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[tfaal]

If this is something moddable (a big "if")

Quite tangential to the rest of your post, but I can happily say that this is a probable yes:

The general idea is that by learning certain secrets, a historical figure in world gen gains various traits -- in the example it is immortality and the ability to animate the dead (via a syndrome which negates aging and imparts the ability to perform an "interaction"). The secrets are at first imparted by gods or demons or megabeasts with the proper sphere alignment
...
The vanilla secrets will all be generated during world gen, but I'm also including some examples for people to look at for raw editing.

[EmeraldWind]

-1 and 1 are numbers therefore their defining characteristic is the same. However, they are are opposites. Sometimes opposites aren't as different as people like to think. Opposites need some kind of common ground to be considered opposites. Left and Right are horizontal directions. Hot and Cold are temperatures.

No, -1 and 1 are positive and negative.  They are opposite in that respect.  Opposites have to be opposite somehow or they aren't opposite.

If we have both "Life" spheres and "Death" spheres do the same thing, then nothing is opposite at all.

Wait a second. You miss understood my point. I pointed out in order for the idea of opposites to exist, you need a common ground by which to compare. 1 and -1 are both numbers. They can be considered opposites because they are on the same scale. Numbers regardless of negative/positive still function with in the same principals. The can be added, multiplied, ect.

Yes, opposites must have a contrast, but in order to see a contrast there must be a basis for comparison. IE: Blue is not the opposite of Bark. Bark and Blue aren't compatible on the same scale, so they are simply different. Opposites still require common ground and therefore similarity, to an extent.

Let's say, I want a god of Life and Death. In some cultures, Death and Life are treated as separate existences: a world of the living and the world of the dead. In others, Life and Death are simply part of one another. So shouldn't there be a possibility for a single god with the abilities of both Life and Death Spheres.

While, I think you are correct that a priest of the Life sphere might not want to disrupt the cycle of Life. What if the cycle of Life is already upset for some reason?

Wouldn't a god of Life attempt to fix the balance somehow, even if it required raising a hero that falls to unnatural causes? This doesn't necessarily mean raise them in an undead form, however. More like raise them or restore them before they are embraced by the sphere of Death. Granted, the god of Life in this case might try to have the hero born or select a champion from the living and give them a secret. There are many roads.

If the system is run by a god of both Life and Death spheres... well, stuff like Lazarus and Jesus will happen.

This is, again, confusing the ability to mod the game with something like "different interpretations".

If Toady encodes "Death" to mean "raising the dead", then that's what it means, period. 

If this is something moddable (a big "if"), and you mod the game so that "Life" means zombies, and "Death" means happy bunnies or something, then that's what it means in your particular modded game, period.  But even then, it's what you have defined, it's still not vanilla, and it's still not interpretable in different ways, it's defined.

That's what code does: it defines things, because computers don't deal in "interpretations", they deal in concrete, measurable values.

Well, I was under the assumption that: The secret is coupled to Death via spheres. Basically, when you look at the raw for the secret is has the sphere there in the Secret's raw. If you change the undead secret to the Fire Sphere, now Fire Gods will give out the secret. I mean, that seems to be the most versatile way to deal with that. So the Sphere has no knowledge of the secret at all.

[monk12]

I'm afraid I've been ignoring the general discussion in favor of thinking about the theological implications of life in a world where the gods go about breaking people's windows (as Toady and Threetoe have stated as a goal.)

If the system is run by a god of both Life and Death spheres... well, stuff like Lazarus and Jesus will happen.

This bit here is particularly interesting to me, since it does open up new interpretations of how things work in a given world. If we assume that a god adopts multiple spheres that are somewhat related or otherwise of interest to them, then in the broader philosophical/theological sense there must also be a connection between the two. In worlds where the spheres of life and death are largely dissociated, then it would make sense for them to be viewed as more or less discrete ideas, whereas worlds where those spheres are linked would see the prevailing view be that life and death are a continuum, a cycle, a single path or axis.

And lets not restrict ourselves to life and death here! One of my favorite deities I found in fortress mode was a skeletal god of death, war, and marriage- what does that imply about the way marriage is treated in that world? For that matter, the way war and death are viewed?

Can multiple gods adopt a sphere in DF? That could lead to Ares/Athena situations. For those rusty on their Greek Mythology, Ares is the god of battle, physical valor, and war, while Athena is the goddess of wisdom, strategy, and war (among other things, for both of them.) In DF terms, they both have war as a sphere, but because of their other associations the type of war they conduct is very different. Ares is the go-to guy for your classic "battle hero" (ignoring for the moment that Ares kinda sucked at his job,) while Athena's blessing is sought by the generals and leaders on the battlefield. That kind of competition/overlap could make for some very interesting dogma in the religions of the world, not to mention the way it influences the relationships and politics of the gods themselves.

Something tells me I'll have to wait a long time (likely after the magic arc) until I get to bandy about philosophy/theology with the priest giving me a quest, let alone analyze the world-view of random peasants, but then again, half the fun is the anticipation!

I now return you to the debate in progress

[Untelligent]

The debate can go jump off a cliff as far as I'm concerned. Hell yeah, maybe we'll be able to find and use these slabs in Adventure mode!

