Okay, so I posted a poll and a majority of the vote went to Necromancers, so true to my word lets discuss the possibilities!
well this was my suggestion, initial reaction was bad so I'm putting up a poll.
So first off I don't want just a bunch of nercromancers that raise the dead all day... thats the most boring way of necromancy... Its perfect for adventure play, but its not the best for fort or civ play so necromancy is going to be in basically a split stage game: NPC Civ; Adventure Mode; Fort Mode.
NPC CIV MODE: Okay the base is going to be a 2 "sentient" zombie castes male and female, that will produce zombie "kids" at full adult hood. I know that sounds weird because zombies shouldn't be having kids... but this is to make them populate into civs. They will be given interactions that cause them to loose this functionality when they 'see' each other which should only happen to them when they appear on maps together (such as when in fort mode). They will have a spread disease interaction tied to biting this will cause their victims to get sick, nauseated, eventually passing out and sleep etc, and also cause zombies to ignore those who are bitten if they are sentient (a similar interaction set to those that Plump Helmet men use to effect their own behaviors).
ADVENTURE MODE: So creatures bitten by zombies will pass out and be ignored. the unit should wake up not long after with no visible issue or injury, going to join their herd where they will after a period of time transform in to zombies(if they are of a sentient creature) and go rabid crazed if they are not. these rabid creatures should have the same interaction that zombies have... the disease... and so things they bite will also be infected etc. A necromancer played in adventure mode should be able to summon a zombie with any dead sentient corpse he can find, and those should become his pets afterwards... I'll have to figure out adventure mode for this process. This necromancer group will not be a secret, but modeled on a sentient undead creature called a master in fort mode.
FORT MODE: 7 zombie start milling around an abandoned wagon of goods...
story line they were running from a plague outbreak in their home town when one of them turned and infected the others while they was resting along the road. The end was absolute and before any could react they had succumbed to the disease. They feel the ancient masters' calling them to action.... Build the dark altar!
Zombies in Fort Mode, are basic soldier units, no genders, no ability to reproduce, they will attack any living thing that gets near them. They have limited skill sets, when I say limited they are extremely limited... like they should have nothing but road construction, building construction, haulers, etc... other than that they should just roam the landscape kill things and bring the corpses back.
Zombies, will be able to build a dark altar with very little... If I can get them to use corpses great, otherwise wood or stone from the embark. from there a corpse to the altar consumed in a reaction will call a master's spirit to be resurrected on the site. there can only be one master at a time, if your master dies, the zombies can summon a new one...
This is where the real fort mode starts. Buildings on a necromancer embark will be limited... I'll use a script we have to disable most not worth using vanilla buildings. The buildings on an embark will either require special units to be created to operate them or a Master to pass the design on them.
Masters: back to them they are the center of necro society. They will be a seperate creature, non living, made a part of the society like releasing captive dwarves in orc fort. They will be the only one with DESIGN_BUILDINGS so any building needing architecture cannot be built with out them. A lot of the real work will be beneath them. Masters will be the only ones capable of creating tier 2 and higher necro beasts. Without tier 2 beasts none of the tier 2 and higher buildings are available and neither will any of the tier 3 or higher monsters be available.
BUILDINGS:
Tier 0 buildings:
- Dark Altar - This is building provides the basic needs of your future fort. At this location a zombie unit can perform certain rituals to include, self sacrifice(provide corpses), defiling of corpses(make sentient corpses usable in reactions), summoning a master(primary overseer of the fort), infecting a corpse (create more zombies), and sacrificing captives(turn them into corpses). until a master is summoned this is the only building that can be created.
Tier 1 buildings:
- Beast Chamber - a location that the master can create his tier 2 necro beasts with corpses and body parts - think DR. Frankenstien.
- Throne room - a place where a master rules: This location will send out zombies to bring in random captives(as in how orcfort has captives) that can be used prison cells or sacrificed at the dark altar. the results will be very random, everything from dead animal corpses, bodyparts, captive zombies, etc. They are zombies what do you expect? plan to do a DFHack script for this to setup a random that only produces 1 of ~10 results.
- Prison cell - a blank cell room that can be used to house captives...
Tier 2 buildings:
- vanilla shops - only certain tier 2 creations can utilize the skills that are required for the vanilla shops planned to be included to be built.
- necro version of masterwork shops - similar to above, will include the masterwork shop reactions plus a few additional fun things.
