[CREATIVE_BEAST_ARTIFACT:timing]
[CREATIVE_BEAST_ITEM:item identifiers]
[CREATIVE_BEAST_ENGRAVINGS]
[CREATIVE_BEAST_MATERIAL_PREF:material identifiers]
[CREATIVE_BEAST_MONSTER]
These creative beast tags should allow creatures, especially (semi)megabeasts, to do more during worldgen than rampage and steal. Especially artifact creation might be cause for more interaction between megabeasts and individuals. A artifact-creative beast that also is an item-creative beast should probably limit its artifact(s) to the item in question.
Engraving beasts (and maybe wallpainting if that is implemented) might be additional sources of information in certain cases, and could add flavor to other creatures. Entering a place that held/holds engravers/painters should of course create such images. Monster creation obviously must wait for more randomized critters.
[WOUND_EFFECT:SEVER:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:WE_REPLACE_SEVER:CREATURE:FLOATING_HEAD:ANY]
[WOUND_EFFECT:SEVER:BY_BP:ALL:WE_DESTROY_SEVER]
[WOUND_EFFECT:BRUISE:BY_BP:ALL:WE_PREVENT_WOUND]
WE_DEATH
WE_SEVER
WE_SELF_SYNDROME
Wound effects, where a certain kind of wound has a certain effect by creature. The first would take any severed head, (or severed head and neck ideally), and replace it with a new creature (such as the Gleeok of Legend of Zelda fame). Wound effects should probably be handled with care (that is, the third one where bruises are prevented is likely a no-no), though I believe they can create interesting effects such as severed limbs fighting on.
[SELF_AFFLICT]
Syndrome
[INDIVIDUAL_SYNDROME]
[TRIGGER_MATERIAL:material]
[AFFLICTING_DEATH]
Syndrome
[SYNDROME_IMMUNE:syndrome]
[SYNDROME_CLASS_IMMUNE:syndrome]
Some further uses for syndromes - self-afflict could be used to create things like berserker rages in a creature. Obviously, there need to be some kinds of checks.
Individual syndromes I believe are important in at least two situations - one, the werewolf scenario (or maybe gnomeblight scenario) - when you have a material that is harmful to a single creature, you can add it to that creature itself rather than meddling with the other files. This would be most useful when adding a modded creature that is vulnerable to a existing material. Two, the Oz scenario, where a creature is vulnerable to a material that modders can't touch, such as water.
Afflicting death would be the case where a creature afflicts the person who landed the mortal strike on it with a certain syndrome - say an unicorn causing melancholy in its killer.
Also, some tags to add immunity to syndromes to creatures without editing syndromes. Again, the idea here is to minimize editing existing raw files when adding new creatures. Syndrome class immunity would be things like immunity to spider bites.
[WANDERING_BEAST]
Creatures like escaping demons and titans don't dwell in caves like most megabeasts, but wander a certain region. This tag would allow modders to duplicate this behavior, and might impact the number of megabeasts.
[LEARNING_BEAST]
Currently, creatures that are able to learn are tagged as sentient, and thus unbutcherable. This tag would allow a creature to learn without becoming ineligible for butchering. Ideally this should be used for smart but bestial megabeasts (dragon in some myths).
[ATTACK_FLAG_TOOL:DIGGER:TUNNEL/NO_TUNNEL]
[ATTACK_FLAG_TOOL:WOODCUTTER]
A tag that allows natural attacks to be used as tools (and maybe also such a tag for body parts). The two above are the most obvious tools as they are needed in fortress mode, though adventure mode tools could join in as well.
[SELECT_BP:body part]
[PLUS_BP:body part]
[PLUS_BP_CHILDREN]
There are already ways to select creature castes, materials, and tissues and apply changes to them easily. Body parts are left out for now, though it seems having that ability would be great to minimize body file additions. You could add the stance tag to unusual feet or the thought tag to an unusual brain body part less need to create a new body part.
[MINUS_TISSUE_LAYER:tissue]
[MINUS_MATERIAL:material]
[MINUS_BP:body part]
On the flip side, I believe it is not possible to easily deselect a tissue layer or material (andwith the above tags, body parts). While you could select each object that you want to change, that is not really easy with complex bodies, so it might be easier to fine-tune your selection after the fact.
[ADVENTURER_RESTRICTED]
A simple caste level tag that would prevent a caste from being choosable for adventure mode. This would be useful for cases where you've added a rare super-caste that you generally don't want playable in adventure mode.
[CHOOSY_PET]
The cat behavior of choosing their own owners, decoupled from vermin hunter. For one, I feel that tags should be as... "atomic" as possible, and it is kind of a family motto of ours that the pet should choose the owner.
[ITEM_CORPSE:A:ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_SWORD_LONG:INORGANIC:IRON]
[INHERENT_ITEM:A:ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_SWORD_LONG:INORGANIC:IRON]
[ITEM_DROP:A:ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_SWORD_LONG:INORGANIC:IRON]
The first is a bit of a change to the existing item corpse tag, to allow a creature to have a) multiple item corpses and b) have different item corpse sets. A creature may have two item corpse tags that are both in "set A", and a single is chosen at random on its death. It may have one "set A" and one "set B", and both would be generated upon death. The item corpse quality tag should change accordingly, of course.
Inherent item would work similarly, except the creature starts with those items in life unless it is part of an entity. That would also be the main reason to add such a token, allowing non-entity creatures to wield equipment.
