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[MaDeR Levap]

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.

Do not get so worked up. I understand that one can think our Reality have no God - I am atheist too. But this is fantasy world, made up reality. In this setting, magic or religious ritutal is not only expected to work, it works. You yourself have no problem with living dead in fantastic setting.

[Neonivek]

I think Pilsu's stance is that it doesn't make sense that the undead could be prevented/defeated by such actions.

Not so much that he is against religion as an actual force (which he is as well)

Though I will say that the reason WHY such actions work is that they counteract the ways in which undead is formed. It makes sense that a proper burial would prevent a ghost because it allows the spirit to be at rest.

It is an outdated form of thinking as opposed to modern emotionless logic forming... but it makes sense within its own world. In fact it makes more sense then it not working because at least when something functions it gives a reason for it being there.

[Dakkan]

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.

This is just about 100% of what I've been saying.  Butchering and dismemberment are very different. I.E, The deer in my area are pissing me off and killing my plants, so I may dismember(burninate) them with a landmine, or butcher them for meat and craft their bones into warning totems to other deer. There's no point setting up a fairly easily implemented system if it doesn't make sense, and I'm not butchering skeletons. If I want bones for crafts I'll collect the pieces after my soldiers hack 'em into tiny pieces.

Edit: Also, with the new nightcreatures system we might not even have traditional undead, maybe creatures with undead-qualities gained from being cursed.

Edit Edit: "Not butchering possibly dangerous skeletons."

[NW_Kohaku]

Regarding religion, I think there's a somewhat more direct reason why one might look down upon DF deities - most of them apparently don't exist in any way, or are just "forces" made up of "nature" in general (the elven nature force, however, apparently is meant to actually have some effects according to the threetoe stories, making this actually the closest thing to an actual deity in DF), but several of them are literal physical gods.  Demons are worshipped, which may theoretically have some kind of powers, but so are things like titans and dragons and minotaurs that have gone on a rampage.

I mean, I've captured titan "deities" in a cage, and put her on display in my zoo.  I've butchered dragons.  What happens when the worshippers of their dragon-god come looking for their deity to pray for protection from the ravages of the undead, and in response, a dwarf smirks and hands them his half-eaten god-burger, and suggests that maybe if they mopped up the vomit from around the entrance to his fort, they could get a little more of their God back.

(And yes, any time I see a megabeast listed as a deity, I try to capture them and either butcher or humiliate them, so that I can do the megalomaniacal laugh and start screaming "WHERE'S YOUR GOD NOW?!")

[Hyndis]

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.

Do not get so worked up. I understand that one can think our Reality have no God - I am atheist too. But this is fantasy world, made up reality. In this setting, magic or religious ritutal is not only expected to work, it works. You yourself have no problem with living dead in fantastic setting.

I agree.

IRL, I am an atheist/agnostic. Default position is no god(s) exists unless you can meet a burden of proof. The burden of proof is very small. Inanimate objects can prove to me and other random people that they exist in a satisfactory manner. Paperweight on my desk? More proof for its existence than god(s).

In a fantasy world gods actually do exist. You can interact with them. They do stuff. Same with magic. In the fantasy setting it does exist, and so I have absolutely no problems working with it. My favored fantasy RPG character class is a paladin. Ironic for an atheist to play a paladin? Not really.

Some things you just need to accept to make the setting work.


Star Trek has its dilithium crystals. They have magical properties that are impossible in real life, but they are required to make the setting work. Dwarf Fortress has its mushroom based economy. If you get some mud on the ground it will sustain a complex economy forever, despite no nutrients being added in. There is absolutely no logical reason why it should make any sense, but it is required for the setting. Accept it and move on.

Same deal with gods and magic in a fantasy setting. They exist. They make the setting work.

[NW_Kohaku]

I agree.

IRL, I am an atheist/agnostic. Default position is no god(s) exists unless you can meet a burden of proof. The burden of proof is very small. Inanimate objects can prove to me and other random people that they exist in a satisfactory manner. Paperweight on my desk? More proof for its existence than god(s).

In a fantasy world gods actually do exist. You can interact with them. They do stuff. Same with magic. In the fantasy setting it does exist, and so I have absolutely no problems working with it. My favored fantasy RPG character class is a paladin. Ironic for an atheist to play a paladin? Not really.

Some things you just need to accept to make the setting work.


Star Trek has its dilithium crystals. They have magical properties that are impossible in real life, but they are required to make the setting work. Dwarf Fortress has its mushroom based economy. If you get some mud on the ground it will sustain a complex economy forever, despite no nutrients being added in. There is absolutely no logical reason why it should make any sense, but it is required for the setting. Accept it and move on.

Same deal with gods and magic in a fantasy setting. They exist. They make the setting work.

Actually, that's why there is a big push behind that "Improved Farming" thing...  but that's ignoring the forest for the tree.

There is good reason for what pilsu is saying - players embark in "evil" biomes for a reason - to face far more terrifying challenges to survival than in other biomes.  "Evil" in this game is countered by its opposite "good", but "good" is largely absent in DF.  That is, there is plenty of pillage and rape and murder, but little that demonstrates good, nor any real reason to pursue it.  What happens in good biomes?  You have fairies and unicorns and fluffy wamblers.  How are they good?  I dunno!

