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[Belteshazzar]

Pargon Pargon Tier Chutigna Pargon

Chut'turga?

Yes, that fellow (Chattur'gha according to Wikipedia.) Aparently there is at least one more unnamed (and likely even more) Ancient with the color yellow but that is neither here no there.

Ironicly only reason I even entered this thread was I was finally finishing off Ulyaoth tonight on my first play through. I started the game last summer but got stuck for months in the final summoning not realizing I had to sneak past the purple-rune giant-worm pit.

One of my hopes for this game is that we will one day be able to enact such multi-generational plots and long term changes. The Ancient city buried under the middle east was one of my favorite levels in any game mainly because you keep returning to it and seeing how things had changed. Perhaps one day we will be able to create such fortresses.

[Felblood]

Counterstrike is effective!
Felblood takes 300 social damage!

Yes, that fellow (Chattur'gha according to Wikipedia.) Aparently there is at least one more unnamed (and likely even more) Ancient with the color yellow but that is neither here no there.

...

One of my hopes for this game is that we will one day be able to enact such multi-generational plots and long term changes. The Ancient city buried under the middle east was one of my favorite levels in any game mainly because you keep returning to it and seeing how things had changed. Perhaps one day we will be able to create such fortresses.

That can't be right, unaligned symbols are yellow. I think you've been exposed to epileptic trees.

Don't open this spoiler tag before you complete all three campaigns:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mantorok is the man behind the curtain. He sacrificed his life to kill the other three, but it will take so many centuries for him to die of his wounds, that he could do untold harm before he finally breathes his last.

--And if DF ever has Roivas style bloodlines, that will be awesome. Playing as the granddaughter of a previous PC and then meeting the ghost (or is it!?) or your old character would be sweet.

The giant En'gah (sp?) array inspired most of my ideas on mana collection and concentration in this thread, though the idea of magical flows that somebody pitched in gave it a sweet element of dwarf fortress.

The biggest problem I had with Eternal Darkness was that magic was too predictable, even with the sanity effects. The only time your own spells are dangerous to a player character is when you use the En'gah Array, and even then, the effect is pretty predictable. Cosmic horrors shouldn't be so predictable, manipulable or easy to figure out.

When somebody says Eternal darkness is "too optimistic" they mean the Ancients themselves aren't scary, because they are easily understood. The unkown is what makes them scary. Xel'otath is way less scary than a simple bonethief, because you can see a planet sized mass of pure insanity coming.

Also, your spell is missing an Aritak.

[Belteshazzar]

The yellow god was not included in the game, every color magic has a corresponding Ancient. In an Escapist interveiw a fifth yellow god was confirmed:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_60/356-Theres-a-Lot-More-to-Tell.3

Besides Wikipedia spoiled me after I beat the campaign tonight and something felt... lacking. I looked it up and sure enough I've got more Darkness coming on. Just hope those Silicon Knights stop fooling around with Too Human and get sequential on this series.

Anyhow back on topic, The predictability of magic is a problem but this is why I suggested a randomized magic or rune language (perhaps the primal code of the universe.) Even without skill related failure (always a probability) there is that knowledge boundary to surpass. Not only must you discover and collect magic words but discovering their meaning through scientific trial and error could be hazardous to, well... everything.

[Felblood]

Once again, I am wrong.

I suppose they did scorch the Earth a bit, they're going to need all the ancients they can get, what with the way the first game ended. Does this mean that Alex will be the new villain? That would shake some of the optimism out of the series, and be consistent with the way Pious played out.

Never color code your gods, if they can die, unless you want the player to be a priest of the greenish turquoise god by the third game of the series. If they can die, you need to be able to replace them.

How does the universe even exist, what with being that are woven into the basic fabric of reality dying, anyway? You just killed time; how the Mantorok can that have a sequel? The world should end.

Not all magic needs to come from gods, just because you have magical gods. The game would have benefited considerably if there were other sources of magic besides the four ancients, though that would have undercut the "fight evil with evil" theme, unless the other magics were equally dark (Give me more reasons to murder the innocent, please.). Using Xelo'tath's power to fight Chuttur'gha is cool, but just being able to fight Xelo'tath with Xelo'tath makes the gods farcically weak and controllable. Divine magic should be granted, not stolen.

It's okay for knowledge and skill to be enough when you're a wizard, but wielding the power of the gods should take more than that.

