In other news, am working on what will eventually become a post for Organizing the Spheres, and this distinction between wilderness and civilization will carry over to it.
(...) I'm not sure why we need a distinction between wilderness and civilization.
I mean, the world is created with sentient, civilization-building creatures living upon it. Civilization is built at year 1. In essence, civilization is natural in this world, and it makes sense for spheres of wealth and crafts and marriage to exist for as long as sky and mountains and death to have existed.
In the sorts of Greek myths or Norse myths to which DF's mythos tends to trace itself backwards, there wasn't really a distinction made between deities that were civilized or wilderness deities, either.
I can't approach the spheres without making the distinction between wilderness and civilization. There are a lot of spheres I can't apply to a wild animal without turning it into some type or variant of animal person (and therefore no longer really an animal) in the process: Dance, Gambling, Rumors, and Writing, just off the top of my head.
One god might claim spheres associated with both categories, but the overlap happens at the level of the god, not of the individual spheres.
Organizing the SpheresThat post got pretty huge as I worked on it with my word processor. The limit on this forum is 40,000 characters per post, and I handily exceeded that limit long before I felt satisfied with it, so I will put some of it here (the parts I feel I can post here without derailing the thread) to see what kind of response I get. I apologize for any references to cut sections that slipped through the editing.
To start with, I checked
the wiki page on the spheres and counted 130 of them.
I divided the spheres into two broad categories:
1.
Major spheres define a fairly broad category, which has a coherent unifying theme.
2.
Minor spheres generally fit within the broad category or theme defined by a major sphere. Some are shared between two major spheres. I did make a conscious effort to keep these to a minimum, and to make sure none were claimed by more than two.
Within the major spheres, there are two categories:
1.
Wilderness spheres can be meaningfully applied to an area that does not have civilized beings living in it. Most refer to a natural force of some sort.
2.
Civilization spheres are directly relevant, or at least directly connected, to civilized beings. This includes their actions and desires, their possessions, the tools they make, and the structures and cities they build. In short, they can’t be meaningfully applied to an area that does not have civilized beings living in it.
The Wilderness spheres are, essentially, the ones I can attach significant engineerability to, since they represent the environment at large rather than something internal to the fortress. More importantly, they are also the ones I can most easily attach substantial results from engineering them.
I wound up with a total of 9 Wilderness major spheres, and 13 Civilization major spheres.
> The Wilderness major spheres are Caverns, Darkness, Death, Fire, Moon, Nature, Sun, Water, and Weather.
> The Civilization major spheres are Agriculture, Art, Chaos, Crafts, Family, Festivals, Happiness, Misery, Order, Peace, Scholarship, Travelers, and War.
Order 1. I will list the major spheres, and each entry will have a section listing which minor spheres that fit within it.
2. This post will only cover the Wilderness spheres. The civilization spheres were much more difficult to attach engineerability to, so I felt they were a bit off topic (in addition to simply pushing me far over the character limit).
3. Within the above constraints, spheres will be listed in alphabetical order.
Alterations1. I think [SPHERE_SEASONS] is hard to work with. It isn’t quite broad enough to be a major sphere, and as a minor sphere it becomes disputed territory between too many major ones. I am splitting SEASONS into SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, and WINTER. It makes more sense to me to have different gods associated with Summer and Winter, and those two in particular fit best in different major spheres.
Format(All of the major sphere descriptions are spoilered for brevity.)
Name of the major sphere.
M: “Minor spheres” that fall within this major sphere.
S: “Shared spheres,” or minor spheres that fall within both this major sphere and a different major sphere. I will specify the other major sphere.
T: The main “Theme” of this major sphere.
O: “Other Spheres,” or the relationships and interactions of this major sphere this sphere with the others.
> Any of the above might require more than one bullet point to cover everything relevant.
Surroundings 1. This section is to describe the effect this sphere would have while using spheres as a replacement for the current Surroundings (Good / Evil / Savage).
