Bay 12 Games Forum

Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: Anarchid on July 18, 2014, 10:38:40 am

Title: Undead civilization?
Post by: Anarchid on July 18, 2014, 10:38:40 am
In the newly released dwarf fortress, it is a fairly common sight for necromancers to establish a single tower, and then go amok expanding everywhere, creating continent-sprawling networks of towers, whole landside crawling with the undead and forts built there subject to round the year necro sieges.

When other causes produce this kind of massive large-scale construction of sites and projection of military might, that's called civilization.

So... would be cool if the necromancers could found federations of their towers.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: pisskop on July 18, 2014, 10:50:08 am
They can in masterwork.  At least, I think that is the story of Warlocks.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Adrian on July 18, 2014, 11:53:04 am
This is not World of Warcraft. The undead are mindless slaves to their necromancer master and as such are completely useless for anything other than attacking people.
The Necromancers themselves apparently have some kind of teacher<->apprentice thing going on, so any kind of necromancer "civilization" would be more like a loose cooperation between towers.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Anarchid on July 18, 2014, 12:58:54 pm
Quote
The Necromancers themselves apparently have some kind of teacher<->apprentice thing going on, so any kind of necromancer "civilization" would be more like a loose cooperation between towers.
Call it confederation then. If they are capable of, and are in fact controlling entire continents, they should have that (imo).

Dunno where you got that world of warcraft idea.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Euld on July 18, 2014, 04:27:21 pm
I suspect he's snippy because you are still ranked as an "escaped lunatic" and because WoW has an undead faction.  But honestly, WoW didn't invent the concept of an undead nation/facton/confederation.  Perhaps civilizations could have a sort of random generation of their own, allowing for civilizations of mixed races or unusual races such as undead.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: newjrmint21 on July 18, 2014, 08:18:04 pm
the undead aren't a race. they are corpses reanimated through dark magic.
and as has already been said, they are mindless killing machines.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: pisskop on July 18, 2014, 08:23:09 pm
Quote from: newjrmint21 on July 18, 2014, 08:18:04 pm
the undead aren't a race. they are corpses reanimated through dark magic.
and as has already been said, they are mindless killing machines.


You can add the tags to a caste or the who species to make them friendly to undead/night creatures but hostile to all life.  This of course includes their own civ, but I rather doubt that worldgen will care.

I might try out of curiosity.  Im almost sure adding the tag to the whole civ would make them sterile.  However, adding to a section of the population might make worldgen ignore it until the PC interacts with them (read the game loads them).

I speculate that adding it to a caste would make worldgen ignore it.  If you let the opposed creatures also raise their own dead (fit for resurrection) they should actually be viable in most worlds.

hmmm  It could be done, I think.  Give it a try.

Quote
they are mindless killing machines.

Are they?  If we can get worldgen to accept them, I bet you could get [opposed_to_life] creatures to have and hold jobs.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Vgray on July 18, 2014, 08:24:36 pm
I don't even see how you can call the Undead Scourge a civilization...
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: pisskop on July 18, 2014, 08:31:31 pm
Quote from: Vgray on July 18, 2014, 08:24:36 pm
I don't even see how you can call the Undead Scourge a civilization...
I dont play it.

Making female dwarves opposed to life makes worldgen gen as usual, but embarking makes the npcs, and hostile.  I had 5/7 of the as female.

So yes, you can have them, they would gen, and they will be able to learn.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Vgray on July 18, 2014, 08:37:07 pm
Anyway, the real question is, how will rival towers interact with each other?
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Jacob/Lee on July 18, 2014, 08:40:47 pm
Necromancers holding living slaves/workers would be interesting, as mindless zombies are only so useful. They can apparently be controlled with such skill as to make them build a tower, and of course can turn into rabid killing machines at any moment. I would imagine that a few other necromancers and a zombie horde would make poor conversation after a few centuries.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: dudlol on July 18, 2014, 08:49:32 pm
The addition of city state type sites would facilitate this well. Randomly generated civilizations with just one (rarely more as vassals). Bonus points for then you'd have living singers who only attack if you are near them, for player controlled fun injections.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: newjrmint21 on July 20, 2014, 01:09:13 am
Quote from: pisskop on July 18, 2014, 08:23:09 pm
Quote from: newjrmint21 on July 18, 2014, 08:18:04 pm
the undead aren't a race. they are corpses reanimated through dark magic.
and as has already been said, they are mindless killing machines.


You can add the tags to a caste or the who species to make them friendly to undead/night creatures but hostile to all life.  This of course includes their own civ, but I rather doubt that worldgen will care.

