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[voliol]

I've always gotten an enormous kick out of the idea of magic associated with the Pregnancy sphere, especially with the community's well-known frustration with dwarven children and catsplosions.
Pregnancy

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spell effects:

• Temporarily increase the fertility of a female animal. This would allow them to produce offspring more quickly, but they would still need a male to give birth. This could last for a couple of months or years before wearing off. Does not affect semi-megabeasts, megabeasts, or civilized creatures. Useful for livestock breeding.
• Instantly induce labor in a female animal. Doesn't do anything long-term, but can be done without any male units on the map. Especially useful for animal taming.
• Increase the fertility of a female civilized creature for some period of time. They would still have to still go through the normal channels of marriage or extramarital lovers to give birth, but would do so at a greater rate. Could be useful for creating generational forts when dwarves don't marry at the rates you want them to.
• Instantly induce labor of a female civilized creature. Could be used in combat to severely distract and confuse the enemy, and killing their newborn child could act as a severe morale killer to the enemy if you happen to be a terrible person.
• The most skilled of pregnancy magic wielders can increase fertility of megabeasts and induce labor in them. This could be used to create an extremely powerful dragon army from just one female. Magic users of this caliber could even induce pregnancy in sexless creatures like forgotten beasts.

Weather effects:

• At HIGH levels: Blood rains, alluding to afterbirth and menstration. These have no effect.
• At EXTREME levels: Blood rains, increasing fertility in units that it hits, or can cause instant birth.

Creature effects:

• At LOW levels: Animal and vermin fertility is slightly increased. Both sexes are still required in order to breed.
• At MEDIUM levels: Animal, vermin, and civilized creature fertility is significantly increased. Think, dwarves giving birth every 9 months instead of every year. Civilized units are slightly more likely to become lovers/spouses
• At HIGH levels: Animal, vermin, and civilized creature fertility is hugely increased. Think, dwarves giving birth every six months. These units also experience periodic random pregnancies, which don't require a male. Gelding is the only way to prevent massive livestock explosions. The caverns must be constantly hunted in order to keep creature populations down. Your giant crocodile army will overwhelm invaders from numbers alone. Expelling all couples would be in the player's best interest to keep dwarven birth rates manageable, which will be hard because dwarves will be significantly more likely to become lovers.
• At EXTREME levels: Animal, vermin, civilized creature, and megabeast fertility is massively increased. Dwarves give birth every three months. Dwarves marry or become lovers very quickly. Random male-less births are more common, and even effect megabeasts and sexless creatures. Gelding does nothing. With extreme measures like expelling all females and bringing no livestock, the fort might last long enough to attract some megabeasts, allowing you to permanently increase their number in the world.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spell effects:

• Ensure the safe pregnancy of a creature for a time period. Does not necessarily involve a safe birth.

Creature effects:

• At MEDIUM levels: Normally egg-laying creatures instead give live births, and thus are pregnant before that.

Plant effects:

• At EXTREME levels: Edible part of a plant causes the eater to become pregnant.

Object effects:

• At LOW levels: A worn object, clothing or trinket slightly lessens the risk of a miscarriage.
• At MEDIUM levels: A worn object, clothing or trinket moderately lessens the risk of a miscarriage.
• At HIGH levels: A worn object, clothing or trinket protects the wearer from having a miscarriage.

There are lots of interesting negative ways that this could work out too, I imagine:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spell effects:

• Spontaneous abortion spells (like asking your pregnancy god to take your enemies pregnancies away)

Creature effects:

• Medium levels -  semi-permanent pregnancies, amount of twins and triplets increasing
• High levels -  unending pregnancies, pregnancies lasting until the child enters adulthood, twins and triplets the norm for humanoids, male pregnancies,
• Extreme levels - Humanoids giving birth to "litters" of young (octodwarf moms),
• • Creatures giving birth to other creatures (dwarf with a goblin, human with puppies, unicorn with beak dog)
• • Creatures giving birth to plants (elf giving birth to trees)
• • Creatures giving birth to items / gifts from the fertility god
• • Creatures giving birth to an artifact

Weather effects:

• Low - Fogs/mists that impregnate
• Low - Fogs/mists that cause miscarriage
• Med - Fogs/mists that impregnate males too
• High - Fogs/mists that impregnate creatures with any random creature/vermin (Pigs explode giving birth to orca, ect)

Plant effects:

• At extreme levels plants giving birth

Item effects:

• At high levels items that will impregnate someone with a previous owners child, or items that curse with permanent pregnancy or cause miscarriage]
• At Extreme levels items that will impregnate someone with other items

That's probably not balanced well but oh well it's brainstorming.  I'm not sure how the system will work in the end but overlap with other spheres like Deformity, Chaos, etc- or evil- or savage could bring all kinds of interesting effects.

Edit- oops didn't mean to post yet

There's also a BIRTH sphere, and FERTILITY, that overlap with it. It's an unusually complicated sphere for sure.

