I've been meaning to do this a while.
One day, the current system of good, evil, savage, and benign biomes will be replaced with biomes associated with various spheres. I'm going to be going through every sphere, and coming up with a few good ideas for each.
The format I'll be using:
Description of the biome as a whole. Includes any general changes to rules.
Interactions: A description of interactions that might be associated with the biome.
Wildlife: A descripton of animals and/or plants that might be associated with the biome, including what current wildlife might be appropriate for the biome.
Natives: A description of sentients (such as animalfolk or gnomes) that might make their homes here, including a couple vanilla sentients that might fit well.
Civilizations: How dwarves, elves, humans, goblins, and/or kobolds react to finding such a biome.
Some lines may be missing from some spheres.
Well, let's get started!
A land where cultivated plants and domesticated animals thrive. Plants grow faster, especially those in farm plots. Domestic animals give birth more frequently. Rain is common but light, just enough to keep the fields moist. Grass would probably grow faster.
Wildlife: If you can call it that. Animals in agricultural biomes are always docile and easy to tame compared to their mundane-biome counterparts. The plants tend to be ones like strawberries and rope reeds which are good for farming rather than ones like kobold bulbs and muck roots.
Natives: Anyone who lives in an agricultural biome is going to be agricultural, unless they're wild animals or members of an entity which never farms for some reason.
Civilizations: Anyone who farms is going to covet agricultural biomes. I can imagine entire wars being fought over control of the Fields of Growing, whether to feed one's armies, get mounts for calvary, deny it to an enemy, and/or simply for peaceful purposes.
Animals thrive here, probably giving birth more frequently and to larger litters. In addition, much of the biosphere is of the animal kingdom.
Interactions: Perhaps mists that transform humanoids into animalmen?
Wildlife: Like in current Savage regions, giant animals would be present, and two "sets" of animals would appear at once. Unlike Savage biomes, there would be a fair number of animal "plants," like current-era wormy tendrils, or land-living coral-like critters, or big snakes with thick scales that stick out of the ground (like trees, but creepier).
Natives: Animalmen, and nothing else.
Civilizations: On one hand, partly pastoral or hunting societies would love it here. On the other hand, those giant animals and mists that transform you sure are dangerous...Kobolds and elves would probably feel most at home in animal biomes.
I'm not sure. Probably, these biomes would be associated with art and possibly one or two of the six types of art.
Biomes assocuated with music and/or song would...well, their hills are alive with the sounds of music. They have singing birds, joined by the bass bellows of bears and the gurgling song of brooks (as they trip aand fall over stones on their way).
Biomes associated with painting would be colorful, and their plants would make good paint. See Rainbow.
A lovely land.
Wildlife: Lovely, colorful birds and sunberries, and all sorts of other valuable creatures.
Civilizations: Civilizations would covet beautiful biomes, if only to make homes for nobles in. After all, nobles are the ones commanding the armies...
People and creatures give birth more often?
Civilizations: If noticed, birthy biomes would probably be regarded as slightly more valuable than normal ones, unless the civ was undergoing a famine. It's not enough to fight a real war over, but the Birth Plains may be settled before the Savahna [sic] of Normalcy.
Disease and famine stalk these lands. Plants don't grow well. Also, rotting occurs faster.
Interactions: Foul plagues strike from everything, from contaminants in the rain to mists drifting through the air. A few blighted biomes might infect dwarves with deadly plagues just by being there! It's not just sneezing and coughing, either--this plagues WILL slowly kill you, whether from wasting away, or necrosis, or slow paralysis...
Wildlife: Rare and weak. Some wild animals would carry plagues, possibly including rabies.
Natives: Not likely. Grimelings and the like might live here, though.
Civilizations: Blighted biomes are horrible places to live. Nothing is safe. Your town will probably have several plagues infecting it at once if it lives long enough. That said, the very qualities that make blighted biomes distasteful also make them unlikely to be visited by enemies or law enforcement; criminals might set up bases in blighted areas, and kobolds might move to them if forced out by other races.
Already gets a biome. Dig down.
Of course, if aboveground biomes can be cavern-aligned, what would that be like? Probably lots of overhangs, in which grow cavern fungi, and many of which have paths to the cavern layers. Maybe there'd even be pits leading straight down into the caverns. Likely, the cavern layers would also have more connections.
Horrible areas. Nothing is what it should. Especially in chaotic biomes, impossible geographic features would dominate the landscape. Especially in deformed biomes, there would be creatures warped by the magic of the land.