I might try out of curiosity.  Im almost sure adding the tag to the whole civ would make them sterile.  However, adding to a section of the population might make worldgen ignore it until the PC interacts with them (read the game loads them).

I speculate that adding it to a caste would make worldgen ignore it.  If you let the opposed creatures also raise their own dead (fit for resurrection) they should actually be viable in most worlds.

hmmm  It could be done, I think.  Give it a try.

Quote
they are mindless killing machines.

Are they?  If we can get worldgen to accept them, I bet you could get [opposed_to_life] creatures to have and hold jobs.



>.> this is a suggestion page, not a modding page. i'm not arguing anyone's ability to mod the game.
yes, zombies are mindless killing machines. therefore i argue against the idea of adding intelligent, job holding zombies to the game.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: AutoBahn on July 20, 2014, 07:28:15 pm
Quote from: newjrmint21 on July 20, 2014, 01:09:13 am
>.> this is a suggestion page, not a modding page. i'm not arguing anyone's ability to mod the game.
yes, zombies are mindless killing machines. therefore i argue against the idea of adding intelligent, job holding zombies to the game.
Who says it has to be just zombies? Don't night creatures such as vampires and suchlike technically count as being friendly to other undead such as necromancers and zombies, IIRC? You could have an interesting civ group if you made it out of bogeymen, necromancers, vampires and zombies(and whatever else), as far as I can tell. Randomly generated castes(bogeymen) would be really cool to have, actually, since you would have to work with what you're given for each and every world you gen(since bogeymen and vampires as well as some night creatures seem to be randomly genned[i think? I need to go look at advanced worldgen options again...]). Mixing it up a little, basically. It'd give night creatures more of a purpose as well, actually, past the normal "ambush people at night and/or steal their blood and corpses for your nefarious plans" sort of role they have now.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Anarchid on July 21, 2014, 03:41:13 am
Quote
yes, zombies are mindless killing machines. therefore i argue against the idea of adding intelligent, job holding zombies to the game.
Just for clarity, i wasn't explicitly suggesting intelligent, job holding zombies. For what i care, they can still be simply necro-robots serving their masters.

Necromancers themselves, however, do form communities (there are almost always multiple necros at a tower), project immense power, are sapient, and can even give you quests (and could back in 2012, too).

I'm arguing for necromancers having a proper scale political entity, not zombies being given sapience rights. And by "proper scale political entities" i mean "can declare war and occupy sites" at least. Because that's what they essentially already do to player forts!

Conversely, if necromancers are not to have confederations and such, they shouldn't sprawl that much.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: newjrmint21 on July 21, 2014, 07:56:42 pm
how would you go about adding vampirism to a caste anyways?
which bits of code are necessary to make vampires, zombies, and necromancers part of a civ?
because certain conditions need to be met for anyone to become a necro, vamp, or a zombie.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Escapism on July 22, 2014, 08:05:15 am
Good idea, imo. The concept of huge necropoli populated and built by undead at behest of their necromancer overlords is pretty cool. The grimdarker the better. "Political entity" seems more fitting then civilization, though. More like a group of bandits in game terms (a council, of sorts) that just happens to have vast forces of undead at their command, and perhaps more arcane and grander goals with their undertakings.

"Populated" is perhaps the wrong word as well. More like huge magical servo-stations for undead forces, with of course plenty of chambers for dark rites and magical experiments and living quarters for the actual necromancers.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Crinkles on July 22, 2014, 08:54:59 am
I think the existing teacher-apprentice relationship is very flavorful, and any expansion of necromancy should probably be based on that. It would be enjoyable if, for example, your fortress defeats the forces of an invading necromancer (but does not kill him) and then the necromancer encourages his teacher or his apprentice to attack your fortress, even if their towers are not ordinarily within range.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Agent_Irons on July 22, 2014, 11:47:25 am
Quote from: Crinkles on July 22, 2014, 08:54:59 am
I think the existing teacher-apprentice relationship is very flavorful, and any expansion of necromancy should probably be based on that. It would be enjoyable if, for example, your fortress defeats the forces of an invading necromancer (but does not kill him) and then the necromancer encourages his teacher or his apprentice to attack your fortress, even if their towers are not ordinarily within range.
What we have now is quite similar to a magical college, with all the teachers and students sharing a building. It would be neat if that could be codified.

"Students, your final projects are due tomorrow. How are your zombie hordes coming along?"
"Teacher, Boatmurdered vaporized my zombies! Can I get an extension?"
"Well, all right, but remember. You need at least one of each civilization."
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Beznogim on July 23, 2014, 04:41:59 am
Quote from: Jacob/Lee on July 18, 2014, 08:40:47 pm
Necromancers holding living slaves/workers would be interesting, as mindless zombies are only so useful.

