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[CoyoteTheClever]

Since it seems more specific region associations are coming up soon, perhaps mutagenic type regions might be interesting. In these regions, the local soil would produce food that carries with it mutagens that could mutate the local wildlife with various characteristics that otherwise wouldn't happen (imagine something scary like a two-headed carp!), and even dwarves that eat such contaminated food (So you might even get lucky and get something like a four armed dwarf that would make the ultimate wrestler! There would be negative mutations too though).

Also, perhaps acquired mutations can be passed on in a Lamarckian sort of way to offspring, so instead of having just a couple of randomly mutated animals, you'd have a little more consistency.

[Guy Montag]

I think there is something planned in the future that involves dynamic and randomized wildlife in world generation, maybe even randomly generated animals/ wildlife creatures that are unique to the World Gen was something thought up.

Something like what you are suggesting could be emergent to the gameplay on chance. A biome filled with powerful, 6-armed macaques and or whatever else could be possible with such randomly generated biomes.

The development is trying to move away from hard-coded region things like the Good/Evil/Savage biome regions into something more random and emergant. The whole thing is going to take another overhaul sometime in the indeterminate future.

[CoyoteTheClever]

Aha! I see. Ok, that makes sense. Well then, maybe instead of region associations, certain soil could have mutagenic properties?

[alfie275]

The D-Virus, far superior to the T-Virus, it turns them into alcahol dependent
tunelling zombies.

[The Doctor]

So dwarves are entirely unaffected.

[alfie275]

But if you give them the E-Virus it cancels each other out.

[LegoLord]

Just so you know, most mutations have no affect unless they occur in every single cell, which only ever happens at conception.  So basically, you will know if a dwarf has a good mutation the moment it is born.

[CoyoteTheClever]

"Just so you know, most mutations have no affect unless they occur in every single cell, which only ever happens at conception.  So basically, you will know if a dwarf has a good mutation the moment it is born."

Well, it is a fantasy realm, hence the Lamarckian suggestion in the beginning even if it isn't proper evolutionary theory 

[jaked122]

I second this, as long as I can have dwarvish mutants running around my Forts. 

[Sowelu]

I do look forwards to this kind of stuff going in eventually!

[LegoLord]

"Just so you know, most mutations have no affect unless they occur in every single cell, which only ever happens at conception.  So basically, you will know if a dwarf has a good mutation the moment it is born."

Well, it is a fantasy realm, hence the Lamarckian suggestion in the beginning even if it isn't proper evolutionary theory 

I don't think that should be dismissed just because it's a fantasy realm.  It adds some balance by making it occur less often, and adds in realism.
I mean, can you imagine how annoying it would be to have your legendary armorer suddenly die from a heart mutation?  That would be more like fake difficulty with small benefit, really.

[CoyoteTheClever]

"Just so you know, most mutations have no affect unless they occur in every single cell, which only ever happens at conception.  So basically, you will know if a dwarf has a good mutation the moment it is born."

Well, it is a fantasy realm, hence the Lamarckian suggestion in the beginning even if it isn't proper evolutionary theory 

I don't think that should be dismissed just because it's a fantasy realm.  It adds some balance by making it occur less often, and adds in realism.
I mean, can you imagine how annoying it would be to have your legendary armorer suddenly die from a heart mutation?  That would be more like fake difficulty with small benefit, really.

Oh, no, I didn't mean to make it seem like I was dismissing it. I just meant that I know this isn't how mutations really occur 

[Guy Montag]

Yeah, mutations are generally a BAD thing. It means cancer and death, and people exposed to a mutagen, like Mustard gas usually deliver still born babies or babies without skin or something to that effect.

But in a fantasy setting like DF, I can imagine villagers say "To the south is The Broken Hills, unspeakably horrible mutants roam freely there, you don't want to go there for any reason at all, seriously."

But like Toady is going to revamp the undead/evil biomes and regions he will allow the world gen to produce unique, random wildlife and a swath of tainted land nobody wants anything to do with, because its filled with nasty mutated horrors is perfectly within reason, I'd think. So long as it was relatively uncommon and all, and wasnt' linked to a soil type or whatever.

But once magic is implimented that sort of shit will be justified "Salvedangers the Balanced Squares of Malignancy cast fel magic upon the land in The Tainted Plains in 228, the cursed place is home to (insert mad-libbed mutant worldgen creature here) and nobody dares venture there"

As for mutant dwarves, most mutagens just straight up cause sterility, since people's berries tend to get effected the worst, but if you REALLY GOT TO HAVE MUTANT DWARVES, then I dunno. You embark on a hill in The Tainted Plains and all your pregnancies result in babies that come out with extra arms, tentacles, tails,or longer claws, medieval procedure would be to smash that fucking thing's head in with a rock, throw it in the refuse pile and try another pregnancy.

Just saying, even if pregnancies resulted in horrible monsters, the Dwarf Doctor would take one look at it and think "Hmm, thats not right, babies don't usually have that many eyes, or a proboscis, for that matter. Gonna have to get a specialist for this case, the Hammerer is better qualified to give the treatment this one needs."

But yeah, DF is to rely on "emergent" AI circumstances that come from randomly generated parameters or some shit like that. I'm sure something you'd like will result in future versions, good sir.

[Footkerchief]

Comments from Toady that might clarify how "mutagenic" the spherical regions could get (although I think talking about "mutations" and creatures getting mutated by the soil connotes too much science and not enough psuedomagic):

I know your removing Good and Evil in the not so distant future... but what would be your guess of the Spheres which would be closest to good and evil? Actually undertaking all the Sphere related Spherical Land conversion of the Evil/good lands seems like a lot. I am guessing the dev item refers to you taking the first steps? What exactly does that entail if I am allowed to ask.

You mean not close to good in the moral/whatever sense but in the close to good in terms of having unicorns and fairies and fluffy wamblers occur as they do now?  If a unicorn is associated to particular spheres (luck, say) then it would be luck-lands that get them, rather than anything else (unless luck is linked to other spheres, then there's some chance of pulling them over to those as well).  The evil lands either get the "evil" creatures or the undead curses, so when those are sphered out, it would be handled that way.  Of course, since there are like 100 spheres (and will be many more no doubt), yeah, this is a large project overall, especially when you get away from the stock raw monsters and ask which random creature/veg/etc. traits should be linked to spheres and try to do every sphere justice.  If it also gets deity links at that time, you have the local civilizations associated to the deities to consider as well, so an "evil" god sphere-related land near a human civ might take the human body definition and then sphere-twist it into something that is meant to be a mockery of human form (good ones do the same thing but the twists would not be seen as a negative thing, though they could still be terrifying).  In real-world mythological examples, a lot of this depends on the cultural values associated to certain animals, though simple things like stripping off the outer layer (ie skin) or adding fire breath or making the skin a different color etc. all work as well, and I've got the tools to do all of that now with this revision.  As long as the sphere/cultural links are reasonably maintained, I think it won't devolve into a sea of garbage slush (as a more trivial but current example, take god names vs. some of the other names -- sphere-links tend to make the god names "better", in one sense at least, though clearly it all needs work).

Not sure where I'm going to start with it though.

[Strangething]

The evil zones give you skeletal and zombie versions of normal monsters now. So I wonder what kind of templates we can add to existing creatures?

two-headed
fire breathing
tentacled
four-armed
giant
flying
fae
aquatic

There's just a little problem of preventing redundancy, like giant giant eagles.

I am so looking forward to sphere-related lands.