Interactions: Hoo boy. Lots of stuff. Mists that warp and deform would be common, especially in deformity biomes. Creatures, especially in chaos biomes, might be slowly affected without any contact with paranormal substances at all! Fun, no? Both types of biomes would have big physical mutations almost as a given. Deformed biomes would tend towards degrading the victims; chaotic biomes would grant strangth and insanity, and also likely some kind of weakness.
Wildlife: Animals corrupted by the aforedescribed interactions. Weird creatures would be around, too--some of the stranger cavern critters would feel right at home. Plants, too, would be warped, although I'm not as sure how.
Natives: They'd exist. The weirder animalpeople, plantpeople, mineralpeople, etc. Also more normal races afflicted by the corruption of the biomes. Also weird animalpeople/plantpeople afflicted by corruption.
Civilizations: Most would avoid. However, chaos cults would probably form around chaotic and possibly deformed biomes, trying to get "blessings". These cults would likely worship deities associated with chaos and/or deformity.
No idea. Maybe people try to be nicer?
See Birth, Family, etc. Also, children take longer to grow up.
Already get biomes. Look for oceans and lakes.
Perhaps biomes associated with coasts, lakes, oceans, and water would have larger bodies of water...somehow? Like The Damp Prairies' rivers are wider?
No idea. Maybe something that gives creatures that live there long enough [NOFEAR]?
No idea. Maybe the quality of good would increase?
No idea. Maybe buildings and reactions would be completed faster?
The sun would never rise over this dark land. Even at noontime, not a ray of sun shows.
Wildlife: A lot of cavern-type creatures would live on the surface. Cave fungi would probably replace or supplement surface flora.
Civilizations: Probably, few civilizations would want to settle there (goblins and perhaps kobolds would be the exception, and dwarves would feel more confortable than humans or elves). Criminals would probably feel safer concealed in the darkness of The Sunless Desert than they would somewhere with light.
[spoiler=Dawn, Dusk]
This land is always just lit up, like just after sunrise or just after sunset.
This land is always bathed in sunlight, even when the sun is set.
Interactions: After a while, creatures who spent lots of time on the surface might begin to have their sleeping and waking blend together, leading to them gaining [NOSLEEP] but also taking some other penalty. Maybe a penalty to speed? If this happened, all wildlife and any natives would be thusly "afflicted".
Wildlife: Plants, both wild and farmed, would grow better. Animals would be affected as noted above. Obviously, nocturnal critters like owls would be absent.
Civilizations: While goblins and possibly dwarves might not like daytime biomes, everyone else would covet their growth-enhancing light.
Oh, dear. The dead walk, and the living must fight off supernatural forces slowly draining their energy to stay alive.
Interactions: Corpses and body parts animating. Also, some kind of omnipresent energy would sap the strength of live creatures, killing the weak ones.
Wildlife: Live animals are rare, but when present they're big, scary, and strong. They have to be, to fight the dead and the darkness. More carnivores might exist, to cull the undead; another possibility is vultures evolved specifically to hunt undead. (Think eagles crossed with pirhana.)
Natives: May Armok have mercy on their souls.
Civilizations: Unlikely. Even criminal wouldn't touch dead biomes with a 10-foot femur. The only way a civilization of living people would willingly live in a death biome, outside of player fortresses, is if other civilizations forced them there or if they had already thouroughly settled everywhere. Necromancers would like it, though.
No idea, but it's not nice. Goblins would settle here.
Not sure, but civilizations would love these places.
See Blight, and remove the bit about plants not growing well. Maybe some kind of plant disease would exist, too, but that doesn't seem to fit as well. Also, rotting occurs normally.
No ideas. Maybe something to do with restful sleep?
A land made of stone and soil. Less literally, too.
Interactions: Mists, or maybe omnipresent forces, that slowly transform creatures into living soil/stone/metal (some inorganic material, varies by biome).
Wildlife: Creatures made of soil or stone (or maybe metal) would be common.
Civilizations: Aside from dwarves, no one would want to settle here unless they wanted better soldiers or something.
Maybe something with creatures marrying and breeding more?
A land that manipulates luck.
Interactions: Mists that permanently make one lucky (i.e. affect skill rolls). Whether the luck is good or bad varies...
Creatures would get pregnant faster, pregnancies would be quicker, and litters would be larger. Also, plants would grow faster.
Natives: Numerous.
Civilizations: Eveyone would want a place like this. It's prime real estate!
