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[Neonivek]

I am writing this in a similar way to the Underground Diversity thread mostly because it is much cleaner (though I don't know how to do links to specific sections of the same thread) and is very much needed if you wish people to read otherwise what could be long posts. Ill have to ask them how they linked to specific posts later, as it would help.

Terms

-Template Creature: a entirely new creature who is created by applying a set of rules and code to currently existing creatures.
-Template the set of rules that govern this new creature.
-Phantom: an invented term that is used to reference to Body codes that imitate a creature when it isn't involved.


Conversion to Template:
These are suggestions that offer ways to transform currently existing creatures into a template of their own.

• Animalmen: Current Animalmen are currently premade creatures who appear only as their vermin form. They could benefit from a template that allows them to be constructed by just about any animal in the game or that is modded in
• Giant: Giants are an odd race of exceptions but are one of the most easy to place in requiring size increases. Though it is noticeable that Giants also have other abilities and changes that occur in the code as well
• Materialmen: Ironmen, Magmamen, and Blizzardmen ohh my. They present and entirely new kind of template allowing the use of materials to determine how the creature turns out. They would definately be the next step up.
• Curses: They appear to be in it of themselves a template of another design that can pop-up during specific scenarios inside the game. Zombies, Skeletons, Werewolves, and even Vampirism would flurish under the system and open up new doors for templates that allow conditions for the occurance and removal of templates in the game outside of a fleshed out magic system. Toady has making curses more basic in the current Development lists

Types of Templates and Aggregates:
These list whole groups of Templates and types. They do relate closely with the other groups so crossover is to be expected.

• Multi-generated: Templates could use multiple creatures to generate new creatures using code from each one stored within
• Cross-breed: With the Template system in mind the general mechanics of cross-breeds could be drawn up and used. Problems with this however could develop from the inconsistency in the codes that could for example make a Mule much more horse then donkey in one case and more donkey then horse in another.
• Varience Dramatic and Slight: Using templates you could creature creatures who have different attributes from eachother from what materials they are made up of to even having different bodyparts. If used for a civilization it could even develop some sort of class system based on these random changes.

Specific Templates:
These are specific Templates drawn up that are not currently inside the game itself.

• Winged: Winged versions of animals permeate mythology from winged horses, cats, and even birds.
• Centaur: Half-humanoid and half-Creature. From Mermaids to Centaurs to even the final bosses of some of our favorite games. They have been in them all. Though they don't all have to follow the exact same pattern they are a welcome edition
• Minotaur: Half-animal and Humanoid. There are many ways to draw up the animal-men creatures and this is another method
• Chimera: The creature with the head of a dragon, snake, and goat. They have appeared in myths and games in many forms often more surreal then the last. A powerful Megabeast Chimera would not only be a new encounter every time, but it could make current threats seem like overall pushovers when compared to its amalgamated might

Template Mechanics:
These are ideas of how Templates could function as a whole. This excludes whole templates or template groups. These include major ideas or groups to save on room.

• Templates as Magic: Though magic is long ways away the Template system is a powerful way to creature entire new and enhanced creatures from your current stock.
• Relationship with Original: Just because it is an entirely new creature under the system it doesn't mean that the citizens of the world, the creatures it formed from, or even itself has to treat it that way. A Templated Chicken could still consider itself one and become its protectors and refrain from eating them except under dire circumstances.
• Relationship with Similar Templates: In a similar method to the animalmen in Threetoe's stories could creatures who use the same templates consider themselves part of the same family.
• Staple and Exceptions: Sometimes you just want the original. Mechanics that force the system to generate at least one creature according to one you select would be beneficial. Even further you could allow the system to generate entirely different creatures from the Template if it uses a specific creature of your choosing.
• Creature Materials Expanded: Iron, Magma, Snow, Water, Gold, Rock. All of these could work excellently for creatures and templates.

Other:
Things that are deemed important but cannot fit into the above groups can go here.

