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[freeformschooler]

There could even be chaotic gods that just throw out mandates at random. "The sand-spirit of chaos has mandated the killing of all camels!"

But what about the rest of the gods, and how sphere-gods are handled? For instance: let's say there's 12 spheres that you can work for/against with your actions, and they each have their own god. If all twelve gods decided to pull out their divine commandments, it would be incredibly silly and hard to work with. Or maybe there's even more gods/spheres, to the point where just about every action you take has a positive/negative or favorable/RETRIBUTION worthy side effect.

I haven't read all of NW's posts but what I'm really asking is, in this theoretical system, don't we want some way to tone it down/up, or at least have the game engine do it for us? For instance, having the ingame gods/amount of gods be decided upon at worldgen, maybe even as worldgen parameters. There's so many ways to do this it would be hard to choose.

[Gatleos]

There could even be chaotic gods that just throw out mandates at random. "The sand-spirit of chaos has mandated the killing of all camels!"

But what about the rest of the gods, and how sphere-gods are handled? For instance: let's say there's 12 spheres that you can work for/against with your actions, and they each have their own god. If all twelve gods decided to pull out their divine commandments, it would be incredibly silly and hard to work with. Or maybe there's even more gods/spheres, to the point where just about every action you take has a positive/negative or favorable/RETRIBUTION worthy side effect.

The point of the system I described is that gods would only provide protection and/or make demands if they had a vast majority of the power in the area. There are many potential gods that could gain power in your embark area, but as one gains power the others would lose it. So there could only be one god powerful enough to influence anything in your embark location. Maybe two.

[NW_Kohaku]

I'd actually more prefer something that works like the way that Savagery works with Good/Evil - Savagery has no bearing on a good or evil biome, and something can be Terrifying as easily as being Sinister.

You could potentially have a dozen different axes (as in plural of axis, not the weapon) upon which your spheres are graded in each biome, with two variables each, one for the power of that axis (I.E. benign vs. savage), and one for how much that sphere favored your actions. 

Again, I'd also like to think of spheres as being something more like the Dragon Age spirits and demons, where they only represented one particular desire or emotion, and only sought to further that one particular desire or emotion, and were immune to all logic and could not understand any other emotion or desire, only seeing things in terms of "helps my desire" and "against my desire".  Capricious and fickle things, they would see helping them at first (be nice to unicorns, which are "good creatures") to be their allies, then see any action to the contrary as "betrayal after they were so kind", even if it were in self-defense ("HOW DARE YOU KILL THAT UNICORN THAT ATTACKED YOU, AND KILLED THREE DWARVES?!").

The degree to which you have to care about what they thought only depends on how much power they have, though.  If they're weak, then who cares?

[Gatleos]

I'd actually more prefer something that works like the way that Savagery works with Good/Evil - Savagery has no bearing on a good or evil biome, and something can be Terrifying as easily as being Sinister.

You mean with the "Good/Evil" being the god's alignment and the most powerful sphere constituting the "Savagery" or amount of godly power in the area?

[Solace]

I agree that magic should follow rules, since it would basically be natural phenomena, just phenomena that would be unusually "convenient" or "cool". However, there isn't one set way that the rules could work, I mean, you could have a dozen different "magical" systems operating at once.

To more easily create a system of "spheres", as I understand it, you could overlay a low-resolution heatmap over DF's tiles? Like, an invisible "node" every 16X16X16 grid spaces. Things that affect the magic environment affect the nearby nodes based on how far away they are. The nodes also affect each other, so things spread out over time. And the effects decay over time, so one little generator of "heat-magic" wouldn't completely overwhelm the entire map, if there was nothing opposing it.

Then, things that where affected by magic spheres would happen roughly near a node, if over a certain threshold or something. A node with +50 heat would generate X heat effects over 16 squares and Y heat effects over 32 squares, for example.

