Worked on v1.2.0 and v1.1.1 interchangeably, as 1.1.1 the "Creature Class Update" became 1.2.0 the "Final? Content Update"
v1.2.01
Bugs: fixed a bug where civs had stopped spawning because everyone was [FEMALE]
Bugs: dryads were missing a tag that stopped them from spawning
Bugs: as a side effect of the work from VABritto, finally squashed a longstanding bug causing some civs to generate vanilla lowercase leaders despite code suggesting otherwise
Files: deleted "descriptor_color_spellcrafts_civ" as it caused demon names that looked wrong, and we weren't using it anyway
Entities: multiple small changes to improve position name flavor (thanks VABritto for identifying many of them)
v1.2.0
Files: updated and copied OP Post 3, with all the guide info, into a PDF file to distribute with the mod
Additions: added Cryomancy as an "aborted" fort/adv magic school. Basically, your wizard is trying to learn necromancy, but discovers ice spells instead. (It doesn't have a unique focus; resonate two aether foci together.)
Additions: added the Pristinely Ungifted humans, another lineage, who are resistant to magic and also can't learn magic, explaining how humans in the mod story/setting are the only creatures with [OUTSIDER], always able to survive.
Additions: added Failed Hybrids, humanoid [GOOD] creatures that help finish telling the mod story/setting
Additions: added salt (water), energy (fire), steam (water+fire), smoke (fire+air), and dust (earth+air) elementals to round out the set.
Additions: added back Frost (Ice) Giants from Spellcrafts as a tribal/population creature, because Jotun are very iconic and we didn't have any substitute quite yet. They are another creature that can unlock sorcery, like dryads and carp.
Additions: added back two more tb_dnd_fiend s in their hell versions only.
Additions: added scarab beetles and their variations
Additions: added forest cats and lap dogs, which perform the functions of dogs and cats, respectively, in case you really prefer one species or the other. They are 100% vanilla and in their own file, creature_highfantasy_domestic, so it's basically a standalone mini-mod.
Additions: added Khezu ("Pale Wyvern"), which is acid-based (although also paralyze immune), rounding out the set of 5 non-standard elemental dragons to match the 5 standard elemental dragons. (Wyvern is poison based, and philia are r/w/b)
Additions: split skelk into skelk minions, which work as before but don't naturally spawn, and matriarchs, which naturally spawn and have difficulty 11, meaning they won't be assigned as quests in adventure mode. This is important because they suffer from the vanilla Enemy Invisibility bug.
Additions from SPL Vanilla Expanded, v9.1 or earlier:
plant_surface_trees, because they are all [SAVAGE][GOOD]or[EVIL], except giant bamboo, and help identify those biomes
plant_surface_shrubs: mostly just the real ones. Why not others? Balance, and the need to find specific plants for spellcrafts and adventurecraft things.
plant_surface_grass: just chimegrass
creature_fish_cavern_ex: added all these vermin and the grotto shark; skipped cap grabbers; added HF layer toggles to them
creature_fish_surface_ex: added, except the mythical goldfish
creature_birds_surface_ex: added, and standardized animalman sizes for armor
creatures_invertibrates_surface_ex: added, although its files are split between here and the old version of the file... messy
creatures_entities_ex: hill dogs (dwarves) and siege turtles (mer)
materials: added black steel and white gold; gave them to any entities that can make steel.
ported: - Nightwings have been rendered slow learners, allowing Dark Pit civs to potentially field them as minions like they might blizzard men, ogres, and trolls.
ported: - One- and two-humped camels given innate discipline for when they're used as mounts.
ported: - Bumblebees can now be hived, so you can get their products for units who like them.
NOTES: SPL/ex has a lot of other creatures that we didn't use, but can be placed into Highfantasy pretty easily on your own. Will note this on the "compatibility" page of the OP.
Interactions: Increased cast timer of Invisibility to Once a week in fort mode, once an hour in adventure mode. This effects Oni, Stalkers, Skelk, Lesser Imps, faerie dragons, all 4 genie types, and all Shadow Lineage caste creatures; but...
Interactions: Removed Invisibility from Lesser Imps, Faerie Dragons, and Genies due to the above.
Interactions: the game-ending megabeast now has Cave-in Dust, usable a little less than once a day in fort mode.