[spoiler=Festivals]
I have no idea.
Fun. Beasts made of flame stalk the ashen landscape. Pools of magma dot the landscape. Etc. Should be more common near volcanoes. Lava/magma would probably replace water in murky pools and maybe rivers (although when a river leaves/enters a firey biome, things would get...interesting...to program).
Wildlife: Mostly fire-based stuff. Things that live in the magma sea. Fire men. Procedurally generated creatures that duplicate normal animals but have fire replacing all of their tissues. Et cetera. Plants would be rare.
Civilizations: Let's face it, no one wants to live there.
A lot of the wildlife is fish; or else creatures who live there long enough take on fishy characteristics. I'll describe this more later.
Natives: Merfolk of all kinds.
Civilizations: Most would avoid it, but maritime civs might move there so that they'd gain the ability to breathe water.
[spoiler=Food]
Not sure. Food production increases?
Fortresses everywhere. There's not a lot of plant or animal life, but plenty of animalmen, gnomes, trolls, and other sentients who've built fortresses in the area. These fortresses would have a variable number of people (let's go by size, that makes sense; something like 10-50 warves to a mini-fortress seems reasonable, so a total size of at least half a million but not much more than three million sounds reasonable), plus pets (one for every 1-3 citizens), mounts (one for every 2-5 citizens?), perhaps some livestock, and of course enough weapons and armor for all combatants (noncombatants would form about 10-25% of the population). Maybe some fortresses would replace some combatants with mechanics, and set up lots of traps.
Interactions: What's the one thing every fortress needs? That's right, food. One possibility as to why there's so many fortresses is that there's so much food. Maybe there's rains of food (think of the mana feeding the Israelites in the desert, only procedurally generated).
Wildlife: Minimal. However, scavengers would be common. Large rats, macaques, buzzards, stuff like that.
Natives: Kinda the point. Animalpeople, trolls, and any other sentient creature that can reach the biome would be compelled to do so to set up a fortress.
Civilizations: Probably also subject to the aforementioned compulsion. They'd try to set up a fortress, or maybe take one from the natives.
A few notes about the fortresses: There would be about one per embark tile. Most would have some kind of wall around them, many would have a moat (perhaps with water in it, perhaps not). There would be either buildings or a big keep inside the walls. Most fortresses would have only storage underground, but some might have rooms or even large bits of fortress underground. There would not be any necessary connection between the races of the forts--one might have a dozen trolls, some pet leopards, and an elephant that their leader rides, while the next over might have over 100 kobolds, dozens of cats, twoscore dogs for riding, and so forth, and the third might have 30 elves and their assorted animal friends. The fortresses woud be made out of local materials, regardless of the creatures within--a fortress made by elves is as likely to be made of stone as one made by dwarves.
Not sure. Maybe sad thoughts are lessened? Maybe being in a happy biome gives a good thought every so often?
A nice place. Healing mists roll across the land, and cureall springs abound.
Interactions: Healing mists, as I mentioned. Possibly also ressurection of the dead. Springs that cure all diseases, or maybe just having water remove harmful syndromes and interactions, like therianthropy and vampirism.
Civilizations: Healey lands would be prizes to everyone. Wars would be common, but also long and bloody; after all, how fast can you win when your opponents are going to be good as new once the healing mists and stuff roll in?
Magestic beasts appear to hunt.
Wildlife: Sometimes, large and powerful animals of one type appear. They're big and fast, and also strong, but their hides, meat, etc, are very valuable.
Maybe some other stuff, too.
Everything is gems, possibly all of one type of gem or one per embark square. Gems appear a lot more in all layers with gems; all layers have large clusters of gems, maybe of the special type for the biome.
Interactions: Ones that turn people and animals into living gemstones.
Wildlife: Yup, it's made of gems. Animals? Living gems. Plants? Gem spines, which leave useable gem logs when cut, and shrubs that drop rough gems.
Natives: Amethyst men and similar people.
Civilizations: Who wouldn't want to live there? Between the possibility of an army of mighty gem-warriors and the idea of having a bunch of gemstone cats in the throneroom, I can imagine that tons of goblin, elf, kobold, and especially dwarf nobles (and dwarf and perhaps kobold commoners) would push to live there. The fact that gems don't grow plants very well can wait until after the war...
Not sure. Seems like it'd be coveted by civilizations.
Not sure. Maybe work would be done faster or something?
Mighty electrical storms, electricity-controlling creatures, and occasionally lightning strikes causing fires and possibly deaths.
