There are countless worlds spanning the vast cosmic gulf, each with their own unique stories and histories, heroes and legends, and flora and fauna. But this is not the story of those lucky places, protected from the beyond by swaddling blankets of sunlight and atmosphere. This is the story of those fated to live in the void above, battered by the astral winds and the riot of life they bring swirling down onto once barren rock. A riotous, colorful hellscape of vicious predators and otherworldly beings, these lands are a distant and mysterious place few planet-dwellers even know exist. Be they orbiting bodies or rocks flung through space, these less protected pockets of life fight tooth and nail to protect themselves, from the monsters of the lunar landscape, each other, and the void beyond. For there is danger in the inky black sky, more than anyone could imagine. Vast swarms of spaceborne legions and armadas of glowing ships ply the sightless winds looking for virgin rock to bring under their bootheel, sending their vast spire-ships crashing down into the surface and irrevocably altering the landscape. Chittering in unknown tongues, these invaders wipe clean the land they walk on, infesting it with their own foreign biosphere. Of course, like everywhere else, this horror is but one note among many. Beauty and wonder may also be found here, be it from the beautiful crystal forests, to the strange and unnerving fauna, like planetary sorts but not quite, to the people themselves, strange and odd-mannered, and constantly evolving. Even now they change into ever more powerful forms, evolving to suit the harshly beautiful world they dwell in. And now you live among them, as well. Whether you have lived here all your life, or are a complete fish out of water doesn't matter. If you aren't careful, you'll end up just another ugly stain marring the stark perfection of lunar realms.
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What are the Lunar Realms?
This mod is a setting that takes place on the moon. This can either be the canonical dwarf fortress moon, or just any moon, but either way there is going to be at least a tenuous link to a normal fantasy world. Of course, its not your normal dead moon. The moons of this reality are far more lively, and populated with a diverse array of flora and fauna, but the most important of all of them is a special type of coral that builds itself out of very dense and strong crystals. These crystals are the core of lunar society. They can be used for just about everything from building homes to forging weapons and armor, and each civilization possesses the secret of manipulating one particular species, along with brown and possibly white variants. And if you do not want to be normal, you can grind up and imbibe the powder of these corals into a potent narcotic that triples one of your stats but has a small chance of liquidizing your organs. Another major feature of this mod is the concept of species-wide evolution. In worldgen, certain species that have lived on the moons for long enough will discover the means to evolve into a more advanced version of their race. It is encouraged that the player seek these instructions out and uplift their fortress into the next generation, should such an opportunity become available. It should also be noted that due to the civilized species over-reliance on crystals, they do not know how to smelt metal, so mining for ores is not worthwhile. Gems, however, should be as common as normal rock, mining for those is probably a good idea.
Download Link:
http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=13741Special thanks to Taffer for the Dawnbringer color scheme.
As of now, I would consider the mod more or less a complete product. That doesn't mean I will stop working on it, but it does mean that most if not all of the "main" features have been added, which means you will get a full and enjoyable experience upon playing this mod, barring any bugs I may have missed.
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Changelog:
1.86 Changes:
-Altered spawn rate percentages, adventurers and forts should encounter a wider variety of life now.
1.85 Changes:
-Updated to 44.12
1.8 Changes:
-Updated to 44.11
1.75 Changes:
-Crystal Elementals should be treated strictly as animals now, no more mindless rock people accountants.
-Some cave animals have pet and trainable tags.
-Crystal making should be nerfed slightly, less resources per log. Testing this one.
-Asura nerfed slightly, they now have just one point in all combat skills rather than three. Should still be fairly formidable though.
1.7 Changes:
-Garuda castes fixed.
-Some wild sentient populations will wear armor now when they join a civ.
-All races can now deliberately craft brown crystal instead of it just being a byproduct.
-Crystal Golems have a higher pet value.
-White crystal bars can now only be processed from white crystal, but brown crystal can be synthesized from any crystal type.
1.66 Changes:
-Quick fix to crystal dust making reaction.
