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[Rose]

With how easy it is to get your dwarfs turned into necromancers in this latest version, it's about time to re-work the way they manage in fortress mode.

The current way they work is that, while the dwarf stays loyal even after becoming a necromancer, any zombies he raises are not, and will attack everybody in your fort.

There's two ways to solve this problem, that I see.

• Make any dwarf that becomes a necromancer an enemy of the fort, and be treated as such
• make raised dead follow the alliance of whoever raised them, including being friendly towards your fort memebers.

In the case of the second one. the raised dead would then have the same enabled labors as their master, but otherwise have zero skill, with no ability to gain any skill, so they always act as a novice.

This way, they can still be useful fort members, but won't replace skilled dwarfs.

If this is enabled, then the necromancer can also be allowed to raise dead during peace-time, instead of only during war, possibly under the control of the player.

Then we can have a zombie workforce building us a tower.

[Urlance Woolsbane]

This will be unpopular, but I prefer #1. Worldgen treats necromancers as societal personae non gratae and I think Fortress Mode should do the same. I rather suspect that one's citizens being able to become necromancers as easily as adventurers is an unintended bit of emergent behavior. Simply reading the slab works as a placeholder in Adventure Mode because the hero is presumed to have an outsize impact on the world. Fortress Mode is meant to be more isolated and tends to be a tad more intricate, and so that sort of instantaneous learning seems quite cheap. Adding an army of laborers to the bargain, even with limited skills, only aggravates the matter.

Now, this is probably one of a large number of things that Mythgen will make a moot point of. Toady has mentioned sending citizens off to magic schools, and I imagine that it will also be possible for them to learn on-site. The issue of magical servants will be inevitably dealt with (and of course automatons are also planned.) The real question is how forbidden magic will be handled. I know there was talk of the player forbidding certain spells, so as to prevent your fortress from being blown sky high, so perhaps that will intertwined with it.

[Rose]

One other possibility is allowing the player to allow or disallow necromancy, but allowing means the fortress is now an enemy to all life.

[KittyTac]

One other possibility is allowing the player to allow or disallow necromancy, but allowing means the fortress is now an enemy to all life.

Or maybe, in some worlds, zombies wouldn't be opposed to life.

[FantasticDorf]

• Make any dwarf that becomes a necromancer an enemy of the fort, and be treated as such
• make raised dead follow the alliance of whoever raised them, including being friendly towards your fort memebers.

In the case of the second one. the raised dead would then have the same enabled labors as their master, but otherwise have zero skill, with no ability to gain any skill, so they always act as a novice.

This way, they can still be useful fort members, but won't replace skilled dwarfs.

If this is enabled, then the necromancer can also be allowed to raise dead during peace-time, instead of only during war, possibly under the control of the player.

Then we can have a zombie workforce building us a tower.

No. #1 i can see being tied to the behaviour of the necromancer, with the fortress, reclusive or outright hostile as we might see with wizard behaviours, if you have a secret necromancer covern because its dangerous or necromancy is regarded as a skill of the 'dark arts' which is locally frowned upon then they likely wont be public or present in the civ. But thats very reliant on how relationships with wizards will be handled in future versions, given that existing necromancers are by default hostile to living people.

If you treat the necromancer as being complict with night creatures rather than actually being one themselves (creating zombies or cavorting with vampires & other nightbeasts) you may be able to get them purged or incarcerated if they are already inside the settlement undetected potentially using a false identity to hide.

I already asked toady about zombies being wizard servants in a FotF reply in november last year, but again it comes to a question of whether we will be able to use wizard servants ourselves in fortress mode (magic golems/pseudo animalmen/whatever) or if they are specifically tied to the wizard in which zombies become one more such type.

> Since you mentioned servant races being 'created to your liking' would that interpretively mean that zombies become re-classified as 'servants' rather than pure products of magical ability, and domestically around the necromancers tower would fulfill the usual duties of where the servant races would suffice? Summoning servants to all descriptions out of corpses sounds like a very convenient way of creating labour, especially since they are utmost loyal rather if rather dim than having thinking minds like intelligent beings.

It depends on the zombie spell I guess.  Some zombies could remain mindless and violent. Eventually the systems should be able to naturally draw those distinctions, through soul etc. mechanics. ~snip~[/list]

No #2 already exists with (Stopped reanimated corpses from being stuck on wrong side of conflicts), zombies will partake all the allegiances & loyalties of their master and also engage in loyalty cascades, but also remain generally hostile (vs fortress necro zombies who are friendly but may freak out around dwarf civ NPC's) something that can change as zombies & their casters become more complex in definitions & behaviours with wizardry & the magic update.

For example if we can convince outside wizards to stay in our tavern rooms & petition to be residents, then they will be integrated into the dwarven civilisation fully, which means training wizards on site if egible from a stolen necro tome & a magic capable dwarf will skip the petition process & give us a same civ necro dwarf not likely to defect.