Aging is disabled or massively slowed.
Similar to Earth, but with ores, flux, etc, being more common.
Common clouds of normal mist drifting across the land, obscuring vision.
We already have a biome for this sphere. Dwarves live there.
Perhaps mountain-associated biomes would have larger mountains. Maybe there would be, say, mountain-associated plains or forests, with big outcroppings of stone.
Mucky biomes would be quagmires of mud and filth. Grimelings would love it. I can't think of much creative right now.
Not sure. It sounds...unpleasant.
There's already every biome for this.
Maybe Nature-aligned biomes would have unusually powerful nature, like giant trees and animals? There would probably not be many or any animalmen.
There's two ideas, literal and figurative. Literal nightmare biomes would give bad thoughts from sleeping (Urist McSleepy has had a nightmare recently), and perhaps mysterious creatures would spawn every so often. These nightmare beasts would be similar in form to some scary creature (ideally defined in the raws--say, [CAN_BE_NIGHTMARE] or [SCARY]), but with some unnatural features. They'd strike at dwarves, leaving unhappy thoughts and perhaps some minor syndromes (e.g. nausea, numbness, maybe paralysis; all of these would be resisted by willpower), in addition to disrupting work. Nightmare beasts would be very mobile, with flight and perhaps teleportation and/or the ability to move through walls.
Now for figurative nightmare lands.
Nightmare lands are terrifying. Horrid beasts stalk the land, a land that is black and twisted. You know every day that you only awoke because no monster came and ate you, and when you sleep you know that you are blessed to not have been killed...or transformed.
Interactions: Several. One of the big ones is some kind of mist that slowly turns you into a monstrous beast. Eventually, you'd show signs like changing skin and eye colors; horns, claws, and/or fangs; and a desire to murderise all other living greatures in the area. In addition, there would be a mix of other scary interactions noted under other biomes, like dead rising, enthralling mists, or slowly transforming people into immobile plants, although only a few of these would be present in any one biome. Most of these interactions would not affect those with [NOSLEEP].
Wildlife: Scary. Giant creepy-crawlies, demonic beasts, pretty much every creature currently haunting evil areas, etc.
Natives: Foul blendecs, ogres, grimelings, fire men, spider men (not friendly neighborhood ones, mind you) and all sorts of other mean and scary people.
Civilizations: Non-goblins would never settle in nightmare biomes of either type; goblins might settle in figurative ones, and perhaps literal ones. Criminal organizations might make their homes in nightmare biomes, literal if they're strong-willed enough, figurative if they're tough or stupid enough.
Plants grow well. Also, animals become plants.
Interactions: As mentioned, creatures that stick around in planty biomes turn into plants, eventually losing mobility.
Wildlife: Lots of normal plants; also, some animals in early stages of the abovementioned interaction. Treants and similar beings would be neat to see, too.
[spoiler=Rain]
Lots of rainsorms.
[/spooiler]
[spoiler=Pregnancy]
Pregnancies start easily, early, and have lots of kids.
Interactions: Several. Rain that impregnates females and inducing premature pregnancy (it's a real genetic? condition), mists that massively increase litter size, and a general decrease in time for pregnancy.
Civilizations: On one hand, it's good for breeding an army or starting a family. On the other hand, it'd be embarrasing to have all of your daughters getting pregnant before marriage or even puberty...
When creatures die, they reincarnate as something. Dwarves might become dwarves or some creature they liked. The new creature would have the same identity as the original, just a new species. That could be...interesting...especially if a goblin reincarnated as a dragon or something...
Ooh, pretty colors. I've been doing this too long.
Interactions: Multicolored mists, or multiple colors of mists. These mists make a creature's tissues all be one color. They might also have some other effects.
Wildlife: Beak dogs, macaws, peafowl (blue and their fictional red, orange, etc, counterparts), and other colorful beasts.
Natives: Colorful...I'm really starting to get sleepy.
Civilizations: As goblins have beak dogs, they can clearly appreciae rainbow biomes 9rainbiomes!). Elves would also probably like them. Other races (except maybe kobolds) would find rainbow biomes garish.
Sounds like a fun place! Especially if it's also a fertility biome...oh, my I'm tired.
Fun place. Another thing I'll worjk on later.
We already have biomes for this. It's called "I'm running out of wit, so I'll just say 'places with a river.'"
However, river-aligned biomes would probably have both enlarged rivers and smaller rivers running through the biome, either in circles or (more interestingly) teleporting from one area to another.