- Fleshling shop - crafter that makes things from body parts. I'm going to have fun with this one... playing around and seeing which parts I can use and not use, lol.
- Ancient Furnace - the necromancer version of a smelter, will come in non-magma and magma versions. Used to melt down stones into metals, turn bonemeal into bonemold into blood steel into {haven't decided but titanium strength metal made from binding blood steel, an undecided metal, flux, fuel, and a soul}.
- Laboratory - Tier 3 and above monsters.
Tier 3 building:
- Soul Altar - This location is used by a special tier 3 summoned monster to pull souls out of living creatures... the action will be similar to the way corruption works in succubus... the creatures will have to be caged in a room with this workshop and a reaction will cause all the creatures to die, leaving a corpse and a soul gem behind.
- Blood Altar - similar to the previous a special tier 3 summoned monster we be able to harvest the blood from a creature in a cage in the room doing so will cause the death of the creature.
Necro Beasts
Each of the summoned necro beasts will have a purpose... need military then summon zombie generals to squad up your zombies. Want archers then make skeleton archers, etc. beasts come in tiers. you have to complete certain buildings to be able to summon higher tier necro beasts.
tier 2 beasts:
- fleshling - a blob of living flesh created from a couple of corpses laying around. This creature will have multiple arms can haul, craft, etc, these are your basic indoors worker, operating most of the tier 2 buildings. But they wont be able to do outside or mine work very well.
- skeletons - these guys are woodcutters, and can perform certain other simple tasks. Don't leave them outside for long, they are very fragile. Made from a stack of bone and a skull or a full skeleton.
- zombie generals - These are the combination of 2 corpses into a two legged, four armed, 2 headed monstrosity. 2 heads may be better than one, but it takes 2 zombie heads to be smart enough to order and command zombies into action. Zombie generals are needed to teach other zombies how to fight, lead squads, and provide zombies with the happiness and motivation to be better zombies. "be all the zombie you can be in the zombie army!"
- {need a good name for this one} - A special monster that eats flesh, one of the few creatures you actually have to feed to keep alive... these monstrosities are made from piles of meat and bone stitched together tendons and nerves. They eat only because they hunger to increase their mass, crawl around on 6 legs and carry picks in their 6 arms to dig through rock, their primary function dig and haul stone. They are massive and will take a beating but cannot really learn much other than mining and hauling as they don't have a head... the process of eating is performed with a single opening in the top of the body that the arms stuff things into as fast as they feel its flesh. Magic and magic alone keeps them moving, mining, hauling, eating. leave it alone in a cavern long enough and it will collapse of hunger.
tier 3 beasts:
- wraith - incorporeal ghostly beings that generate fear in the living and die in sunlight. The sight of one will cause uncontrollable terror. Enough terror and the very soul of a creature can be ripped out and turned to crystal by this monstrosity... too bad that sunlight will cause itself to loose form. created through a special process of calling back a soul from the plains of the dead through defilement of its corpse.
-giant blood worm - Flesh formed into a worm of about 5 to 7 feet in length and as big around as a Dwarf's head. These beasts like to strike and latch on to their victims; sucking the blood out of their still warm bodies. They don't need it for much as they aren't alive in the sense of needing to drink blood... its just a past time for them as they really can't do much else...
-Huntsman - skull of the beast placed on the body of a sentient. the soul and brain of a tormented placed inside. To life comes the huntsman a superior archer and hunter for all your hunting and military needs. The only thing better is...
-Hunt leader - organizer of the hunt, this is the only unit that can organize archers and is an archer too. Instead of 1 head it has 3 and can see in all directions. It provides happiness and motivation to other huntsman out in the field and in training.
-apprentice - using the souls of the dead and tormented a future master can be created by the master... an apprentice cannot do much imagine a master who can do everything except actually perform the necromancy. If a master passes away for whatever reason and an apprentice is available he will become the master. unlike the master, several apprentices can exist at one time, but the master's power will only pass to one of them on his death. apprentices confer confidence, happiness, and motivation on all workers as the master would. If the master falls and there is no apprentice to be transformed into a master, than the zombies will have to summon him at a dark altar again. If there is no zombie or material to do so... well the fort will be unable to summon the master and the fort will slowly die off, as tasks needed of the master will not be able to be performed.
Anyways that's as far as I have written that is worth reading, I've have way more, but I want to here concepts, criticisms, etc on what I have so far and ideas and suggestions from the community.