Interactions: changed any reference to the old spellcrafts school names in the interactions of spell essences to the new school names. did not bother changing the names in the SYNDROMEs, only in the CE_CAN_DO_INTERACTIONs.
Interactions: added "slab recording" for shadowmancy secret because it's more fun, even if it seems like some super dark magic
Interactions: rewrote the code for polymorphy reactions so that in addition to keeping your gender when used on a humanoid creature, it will also now work by default on other creatures from dogs to dinosaurs to dragons. (The best part is that animalpeople are immune to polymorphy so i was able to skip adding m/f tags for all their constituent animals. Excelsior!)
Interactions: easter egg: doppelgangers, when polymorphed, are often polymorphed to the wrong gender, due to ability to confuse the caster
Interactions: gave Cave Fish Men the magic to teach Temporary NoBreathing, a spellcrafts spell from the now-removed Furry Cave Shark creature.
Interactions: gave Cave Swallow Men the magic to teach Temporary Extravision, like the above.
Entities: amphibian men are now a 3rd selection in the "level 2" cave civilizations. This balances that fact that adding cavern screechers to the "level 1" cave civs meant there were 5 options for level 1, and only 2 options for level 2; plus, amphibian men were feeling a bit lost in the mess of the rest of the caverns.
Entities: enabled reactions for studying polymorphy (basic), cryo magic (necromancy), crafting the pyro focus, and crafting an icestorm basin to magic entities
Entities: merfolk now properly exclude animal people from their amphibian pets
Entities: human guardsmen and such are called "imperial" rather than "royal" (thanks VABritto)
Entities: re-enabled Picks for goblins (they had an alternate pick, but...forget it). Their embark profile should work again.
Entities: re-enabled sky sharks as always pet for sahuagin. Unsure when this was disabled, presumably before 1.0.0. Also added grotto sharks from SPL. (Not always present, just pet)
Entities: Because they have unique weapon philosophies, Mer and Dark gnome (creature) profession names have been updated.
Entities: dark gnome civilization now have access to hatchets for treecutting. I wouldn't count on them for combat, though... stick to the golems for that.
By the way, you can also use the conjuring circle to conjure an aether axe, even for elves, who otherwise still have no axes.
Creatures: All elementals are now /weak/ to aetherial magic and spell-iron but highly resistant to all other damage (1/5, was 3/5). They are also generally immune to elemental damage sources, although air works on air (shock/lightning does not).
Creatures: On the other hand, all genies are now highly /resistant/ to aetherial magic. They have the same elemental damage resistances as elementals.
Creatures: Fire genies are no longer resistant to dragonfire; that seemed a bit extreme.
Creatures: Dragons, Chimeras, and Drakes - Black and Green are half as common, so together they equal the ratio of one of the three other domains
Creatures: ported spellcrafts improvement to Feedling summoning of food (no longer requires nest box)
Creatures: ported spellcrafts improvement to minidwarves now produce coins, not bars; also, they are now creature_class:dwarf which effects nothing.
Creatures: nephilim difficulty (quest xp) increased from 3 to 6
Creatures: skelk (matriarchs) and oni now have difficulty: 11 to stop them being assigned as quests in adventure mode, since they Hide.
Creatures: sahuagins now swim innate, rather than learned; this was an oversight.
Creatures: Hybrids now join Lizal and others as not creature_class:general poison, giving a huge advantage against poisons.
Creatures: ZM5 Resolve Breakers (formerly named Resolution Breaker, Gemini - same thing) now have a psionic attack but are also now weak again lucid iron, just like other psi creatures
Creatures: Behirs moved to cavern layer 2; was 0-1
Creatures: Gnome golems are now /extremely/ weak to electricity, of the kind you might find breathed out of blue draconic things
Names/Descriptions: the three Dementia bosses are now unified by a naming convention, "hollow one" instead of "hollow" (1 word dementia creatures are minions).
this also gave the opportunity to restore ZM5's chosen name to the "Dessicated (One)"; was "Assemblage" in 1.0.01
Also confirmed that all three spawn in groups of just one... get it?
Names/Descriptions: Added descriptions to the thoughtless, sightless, and moldslaves that spawn NATURALLY to distinguish them from the summoned minions.
