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[WillowLuman]

But many of these creatures didn't evolve, they were created unnaturally or invaded from somewhere else.

[Timeless Bob]

I believe the term "guided evolution" applies here.  Much like the skunkworks of the DoD.

[WillowLuman]

Werebeasts didn't evolve, though. They came into existence suddenly. Gods god pissed at someone, they curse them to assume a form resembling something that did evolve.

Things like Giant Cave Spiders and Ogres probably evolved (perchance under guidance), but people can mark in history when werebeasts began.

[Timeless Bob]

Yes, but let's expand out a bit more: how does the God benefit from turning "defilers of temples" into werewhatevers?  The werecreatures are the results of the God's processes, but that doesn't mean that other Gods wouldn't have abilities to negate or counter the benefits of those.  Once again, we're looking at a competition for limited resources, in this case, people who won't desecrate temples/will give them worship.  Considering how many demons convince people they're gods, I've often wondered if demons weren't a larval stage of a deity's life cycle, with maybe "forces" being the end stage.

Maybe DF Gods are like mosquitoes, parasites of mortals but dependent on them for sustenance.  It's possible that candy is like the shell of an egg sac - once breached, the new godlings are "born".  I wonder what Gods would become at the end of their life cycles?  Maybe they dissipate into magma or step "sideways" into new worlds, seeding them with candy birthing sacs...

[WillowLuman]

What gods are is probably infinite and variable, honestly. I myself have wondered what benefit a god gets from cursing people to turn into monsters. There is the punitive aspect of destroying people's psyches by making them monstrous, by forcing them never to live in one place for more than a month. But for defilers who come to accept or enjoy their roles as destructive monsters, perhaps that is the god's shortsightedness (as happened with many Greek god's turn-you-into-monster curses). Or perhaps it entertains them...

But we get to decide who and what gods are. Not through modding, since we can't affect them that much with it, but through RPing, since so much of their nature is left open to interpretation. Bear in mind we don't even have a Hell-sealing material yet.

[Halfling]

>Not through modding...

Completely sidetracking here but the curse interaction is very moddable thanks to the hist strings being available, though. You could have minor and major blessings and gifts as well as curses.

"Urist McGod blessed Halfling McHalflingpie with the gifts of eternal youth and an ability to heal disease, and was praised..."

"Urist McGod appointed Humie the Human as her justiciar angel, giving him eternal life, the gift of flight, and a burning spear to strike down her enemies"

"Humie the Human, angel Fish Dissector, makes a judgment!
Urist McVanillaDwarf has been found innocent!
Obok McVampire has been found guilty!
The angel Fish Dissector throws a ball of fire!"

I think the dark gods would still primarily use those though, interspersed with curses.

[laularukyrumo]

Hell is also sealed with Meteoric Iron. It has the [DEEP_SPECIAL] tag, and that's exactly what that does.

[Timeless Bob]

I just got shivers... Meteoric Iron could equal "Cold Iron".  Wasn't it "cold iron" that had such a negative effect on so called "magical" creatures?  What if instead of demons, you had the snow and ice down there be the food for "magical" creatures, a type of "magic dust" or something?  That way, each cavern closer to the source would be closer to the source of magic and thus more magically powerful/diverse.  (It would explain underground plants, since there's no sunlight or other energy sources outside of magma pools to draw from)

I'd love to see people being "blessed" as well as "cursed" by deity interactions - even the "dark gods" would want to set up paladins and high priests to their cause.  "Dark" would just mean "active".


I don't know anything about modding hist strings, but it would be very interesting to see Player's names as megabeasts worshiped by the inhabitants of a pre-genned world.  I was thinking of trying just that with the "Mythic Greece" thing I'm working on.  Each Titan and Olympian God is a megabeast defined with the historic powers of those Gods and after a couple millenia, of world gen, Legends mode should have some of them defeated (sent to "Tartarus" as one of the clowns) and the others still worshiped. 

I wonder if there's there a way to disable non-corporeal gods altogether?  That way, even your deities could be defined "from scratch".


Just checked: Elves don't spawn gods (only "forces") because they don't build temples.

So: No Temples = no Gods
interesting.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I just got shivers... Meteoric Iron could equal "Cold Iron".  Wasn't it "cold iron" that had such a negative effect on so called "magical" creatures?  What if instead of demons, you had the snow and ice down there be the food for "magical" creatures, a type of "magic dust" or something?  That way, each cavern closer to the source would be closer to the source of magic and thus more magically powerful/diverse.  (It would explain underground plants, since there's no sunlight or other energy sources outside of magma pools to draw from)

If no one does this before my turn, I request the ability to remove [DEEP_SPECIAL] from 'Meteoric Iron' and make the [DEEP_SPECIAL] become 'Cold Iron'

I'd love to see people being "blessed" as well as "cursed" by deity interactions - even the "dark gods" would want to set up paladins and high priests to their cause.  "Dark" would just mean "active".

