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[darkflagrance]

Half-elves in DF would be interesting, because from comparing the current Ethics, humans would find the whole "Killan then Eatan" repulsive, which begs the question of how a half-elf would be conceived.

The first possibility is (be mature, people ) rape, similar to the origins of most half-orcs in settings where there are orcs. The other is [BREEDWITHELF:SHUN]

It's also not impossible that some humans don't give a damn about cannibalism, or some elves don't care for the taste of human meat over that of a kiss from the one they love...

If they're gonna overcome the inherent cross-breeding stigma with their love, they probably overcome the other ethics barriers too.

[Vester]

Yeah, but they'll get shunned. Not only would the child be a social outcast, but the parents as well.

(are the social ramifications of interspecies breeding still within the topic's purview?)

I'm actually very interested as to how this sort of thing would turn out if implemented.

[darkflagrance]

Yeah, but they'll get shunned. Not only would the child be a social outcast, but the parents as well.

(are the social ramifications of interspecies breeding still within the topic's purview?)

I'm actually very interested as to how this sort of thing would turn out if implemented.

As would I.

(Do note that the shunning of the parents also happens in a lot of half-elf stuff)

It might also be a relationship of the mother (elf) eating the father (human) after conception, a la praying mantis or spider.

[Atarlost]

Had a different turn of events (AKA: The Demons deciding to enslave the dwarves or humans rather than the Goblins), then this might well be Goblin Fortress, or you might be meeting with a goblin liason rather than a human one most of the time.

I like this idea.  Culture shouldn't be a static input to worldgen, it should be an output.  There should be a possibility of getting elves adopting a human-like or dwarf-like culture if driven from the forests, peacable goblins, child snatching demon following humans, and dwarfs that got over their aversion to eating sentients because they had a severe famine and a mountain of human corpses at the same time. 

[Granite26]

As a first point, I think it's important not to place too much stock in the stock universe, since I'm not very attached to it and really would like to use it as a springboard for more varied, generated civilizations and so on over time.  That said, some of the mechanics that persist will likely take sides one way or another in nature vs. nurture arguments and various historical determinism paradigms and all that.<P>Right now, and it's likely to continue more or less in this way for a long while, the creature definition says what part is nature, and the entity definition says what part is nurture.  For instance, at this point, a kidnapped elf will still use the elven personality definition to determine their personality profiles, and in this way, an elven leader for a goblin civilization will behave differently from a goblin leader, even though the elf still has the goblin culture.  At this time, the post-kidnap process is entirely unspecified -- whether or not that should have impact on an elf's personality or self-image and so on is all up in the air.  I don't think it's a given that an elf would feel bad about being an elf in a goblin civ, since kidnapping is such an important part of goblins society, and in that way elves are valued in goblin society -- they could very well feel at home among the other elves there, and made to feel as if they belong, but nothing is decided here.  Certainly the stock creatures will have pliable minds when it comes to goblin indoctrination -- there'd be no point for the kidnapping mechanic otherwise, though it would certainly be interesting to have their individual personalities affect the outcome, leading to conflict with the more obstinate ones, etc.<P>"Alignment" is something I'd like to avoid.  I'd rather deal with specific universe metaphysics, which I'd hope to have generated.  It would be a fair mechanic to have some sort of "evil" associated to creatures like demons that is inherent to their nature, and as it stands, the stock demon in the raws would receive any such concept that arises, but the custom world map fields and creature variables that come up don't have to be alignment-driven.  As it stands in the raws at this time, there's a basically unused [EVIL] tag for demons and goblins (which is sort of a placeholder for their underworld status), and the evil of goblins is cultural -- aside from their negative personalities, which are inherent traits.  The demon in particular has a very nasty personality, and it's always set to extreme values on certain traits -- this is a natural property in that all demons generated will be this way, though we have no idea what the underworld was like...  perhaps it affects demons in horrible, horrible ways.<P>I think racial loyalty/xenophobia could work as both a creature (natural) and an entity (cultural) parameter.  Ideally, for modding purposes, every parameter would be handled that way, so that you could set a xenophobia value wherever you think it should be for humans, and then have some of their societies modify that value.  Wherever I'd stick that on the DF humans, I think the system should probably be set up to allow that sort of wiggling.<P>As for leaders and good vs. evil ones etc., there really isn't a lot of interaction at this point between the leader's personality and their overall culture.  Of course, that sort of thing is a drama/conflict goldmine and should be exploited, but we aren't there yet.  In general though, instead of good vs. evil, it would have to handle the creatures personality and ethical framework vs. the personality and ethical framework of the host culture -- that would just have to be handled a step at a time.  An elf enslaved from its formerly tree-loving society and placed in the role of a woodcutter currently feels no conflict -- I basically have to go through all of the professions and teach it more about each one so that critters can better judge their situation.<P>I'm sorry this is all sort of vague/rambling/dodging, but like I said, the core response here is that I'd like to have the game designed to answer most of the questions in more than one way.  I don't really have a desired direction so much as I'd like a robust system.  Of course, this is a lot of work, so many of the issues will fall squarely on one side of the fence or the other and choices will be made, but it's not something I can really anticipate for a given DF civilization, since I don't have strong feelings about it.<P>The same holds for all the metaphysical/deity stuff -- I'll put in as much as I can put in, and for magic and religion in particular, I'm not planning to do much with stock DF at all -- it really should be world dependent (though the already-defined religion spheres such as "fire" and so on will certainly constrain the outcome in stock DF a bit).  Some of the religions should be fake (they are all fake now), and some of them should be real (probably has to wait for magic, though some elements can be put in early).  Right now, religious groups can build temples and convert people within sites, but there aren't any attempts to convert outside of that, and there's no general notion of cultural diffusion or anything like that.  This will start to come up more with the caravan arc when civilizations start to have non-violent dealings with one another.<P>...  I have to get back to work.  I apologize in advance for the lack of proofreading.

