Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neonivek]

Well what you COULD do is give the player choices at character creation of what dirrection he wants his story to go.

If he choses to involve himself in real historical figures and events by birth, action, or otherwise then it retcons.

If he basically comes from an unknown town from a mother who used to be a feral child... who came to the village and was quickly imprisoned for being wild and unruly.

That probably wouldn't need a Retcon.

Though by Retcon are we including expanding on history that already passed as well? Or are we only including changing entire events as they are? Since I have no problem with the character simply existing and doing things that history hasn't even touched upon.

[SirHoneyBadger]

One idea that strikes me is that, at the beginning of the game you might be given a list of (probably-or potentially-atleast somewhat randomized) "quests" for your character to go on.

Pick one, and from the start of the quest, you'd be given choices and put into situations (that would themselves generate choices) that would define your character more and more, until at the end of the quest (whatever it may be/result in), you'd be fully integrated.

If you didn't like those particular quest options, you could always restart the game.

The quests you'd be presented with might use/be based on, your character's selected skills, species, age, whatever, as "seeds", and then different locations, organizations, important/historical figures, whatever, could be mad-libbed in, possibly from a list of semi-defined semi-generica.

Once you'd selected your quest, the world could generate itself around the quest selected, and around your character (either generating, or possibly allowing the player to make choices about, your character's life before that quest, and personal history), in such a way that your character would have a place in the world, and-in atleast a very tangental sense-be the most important person there.

The results of the quest-once decided by your character's actions and successes/failures-would provide an immediate "stepping stone" out into the greater world.

[Bunny]

Ka wow, Health Care is going to be great! Fortresses will no longer be stinking, dirty hellholes with unkempt dwarves running around caked in several layers of blood and vomit

Awww...  I dunno.  Right now I kinda like the image I get in my head when I think of my fortress.  I tend to sell all the clothes I produce, so it isn't long before my entire fortress consists of naked, stinking dwarves caked in mud, blood and vomit. 

I just love the idea of human or elf traders turning up, having travelled long and hard with their wares.  They know they have arrived when they see the massive, all-obsidian or all-marble aqueducts arching across the landscape towards the fortress proper.  Finding the perfectly maintained road to the fortress, their caravans are dwarfed (ha!) by the massive, engraved walls and fortifications surrounding them.  Masterwork metal cages hold the latest goblins that attempted to enter this fortress by force, and row upon row of champions can just be seen, several storeys up in their gem-studded armour, armed with crossbows and ready to fire at the slightest indication of violence.  The main entrance, which houses the trading post, is decorated with magnificent, obsidian and marble floors in a harlequinn pattern.  The walls are engraved with images from the many epic battles that this fortress has won.  The triumphs and follies of Mayors past and present.  Gem-studded statues leave the reflections of their many, glitterign stones on the highly polished floors, and sparkling crystal windows conceal the activities in rooms beyond.  Either side of the door, fierce war-dogs are tethered in place with golden chains.  The traders eyes light up, and their mouths begin to slather at the thought of what other, wonderful riches must be concealed within.

As the traders begin to upload their goods, a commotion is heard from behind the iron door, behind whih the inner workings of the fortress take place.  The mayor exits first, followed by dozens of dwarves carrying their goods to trade.  But the sight of industrious dwarves is lost at first, under the great cloud of stench that burps forth when the doors open.  The dwarves seem oblivious to the this.  All of them, every one, a naked, stinking, hairy beast whose gender is concealed only by several layers of mud, blood and vomit.  As they pass under the waterfall at the entrance (the result of all those aqueducts), they are soaked, but the preceding layers of filth are so thick that this serves only to add another dimension to the stench - newly wet vomit.  A few of them begin to be sick - over themselves and the goods they carry.  Between barely controlled retches, the mayor holds out a vomit-covered hand to greet the trade liaison, and inviting him inside to discuss future business.  The liaison notices that the mayor isn't quite naked.  He is wearing a sock.  It has seen better days.  The sock disintegrates during the meeting.  The mayor doesn't seem to notice.



I mean... how can you not love that?

[Bunny]

Also, as I've been reading through the thread I had a thought (can you tell I've been away a while).

Sorry if someone already mentioned it and I missed it but...

A ways back, there was some discussion of named weapons, and naming weapons, and whether a named weapon coud also gain certain extra attributes, or become an artifact through use rather than from basic construction, and how this would works.

What if this is incorporated into the whole thing with souls?