Animals

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spell effects:

• Summons a companion animal, or hostile animal
• Grants an animal sentience
• General healing and attribute buffs for animals
• Transform into an animal

Environmental effects:

• At LOW levels:
  
  • Unusually high animal populations
  • Unusually high diversity of animal species
  • New herds frequently migrate and leave
• At MEDIUM levels:
  
  • Extraordinary abundance of animal life
  • Grass grows very rapidly, and can support large herds
  • Animals have larger litters when breeding
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Animals display an unusually high degree of intelligence, including the [CAN_LEARN] tag in some rare cases
  • Intelligent animals may petition to join the fortress
  • Animal people are common in these areas
  • Animals of different species may interbreed
• At EXTREME levels:
  
  • Animals may appear civilised
  • Conversely, sentient creatures may lose the [CAN_LEARN] tag randomly and become animal-like over time
  • Animal-like dwarves can be trained, sheared, milked or butchered
  • Animals may spontaneously spring into existence, including new species
  • Animals may spontaneously change species, or sentient creatures transform into animals

Creature effects:

• At LOW levels:
  
  • Creatures may be unusually large or small, or have atypical features for their species (furry lizards, for instance)
• At MEDIUM levels:
  
  • Creatures appear as hybrids of other animal species, such as elephant-tigers
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Hybrid creatures become extraordinarily common, with great diversity
• At EXTREME levels:
  
  • Multi-animal hybrids exist, such as whale-fox-horse-tigers

Plant effects:

• At MEDIUM levels:
  
  • Vegetation may appear furry, scaly or have feathers instead of leaves
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Trees may make barking noises, or other animal-like vocalisations
  • Trees howl in agony and bleed when cut
  • Some trees may drop wool, silk or milk

Object effects:

• At MEDIUM levels:
  
  • Objects may appear furry or scaly
  • Objects may vocalise, or make purring noises when stroked
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Objects occasionally become animate, and move freely at will

The way I envision an EXTREME biome to work is that you'd start out with your normal 7 dwarves, 2 cats and 4 dogs, but over time your dwarves would grow dumber and dumber. Before you know it your baron is a cat, half your dwarves are pastured so your dogs can make DWARF BEARD SOCKS and the other half are trained as WAR DWARVES and tied up near the entrance as an early warning.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spell effects:

• Turn a non-animal creature into an animal, possibly only partially. (werebeasts?)
• Turn an object into an animal.
• Turn a plant into an animal.

Environment effects:

• At EXTREME levels: The biome itself is an animal, or at least made of animal tissues. Your dwarves may dig through layers of flesh and bone, only for the giant mole they're on to bury down into the earth, taking the fort with it.

Object effects:

• At LOW to MEDIUM levels: Clothing item or trinket grants its wearer some of the traits of a certain animal, such as a minor strength increase from a bear cap, or better smell from a elephant seel sock.
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Clothing item transforms the wearer partway into an animal, giving them fur or scales etc. For a human, this transformation should essentially be into an animal man.
  • Clothing item transforms the body part it is worn on of the wearer into that of an animal.
• At EXTREME levels: Clothing item transforms the wearer into a animal fully.

[Hapchazzard]

Added everything except for DEFORMITY and voliol's suggestions for ANIMALS, will do those soon, too.

On the whole pregnancy/birth thing - yeah, I noticed that those two spheres are a bit problematic in terms of overlap, in that it's difficult to dissociate them from each other. I thought about potentially bundling them together into a single hybrid sphere, but I'll wait to see what other people come up with for them first. Suicide and misery are another two spheres that have a similar problem.

Also, someone mentioned their suggestions being 'unbalanced', to which I say - at HIGH and especially EXTREME levels, balance should be almost a non-factor. Toady himself said in the PC gamer interview that magic shouldn't be inherently balanced (unless we're talking about the literal BALANCE sphere, presumably, but that's a different thing) or else it would probably be boring. My personal opinion is that every single sphere should have at least one spell effect in the EXTREME category that makes you think "Wow, that sounds OP as hell!". The thing is, very high magic levels would usually be difficult and costly to reach, and even if you do, would be far more difficult to control, and misfires would have the potential to be far more devastating than normal, providing a natural 'balance' to every extreme ability anyways. If I'm constantly throwing massive walls of fire at besieging armies with a noobish caster, I shouldn't be surprised if at some point they misfire and cause a volcano to erupt in the middle of my fort. That, IMO, should provide a natural sort of 'balance' without forcing magic to be boring and formulaic.

[Pillbo]

Ok this is too much fun to think about, I need to give it a break

Pregnancy

SNIP

There's also a BIRTH sphere, and FERTILITY, that overlap with it. It's an unusually complicated sphere for sure.

Yeah, I was thinking that a lot of the pregnancy ideas might work better for fertility. But after looking at the wiki FERTILITY as it exists in game is associated with the spheres for AGRICULTURE, FOOD, and RAIN with it's precluded sphere being BLIGHT.  So unless fertility's definition changes I would think pregnancy ideas would just need split up with BIRTH and maybe some CREATION (it's associated spheres are  BIRTH, CHILDREN, CREATION, FAMILY, MARRIAGE)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I would make the increase in twins/triplets/octodwarves, as well as increased gestation speed for of a FERTILITY quality if that was expanded to include creature reproduction, otherwise maybe that belongs to BIRTH.

Would add to this:

Rituals:

• Individuals or societies offering themselves as a vessel to the pregnancy god. All pregnancies are hers, she chooses what you birth, be it artifact, dwarf, forgotten beast, or angels to defend her realm
• Rituals performed to appease the god to end permanent pregnancy
• Rituals (or spells) to curse enemies with permanent pregnancy
• Rituals performed to get a desired baby from a pregnancy, boy/girl, dwarf/elf, water buffalo…

Creature effects:

• Sexless (or all female) permanently pregnant societies.  Children (and animals) are born pregnant with their mothers clones/babies - Sounds super creepy but this is how some wasps exist today - https://marksecology.blogspot.com/2011/07/cool-critter-of-month-wolbachia-not-one.html
• Some members of society could simply choose when to have babies, but are immediately pregnant again afterward until they want another child. Children born pregnant would not be giving birth anytime soon, they would just have a viable fetus waiting, similar to how children are born with viable eggs now
• As above but the Pregnancy gods decide when you will give birth.