[Cthulhu]

Hey guys, guess what I just noticed.

There is no life sphere.  At all.

[EmeraldWind]

And lets not restrict ourselves to life and death here! One of my favorite deities I found in fortress mode was a skeletal god of death, war, and marriage- what does that imply about the way marriage is treated in that world? For that matter, the way war and death are viewed?

That made me laugh. "War is like marriage. You live next to each other so long that you fight until you die!"

I'd also like to see what kind of relationships can be generated between the gods/goddesses of one religion. I even read a book, called Journey to the West, which had intermingling between Buddhism and Taoism. Two religions co-mingling like that was kind of interesting. I wonder if someday something like that could be supported. 

[CypherLH]

Will we be able to find and use slabs that contain knowledge of secrets? So my adventurer could find the "slab of death" and then go run off to build a tower and raise an undead army to conquer the region?

[PTTG??]

Will we be able to find and use slabs that contain knowledge of secrets? So my adventurer could find the "slab of death" and then go run off to build a tower and raise an undead army to conquer the region?

No, not yet. Do read this.

[LoSboccacc]

Hey guys, guess what I just noticed.

There is no life sphere.  At all.

yet.

yet-ish.

yet-ish?

[Areyar]

@monk12: "deities fighting over spheres of influence"

That would be a cool idea: to have a small pre-worldgen mythology phase, where several generations of deities can do their incestuous family thing
or possibly a thinning out of an initial large batch of weak deities that collect spheres from defeated peers, like despots acquire the lands of their neighbours.

This would not have a place in the player world, besides general relations between deities, their followers and thus quests and
maybe civilizations...if civs will have a preferred deity.

A question though:
Imagine, you get a quest from a priest of Merra -the blessed blossom- to attack a shrine to Armok -God of Blades- and kill it's priest. If both temples are located in the same civilization, how will this work out for your relations with that civ? Will relations with temples be seperate from those with civs? Will effects on relations be more confined to sites.

/sorry: suggestion-y

[Asmageddon]

Will raising the tower involve the secret itself? What kind of terrain modification/construction will secrets be able to do? Will shape, size, etc. of towers be randomized?

[jellsprout]

Death is far from sacred and necromancy is far from evil in other religions. Take a look at the Greek mythology:

In the Odyssey Odysseus visits the underworld. There he meets his fallen comrade, Achilles. When Odysseus says "Blessed in life, blessed in death", Achilles responds that he would rather be a living slave than king of the dead. It is clear from this story that Achilles would not mind being resurrected, even being a slave to the necromancer, as long as he would be alive again. In his view, there is nothing worse than death.

Orpheus was a poet and musician. In the mythology, he lost his wife to a snakebite. Instead of just accepting the death and moving on, as you claim is the good thing to do, he instead traveled down to the underworld and convinced Hades to return his wife to him. The great tragedy of this story arises from the fact that he eventually failed to do so. Orpheus was not allowed to look at his wife until they returned to the surface, but at the final few steps he looked back and lost her for ever. As you can see, the necromancy here isn't evil or wrong.
I also have to note that there are also different versions of the Orpheus story. In some versions he is considered wrong for trying to be reunited with his love by bringing her back to the world of the living, instead of dying.

I also see the story of Jesus and Lazarus has already been brought. A clear case of resurrection, and I don't think anyone here will claim that Jesus was an evil man.

I have been trying to make clear here that life and death is not as black and white as some make it seem to be. It is not the act of resurrection that is evil or good, it is the intention behind it.

[Footkerchief]

Regarding zombies ripping off the dog's head.  Did they claw or bite it until it came off, or is there actual dismemberment in wrestling now?

There's dismemberment in wrestling already, but it generally only works for adventurers that are very strong and/or aim for small body parts like fingers and teeth.

I'll be honest, Dwarf mode now bores me.  Adventure mode got interesting lately (and by lately, I mean ever since night creatures showed up in the first place), and it's all that keeps me interested in DF these days.  So I'm ecstatic that there are more of them.  I do look forwards to more to do besides kill though... being able to be a merchant lord will be fun. Trading games can be great.

Fortress Mode has its enjoyable aspects but the interface ruins it for me.  I'd love to see all the cool new features, but playing that mode gives me more stress than enjoyment.  And I think it's dragging down development overall since it fits so badly into the world generation model (time dilation, site autonomy, etc).

[Areyar]

Fortress Mode has its enjoyable aspects but the interface ruins it for me.  I'd love to see all the cool new features, but playing that mode gives me more stress than enjoyment.  And I think it's dragging down development overall since it fits so badly into the world generation model (time dilation, site autonomy, etc).

I don't agree at all, personally I enjoy fortressmode more and I don't like your -what sounds like- lobbying for the discontinuation of DF development and stripping it down to a standard roguelike.
My feeling is that Toady likes both modes and enjoys shifting his attention between them so that he does not get bored or frustrated with a single dimensional DF.
At least, I have that problem myself.

edit: That  may have sounded a bit harsh. I'm not trying to flame or anything.

[Genoraven]

Here's a question
How will the new syndromes/curses/interactions affect the arena mode? Will the undead option be removed in favor of the generated undead? Or will arena mode be left alone for the release?


Also, IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN. There is already 1 extension for the page numbers!