2. This is a complicated subject, so I expect to need a numbered list in most cases.
3. Commentary on the current magical creatures (giant animals, satyrs, fire imps, beak dogs, undead, and so forth) and plants (feather tree, staring eyeball, and so forth) are included in this section.
4. The current Evil surroundings have associated “evil weather,” so if I can think of anything thematically appropriate to put in that slot I will describe it in this section.
5. Only the Wilderness spheres will have this section. Wilderness spheres are those for which I can figure out how to write this section; civilization spheres are “everything else.”
PlayerActions by players having an effect are at the core of the purpose behind the xenosynthesis idea.
Xenosynthesis as an idea was largely started because I was talking realism in farming in a game that has giant magic caverns and plants that have juices "of pure sunshine" and likely will eventually have potions and other blatantly magical things. The idea driving the Improved Farming thread was that things that are too easy in the current game (like getting infinite food from simply throwing seeds at mud) need to be made into something that the player has to mindfully balance and manage.
Hence, magical crops, to carry that mentality over, need to have some sort of similar "nutrient" that is depleted or renewed, with appropriate costs associated with the reckless disregard for their power.
Part of my motivations, as well, was to make something rationally understandable from what seems a rather arbitrary magic system that runs on sympathetic invocations that are largely impossible to infer from the world around you. (That is, every time magic is used in Threetoe stories, it always seems pulled out of the ass on the spot, and therefore, impossible to predict or work with as a player, especially if such magic is put into the game randomly, as the likes of divine metals are.) Like Bahihs and several others (probably including GavJ,) I'm rather more of a rationalist, and prefer my magic to follow rationally understandable rules at least as far as the natural consequences of their original "miracles" are concerned, even if their fundamental existence is totally BS "miracles" in the first place.
The key trait, however, is "engineerability," (if you forgive the use of another non-word,) since that is at the core of what makes DF such a fascinating game.
It is the essence of Dwarf Fortress to hand the player incredibly powerful tools with absolutely no safeties attached so that they have tons of power with which they can engineer marvels or, far more likely, destroy themselves. Xenosynthesis is simply turning the concept of spheres and biomes into something that is engineerable.
1. In other words, this section is for player actions in fortress mode that seem likely to align the area of your fortress toward (or away from) this sphere.
2. Actions that are difficult to avoid doing make poor candidates for actions to align your fort with a specific sphere. The basic concept is covered fairly well in
the “Starting Build” wiki article, though not quite in this context.
3. Since gods have spheres, their temples in general, and some furnishings and projects you can place in them, might help, but I don’t want to try that analysis just yet.
Magic1. This is mostly a miscellaneous category for things that don’t fit gracefully into the above sections. Not all major sphere descriptions will include this section.
2. Commentary on megabeasts and similar will generally be placed here.
3. Commentary on civilized beings will also be placed here.
4. The only Secrets currently in the game are the “Secrets of Life and Death” (Death sphere) held by necromancers. There are indications in the
Threetoe stories, particularly
Cado’s Magical Journey,
Forest Befouled (which shows, particularly well, a lot of the engineerability NW_Kohaku and I are going for), and possibly
Moclem, that this situation is not intended to be permanent. The commentary on each major sphere will usually include at least some commentary on what Secrets associated with each of the other major spheres might provide.
5. The current Secrets of Life and Death include an ability to apply magic to mundane creatures (animating corpses as zombies). For spheres other than Death, it is more thematically appropriate to apply magic to living creatures.
6. Summoning or conjuring inorganic creatures related to the sphere in question (iron men, magma men, blizzard men, and so forth) is included as a variant of the same idea.
7. There is also a limited ability to control such magical creatures, and a much less limited ability to walk safely among them.
8. These three abilities are considered “the usual,” and will be referred to collectively with that phrase in the sphere descriptions. It is abilities “beyond the usual” that will be discussed in detail in the individual sphere descriptions.
