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[Oblivion Walker]

I have a proposal, a bit of a request for a mod, or a request for assistance in creating a mod that I very much desire to exist.

Adventure mod is fun and all, but sometimes I feel like... Like cheating. I recently started using the Armok mod that allows you to take on the role of the destructive and invincible avatar of Armok, hurling fireballs and spewing flames and just generally terrorizing an entire continent. Being a god in adventure mode is fun, and the innate abilities, hurling fireballs and smite, were pretty cool... But therein lies the problem, a lack of diversity when it comes to the powers of a god.

This could go in a few different directions, if I could find someone willing to help bring these ideas to life, we could end up with multiple Deities of Destruction for Adventure Mode with quite a few unique powers, or we could end up with new abilities to acquire.
I don't understand how syndromes and all that work, if I had the time to learn how to make mods for DF I would, but I'm currently in AIT in the Army. I have the weekends to catch up on what little sleep I'm allowed or use the few hours of free time to just relax and watch movies or play a game or two. Lately I've been spending my weekends on DF.

Basically, the idea of this whole thing is to just have a variety of outsiders to choose from with unique ways of bringing destruction to whoever or whatever you see fit. I don't know the limits of DF scripting, so I'll let those of you with experience in creating these sorts of thing rule out what's impossible to code.

Without further ado, Deities of Destruction - The Concepts:

Plague Bearer-

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Description:
The Plague Bearer is a tall, purple skinned, faceless being. It walks with a hunch, protruding from it's back are several black tendrils encircling a crater that fumes with a noxious gas and glows with a green aura. The being makes a strange clicking noise and moves sporadically.

Abilities:
Releases a large cloud of gas that causes those engulfed by it to vomit and retch continuously. The afflicted persons/creatures will vomit a unique substance that consists of a mixture of blood and vomitus, between retching and vomiting the afflicted will do their best to flee the area. The afflicted will succumb to the plague and die within minutes of the fit of vomiting. The corpses burst into a small cloud of the same gas. This process takes about ten in-game minutes.

Physical Qualities:
The Plague Bearer has sharp claws for close combat, he is unable to wield any weapons due to his twitchy, spontaneous movements and lack of coordination. The being can wear lower body armor and clothing only. He does not age. He does require sustenance, without consuming the vomitus from the afflicted the Plague Bearer will burst into a large cloud of the plague fumes and cease to exist. The Plague Bearer has very tough flesh, only bone weapons can pierce through his tissues, and only losing each tendril can kill him in combat.

Mezbul-

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Description:
Mezbul is no mere Boar Man, though he does share some very similar qualities. He is a large humanoid figure with the head and hooves of a boar. The being is covered in tribal symbols.

Abilities:
Apart from being skilled with clubs, maces, and flails, Mezbul can emit a high pitched squeal that momentarily stuns all within earshot. In addition to that, the squeal will call a horde of ravenous boars to his aid. The horde typically consists of seven boars, and two dire boars.

Physical Qualities:
Mezbul is unable to wear any sort of headgear or footwear, but he can wear anything else that a normal human can wear. Mezbul needs to feed and drink regularly, without sustenance he will perish. This being, while his flesh is abnormally tough for an organic being, can still be killed by regular means.

The Candle Man-

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Description:
Bound in chains, impaled with pipes, and stitched together like a child's doll. Melted wax streams down the misshapen skull of this walking nightmare. It's fingers are long and tipped with sharp bone. The gurgling and howling noise emitting from this monstrosity is enough to deter even the hardiest of heroes.

Abilities:
Not being able to wield a weapon is no problem for this being, his long talons are natural weapons coupled with inhuman speed. When impaled with these talons, the unfortunate individual explodes, splattering every single body part all over the walls, trees, or ground. The Candle Man can also shoot a jet of flame from the candles that are protruding from his cranium.

Physical Qualities:
The Candle Man can only really wear pants, anything else just slips off his thin extremities. Wearing helmets would extinguish his flames, causing him to cease his existence in the material realm. This monstrosity can be killed by dismemberment, losing his head is the only sure way of killing him.

Ash Kyn-

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Description:
A man made of hardened ash with veins of glowing magma coursing through his body.

Abilities:
Ash Kyn is destruction by fire, he shoots jets of flame from his mouth, hands, and eyes. He can toss fireballs and spew magma all over the place. A unique thing about the fire he emits is that it instantly turns living beings into statues of ash on contact. He also has the ability to conjure and emit a flame that turns organic beings into flaming zombies that sprint around aimlessly, catching their environment of fire and spreading the infernal-necrosis to any living thing it attacks.

Physical Qualities:
The body of a human, flesh mad of hardened ash, and blood comprised of magma. Water causes this being to freeze in place, cooling and hardening his blood.