Likewise, demons exist, and actively lead goblin armies or pour forth from HFS.  Gods or angels do not apparently exist.

Goblins are eeeeeeeeeevil, but are any races good?  Well, humans are just plain boring neutral.  Dwarves, at least under the control of the players, are generally more evil than even the demons themselves.  It takes some serious stretch of the imagination to see what parts of the elven lifestyle could actually be seen as altruistic.

Hence, DF is a world that seems to have been built with a vestigal structure of good vs. evil, but really has a moral system that seems built around "violence vs. more violence".


This,  however is getting away from the point.

We can assume that undead appear in evil biomes because of some innate power in an evil land - apparently, there is a force that reanimates the dead, and drives them to violence.  This force, however, is only a stop-gap implimentation, and is not particularly well explained. 

Regardless, we could, theoretically, be able to have a means of reducing the risk that the evil biome poses by trying to either prevent that energy from reaching a certain area (which would be something like a non-evil bubble in an evil biome), or counteracting the undeath effects by putting out some kind of energy field that would disrupt the process of animating the dead.

Of course, that's put into the vaguest of terms possible, because there really is no understanding of how, exactly, "evil" biomes work.  They just are, and they are because they exist just to give players more challenges.

[MaDeR Levap]

Hence, DF is a world that seems to have been built with a vestigal structure of good vs. evil, but really has a moral system that seems built around "violence vs. more violence".

There is very simple reason for this: evil is more fun, so it gets more time from developer. Either defeating evil (like killing Nazis in Wolfenstein 3D... ah that was the times), or being one (like psychotic god of blood and violence that lead his dwarves to inevitable doom for his amusement - yes, in DF you are Armok).

[Hyndis]

Wolfenstein is pure awesome.

All of the games are about shooting cybernetic zombie Nazis!

How can you POSSIBLY go wrong with that?! 


Thats shooting robots, shooting zombies, and shooting Nazis...all at the same time!

[NW_Kohaku]

There is very simple reason for this: evil is more fun, so it gets more time from developer. Either defeating evil (like killing Nazis in Wolfenstein 3D... ah that was the times), or being one (like psychotic god of blood and violence that lead his dwarves to inevitable doom for his amusement - yes, in DF you are Armok).

It is somewhat misleading to say "more" when one exists, and the other doesn't.

Good, for all functional purposes, does not exist in DF.  That is not terrible in and of itself, but it means that we need a different metric from just "good and evil" if there isn't going to be any good.  Especially since there is no way to judge the morality of any actions we take in the game, anyway.  (Even trying to encode such a thing would be extremely difficult - how can the game know whether you magma-flooded the elven traders on purpose or not, or whether it was an unfortunate accident or an Unfortunate Accident that killed the noble?)

Wolfenstein is pure awesome.

All of the games are about shooting cybernetic zombie Nazis!

How can you POSSIBLY go wrong with that?! 


Thats shooting robots, shooting zombies, and shooting Nazis...all at the same time!

Simple, they could let you shoot SPARKLING VAMPIRE Nazi robot zombies.

[Neonivek]

It isn't so much that Good and Evil doesn't exist in Dwarf Fortress.

It is that Good and Evil arn't forces in it of themselves but rather judgement calls and values. A "Good" Titan is just as violent as a "Evil" Titan. They are thematic or cosmetic at best.

The Demons as they are currently in Dwarf Fortress are closer to a force of good then evil. I've had powerful Demons protect civilisations from several Megabeasts and appeared to be great leaders in return.
-Is it really a spoiler now that you can find them in legends? Play the game!

[Hyndis]

You're thinking in terms of objective good and evil. Its not. Its subjective.

Its good vs evil with regards to dwarves. If it tries to kill dwarves its bad. If it doesn't try to kill dwarves its good. Good biomes tend to be quite calm and almost pleasant. The wildlife is relatively benign.

Evil biomes will try to eat dwarves at every opportunity.

[NW_Kohaku]

You're thinking in terms of objective good and evil. Its not. Its subjective.

You're getting this confused.  I am not trying to argue for this game to be objectively good vs. evil, I am arguing why it cannot be objectively good vs. evil.

No, the problem is that there really is no moral values judgement (other than the ethic tokens) at all.  Therefore, demons are "heroic" occasionally, since there is no way for them to be "evil".

The problem is that such a thing clashes with the objective and measurable "Good" and "Evil" tags and biomes.

[Neonivek]

The problem is that such a thing clashes with the objective and measurable "Good" and "Evil" tags and biomes

Well ignoring that the game doesn't call them good and evil biomes while your playing (only during generation) and ignoring that they are on the way out.

they are only good and evil in the terms of thematics.

The Good lands are filled with dangerous and annoying creatures.

[cameron]

there do seem to be plans for the gods to answer your prayers if you happen to find a god that exists , can do whatever you are praying for and feels like doing so. though all that would be iffy as they are going to be generated, at least according to some of toady's interviews.

on topic

I would be for the undead never dying at all when some mechanic is in for dwarfs to ignore non threats  until then some sort of role for them to get up would be best it could be that it waits till a year is past the creatures death till they can get up and it checks every 2-3 months. that could speed up with additional resurrections so the challenge ramps up a bit more with fort age

[Hyndis]

Could always just be an init toggle.

Invasions Y/N?
Reanimating Undead Y/N?