"...and as the Great Hero plunged the sacred sword into the Dark Lord's chest, the fiend's last order was, "COME!", and they came snrk - all of them, the vengeful dead, the traitorous men, the demonic entities, the creatures with blasphemous names...An army of horrors descended upon the land, to conquer the kingdoms of the living in time for the return of their evil master."
Relatively small update, but one I think is important - for this year's spooky month, I added a faction race called the Monsters - essentially a random mash of the various classic horror monsters, but in a playable form - that is, both for adventure mode and for fort mode. General vibe I wanted to go with was "you're Dracula, raising his army of dysfunctional monsters, and hoping they all don't kill each other".
The Monsters are a thieving faction, so they will actually be hostile to the vast majority of races - not just humans, dwarves and elves, but also many of the races from this pack. Perhaps they see you as intruding on their brand, or something to that effect. Regardless, the only allies you can expect to trade with you are the Pirates and Predators. They do not have any custom workshops currently, but that'll probably change eventually.
The Monsters have a variety of castes, that can be split into several categories, starting with the common fodder:
-Rotter - undead, rotting, slow-witted humans that hunger for the flesh of the living. Don't call them "zombies", though, they find that offensive - they still think they're just normal humans. Some of the most common minions you'll get, they learn most labors at a 75% race, but they're quite durable and still learn combat skills at a normal rate. They also spread diseases by biting and scratching.
-Skeleton - standard-issue pun-slinging skeletons that annoy enemies. Durable, and don't have any particular skills they're bad at, nor anything they excel at. They can aggravate enemies with puns, and also hurl sharpened ribs as a projectile.
-Slime Ghost - a ghost made of ectoplasmic flesh and bone, with an oversized head and a huge maw. Avoids traps and has an easier time learning dodging - can also spit sticky slime to slow down your enemies.
-Mad Clown - deranged human entertainers that went insane for a variety of reasons. They learn axes and fighting faster, and have a much easier time learning comedy. They can stress out enemies by telling them dark, disturbing jokes, and throw acidic pies.
-Lagoon Dweller - evil, clawed fish-men. Innate swimmers and also capable of swimming faster, their scratching attacks are quite deadly, and they are somewhat agile and dodgy.
The heavies, large and primarily made for combat, but are quite rare:
-Creature - large, stitched-together human-like undead. Their propensity for violence and relatively slow wit ensures that they learn most labors at a halved rate - however, they can easily take to fighting either with their fists or with maces and hammers. They also can hurl balls of lightning, or absorb lightning to empower themselves.
-Man-Wolf/She-Wolf - large werewolves - they learn most labors at a 75% rate, but they pick up unarmed fighting much more quickly, and their howls may frighten enemies. Their claws and fangs are also capable of easily causing deadly injuries.
-Swamp Man/Woman - half-plant monsters overgrown with a tangle of greenery - they can lash with the vines entwined with their arms, and also spew putrid spores to infect enemies. Also an innate swimmer, capable of swimming faster.
-Man-Bug/She-Bug - a scientist, transformed into an insect monster through self-experimentation. Can perform deadly slashes or stabs with its bladed forelimbs, and also spit acid from a distance or unnerve enemies with harsh buzzing. Too heavy to fly, but capable of crawling up obstacles without losing speed or using their hands.
-Murderous Psycho - undead, murderous human revenants. Smallest of the heavies, but still larger than your average human, and easily take to wielding swords, daggers and axes (or chainsaws, for that matter). They may take some time to prepare to kill enemies, with a chance of making themselves slower but also increasing their strength and agility.
-Cthonian - dragon-winged, octopus-like humanoids with clawed, tentacle-like fingers. Most rare of all Monsters, they are something of a spellcaster-bruiser hybrid - while they learn fist-fighting at a faster rate, their rate isn't as high as that of other heavies - they make up for it with several spells, including a powerful single-target buff. They also have a bit more variety in terms of melee attacks, capable of tightly gripping onto enemies with their long, tendril-like fingers, or clawing with their spiked wings. They are innate swimmers, and can swim faster - their wings do not enable flight, however.
The spellcasters, who focus more on debilitating your enemies, and are also rather rare:
-Dark Reaper - hovering skeletal minions of Death itself. They learn pikes at a faster rate, and are physically the strongest of all dedicated spellcasters. They are also capable of hurling summoned sickles to cause edged damage at a distance, and their two other spells debilitate the physical attributes of their victims.
Though, they do not like shoes, and will absolutely refuse to wear them.
-Grudge Spirit - vengeful, female ghosts that hover above the ground - similarly to the Reapers, they do not like shoes. Not particularly outstanding physically, but they can heavily debilitate enemies by harnessing the power of their grudge, or psychically twist the limbs of their foes - they will also jumpscare enemies to severely frighten them.
-Mummy - undead royalty awakened from their slumber. Far more intelligent than the Rotters, and are capable of cursing their enemies, either using a Curse of the Cat to make the victim nauseated and forced to vomit up hairballs, or the Curse of the Scarab that causes scarabs to manifest under the victims flesh - occasionally making the victim vomit up a Rotting Scarab, which will be hostile to the victim, should they be a living creature anyway. The mummies can also drain life from their enemies, and buff their allies with a blessing of the Pharaohs.
And lastly, the ones that don't neatly fit into the other categories, with varying rarity:
-Bedeviled One -humans possessed by vulgar, demonic spirits. They can climb up walls quickly, without using their hands, and will vomit at their enemies, as well as insult them - they may also unnerve victims by twisting their own heads 360 degrees.
-Vampire - undead human nobles afflicted with vampirism. Fond of fencing, but also enjoy dancing, to the extent of launching thrilling dance parties even in the middle of a fight. Rotters in particular benefit highly from the dance parties, gaining more powerful buffs.
They may also grow bloodthirsty in the middle of a fight - a strong self-buff, that unfortunately has a 50/50 chance of making the vampire crave blood, potentially feeding on any sleeping civilian - while many of the Monsters have no need for sleep, some of them that are not undead, demonic or otherworldly in nature (i.e Mad Clowns, Mad Scientists, Lagoon Dwellers or the Man-wolves) still do have this requirement. This state lasts for only 2 weeks, however. Their biting attacks may suck out blood, and also drain the victim of their endurance.
-Mad Scientist - deranged human scientists, exiled for immoral experiments. Lifetime spent in their laboratories has made them more resistant to diseases, and they take very easily to medical jobs. They hand out various beneficial mixtures to their allies, while hurling vials of toxic runoff at their enemies. Unremarkable physically, however.
More precise details are available in the help files - I apologize if the formatting might be weird, I've switched over to notepad++. I hope you enjoy this more low-key update, there'll possibly be more updates later, but for now I gotta finish up working on some other mods. There's some minor updates to the addons for this pack as well, mostly slight increases to littersizes of the various unplayable factions so that they may survive worldgen a bit better, but nothing more important.