9. The current Secrets of Life and Death also provide innate abilities: no more need to eat, drink, or sleep, and no aging. Innate abilities appropriate to the theme of the major sphere will be covered if I can think of any.
1. CAVERNS
M: Earth; Metals; Minerals; Mountains;
S: <none>
T: The caverns themselves, and the things they contain: stone and ores.
> I see Jewels as related more to Wealth, which is a Civilization minor sphere (within Happiness; see that section for details).
> Jewels itself wound up in Travelers (see that section for details).
O: It could be argued that Caverns fits best inside Darkness, which would place Earth at the top of this cluster, but I prefer to present it as its own distinct thing.
> A lot of the current cavern wildlife has the [EVIL] tag, which implies that Caverns is at least allied to Darkness (which I have designated as the primary successor to at least the relevant aspects of the current Evil surroundings).
> Given the location of magma (the primary expression of the Volcanos sphere), Caverns is probably allied with Fire (which contains Volcanos as a minor sphere).
> Fire is opposed to Water. These pull their allies (Caverns and Weather, respectively) into the contrast.
> Caverns are an opposite of sorts to Weather. There isn’t much weather underground; even a mere three z-levels of dirt or rock is a pretty good insulator, so temperature and humidity are increasingly constant as distance from the surface increases. Caverns also do not receive direct precipitation, so weather events are largely limited to the occasional flood coming in from the surface.
Surroundings
1: At first glance, the Caverns sphere might seem difficult to apply to surroundings on the surface. However, the contrast between Caverns and Weather provides some hints.
2. Areas aligned with Caverns would have steady humidity, possibly up to mist and fog, rather than dramatic rainstorms.
3. Temperature swings across the cycle of day and night might also be reduced.
4. Caverns are generally dark, so we might expect steady cloud cover, to reduce the powerful direct light of the Sun.
5. Related to this, the current game has some “cave” versions of surface creatures, most of which are at least implied (sometimes even stated) to be blind. Wildlife in a Caverns area might be more nocturnal.
6. Caverns are also the representative of the classical element Earth, and the current game has various inorganic “element men” in the deep cavern layers. Most of these are aligned with one of the Caverns minor spheres.
7. Carrying this idea farther, stone or metal versions of animals (and maybe even plants) might occur in an area where the Caverns sphere is particularly strong.
Player
1. Dwarves being dwarves, the majority of actions related to the caverns seem either difficult to avoid or difficult to pull off. That complicates things.
2. The majority of forts will probably grow the “six dwarven crops” in large quantities. This shouldn’t align the area with Caverns, or at least not too much.
3. Ditto for mining.
4. Putting your grazer pastures underground so they eat the cave moss might work.
5. Once planting of trees is implemented, an underground tree farm might also work.
6. Using magma furnaces rather than normal ones might help.
Magic
1. As far as I have been able to figure out from the wiki, and Legends mode of worlds I have generated, all FBs have Caverns as one of their spheres.
2. The traits demonstrated by the Circus, at least as it currently stands, seem to suggest that it has a Caverns alignment.
3. Dwarves may not have a Caverns alignment directly, but their entity religion spheres do include several minor spheres within the category. They also tend to live, work, and build their cities in (or next to) the caverns.
4. Secrets of the Caverns should, at the very least, vastly improve the night vision of a wizard who knows them.
5. Some cavern layers can be completely flooded, so some enhanced ability to function in water (faster swimming and at least longer holding one’s breath, if not full water-breathing “amphibious”) might be appropriate.
6. Some cavern layers can be completely dry, making water extremely difficult to find. Enhanced ability to do without water or other drink might make sense.
2. DARKNESS
M: Night; Stars; Winter;
S: <none>
T: Night is within Darkness rather than vice versa because Night is not the only reason for it to be dark. The caverns are dark, of course, and so is any area under a sufficiently dense canopy.
> Nights, in addition to being dark, are often cold. Also, Winter in temperate areas is associated with long nights. Things get even more extreme in polar areas.