Kag'Mohqu-

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Description:
A horrifying being, one that could even make a Necromancer wince. His flesh is imbued with a necrotic bone armor, he has two large horns protruding from the sides of his head. His long hair is covered in a layer of thick, coagulated blood.

Abilities:
Kag'Mohqu vomits infectious blood at will, the blood turns all that it touches into shambling undead that have no sire. These undead roam aimlessly looking for living beings to attack. Unfortunately, the undead produced this way cannot infect others. This being also possesses the ability to "rip" the skeleton out of any organic being with nothing but his mind, resulting in a pile of organs beside a skeleton.

Physical Qualities:
This being is unable to wear any other armor or clothing, he has a necrotic bone armor fused with his flesh. He can only perish through starvation, for he requires the flesh of mortals to exist in the material plane.

Keep in mind, the pictures associated with each Deity of Destruction are solely for inspirational purposes. I have many many more, and if I find an individual willing to code all of these Outsiders and their abilities, I will gladly write and upload the rest.

[Trapezohedron]

Here's my thoughts on these interesting concepts. If I still know how to code interactions and raws, I might give this a shot.

Plague Bearer

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Very possible, but the vomitus consumption thing will have to go. We can emulate it by giving the creature some kind of slime that turns it into a vampire immediately, thus necessitating the consumption of forbidden blood, but I don't think making it eat a specific material possible.

-Tentacle Tendrils can be turned into brains, thus making its destruction necessary in order to kill this creature. Side effects include requiring braintacles and the head's brain to kill it.

-Abilities are very possible, but I am not sure how to measure in-game minutes. Adventure and Dwarf mode have different time calculation formulas anyway.

-Armor and Weapon restriction. I have forgotten and am not too sure, but removing GRASP from its body parts will also remove its ability to open doors provided it has CANOPENDOORS. Armor restriction is also hard; creature size dictates whether it can wear armor or not. Nigh-invulnerability can be achieved by changing the material force multipliers in creature level raws anyway.

Mezbul

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Once again, armor restriction is an issue here. If a creature is large anyway, it cannot wear a races' armor. Note that the game will try to make armor for a creature if it retires in a civilization and is very famous.

-Abilities
The squeal can easily be made. Summoning on the other hand, not so much. Could make a multitiered resurrection spell that makes a creature explode and raise some boars, but that would require DFHack in the first place. An alternative would be to summon a single boar per corpse. To make dire boars, it must be on a separate interaction.

Anything else here is possible, via NATURAL_SKILL and material force multipliers.

Candleman

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Its specific bodyparts can be made with much effort, turning pipes into iron and the like, but the weapon restriction is once again tied to the creature having the GRASP token.

Its talons velocity and relative size could be enlarged to make it blast away whatever it strikes and cuts, to emulate the explosion thing. The jet of flame is easy because the interactions already have a specific template for that.

It is impossible to make it resurrective while keeping it under your control, so killing it anyway will kill it permanently. Finally, armor restriction is tied to creature size and a bunch of bodypart tokens which are necessary for any creature to functon(LOWERBODY, UPPERBODY, etc).

Ash Kyn

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All I can say is, this creature is very possible. However, it will instead cause water to boil rather than solidifying in it itself.

Kag'Mohqu

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Somewhat possible. Listing down things with complications
Organ ripping - Not possible
Undead plague - Possible with contact syndrome; creature won't really be dead, but insane.
Blood Vomiting - I don't know if I can use blood as a vomit, might have to make fake blood with the same properties to emulate the effect. Making blood infections is easy though.
Starvation - This is kind of hard. We could give the creature nigh-invulnerability to everything else to ensure it only dies through starvation.

[Oblivion Walker]

Awesome! I'd love to see what you can turn out, the fact that you're attempting to tackle a task such as this makes me pretty happy, not gonna lie lol.
So for the Kag'Mohqu, since his organ ripping ability isn't possible, is it at all possible to cause an enemy to spontaneously bleed out all over the place, simulating a blood draining ability?

As for Mezbul, summoning a single boar per corpse would be just fine as well, I imagine it's just like a necromance? A mass army of boars led by a crazy boar man would be just as fun.

[Trapezohedron]

Interactions with bleedout syndromes tend to work funky, so I'm not too sure whether it'll work or not.

For Mezbul, yea it's like necromancy. Still trying to remember how to make the boars stop from attacking you, because resurrected creatures don't attack their allies unless they have their hostility tokens, and those hostility tokens also involve attacking you unless you're (technically) undead.

Will see what I can do today, since I'm rather bored.

[Xantalos]

This is interesting to me. I will watch.

[Oblivion Walker]

Any luck on these?

[Trapezohedron]

Not much. I'm still relearning the ropes, especially materials and tissues and how to apply them on creatures.

I have the concepts nailed though.

[Bihlbo]

The design might have to be a bit flexible, pared down to the most interesting bits that give each beast something unique and thematic, but not necessarily adhering to the initial idea.