A necromancer owning a civ/site via a coup/transforming the leading ruler into a intelligent zombie puppet like what can happen with vampires might end up with intelligent zombies & servants in a very Von Carstien/Heinrich Hemmler kind of way with intelligent undead soldiers attempting to conquer you. Especially if the Necromancer tower conquers & connects small settlements onto itself to increase its population and influence.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You'll be praying for mindless shufflers.

[VislarRn]

The problem seems to be that it is technically too easy to raid necromancer towers.

World needs some sites that are (almost) impenetrable because of higher valued artifacts they are holding.
I presume that sites that keep valuable stuff should be expecting raids and take some countermeasures against it.

Since magic release is coming closer, this issue should be addressed. Because after that, we might have some artifacts that are extremely powerful and making them easily acquirable is potentially game-breaking. Typical standard raid should be generally successful when dealing with lower valued artifacts.

[Bumber]

Magic should be used responsibly. Necromancers should know to keep their zombies away from the living populace, or face the justice system. Maybe skilled necromancers can keep their zombies under control, most of the time. The act of raising corpses in of itself can be a separate ethics issue.

[LordBaal]

This falls into the same category as vampire forts. When this start to happen the player has two choices. Either fight it or embrace it.

If you fight against it you will have to hunt the monsters, ask for help to traveling heroes and Urist ValHellsing, allow the religious organizations and monster hunter guilds to act on you fort, ask for the mountain home help and probably pay with gold or merchandize or whatever and the sorts...

On the other hand if you embrace it then your choices would be to kill off anyone trying to thwart your plan. That would lead to the notorious disappearance of monster hunters/religious order personnel and such... Which would drawn more attention to the fort. Perhaps your citizens, the ones still alive will send out calls for help to the greater civilization. If you succeed in turning all your fort or turning most and convincing the rest to accept necromancy/vampires then you will eventually be caught by yours/others civilizations and be declared a enemy civilization yourself. Kind of a undead backed secession. Then you can do whatever you want. Maybe new cluts towards dark gods or the necromancer/vampires start to rise on the fort and replace the old ones as madnnes takes its new home. Then you'll could try to grow your new civ by making/taking over new sites.

Or at least that's how I see it should be.

[IndigoFenix]

I'd say have zombies take on the loyalty of their raiser by default, and make the way a civilization views necromancy an aspect of their ethic and value system.  Baselone dwarves probably wouldn't look kindly on necromancy, but goblins, deep dwarves, or humans influenced by demons might see things differently.

[stabbymcstabstab]

I'd say have zombies take on the loyalty of their raiser by default, and make the way a civilization views necromancy an aspect of their ethic and value system.  Baselone dwarves probably wouldn't look kindly on necromancy, but goblins, deep dwarves, or humans influenced by demons might see things differently.

This might be the best way, as it would also set the framework for more complicated interactions between civs and magic.

[LordBaal]

I agree. Now the loyalty of the dwarf after becoming a necromancer it's what's to see. Will they immediately turn against the rest? Wait for some time, be provoked into o simply remain friendly.

[Bumber]

Why should zombies know loyalty? They're mindless and hunger for living flesh.

[FantasticDorf]

Why should zombies know loyalty? They're mindless and hunger for living flesh.

That actually depends on the definition of the spell for necromancy in that world in the mythgen arc (if its not static) and its effects, say that the zombies are bound by their evil energy to be puppets rather than self acting individuals or something.

[LordBaal]

This are magic zombies, in contrast to classical Romero zombies. Magical ones tend to range from regular folks who just happen to be dead and "unnaturally" revived, to mindless rotting beasts that hunger for the flesh of the living.

Mechanically speaking, zombies in Dwarf Fortress right now act like the ones Return of the Living Dead. In that each piece of them is revived and even after being cut up all parts still move and attack and only pulping or ultimately disintegrating the part would stop them. Unlike common zombies, the vanilla DF ones aren't infectious as in one bite or scratch won't infect the victim and turn it into a zombie.

But all this could change as more and more things become procedural or random, as is the case with vampires and were beasts there are so many variables.

We could end up with worlds with different types of zombies at the same time. A human necromancer made raised the dead using a dust that turns corpses into "wild zombies" with no allegiances and produce more of said dust on the zombie's body. There you have a zombie apocalypse on the making. At the same time a stinky hippie elf necromancer is raising corpses using a spell, this ones do his biding and he uses them as laborers and soldiers.

Just as with vampires (I have already made threads/posts about this) we could end up with a wide array of "zombies" or undead, some of them might even not be recognizable as zombies aside from the fact that reanimated bodies are involved.

[dragdeler]

Worldgen treats necromancers as societal personae non gratae and I think Fortress Mode should do the same.

In the current version I totally agree: there should at least be the possibility to incriminate via justice screen just as you would with a vampire.

But since myth & magic is next it'll just be a placeholder anyway. Fix alliances to summoner, so everything is possible, from pacific megaproject architectomancer, to mercenary necro traveler.