Unfortunately, the newts crash the game when you look at them. Apparently this has something to do with bodyparts being looked up that are not actually there, so unfortunately the newt transformation will be sitting out the first release.
I've heard this may actually come from not having caste-specific descriptions of the creature.
Well, a quick edit of the newt raws confirms this: putting caste names and descriptions at caste level seems to have fixed the problem. Many thanks for the info! It places some limitations on the Changelings and Shapeshifter secrets, but now at least it's clear how to get them to work.
I've seen that some creature variations cause worldgen crashes.
Thanks, that is good to know. But all the new creatures are handled outside WT right now and only WT causes the crash. I suspect one or more of the Wizard reactions' weird material products of being treated as a trade good and killing the game for it. Testing should reveal the culprit, the crashes are regular enough to measure.
Does DF care about conservation of mass or are newts just heartless bastards?
Both, I think, though it seems above all else it values orderliness.
EDIT: Testing suggests that if you transform a creature caste that does have a caste-level description (like the golem) into a casted creature that does not (like a human), the game crashes instantly without even needing to look at it. But that could be due to the tissue layer colors, here's some more info:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=101508.0
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Topic: *Wizard Tower* (.36d) [for DF 31.25] - Multispectral (Read 128069 times)