[alfie275]

I don't think random words are a good idea, they would make it to hard, and it sort of balances out if you have to do harder and harder quests to get a single word every time. Maybe like 2 quests for target words ( ie foot), 1quest for adjectives (greatly, slowly, quickly), 2 quests for descriptors (left, copper), 3 quests for a verb (cook, turn into) and 4 quests for a truename and numbers would just be known anyway, cause well they're numbers. Some special words would require like 10 hard quests, ie the verb kill or set or the desciptor adamantine.
The syntax for a spell of death would either be: Enemy kill or Kill enemy, the latter being most probable.
When you do the quests the wizard would teach you the syntax of the spell, he might say the syntax for set was: Set (target) (target value) (replacement value), and then tell you to use it on a dummy, the wizard would also give you tips every few words, the first might be that you can string together target words like: Dummy foot skin (once layers are implemented).

[Belteshazzar]

I would assume that unless you choose to start the game in year 1 a great number of words will already have been conveniently collected and studied for you by NPC sages, wizards, ect... Questing for some of the more esoteric or unknown words would be an option I imagine but it would probably be more convenient to just find some great mage and convince him to teach you enough words to get by.

Besides its not like the mayor or king of some town is just going to give you a spell word for an ogre head or some predetermined number of wolf tails. If you are questing for spell words you would likely be doing your own research like exploring ancient ruins, climbing mountains to commune with gods and prophets, searching libraries and temples, or going on vision/dreamquests to unseen lands and higher planes.

[alfie275]

Or perhaps a mage school? I was just suggesting the quest thing because currently there are only kill so and so quests.

[flabort]

know what? words spoken in this language casting spells is good, but what about writing words in the language, and emphasis to how you speak them? after choosing words for a spoken spell, each has two bars, like the bars on the trade agreament screen (what do you request of our merchants?), making words high on the first bar highly emphasised with tone, and words on high on the other emphasised by volume.

Truename: Urist McTarget (--0--) (----0)
verb: burn (----0) (-0---)
adverb: fast (-0---) (--0--)
unkown: with (--0--) (0----)
adjective: pet (----0) (---0-)
noun(plural): cats (---0-) (----0)

emphasis by tone increases/decreases sphere alighnment, emphasis by volume increases/decreases effect. sepperating sections with low emphasis words could split a spell into various sections.

writing a spell could cause an effect, like writing "hot fire" all over a sword would produce a flaming sword. make sure he dosn't write it on the handle. writing "kill <specific target> with carp" on a sword wouldn't do anything until the sword hit a carp, or that specific target, which would be dumb. why a specific target for a multi-use spell?

of course, writing "create magma in direction wave (<--verb) entity member" on a stick would make a wand that makes it so if you wave it in someone's direction, it creates magma at thier position. as friction from peoples hands wear out the words, though, it would become "create magma entity member", which would turn any one who touched it to a bieng of pure magma and magic. not good for the elves (read: good for us).

[Silverionmox]

writing "kill <specific target> with carp" on a sword wouldn't do anything until the sword hit a carp, or that specific target, which would be dumb. why a specific target for a multi-use spell?

More general spells should require more energy, for example by sucking it out of the environment: that way it either wouldn't work except in a magically very potent place, or just suck the life energy out of the user or something. A "kill" sword would, effectively, be cursed.

[Mikademus]

know what? words spoken in this language casting spells is good, but what about writing words in the language, and emphasis to how you speak them? after choosing words for a spoken spell, each has two bars, like the bars on the trade agreament screen (what do you request of our merchants?), making words high on the first bar highly emphasised with tone, and words on high on the other emphasised by volume.

Truename: Urist McTarget (--0--) (----0)
verb: burn (----0) (-0---)
adverb: fast (-0---) (--0--)
unkown: with (--0--) (0----)
adjective: pet (----0) (---0-)
noun(plural): cats (---0-) (----0)

Sorry to be a bit harsh, but that seems like the way to go to kill off all fun from the magic part of the game. First, DF isn't about direct control of the dorfs (well, in adventure mode, then ok); secondly, Master of Orion ]I[ failed because it transformed the game into a prettier version of Excel. And this sliders etc notion of magic seems just like that to me, more work than fun.

[Mel_Vixen]

Just a thought:

If a mage can draw the flow/astaral energy/mana/whatever from the sourrounding to redirect and shape it would be interresting to create Flow-harvester Artifacts/Creatures which store it somewhere.