O: Darkness is allied with Caverns (see that section for details).
> The obvious opposite of Darkness is Light, but I split that one as a minor sphere shared by Fire and Sun. The direct opposite of Darkness is therefore Sun (which includes Day, the opposite of Night, as one of its minor spheres).
> To a certain degree, Darkness is the wild counterpart of the civilization major sphere Chaos.
> I see Darkness as contrasting strongly with Death, even if the two are not outright opposed. The saying goes among climbers that “Mountains don’t care.” Winter doesn’t care. They may be harsh and unforgiving, but, if you’re adequately prepared, you’ll be fine. Death, on the other hand, causes panic and horror with undead (which are [OPPOSED_TO_LIFE]) and rains of blood. These effects demonstrate that Death is actively hostile rather than merely harsh and uncaring.
Surroundings1. I treat Darkness as one of two main successors to the current Evil surroundings. The other is Death. See Death for the aspects that I placed in that category.
2. I consider Darkness to include most of the various flesh and blood creatures that inhabit the current Evil surroundings: beak dogs, harpies, ogres, and so forth.
3. Considering the current Evil plants, the silver barb seems to fit best in Darkness, since the dye it produces is displayed as black. Possibly the tree glumprong as well, but I am less confident about that one.
4. Some of the magical wildlife associated with frozen biomes (the ice wolf, for example) might benefit from being split off into a distinct “cold” sphere (Winter and possibly one or more additional new spheres like Snow, Frost, or Ice). On the other hand, biome and surroundings in the current game are almost completely independent of each other. A distinct “cold” sphere would be much more difficult to apply outside the cold biomes (Tundra, Glacier, and possibly Mountain) and this goes against that precedent.
5. Since “cold” is being treated as part of Darkness, other cold effects, such as snow and hail, might be more common in areas where the Darkness sphere is strong. Freezing rain, and the resulting
glaze ice could be especially Fun.
6. Hail is especially appropriate as a Darkness magical weather event. It retains the hostility of the predecessor Evil surroundings without being associated with disease (which is part of the Death sphere). Real life hail is associated with strong updrafts aloft, rather than cold temperatures at the surface. It is also, ironically enough, associated with summer, although the magical version here is likely to be a bit more flexible. Either way, hail and freezing rain are both composed of water and therefore will refill murky pools when the ice melts.
Player1. Most things covered under Fire will align your area away from Darkness.
2. Large unlit indoor spaces might help, particularly those built above ground.
3. In general, it seems much easier to align your area away from darkness than toward it.
Magic1. Bogeymen are aligned with Darkness. Most night trolls probably are as well.
2. Goblins currently display traits consistent with a Darkness alignment. That may change in future versions, especially as the spheres of the demons they follow start becoming more significant.
3. Darkness secrets should, at the very least, vastly improve the night vision of a magic-user who knows them.
3. DEATH
M: Blight; Deformity; Disease;
S: <none>
T: I associate the Death major sphere with decay (which tends to follow it) and, by extension, disease (treated here as decay applied before the actual time of death).
> Following the game’s current rules, Death also includes undead.
O: Death is opposed to Nature and Moon, for different reasons. See the Dualism section at the end for details.
> Among the civilization spheres, the one most associated with Death is Misery.
> I also see a strong contrast with Darkness, even if the two are not outright opposed. The Darkness side is represented by the saying that “Mountains don’t care.” In contrast, Death gets more personal with undead monsters and rains of blood. Both of these are visceral things that cause panic and horror, and that sort of visceral horror demonstrates that a Death area is actively and personally hostile rather than merely harsh and uncaring.