If (IF) souls become droppable items upon death, that could be used in sacrifices, reanimation etc... could they not also be bound to weapons?  That way, the whole sword-becomes-epic-and-legendary thing could be purposeful.  Like, when a great champion of the fortress proves his worth in battle, using his favourite sword, you could assign the weapon to be bound with a soul, and the act of doing this results in the sword gaining a name, and epic qualities, and some of those exciting flavour-adding things like

"This is the steel sword 'BloodBeard GoblinMauler', it is the favoured weapon of the Champion Urist Rockface.  All craftdwarfmanship is of the highest quality.  It is studded with rubies, and menaces with spikes of cat bone.  It is encirced with bands of horse leather.  On the sword is an image of moons in obsidian.  The sword is posessed by the soul of the goblin Crappy McCan'tthinkofaname, who was slain by the dwarf Urist Rockface in the year 210.  It is said that the sword screams during an eclipse."

Or something.

[Org]

Also, as I've been reading through the thread I had a thought (can you tell I've been away a while).

Sorry if someone already mentioned it and I missed it but...

A ways back, there was some discussion of named weapons, and naming weapons, and whether a named weapon coud also gain certain extra attributes, or become an artifact through use rather than from basic construction, and how this would works.

What if this is incorporated into the whole thing with souls?

If (IF) souls become droppable items upon death, that could be used in sacrifices, reanimation etc... could they not also be bound to weapons?  That way, the whole sword-becomes-epic-and-legendary thing could be purposeful.  Like, when a great champion of the fortress proves his worth in battle, using his favourite sword, you could assign the weapon to be bound with a soul, and the act of doing this results in the sword gaining a name, and epic qualities, and some of those exciting flavour-adding things like

"This is the steel sword 'BloodBeard GoblinMauler'.  All craftdwarfmanship is of the highest quality.  It is studded with rubies, and menaces with spikes of cat bone.  It is encirced with bands of horse leather.  On the sword is an image of moons in obsidian.  The sword is posessed by the soul of the goblin Crappy McCan'tthinkofaname, who was slain by the dwarf Urist Rockface in the year 210.  It is said that the sword screams during an eclipse."

Or something.

This would be cool. Does it mean I could sacrifice 6 out of 7 of my beginning dwarves into one item?

[Bunny]

This would be cool. Does it mean I could sacrifice 6 out of 7 of my beginning dwarves into one item?

That would be awesome, except for the moment when the entire fortress tantrums and destorys itself.  Although... that would make the then-abandoned fortress, possibly engraved with the tale of its downfall by the last, insane, survivor, an even more awesome place to reclaim.  Imagine sending a second oad of stalwart dwarves to retake a fallen fortress, knowing that SOMEWHERE on the map, an awesome sword imbued with great power, and posessed by the souls of the dwarves who first settled the area, is hidden.

[Zironic]

Sacrifice 4 dwarves - 2 souls for each dwarf's weapon. Then use two dwarves to spar, and the remaining one to make food.

[Akroma]

being able to forge souls into weapons seems like a cheap way to deal with cheesemakers and the like

I think, if at all, souls should only be able to be integrated into suitable artifacts, and only upon the death of their creator

else older fortresses would have every soldier equipped with a magical uber-blade filled with souls and stuff, which would make what was meant to be extraordinary a boring standard thing

[Footkerchief]

Bunny created a separate thread here for soul/weapon stuff.

[Aqizzar]

being able to forge souls into weapons seems like a cheap way to deal with cheesemakers and the like

What would a sword infused with cheesemaker souls do except cut cheese exceptionally well?


Yeah, I had to get that in while I could.  Soul discussion can stay closed.

[Zara]

I just love the idea of human or elf traders turning up, having travelled long and hard with their wares.  They know they have arrived when they see the massive, all-obsidian or all-marble aqueducts arching across the landscape towards the fortress proper.  Finding the perfectly maintained road to the fortress, their caravans are dwarfed (ha!) by the massive, engraved walls and fortifications surrounding them.  Masterwork metal cages hold the latest goblins that attempted to enter this fortress by force, and row upon row of champions can just be seen, several storeys up in their gem-studded armour, armed with crossbows and ready to fire at the slightest indication of violence.  The main entrance, which houses the trading post, is decorated with magnificent, obsidian and marble floors in a harlequinn pattern.  The walls are engraved with images from the many epic battles that this fortress has won.  The triumphs and follies of Mayors past and present.  Gem-studded statues leave the reflections of their many, glitterign stones on the highly polished floors, and sparkling crystal windows conceal the activities in rooms beyond.  Either side of the door, fierce war-dogs are tethered in place with golden chains.  The traders eyes light up, and their mouths begin to slather at the thought of what other, wonderful riches must be concealed within.