In the case of moldslaves, also called them "aged" to fit goblin pet name standards, since they don't need to follow the Dementia/Eldritch naming conventions (thoughless/sightless do.)
Names/Descriptions: Crystal charger shrunk 10x and renamed to Carbuncle, which is not just a FF ip name but also a Chilean mythical creature.
Names/Descriptions: Restored the vanilla name to Green Devourers; note that devourer scorpions (aboveground) are something totally different
Names/Descriptions: Bulette is now land shark, removing an ip-based name. Behir is now lightning crawler. Things like basilisk are multimedia, but bulette is pretty dnd-specific. Plus, it matches sky sharks. Did you know we have sky sharks?
Names/Descriptions: Philia is now bipedal dragon, removing an ip-based name.
Names/Descriptions: Renamed goroistro to "agitator." Succubi are established fantasy creatures, as is now the balor (especially given the tolkien influence of this mod), and mariliths are from indian folklore.
Names/Descriptions: Meanwhile the underground versions of these and other demons had names changed to fit a "seven deadly sins" theme. Completed names/descriptions pass on tb_dnd_fiends.
Names/Descriptions: Ents renamed to simply Treefolk. What would you call it if a tree just up and hit you? ip-based name. (maybe we should just call them trees... hehe)
Names/Descriptions: Hybrids are renamed to chimeric hybrids, and had their color changed to be the same as necromancer failed experiments
Names/Descriptions: Eastern/Sky dragons renamed to guardian dragons... i've been looking for a new name for a while
Names/Descriptions: changed the display name for the miracle secret to channeler
Names/Descriptions: changed the secret-discovery names for nature and for shadows to differ slightly based on the sphere they were discovered through (animals/trees, birth/darkness)
Reactions: All item conjuring reactions now use TRAPPING instead of ALCHEMY, to match summoning reactions. Considering that the altar uses concentration and the bronze golem uses mechanics, this diversifies the use of skills in the fort magic system. It also makes sense given the clear purpose of the planar tome as of 1.0.0.
Reactions: The fort and adv mode reactions "attempt to create a fireball basin, fail, but have 1% chance to succeed in making a pyromancy focus" are now MUCH more player friendly by preserving reagents and discarding the milk bulb (but not the bar of ash).
Reactions: Added a reaction to adv mode which, like the failed fireball basin, attempts to transmute stone to metal but has a 4% chance to succeed in creating a light yellow diamond. (Still requires a grimoire, so not a solution to the scarcity problem).
Reactions: The fort mode reaction "exchange - aether salts" has been renamed "exchange - exotic items" and is much, much less generous now.
Reactions: moved generic disease resist + cleaning back to general from divine school
Reactions: moved unused generic earth spell to polymorphy
Reactions: pushed basins (aka, tower defense devices) back even farther in the tech tree; creating a basin now requires the consumption of a focus but is now back to 100% success (was 85)
Materials: made a bunch of changes to ensure that you can always train alchemy in the fort even if not playing with cheats and therefore unable to enable the alchemy skill manually
the Magestaff now trains the Alchemy skill, which is important because it's not easy to enable alchemy and migrants don't necessarily arrive with it.
the magestaff is now created through specific reactions only, at the wizard workshop, using ENCRUSTGEM and a rough gem. This also helps rebalance it as an "elite" weapon like guns.
changed the spellcrafts building requirements to take any rough gem, not just diamonds, so that the building itself can be constructed early on...
updated the BUILDLABOR of the conjurer's circle to TRAPPER, from ALCHEMIST, to match its reactions; the enchanting table to MECHANICS for the same reason
...but re-added the diamond requirement on the grimoire itself in fort mode (like in adv mode) to keep magic far back in the tech tree
charges for the magestaff are now created through specific reactions only, at the wizard workshop, using CUTGEM and a rough gem. Gems have more uses that ever!
these charges are always* made of aether, so aether-resistant creatures are even resistant to the spell attack of the magestaff.
In addition to training alchemy, this addresses the fact that the Magestaff was the last remaining weapon not balanced against Sver's weapon combat values.
*gnome "magitek" boost - dark gnomes (and angels) can still craft magestaffs and charges out of any material, and can embark with them
for other entities, removed the magestaff and bolts as cultural weapons so they can't be made out of anything.