1.65 Changes:
-Added 11 more blessings to the idol workshop. As has already been noted, the idol takes blood offerings and in return will release a divine aether that confers benefits on those it envelops. This interaction has now become more complex. Each blessing confers advantages that range from mildly to incredibly powerful and will have far-ranging effects on a player's strategy should they decide to make heavy use of idols. However, the gods of the idols are old and capricious, and if they find themselves displeased or even simply bored, they will bestow a temporary madness upon a petitioner in addition to the blessing they request. The severity of this depends on the context of the situation. A blind beggar pleading for vision in a distant part of the fortress will be a threat to no one when he regains his sight and loses his mind, likely coming back to his senses in a day and going on with his life. However, one who prays for strength and is transformed into a powerful demon in the middle of the meeting hall, and is unlucky enough to be struck with madness as well, will surely bring great devastation to everyone around them, and could even destroy the fortress outright. Idol worship is one of the riskiest forms of empowerment the average citizen could seek, but brings significant benefits that aren't found elsewhere.
-Dwarves added, sort of. The creature file and entity file for dwarves have been added to the raw folder, but are currently inactive. To add them to the world, open the creature_dorf.txt file and the entity_dorf.txt file, and add the term creature_dorf and entity_dorf to the first line of each respective file, exactly as I have typed it there. Then, upon generating a world, they will appear as a civilization. I'll admit that diving in to an entirely foreign landscape, ecosystem, and fortress mode gameplay style can be a bit daunting, so the option of playable dwarves who work almost exactly as they do in vanilla gameplay could provide a starting point for newcomers to this mod, allowing them to familiarize themselves with the basics of the setting without dealing with the more complex new systems. How they ended up in space is up to the player to decide.
-New spookier title song added if you want it. To replace the default title music, go to Dwarf Fortress- The Lunar Realms\data\sound and find the song_title file. Delete, remove, or rename that to something else, and then find the song_title alternate file, and rename it to just song_title.
-Magma sea populated. You can now find a host of surreal, bizarre, and ancient creatures dwelling in the deepest, warmest depths of the caverns. From abstract geometrical predators with bladed limbs to fire-breathing lizards from ages past, the magma sea is more dangerous than ever.
-All abyssal layer predators are now ambush predators. All of them.
1.6 Changes:
-Many small bugfixes and improvements.
-Moth people and garuda can open doors.
-New monk types added. In addition to the Guru and Rakshasa monks, there are now multiple fighting schools that one can become a disciple of. However, your character can only choose one, so choose carefully. The secrets of a fighting style will greatly boost one stat and immunize you to many weaknesses, including aging, but unlike the Guru and Rakshasa (who still outclass you by default) you gain no powers or personality changes. Each fighting style focuses on a specific attribute, and you are expected to adapt to maximize said attribute's potential. For example, a devotee of the Meteoric Fist style would have greatly increased strength and could rely on brute force to solve his problems, but a follower of the Unyielding Spirit school has a sharpened and trained focus, so he would not be as strong, but have far more mental discipline and precision. All new monk types can be found in normal sites, and can be anything from ascetics living in caves to leaders of entire civilizations, and anything in-between. It should also be noted that while Gurus and Rakshasas cannot learn fighting styles, normal monks can learn one school+opt to become one of those two monk types.
1.51 Changes:
-Emergency fix to duplicate raw bug.
1.5 Changes:
-Flying removed from Garuda and Deva races. This is regrettable but DF cannot handle flying races in fort mode as of now. To re-enable this ability, add the [FLIER] tag to their creature raws.
-Good and evil creatures added. If you are unaware, the two invader races of the game are the military forces of extraterrestrial empires based on enslavement and conquest in the case of Outsiders, and total omnicide in the case of the Sutra. Both of them have brought along their own creature-weapons which have been released into the ecosystem, polluting it with unnatural invasive species that are highly dangerous. Good biomes now have sutra creatures lurking within, and evil biomes are populated by Outsider fauna and flora. Sutra life typically has strange abilities or dangerous fire-based attacks, while Outsider creatures are known for their vicious predatory behaviors and crystal armor plating.
1.4 Changes:
-Some bugfixes
-Garuda and Salamandra both have ascended/mutated forms to hunt for.
-Last cavern layer filled out. Following the ocean theme, the deepest layer of the caverns is a nightmarish, dark abyss filled with strange and unsettling animals with bio-luminescent bodies. This layer is very dangerous and filled with large and dangerous predatory monsters that either hunt in swarms or are so big they don't need to. I would go more in detail about what's down there but I'd rather leave it as a surprise.