I'll be honest and say that I'm uncertain that an item drop tag would be needed with the first two tags - it would be an item that the creature for some reason doesn't have available in life, but also doesn't replace the corpse. Maybe a gem embedded in the forehead, though that might be removed with butchery.
[TELEPORT:TRUE:range]
[TELEPORT:PARTIAL:range]
[TELEPORT:SIGHT:range]
[TELEPORT_TRAIL:material]
Teleportation of certain kinds is a staple in fantasy of course. TRUE teleportation would allow blind teleporting anywhere (with failsafes to avoid teleporting into solid matter). PARTIAL teleportation would be blocked if there is some barrier in the path that couldn't be circumvented with a few steps (walls block, trees don't, ideally). And with sight teleportation, you could only teleport to places you can see.
[SUMMONER:CREATURE:WOLF:ALL:number:chance]
[SUMMONER:VERMIN:BAT:ALL:10:50]
[SUMMONER:ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_WHIP:material:1:100]
Much like teleportation, summoning is a fantasy staple. The syntax assumes of course that creatures might at some point be created in some way similar to items. Summoner abilities should be especially interesting for demons.
[ARISER:SETTLE/WANDER:ariser text:year range:previous home (optional?)]
An ariser would be a creature, presumably a megabeast, that arises during worldgen, but after the other beasts have been placed, similar to how unique demons are currently able to escape the underworld. The settle/wander distinction may not be necessary - either they wander the world, or settle in a cave/adventurer location. The main use would primarily to allow restocking megabeasts at some point in time (not that they need it at the moment). A unique demon currently might look something like this:
demon: [ARISER:WANDER:escaped from the Underworld:1:10:Underworld]
[USURPER]
[IMPERSONATOR]
[DOPPELGANGER]
Creature tags that may determine how a power enters an entity and obtains power. An usurper would try to gain power by raw strength. An impersonator would claim to be a manifestation of a deity as demons currently do. A doppelganger would claim to be an important historical figure (potentially killed by the doppelganger itself), and take that figure's place.
Material Breaths:
DART
DISK
DEATH_BURST
UNDIRECTED_LIQUID
TRAILING_LIQUID_FLOW
A few more material "breath" types. Darts would be edged solid projectiles with small contact areas, while disks would have a larger contact area, potentially cutting off limbs. Darts would be useful for manticore type creatures, and while I can't currently think of a creature shooting "disks", I'm sure they exist.
Death burst would be a "breath weapon" that activates upon the creature's death, causing a blast centered on it (a fire version would be nice to have as well, I think, if fire isn't being folded into the materials or possibly energies).
Undirected liquid and trailing liquid flow would work similar to the gas and dust versions, but with liquids, which should be easier to cause contact syndromes.
All Breaths:
SIZE
FREQUENCY
VELOCITY
IS_VOLLEY:volley_size (dart, disk, solid glob, liquid glob)
A few attributes for breath weapons. Breath weapons might need an identifier for them to work, so that the tag isn't overloaded with options, though. Size would be the size of the cone, flow, blast, or trail for normal breath weapons, and the size of the projectile for the projectile attacks like globs or darts. The other important damage variable, velocity, could also be used for the deadliness of dust attacks. Frequency is obviously how often the breath weapon is used. A volley attack would shoot multiple projectiles in a narrow "cone", which again would be useful for creatures like manticores.
[ITEM_BREATH_WEAPON:item identifiers:
?]
I'm not quite certain how item breath weapons would be typed out, but their usefulness does range from creatures shooting arrows and throwing boulders to creatures covered in vermin and coughing up vermin.
[PARENTS:creature 1:caste 1:creature 2:caste 2:...]
mule:
[PARENTS:DONKEY:MALE:HORSE:FEMALE]
half-elf:
[PARENTS:HUMAN:MALE_FEMALE:ELF:FEMALE_MALE]
[PARENTS:HUMAN:MALE_FEMALE:HALF_ELF:FEMALE_MALE]
[PARENTS:HALF_ELF:MALE_FEMALE:ELF:FEMALE_MALE]
worm:
[PARENTS:WORM:ANY]
Yeah, some tags for crossbreeding, in the child creature (maybe even caste?). The male/female and female/male tags are to control that one caste is male and the other female. If no female caste is included among the parents, there should be one default for the childbearing caste (first listed in the tag?). I suppose there needs to be a parent default working as something like [PARENTS:OWN_RACE:MALE_FEMALE:OWN_RACE:FEMALE_MALE]. And a [NO_DEFAULT_PARENTS] tag to override that default.
[SPONTANEOUS_GENESIS]
[MELD:creature 1:caste 1:creature 2:caste 2:...]
Two more tags for population increase/change. I suppose a form of spontaneous genesis occurs in world gen to create creatures without male/female castes.
Melding would replace the component creatures with the new creature/caste. Maybe there needs some way to tell the creature what gender to retain, if any. It would be useful for creatures like illithids, I think.
[ENVIRON_PAR:ELEVATION:95:100]
[ENVIRON_PAR:RAINFALL:0:10:DRAINAGE:90:100:TEMPERATURE:??:??]
A tag for more fine-tuned creature (plant/stone) placement beyond biomes. Environment parameters would be the same as the worldgen parameters. If multiple parameters occur in a single tag, all need to be fulfilled. If they occur in separate tags, only one set of parameters needs to be fulfilled.