• RAWs Prefix and Suffix: Allowing creatures, materials, and other objects to have suffix and prefix would allow the creation of template creatures to have well themed names. Afterall wouldn't you get tired of "Human Wolf" and rather have "Demilupin"?
• Diet Templates: So your making your series of creatures and your getting tired of writing out their entire diet over and over. A Diet Template could allow you to, quickly and easily, apply specific diets to large amounts of creatures. This could even be expanded to allow variable diets. AKA: "Prey" Template

Thank you for reading. I encourage you to post and suggest.

[Soralin]

Flying Giant Carpmantaur?

[Neonivek]

Because Templates have to be loaded during creation they technically can't use Template creatures on Template creatures.

So you don't generally get Flying Dogman

For that to happen I guess you would first have to tell the RAWs what order to generate them and if the Template allows other templates to be used.


So I am thinking about how to do several templates in game for many different reasons and possibilities. Ill TRY to interpret many of Toady’s new changes when making these templates. Sorry that I don’t make these more interesting to read… Please try to contribute.

The original topic of this was for Animalmen. Partway through I realized that this could be used to finally consolidate “Template creatures”. This took longer then I thought and I got really sloppy right after animal men.

Definitions:
-Detail Parts: This is referencing parts that go onto parts that are not limbs or organs

Animalmen:

Animal men as they currently stand are mostly made up of vermin. This is a template that allows you to create an Animalman of any animal currently in the game.

Naming Scheme: *Creature*man

Creatures used: One

Creatures allowed: Living, non-intelligent, Cannot be a (Semi)Megabeast
--I realize that creatures with non-humanoid bodies may be a bit more complicated… I shall ignore it for now though.

Animalmen will always have a Body, Head, Arms, Hands, brain, and a Mouth. They always can learn and can always speak.

Lisp: Creatures with the “Reptile” tag will have the “Lisp” tag

Likes_Fighting: Creatures who are predatory will “Like_Fighting”

Size:
-Below 6:4-5
-6-10: the creature will have a size picked at random between the mean between the mean of 6 and Creature’s size rounded down and the Creature’s maximum size. A Cow would be between 7 and 9
-Above 10: The mean between 6 counted twice and Size rounded. So an Elephant would be between 9 and 11. A Whale Shark would be between 10 and 13

Flesh, Bones, Legs and Organs: These will always match that of the creature

Arms:
-Creature has Arms: In these cases it will use the original creature’s arms no matter how many of them it has.
-Arms but no hands: The creature will develop simple hands without nails or claws. It will share detail parts the arm contains such as suckers, spikes, hair, and fur.
-Armless and Legless: The creature will develop simple arms without detail parts
-No arms but Legs: The Animalman will have all the details of the legs on their new arms.
-Multiple Legs but no Arms: The creature will have arms equal to the number of legs -2 to the limit of 2 (Like Antmen)
-Arm-Legs: These are added directly to the creature, if they have no hands they develop ones
-Fingers: The creature will always try to match the number of toes/claws the creature has, lacking that it will have between 3-5 fingers

Legs:
-4 or less: The creature will have two legs
-5 or more: The creature retains all legs of original creature (Like Antmen)

Head: It uses the original Creature’s head except it always has a brain and mouth. If it needs to add a mouth then the creature will lack teeth.
--If the creature has no head (which I don’t know if it is even possible) it will use

Body: It also uses the original Creatures Body except with the addition of arms if it has none and fewer legs if it calls for it. This allows the creature to retain wings, tails, and other details.
--If creature gets more details then creatures will develop man-like features such as muscle definition.

Centaur Template:

Despite the name, this is actually an alternative Animalman method. This is much more simple then the above. So it shouldn’t take too long. I realized partway through that this could apply to a wider selection of creatures. Centaur creatures could also be Mermaids and Spider people.

Naming Scheme: *Creature1* Centaur

Creatures used: 2

First Creature: Non-Sentient Creature must have neck

Second Creature: Sentient humanoid creature
-It doesn’t have to be a human... This is just the

Size: It uses the largest of the two creature’s sizes

Environment: It uses the First Creature’s environment and a 50% chance to include the second creature’s as well

Main Body: It uses the first creature’s body

Secondary Body: The original creature’s neck, or head if it lacks a neck, is replaced with the second creature’s body
Body Details: The Secondary body will include details, such as a mane or spikes that the first body also contains.