1.36 Changes:
-Super small update to fix the cloth bed making reaction.
1.35 Changes:
-The second cavern layer has been fleshed out. If the first cavern layer can be seen as a coral reef or shallow seas biome, the second layer is a twilight zone of muck and dirt, with no trees or plantlife to be found. The inhabitants of this world are either filter-feeding sponges or participants in a bizarre free-for-all ecosystem where everything is trying to consume everything else. Compared to the upper caverns and the surface, this layer looks a lot different due to the fact that its depth leaves it protected from most invasive fauna and thus far more barren than the aforementioned regions. The main danger to be found here is starvation, due to the scarcity of things to eat and the danger once you find them.
-New weapons and armor added to many civs.
-New experimental diplomatic system added. Every race besides the Asura, who don't care, and the Salamandra, who no one listens to anyway, will impose tree-cutting quotas on your fortress. The reason for this is that as crystal coral is the one substance that can be reliably crafted into weapons and armor, nations who begin massive deforestation programs are often growing their army in preparation for a campaign. And so to prevent uncontrolled military growth, a delicate balance of limitation treaties ties the various nations into an uneasy peace, and new settlements will be expected to honor these agreements. To do otherwise is the same as outright stating your military ambitions, which will cause great unease among your neighbors. I've edited the dialogue for this event to fit this lore, so you shouldn't hear diplomats complaining about the sanctity of nature and such things. Note that I do NOT know if this will make traders mad if they are given raw coral logs or products made of that resource. As I stated, this is something of an experiment so feedback on this issue would be greatly appreciated.
-You can make beds out of cloth in the craftsman workshop.
-The crystal tuning altar workshop can now synthesize coke out of lignite and bituminous coal. Unlike a smelter, the altar does not require fuel because it uses weird sound magic to work. This and the above reaction should allow for 100% wood-free fortresses, in theory.
1.3 Changes
-All Crystal Elementals can now shoot chunks of crystal as a ranged attack. I felt this was fitting as I had conceptualized them as the ultimate heavy infantry, and wanted to give them a ranged attack to further cement their military superiority.
-New civilization, the Asura. The Asura are a violent mob of warmongering demigods who live for battle. Each one of them is a highly skilled warrior with contempt for the teachings universal harmony foisted on them by others, for the Asura believe that strength comes from one's self, and that might is the only right to be found. For this reason, Asura society permits any crime, so long as there is significant justification (or, significant might) behind the perpetrator. However, they are not entirely evil and can be reasoned with, though it might be difficult. Their civilization primarily uses white crystal, since it can be synthesized from any coral and does the job well enough that the Asura do not feel the need to seek an alternative.
-New civilization, the Deva. Another race of demigods, the Deva society is one that values harmony, tranquility, and peace. Do not mistake this for weakness, however, as the Deva will go to war against evil without hesitation should they feel the need for it. The Deva use the rose crystal species, seen as one of the "kindest" breeds since the dust created from it carries no risk of death or disfigurement when used, and instead of increasing strength simply enhances one's healthiness.
-New civilization, the Garuda. A race of nomads that sailed the astral winds, the Garuda will sometimes settle on moons and asteroids if they feel there is an opportunity for a better life there. They are proud and honorable, to an extent, and can be a dangerous threat due to their ability to fly. They use blue crystal and can be found in most deserts.
-New civilization, the Salamandra. Salamandra are large, brutish reptiles with a primitive society. Their power comes from their size, nearly twice as big as most races, and the fact that they only take two years to reach maturity. Their weakness is in their low technology, with the only crystal they can synthesize being the brown gradient, a type other races see as only a byproduct. However, they remain a dangerous threat due to their desire to steal the secrets of other crystal types.
1.25 Changes:
This is a smaller than normal update because I had to release it quicker due to a massive error I found.
-You can now actually harvest crystal corals and turn them into pure crystal bars. I accidentally made it so the foundation of the mod was broken but it is fixed now and should totally be playable in fortress mode.
