LFR turns the world of Dwarf Fortress into a living, breathing high fantasy universe without sacrificing the randomness and spirit that makes Dwarf Fortress what it is. LFR fixes issues with vanilla DF, performs significantly better, and overwrites only a tiny fraction of the original raws in doing so. So what does LFR add to the game? I'm so glad you asked...
New Races
-The bog trolls, a divided race of individual warlords and followers that inhabit the swamps and seek to win individual power and recognition.
-The nephilim, a winged race of angelic humanoids who believe that they have been cast out from paradise as punishment for allowing the lesser races to endure.
-The lizardmen, a tribal race of aquatic bipedals that are extremely xenophobic.
-The voidwalkers, an insectoid mystery race with technology and materials that will challenge even the most established fortresses.
-The meowkin, a trading race of cat people with questionable morals and a bizarre fashion sense.
-The shedim, a race of wrinkled beasts that devour the flesh of other races to survive.
-The moroii, a race of underground tribal people that cling to the relics of a long forgotten civilization.
-The grum, a long-nosed race of blind underground miners who do not welcome other races into their domain.
Every race has its own nobility structure, its own lore files, its own language, its own military technology, and its own graphics. The shedim have caste-level graphics.
New Metals
-Mithril, a rare, dwarf-exclusive lighter counterpart to steel that must be refined in order to be used. Mithril does not require flux.
-Vanadium, an economic metal used in the production of goods and high-strength alloys.
-Damascus steel, an alloy of steel and vanadium for superior strength and performance.
-White gold, an economic alloy of gold and nickel.
-Voidshard, an unusual, very powerful metal that must be taken (by force) from the race that carries it.
-Ether, a light, very high strength weapons material that can only be acquired through alchemy experiments. More on that later.
-Tungsten, a magma-safe weapon material of higher density than silver.
-Iovium, a rare, super-heavy, super-dense weapons material. The adamantine of blunt weapons.
-A few other economic metals (cobalt, palladium, neodymium) used in higher level technical advancements. Which bring me to the next feature...
The Mechanical Tree
LFR introduces technical progression into Dwarf Fortress. When you embark, you can build all of the buildings you always could, but some other ones - and the special reactions they allow for - must be unlocked. LFR has two branches of progression - The "mechanical" tree and the "ritual" tree. The mechanical tree follows dwarven alchemists and scientists as they make new discoveries, create new materials, improve old designs, and ultimately, create mechanical creatures. The tree has a very mad scientist/steampunk theme to it. The mechanical tree is structured vertically, with each advancement leading into the next advancement, from the humble beginnings of the dwarves in the Alchemy Labs to the cutting edge weapon and technologies of the Prototype Workbench and Mechanized Defense Laboratory. The mechanical tree currently has four "tiers" of advancement. Some possible products of this tech tree...
-Hybrid melee/ranged weapons.
-Engraving weapons and ammunition with runes, giving them magical effects
-Advanced forms of armor.
-Experimental weapons, of which there are over seventy new types - many with special attacks for the combat logs!
-Training workshops for martial, survival, and medical skills.
-New uses for existing materials - for example, the ability to make bins out of stone or cheese from plants.
-New materials, like ether (metal) and hadrine, a super-heavy material.
-Lab accidents, making research a bit more !!FUN!!
The Ritual Tree
The ritual tree follows dwarven mystics and priests from their beginnings, offering prayers to a stone altar in the hope of earning some sort of favor, to the establishment of a pantheon and themed temples to various deities. The ritual tree is structured more horizontally than the mechanical tree, with higher level buildings simply requiring a larger resource investment. The ritual tree currently has three "tiers" of advancement, with a fourth in the works. Some possible products of this tech tree...
-Unorthodox ways of producing resources via ritual - i.e. exchanging plants or bones for weapons and armor.
-Prayers - reactions that slowly generate specific resources while staffed.
-A few new types of weapons, armor, trap components, and other surprises - like fireproof backpacks.
-Gods' favor, allowing dwarves to transform into units that borrow power from their god's sphere of influence.
-Combo abilities between units from different gods - i.e. a unit of Pharis (goddess of darkness) and a unit of Kerox (goddess of earth) can team up to provide nearby dwarves with a resistance to voidshard weapons.
LFR seamlessly integrates the procedurally-generated local deities (the "New Gods") with its own static pantheon (the "Old Gods," including Armok).
New Creatures
-New megabeasts, like the wyvern (flying dragon), ice-breathing dragons, manticores, behemoths, aatxes, and more!
-Creatures with unusual abilities, like the jagged crystal dragon, which fires crystal projectiles in bursts, or the rakshasa, which creates illusionary copies of itself in combat.
-New and terrifying natural threats, like the deep wolf, a creature that attacks in enormous swarms, and the damascus sentinel, a mechanical construct of an ancient civilization long since gone from the world.
-New friendly creatures, like the bronze-shelled tortoise, a harmless above-ground creature that is a breeding source of shells, the sabre-toothed tiger and pygmy ankylosaur, two new war animals, and the carbuncle, a domestic creature with a lot of surprises to discover - which brings up one more of LFR's most prominent features...
EVERY LFR creature has a unique graphic.
Hidden Features and More
-New plants, alcohols, and food types.
-Many, many easter eggs.
-Rare creatures and rare creature drops.
-Ancient underground ruins.
-Mythical weapons, which grant the user buffs, abilities, or even curses!
-New symbols, inscriptions, secrets, curses, and weather types.
-Silly hats.
-What you encounter in one fortress will not be the same as what you encounter next time!
LFR also include a manual, guides, and resources to help you navigate the brave new world you're entering. This is just a
taste of the included features. If you want to learn more, you'll have to learn it yourself.
LFR is there to be discovered, not revealed. Also, as I am very much obsessive-compulsive, expect frequent posts and updates until/unless otherwise stated.
Release Notes
While preliminary bug testing has been done to the best of my ability, some bugs or quirks are to be expected. Please report these to this forum thread, or contact me by email (provided in the manual).
It is strongly advised that you use a high or very high mineral distribution setting with this mod, as rare metals were balanced for this setting before the option to reduce mineral distribution existed. For those of you using advanced world generation, set "mineral scarcity" to a value between 100 (very frequent) and 300 (a bit less frequent) for best results. 
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Topic: *=*=* Legends of Forlorn Realms (LFR 2012) v0.21a *=*=* [DF 0.34.11] (Read 405014 times)