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Author Topic: Spheres  (Read 888 times)

Flaming Dorf

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Spheres
« on: May 09, 2010, 10:12:14 pm »

A little ramble... (I think we all get one of these? I'm sleep deprived, I need to post something)
In Greek folklore, Hades was the god of the Underworld. He was also thought to be very wealthy, because he lived under the surface where valuable minerals were.
If examined closely, this little connection resembles something very possible in Dwarf Fortress when the spheres system are fully realized (or expanded upon somewhat). A deity generated in a future DF could be assosiated with (for example) the underworld, minerals and wealth, like Hades was (this is already close to possible, at least with the minerals and wealth part). If languages are connected to spheres at some point, then a name meaning "Wealthy" could be assigned to the deity, as a primary or secondary name.
My point is, the game could eventually become extremely lifelike if the spheres system is enough of a central focus in random generation. If weighted together, the two could be capable of creating very interesting results (the random creature generation alone has me amazed, and I can't wait for more randomness).

Thoughts, B12ers? Should spheres play a central role in world developement?
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Sowelu

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Re: Spheres
« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2010, 10:21:22 pm »

Pretty sure that's the plan, and/or already in the game (for deity names).
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Flaming Dorf

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Re: Spheres
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2010, 10:26:51 pm »

Ok, maybe a little clarity: could the spheres affect other aspects of world generation? Like, name generation.
"Thesud Growlwiped the Valley of Destructions the bronze colossus" doesn't really make sense. Well, it could. But it would take a fantastic stretch.
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Flaming Dorf

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Re: Spheres
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2010, 10:27:35 pm »

double posting here: does it already affects deity names?
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JoshBrickstien

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Re: Spheres
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2010, 10:56:24 pm »

Ok, maybe a little clarity: could the spheres affect other aspects of world generation? Like, name generation.
"Thesud Growlwiped the Valley of Destructions the bronze colossus" doesn't really make sense. Well, it could. But it would take a fantastic stretch.

Try "ButterBlossom the warmth of love the Bronze longsword"
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Cruxador

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Re: Spheres
« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2010, 11:27:08 pm »

double posting here: does it already affects deity names?
Yes. You can dig up the thread about interesting deity names on the Dwarf Mode Discussion board for some particularly clear examples of this, if you feel like digging.
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Flaming Dorf

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Re: Spheres
« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2010, 12:02:19 am »

double posting here: does it already affects deity names?
Yes. You can dig up the thread about interesting deity names on the Dwarf Mode Discussion board for some particularly clear examples of this, if you feel like digging.

Alrighty, so I shall. Actually I think I posted on that, heheh. Something about a super llama god that was associated with pretty much everything. I never noticed the correlation between spheres and the actual naming, though. Toady's a step ahead of me.
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Cruxador

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Re: Spheres
« Reply #7 on: May 10, 2010, 01:42:22 am »

double posting here: does it already affects deity names?
Yes. You can dig up the thread about interesting deity names on the Dwarf Mode Discussion board for some particularly clear examples of this, if you feel like digging.

Alrighty, so I shall. Actually I think I posted on that, heheh. Something about a super llama god that was associated with pretty much everything. I never noticed the correlation between spheres and the actual naming, though. Toady's a step ahead of me.
Yeah, there's a handful there with long names where all or most parts stem from the same sphere.
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DalGren

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Re: Spheres
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2010, 07:27:29 am »

I made a harpy civ mod (unreleased due to DF bugs), and I could tweak the language and spheres enough to get pretty on-spot deities and names, you need to play with symbols, or make your own.
In my example I tried to go for names related to wind, weather and birds, having to make a "bird" symbol to get better results. It ended up with names like "Silkfeathers" which were satisfying, and only rarely getting "odd" ones.
I can send you the language files and entity files if you want.
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