This could lead (withg a decent decoartion system) to interresting Artifacts where for example one decoration says "Store Energy from Environment on Cristal in Hilt" and another saying "Set Blade burn by drawing from Crystal on hilt if Word "generic word" is spoken.". Or a Decorated Bolt with "Set itself Burn by drawing from Victim" aka "anti-wizzard-missile".

Naturally the number of spelldecorations has to be limited somehow thought multiple artefact could still be linked. It would end in a "Magic dwarf-puter" ^^.

[alfie275]

I think that all races should be able to use all magic, just some are better at it than others, maybe like this?:
Dwarf: Best at written magic, ie runes.
Human: Language magic, ie speaking the words,
Elf: Passive, ie plants growing better around them.
Kobold: Gesture, ie waving your hands or a wand in a certain way.
Goblin: Ritual, ie multi goblin castings that involve some sort of sacrifice.
Gods and entities: Thought, ie controling magic as you control your hand (new brain part - magical cortex? The Iron Bolt hits the fire spirit in the magical cortex, it is pierced! Fire spirit cancels fireball - no magic. The fire spirit has died in the heat.)

[Silverionmox]

Just a thought:

If a mage can draw the flow/astaral energy/mana/whatever from the sourrounding to redirect and shape it would be interresting to create Flow-harvester Artifacts/Creatures which store it somewhere.

This could lead (withg a decent decoartion system) to interresting Artifacts where for example one decoration says "Store Energy from Environment on Cristal in Hilt" and another saying "Set Blade burn by drawing from Crystal on hilt if Word "generic word" is spoken.". Or a Decorated Bolt with "Set itself Burn by drawing from Victim" aka "anti-wizzard-missile".

Naturally the number of spelldecorations has to be limited somehow thought multiple artefact could still be linked. It would end in a "Magic dwarf-puter" ^^.

That's crossing the line between magic and technology, and that line is reliability. Magic needs some unpredictability (strategic unpredictability, not randomizing the damage), otherwise it will turn from enchanting into accounting. Which can be fun, but it will become an job rather than a charming game then.

[Mel_Vixen]

Any sufficiently explored and investigated magic is indistinguishable from science/technology.

If you learn enought over any given, well developed, magic system you will be able to make such or atleast similiar "magotech".

edit: And no i didnt try to Quote "Arthur C Clarke". This is the extended idea on Magicsystems in games and also was stated by the fictional Character "Agatha Heterodyne" in the Webcomic "Girl genius".

[Felblood]

Yes, but those people were clearly referencing Clarke.

--and I disagree with them.

Advanced technology should look like magic, but advanced magic should look pretty magical, simply because no one would develop a technology so inconvenient, dangerous or bizarre.

Gigantic energy collectors should have swirling vortexes of unsafe workplace condition, and the guys maintaining it should work with kitten blood and carved bones, for exactly this reason.

Exploring magic to the degree that it just becomes plain old science is where Eternal Darkness went wrong, and I don't want to see Dwarf Fortress do that. Channeling too much magic in one fortress should result in HFS like events, or even just less serious but equally interesting events, like magical beings, spawning inside your energy concentrators.

Cultists should try to free any chained demons that you keep around to power your array of magically powered deathtraps.

Having to monkey with sliders every time you cast a spell would be to much hassle. I don't even know how the words themselves should be selected. As your word library grows, that's going to become a pain.

I'd like to see high quality amulets become useful as energy storage devices, so player wizards aren't totally helpless away from their towers.

Early on, words and spells would have to be assigned through the raws, until the system grows robust enough to support magic systems made from random words. But eventually, I'd like to see a system where you can just specify how many nouns and verbs a civ gets, and ones appropriate to their race and religion would get chosen from the list.

I agree Dwarves should get runes, humans should get words.
I dunno about the other races. The various powers they worship might give them a few words, but I don't see them as literate enough to use runes.

There needs to be some way of expanding your wizard's repertoire or even your civ's, besides stealing them or befriending all of the various races. Intelligent megabeasts and gods selling words for quests would make sense, but you'd want a way to make those quests extra hard, and require significant faction standing with them, just to get the quest.

There also needs to be a worldgen option for the total number of words that are available in a given world, if word based magic is used in that world, that way new words can be easy to find or very rare, depending on the sort of world they are in. Words should be more costly if there are more of them.