Head: The head of the creature has a chance to be from either the first or second creature.
Head Details Differ: The head of the creature will contain any detail that one of the creatures lack on the head. (Thus an Elephant will have Tusks or an Ant will have Antenna)
Head Details are similar: If it uses the second creature’s head, each facial part will be contested for dominance until one is found.

Flesh:
-It has a 25% chance of using the stronger of the creature’s flesh for both, 25% chance of using the stronger creature’s flesh for the secondary body, 25% chance of using the second creature’s flesh for the second body, and a 25% chance of using the first creature’s flesh for the second body.

Aquatic: 25% chance of using first creature’s, 25% chance of using second, 50% chance of using both

Minotaur Template:

The third of the Animalman templates. This provides templates similar to that of Minotaur and a few other creatures. This also can produce the Naga.

Naming Scheme: *Creature*tyr, *Creature*aur, *Creature*ur

Original Creature: One animal

Secondary Creature: Sentient Living Humanoid

Size: Original creature

Head: It uses the original creature’s head
Upper Body: It uses the Secondary Creature’s body
Lower Body: It uses the Original Creature’s Body

Legs
-Original has none: No legs
-Original has 1-4: Use two
-Original has 5+: Use number -2

Chimera:

I know the official definition of a Chimera, in this case it is in reference to something closer to the mythological Chimera.

Original Creature: Megabeast
Secondary Creature: Must have a head
Third Creature: Must have a head

Size, Body, Wings, Tail: The Largest creature gets priority

Legs: The creature with the most legs are used
Secondary legs: The creature with the strongest legs (or fastest) are used in the back
Note: If they all have the same number of legs then the strongest is used

Speed: Mean between the fastest and most legged creature taking into account their size.
Formula: ((Speed1 x Size1) + (Speed2 x Size2)) / (Size1 + Size 2)
Example: A

Arms:
-Number: The creature with the most arms has as many of its arms on the creature as possible
-Strongest: The strongest arms take up slots of the highest number
-Most Damaging: The most damaging arms take up slots, if it is filled with the strongest arms, then it is able to absorb up to half the strongest arms to add the most damaging.
-Only two: The Strongest and the Most Damaging get one arm each
-Only One: The strongest wins out

Heads: All three creatures’ heads, starting from their neck if they have one, are used.

It contains all special abilities, Biome types, of all three creatures that apply.

Flesh body: Strongest Flesh.

Flesh Neck and Head: It uses the flesh of the strongest creature divided by the strength of the creature its head comes from

Giant:

This is the exact point I got in writing when I realized that the Animalman Templates could be used to allow templates in general and perhaps in a limited way curses. (though Ill deal with curses in another suggestion if I feel like it). So as we know Giants are larger versions of already existing creatures.
-Note: Ugh, some giants don’t follow the original creature’s things.

Naming Scheme: Giant *Creature*

Creatures Involved: 1

Requirement: Non-sentient creature

Size: between 6-10
Creature is size is 7 or higher: Creature size + 3

Ability if Size 10+: Building Destroyer

Biome: Use original. If creature is subterranean then it loses all other biome adaption

Winged:

This is really where I realized it can go further

Naming Scheme: Flying *Creature*, Winged *Creature*

Requirement: Non-flying, Non-winged, Creature

Add Wings, made of creature’s material, to creature and give them flier ability.

If Aquatic, become amphibious.

Universal Multi-creature Template Machine:

This is a collection of methods that the RAWs could possibly be used so players can create their own versions of Animalmen, Chimera, and all that. Please don’t judge them by the name of the Raw.

ALT_NUM: 0-Inf
-This is the number of creatures under this template that you’re telling the game to generate

STAPLE: #; Creature1, Creature2, Creature3; Creature1, Creature2, Creature3;
-These are breeds that the game will always generate.
--BLANK should be used if you want for example… there always to be a Centaur-esk creature who uses a Giant’s body as the second one, but you don’t mind how random the second one is. These do not apply to the creatures the game will generate.

Likes_Original: 1 or 0
Original_Likes: 1 or 0
-Some creatures lose their bond with the original creature. A Centaur isn’t considered a human anymore though a Mule would definitely feel welcome in horse or donkey society.