[NW_Kohaku]

I'd actually more prefer something that works like the way that Savagery works with Good/Evil - Savagery has no bearing on a good or evil biome, and something can be Terrifying as easily as being Sinister.

You mean with the "Good/Evil" being the god's alignment and the most powerful sphere constituting the "Savagery" or amount of godly power in the area?

No, I mean how most spheres do not interfere with each other - Savagery has no bearing upon the Good/Evil alignment of biomes, currently. 

Maybe Rebirth and Death are conflicting spheres, but that has nothing to do with the Justice or Law Sphere.  Both the Death and Justice spheres can have high power, both can have low power, or you can have one high and one low.  Spheres don't necessarily push all other spheres out when they gain in power.

To more easily create a system of "spheres", as I understand it, you could overlay a low-resolution heatmap over DF's tiles? Like, an invisible "node" every 16X16X16 grid spaces. Things that affect the magic environment affect the nearby nodes based on how far away they are. The nodes also affect each other, so things spread out over time. And the effects decay over time, so one little generator of "heat-magic" wouldn't completely overwhelm the entire map, if there was nothing opposing it.

Then, things that where affected by magic spheres would happen roughly near a node, if over a certain threshold or something. A node with +50 heat would generate X heat effects over 16 squares and Y heat effects over 32 squares, for example.

Yes, something like this. 

I would think that some magic would be tied directly to a physical object - an artifact or something, for example.  An artifact totem might generate a "Nightmares" effect around it, disturbing the dreams of anyone who sleeps anywhere near it.  Creatures from nightmare might spawn nearby.  Another artifact instrument may have "Festivals" as an effect, and would increase the happiness of anyone who had a party near it.

Other effects might be caused by some sort of natural "weakness in the seams" of the world.  If the HFS is not literally just a chunk of dense land underneath the magma sea, then it would just be a very physically consistant enterance to another world.  Maybe another weakened seam of reality would lead to the realm of Lightning, and electrically-charged lifeforms live around this thinning of the barriers between worlds. 

Others might just be a result of direct player action - religious veneration of certain deities or spheres. Bringing swift and proper respect for the dead, perhaps even going beyond what is necessary in creating good tombs to ensure the happiness of the dead may weaken the strength of Death in the land. 

Some may be tangential to player control - Marriages and having children give strength to those spheres.

Some of these things would be lingering effects - a weakened seam would be an almost permanent push in the direction of one sphere.  Marriages, however, might have more fleeting effects.

[jseah]

I note with interest that the "seams of the world" thing leads directly into the alternate planes and worlds which I've see in the DF talks at one point. 
The ideas... they're growing... >.>

Perhaps the seams of the world idea could wait until the planescape is added in. 

[NW_Kohaku]

Actually, I just thought of something...

You know how we have those underground crops that are seasonal, contrary to all logic?

Maybe magic is seasonal.  Sweet Pods only grow in the Spring and Summer because that's the only time when the whatever sphere is in its waxing period.  When it has waned in the Winter, you can only grow Plump Helmets and Dimple Cups.

[Solace]

Not a bad idea, seasons are already linked to certain concepts. Besides things like hot, cold, rain, and snow, there's the spring/summer/fall/winter metaphor for birth/life/decay/death.

I had an idea a while back for a sort of "magical day" system, which could either matter in adventure mode, or be adapted for a year-long cycle of the same sort. Basically, think of "magiceyness" building up (slowly) under sunlight, peaking at dusk, and decaying until dawn. You could have nocturnal and diurnal creatures, but also creatures that prefer a time of magic or lack of magic. Their days would be measured in noon-to-midnight instead of dawn-to-dusk.

A creature that prefers magic, but darkness, would be strongest dusk-to-midnight. A magic-hunter would hunt midnight-to-noon, when his prey is the weakest, but a solar-powered detector would only work half that time.

Bonus time! A werewolf (changing involuntarily based on the moon, day or night) that feeds on magic and prefers to operate at night would have an even more complicated system of strengths and weaknesses! And even more so if it's human side operates differently than the wolf side! Being affected by tides (and therefore the sphere of water?) is an alternate way of being affected by the moon, possibly even if underground.