Surroundings
1. Death is one of two successors to the current Evil surroundings. The other is Darkness. See that section for details.
2. Death includes undead, so the spontaneous reanimation that occurs in some Evil areas is clearly a Death effect.
3. Between disease and undead, most of the current “evil weather” events appear to be covered.
4. A “rain of blood” can have a syndrome attached, which would place it in Death, but even one that does not seems more consistent with the flavor of hostility from Death surroundings than Darkness. Like undead, blood rain would cause panic and horror as an explicit and direct effect. Darkness effects are generally less visceral.
5. The visceral aspect of Death indicates that the current Evil grasses, staring eyeball and wormy tendril, fall under Death, rather than Darkness.
Player
1. Things die all the time from various causes, so this on its own is not enough.
2. Similarly, it is hard to avoid being on the receiving end of a siege. Lots of death all at once is also not enough.
3. The real answer here comes back to decay. Leaving the bodies from a defeated siege out to rot will align your area with Death. Burying them in coffins as promptly as feasible will remove this effect.
4. Related to this, leaving the remains of wild animals you use for target practice to rot will align your area with Death, while bringing them in for butchering tilts you more toward Nature.
5. How you deal with sieges can also affect things. Obsidian casting them will not increase your area’s Death alignment, since there is no body to decay. This falls under Fire instead.
6. A designated and stocked hospital will also align your area away from Death. Successfully treating someone might be an even stronger hit.
Magic
1. Obviously, necromancers are associated with the Death sphere. This also applies to mummies.
2. Since the Secrets of Life and Death are already implemented, I don’t see much benefit to discussing them further. Their use as precedent for secrets associated with other spheres is covered in the Format section at the top.
3. Ghosts are also associated with the Death sphere.
4. FIRE
M: Volcanos;
S: (SUN) Light;
T: Fire includes heat in general. Magma (the main expression of the Volcanos sphere) tends to cause fire, and both tend to glow (Light sphere).
O: Fire shares the Light minor sphere with Sun, but the two have little common ground beyond this.
> Magma tends to be found very deep. The Volcanos minor sphere (and, by extension, the Fire major sphere that contains it) is associated with Caverns.
> The civilization counterpart of Fire is War. Fire is used directly (incendiary weapons) and indirectly in its aspect as “the Forge” where weapons and armor are made.
> The Forge (along with other furnaces like the kiln) is also associated with Crafts.
> Fire would also be associated with Family (“the hearth,” partially represented in the current game by the kitchen). An example is the Greek / Roman goddess Hestia / Vesta.
Surroundings
1. Obviously, the current magma crab, magma man, fire man, and fire imp are all aligned with Volcanos or Fire.
2. As far as I know, the game does not currently have anything that can be interpreted as magically altered Fire creatures, as opposed to inorganic Fire creations. At the very least, what is present has nowhere near the diversity of the giant animals and animal men.
3. Creatures aligned with Fire will be highly resistant to heat. Three of the four inorganic monsters above have a heat-based ranged attack, and this might apply to wildlife altered by Fire as well.
4. Fire magical weather sounds extremely Fun. The mildest example I can come up with is a spontaneously appearing cloud of smoke. More dramatic rains of fire would hopefully be among the more extreme events, although volcanic eruptions (increasing the “normal” level of magma in a magma pipe) might be more common. They have the advantage of being much more controllable if the player knows it might happen.
Player
1. Using smelters and forges will probably align your area with Fire. There is the usual problem that most forts will need a smelter and a forge, but having several going at once is another matter.
2. Magma forges (along with other magma furnaces) require magma, and getting that magma requires either a lot of work or very selective fortress placement. They, and jobs done at them, are legitimate as ways to increase your fort’s Fire alignment.
3. Defeating a siege with a magma flooding chamber (or by obsidian casting) will also align your surroundings with Fire. To a lesser degree, so will running an obsidian farm.
Magic
1. Secrets of Fire might permit the same “interactions” (throwing fireballs or globs of magma) that fire imps and magma crabs can do.
2. Fire tends to produce light, so some ability to create magical light (whether directly or by enchanting an item) might also make sense.
