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[Shadowgandor]

At first, when I read magic might be implemented, I was sad. I didn't like the idea of having magic in Dwarven Fortress. While wandering through haunted areas in Adventure Mode, killing zombies and skeletons, I suddenly thought it would be cool to be able to create your own undead. Not by modding them, but by raising the dead.
 It would be so cool to attack a human town, kill some humans, raise them and grow an army that way. Apart from you, others could do it as well, so it would also be interesting to read about in Legends.

So I was wondering, what do you guys think of Necromancy? I personally think it would fit in well in Dwarven fortress. Break the legs of the parents of a child, gauge the childs eyes out, kill it, raise it and let it kill its own parents. Come on, THAT is the spirit of Dwarven fortress

[Pilsu]

One of the possible thoughs for dwarves includes 'has been attacked by a dead and still annoying acquaintance lately'. I think some kind of undeath is planned, yeah

[Muz]

One of the possible thoughs for dwarves includes 'has been attacked by a dead and still annoying acquaintance lately'.

This is one of those things that makes DF the most detailed game ever made

Haha, I'd like it. I'm not fond of some kinds of magic as well. Magic, IMHO is a cheap and lazy way that most other game designers use to add features to a a game. But necromancy pwns. It should also be an ethical issue, if it isn't already. I fully expect some dwarves in the future to be thrown into jail for raising a dead legendary craftsdwarf from death.

[Tormy]

Necromancy is a must have of course, but the knowledge of the dark arts must be restricted to specific races/entities. [IE. Dwarves should not be able to use necromantic magic for example.]

[Pilsu]

I could see human merchant princes employing the dark arts to gather armies of undead slaves to fight the immortal elven menace. How's that for flavor

Necromancy is just about the only kind of magic I like. The rest is an AoE bow or a force that makes wounds not matter

[Muz]

Necromancy is a must have of course, but the knowledge of the dark arts must be restricted to specific races/entities. [IE. Dwarves should not be able to use necromantic magic for example.]

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a few dwarves stoop to necromancy.. and getting exiled as a result. Also, I would love to see what other players would do to keep the necromancer dwarf from getting exiled.

[mendonca]

I don’t see that dwarves would be ‘forbidden’ from using Necromancy, it just wouldn’t be in the nature of a dwarf to actually go as far as to study it. The knowledge wouldn’t be part of the civilization and therefore would never be an option.

A dwarf that takes in interest in life/death/rebirth, and whose parents were murdered by skeletal elks might however have an urge to discover if he could reverse the death caused so many years ago, how he would be exposed to the concept of necromancy would be an interesting question.

How he would learn it would be another.

Dwarves that spent there childhood / early adulthood in a goblin fortress, to be returned to the mountainhomes might be one vector, but then the chances are the dwarf would effectively be a goblin (in mindset) by that time anyway.

The answer is probably related to wizards towers in the wilderness, but then the dwarf who would study necromancy would probably be exiled from the civ anyway.

After that brief argument with myself, I think we can safely conclude that in my opinion Muz was right in the first place.

[(name here)]

I really don't mind having destructive magic, It just needs to be hard and take a while, not be an "I win!" button. I'd like it especially if destructive magic was used to smash open fortresses during a siege at higher levels of sieging, so that you'd have to potentially charge out of the fort to kill the wizards before your walls shattered. Also, summoning elementals/spirits is always good fun, though only earth elementals/solid spirits would really work unless both sides bring magical firepower in droves, which just leads to the DnD, "Magic is god and fighters are living shields" problem.

[Pilsu]

Making magic a huge bow with a long draw doesn't balance it. Either you let it go off and lose your defensive position or you charge at the enemy and lose your defensive position. The second they whip out their magical dick your fortress becomes meaningless and you might as well have lived in a rope reed hut

[CyberCube]

Not all magic has to be that overpowered. I think those spells should still be in the game, just because they're that cool, but maybe casting spells that are too powerful for you should have a chance to backfire, and the game-breaking, fortress-leveling stuff should be highly dangerous, no matter how experienced the caster is. Lower level spells would just tire you out kinda fast, with both magic skill and Toughness determining how fast you'd exhaust yourself, though creatures with a certain tag would be able to cast as many spells as they wanted without getting tired. That way, mages are still powerful miracle workers, you don't have to worry about a siege of wizards tearing down your fortress with NUKE spells, magical megabeasts are something to be feared, and most important, weaponmasters aren't obsolete. Of course, it's up to Toady One, but that's just what I'd do if I were the one making the magic system.

Look, I don't want to offend, but far too many people seem to be afraid of magic for a game that has fire-breathing dragons, martial trance dwarves, and demons who can conjure--gasp!--magic fireballs.

Anyway, I support necromantic magic. If you really want to push it, you could put in complete resurrection spells (more than just reviving corpses as zombies), too, but since death in Dwarf Fortress isn't meant to be something you can just wish away, it would have to be one of the most risky spells of all. The caster could drop dead, several innocent bystanders could be sacrificed, the target could be revived into the wrong body (including living ones, resulting in that person's death), the target might come back as a horrid, tortured abomination, etc.... and the spell probably won't even work. Good ol' zombie raising would be much safer, but not really the same thing, I'd imagine.