Unfortunately, the temple has to be defiled in order for either to start, so 'blessings' would probably be more along the lines of 'cursed to serve {diety} for the remainder of their days.'

Just checked: Elves don't spawn gods (only "forces") because they don't build temples.

So: No Temples = no Gods
interesting.

This is wrong.  Elves do not spawn gods because they utilize REGIONAL_FORCE in their [RELIGION:] tag rather than PANTHEON, which other races have that spawns gods.  Since PANTHEON is (apparently, I think) needed for the entity to adopt megabeasts as gods, it is a no-win situation, unfortunately.


Progress on the entities:
The lizardfolk (humanoid reptiles) needs quite a bit left, but most of it can be extracted for use by the dragonkin (lizardfolk using magic to become humanoid dragons) due to the heritage.  The dragonkin will be using [ANY_LAND] for their biome, but the lizardfolk I am limiting to marshes/swamps of any temperature, and tropical moist broadleaf forests.  Considering how limited their range will be (and having a site population cap of 40, with an entity population cap of 10000), I would like to request that people have no one create any more marsh-only entities, because I feel that, with another, the marshes will fill up too quickly, and lead to an unembarkable upon biome in longer worlds.

[WillowLuman]

Yeah, Meteoric iron being found only at the bottom of the earth doesn't make much sense.

[Halfling]

I don't know anything about modding hist strings, but it would be very interesting to see Player's names as megabeasts worshiped by the inhabitants of a pre-genned world.  I was thinking of trying just that with the "Mythic Greece" thing I'm working on.  Each Titan and Olympian God is a megabeast defined with the historic powers of those Gods and after a couple millenia, of world gen, Legends mode should have some of them defeated (sent to "Tartarus" as one of the clowns) and the others still worshiped. 

This is possible. God and megabeast names come from a limited subset of symbols/words in a way I haven't fully figured out yet. Symbol:ASSERTIVE seems to figure into the latter a lot? This also has the downside that if you don't have many of those words, because gods like to sometimes have long names, you would end up with something like Bob Bob-Bob, the Bob Bob of Bobs (actually before I upped the vocab a bit, "Secret Secretsecret Secret Secret" was a typical god name).

Anyway, figuring out exactly which symbols they use, and defining what we want for those symbols, and using others for race-related stuff, should let us do that if wanted.

Yeah, Meteoric iron being found only at the bottom of the earth doesn't make much sense.

Hm. Actually it exists in two (real) smeltable forms of meteoric iron that occur in abundant clusters in stone right now. There were screenshots of that to go with the play turn report.

Adamantine spires are, however, made of shiny, metallic meteoric iron, not ore. I think it can be worked into swords without smelting using the stone swords reaction if that reaction is enabled. I did not specifically define it as DEEP_SPECIAL although that is how you would do that; I believe it just went for the first material defined by my raws and this turned out to be cool enough to keep. Hell will probably be made of ice until someone defines a DEEP_SURFACE... but it's actually pretty sweet as is. If you don't have water, just dig down and pour some magma in from above.

Spoiler: more things (click to show/hide)

Technically this is how all meteoric iron should be, by the way. At least I think kamacite and taenite are actually more like metal lattices than ore. Real meteoric iron definitely shouldn't be able to be refined by just heating it as one does various minerals, as it is not usually a metallic oxide of any kind. Furthermore I'm not sure if you can remove the nickel impurities in it with dwarf age technology at all. But that's okay, because it can be hammered into tools as is and was in fact the first form of iron used. However, it should be able to be made into advanced types of steel (or just steel of any kind) with flux by adding carbon, as that is what ferronickel is used for in real life.

This is visually nice for quick reference if you're considering adding a metal and want to make it real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactivity_series

[Crustypeanut]

I'm all for this world having hell frozen over.  We should keep it like that!

[WillowLuman]

Bear in mind that ice hell cannot be melted. It's still awesome though.

[laularukyrumo]

I thought briefly that you actually made Hell explicitly made of Ice. If that's not the case and it's just doing Fallback In Case Of Crazy Modders dot jpeg, I'm all for defining an "ice" material that never melts, and giving it [DEEP_SURFACE] so that Hell is, indeed, forever frozen.

[WillowLuman]

Trust me, I've tested it. Whatever hell is made of, it cannot be damaged by anything. It defaults to ice with no material defined, but the game's programed such that the solid tiles of Hell are unalterable. Except through glitches.