Here are some thoughts:
Plague Bearer

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The interesting thing to me is that it is quite limited by being weak against ranged attacks, but unstoppable against anything living when close.

Its syndrome seems like it needs to cause 2 things: vomiting and bleeding. The timer isn't nearly as important, since the loss of blood will be what causes the death. If your goal is to delay death long enough for the corpse to fall amidst allies, thereby spreading the plague through a populated area, the bleeding will need to be either limited or easy to heal. Perhaps the syndrome changes the blood into plague-blood (keeps you alive but has different properties). It keeps seeping and can infect others - maybe the plague-blood boils at a low temperature and as soon as it leaves a body it turns into a cloud that contaminates others.

The green aura should be a light source.

I can't conceive how this creature could be made to require eating vomit. However, what makes this a wonderful idea is that it must keep infecting living beings in order to survive, just like an actual plague. Keeping with that concept, is there a way to have it eat something else? Maybe plague-blood?

As for using weapons, does it matter if the beast can open doors or grasp things? Give it buildingdestroyer - unless I'm wrong the only time you'd need to grasp anything anyway is to open a door, and do you really care about doors? Just destroy them. Alternately, don't bother with the limitation at all. Make the claws as good as any masterwork steel weapon and the chances of ever finding anything you'd WANT to wield are low enough to not care about being able to or not.

"only bone weapons can piece his tissues" - does this mean metals and wood cannot but bone can? I have a hunch this isn't possible.

Mezbul

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It seems like summoning boars is too wacky. What if he were able to tame boars instantly? So he needs to find them first, but then they become allies. Or, he's something like a necromancer, raising corpses to fight on as boars. The interesting thing about this isn't so much the boars, but that he is the one of these beasts who can and will have allies, boars or not.

I'm assuming you want Mezbul to have a really tough skull. If that's the case I think restricting it from using helmets (or related, footwear) might prove to be more trouble than its worth. Is there a way to have it start off with armor already being worn? Maybe make it a hidden civilization without tech for helmets? Again, this is not an interesting aspect to the beast, it's just thematic, and I'm not sure its worth messing with enough to do backflips to get it. Focus on making him the one beast of the bunch that uses weapons and allies really well.

The Candle Man

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It would be a neat touch to cause this guy to leave wax everywhere he walks.

I think the description maybe should have said, "cannot be killed by dismemberment," otherwise it's kind of pointless to mention it. Maybe the creature is undead, cannot bleed out, and cannot ever die at all. If you get reduced to just a head, assuming the pipes have not already been destroyed, all you can do is burninate, and eventually that will end too.

An idea: is it possible to cause his dismembered body parts to become undead followers that keep fighting at his side?

Ash Kyn

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The interesting thing about this guy is that he doesn't do melee, he does fire stuff, and makes flaming zombies. I don't really think turning living beings into ash is all that necessary, and I'm not sure how you'd make it so you could choose the "make ash statue fire" vs. the "make zombie fire" when attacking, unless maybe eye fire does one thing and hand fire does another? It might be more interesting if he shoots a gout of fire that goes so fast the impact is usually enough to kill someone, and the short-range fire from a different source zombifies.

Spewing magma is really cool, if for no other reason than he can easily traverse lakes and rivers by spewing magma into the water to make an obsidian bridge. Also, this beast will be walking through a forest fire nearly all of the time, making it probably the most dangerous of all of these.

A little magma is rather deadly to most things standing close enough to stab you. From a balance perspective it might be cool if fast, sharp weapons (arrows, swords) are totally unable to penetrate it, but heavy-impact blunt weapons like big hammers were most effective. As in, you cannot pierce the skin but you can break it. Like obsidian.

If he's vulnerable to water he won't survive in a rainfall. That's probably something that he doesn't need, just let a body filled with magma react like a body filled with magma would react.

Kag'Mohqu

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The things that make this beast interesting are already found in large creatures like golems and dragons, or in necromancers. I would nix this one. Not that it's bad, but it's redundant.

[Zammer990]

You can make bone have a much higher damage on the creature using       [MATERIAL_FORCE_MULTIPLIER:INORGANIC:BONE:NONE:5:1] (bone definition may be wrong)
damage is 5/1, or 5x damage, and if they were flipped, it'd do 1/5th

[blazing glory]

I'm a pathectic modder but i don't think creature's use bone weapons

[IndigoFenix]

I've wanted to do something like this, so I'll see what I can do.  A lot of what you ask for is impossible (or possible but only in a very roundabout way), but I'll  try to keep them as close to the 'spirit' of the original while still being fun to play as.

