For as long as anyone can remember, the caves have been home. Vast, towering walls along all sides, the false sky lit by a dim, artificial star built by the last great wizards of the timeless era. Elves, dwarves, goblins, and humans alike all fled from the sunlit surface so long ago that memory has faded into but a dim recollection. But a recollection nonetheless. They knew something caused them to flee down into the dark, something never to be spoken of or sought after. And they know that they were the rulers of that land, once. And now, they know that they are dying. It has been millennia, and countless barbarian tribes have risen to become kingdoms, and alliances of kingdoms. The cave-folk even now contest with them for control of the world, their feral hordes forever battering at the gates of vast and venerable empires. But while the old races are few, they have power. The secret of metalworking is closely guarded, and only they may wield its strength, leaving the primitive savages to use only leather, wood, and sacred bone blessed with runes of blood to give it unheard-of properties, the only way the tribes may match the nations of the old world. However, while these two great powers fight each other and themselves, the world itself seeks to tear them both down. For the endless dark is a writhing charnel pit of monstrous predators, and danger lurks around every corner and behind every mushroom-trunk. To step even a hundred paces from home is to lower oneself to mere prey on the food chain, subject to the whims of ruthless apex hunters. And yet, people of all races continue to do so. Be they individuals seeking glory or migrants desiring a new home, they embark upon perilous journeys and bloody quests. Who will you side with in this eternal slaughter? Will you join the old empires and restore their former glory on the backs of slaves? Will you serve the barbarian tribes and forge a new future for your people? Will you join the enigmatic fae of the deeps and their unknowable agendas? Or will your searches lead you to dark, sinister paths no sane mortal would dare tread? All this and more lies waiting in the Endless Dark.
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Download Link:
http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=13542----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is the Endless Dark mod?
This mod is a total overhaul of the game. Put simply, it takes all the creatures and plants from the caverns, and puts them on the surface as well, effectively turning the entire world into the cave biome. Almost sentient or potentially sentient cave creatures now have their own entity files. The setting varies between the high technology of the original races versus the primitive kingdoms of the cave civilizations, and of course the wilderness is exponentially more dangerous. As the setting evolves, I intend to add more content of my own design in addition to the pre-existing reshuffled creatures. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated!
Special thanks to Taffer for letting me use his tileset and Lovechild for the elf civ stuff from All Races Playable.
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Changelog:
1.9 changes:
-Updated to 44.11
1.85 changes:
-updated to 44.10
-title music added
1.8 changes:
-Updated to 44.09.
1.75 changes:
-Updated to 44.08.
-If you have been crashing randomly lately that should be stopped now maybe.
1.7 changes:
-New outsiders. Outsiders are otherdimensional beings that use mortals as living gateways into our reality, usually preying on them when a temple is defiled and divine protection is temporarily withdrawn, or will migrate here as entire civilizations. Fish things and false hydras are examples. As of this update, blood gaunts, void spawn, and chittering devils have been added as well. I will likely add more as the mod progresses.
-Deep fae are immune to most magics, both helpful and harmful.
-Portable cannons now have a very slow bash attack for you absolute madmen out there.
-A new outsider civilization has been added, the necrosaurs. They can best be described as the ghosts of humanoid dinosaurs possessing their own still-living bodies. This unique arrangement lets them walk among the undead in peace, and even create their own zombies (but just one at a time and with a long cooldown period.)
-A new wizard class, the psychomancers. Psychomancers are unique in that they have no directly offensive or defensive spells, and a lot of the time are not even aware they are wizards. Psychomancers will unconsciously project intense (usually negative) emotions to anyone around them. In the presence of a psychomancer, people will become depressed, isolated, paranoid, enraged, and many other emotions, making them a threat to the integrity of a fortress if one ever slips into yours. They are not listed as a psychomancer and their spells have no description, so you won't know if one is near you until people start going crazy. The one tell of a psychomancer is that they no longer need to sleep and often live for centuries, so you can use these as clues to track them down. And of course, it always gets worse. The emotional flare-ups caused by a psychomancer can, very rarely, result in the victim being used as a gateway by an outsider. Many of them, while cruel and malevolent, can integrate into your fort if you are willing to align with the dark powers. but very rarely, something truly horrible will be summoned, and you must act quickly or face an untimely end. Many psychomancers are completely unaware of the powers they have, and are simply walking disaster areas. But there are always a few who know exactly what they are doing, and deliberately drive communities to insanity. Those people are terrifying.
1.6 changes:
-Updated to 44.07
-Bat men added to civilized creature list (idk why they weren't there already)
-New deep fae added, hoblins. Found in tropical areas and breed exponentially.
-New race and civ added, the Ur-Men. Like humans except taller, more moralistic, and with shiny metal skin (not actually metal). Are split down the middle between decent folk and roving packs of ethnic cleansers.