3. Like magically altered wildlife, wizards that hold the Secrets of the Flame might be more resistant to fire and heat than they were as normal mortals, and might even be able to grant that trait to their clothing and other possessions.
5. MOON
M: Balance; Boundaries; Coasts; Dawn; Dusk; Rebirth; Twilight;
S: (AGRICULTURE) Spring; Fall;
T: I am using Moon to represent the
liminal, things that aren’t quite one thing or the other, including things in transition.
> Obviously, this includes Twilight, but it does not stop there.
> Moon represents transitions, and the most famous of these are cycles. Dawn and Dusk. Spring and Fall. The moon itself waxes and wanes. Birth, Life, Death,
and Rebirth.
O: Undead go against the cycle represented by Moon, so Death and Moon are opposed. See their entry in the Dualism section below for more details.
> As covered in the same section, Moon has a minor conflict with Nature as well.
> Among the civilization spheres, the cyclic character of Moon is best expressed by Family: babies are born, grow up as children, become adults, get married, and have their own children.
Surroundings1. The theme of combination and transition, applied to animals, fits well with the current “animal people” category of modified wildlife. These are not quite animals, but not quite humanoid. As a bonus, this also references the were-creatures (a different way of being part animal, part humanoid).
2. Moon seems to also be the best place to put the current downy grass and feather trees, which combine traits from plants and animals. This appears to tilt Moon toward being at least a partial successor to the current Good surroundings.
3. I am at a loss as to what Moon magical weather would be like.
Player1. The overlap with Agriculture (Spring and Fall) suggests that farms might be one way, but farms are probably too universal to be a good choice for this.
2. Making large amounts of agricultural products for export (prepared meals and dyed cloth items, as the most obvious) is another matter. Dye in general is also less absolutely necessary than cloth, so it might work.
3. Selecting a fortress site that is at the border between two biomes (including, but not limited to, those of an ocean or lake) is one way that might work. Most players will do this, but this is merely how the player is encouraged to act, not something that requires a very specific starting build and careful planning to avoid.
4. The liminal is hard to represent in the current game. The closest I can come up with is mismatching. A room with both stone and wooden furniture; a wooden door in a stone wall or vice versa; that sort of thing.
5. Some decorations might work. They can continue the mismatch idea, and are less absolutely necessary than most of the items that might be decorated.
Magic1. The current were-creatures are aligned with the Moon sphere, following tradition.
2. For Secrets of the Moon, the only direct spell I can think of is shape-shifting ability, following the themes established by the were-creatures and animal people.
6. NATURE
M: Hunting; Trees;
S: (AGRICULTURE) Animals; Plants;
T: I’m not sure I agree with the name Nature. Despite the elves’ claims to the contrary, the giant animals of the current Savage surroundings, and the unicorns and pixies of the current Good surroundings, are no more part of “nature” than the beak dogs, harpies, and so forth of the current Evil surroundings. Perhaps Fey would express this better?
> As I usually understand it, nature is what happens when the area has no sphere alignment at all (successor to the current Wilderness surroundings).
> An area where the Nature sphere is strong is “more wild than wild.” This is nature in an exaggerated state. It is the primary successor to the current Savage surroundings.
O: Nature is strongly opposed to Death, and somewhat less strongly opposed to Moon.
> Nature is allied with Water and Weather, and less strongly allied with Sun.
> Nature strongly overlaps with Agriculture (Animals and Plants minor spheres), but I tend to consider them opposed.
Surroundings
1. The obvious way to exaggerate an animal is to make it bigger. The current “giant animal” category of magically altered wildlife falls within the Nature sphere.
2. This probably also applies to the Highwood tree. I don’t know enough about Whip Vine to comment.
3. I don’t have any suggestions for magical Nature weather that are distinct from those of the Weather sphere.
Player
1. Hunting is within the Nature sphere, so killing wild animals for food would enhance the Nature sphere in your area (killing them and then leaving them to rot is Death sphere).