Breed: 1 or 0
-Ignoring the misleading name. This asks if the creature is considered a breed of the original creature and thus can be seen happily living beside them

Template_Breed
Template_Like
-These are how the creature treats those of the same template. Animalmen would be part of this group, they overall consider themselves one large group or at least related.

Template exception: *Template*
Exception occurs if: *Creature*
-These are creatures that are original creatures that will occur if they are selected as a template

If_Creature_Name= Insert creature here
-Sometimes certain combinations always produce a creature by an entirely different name. Perhaps you want a Chicken Dragon Hybrid to be called a Cockatrice. Maybe you want a giant ant to be a Devastation ant.

Generateingame: 1, 0
-These creatures will have the ability to generate new types in game when appropriate.

Spell: 1 or 0
Spell Name: Name here
Spell requirements: (This will need fleshing out if we get magic)
Memory
-This allows the template to be used as a spell. Thus allowing you to turn minions giant on the spot or create new creatures by putting two together.

Splitbreedchance*Creature*: #%
-If the creature has a chance to breed appart the species that it is made from

I realize now that Template creatures use a lot of “What if” and “If more then”. Ill need to do an example of how such a template could work later. I’ve written a lot so far…

[Jurassiced]

could we get a sticky for this please?
mabye move to modding forum then sticky as a kind of guide lines?

[Draco18s]

Flying Giant Carpmantaur?

Lolth-Touched Half-Howling Dragon Crystalline Troll Mineral Warrior.

[Neonivek]

Yay, I get to post some more, well here I go.

Non-Creature Materials uses for Creatures:

From what I understand Toady is adding in creature materials for flesh and other sections of a creature. I will admit it will require changes to the current materials, though it was never up for debate that Toady may very well have to redo/adjust all his materials again.

This suggestion is to allow Metals, Liquids, Stone, and other materials to be used as a creature materials for flesh, bone, and any other area he already planned. (Assuming that Toady isn’t already doing this).

This could also include State names so Magma and Obsidian could both appear.

New RAWs: Prefix and Suffix:

With creatures being able to apply to other creatures as well as other Materials and expansion of the names for creatures could apply. The game should treat a creature/Material without a Prefix or Suffix as if it was the creature’s name. This would allow more variety for names between different kinds of creatures. It could even include if there is a space between itself and the name it applies to.
Note: I can’t seem to find good Suffix

Examples:
Dragon:
Prefix: Draconic_, Draco,
Suffix: Draconian

Human:
Prefix: Homo, Were, Demi (Demi means half), Half
Suffix: Man, _Sapien, _Erectus, anderthal

Gold
Prefix: Golden, Gold, Glowing
Suffix: Gold

Fairy
Prefix: Fairy_, Wee_, Whimsical_
Suffix: _Fae, Tale

!Putting it all together!

Materialmen as Template

Incase you don’t know what I am referring to, I am speaking namely of the. Ironmen, Magmamen, Mudmen, and possibly even the Bronze Colossus (Though the Colossus deserves a template of its own). I am going to be a bit lazy here and now bother reading the extensive codes of the Materialmen, so forgive me if I miss many of the important differences between them.

Materials: Non-Alloy

Phantom Creature: The Men are otherwise a Humanoid who includes material components.

Biome: The Biomes of the Mineral
-I realize that Materials don’t really have a biome however Toady has stated that he wants to have civilizations materials reflect that which are available nearby. Perhaps that code could determine where the creature’s biomes exist.

The creature’s body should always be the material that is randomated.

Staples: Iron
-Remember Staples are creatures the game will always generate

Material Creature:

With men we could even go further and allow a template of creatures. I don't think I need to explain this at this point since it is simply replacing a creature's materials with that of Metal, rock, and others.

Material: Any

Creature: Any

Alternate Material Creatures / Pure Template Creatures / Alternate Version creatures:

The idea is that these templates for materials can allow you to make creatures that are 100% templates, as in there is no original creature. In other words a randomized “Alternate version” of one creatures (A lot like the Slaadd from Dungeons and Dragons which are a race who are never the same twice).

Examples:
Living Swords and Armor: Living Iron Sword, Living Golden Armor

It doesn’t even have to go as far as dramatic differences creating almost an entirely new creature; it could even be as simple as having Oysters that give different kinds of pearls, a race of Elephants whose tusks as a different metal.