Animals

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spell effects:

• Summons a companion animal, or hostile animal
• Grants an animal sentience
• General healing and attribute buffs for animals
• Transform into an animal

Environmental effects:

• At LOW levels:
  
  • Unusually high animal populations
  • Unusually high diversity of animal species
  • New herds frequently migrate and leave
• At MEDIUM levels:
  
  • Extraordinary abundance of animal life
  • Grass grows very rapidly, and can support large herds
  • Animals have larger litters when breeding
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Animals display an unusually high degree of intelligence, including the [CAN_LEARN] tag in some rare cases
  • Intelligent animals may petition to join the fortress
  • Animal people are common in these areas
  • Animals of different species may interbreed
• At EXTREME levels:
  
  • Animals may appear civilised
  • Conversely, sentient creatures may lose the [CAN_LEARN] tag randomly and become animal-like over time
  • Animal-like dwarves can be trained, sheared, milked or butchered
  • Animals may spontaneously spring into existence, including new species
  • Animals may spontaneously change species, or sentient creatures transform into animals

Creature effects:

• At LOW levels:
  
  • Creatures may be unusually large or small, or have atypical features for their species (furry lizards, for instance)
• At MEDIUM levels:
  
  • Creatures appear as hybrids of other animal species, such as elephant-tigers
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Hybrid creatures become extraordinarily common, with great diversity
• At EXTREME levels:
  
  • Multi-animal hybrids exist, such as whale-fox-horse-tigers

Plant effects:

• At MEDIUM levels:
  
  • Vegetation may appear furry, scaly or have feathers instead of leaves
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Trees may make barking noises, or other animal-like vocalisations
  • Trees howl in agony and bleed when cut
  • Some trees may drop wool, silk or milk

Object effects:

• At MEDIUM levels:
  
  • Objects may appear furry or scaly
  • Objects may vocalise, or make purring noises when stroked
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Objects occasionally become animate, and move freely at will

The way I envision an EXTREME biome to work is that you'd start out with your normal 7 dwarves, 2 cats and 4 dogs, but over time your dwarves would grow dumber and dumber. Before you know it your baron is a cat, half your dwarves are pastured so your dogs can make DWARF BEARD SOCKS and the other half are trained as WAR DWARVES and tied up near the entrance as an early warning.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spell effects:

• Turn a non-animal creature into an animal, possibly only partially. (werebeasts?)
• Turn an object into an animal.
• Turn a plant into an animal.

Environment effects:

• At EXTREME levels: The biome itself is an animal, or at least made of animal tissues. Your dwarves may dig through layers of flesh and bone, only for the giant mole they're on to bury down into the earth, taking the fort with it.

Object effects:

• At LOW to MEDIUM levels: Clothing item or trinket grants its wearer some of the traits of a certain animal, such as a minor strength increase from a bear cap, or better smell from a elephant seel sock.
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Clothing item transforms the wearer partway into an animal, giving them fur or scales etc. For a human, this transformation should essentially be into an animal man.
  • Clothing item transforms the body part it is worn on of the wearer into that of an animal.
• At EXTREME levels: Clothing item transforms the wearer into a animal fully.

"The biome itself is an animal" That is so awesome, similar idea could be had for PLANTS or TREES.  I love the idea of animals becoming more intelligent, maybe even turning into animal people with magical strength, while dwarves become more animalistic with time, what an interesting effect it would be to have a fortress turn into an Beast-person fortress slowly over time while all your dwarves slowly wondered off into the wilds to live.  I could also imagine people interpreting this scenario was being against the spirit of the animal sphere to “elevate” animals to the form of humanoids. I kind of hope both are possible but I also imagine this type scenario:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Environmental effects:

• At HIGH levels:
• • Animals become animal people - OR
• • Animals become imbued with magics, raccoons and rats being powerful like unicorns- OR
• • Under darker influences they become werebeasts
• At EXTREME levels:
• • Animals become godlike (or angel-like i guess). They are in complete control of their realm, they are like angels in their own heaven.  They can fly without wings, they glow, they are immortal and live in harmony with each other. Dwarves are guests in their world, second class citizens. Hierarchy of power goes Animals, Beast-men, Humanoids.
• • Hunting is met with extreme prejudice.
• • Animals will happily siege you fortress from the outside and caverns in revenge for any killing of animals
• • Animals “hatching” from fruits, seeds
• • Plants grow fur, feathers instead of leaves and bark
• • Eating fruits could make you more animalistic

Plant effects:

• At HIGH levels:
• • Animals “hatching” from fruits, seeds
• • Plants grow fur, feathers instead of leaves and bark
• • Eating fruits could make you more animalistic

[Pillbo]

TREES (Child of NATURE  & PLANTS )

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spells:

• Spells that act like building walls/doors/whatever now.  Construct a a solid fortress wall and gate from living wood without the need to cut or kill
• Spells to grow items and fruits for survival and defence
• standard accelerated growth spells, need a lot of wood in a couple seasons, grow a forest in a cavern very fast.