2. This also applies to gathering plants from nature with herbalism.
3. Farming crops is Agriculture sphere, which I see as mostly opposed to Nature.
4. Livestock and other animals could go either way, depending on exactly what you do with them.
Magic
1. Elves are, at least for most practical purposes, aligned with Nature.
2. I don’t have any suggestions for the Secrets of the Fae beyond the usual.
7. SUN
M: Day; Summer;
S: (FIRE) Light;
T: Sun refers to the sun itself and the light it gives.
O: Sun shares the minor sphere of Light with Fire, but I see little other common ground between these two major spheres.
> Sun is, of course, directly opposed to Darkness.
> Darkness is the wilderness counterpart of the civilization sphere Chaos, so Sun is, to some extent, the wilderness counterpart to the civilization sphere Order. I generally see this link as much weaker than that of their opposites, Darkness and Chaos.
> Light is also used by diurnal humans as a metaphor for knowledge (Scholarship).
> Sun appears to have some common ground with Nature and Agriculture.
> Weather almost always features clouds, and these tend to obscure the Sun. The two spheres are probably opposed.
Surroundings
1. When applied as a surroundings sphere, Sun does not have a clear predecessor in the current set.
2. In an area where the Sun sphere is strong, nights will be well-lit by other sources. Bio-luminescence will be common. Magically altered plants and animals will glow, especially at night.
3. Other light sources in the sky might also be represented. Perhaps the moon shines brighter or larger. Magical weather might include glowing fogs or rains.
4. The current Sun Berry is part of the Sun sphere. To a lesser degree, the firefly might be Sun vermin.
Player
1. Sun is related to Fire, Nature, and Agriculture. Activities that increase those spheres might increase Sun.
2. I can’t think of anything to increase Sun directly. Perhaps the lighting arc I occasionally find mentions of will give some ideas.
3. Producing lots of steam, mist, or smoke (all of which obscure the Sun) might reduce the Sun alignment of your fort’s area.
8. WATER
M: Fish; Fishing; Lakes; Muck; Oceans; Rivers; Salt;
S: (WEATHER) Mist; Rain;
T: Water is fairly self-explanatory. Muck is used here to represent swamps and the like.
> I place Salt in this section for the source of salt that is most obvious to me: the ocean.
O: Water is related to Nature, particularly with the Fish (Animals) and Fishing (Hunting) minor spheres.
> Precipitation (especially Rain) is an overlap between Water and Weather.
> Once boats get implemented, the civilization counterpart to Water will be Travelers.
Surroundings
1. An area where the Water sphere is strong would be more prone to flooding. Enhanced precipitation might help this happen.
2. Creatures altered by the Water sphere might become amphibious.
3. Plants would be able to grow in deeper water, potentially up to more than one full z-level of it.
4. The current Sea Serpent and Sea Monster are probably Water aligned.
Player
1. A well with water below it will increase your Water alignment each time it is used. This would have to be a minor effect, due to the inherent utility of a well (hospital, bathing, emergency substitute for booze, and that’s just the obvious stuff).
2. A water wheel is more optional, so it makes more sense as a way to strongly increase your fort’s Water alignment. A Dwarven Water Reactor would be even more effective.
3. Using a drowning chamber to deal with sieges would also increase your fort’s Water alignment.
4. A fishing chamber drawing from a river or ocean might also work.
Magic
1. Logical innate abilities attached to Secrets of the Seas include [NO_DRINK], ability to create at least small amounts of water at will (at least enough for one drink), ability to breathe underwater, and enhanced swimming speed.
9. WEATHER
M: Lightning; Rainbows; Sky; Storms; Thunder; Wind;
S: (WATER) Mist; Rain;
T: Fairly self-explanatory, especially with the list of minor spheres.
O: Strong overlap with Water, so I consider them related.
> The variety and unpredictability of Weather opposes the largely constant Caverns.
> Weather tends to be associated with clouds, which obscure the Sun, so these two spheres are probably opposed.