These are all ideas that while seemingly dramatically different, stem from eachother rather easily.

[Techhead]

This is insanely thought out and detailed.
Good work.

Also, the generic term for humanoids with animal heads is Theriocephaly, and creatures similar to centaurs (but with other animals) are Centauroids.

[The Minister]

Clearly a lot of thought has gone into this idea.  I am just missing one thing:

How will this improve the game?  Why are templates better than just adding new creatures?

I presume the intent is one of two things:
(1) enhance diversity of creatures by making all kinds of crazy combinations;
(2) enhance modding potential somehow.

I would just be afraid that it would actually result in less creature diversity if now instead of having 80% chance that random encounters in forests are wolf attacks, we also have 80% ice wolf attacks on glaciers, 80% sand-wolf attacks in deserts, 80% muck-wolf attacks in swamps, 80% winged wolf attacks in mountains, etc.

It might also reduce the diversity of biomes if now wolves are found in all biomes not just forests.  Now nightwings are found in all biomes, not just deserts.  etc.

So, someone should address how these templates can preserve unique creature sets particular to each biome without mashing everything together.

I guess if certain things were very rare that might help.  If, for example, iron wolves (iron man template on a wolf) is like a semi-megabeast, at least they wouldn't be running all over the mountainside.  They would be something that would enhance a few caves in every world.  I guess that would be cool.

[Anticheese]

I'm disappointed that you have not thought about adding the undead as templates - Especially considering how at the moment they pretty much are the only template-like creatures out there.

[Neonivek]

I'm disappointed that you have not thought about adding the undead as templates - Especially considering how at the moment they pretty much are the only template-like creatures out there.

Only because Toady has beat me to it by putting it on the Dev list (though it isn't so much a template... though it could work as one easily), but yeah Ill add it to the list! Thanks for the suggestion Anticheese

I would just be afraid that it would actually result in less creature diversity if now instead of having 80% chance that random encounters in forests are wolf attacks, we also have 80% ice wolf attacks on glaciers, 80% sand-wolf attacks in deserts, 80% muck-wolf attacks in swamps, 80% winged wolf attacks in mountains, etc.

Yes it is true that these problems can happen, though I think it does happen currently somewhat due to the way the game does random encounters and checks the wildlife. This however can be adjusted in a few methods.

1) Adjusting the templates Birthrate and biomes: Sure they may be an Iron Wolf, but who says there needs to be a thousand of them?
2) Picking low template generation numbers: If you have 100 templates and each adds 100 creatures to be generated, of course this is going to happen.
3) Less Delegation: Adding Muck Creatures and Iron Creatures and Gold creatures can lead to problems. If you just have all those under one system (Material Creatures and Liquid Creatures).
4) Allow only and Do not allow RAWs: Not all templates should apply to all creatures or even any creatures.

It is no more different then people who bog down their mods with a thousands civilisations and wonder why hardly any of them survive or have significant land/power. The trick is not to bog down the game with Template creatures until the point where they seem unspetacular and also to make sure the templates you do put into your game have enough variety within themselves. It is a powerful tool that shouldn't be abused

[Groveller]

Just found this topic as I was checking to see if a giant/animalman template had already been suggested. Turns out yes, it had, in far more detail and far more coherently than I could ever manage. I realise the topic's been quiet for a couple of months, but sometimes something is just so 'wow' you have to post anyway. I'm very surprised it was only active for 3 days.... too much information for people to take in at once, maybe? I read it all, but can't be sure I didn't miss anything. Very nice, Neonivek. I think I have a few things to add.... let's see if we can give this the discussion it deserves!

First you'd want new creature tags along the lines of CANNOT_UNDEAD. CANNOT_GIANT, for giants, GCS, dragons, etc., cool as a Giant Giant would be. I suggest tags rather than just making megabeasts immune to giantism, or humans immune to animalmanism because, hell... some of us are gonna want Giant Giant Cave Spiders, a race of Humanmen, and Giant Wingéd Giant Caveswallowmanmen. This way the tags can prevent the silly stuff by default, but you can still mod them in. Sure you could mod in a horse with the head of a rabbit and the body of a rabbit yourself if you really wanted it, but it's far more fun when the game throws unexpected monstrosities at you.

