warriors vanilla DF fighting skills.  Weapons might be a different story.   
 
Meph has some month-long transformations in his magic buildings.  Something like that might work for us for more advanced unit upgrades.
 
Another possible ultimate upgrade would be to study to become a lich.  Or some other ultimate transformation.  I'm thinking of something on par with the golemforge in terms of complexity to build and amount of advanced materials needed for one reaction.  A powerful unit that you only need a few of, but takes much materials and effort to build.
 
 
Ambitious vision here, fire1666.  I'm simply thinking in terms of what would probably work.  A dose of groundedness.
 
But hey, go for it, and see what the rest of the community has to say.   

[fire1666]

indeed I shall. when i release the tier 1 mod ill let people see what its like.

[somebears]

Upgrading citizens to special units is fine.  Keep in mind that the training/study will take them out of commission for a while, and in Dwarf Mode, players often use a single unit as both military and civillian jobs, especially early on.

This makes trying to ascend the tech-tree a risk, especially early on! which could be desirable.

[Dwarf Kitty]

Upgrading citizens to special units is fine.  Keep in mind that the training/study will take them out of commission for a while, and in Dwarf Mode, players often use a single unit as both military and civillian jobs, especially early on.

This makes trying to ascend the tech-tree a risk, especially early on! which could be desirable.

 
I wasn't trying to make it risky so much as reminding fire1666 that these special transformed units belong in an advanced tier, and that he needs to keep basic early military units able to do civillian jobs when off duty.  Otherwise, we'll have a bunch of mages without anyone to cook for the fort, or something.
 
The military units where you merely draft them by handing out swords, crossbows, and wands should be able to switch back to civillian jobs when needed.  More advanced and more dedicated units require greater investments in materials to build their workshops and create them.
 
Game balance stuff.   

[Isngrim]

i was wondering,instead of the magic users wielding staves/wands,could they wield enchanted weapons/books?
examples:
Fire Imbued Longsword-gives a Legend of Zelda style spin attack (in name anyways),like an AoE burning gas?
Earth Imbued Mace- like mephs earth magic attacks for dwarf mode,a earth hammer might give an aoe,or a sword would fire a projectile (interaction)

books could take the place of auras or they could be an upgradeable spell book (maybe only used by the cultist).