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[Knight Otu]

This is something I brought up on the wiki here, but maybe I should pose this question here as well -

While people commonly refer to the procedural trolls and hags as night creatures, in the context of the game, night creature actually means those, the bogeymen, and the fortress mode ghosts. And in the next version, more new night creatures are arriving, at the very least necromancers, disturbed dead, werebeasts, and vampires, with possibly stalkers, Frankensteins, animated furniture, and other undead, and the animated dead being classified as night creatures as well. As such, it would make sense to me that this page could become a hub that links to, and quickly describes, the different types of night creatures.

Of course, this does become problematic with the troll/hag night creatures already described here - they'd need a new general name. Hag and troll are too specific and troll is already used. It could be derived from their raw tags, though - they use the NIGHT_CREATURE_HUNTER tag and SPOUSE_CONVERTER tag. The former doesn't lend itself very well to any kind of name, but spouse converter, while technically referring to only one of their castes, does describe the creatures reasonably well.

Thoughts?

Igfig replied with a different suggestion regarding the name:

I think Hag is a fine name for the spouse converters. Sure, it's a little specific, but it's easier to remember than "spouse converter", especially for someone new to the game who hasn't read the raws. And really, kidnap and marry people is pretty much what hags do in folklore (well, that and eat children). For trolls, just have a disambiguation page somewhere.

And this page should definitely become a hub.

To which someone else replied

Disambiguation page for trolls sounds like a good idea. Troll (Night Creature) perhaps?

With those replies, my thinking now would be to make the Night creature page a hub, with a note that most people mean the hags and trolls when they say night creature, move the current content to Hag, and add a note to the troll page linking to the Hag page (something like "This page is about the ordinary, stock trolls. For the procedurally created trolls in adventure mode that abduct and transform people, see Hag"). I suppose a Spouse Converter page could exist as a redirect to Hag as well, but probably isn't necessary.

[Neonivek]

The best definition I can bring to this is

"Night Creatures are those that make you fear the night"

[Quietust]

In the latest Threetoe story, Cado (or perhaps the narrator) refers to a "night troll" (as something that could not possibly break into Sudemong's tower after he magically barricaded the doors and windows with furniture). To me, that seems like a better name than "hag", since the term "hag" almost always refers to a woman while the current night creatures can be of either gender.

[Neonivek]

In the latest Threetoe story, Cado (or perhaps the narrator) refers to a "night troll" (as something that could not possibly break into Sudemong's tower after he magically barricaded the doors and windows with furniture). To me, that seems like a better name than "hag", since the term "hag" almost always refers to a woman while the current night creatures can be of either gender.

Yeah but we have no idea what a Night Troll is with respect to the story. For all we know it is just a Fantasy type troll.

Dwarf Fortress currently has two trolls: Standard fantasy trolls and Classical trolls... both at the same time.

[IT 000]

Yeah but we have no idea what a Night Troll is with respect to the story. For all we know it is just a Fantasy type troll.

Some night creatures can get the name 'Troll' just as frequently as they would get 'Hag'

I agree with Quietust. In my mind 'Hag' sounds more like a witch. A purely feminine creature which has magic and such. When the actual night creatures are diversely male and female, and lack magic.

[Knight Otu]

Yeah, I think Night Troll is a fitting name to use, as I've also mentioned on the wiki.

[Neonivek]

Yeah, I think Night Troll is a fitting name to use, as I've also mentioned on the wiki.

Yeah I have no problem with calling the Nightcreature version of trolls a Night Troll.

Calling all of them Night Trolls however? Well... fine I guess... Not a fan but I have no better a solution nor a better name.

[Putnam]

Dwarf Fortress currently has two trolls: Standard fantasy trolls and Classical trolls... both at the same time.

Well, it's not that hard to have more than one kind of troll at once, considering how many uses the word has. I mean, with enough modding you could have:

Trolls: Hairy. Intelligent, but slow. This is the kind of troll you see in fairy tales.
Night trolls: Procedurally generated. Steals people and converts them into their own. This is the kind of troll you see in fairy tales.
Bog Trolls: Not too bright. Likes to attack dwarves. Probably hides under bridges. This is the kind of troll you see in fairy tales.
Trolls: Gray-skinned. Have horns of 3 different shades of orange. [PREFSTRING:obtuse romance system]. This is the kind of troll you don't see in fairy tales.

Also, I'm all for the "night troll" name. They are night creatures and they are trolls. Doesn't get much simpler.

[Neonivek]

The only issue is that "Hags" are also Night trolls.

But it doesn't really matter.