I agree. Having cities populated by living under necromancer's rule would mean a stable resource for a necromancer as living people tend to procreate and die of old age.
Maybe, a necromancer with more-or-less benevolent personality would even trade or lend his zombies to these cities, so that zombies would assume all the dirty primitive work there, such as growing or pump-operating, - while an evil necromancer would merely demand human sacrifices from living population.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: newjrmint21 on July 23, 2014, 07:46:24 pm
zombie's doing super basic labor like hauling and lever pulling would be alright.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Hinaichigo on July 23, 2014, 09:54:53 pm
This would be pretty cool.  I think dynamic civilization generation would be needed.  But having necromancer hierarchy and laboring undead would be really cool, especially when there are more economics.  Necromancers could even send undead merchant caravans with undead pack animals to trade with living people for slaves which they could take back to their tower and undead cities for ritual sacrifice, etc.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: newjrmint21 on July 24, 2014, 02:42:49 pm
i dont think any living civ would be very happy about a caravan of zombies coming to trade. not to mention, the zombies are too stupid to act as trader, appraiser, etc. 
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Brunste on July 25, 2014, 12:02:52 am
Quote from: Adrian on July 18, 2014, 11:53:04 am
This is not World of Warcraft. The undead are mindless slaves to their necromancer master and as such are completely useless for anything other than attacking people.
The Necromancers themselves apparently have some kind of teacher<->apprentice thing going on, so any kind of necromancer "civilization" would be more like a loose cooperation between towers.

Well from what I understood is that he's interested in the necromancers really being the "civilization" not the undead.

The undead are obviously mindless slaves for their masters, but that doesn't mean that their masters can't rule civilizations run by their underpaid, poorly cared for zombie workers.

It could be a "Forbidden arts" type deal going on, like the teacher and apprentice deal but on a larger scale.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Scruiser on July 25, 2014, 03:52:00 am
In general, it would be interesting if interactions and secrets and the like could set conditions for the affected creatures to organize into groups/civilizations.  So not just necromancers, but night trolls could form a city or dark tower or pit if they reached a critical number and organize their abduction behavior.  Or if werecreatures would band together under the right circumstances. 
Quote from: dudlol on July 18, 2014, 08:49:32 pm
The addition of city state type sites would facilitate this well. Randomly generated civilizations with just one (rarely more as vassals).
Quote from: Hinaichigo on July 23, 2014, 09:54:53 pm
This would be pretty cool.  I think dynamic civilization generation would be needed. 
Yeah dynamics civilizations/randomly generated civilizations ties into this.  More ways for ad-hoc groups to reach civilization status.  That way the feature will expand as other types of secrets are added.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Hinaichigo on July 28, 2014, 01:50:09 am
As the undead are used for constructing a tower, I think that they are able to do more than just attack people, but maybe complicated mental tasks would be too much.  Perhaps there could be other "classes" of undead in the civilization, that could do more complicated things.  Like, if husks could come out of worldgen from people traveling through terrifying areas, then the husks could join the necromancer civilization as a general or something like that.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Nikita on July 29, 2014, 07:41:43 pm
How about this: Necromancers are not inherently evil, but rather doing it "for science" (apprenticeses?), because they are "obsessed with their own mortality" (original slabbed necromancers), or maybe they want to see their loved ones. So my addition to this adea would be, to have different kinds of necromancers based on their personality:
- warmongering necromancers would build large armies of "low-tech", combat ready zombies that assault nearby settlements and thus grow their number. These are your standard necromancers and the kind we already have, essentially.
- peaceful necromancers would focus on perfecting re-animation and could return people back to life, not as undead but as warm-blooded mortals. However, they are unable to do it very often/quickly and thus do not rise armies.
- science-oriented necromancers could turn into Liches, extremely powerful, intelligent undead that come back to life back home even when their physical body is vaporized.