Ritual stuff:

• The elves know if you worship and ask politely the trees will provide you everything. Fruit to eat, sap to brew, fibers for cloth, grown weapons and armor. But are the dwarves cut out for it?
• For them to protect you have to become their tender, feeding the trees corpses of animals will make them happy, corpses of your dead will honor them.  Could be a means of sacrifice/culturally acceptable burial. 
• Defending the forest from goblins and other invaders who don’t honor nature is required.
• Planting trees as a means of worship, expanding the forest’s sphere of influence to gain favors
• Turning yourself into a tree as a sacrifice or as worship.  Imagine a dwarves king gaining protection for his fortress under the world-tree by climbing to the top of a tower and allowing a Tree mage (Arbormancer?) to turn him into a tree.  A great, growing, wooden dwarf protector permanently placed on top of the fortress… Or is it permanent? maybe he’s an Ent who hasn’t had any cause to move in generations….

Environment:

• HIGH
• • Little Shop of Horrors type carnivorous plants
• • Animals are all bent to the will of the trees, they tend them like gardeners, fertilize them with animal corpses and viciously defend them from cutting. No plants (except fruit) are ever eaten, but plants will eat animals
• • Trees can move freely, like Ents, they are intelligent and can communicate. They will happily siege your fortress and have no problem putting down roots to wait you out, or to get at you from below…
• • Enormous trees, multi-tile fruit, trees create networks in the air equivalent to caverns in the earth, with hollow limbs, smaller plants and trees growing on top, lairs, and all the other interesting ways it could work out
• • Trees growing so thick that travel around them becoming impossible, they are becoming landscape themselves
• • Trees drag victims or enemies into their trunks with thorny vines
• EXTREME
• • Yggdrasil type magic imbued “world-trees"  a 3x3 embark just a massive tree. Elves happily run empires in it's upper branches, if slightly smaller having rope-ladder bridges tree to tree like Ewok villages.  Small villages and nomad groups roaming and hunting in the lower boughs. Dwarves can build fortresses amoung the roots.
• • Plant cutting met with extreme prejudice, on land or in caverns. gathering fruit acceptable, pulling tubers not
• • Animals hybridize with frees, put down roots, grow leaves, fruits and become quiet, until needed.

DEFORMITY

SNIP

Some of these might work better with DEFORMITY's associated sphere DISEASE, I’ll try to separate them a little —

+

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ritual stuff:

• Deforming yourself as a sacrifice for a blessing (drinking water that causes boils and growths in exchange for immortality or even something like ensuring your children can grow old in the sphere of deformity, or the fortress won’t fall this year/season)
• The Deformed are honored, the worse the better, cult leaders, priests and kings could be bulbous barely recognizable lumps of flesh (kept alive by the gods?)

Spell effects:

• Spells that cause extra body parts to grow. Deformity-magicians (Disfigurmancy? Deformancy?) could:
• • grow extra limbs or body parts on a creature or plant
• • manipulate body plans to gain advantage- sieging a merperson’s fortress, grow gills on your goblins and beak dogs. Battling dwarves, grow bone plating over your armies vital areas. Invading a sphere of DARKNESS, grow enormous eyes for your army to see better. Give your trolls bony sharp fists like a Ankylosaurus’ tail that are useless for anything but battle
• • Expand your evil army by dividing soldiers like amoeba. Split chunks off to grow into new soldiers
• • Doom an enemies army by deforming all their metal objects/weapons/armor

Item effects:

• At MED levels:
• • Weapons curved and irregular
• • Clothing fits wrong and difficult to wear - causing slowed or imprecise movement
• • Precision engineering difficult, pipes leak, doors don't fit properly in frames, mechanisms work poorly
• • Workshops greatly reduced speed and quality
• At HIGH levels:
• • Swords, arrows, spear bend into knots
• • Precision engineering impossible without magical assistance.  Pipes won't fit together, waterwheels can't turn, walls with gaps and cracks, doors barely in frames, mechanisms useless, workshops non-functional
• • Clothes functionally useless, in size and shape
• • Items that aren't corrupted by Deformity can be a conduit for it.  Arrows that cause boils, weapon attacks that cause disfigurement and wounds that grow cancerous/cause uncontrolled growth
• • Normal materials become brittle and dangerous to work with (stone, metal, wood) floors collapse, bridges crumble with raised, doors break walls when closed
• At HIGH-EXTREME levels:
• • Artifacts as we know them are impossible to create, except through some dark magic or gift from gods

Environmental effects:

• At MED levels:
• • Water and plants that causes uncontrolled growth, elephantiasis
• • Vermin bites/bee stings that cause uncontrolled growth
• At HIGH levels:
• • Landscape forms massive pustules and boils bursting with pus and filth
• • Both plants and animals both make only disgusting sounds - retches, vomiting coughs, choking gurgles.
• At EXTREME levels:
• • Nothing living ever stops growing.
• • A landscape of meat, wood, pus, mountainous tumors, infected blood rivers, lakes of vomit, pus or filth, volcanoes that explode with gore and pus. shafts of bone grow like trees then crumble from corruption. 
• • Oceans cough up disfigured body parts, bone and viscera instead of driftwood
• • The landscape bends and folds unpredictably, crushing constructions and forts
• • Mountains and hills made of teeth or hair
• • Demon spires made of tooth or bone instead of stone? An enormous tooth carved into a demons home, jutting from and towering above a landscape of pus and gore… that is horrendously cool

Plant effects:

• At MED levels:
• • Plants that causes uncontrolled growth, elephantiasis when eaten
• At HIGH levels:
• • Plants that causes uncontrolled growth, elephantiasis when encountered - scratched by thorns, pollen syndromes, walking through their fallen leaves... ect
• • All plants toxic with disfiguring syndromes, from "The Blob" scenarios to just plain old uglyness
• • Trees/plants bear fruit of pustules and boils bursting with pus and filth
• • Trees/plants develop fleshy pustules and boils
• • Trees grow teeth for fruit, fingernails for bark
• • Trees produce bone not wood
• • Plants grow worms/snails/slugs/maggots instead of leaves/bark - crawl away in autumn when leaves drop

Syndrome effects that could be caused by plants, weather, water, curses with increasing severity:

• • Hair loss, Blindness, Deafness
• • Causes the victim  to feel disgust, revulsion, or nausea. Or to people who encounter the victim but leaving the victim unaffected, causing shunning, outcasts.
• • Scoliosis, bent spines, curved bones, brittle bones, club feet, useless hands
• • Teeth growing for nails or claws
• • Fingernails for teeth
• • Uncontrolled growth/tumors/elephantiasis
• • • including things like one leg growing until its so long it drags for tiles behind the creature, like a wedding dress
• • • Teeth growing through someones face
• • • Flesh growing so out of control dwarves look like a Shar Pei, features being buried in rolls of skin
• • • Heads getting too big to lift
• • • Bones growing out of the body for some horrific effect
• • • Extra limbs, body parts grow - could potentially be manipulated for player value…

Weather effects:

• At MED-HIGH levels:
• • Rains vomit, snot, pus, worms, maggots, snails, (or just about any vermin found disgusting), teeth, etc - with any variety of syndromes.

DISEASE

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ritual stuff:

• Praying or performing rituals to allow the DISEASE gods to protect your society in their realm or to curse your enemies who try to invade
• Ritual sacrifice by way of rotting or infection.  Sacrificing your lepers to appease the God.
• Infecting yourself as a way showing loyalty. (I sacrifice my left arm to the gods of disease, it will never heal but in exchange the gods grant me protection from it killing me and I can use the infection as a weapon against my enemies, maybe make you an immune plague bearer)
• Keeping diseased livestock around as a sign of faith (not for eating)
• Worship of unhealing wounds - priests of Disease who have massive infections oozing pus but never die (thanks gods). If the wounds heal they could be turned on by the populace as a bad omen.

Spell effects:

• Sending plague winds or curses towards your enemies
• Spells or curses that prevent healing
• Spells that can overwhelm creatures with rot and infections
• Turning creatures into Plague-carriers, like a thrall to spread through an army or city

Weather effects:

• At MED-HIGH levels:
  
  • • Rains pus, vomit, snot, maggots, with any variety of syndromes.
  • • Plague mists, pox, boils, Leprosy, infection/rot, tumors/uncontrolled growth
  
  Syndrome effects that could be caused by plants, weather, water, curses with increasing severity:
  
  • • Hair loss, Blindness, Deafness
  • • Tumors
  • • Uncontrollable infections/rot
  • • Plagues of pox, boils, Leprosy, infection/rot, etc
  
  Creature effects:
  
  • At LOW levels:
  • • Infection rates elevated, wounds don’t heal quickly
  • At MED levels:
  • • Infection the norm, wounds difficult to heal
  • At HIGH levels:
  • • All wounds get infected, wounds don’t heal
  • • Infections seem to start with no cause. Teeth, fingers, guts… all susceptible to rotting
  • At EXTREME levels:
  • • Anything in the natural environment  can be a plague carrier/transmitter
  • • All wounds begin rotting and collecting maggots immediately, wounds never heal
  • • Infections seem to start with no cause.
  • • Healing of any kind is impossible
  
  Plant effects:
  
  • At MED levels:
  • • Plants that causes uncontrolled growth, elephantiasis when eaten
  • At HIGH levels:
  • • All plants cause disease
  • • Trees/plants bear fruit of pustules and boils bursting with pus, snot and filth
  • • Trees/plants develop fleshy pustules and boils
  • • Trees produce pus, snot or blood when cut
  • At EXTREME levels:
  • • Plants grow maggots instead of leaves/bark - crawl away in autumn when leaves drop
  • • Plants that causes uncontrolled growth, elephantiasis when encountered - scratched by thorns, breathing pollen, walking through their fallen leaves, collective wood… ect
  
  Item effects:
  
  • At MED levels:
  • • Weapons imbued with the ability to cause unhealing wounds, or wounds that always get infected
  • • Armor designed to counteract those weapons (blessing of the god of DISEASE to protect you?)
  • At HIGH levels:
  • • Soap loses all effectiveness. Cleaning no longer an option, everything dirty and contaminated.
  • • Items are plague/infection carriers through contact
  • At EXTREME levels:
  • • Items cause instant disease or death

[voliol]

I can't really come up with any ideas for the rest of the spheres that have already been gone through once, so I'll start with a "new" one.

Water

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spell effects:

• Fill a bucket or other fluid-proof container with water.
• Create a water projectile that may push or damage enemies depending on its power.
• Summon non-projectile water, for filling dams and the like.
• Walk on water.
• Manipulate existing water to act as a whip of sorts, think water whip from the Last Airbender series.
• Manipulate existing water to shield yourself, either as a giant bubble or something more akin to a small wall of water.
• Manipulate existing water into a projectile, throwing a pond at your enemies.
  
