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[Sean Mirrsen]

And when we get undead vermin? We'll get Zombees. I wonder, what does zombee honey taste like?

[KaelGotDwarves]

It was funny how I was thinking after the grimdark boogeymen and epic adventure mode changes we were stuck on DF: Bees and Farmville edition and suddenly Toady starts cackling maniacal laughter as he codes back in the undead hordes and necromancers.

At least that's how I imagine it.

I can't imagine what would happen after Toady decides to code in rainbows and candy.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Zombie unicorns belching acidic rainbows?

[Askot Bokbondeler]

lovecratian horrors that a mere gaze at their description pages are enough to cause insanity on the player... a casual player, that is, years of exposure to df have made us all insane enough

[piecewise]

Got a few for you.

1. What about necromancers will allow them to raise things? Will they make some sort of magic object which simply raises any dead in the area? Will they use some sort of nebulous power thats inherent to them? Will they be somehow able to raise themselves if they die, such as a Lich.

2.Will the necromancers make only one kind of dead or will there be multiple types with different duties, something like a ant nest. Will there be ghouls which scavenge the dead, living meat wagons to carry them, hulking flesh golems for combat, living pipe organs broadcasting the arrival of undead armies, etc, or just a wave of zombified woodland creatures?

3. Is it possible that the leader of a dwarven civ, perhaps the king at your fortress even, might become a necromancer while you're playing? What would happen if they did? Would they suddenly just become an enemy while standing in your fort and promptly get slaughtered, would they run off and disappear off screen before returning years later with an undead horde, or would they remain in power and you would just have what amounts to an invincible population in which any member who died was raised almost immediately.


4. Now that we have the general raise dead curse effect, will it be possible that this effect is placed on artifacts or items? Ie, that Shiny blue sword found down in the Curious structures near the bottom of the world might have the unfortunate effect of raising your enemies to try to kill you over and over.

Also, as an unrelated thing, I really want an option to "Raise former adventurer", like the reclaim fortress option but to bring a dead adventurer back as some sort of wraith. Because everyone knows that, with truly awesome heroes, death only makes them angry.

[NW_Kohaku]

i was about to post what faulty logic did, but i let this page go unrefreshed for too long and was ninjaed more due to my snail-like reflexes than any prowess by the ninja

i am opposed to a "good" and "evil" sphere, i'd rather have "life" and "death" sphere, and would be delighted if some dichotomic deities like the god of life and death(cycle of life?) were possible... also, thinking about undead, why do they always have to be associated with death sphere? i can picture a god of death whose interest would be to keep the dead, well, dead, and having his followers hunt down ghosts and nightcreaturish undead, i picture zombies and animated skeletons more as a kind of soulless construct than proper undead

I made a thread a little while ago, based off of a comment Toady made a couple months ago about how spheres work.

I also made the case for changing the dualism from "evil" or "death" being the undead sphere to becoming a dualism of "Mortality" versus "Immortality".  Hence, undead are part of the immortal (as they are not bound by either life or death) side of the dualism, while the mortal side is more like what we currently have in Savage embarks, where creatures are "super-mortal" by having very quick, violent lives, but very final deaths, and are bound by extremes of natural selection.

This is the thread.  It was focused more on trying to find a way to contain all the spheres within a few "umbrella" sphere types, so "Mortality" as an umbrella sphere includes life, death, birth, fertility, disease, youth, hunting, etc.  All things related to a sort of feral/natural selection type of thing.

It's also meant to be a thread trying to stimulate further suggestion on what could define creatures (or curses or interactions) from some of the other spheres, like Sound versus Silence as a dualism.  As always, I hope that people who are interested in the notions of spheres and magic can help come up with ideas for how spheres can create different environments based upon the magic influence of those spheres.

[tfaal]

You talked on the dev page about adventurers interrogating bad guys for information. While I understand that's a ways off, could that theoretically work for magical secrets?

[NW_Kohaku]

Also, I want to clear up what I mean about "High Fantasy".  I'm not talking about how much magic is in the fantasy, I'm talking about what concepts the fantasy are built around.

High Fantasy is partially defined by the notion of a cosmic clash between two (maybe three) opposing cosmic concepts.

In The Lord of the Rings, the individuals are not nearly as important as they are in Heroic Fantasy for their own individual traits (the way that The Hobbit was, for example) as they are defined by their black-and-white demarcation of which cosmic force they belonged to.

Orcs are evil because they are on the side of "evil", and their entire race is evil because they have been declared on that side.  They cannot be reasoned with or negotiated with, they will commit genocide against humans and dwarves and elves unless stopped, and the only way to stop them is to commit genocide against the orcs first. 

Anyone who tries to negotiate with the orcish side is automatically evil, and will be shown as just doing it for personal gain, and become described in less-than-human terms for daring to think that the enemy could be negotiated with.

