We know there has been much talk of having more than one type of race living in your
forts. Friendly humans moving in, hiring gobo mercenaries, etc. What I'm thinking is what
about all those smaller fantasy creatures that kind of sit around picking there noses as
you build your fort? Creatures like Gnomes, Pixies, (non fire) Imps and so on. The ones
that are above animal yet below mass developed civilization?
So you plop down your dwarves in an area full of Pixies, enthralled by these curious hairy
giants the pixies start interacting with your dwarves, first just entertaining the dwarves
like any animal, but eventually learning the language, having interesting conversations,
and possibly befreinding, or annoying the dwarves depending on the pixie's and dwarves
personalities. If say a Pixie befreinds a dwarf, they might go out of there way to get
food or drink for the dwarf, entertain them through conversation and deeds, or maybe
even make or bring them gifts. The pixies could even move in and start making nests and
homes on things like statues or tower cap gardens if you have them. If the pixie forms a
grudge against a dwarf they might do more "sinister" acts like mess up there room, trip
them up, or cut the dwarve's beard while they sleep. They might even follow tendancies
of their favorite dwarf, let's say one befreinds a hunter, so it decides to fashion itself a
little finger bone spear and wear a mouse skull mask to look menacing, and fetch loose
arrows that the dwarf has shot off, or try to be helpful be putting stuff away (though it
might not end up in the correct bin: socks in the food bins for example) etc, etc, etc.
Now i've been dealing with pixies because they are the more curious of these kind of
creatures, but there are other types of creatures and I always picture creatures like the
Dwarf Fortress Gnomes to be more thrall like, they would go around doing menial labor
like porting boxes, not cause they're told too, they would do it because they see the
dwarves doing it. So they would tend to do menial labor that you've already instructed
your dwarves to do.
Or let's say your dwarf was trying to forge a sword. The gnome would see that the
dwarf would need those objects and fetch them, the dwarf however could be oblivious
to the presence of the gnome the whole time, thinking to himself that the things he
needed were there at arms reach all along. Try to think absent minded wizard and it's
lackey that he totally forgot about, or for those of you who know about Fantasy
Warhammer think Ogre Kingdom's Gnoblar forces, they feel important when they help the
ogres, but the ogres don't always realize that the gnoblars even exist.
Story examples always seem to work nice so:
Jasraka quickly threw the lump of charcoal that Lolor had set on the work bench at him while his back was turned, hitting him on the head. She quickly flew off as his curses echoed after her down the hall. She continued her way to the kitchen and tugged lightly at Balok's sleeve.
"Can i get a cup of Sewer Brew for Urist?" she asked sweetly. Balok plunked down a Obsidian mug and filled it to the top. Jasraka thanked him and complemented him on his beard he smiled at that, first kind thing anyone said all day. He sighed a little as Jasraka tried to get airborne while hugging the mug, managing to spill a quarter of it on the floor, he would remember not to fill it so full next time.
Jasraka continued on to Urist's stall and saw that she was quite sad today. Jasraka thumped the beer down on Urists workstation and pulled up the lizard skull mask that she had on.
"Why so glum?" she asked looking up at Urist who was already downing the brew.
"It's that damn Lolor, he's trying to start trouble again!" Jasraka smiled as she revealed her earlier exploits that day. That made Urist smile.
"One more thing," Jasraka started digging through one of the nearby bins and finally popped up with a crude necklace " I made this just for you!"
and as always I apologize for the wall of text.
Author
Topic: Other creatures living in your fort (of minor sentience) (Read 1718 times)