Created the reactions "..STAFF" and "...SPELLBOLTS" which were defined in entities, but did not exist; added them in fort and adv mode
Materials: *drumroll please* ... crafting spellbolts now has a 1% chance to produce a faint yellow diamond, fixing the scarcity problem.
Materials: the grimoire and the spellstaff both require aether salt to create, which means little since it's free to scavenge for.
Materials: Slightly adjusted material values of foci to rise with difficulty of obtaining. You can now start ADV mode with a planar tome.
Materials: All foci can now be made from hard, soft, or metal components (for starting as a flavorful adventure mode wizard)
Materials: Removed aether-metal anvils, for balance purposes, because every civ was able to embark with them. Not every civ having access to iron/steel anvils is a core part of the DF vanilla experience.
Materials: The focus reward for killing an aetherial has been upgraded to a planar tome.
Materials: All aboveground elementals now drop an aether focus as the reward for killing them; that's a LOT of options
Materials: In a pinch, you can now make blunt attacks with a grimoire (FFXIV-style).
Materials: made cold iron effective against demon vermin
Materials: made iron (regular) effective against fey and feytouched creatures
Materials: lowered drakes' item values from 7 to 3, since chimeras are only a 4x
Bugs: Duplicate creatures - deleted EX coconut crabs and spider crabs, and VVV version of centipedes. There's... not really rhyme or reason to it.
Bugs: Duplicate plants - deleted VVV cloudberry, since adventurecraft already fleshes out the vanilla cloudberry plant
Bugs: great dragon, drake, chimera, philia - added "no heatdam" to materials to hoepfully stop red dragons from spontaneously melting
Bugs: fixed some remaining bugs with entity positions leaders. Many thanks to VABritto who documented the needed changes thoroughly.
Bugs: fixed a bug that stopped succubi from SENSE-ing potential mates, then corrected that same line of code where I had copied it to Lamias
Bugs: fixed multiple Spellcrafts bugs related to CE_SENSE_CREATURE_CLASS using "START" as the class improperly
Bugs: fixed errors preventing the inclusion of lorises; they're back.
Bugs: fixed a bug causing the dementia indoctrination spell to be un-usable
Bugs: death-dropping of foci was actually broken on most creatures because of the vanilla bug preventing butchering of sentients. Fixed them to dissappear into smoke and leave the focus behind, except for the chimeras and hollow.
Code Cleanup: Annihilator's calling interaction moved from ZM5 to HF text file
Code Cleanup: Removed unused ZM5 lurks below/cavern revamp minions from the raws. There was nothing to spawn them anyway. Keep this in mind if manually adding back in other lurks below / cavern revamp creatures.
Code Cleanup: Removed unused ZM5 file "inorganic_cavern_revamp_zm5"
Code Cleanup: Split off all the real-world animals from creature_highfantasy into creature_highfantasy_animals
v1.1.1
Code Cleanup: Note! even though most Creature Classes from mods are underused, never remove them; simply add the right one and mix compatibility as needed. You never know when someone will suddenly decide to make "creature_class:beetle" matter...
Code Cleanup: NON-FUNCTIONAL creature class additions:
3 spelldivine creatures are now ccCelestial
gorgons are now cchumanoid and ccMONSTROUS_HUMANOID
5 creatures in SPELL_ACHWURM are now ccOUTSIDER, as are 2 in SPELL_EXTRADIMENSIONAL
ice and vacuum elementals are no longer ccSPELL_FEY
lizardmen are now ccLIZARD
unicorn and pegasus are now ccGOOD
chimeric hybrids, failed hybrids, and chimeras are now ccHYBRID. griffons already were.
nymphs are now ccWATER_ELEMENTAL like neriads, oriads
golems are now ccMECHANICAL_ZM ccCONSTRUCT
ZM5 border of hell vermin (3) got ccDEMON_PET and ccFIEND; hell hounds got ccDEMONIC_ZM; soul wisps got ccDEMON_PET
Code Additions: FUNCTIONAL creature class additions:
3 spelldivine creatures are now ccHOLYIMMUNE and 2 others are now ccFIEND
the underworld versions of tb_dnd_fiend s and cr hell vermin are ccTURNIMMUNE, this stops them from being hurt by antievil bolt; they are "stronger" because they've been in hell. Explains why antievil bolt doesn't work on vanilla demons.