The necromancers would generally be on friendly terms. Most races would consider them enemies, because necromancy would be considered unethical (except maybe humans?). Whether a given necromancer (or necromancer society/school/tower/cabal) trades with you or tries to invade depends on their personality. It could even be arranged that they normally trade you, but can be pissed off in some strange manner (e.g. attacking or detaining any necromancer). It could even be arranged that they are pleased eith things that normally piss off other races (opposite ethics) but I don't think Toady would dare go that far into dark stuff.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: kontako on July 30, 2014, 12:24:51 am
Quote from: AutoBahn on July 20, 2014, 07:28:15 pm
Who says it has to be just zombies? Don't night creatures such as vampires and suchlike technically count as being friendly to other undead such as necromancers and zombies
I would disagree for this form of collaboration, immortal beings such as necromancers and vampires would be (and should be) selfish against each other - wanting to be unchallenged, incarnate demi-gods of some sort.
It's not that the undead are 'friendly' towards the vampires, but they fail to see them as living creatures and don't attack (Similar to how zombies of rival necromancers don't attack each other but the rival necromancers themselves.)
Quote from: Hinaichigo on July 28, 2014, 01:50:09 am
As the undead are used for constructing a tower, I think that they are able to do more than just attack people, but maybe complicated mental tasks would be too much. Perhaps there could be other "classes" of undead in the civilization, that could do more complicated things. Like, if husks could come out of worldgen from people traveling through terrifying areas, then the husks could join the necromancer civilization as a general or something like that.
As the undead are already used to generate the towers (once the necromancer responsible has reached a certain limit) - it is arguable that the zombies have a degree of 'intelligence' within the aura of said responsible necromancer. Rather than having a specific 'race' of intelligent zombies, it would just make more sense for specific jobs to require the supervision of their master (such as the mining for stone and construction of towers) - similar to how a programmer creates an application for a computer to use. Mindless until programmed to do otherwise.
Quote from: Nikita on July 29, 2014, 07:41:43 pm
How about this: Necromancers are not inherently evil, but rather doing it "for science" (apprenticeses?), because they are "obsessed with their own mortality" (original slabbed necromancers), or maybe they want to see their loved ones. So my addition to this adea would be, to have different kinds of necromancers based on their personality:
- warmongering necromancers would build large armies of "low-tech", combat ready zombies that assault nearby settlements and thus grow their number. These are your standard necromancers and the kind we already have, essentially.
- peaceful necromancers would focus on perfecting re-animation and could return people back to life, not as undead but as warm-blooded mortals. However, they are unable to do it very often/quickly and thus do not rise armies.
- science-oriented necromancers could turn into Liches, extremely powerful, intelligent undead that come back to life back home even when their physical body is vaporized.

The necromancers would generally be on friendly terms. Most races would consider them enemies, because necromancy would be considered unethical (except maybe humans?). Whether a given necromancer (or necromancer society/school/tower/cabal) trades with you or tries to invade depends on their personality. It could even be arranged that they normally trade you, but can be pissed off in some strange manner (e.g. attacking or detaining any necromancer). It could even be arranged that they are pleased eith things that normally piss off other races (opposite ethics) but I don't think Toady would dare go that far into dark stuff.
I would disagree on the allocation of specific spheres such as 'warmonger', 'Peaceful' or even 'Scientific' - (Hey, I thought we were talking about magic here). The necromancers are sentient beings and therefore should behave in their own best interests. Naturally they would be selfish and extremely protective - armok forbid some rogue adventurer steal their much coveted immortality - and therefore attempt to hide themselves from the greedy fingers of locals. Truly, only the most boastful necromancers would dare to spread influence. Larger areas would require 'municipalities' to be formed under the close watch of necromancer apprentices - or 'competitors' in the strive for eternal life. Widespread interaction between necromancers and towns in the form of trade seems somewhat redundant. A necromancer with all the time in the world might as well supervise their minions in order to achieve their goals.

Furthermore, the concept of a 'undead civilisation' seems somewhat self contradicting. Civilisation being 'The removal from barbarianism' and 'The laws of criminal process' more so represent the development of an intelligent sentient race, rather than the meddling of a selfish, evil maniac. The concepts of secrecy and the formation of factions seems somewhat more fitting - like hidden pygmy tribes in the forest waging wars against other pygmy tribes.

tl;dr : I disagree!

Edit: No more elves... or crude humour.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Vgray on July 30, 2014, 12:45:48 am
Only elves are already immortal and never become necromancers. Same with goblins.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: kontako on July 30, 2014, 12:49:25 am
Elves never become necromancer? Hah! I had never noticed!
Damn elves...
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: pisskop on July 30, 2014, 12:44:54 pm
Quote from: kontako on July 30, 2014, 12:49:25 am
Elves never become necromancer? Hah! I had never noticed!
Damn elves...
They can, though I think I modded the world raws to allow it awhile ago.  I know I didnt change their raws.