[Draco18s]

One of the possible thoughs for dwarves includes 'has been attacked by a dead and still annoying acquaintance lately'. I think some kind of undeath is planned, yeah

"Well my father tried to eat me."

[woose1]

Not all magic has to be that overpowered. I think those spells should still be in the game, just because they're that cool, but maybe casting spells that are too powerful for you should have a chance to backfire, and the game-breaking, fortress-leveling stuff should be highly dangerous, no matter how experienced the caster is. Lower level spells would just tire you out kinda fast, with both magic skill and Toughness determining how fast you'd exhaust yourself, though creatures with a certain tag would be able to cast as many spells as they wanted without getting tired. That way, mages are still powerful miracle workers, you don't have to worry about a siege of wizards tearing down your fortress with NUKE spells, magical megabeasts are something to be feared, and most important, weaponmasters aren't obsolete. Of course, it's up to Toady One, but that's just what I'd do if I were the one making the magic system.

Look, I don't want to offend, but far too many people seem to be afraid of magic for a game that has fire-breathing dragons, martial trance dwarves, and demons who can conjure--gasp!--magic fireballs.

Anyway, I support necromantic magic. If you really want to push it, you could put in complete resurrection spells (more than just reviving corpses as zombies), too, but since death in Dwarf Fortress isn't meant to be something you can just wish away, it would have to be one of the most risky spells of all. The caster could drop dead, several innocent bystanders could be sacrificed, the target could be revived into the wrong body (including living ones, resulting in that person's death), the target might come back as a horrid, tortured abomination, etc.... and the spell probably won't even work. Good ol' zombie raising would be much safer, but not really the same thing, I'd imagine.

Sorry for the HUEG quote.

The only magic creatures I have seen in the game so far are gods (If you can call them that) and demons.
This leads me to believe that not all creatures will be inheritly magic, only some will.

But, like all other features in this game, it will only lead to huge problems and horrific hilarious solutions.

[GlyphGryph]

I've always found magic systems that work really well tend to be those with serious costs. Sort of a last ditch thing. You get a powerful spell that will win the war, but you need to slit the throats of half your defending forces for a chance of it working. Maybe not always as extreme as that - but at the least using magic should make you a target for various nasty magical beasties that come like moths to a light.

Which is why I generally think necromancy is one of the easiest types of magic to do well - binding difficult to control malicious spirits to resilient and dangerous skeletal forms, especially when you have to be in proximity... its not so much a trump card as a calculated risk.

So I fully support the raising of undead, as long as they aren't controllable, or are barely so. Only exception being they don't attack other undead, perhaps. Which is more of a bad thing, probably.

"Sir, we've raised the elves we destroyed at their last seige, they are decimating the goblins."
"Good, good..."
"Sir, now the goblins are all dead or fleeing... uh, but there's a bit of a problem..."
"Problem?"
"Yes sir, the elven zombies... they're still hungry. And they're coming back."

[woose1]

I've always found magic systems that work really well tend to be those with serious costs. Sort of a last ditch thing. You get a powerful spell that will win the war, but you need to slit the throats of half your defending forces for a chance of it working. Maybe not always as extreme as that - but at the least using magic should make you a target for various nasty magical beasties that come like moths to a light.

Which is why I generally think necromancy is one of the easiest types of magic to do well - binding difficult to control malicious spirits to resilient and dangerous skeletal forms, especially when you have to be in proximity... its not so much a trump card as a calculated risk.

So I fully support the raising of undead, as long as they aren't controllable, or are barely so. Only exception being they don't attack other undead, perhaps. Which is more of a bad thing, probably.

"Sir, we've raised the elves we destroyed at their last seige, they are decimating the goblins."
"Good, good..."
"Sir, now the goblins are all dead or fleeing... uh, but there's a bit of a problem..."
"Problem?"
"Yes sir, the elven zombies... they're still hungry. And they're coming back."

Oh... so like the Demonata?
O wait no... they didnt have zombies...

[Glacies]

I think magic should be weak. Simple divinations being the most common form of magic, with producing flame being a pretty big deal. Sites should also tie in.  It should be easier to produce flame magic in a fire sphere'd location, for example, or conjure batmen in a darkness sphere'd place. I think demons and titans should have impressive magical powers, maybe Dragons too once Hydra get the ability to regenerate heads. Dwarven warlocks, Elf druids, Human mages and Goblin shaman would all be rarity, and I think the fort should be able to get a warlock noble who could teach other dwarves bits of magic.

Edit: Crap. I went into a spiel about generic stuff. I think controlling undead should be harder the more are around. So, say, if a necromancer has one skeleton roaming your fortress, hooray. But, say, 10, and they don't do things properly. 20, and they start behaving really erratically, and after that...Intelligent undead should be very, very, very difficult to create, be prone to being angrier/sadder than in life, and also completly uncontrollable compared to ordinary undead.