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[Hyndis]

A lack of shells is the leading cause of deaths for possessed dwarves.

 

[Deteramot]

Perhaps a modifier could be added to affect Possession Moods in Evil Biomes? Maybe it would cause a dwarf to become insane faster, or maybe it would require more advanced items in order to be assuaged. Perhaps if a Champion or Mega-Beast was killed in the area, the possessed dwarf could have a chance of being possessed by the Champ or Beast, taking on the name of the appropriate creature. Of course, in order to balance it, if the Dwarf is controlled by a Champion, they become a great fighter and fight off a set number of enemies, but when the possession ends, even if they managed to kill the appropriate number, they go insane- It would be nice if this possession type couldn't result in raging dwarfs, but I think that may be asking too much. Conversely, if taking over by a Mega-Beast, they become a great fighter and begin attacking your Dwarfs until they kill a set number, whereupon they go back to normal. Insanity results if they fail to kill the proper number. We'll say that the reward after possession is that a random fighting skill is raised to Legendary.

This goes along with the thought of restless spirits mentioned above.

[Hyndis]

Perhaps a modifier could be added to affect Possession Moods in Evil Biomes? Maybe it would cause a dwarf to become insane faster, or maybe it would require more advanced items in order to be assuaged. Perhaps if a Champion or Mega-Beast was killed in the area, the possessed dwarf could have a chance of being possessed by the Champ or Beast, taking on the name of the appropriate creature. Of course, in order to balance it, if the Dwarf is controlled by a Champion, they become a great fighter and fight off a set number of enemies, but when the possession ends, even if they managed to kill the appropriate number, they go insane- It would be nice if this possession type couldn't result in raging dwarfs, but I think that may be asking too much. Conversely, if taking over by a Mega-Beast, they become a great fighter and begin attacking your Dwarfs until they kill a set number, whereupon they go back to normal. Insanity results if they fail to kill the proper number. We'll say that the reward after possession is that a random fighting skill is raised to Legendary.

This goes along with the thought of restless spirits mentioned above.

Completely unrelated to restless undead.

You're talking about a modification of a fel or possessed mood, so rather than the dwarf claiming a workshop to make something, he simply goes insane and starts killing people.

We already have that in the game. Its how a tantrum spiral works.

Allowing dwarves to go insane for no good reason would be horrible, as it would detract significantly from gameplay. Your ecstatic legendary armorsmith just snaps for no good reason? Thats not my idea of fun. Thats the game just doing things to spite you.

If Urist McArmorsmith's 10 cats all fell off of a cliff all at the same time and he becomes miserable and begins throwing tantrums then yes I can understand that. There needs to be warning signs. You can't just have a dwarf randomly go berserk and start killing people.

[existent]

Allowing dwarves to go insane for no good reason would be horrible, as it would detract significantly from gameplay. Your ecstatic legendary armorsmith just snaps for no good reason? Thats not my idea of fun. Thats the game just doing things to spite you.

If Urist McArmorsmith's 10 cats all fell off of a cliff all at the same time and he becomes miserable and begins throwing tantrums then yes I can understand that. There needs to be warning signs. You can't just have a dwarf randomly go berserk and start killing people.

But, if this was something that only occurred in very specific biomes, then it would be a challenge for players who embarked in those regions, and not an inescapable part of the game.

[Neonivek]

Especially when other civs don't even embark on places where day to day life is dangerous and deadly.

The player is specifically making a point to go to a land of death where the spirits of their fallen enemies can haunt them driving the populous insane.

[Hyndis]

I'd prefer to keep the scope of suggestions narrow. Rather than piling things on to a suggestion such that it becomes a gigantic project, a suggestion with a narrow scope made in such a way that will make the mechanics of it easy to implement, is probably more helpful.

Those possession things are probably best left to another thread. This is just about corporeal undead which do currently exist in game. There are no corporeal undead creatures in the game currently, so you're proposing entirely new types of creatures.

[Neonivek]

Expansion is perfectly fine since there isn't a rule on what part of a suggestion Toady actually needs to pick up upon.

[Patchy]

I like the idea with the undead picking themselves back up. You don't kill whats already dead... at least not easily, and it does put more emphasis on proper burial. Or at the very least making sure dead bodies find a pool of magma somewhere.

And in one of the links posted near the beginning of the thread, I liked the overarching bad thoughts evil biomes had on your dwarves. -10 bad though for being in sinister, -20 for haunted, -30 for terrifying, would add even more challenge.

[RCIX]

Expansion is perfectly fine since there isn't a rule on what part of a suggestion Toady actually needs to pick up upon.

But if you only have so much time to work on a project and want to do some suggestions, would you rather sort through a generalized mess or just polish up an already worked-out suggestion and implement it?

[Hyndis]

I like the idea with the undead picking themselves back up. You don't kill whats already dead... at least not easily, and it does put more emphasis on proper burial. Or at the very least making sure dead bodies find a pool of magma somewhere.

And in one of the links posted near the beginning of the thread, I liked the overarching bad thoughts evil biomes had on your dwarves. -10 bad though for being in sinister, -20 for haunted, -30 for terrifying, would add even more challenge.

Yup, undead should keep picking themselves back up again and again until you deal with the corpse. By deal with the corpse I mean destroy or bury it, where the funeral rites of burial (implied, it doesn't actually happen in game currently, but it is implied) ward off the evil to prevent the dead from rising again. To destroy it, take it to a butcher workshop and dismember it completely. Thats what butchery is, dismembering a corpse. Or dump it into an atom smasher or the always popular magma. All good.