[CobaltKobold]

@half-elves: well, if I read their(elfs')ethics right, killing someone TO eat them is verboten. Only enemies are safe eats.

"Harm no living thing, but those that harm living things, and if they're already dead, well, no harm, right?"

[ManaUser]

@half-elves: well, if I read their(elfs')ethics right, killing someone TO eat them is verboten. Only enemies are safe eats.

I don't think you did. EAT_SAPIENT_KILL appears to mean eating people you killed (for any reason), while EAT_SAPIENT_OTHER means eating people who died some other way. Elves consider the former ACCEPTABLE, and the latter UNTHINKABLE, so apparently they think it's okay to eat people only if you kill this yourself.

More alarmingly even, they have KILL_NEUTRAL:ACCEPTABLE, which sounds as if it means they think it's fine to kill just anybody (other than an elf). But the good news is, lying as punishable by exile (their harshest punishment), so if an elf tells you they wont eat you, you can probably trust them.

</derail>
<topic="Hot Skitty on Wailord action">

[uran77]

half elf half tree hybrids FTW

[darkflagrance]

half elf half tree hybrids FTW

So basically dryads?

[Jude]

The combinatorial explosion of proportion-of-elfs would get ridiculous. Plus, none of it would make that much sense without meaningful genetics. If Toady is putting genetics in the game, I'm sure all they're going to do would be simulate a lot of dwarves' predetermined traits.

Presently, yes, as far as I'm understanding.

On the flip side, it'd be possible to just make all those creature tags act as genes, and maybe throw in some Mendelian (or semi-mendelian) interactions, which aren't at all hard for diploids.

That's not very realistic either, of course (as in, it would be a huge oversimplification of how genes actually work)

[Granite26]

If you wanted to go the boring elves and dwarves and humes are all subspecies the same way black and white are on Earth...

[uran77]

half elf half tree hybrids FTW

So basically dryads?

or ENTS

[Scoops Novel]

ENTS!
BATMEN!







Alright, seriously now. I'm all for half breeds, and not just of the stock fantasy creatures; I'd like to see kobold and goblin half breeds, if the former of which is rather uncommon. I'd also like to see the more interesting ones, such as griffons and chimeras, arise from magic, though as Vestor previously mentioned if you're approaching it from a story-telling, realistic standpoint, i can see why you might want to have more sickening origins for races like half-orcs, though whether that would necessarily add something to the story hinges on much else, and i wouldn't blame toady for not including it.

However, where this gets particularly problematic is when you start moving down the line to toady's goal of unique races to a world. For that it would seem an algorithm would be a necessity, though I'm sure others have better and more accurate ideas.

[Urist_McDrowner]

If we make it a very simple allele system, then when halfbreeds reproduce the odds are


EH breeds with EH: (I feel like I'm in freshman biology all over again. PUNNET SQUARES)

HH=Human
EH=Half Elf
EH=Half Elf
EE=Elf.

1/2 chance of making a half elf, 25% of making a human, 25% of making an elf.


This avoids the problem of -half -half -half breeds.

Likewise, EH hooks up with ED (Elf Dwarf)

EE= Elf
ED= Elf Dwarf
EH=Half elf
HD=Half Dwarf.

[Urist_McDrowner]

If you wanted to go the boring elves and dwarves and humes are all subspecies the same way black and white are on Earth...

Fact-Check: Black and white are not subspecies. The morphological differences between elves, dorfs and humans DWARFS (punintended) the difference between black and white.