• Fix tiles of water in space, preventing them from flowing or changing. (unless more water is added, maybe)
• Split a body of water.
• Create a water vortex.
• Create a (giant) wave. Combining this with a walk on water might allow you to ride the wave.
• Transform fluids (both in tile form and stored in containers) into water.
• Cause the water level of a body of water to rise.
• Cause the water level of a body of water to sink.
• Turn one or several non-aquifer tiles into aquifers.
• Transfer the aquifer property of one or several tiles into adjacent ones, either permanently or temporarily.
• Turn one or several aquifer tiles into tiles of liquid water.
• Create a spout of water from the ground. Might require an aquifer below.
• Merge with a body of water, becoming invisible (other than the water-level possibly increasing) and carry-able in a bucket.
• Turn into a puddle of water, for stealth and for protection against physical attacks

Environment effects:

• At LOW levels:
  • Aquifers are slightly more common.
  • Ponds are slightly more common.
  • The air and soil moisture are slightly higher.
  • A water biome (ocean/lake/river) affected by this gets slightly deeper or more expansive.
• At MEDIUM levels:
  • Aquifers are more common, and may appear in minerals other than the usual ones.
  • Ponds are more common.
  • The air and soil moisture are moderately higher (this may lead to a change in biome, and that's fine).
  • A water biome (ocean/lake/river) affected by this gets moderately deeper or more expansive.
• At HIGH levels:
  • Aquifers are almost ubiquitous, and may appear in minerals other than the usual ones, including top soil.
  • Ponds are more common.
  • The air and soil moisture are significantly higher (this may lead to a change in biome, and that's fine).
  • Spouts and fountains of water may spontaneously spring from the ground.
  • A water biome (ocean/lake/river) affected by this gets much deeper or more expansive.
• At EXTREME levels:
  • The biome is changed into a lake or ocean, depending on whether it is adjacent to a existing ocean.
  • The ground level sinks and is replaced by a body of water, possibly by aquifers dissolving into water tiles.
  • A water biome (ocean/lake/river) affected by this gets much deeper or more expansive, to the point where a extreme water lake (that would be a lake even without the magic) may have no bottom.

Creature effects:

• At LOW levels:
  • Creature can swim better inherently, and sometimes does so by its own accord.
  • Creature drinks slightly more water, getting bad thoughts or dehydrating if not possible.
  • Creature gets a slight happy thought from being around water.
• At MEDIUM levels:
  • Creature is amphibious.
  • Creature drinks a decent amount more water.
  • Creature has to stay wet, or it gets a bad thought.
  • Creature can shoot a spout of water from its body.
  • Creature gets a moderate happy thought from being around water, a slight unhappy thought if it isn't able to.
• At HIGH levels:
  • Creature is fully aquatic, but might still be able to breathe air.
  • Creature drinks a very large amount of water, and might bloat up upon doing so.
  • Creature has to stay wet, or it dehydrates/can't breathe.
  • Creature can shoot a spout of water from its body.
  • Creature gets an unhappy thought if there are no bodies of water around it.
• At EXTREME levels:
  • Creature is fully aquatic if it weren't before.
  • Tissues are replaced by water.
  • Creature drinks humongous amounts of water, and might bloat up upon doing so.
  • Creature has to stay wet, or it dehydrates/can't breathe.
  • Creature can shoot a spout of water from its body.
  • Creature, even if not aquatic or requiring water in any other way, goes insane if not able to be near water.

[voliol]

...and more of it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spell effects:

• Allow a creature to breath underwater.

Plant effects:

• At LOW levels:
  
  • Plant requires slightly more water to be healthy and not dry out.
  • Plant parts are juicier, which may satiate thirst (in a same way a watermelon should).
  • Derived materials are slightly more resistant to moisture.
• At MEDIUM levels:
  
  • Plant requires notably more water to be healthy and not dry out.
  • Plant parts are juicier, which may satiate thirst (in a same way a watermelon should).
  • Derived materials are moderately more resistant to moisture.
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Plant grows partially in or on water. A multitile plant has its roots on the bottom, but grows up above the water surface. A single-tile plant floats on the water, possibly being anchored. Think mangroves and water lilies.
  • Plant parts bloated with water, like water balloons. They might not have any nutritional value other than satiating thirst.
  • Derived materials are waterproof.
• At EXTREME levels:
  
  • Plant grows on the bottom sediment of a water mass. It isn't bothered by the need of air (but still needs light) and does not surface.
  • Tissues are replaced with water, somehow held together.
  • Derived materials are waterproof.

Object effects:

• At LOW levels:
  
  • Object is slightly moist/wet.
  • Item is slightly translucent
• At MEDIUM levels:
  • Object is laced with water, making it slippery
  • Object is moist, making it soft and mushy, with the downside of the moisture spreading upon impact (sitting down on a chair etc.).
  • Fluid-proof container fills up with water within a time period of at least 1 week, either incrementally or all at once. The rate of filling also depends on the container's size.
  • Item is slightly translucent, is tinted watery colors, and sometimes shifts in a wave-like pattern.
• At HIGH levels:
  • Object generates water, making it slippery and causing it to leave a wet trail on the ground if dragged.
  • Fluid-proof container fills up with water within a time period of under 1 week, either incrementally or all at once.
  • Item is slightly translucent, has watery colors, and bubbles and waves can be seen going through it.
  • Footwear allow the wearer to walk on water.
  • Clothing or trinket (usually headwear, facewear or bodywear) allow the wearer to breath underwater
  • A weapon can shoot a spout of water from its tip.
• At EXTREME levels:
  • Fluid-proof container is an endless source of water.
  • Materials are replaced by water, that somehow upholds the shape of the item. Some material properties may be kept.
  • Materials are replaced by water bubbles. Some material properties may be kept.

