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[Deboche]

My first post on these forums was about making the magic system in DF emulate real life occult systems and it wasn't met with much aproval.

But I'd still like to suggest, now we have books, that grimoires would be a fun addition. We already have it in the game for necromancers but throughout the ages - and especially during the medieval period - grimoires were a big thing.

If this were to be implemented, there'd probably be a lot of secrecy surrounding these books or at least they'd be strictly controlled because unlike real life, everyone can read in DF.

These would be books about contacting and working with gods, demons, angels and all sorts of other entities, about doing specific rituals for specific purposes, creating talismans and amulets and so on.

Naturally, all of this depends on what magic eventually becomes. But even from a philosophical perspective, it'd be interesting. Research can have a lot of dead ends that end up being useful. Alchemy ended up producing some insights for later sciences, for example, and Newton was an alchemist which probably allowed him to look at the world in a different way and come up with all that stuff about physics. Some occultists would argue alchemy was not a dead end and is still alive and well though.

Perhaps grimoires could be artifact books. Makes sense that such knowledge would come directly from the source.

[IndigoFenix]

I do think that there should be more requirements for learning a secret.  Right now, if a necromancy book shows up in your fort, the knowledge in it spreads like a virus.

Maybe interaction syndromes should be given a quality similar to the syndrome concentration used for materials, and certain aspects of the interaction could be applied after repeated uses causes a 'build up' in the effect.  (This would be nice for other things as well, like modding interactions that have cumulative effects)

So skimming a book on necromancy wouldn't automatically make you functionally immortal and give you the power to raise the dead, but as you studied it longer you could gradually unlock new abilities/syndrome effects, starting with things like removing the need to sleep, then the need to eat or drink, then making you stop aging, and finally being able to raise the dead.  One's reading/learning skill could also be taken into account with how fast one 'levels up'.  Only the most studious of dwarves would actually wind up acquiring powers from books kept in a fort.

[cochramd]

I'm quite curious about how divination would work in DF, thought it's sort of in a "I have a theory, and I really want to see how right or wrong it is" sort of way. Since so much of the game is randomly generated, I figure that divination would merely be randomly generating those events ahead of time and telling you of them in advance.

[Deboche]

I do think that there should be more requirements for learning a secret.  Right now, if a necromancy book shows up in your fort, the knowledge in it spreads like a virus.

If it were anything like real life occultism, it would take considerable time meditating, reading, doing rituals and ceremonies and so on. Also, perhaps most readers should dismiss it as fantasy while others keep the book secret at all costs and others would try to destroy it.

I'm quite curious about how divination would work in DF, thought it's sort of in a "I have a theory, and I really want to see how right or wrong it is" sort of way. Since so much of the game is randomly generated, I figure that divination would merely be randomly generating those events ahead of time and telling you of them in advance.

Divination would be really tough to implement, perhaps impossible. Perhaps it could predict things that the game "knows" are going to happen but the user or the dwarves don't such as the arrival of a siege/forgotten beast but there aren't many of those.

[cochramd]

I'm quite curious about how divination would work in DF, thought it's sort of in a "I have a theory, and I really want to see how right or wrong it is" sort of way. Since so much of the game is randomly generated, I figure that divination would merely be randomly generating those events ahead of time and telling you of them in advance.

Divination would be really tough to implement, perhaps impossible. Perhaps it could predict things that the game "knows" are going to happen but the user or the dwarves don't such as the arrival of a siege/forgotten beast but there aren't many of those.

Precisely what I was thinking.

[Blastbeard]

I do think that there should be more requirements for learning a secret.  Right now, if a necromancy book shows up in your fort, the knowledge in it spreads like a virus.

After an otherwise stable and uneventful fort became unplayable after half the population learned how to throw fireballs and the other half learned how to raise the dead, I have to concur. Learning how to make dead people get back up, shoot fire, or whatever else you've had the hubris to mod in has always been as easy as opening a book. Now that those books are easy to come by and usable by any schmuck what comes across them, I find myself flooded in more necromancers, wizards and more than I feel I ever should have had to deal with. Right now I feel like my choices are to get rid of any interaction books that pop up or let it happen, without any kind of middle ground. Something's got to be done.

I think that whatever else goes into fixing this, learning an interaction from a book has to be an ultimately voluntary action, as in you shouldn't learn the secret the moment you open the book. In adventure mode, you pick up a book, you read it, and you're told something like "This book contains the secrets of life and death. Keep reading? Y/N". In fort mode, a dwarf picks up a book, they read it, and they only decide to learn the secret if they have the correct goal, they don't keep going and learn necromancy unless they're after immortality.
The adventure mode prompt keeps you from gaining a power you may not have wanted just because you didn't know about the book beforehand, and the fort mode goal check keeps your dwarves from becoming necromancers unless they were going to try for that anyway. Learning the secret is still possible in both situations, but it's ultimately up to the individual if they go all the way.

I'm quite curious about how divination would work in DF, thought it's sort of in a "I have a theory, and I really want to see how right or wrong it is" sort of way. Since so much of the game is randomly generated, I figure that divination would merely be randomly generating those events ahead of time and telling you of them in advance.

Predictions for volcanic eruptions and earthquakes would probably be easy to implement. Major seismic events are set in motion long before they actually occur, predicting them would be as easy as giving the soothsayer a sneak peak at a countdown for an event that was already going to happen anyway. The way I see it, they would essentially be fixed points determined in the early stages of world gen at their simplest, but Toady is probably going to want to go with a more convincing model for geological activity when the time comes.

[Neonivek]

I will say that Grimoires would probably be a bit more impactful then the game's current "Treaties on life and death"

Not that I want the old novels to go... but having a big book of all the dark secrets a character knows would certainly be interesting.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

It doesn't always have to be voluntary, but the actions you can do should be.