Not sure. Maybe some buffs given to nearby allies of people who die, related to the cause of death?
Kinda dull, but salt water and omnipresent large clusters of salt.
Sounds like a place where people learn skills faster.
We already have every biome for this. Except deserts and glaciers.
Perhaps seasonal biomes would have extreme seasons?
Places with no sound. This would impact diplomacy and trade, and also make it harder to locate ambushes, but no more bad thoughts from being woken up by sound!
We already have a biome for this. It's called "Look up."
Not sure. It would interact interestingly with kobolds, though...
Powerful storms, with wind and floods and blasts of lightning and stuff.
A land of strong people and mists which strengthen. This place embiggens te smallest man.
Interactions: Mists that increase strength but also screw around with personality, decreasing patience and stuff, likely leading to more fistfights.
Natives: Big, tough creatures, like ogres and trolls. Probably affected by the aforementioned mists.
Civilizations: They'd covet these places. Who wouldn't want to buff
their army with those mists? Once taken, likely only a few, sneaky soldiers could be enhanced at a time after initial conquerance.
Maybe more insanities would lead to melancholy, and perhaps there would be gloomy mists that can incite melancholy.
[spoiler=Theft]
Not sure.
We've already got thralls(/husks/etc), just add them here and give them a hive mind. Perhaps tone down on the "insanely strong and tough" aspect a bit and make them more infectious.
Not sure. Civilizations wouldn't want to be there, but they'd attract criminals like flies to honey.
A land of massive trees. Well, more massive than normal trees.
Not sure, although it had better not make vampires sparkle...
A land of epic deeds and the ways to make them happen.
Interactions: Mists that increase strength and toughness, or whatever. Also a general energy that slowly makes you learn faster; the increase in learning rate eventually slows down. Like, after a month, you learn skills 15% faster, after two it's 30%, 3-40%, 4-50%, 5-55%, 6-60%, 7-65%, 8-70%, 9+-75% or something.
Wildlife: Less groundhogs and badgers, more big bad wolves and bears and stuff. Also some supernatural and/or giant creatures.
Natives: Either mighty people or dark, scheming, villanous ones who like to kick puppies and stuff (any non-adult [PET] and [COMMON_DOMESTIC] without [MOUNT] would do). Or both.
Civilizations: Both nations and individuals would want to live here.
There's a biome for this already. It's called "awesome." (Or, alternatively, "anywhere with a volcano."
Two possibilities, ideally both would occur. Either the biome would provoke war over controlling it, or the biome would wage war against any civilizations in it. I'll assume both.
Interactions: A couple. First off, some kind of all-pervading aura of desire, which causes people who enter or approach war-aligned biomes to not want to leave, and/or to return if they do leave. This would cause, among other things: merchants to sometimes stick behind, leaving the others to haul your crafts back; dwarves to prefer the war-aligned areas of a multibiome embark; sieges, ambushes, and thieves to be more reluctant to leave; and decreased emmigration (once implemented). Also, a sort of blood-colored rain that causes those who drink or maybe touch it to become angry and try to attack people.
Wildlife: Lots of creatures would have tougher hides, sharper teeth, and so forth. They'd also tend to be loners; after all, if a wolf pack gets into fights whenever it rains, they're not going to do very well at hunting deer. Trees would be metallic, both fitting the biome and to protect against the boosted browsers.
Natives: They'd be present, all right; any sentient being living near a war biome is going to covet it, move in, and start fighting with all the other groups that think the same thing. They'd also have plenty of armor and weapons.
Civilizations: All civilizations would covet war biomes, moving in and never leaving, even if the biome is a tundra miles away from their population centers and they lose plenty of people defending it from goblins and elves. This, obviously, leads to wars.
Not sure. Maybe quality of created items increases?
There's a biome for this already. It's called "everywhere."
Maybe there'd be more extreme weather, like floods, violent storms (although they'd pale in comparison to Storm biome storms), and blizzards that create snowdrifts multiple z-levels thick. Even the sunshine is extreme!
Any more ideas, guys? I'll incorporate the ones i think are best in the OP.
Alphabetical order.
Corai, for compliments.
Manveru Taurënér, for suggesting that biomey spheres as spherey biomes have those characteristics exaggerated.
Naryar's had some good ideas; I've incorporated some into this post, but have decided to treat his detailed and varied stuff as a separate (although cross-fertilised) list.
Neonivek, for war ideas and the inspiration for song biome stuff.