274: Kostoxunox, "Shriveledpriest", tower
   Owner: The Common Labors, merlocks
   8 merlocks
   3 dwarves
   1 human
   1 elf
   10 animated elves
   15 animated dwarves
   20 animated merlocks
   13 animated humans

706: Stamaemim, "Organadores", tower
   Owner: The Frilly Orbs, humans
   3 humans
   2 elves
   5 goblins
   3 dwarves
   11 animated humans
   1 animated merlock
   78 animated goblins

I even got a few reptile/serpent/olm men necros.
In fact, the only civilization that has never produced a necromancer are those crazy kobolds.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Vgray on July 30, 2014, 06:41:53 pm
But...how...elves have no reason to become obsessed with their own mortality. They don't have mortality to become obsessed with.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: MDFification on August 01, 2014, 12:35:01 am
Currently, necromancer entities do the following;

-Form master-apprentice relationships, allowing towers to reproduce (so founding new sites, check).
-Launch raids against neighbouring sites (while under the player's control), presumably to eliminate local threats or just to accumulate corpses for their armies of tower-building labourers.
-Take over towns if they can't find enough zombies to build a tower.

Essentially, the only things differentiating necromancers from a civilization is the inability to trade with them and their lack of formal political positions/large scale worldgen wars against civs. Trading is not really something I can see happening with necromancers, but allowing a master of a certain number of apprentices to declare themselves Overlord over the towers constructed by their underlings and fight worldgen wars against established civs would be cool.

A better tie-in would be to just gradually dissolve the differences between civs and groups. If a group spawns multiple subordinate groups that get associated with their own sites  has effectively become a civilization. I envision a scheme where all groups are associated in tributary relationships, with the name of the dominant group being the name for the overall civ. This could gradually be expanded to allow groups to secede (potentially including the player, who could then have new groups form tributary relationships with them...), new civs to be formed dynamically from bandits (or adventurer entities?) taking over sites, groups trading masters as a result of wars, dynamic civil wars as groups with enough tributaries revolt against their tributary masters, etc.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: GoblinCookie on August 01, 2014, 02:45:59 pm
Quote from: Vgray on July 30, 2014, 06:41:53 pm
But...how...elves have no reason to become obsessed with their own mortality. They don't have mortality to become obsessed with.

Neither do goblins. 
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: pisskop on August 01, 2014, 02:58:22 pm
Quote from: Vgray on July 30, 2014, 06:41:53 pm
But...how...elves have no reason to become obsessed with their own mortality. They don't have mortality to become obsessed with.
tbh, I dont remember exactly how.

Ill post the relevant raws, but they aren't special; just a few of my own modifications.  This is still 34.11 Im talking about, but I see no reason for it not to apply to 40.

Spoiler: entity (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: elf creature (click to show/hide)

I do know they dont found any towers, but they recieve the training, though they dont ever seem as numerous as the other 'mortal' races.

Ill check my own posts, I know it was a thing I talked to the forum about.

---

I did lie.  I have, on very rare occasions, seen goblin towers, after I allowed them to build them.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Merkator on August 01, 2014, 04:08:36 pm
Maybe just add something like "Families" of towers.
For example if on start of the game they are more then one tower, the every one of them can be from different family.

Then necros from different families could faith with each other over power and territory. That could stop the whole necro-invasion in worldgen.
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: GoblinCookie on August 01, 2014, 04:37:34 pm
Quote from: Merkator on August 01, 2014, 04:08:36 pm
Maybe just add something like "Families" of towers.
For example if on start of the game they are more then one tower, the every one of them can be from different family.

Then necros from different families could faith with each other over power and territory. That could stop the whole necro-invasion in worldgen.

That could be done simply by seperating the necromancer civ-level government from the tower-level government. 
Title: Re: Undead civilization?
Post by: Icefire2314 on August 07, 2014, 09:02:33 am
Quote from: Adrian on July 18, 2014, 11:53:04 am
This is not World of Warcraft. The undead are mindless slaves to their necromancer master and as such are completely useless for anything other than attacking people.
The Necromancers themselves apparently have some kind of teacher<->apprentice thing going on, so any kind of necromancer "civilization" would be more like a loose cooperation between towers.

Quote from: Wiki  http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.34:Necromancer
During world generation, necromancers who have a sufficient following may use their undead minions to build dark towers, a task that requires at least 50 followers; younger necromancers may take over towns or camps instead. The building of a tower is carried out by the original necromancer of a group (the one who was given the slab) as apprentices join the group after the tower is built. Therefore each necromancy group has one tower.

Therefore showing that undead seem to be able to be commanded by their necromancers in anyway, assuming anyway. So far in the game we don't seem to be able to do much more than raise them and herd them towards a delicious meat sac potential victim, however.