> The civilization counterpart to Weather is probably Art. The rainbow is obviously colorful, and clouds in general have been looked at for the interesting shapes they make.
Surroundings
1. Weather events will be more intense, more frequent, or both. This obviously includes rain, along with snow, sleet, and possibly hail.
2. Heat waves and cold snaps might be more common. Fronts could be implemented as a cloud that does not obscure dwarves’ vision but raises or reduces the temperature of the area it covers.
3. Weather stands in for the classical element of Air, so flying might make sense as an ability of creatures modified by the Weather sphere.
4. Similarly, trees altered by the Weather sphere might grow taller (or at least faster) than normal.
5. Since Rainbows is a minor sphere within Weather, plants and animals altered by this sphere might be more colorful than the mundane version.
6. Magical Weather sphere weather might include lightning strikes. Abilities of altered plants and creatures might include resistance to lightning, or to the resulting fire. The same applies to tornadoes.
Player
1. Nearly all Weather events are associated with clouds. Mist, steam, and smoke mimic the appearance of clouds, so things that produce them are appropriate ways to increase your fort’s Weather sphere alignment, particularly if they are vented to the outdoors. As a bonus, mist and steam essentially are clouds (the key distinguishing feature is simply their location) and smoke is a “condensation nucleus” on which water droplets can collect.
2. If smoke from furnace actions gets implemented, magma furnaces remain unlikely to produce any. Magma furnaces will tilt you toward Caverns (since that’s where magma comes from), while conventional ones are more likely to produce smoke (incidentally, my reading seems to indicate that coke smokes much worse than charcoal) and align your fort to the Weather sphere.
3. Magma furnaces have the convenience advantage of cutting out the fuel supply chain once they’re all set up. I would recommend attaching substantial benefits to strong Weather sphere alignment to make up for the hassle. More frequent rain (which will eventually become significant for crops) and magical trees that grow faster (or produce extra charcoal at the wood furnace) are both good candidates.
Magic
1. Similar to the above (Surroundings part 3), flight makes sense as an innate ability attached to Secrets of Clouds and Sky.
I'll make a list, here, of what I would see off the bat as a set of decent "category" spheres that their "friend" spheres are hangers-on to... Also, I'll try to make some "opposites", like the way that Good and Evil are opposite, while things like "Savage" are unrelated to other alignments. Of course, don't get hung up on this idea, and go for whatever you guys think makes for a fun sphere. It should just be a decent starting point.
Instead of having a dualist system (one versus its diametric opposite), however, we can also have a stand-off between multiple spheres - for example, day and night oppose, but twilight and morning stand between the two extremes. (This might be resolved by having a "are any of these powerful" metric, and then having a "which one of these is the most powerful" metric, so that not all terrain becomes one of those spheres.)
Okay, here we go:
2. Nature <=> Moon <=> Death
Each of the three opposes the other two. There are three distinct conflicts here.
Nature vs. DeathThis is the most obvious one. Nature represents life: animals, plants, trees, and so forth. It represents healthy growth.
Death, in addition to simply representing undead, represents disease and decay. Undead themselves can also make a mess of things.
Nature vs. MoonMoon represents things that aren’t one thing or the other.
Nature represents exaggeration, which is easily slides into
flanderization. Moon has a bit more focus on the complexity of each individual, while Nature only focuses on the complexity of the ecosystem as a whole.
Moon vs. DeathThis is the most subtle one.
Moon represents things that aren’t one thing or the other, so at first glance undead (neither living nor dead) would seem to fit perfectly.
However, Moon also represents transitions, especially cycles. Dawn and dusk. Spring and fall. The moon itself waxes and wanes. Birth, life, death, and rebirth.
Undead are stuck at one place in the cycle; they are not moving on. They are also going through the cycle backward: birth, life, death, then directly back to life without passing through birth first.
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Topic: Xenosynthesis and magic fields (Read 53587 times)