EDIT: Second fairly big idea. So, HFS is the endgame of your fortress, right? But you're supposed to keep the larger world going after that... what happened to the infinite... things? HFS could be a sphere like everything else, and just be VASTLY INCREASED by accessing those portals... but have some way or another of being resealed, so they entire world doesn't end the first time someone digs a bit too deep.

Bogeymen and other such things could be an effect of a moderate amount of HFS sphere, but not as much as actually opening a portal? Maybe it'd make magic in general easier (or certain kinds at least), encouraging players to take risks, maybe meddle in a second area they "really shouldn't"?

EDIT2: (pulled from another thread)

DF isn't the sort of game where you can paint a black and white morality over it.  (Where "good" means a normal place, but with unicorns to impale your hunters instead of just hippos.)

This might have more place in the game if we had sphere-based surroundings rather than the placeholder "good" "evil" and "savage"

Just as a suggestion, how about "good" becomes "high magic" or such, evil is either corruption or necromancy, and savage is primal? A bit semantics on the last part, but "savage" sort of implies "stupid" to me, where "primal" is just "very strong and super-alive".

[NW_Kohaku]

Then what's "high magic"? 

If "good" means unicorns and faeries and gnomes and fluffy wamblers, then maybe that should be the way that we think of what "good" should really become - a sort of "Seelie Fae".  It's not holy, it's actually a little bit insane, but it's not outright hostile, so long as you treat it with respect.

"Savage" seems to just mean "bigger, meaner versions of nature".  You get "giant-whatever" and a few flavors of foo-man.

[Solace]

Well, if we're discarding good and evil, then good or evil things can get any designation, right? Savage just seems to imply going-to-attack you... I dunno, can't easily see having "savage" allies I feel safe around. And when I said "high magic", I meant, well, unicorns are magical. They're horses plus magic. If "savage" means super-wolf, and "evil" means undead, "good" seems to get the inherently magical things.

[NW_Kohaku]

That's why I thought "fae", though.  Something not good, because there isn't anything really "good" about faeries, they're just logicless, purely emotional spirits who may play pranks, torture, or maybe help people with no consistency just based upon their emotional whims and their lack of ability to empathize with others. 

[Solace]

That's just arguing about what the best word is. I wasn't really sold on "high magic" anyway, if the quotes didn't imply that. I've read books on that premise, but I don't know how many people naturally associate "Fae" with "pretty much anything made of as much magic as matter".

Getting back to a HFS breach, there really needs to be a way to explain why the world isn't overrun by limitless and possibly invincible clowns, beyond "they disappear when you abandon fortress for some reason". Maybe they need some sort of magical energy to survive, and a hundred layers of stone insulates them from it, so they can only travel so far from the point of entry? As far as the world at large is concerned, the local increase of HFS sphere might be a bigger concern than the actual denizens, and re-sealing a nearby breach might be a fun "campaign challenge".

[NW_Kohaku]

Demons who are on the surface are transformed.  Maybe their bodies have to adapt somehow to the surface world?  They can thrive in the underworld magic, but without it, they have to change their internal structure to take advantage of other forms of magic.

Maybe they have to do something like eat creatures/plants that run on various other forms of magic, and somehow force the creature they consume into a symbiotic or parasitic relationship where they become the new basis of energy synthesis for the demon's metabolism.

That's why they change shape - they have to rebuild their body around some creature in the deep to survive deep caverns, then grab another creature from a higher up cavern, then another from the surface or something to be able to survive for extended periods on the surface.

They need to conquer lands and cover them with "evil" magic because that's what they function best on as a species - they aren't "stamping out good"... They're terraforming.

[Solace]

Should demons be "evil", though? Evil biomes seem to mostly spit out undead, and the demons don't seem to involve undead, themselves...