EDIT: Plague bearer is looking mighty fine...nothing quite like spreading plague like crazy among villagers or bandits.  Vomitus mechanism is right out but he can explode corpses which turns the remainder into edible meat.  Unfortunately there's no real way to restrict him to eating them like that, creatures with hands can always wield weapons and creatures without hands can't eat in adventure mode at all.
Mezbul is simple.  Can't really summon but can raise corpses as zombie boars.  I called them 'spirit boars' so it kind of makes sense.
Ash is working pretty well, burns everything he touches but dies if he tries to swim too far (he can cross streams by evaporating them, but anything bigger will solidify him).  He's rather fragile now though, thanks to being made out of ash, which is a powder (I did give him an obsidian skeleton).  Could be kept in for balancing purposes (not many things can get close enough to punch him anyway) or I could make a new rock-like 'hardened ash' material.

EDIT: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=8093
All normal creatures are automatically hostile, but you can enter settlements for a little while by 'acting friendly', in case you feel like running missions for people.  (It was going to be by disguising yourself as a human, but I thought it was funnier this way.)

[IndigoFenix]

So basically the line-up is:

Plague Bearer:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Durable (probably too durable) but lacks agility and kinesthetic sense so can't use weapons very well.  Killable by bleeding out or by severing all 6 tentacles, which is practically impossible.  Spreads noxious vapor at short range which causes the victim to vomit and bleed all over the place, while also spreading the same vapor - if they wind up in a crowd, pretty much everyone will catch the plague.  Can also explode corpses, which causes them to spread the vapor for a short while, then turn into edible meat.  This is the only way of eating sentient creatures, since being unable to butcher them directly is hard-coded.

Mezbul:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The most normal of the bunch, in my opinion - big and strong but essentially has the same vulnerabilities as living creatures.  Can stun everyone by squealing and raise corpses as spirit boars which will follow Mez around and attack all living creatures.  If Mezbul is low on food, he can butcher one of his boars.  The boar corpses cannot be raised once killed.  It is also worth noting that he would be at peace with wildlife if not for the opposed to life bit, so animals will not run away when he goes into friendly mode (unless he has his boars with him.)

Candle Man:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The (relatively) fragile speedster.  The Candle Man can shoot fire, but not often - mostly relies on his claws.  Landing a hit will one-shot any normal organic creature, from rabbits to dragons (it sometimes takes a few turns for the venom to kick in though).  The claws are also big enough to sever hands and feet or disembowel the victim, not that it really matters.  Candy can have some problems with large crowds, though he's usually quick enough to run away.  Killable by bleeding out, losing his head, or losing all 6 candles.

Ash Kyn:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The glass cannon - Ash can burninate the countryside and the peasants just fine but is quite fragile, so try and keep a distance from enemies.  Not usually a problem.  He is unable to wield most weapons - they melt in his hand - but doesn't need to eat so that's not a huge issue.  He can also die if he crosses large bodies of water - streams are fine, he evaporates them as he walks across the bottom, but anything bigger will solidify him.  (Interestingly, standing still in water usually isn't a problem - the water boils away before it reaches him, so you could actually evaporate a small pond this way).  Flaming zombies left out due to thematic redundancy.

Kag'Mohqu:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Really big and strong.  His bone armor is effective against most basic attacks, although it does leave his head, hands, and feet uncovered.  He also has all the standard monster invulnerabilities.  His blood transmits a plague that turns ordinary creatures opposed to life, and he can projectile vomit it a short distance.  The blood thralls will not actually join Kag, they'll just attack all non-thralled creatures and then just stand around or leave, treating Kag as neutral.  They will lose their ability to learn and speak, though, which means they can be killed and eaten.

[Bihlbo]

Nice work IF, you even made me eat my words on Kag! Shortcut my learning process for me and tell us how to test these out. I added them to the raw/objects folder, made a new world, and bupkiss.

[BlackFlyme]

Nice work IF, you even made me eat my words on Kag! Shortcut my learning process for me and tell us how to test these out. I added them to the raw/objects folder, made a new world, and bupkiss.

Did you create a new entity for them? Just add something like this to the end of entity_default.txt

Code: [Select]

[ENTITY:DESTROYERS]
[INDIV_CONTROLLABLE]
[CREATURE:PLAGUE_BEARER_DESTROYERS]
[CREATURE:MEZBUL_DESTROYERS]
[CREATURE:CANDLEMAN_DESTROYERS]
[CREATURE:ASH_KYN_DESTROYERS]
[CREATURE:KAG_MOHQU_DESTROYERS]
[INDIV_CONTROLLABLE] lets a creature play as an outsider in adventure mode.

[Bihlbo]

Well, I added that to the end of entity_default.txt after adding the files, and the game crashed as soon as I tried to finish character creation. I added [INDIV_CONTROLLABLE] to creature_destroyers.txt under [CREATURE:BASE_DESTROYERS], made a new world, and the same thing happened. I have other mods in place and haven't yet tried using a clean install to see what happens. What's missing? I admit I'm pretty weak on modding df.