siege weapins and gnome golems and many spellcrafts creatures are ccNORAISE
carbuncles, like ungifted humans, are ccMAGIC_IMMUNE
resolve breakers are now ccPSYIMMUNE
gargoyles are no longer ccELEMENTAL, but keep earth advantages
lorises and lemurs are now ccMONKEY
toads, skales, and skelk are now ccAMPHIBIAN
vacuum (spellcrafts air) elementals are now ccINCORPOREAL, like tb_dnd ones
water and air (tb_dnd) elementals are now ccINORGANIC, like spellcrafts ones
faerie dragons are no longer ccMONSTER
dryads (spellcrafts) are now ccNATURE_ZM, ccFEY, and ccSPELL_PLANTSHROOM, and ccHUMANOID for good measure
mushroom men (spell), cactus men (HF), treefolk, walking gingko, and tanglethorn are now ccNATURE_ZM and ccSPELL_PLANTSHROOM
ZM5 cavern plant creatures are now ccSPELL_PLANTSHROOM; they and cavern mold creatures are also ccNATURE_ZM
VVV creatures with ccCARNIVORE_MAMMAL are now also ccLIKES_MEAT
air beast (spell) is ccINORGANIC, ccAIR_ELEMENTAL, and ccGAS, but not incorporeal; they are also the new only ccAIR_IMMUNE.
water elemental things are now both ccCOLDIMMUNE ccCOLD_IMMUNE
air elemental things are now both ccSHOCKIMMUNE ccLIGHTNING_IMMUNE
fire elemental things are now both ccFIREIMMUNE and have MAGMAVISION (earth elemental things were already ccPETRIFYIMMUNE)
fey things are no longer ccGENERAL_POISON, are ccACIDIMMUNE
planetouched creatures are now straight up immune to a school of magic
"tieflings" to pyromancy (although taking a rock of magma to the face still hurts)
"aasimar" to divine magic and lightning
"feytouched" to polymorphy, acid, and poison (but still GENERAL_POISON)
"shadowtouched" to dementia magic, but not to the full dark magic of the eldritch creatures
"genasi" to ALL aetherial magic PLUS the elemental magic school they are associated with
"drow" are resistant to aetherial magic but not immune
---Interactions and/or Inorganics:
ghoul poison (tb dnd) now also does not effect [SYN_IMMUNE_CLASS:GOLEM][SYN_IMMUNE_CLASS:INORGANIC][SYN_IMMUNE_CLASS:MECHANICAL_ZM]
ZM5 petrifying gas now does not effect ccPETRIFY_IMMUNE
spell_aetherial_sense_auras can also properly sense poison-dragon things, which would otherwise have been overlooked. It's possible poison dragons are immune to some other reactions they shouldn't be; will watch this over time.
many materials in many inorganic_spellcrafts: added magic_immune and aether_immune (and 2 shadow_immune) as necessary
many interactions in interaction_spellcrafts_sch_d: added ccpoly_immune as immune for poly reactions
antievil bolts are no longer effective against eldritch creatures nor shadowtouched lineages, but do now hit spellcrafts undead
noraise as an immunity class to: shadow raise, all spellcraft reanimations, eldritch/mold raise from cavern revamp/lurksbelow
other additions of sensible resisting classes to the interactions themselves, generally such that holy can't hit holy, etc
dementia wizard school is considered "weak" eldritch magic; shadow can block shadow but can't block dementia
---Entirely New:
new class: [SYN_IMMUNE_CLASS:SHADOW_IMMUNE] specific to dementia magic
creatures: dark dweller, shadow lineages
spells: dementia spells
new class: [SYN_IMMUNE_CLASS:POLY_IMMUNE] specific to polymorph magic
creatures: dryad, nymph, oread, neriad, pixie, faerie, will o' wisp, faerie dragon; animalpeople CVs; underground animal people; carp men
spells: polymorphy spells
new class: [SYN_IMMUNE_CLASS:HORROR_IMMUNE] specific to eldritch attacks
creatures: NONE (cannot add a creature class via syndrom

spells: Annihilator dust, burning pain, sightless transformation, thoughtless infection, others