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Author Topic: [47.x][Joke] Nekomancy - Cats, magic headpats... and catgirls  (Read 3324 times)

Atkana

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[47.x][Joke] Nekomancy - Cats, magic headpats... and catgirls
« on: February 29, 2020, 09:19:35 am »

Sorry not sorry. (Download link)

This stupid mod adds a new secret, as well as 3 new creatures, themed around felines. It was all inspired by a pun somebody made in the DF discord. I regret nothing. While I have tested this mod, I haven't done so extensively, and I'm not sure I want to justify spending more time testing it since it's supposed to be a joke :b (Also, let's agree to ignore the fact that there are more cats in the game than just the domesticated ones)
New creatures
  • Hellcat - A vicious and evil cat. They're a bit bigger than regular cats, but still very small. They make up for their size with their natural fighting ability, ferocity, and fangs and claws made of bronze. They occur underground in evil biomes, and entities with access to evil creatures always have access to them. Oh, they're also fire resistant (and so all of their materials should be fire safe) and can spit searing globs of spittle. Have fun with those.
  • Nekomimi (catgirl, catboy) (again, not sorry) - Humanoid creatures with the ears and tails of cats. They're unintelligent and kept as pets, fulfilling the same role as cats. They don't appear naturally in the world, and can only be summoned by Nekomancers. It's possible that you might be able to obtain them from encounters with Nekomancers.
  • Oninekomimi (hellcatgirl, hellcatboy) - Evil hellcat variants of the nekomimi, which are basically just nekomimi with all of the traits and abilities of hellcats. They never naturally occur, and are the result of a Nekomancer corrupting a nekomimi.
Remember: As with any pet creature, outsider adventurers should always have access to them.

Nekomancy
Nekomancy is learned in the same way as its necromantic counterparts - people fearing death appeal to the gods for slabs containing the knowledge, and then will do what they usually do with the information. Nekomancers are interested in the more important things in life - that is to say, cats - rather than silly things like life and death. As such, Nekomancers only gain the benefit of never ageing (thanks, nine lives), rather than the extensive "bonuses" that necromancers gain. The powers that they gain are listed below.

Note for adventure mode: the raise x servant, pet caringly, and intelligence-granting headpat all bestow a short-lasting excitement-seeking boost, which should make the recipient far more likely to agree to adventure with you for the duration.

Animation
Be aware that all of the Nekomancer's animation abilities require that the body is both fit for resurrection (has an upperbody) and fit for animation (has an intact head, and ??). Also, since interaction targeting is bugged, avoid targeting corpses that you have animated or transformed before, since unintended things will occur (df bug unfortunately, not much I can do about it).
  • Raise hellcat - Reanimates a corpse into a hellcat.
  • Raise (catgirl/boy) servant - Resurrects a corpse and turns them into an immortal, intelligent nekomimi. This works in a similar way to how necromancer lieutenants function, so they may still be hostile to you if you were an enemy in their life. They don't get any special abilities or anything.
Summoning
  • Summon pet cat - Summon a regular cat which is made your pet.
  • Summon pet (catgirl/boy) - Summon a regular (unintelligent) nekomimi as a pet.
  • Conjure catsplosion - Temporarily summon a blob of cats to act as distractions, which disappear after a short amount of time. Unfortunately because of some problems with DF, the location you choose to summon them is ignored, and they will always be summoned around the caster no matter what.

Other Abilities
  • Pet Caringly - A special pet interaction that you can use on creatures regardless of level of intelligence. The receiver gets a small happy thought, and is somewhat relieved from any pain, dizziness, fever, or nausea they might be feeling.
  • Intelligence-granting headpat - Another special pet interaction which grants the petee the ability to think and talk.
  • Corrupting headpat - An infernal magic pet interaction, which will warp cats and nekomimi into their hellish counterparts. Note that because of dwarf fortress limitations, you won't be able to use this on nekomimi gained from the raise x servant interaction.
Technically there's nothing that stops you from using the pet interactions on yourself (and some of them you can use on creatures several tiles away... no idea why).

voliol

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Re: [47.x][Joke] Nekomancy - Cats, magic headpats... and catgirls
« Reply #1 on: February 29, 2020, 10:43:20 am »

It was inevitable. And terryfying. And perhaps for the best.