-New building, the Idol. Its a little statue that gives you blessings when you splash blood on it. The blessing is, mechanics-wise, a type of gas that needs to make contact with or be breathed in by the target, so if you want someone to be blessed use burrows or something to put them next to the statue, and have someone activate it. Right now, the only blessing is one that temporarily makes dwarves immune to fear, and with the current stress situation it will probably be super useful.
-Rebalanced spawn ratios, certain large monsters should be less frequent.
-Sutra now have pretty and fun instruments to play with.
-All current civilized races now have mutation secrets, which when read will turn a member of that species into a more powerful, immortal version of itself. It is recommended you find where these secret slabs are, if they exist in your world, and steal/reclaim them, to uplift your fortress's population.
1.21 Changes:
-Quick patch to adventure mode crafting menu mistake. Should not affect actual gameplay if you downloaded it already, it's just a description thing.
1.2 Changes:
-All civilizations can field golems of the same type as their chosen crystal. Crystal Elementals are incredibly powerful living weapons, with adaptable limbs that can sharpen to a fine blade to slash or a fist to grab and crush. They are emotionless, tireless, thoughtless warriors, and are the most powerful form of infantry a lunar nation can possess. They are also very limited, as they do not reproduce, so use them with care, and when facing enemy golems, destroy as many as you can.
-Bodha now use esoteric weapons like vajra and chakrams.
-New civilization, the Lunen. They are colorful, gaudy humanoids with brightly colored hair. They love excess and commerce, and are masters of high fashion. They compete with another new race, the Siami. The Siami are a race of land-dwelling fish people also brightly colored, who follow the way of the ninja and wage a guerilla war against the Lunen for control of the crystal forests, which they both live in.
-New civilization, the Moth Folk. A race of flying insects that can no longer fly, they can be seen as similar to the Lunen, but less focused on commerce and more on their own internal cultural development. Also unlike the Lunen, they have a strong martial culture. Moth Folk build bunkers and cities in the mountains.
-New invader civilization, the Sutra. The Sutra are a race of living stone statues in the shape of saints, who have completely eliminated their ego and operate on blindsight, that is, reacting and evolving to meet challenges without any sort of identity or self-awareness, a sort of "super-sapience" and communicate using a song, which sounds like a repeating verse of prayer to other beings. Their overall goal is to wipe out all thinking life in the universe and then kill themselves so that it will finally be pure.
-New wizard, or rather, monk types. There are now two types of wandering martial artists in the world. The most feared are the evil Rakshasas, mortals who have made deals with demonic beings in exchange for eternal life. They feed on the flesh and blood of children and can use corpses to summon enthralled demons into the world, from weak and frail servants to creatures on par with the mightiest of monsters. In addition, they possess formidable physical skill like that of a demigod, making them very difficult to defeat. The second type is the Guru, they too have made a deal with otherworldly powers, but rather than serve evil, they fight to destroy it. A Guru is also immortal and has many strengths, but still needs to eat, drink, and sleep. In addition, their personalities are changed to become inhumanly altruistic, dutiful, and brave. Lastly, their strength and other physical traits are greatly increased, even more so than those of a Rakshasa. Gurus can get into wrestling matches with things ten times their size and still come out on top, making them the ideal counterpoint to the Rakshasa's minions.
1.1 Changes:
-All ocean life replaced with new animals. Going into any body of water larger than stagnant pools is hazardous if you aren't looking, and oceans are EXTREMELY hazardous even if you are.
-All leftover animals not deliberately part of the mod removed.
-A great deal of new animals and monsters added to the surface.
-Cavern overhaul. I have decided to treat the lunar cavern layers as an ocean. That is, the currently finished first layer can be considered as being like a coral reef in terms of aesthetic and purpose. I will leave you to figure out what that entails for the deeper layers.
-New wandering race added, the Crysta. They are humanoids formed from the psychic impressions left in the crystal forests, and now walk among mortals. Crysta are protected by a thin layer of their crystal type, as the species can be divided into 13 castes, each corresponding with a certain crystal type found on the moon.
-New crystal corals added, that should be all of them I think.
-Races should use ocean and river products.
1.0 Changes:
-Lunar Realms released
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Topic: [44.12] Dwarf Fortress: The Lunar Realms 1.86 (Read 13959 times)