As the traders begin to upload their goods, a commotion is heard from behind the iron door, behind whih the inner workings of the fortress take place.  The mayor exits first, followed by dozens of dwarves carrying their goods to trade.  But the sight of industrious dwarves is lost at first, under the great cloud of stench that burps forth when the doors open.  The dwarves seem oblivious to the this.  All of them, every one, a naked, stinking, hairy beast whose gender is concealed only by several layers of mud, blood and vomit.  As they pass under the waterfall at the entrance (the result of all those aqueducts), they are soaked, but the preceding layers of filth are so thick that this serves only to add another dimension to the stench - newly wet vomit.  A few of them begin to be sick - over themselves and the goods they carry.  Between barely controlled retches, the mayor holds out a vomit-covered hand to greet the trade liaison, and inviting him inside to discuss future business.  The liaison notices that the mayor isn't quite naked.  He is wearing a sock.  It has seen better days.  The sock disintegrates during the meeting.  The mayor doesn't seem to notice.

Sounds like an usual description of a baroque palais. There weren't were keen on water there, neither.

[Zironic]

I just love the idea of human or elf traders turning up, having travelled long and hard with their wares.  They know they have arrived when they see the massive, all-obsidian or all-marble aqueducts arching across the landscape towards the fortress proper.  Finding the perfectly maintained road to the fortress, their caravans are dwarfed (ha!) by the massive, engraved walls and fortifications surrounding them.  Masterwork metal cages hold the latest goblins that attempted to enter this fortress by force, and row upon row of champions can just be seen, several storeys up in their gem-studded armour, armed with crossbows and ready to fire at the slightest indication of violence.  The main entrance, which houses the trading post, is decorated with magnificent, obsidian and marble floors in a harlequinn pattern.  The walls are engraved with images from the many epic battles that this fortress has won.  The triumphs and follies of Mayors past and present.  Gem-studded statues leave the reflections of their many, glitterign stones on the highly polished floors, and sparkling crystal windows conceal the activities in rooms beyond.  Either side of the door, fierce war-dogs are tethered in place with golden chains.  The traders eyes light up, and their mouths begin to slather at the thought of what other, wonderful riches must be concealed within.

As the traders begin to upload their goods, a commotion is heard from behind the iron door, behind whih the inner workings of the fortress take place.  The mayor exits first, followed by dozens of dwarves carrying their goods to trade.  But the sight of industrious dwarves is lost at first, under the great cloud of stench that burps forth when the doors open.  The dwarves seem oblivious to the this.  All of them, every one, a naked, stinking, hairy beast whose gender is concealed only by several layers of mud, blood and vomit.  As they pass under the waterfall at the entrance (the result of all those aqueducts), they are soaked, but the preceding layers of filth are so thick that this serves only to add another dimension to the stench - newly wet vomit.  A few of them begin to be sick - over themselves and the goods they carry.  Between barely controlled retches, the mayor holds out a vomit-covered hand to greet the trade liaison, and inviting him inside to discuss future business.  The liaison notices that the mayor isn't quite naked.  He is wearing a sock.  It has seen better days.  The sock disintegrates during the meeting.  The mayor doesn't seem to notice.

Sounds like an usual description of a baroque palais. There weren't were keen on water there, neither.

I've tried in the bast to make clothes for dwarves, but it'd be really cool if we could something like have a set of commands be memorized so that later we could press a button, instead of the usual q-a-[enter]-[socks]

[Aldaris]

About the soul-binding thing: I think the bounded item should mirror the abilities of the bound soul, for example, if your legendary marksdwarf, after decades of shooting the living crap out of entire sieges, is struck in the brain by a lucky arrow, you could bind his soul to a crossbow. Making it an epic item, and allowing the lost marksdwarf to continue with what it did in life, shooting the crap out of gobbos.

And if you sacrifice a cheesemaker for a crossbow, it'll both be bad because it was bound with the soul of a cheesemaker, and because the soul is unhappy about being sacrificed.

But if you bind the soul of a spirit of fire to a warhammer, the head would continually burn, making it awesome, but the soul would be both unhappy at being killed and captured in this way, it would also try to hurt any dwarfs that get near it.

So, both the skills, the allignment, and the manner of death of the soul affect the item it is bound to.

[Vlynndar]

That. But explained in a non-magical way.

"Don't touch that sword... A dwarf went crazy and killed a cheesemaker that wa looking at it... That sword will only bring bad luck..."

Or

"They say that sword in the long lost mountainhalls of Wretchedale burns eternally. A brave unnamed hero held off (spoilers not written: HFS) and killed the last spirit of fire, before succumbing to his exhaustion... Yes. That sword is powerful. But beware for the spirit of the fire within..."

[Aqizzar]

Footkerchief already linked another thread for the souls thing.