Do the hellcats have any specific source of inspiration? Are they bakeneko, or something more generic/an original creation? [EVIL] and underground biomes don’t mesh, they’ll appear in any cavern regardless of surface biome alignment, like e.g. reachers.

The ”intelligence-granting headpat” is a nice feature, for those who are put off by the uncomfortable implications of pet humanoids (including myself). Wait, maybe it’s not, do they stay pets after being granted sentience?

IndigoFenix

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Re: [47.x][Joke] Nekomancy - Cats, magic headpats... and catgirls
« Reply #2 on: February 29, 2020, 12:29:55 pm »

You ever hear of Bakeneko?  Ordinary cats that develop various supernatural abilities, including but not limited to animating the dead.

I once added wild Nekomata that, if they encountered a regular cat, would secretly give it an animate dead interaction.  Much fun would be had.

Atkana

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Re: [47.x][Joke] Nekomancy - Cats, magic headpats... and catgirls
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2020, 02:56:40 am »

It was inevitable. And terryfying. And perhaps for the best.

Do the hellcats have any specific source of inspiration? Are they bakeneko, or something more generic/an original creation? [EVIL] and underground biomes don’t mesh, they’ll appear in any cavern regardless of surface biome alignment, like e.g. reachers.

The ”intelligence-granting headpat” is a nice feature, for those who are put off by the uncomfortable implications of pet humanoids (including myself). Wait, maybe it’s not, do they stay pets after being granted sentience?
It is sad, but not unexpected.

Hellcats were just inspired by boring old regular ideas of demonic cats (I guess technically Runescape could be said to have inspired them, since it's the first thing that introduced me to the concept :P). That's useful to know about the cavern creatures stuff, my original idea was to have them both available to evil creatures, as well as in deep caverns. I based most of my info on what was listed on the wiki, which mentioned that cave creatures need to occur at depth 1 to be available to civilisations, though I don't think that would actually matter for goblin civs because I ended up giving hellcats COMMON_DOMESTIC so they're always available to them, just like beak dogs.

As for the pet thing, yeah, they remain pets even after being granted intelligence, though to be fair pets and companions are treated almost exactly the same in adventure mode (aside from being able to name, lead, and gift pets). However, since uplifted creatures are considered both pets and intelligent beings, you can gift them themselves as pets, so they're not owned by anyone else. No idea of the fort mode ramifications of doing any of that, though :b

You ever hear of Bakeneko?  Ordinary cats that develop various supernatural abilities, including but not limited to animating the dead.

I once added wild Nekomata that, if they encountered a regular cat, would secretly give it an animate dead interaction.  Much fun would be had.
Aw man, I very briefly looked into them when seeing if there would be any appropriate names I could use for things, and must've missed that whole animating the dead part :c Secret dead-animating cats do sound very fun. Did you release that mod anywhere?

IndigoFenix

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Re: [47.x][Joke] Nekomancy - Cats, magic headpats... and catgirls
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2020, 05:42:29 am »

You ever hear of Bakeneko?  Ordinary cats that develop various supernatural abilities, including but not limited to animating the dead.

I once added wild Nekomata that, if they encountered a regular cat, would secretly give it an animate dead interaction.  Much fun would be had.
Aw man, I very briefly looked into them when seeing if there would be any appropriate names I could use for things, and must've missed that whole animating the dead part :c Secret dead-animating cats do sound very fun. Did you release that mod anywhere?

It's in my Mostly Mythical Monsters Mod somewhere.  I'm not sure how well it works in the current version though, necromancer interactions and pet behavior have both been changed so it's possible they might not work the same way.