I'm not sure if I like the idea of everyone always being unhappy, but seeing the undead should cause MAJOR unhappy thoughts. If you're in an evil biome behind thick walls, safe and sound, there shouldn't be any penalty.

Urist McDwarf sees a zombie roaming around and he's spooked. Becomes very unhappy at the sight of seeing an animated corpse. Even seeing the reanimated corpse should cause unhappy thoughts. Being attacked by one and you get the unhappy thoughts from seeing an undead stacked on top of the unhappy thoughts from being attacked and sustaining injuries.

Let the undead hordes inside your fortress and madness and death and mayhem should occur. If the tantrum spiral doesn't get you, the undead plague will.

Insanity and zombies go along well. 

[Hyndis]

Expansion is perfectly fine since there isn't a rule on what part of a suggestion Toady actually needs to pick up upon.

But if you only have so much time to work on a project and want to do some suggestions, would you rather sort through a generalized mess or just polish up an already worked-out suggestion and implement it?

^
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This! 

I try to keep my to-do list simple and to the point. A length list perhaps, but each item is very simple. This goes for when I am making something myself, or when I give a suggestion. I may perhaps give a lot of suggestions, but each suggestion is simple, self-contained, and even with a rough sketch of how to put it into the game in a simple manner.

I even gave the outline for the type of coding needed to put it in. I can't write up the code of course since I have no idea what Toady's source code looks like, but its a pretty simple, straightfoward series of checks. Simple if=>then chain only a few steps long. but with that simple chain you can add in a whole lot of FUN to the game.

And by FUN I mean zombie hordes.   

It would also explain why there are undead in the game, and where they come from. The undead have to appear somewhere, right? If a corpse in an evil biome has an X% chance of getting up each month that gives you the source of the undead as well as a new potential threat on the map. It even opens up an awesome megatrap potential.

Dropping a goblin siege into a zombie mosh pit? Fun times.

[Pilsu]

So you seriously want the pervasive, malevolent forces that cause the dead to rise and try to kill the living get defeated by honor and respect and LUV? Yeah, whatever, as long as the game allows me to mod in my more bleak, atheistic vision. Personally I just feel it's incredibly lame when an arbitrary ritual or a prayer to a fancy dragonfly in the sky that doesn't seem to do anything with it's existence is enough to defeat something that's supposed to be terrifying. Superstitions are flavorful but they shouldn't really do much. Any body that isn't cremated before burial should start scratching the lid sooner or later and really bother the relatives and terrify people. I embarked on a location that's supposed to be terrifying for a reason, any arbitrary ritualistic ways of dealing with such problems just trivialize it further.


Butchering is not plain dismembering. I can see why you'd be confused but to dismember something, you really don't need a workshop to do it. Besides, the undead shouldn't die before you've already dismembered them. Is there any reason a DEAD thing would have arbitrary hit points or need it's rotting or missing brain's case to work? Undead that make any kind of logical sense never die, you can just make them harmless by chopping them into so many pieces they can no longer move and then burn all the bodyparts that might pose problems later like loose hands. As for any dead goblins, a corpse pyre is the traditional way of getting rid of the unwanted dead. Crematoriums are far too dignified.

[Hyndis]

DF does involve magic and religion. The implied rituals of burial, along with securing the corpse in a coffin, should be enough to prevent it from rising again. They're dwarves. Ritual and tradition are probably an important part of their culture. That, and they might impale the corpse on spikes while burying it in the coffin. I'm not sure, its all implied, abstracted away, but not explicitly detailed in the game. Its the uncared for corpses laying around that are a threat.

I'm approaching this mostly from a gameplay perspective, to try to get the most effect from the fewest number of changes. A butcher workshop destroys a corpse. It is a reaction that deletes the corpse and replaces it with bones, meat, and leather (as appropriate for the corpse). No corpse, no rising undead. Atom smashers can destroy a corpse, and so can magma.

A corpse inside a building, like a coffin, should also be immune from rising again. This is mostly because I am not sure that there is a good way to remove an object that is considered to be part of a building, despawning the object, and then spawning a new undead creature in its place.

[Neonivek]

So you seriously want the pervasive, malevolent forces that cause the dead to rise and try to kill the living get defeated by honor and respect and LUV?

I don't know why this surprises you. Heck one form of exorcism I heard of involves giving the spirits gifts so they go away. What are the gifts? Common foods.

Even then a lot of the undead are caused because honor, respect, and love wasn't given to the person. One Japanese undead monster is created when a person is forced to eat his own body (The Japanese have really awsome undead).

Mummies don't do anything if their tombs arn't disturbed (respect). Ghosts generally have unfinished buisness.

Of course I guess we could do it the Fatal Frame way and have it so that the lands for some reason brings everyone back as an evil spirit filled with dark intentions. Which is alright too.

Superstitions are flavorful but they shouldn't really do much

There is something someone once said to me about anchient medicine. A lot of the medical proceedures they did simply worked and we didn't develop it for hundreds or thousands of years to come. However! when you look over their notes it seems that they themselves didn't know why it worked, only that it did.

Superstitions often have a few grains of truth in them. Add in that this is a world where fantasy does exist and it can all be legitimate knowledge.

[Rowanas]

I am with Pilsu.
Modification is key
Or irate fans come.