There are no innocent orcs - women and children (if they existed) would be fair game for genocide, since they are just "supporting troops" in the Total War of Cosmic Warfare.  You must commit genocide against the entire race if you are to be "good", because "good" is defined as committing genocide against "evil", and "evil" is defined as the things trying to commit genocide against "good", even if the only real difference between them is the color of their skin after a certain point of eternal mutual genocide. 

This is something you really get to see more when you are talking about something that better explores the role of the orcs, such as the ripoff-of-a-ripoff-of-a-ripoff-of-LOTR, Warcraft, where they've essentially come down to just making the two sides mirror images of each other, and just made them pretty much only aesthetically different and used different accents.  The more you explore the dualism, as long as it becomes nothing but a protracted genocide, and you actually start to understand the other side, the differences between "good" and "evil" fade away.  It just becomes genocide for genocide's own sake.

It is this aspect of "good versus evil" that I don't want in DF.  It is the moral ambiguity of Low Fantasy that I prefer, not its specific level of magicality.

Moral ambiguity is a core feature of Dwarf Fortress as we know it.  We have ethics that prevent some things, like cannibalism or slavery, but for the most part, the player can get away with almost anything the physics engine allows. 

Dwarf Fortress is guided by pragmatism, not ideology. 

[PTTG??]

Warning: TV tropes links.

[Asmageddon]

I made a thread a little while ago, based off of a comment Toady made a couple months ago about how spheres work.

I also made the case for changing the dualism from "evil" or "death" being the undead sphere to becoming a dualism of "Mortality" versus "Immortality".  Hence, undead are part of the immortal (as they are not bound by either life or death) side of the dualism, while the mortal side is more like what we currently have in Savage embarks, where creatures are "super-mortal" by having very quick, violent lives, but very final deaths, and are bound by extremes of natural selection.

This is the thread.  It was focused more on trying to find a way to contain all the spheres within a few "umbrella" sphere types, so "Mortality" as an umbrella sphere includes life, death, birth, fertility, disease, youth, hunting, etc.  All things related to a sort of feral/natural selection type of thing.

It's also meant to be a thread trying to stimulate further suggestion on what could define creatures (or curses or interactions) from some of the other spheres, like Sound versus Silence as a dualism.  As always, I hope that people who are interested in the notions of spheres and magic can help come up with ideas for how spheres can create different environments based upon the magic influence of those spheres.

I for one would be delighted if there were any meta-spheres and some sort of hierarchy. It would be very interesting if gods formed some sort of society, probably hierarchy-based with same-level individuals being either friendly, neutral or opposed to each other.
If in the future gods become real, probably mortal(but hard to kill ofc) beings, having them support each other and change their opinion about you after helping/killing a god or his/her followers would be very Fun thing to do.
I know this is not the suggestions forum, but what about the idea, Toady?

[nil]

I'm not sure I'm into seeing the gods take corporal form, but the new secrets system strikes me as being perfect for creating semi-randomly-generated champion/holy warrior type positions.  Given the types of spheres one generally sees gods associated with, this would also be a great source of moral ambiguity.

[thvaz]

I for one would be delighted if there were any meta-spheres and some sort of hierarchy. It would be very interesting if gods formed some sort of society, probably hierarchy-based with same-level individuals being either friendly, neutral or opposed to each other.
If in the future gods become real, probably mortal(but hard to kill ofc) beings, having them support each other and change their opinion about you after helping/killing a god or his/her followers would be very Fun thing to do.
I know this is not the suggestions forum, but what about the idea, Toady?

If you know this is not the suggestions forum, why did you ask about a suggestion?

The purpose of the thread is to discuss current developments.  Specific bugs should be reported on the bug tracker, and specific suggestions belong for the most part in the suggestion forum.  Questions and comments about the development page or DF development somewhat more broadly work here, though any contentious topics that lead to derails are discouraged -- there are threads for those too.

(emphasis mine)

We can talk about how cool it would be if x or y was implemented as long as we don't color it. Toady loses a lot of time to read and answers ours questions, please don't clutter the thread with questions-suggestions.

[Dagoth Urist]

NW_Kohaku
*snip*

Is there even a possibility for High Fantasy to not be a moralistic and simplistic tale with black-and-white morality.  It's not weird that its not a particularly appreciated subgenre of fantasy any more. Also, what does a race of evil-doers actually imply?

The absence of a 'jungle' biome have puzzled me a long time. Surroundings like "Polluted", "No-Gravity" and "Irradiated"(magically, that is) might be a bit out-of-place, but still possible to mod in.

In the future, are you planning on implementing other kinds of biomes and surroundings?

[mendonca]

Just postin' - mainly to follow - but also to say the recent spate of devlog entries are terribly exciting. Emphasis on terribly, possibly spoken in a sinister voice.

[Raging Mouse]

As far as I've gathered, DF is supposed to become a fantasy simulator, with the flavour determined by the user. So all this talk about what DF "should" and "shouldn't" be is perhaps a little superfluous. We're in development yet (and for a loooong time still, I bet) so everyone can't be satisfied at once; if Toady does high fantasy then someone is bound to be happy, if only because he'd likely do the other flavours around that time too.