-A new creature added, the False Hydra. This is something I need to talk about in-depth. They are probably the most dangerous single monster I have ever produced. It is a living cancer, devouring entire settlements. It does this by singing its first song, which removes all emotion and pain from the heads of anyone who hears it. This effect sounds for 10000 tiles, and no walls will block it, but it only lasts a week and must be refreshed. It does no harm, but it makes it easier for the false hydra to feed, devouring cities in much the same way a vampire does, but worse because the populace are under the song's spell. They could look right at the false hydra and not register it as existing, or being a problem. It could be right in the throne room and no one would ever know. And it sometimes is, taking up a position of nobility and making sure everyone sees it as a normal ruler using its song. Anyone who hears its first song can spread it, creating a self-perpetuating plague of painless apathy. And for fools who see through the illusion and try to kill it, it has a second song it can sing, only affecting those under the spell of the first. This song kills the listener over several minutes, and it will hurt the whole time they are dying. False hydras are both totally invisible, and utterly invincible. One could be towering over you and you would never notice, or notice and never care. The only way to have even a chance of killing it is to become immune to its enchantment song. This requires either the blessing of an insect spirit, or drinking a potion made using guardian herbs, which are special plants that are very rare and only grow in good biomes. If you think you might be in a country harboring a false hydra, your best option might just be to run away, and hope it eats itself to death before it can move to a new hunting ground. (Credit to this post for giving me inspiration for the creature:
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/09/false-hydra.html?m=1)
1.56 changes:
-Fixed crafting reaction error.
1.55 changes:
-Taffer's Pastel color set added to the mod. The original colors are in there as well, labeled as "colors 0". Remove the current colors file rename colors 0 to just colors to get the vanilla colors to return.
-Leech men added as a wetlands barbarian civ.
-Elves will always have dinosaurs to give them an edge. The original races are meant to be advanced and deadly compared to the barbarian tribes or element-men, and while the dwarves and humans are very similar in their use of steel and gunpowder, elves have gone their own way with fielding reptilian giants as weapons.
-Brain gnomes have a limited lifespan for some reason. Why could that be?
-Cave swallows tameable by mammal and bird cave civs.
-Greatly expanded leather crafting options to include most other clothing.
1.51 changes:
-emergency fix to duplicate animal bug
1.5 changes:
-Mod updated for 44.06
-Swallow shamans now added. Become a bird and increase agility.
-Giant reptiles now found in all savage biomes, not just tropical ones.
-Some new animals here and there.
-Deep things renamed to Fish Things so as not to confuse them for deep fae.
-New wizardry class, the Demonologist. Demonologists have mastered the power of devil summoning and manipulating hellish materials like slade and balefire. Powerful, but prone to accidents, be it from burning themselves alive with a miscast firestream or, it is rumored, being possessed by the very demons they seek to channel. However, it is definitely possible to do good using these powers. Probably.
-Ammo crafting fixed in adventure mode for real.
1.4 changes:
-Moved to Beta because it now has a significant amount of new content as planned and is not lacking in things to do. Much more to come though.
-5 new wizard types, the shamans. Shamans are wizards who have struck a bargain with animal spirits. They get a few centuries of extra life, and they work the will of the spirits in the mortal world, usually through helping people or slaying monsters. The spirits that can be channeled are Bear, Snake, Toad, Insects, and Octopus, but more will probably be coming. Each spirit has their own unique spells and a transformation ability that turns you into the creature you channel for a short time. Also, you can have more than one spirit bound to you at a time, or even all the spirits. But note that shamans are not meant to be frontline fighters. Their main advantage are their buffing skills which temporarily increase the stats of allies or give them tags like NO_EAT/NO_DRINK and NOFEAR. Though Octopus, Insect, and Toad shamans do have offensive spells their buffing spells are still of primary importance. Ideally you will want to keep them in your fort or barracks so they can continually buff your soldiers. Because of wonky time scales, buffs last around half a day in adventure mode, but a month in fort mode. As an adventurer, you will probably want to buff yourself/be buffed by a companion or random shaman right before fighting an enemy so it won't run out at a bad time. That said, shamans can turn to the ways of evil as well, and join necromancers in their study of the dark arts, so if you attack a tower, be aware that evil shamans may be dwelling within.
-A vampiric creature known as the blood leech. Blood leeches are parasitic leech men that infest mortals and wear them as a skin so they may prey upon the living undetected. Essentially, they are vampires that can spread like werebeasts. Luckily they are not that hard to kill, but woe unto you if they should propagate in your fortress. Their true forms are weak to blessed steel.
-A race of enigmatic creatures called Deep Things. Otherworldly fishmen that use heathen fools as living gateways into our world, they will use their unnatural charisma to either integrate into the society that spawned them under the guise of a benevolent demigod or form a cult of killers in the wilderness. Regardless of their intention, they are physically powerful and a dangerous enemy to have due to the resources at their disposal. Weak to blessed steel.