[Hapchazzard]

Alrighty, added TREES and DEFORMITY. Need to add DISEASE and WATER, too. Since someone used the 'rituals and sources' category now, thought I'd add some of them to some of the existing spheres:

Fire

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Rituals and sources:

• Do an action (e.g. chant) while in the presence of fire
• Sacrifice an object by burning it
• Sacrifice a creature by burning it
• Burn/scorch a body part

Agriculture

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Rituals and sources:

• Do an action (e.g. chant) while on agricultural land
• Do an action (e.g. chant) while holding a crop, fruit, agricultural product or farming implement
• Sacrifice a certain amount of crops or fruits
• Sacrifice a domestic animal
• Sacrifice a creature while on agricultural land

Water

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Rituals and sources:

• Do an action (e.g. chant) while sprinkling yourself with water
• Do an action (e.g. chant) while partially or fully submerged in water
• Sacrifice an item by throwing it away into a body of water and not retrieving it
• Sacrifice a creature by drowning

[voliol]

Art

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spell effects:

• Animates a work of art
• Increases the quality of an artwork
• Recovers artwork that has been lost to vandalism
• Inspires the creation of an artefact

Environmental effects:

• At LOW levels:
  
  • Art of somewhat higher quality than usual is produced
  • The landscape may appear painted or sculpted
• At MEDIUM levels:
  
  • Art of significantly higher quality than usual is produced
  • New artefacts tend to be purely aesthetic objects
  • Statues and engraved images may appear to watch people, or move on occasion
  • Dwarves may notice a smell eminating from engravings of food objects
  • Art desecration has much larger emotional impact than usual
• At HIGH levels:
  
  • Artefacts produced with much higher frequency than usual
  • Statue may come to life and move. Whether statues are friendly or hostile depends on their content and quality.
  • Engravings may be described as moving scenes
  • Statues may attack dwarves guilty of art desecration, or rampage if no particular dwarf is responsible
  • Ghosts of desecrated artwork may attack if no proper memorial is made
• At EXTREME levels:
  
  • Statues roam freely at all times
  • Images from engravings may physically manifest. The wall left behind becomes bare.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Creature effects:

• At ALL levels:
  • Creature's CREATIVITY increases.
  • Creature appreciation for ARTWORK increases.
  • Creature is increasingly ART_INCLINED.
• At LOW levels:
  • Creature is seen as artful, and is slightly more often chosen as a favorite by those who value ARTWORK or are ART_INCLINED.
• At MEDIUM levels:
  • Non-sapient creature gets happy thoughts from witnessing art.
  • Creature is seen as artful, and is often chosen as a favorite by those who value ARTWORK or are ART_INCLINED.
• At HIGH levels:
  • Non-sapient creature gets happy thoughts from witnessing art.
  • Creature is seen as artful, and is often chosen as a favorite by those who value ARTWORK or are ART_INCLINED. It may also give happy thoughts to them when observed.

Plant effects:

• At LOW levels:
  • Plant is seen as artful, and is slightly more often chosen as a favorite by those who value ARTWORK or are ART_INCLINED.
• At MEDIUM levels:
  • Plant is seen as artful, and is often chosen as a favorite by those who value ARTWORK or are ART_INCLINED.
• At HIGH levels:
  • Plant is seen as artful, and is often chosen as a favorite by those who value ARTWORK or are ART_INCLINED. It may also give happy thoughts to them when observed.

Object effects:

• At ALL levels:
  • The object is seen as a piece of art, and grants happy thoughts to creatures that value ARTWORK or are ART_INCLINED. They also value it more, regardless of its practicality.

[Pillbo]

As another was DREAMS could go.

Environmental effect from  Med-Extreme creatures increasingly lose touch with reality. Like walking into a forgetful fog. 

[Hapchazzard]

Just an FYI for everyone - I'm currently away from home, and formatting posts on mobile is a pain, to say the least. I'll continue updating the list when I get back home tomorrow.

[voliol]

Light:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All light from LIGHT effects may carry effects from other spheres. E.g. a ball of healing light, laser that causes plants to grow in its path.

Spell effects:

• Light a candle, torch, or other light source.
• Summon a magical light, that can be carried or follows a person/the caster.
• Fill a room/space with light.
• Cause a flash of blinding light.
• Shoot a beam of burning light/laser.
• Lighten an area like a flashlight/spotlight. This normally doesn't hurt, unless you're dealing with a creature hurt by light. Could be blinding depending on its strength.
• Counteract a DARKNESS spell or effect.
• Bleach a dyed object.
• Dye an object white.

Environment effects:

• At LOW levels:
  • All lights are slightly brighter.
  • Area is more rarely shrouded by clouds, or otherwise subjected to "dark" weather.
  • DARKNESS spells and effects are weakened.
• At MEDIUM levels:
  • All lights are notably brighter.
  • Area is very seldom shrouded by clouds, or otherwise subjected to "dark" weather.
  • Any DARKNESS spells and effects may take a significant amount of metaphorical die-rolling to get to work at all.
• At HIGH levels:
  • Lights are strengthened to the point of being blinding to normal creatures.
  • State of perpetual day, or rather very very bright nights.
  • Shadows are blurred out, and difficult to cast. Even a closed box will contain some dim light.
    
  • Any DARKNESS spells and effects are nigh impossible to use.
  • Pillars of light may shoot up from the earth.
• At EXTREME levels:
  • Sky is filled with plain white light.
  • Shadows are nonexistent.
    
  • Any DARKNESS spells and effects are nigh impossible to use.

[therahedwig]

Dye an object white.

Maybe it'd be an idea to turn this into 'dye an object into any other color', because rainbows are a form of light, right, and light is like, waves. And I think it'd also like, dilute the association between white and light because that might be a teensy bit racially charged, fairly specific to a neo-classical understanding of light(earlier understandings such as egyptian, early christian often connected light and the color red and gold), and in turn make DF a little less flexible.

[voliol]

Dye an object white.

Maybe it'd be an idea to turn this into 'dye an object into any other color', because rainbows are a form of light, right, and light is like, waves. And I think it'd also like, dilute the association between white and light because that might be a teensy bit racially charged, fairly specific to a neo-classical understanding of light(earlier understandings such as egyptian, early christian often connected light and the color red and gold), and in turn make DF a little less flexible.

Yeah that's sensible. The problem is that you might want to leave the "dye into any color" effect for the actual RAINBOWS sphere, though I suppose some overlap wouldn't be that big of an issue. The "light-iest" color changing between worlds is a really interesting, I was not aware of the historical perspective.

[Pillbo]

DREAMS

MED
- Causes distractability, forgetfulness
HIGH
- Amnesia, confusion, lost in a mental haze
EXTREME
- Lose touch with reality, can be convinced of anything and easily manipulated, mind controlled

______________________________

BALANCE is a weird one, I don't have much but-

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

MED
- Violence is reciprocal, causing injury with violence damages the creature causing it to some degree.
- Mystically redistributed wealth once economies are turned on. Being poor or rich becomes increasingly difficult as sphere influence increases. Maybe gold literally disappears from the coffers of the wealthy and appears in the pockets of the poor
- More animal people (a balance between man and beast) or plant people

HIGH
- Violence is reciprocal, causing injury with violence results in most of the same damage to the creature causing it. (Cut a leg off at the hip, your leg falls off at the ankle, break an arm and your tendons snap)
- The more powerful your fort becomes in a realm of balance, the more disasters and things happen to drag you back down.
- If your civ is crumbling while gobs thrive it could make things easier for you. Almost like the sphere has a built in fluctuating "difficulty level"
- Most animal life is replaced by animal/plant people

HIGH-EXTREME
- Creatures become genderless- maybe hermaphroditic.
- All violence is completely reciprocal. You cut someones head off and yours flies off too. Shoot a goblin with an arrow and a hole is ripped in you.

EXTREME
- Violence not possible?
- Exclusively animal people/plant people?
- All power structures broken (not sure how), kings, barons, crime lords, priests, maybe even megabeasts or deities are unable to hold influence? (This could also work to a lesser extent with less magical influence).
-- Maybe that could mean that traditional societies can't work in these areas and they could only be populated by tribes of family members, or small hunter/gatherer nomadic animal people groups.

______________________________

WEALTH

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I just wanted to add that I like the idea of things like coins, gems, or gold/silver dust raining from the sky, but since it's magical and would royally disrupt economies in the long run if you could just cart infinite gold from some region I think it would be helpful if that Wealth transmuted into lead or something once it's removed from the sphere of WEALTH magic.

- Standard metals in WEALTH areas able to be smelted down to gold or silver, with extra options at the workshop, (smelt Garnierite into Nickel, or Gold, or Silver).
- Megabeasts like the Bronze colossus, gabbro man in this area become Gold versions - which could make them stronger or weaker.

Items
- Materials (or just metals?) could slowly be replaced with gold in these areas, like an Iron Chain in a fortress over ten years becomes gold, over a long enough time almost everything turned to gold. But could these items leave the fort and remain gold... not sure
-- Could also be progressive- after a year they become bronze, then a few years later silver, then ultimately gold
-- Could make a military weaker if your steel armor or weapons turn into softer metals

These regions likely dominated by greedy dragons who refuse to share with any others. These areas would likely need to be conquered at great expense.

______________________________

Dye an object white.

Maybe it'd be an idea to turn this into 'dye an object into any other color', because rainbows are a form of light, right, and light is like, waves. And I think it'd also like, dilute the association between white and light because that might be a teensy bit racially charged, fairly specific to a neo-classical understanding of light(earlier understandings such as egyptian, early christian often connected light and the color red and gold), and in turn make DF a little less flexible.

Yeah that's sensible. The problem is that you might want to leave the "dye into any color" effect for the actual RAINBOWS sphere, though I suppose some overlap wouldn't be that big of an issue. The "light-iest" color changing between worlds is a really interesting, I was not aware of the historical perspective.

LIGHT

I agree that LIGHT =/= WHITE, at least IRL, in the way the game works it could be that WHITE=LIGHT, BLACK=DARK, I don't know.  RAINBOWS are a really hard one too, since they are just an effect on light, it could be they should just be a sub-sphere in light and not really their own sphere, or if WHITE=LIGHT, BLACK=DARK, then COLOR=RAINBOWS; I guess it's how much Toady wants these to be attached to their real world counterparts.

For brainstorming's sake I would think of LIGHT as the totality of the electromagnetic spectrum, radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light (RAINBOW), ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays. That said a strongly LIGHT aligned sphere could possibly be extremely hostile to life. If everything here gives off light, and in any part of the spectrum the area could quickly become extremely radioactive. I have no idea if Toady would want to incorporate radiation into the game, but I don't think anyone would be surprised. You might have to wear lead armor to survive this area.

[thompson]

Overlap between spheres can be resolved by organising them into families and having some effects common to the entire family, others specific to some sub-branch, and some to a specific sphere. The spheres kind of already have some heirachy, so perhaps it could be derived from that?