-A new deep fae, the water spirit, found in rivers, lakes, and pools. They have hands of blessed steel and their punches can hit like a battle axe, cleaving through flesh.
-Certain forms of light may or may not be lethal to touch or handle without armor unless you are a certain type of being.
-Bayoneted muskets removed. Normal muskets and pistols have bayonets now so they are redundant.
-Portable cannon added. Its a big, heavy cannon on wheels that strong people can lug around and fire cannonballs out of. It has no melee attack and will slow you to .99 speed, but as you can imagine getting hit with a cannonball will devastate most things. In battle against them, try to close the distance really fast or have a high dodging skill. If you are using one, either count on companions to protect you, or give it to one of your friends and guard them. This is not intended to be a weapon for solo adventurers. Found in human and dwarven civs.
1.35 changes:
-Quick fix to crafting, which is why I had to update so soon after the last one. You should be able to make spearbolts now.
-Cave seal men would consistently become a significant world power because they were the only civ that would always colonize glaciers and tundras. I have added a new civilization, snowspiders, to serve as rivals for them. The two should war frequently and keep one another in check.
-You can make musketballs in adventure mode crafting, but not muskets. You need to find one in a human or dwarven civ.
1.3 changes:
-New monstrous creatures added to savage areas, especially tropical ones. But in temperate ones, there is a pair of terrifyingly nasty beasts. No spoilers though.
-New metal type, Blessed Steel. Found only in dwarven and human civs, this is no different from normal steel except it does double damage against deep fae and certain other entities.
-New wizard type, the immortal. Not really a wizard as much as just some guy who figured out the secret of immortality. They have no abilities except 'power up' which gives them peak physical stats for a short duration, along with maxed willpower and focus. They will not build towers and will probably end up ruling civs or becoming super-powerful bandit lords.
-New weather types. You can be victimized by sandstorms or flesh-snow from rotting but still airborne sky whales (which I have also added) in any biome.
-I've let the light in. If you hear whispering, you should run far away from where you heard it.
-Pantheons are now randomized for barbarian civs.
-Various bugfixes.
1.25 changes:
-Crafting fixed, and now you can make armor and weapons out of wood in addition to runebone. Bone crafting is kind of broken so instead of 50 bones to make one runebone chunk, it only needs 1 but has a 10% success rate, balancing it out. Sorry for the inconvenience.
-Folding spiders altered somewhat, humanoid forms now represent idealized forms of males and females rather than no sexual dimorphism. They are called Siren forms for a reason.
-2 new deep fae, the brain gnome, which has genius level intellect and will have a high military strategy skill level when that is implemented, and the huskdrake, a humanoid chimera that can briefly turn into a much more monstrous form. On that note, I should talk about the deep fae and how they fit into the game from a mechanical standpoint. Essentially, the deep fae are a loose classification of very powerful organisms or magical beings of unknown origin, with varying magical talents and physical abilities, but are almost universally superior to conventional mortals. Having no civilizations of their own, they will form enclaves within pre-existing civilizations or roam the world as mercenaries and nomads. As a fortress player, it is highly encouraged to cultivate an enclave in your own settlement if possible, for deep fae of any sort are a boon to any nation. As an adventurer, deep fae companions are valued allies and having one or more as a servant is a symbol of status among all flavors of nobility.
1.2 changes:
-New enchanted material added, fae chitin. Softer but heavier than runebone. Barbarian civs will either use one or the other depending on culture.
-Some barbarian and elemental civs can use a new weapon, the spear launcher. A very large crossbow well-suited for hunting the beasts of the caverns.
-New deep fae, the jellitaur. A humanoid with the lower body of a jellyfish that can sing an enchanted melody which will heal any allies who hear it.
-Default civs overhauled and made playable. Dwarves now have muskets instead of crossbows. Human military is entirely based around the pike and shot style of renaissance combat, and will use steel and iron exclusively. Elves can grow weapons and armor thanks to the scripts from All Races Playable and will also use runebone and fae chitin.
-Several large and dangerous sea monsters have been made amphibious.
-You should be able to craft fae chitin and runebone in adventure mode, in addition to normal bone and leathercrafting.
-Elemental men will speak and stuff.
1.1 changes:
-Elemental civs. To summarize them, gabbro elementals are hardworking and decent folk, amethyst elementals are decadent merchants, magma elementals desire war and chaos, iron elementals seek order and balance, mud elementals wish merely to survive, and blood elementals have stolen steel from the dwarves and allied with demon-kind. All civs are fairly rare though, so they will not eclipse the other factions.
-A new deep fae added, the iron fairy. A cute little floating thing that can summon storms of iron chunks on people it doesn't like but has the toughness of a wet paper towel.
-new grasses added and trees reorganized. Hopefully the upper cave has more variety now.
-cave seal man will be cave seal men and not just actual cave seals
1.0 changes:
-Endless Dark released.