Another thing I was thinking of (and I'm not entirely sure it'd fit as part of this, or be it's own suggestion. I think it has enough in common to warrant it's presence here, but if I'm wrong, let me know and I'll move this bit to its own thread.) is an Alpha*creature* template. Basically it is to the giant template creature what the giant template creature is to the standard creature. One Alpha is created at the beginning of world-gen for each creature in the raws (except those with CANNOT_ALPHA) and is counted as a MegaBeast.

They'd be a sort of guardian deity of that creature type. Hunted bears nearly to extinction on your map? You may get a visit from a very angry AlphaBear. Assuming he survived worldgen, that is.

They would be worshipable... maybe a civ that worshiped the AlphaMuskox would hold muskoxen sacred, giving another excuse for wars. Maybe an adventurer from a civ that worships the AlphaCougar will find that not-only are cougars no-longer hostile, but they will actually join your adventuring party.

That's the idea so far, anyway...

I would just be afraid that it would actually result in less creature diversity if now instead of having 80% chance that random encounters in forests are wolf attacks, we also have 80% ice wolf attacks on glaciers, 80% sand-wolf attacks in deserts, 80% muck-wolf attacks in swamps, 80% winged wolf attacks in mountains, etc.

It might also reduce the diversity of biomes if now wolves are found in all biomes not just forests.  Now nightwings are found in all biomes, not just deserts.  etc.

So, someone should address how these templates can preserve unique creature sets particular to each biome without mashing everything together.

Biomes overlap, right? Rather than a list of biomes where the creature can appear, there should be a set of criteria that must all be met for the template variants to appear, some creature-needs-biome, some template-needs-biome. Wolves need forest. Desert variants need desert, evil variants need evil, savage needs savage and so on. So you could have a small chance of Sand Wolves or whatever wherever a forest borders on a desert. Giant Wolves in with savagery and forest. Iron Wolves in any savage forest tile containing a certain concentration of iron ores. Obsidian Wolves in a savage forest with magma. Vampire Wolves in savage evil forests, and so on. Wolves would be varied, but still be confined to forests.

Phew, that's a lot of text. Sorry it's not beautifully arranged. Or, for that matter, entirely coherent. Still... any thoughts?

[Fieari]

The key is that you'd want to genericize everything in order to be RAW usable.  You wouldn't want [CANNOT_UNDEAD], you'd want something more along the lines of [NOTEMPLATE:templatename]

Some of the template suggestions above contain conditionals and averaging. Good idea, but how would they work in RAWs?  We wouldn't want Toady to have to write a whole scripting language just to get the RAWs working, since that could take months!  On the other hand, averaging between two values will be critical.

There'd need to be tags for what to include as parts of the source for the template.  How about something like this:

Code: [Select]

[TEMPLATE:_MAN]
     [SELECT:VERMIN:ANY]  this would be what the template is applied to in the first place.  An option would be available for "NONE" which would allow for the creation of new creatures out of whole cloth, but in most cases I don't think it'd be necessary.
     [SIZE:AVG:SOURCE:HUMAN:HUMAN] The AVG would allow for averaging, and would be available for any numeric tag.  Multiple entries can be used here, for weighting the average.  Direct numbers could also be used.
The question is, how would the tags be formatted for replacing body parts?

[Mel_Vixen]

I want to suggest an "Prey" Template for creatures. The Template would determine (who would have guessed) which creature or plants an given creature hunts and/or eats.

This could look like this:

Code: [Select]


[PREY_TEMPLATE:Creature_MINOR_VERMIN]
     [CREATURE:BUNNY]
     [CREATURE:RABBIT]
     [CREATURE:BOAR:CHILD]
     [CREATURE:ANY_VERMIN]
     [PLANT:MUSHROOM_HELMET_PLUMP]
     [SCAVENGER]
     [GRAZE]
     

The [CREATURE: ] Tag in generall determins which creatures are activly hunted.  The version with :CHILD] says that only the creatures of the type in childphase are hunted. This makes for example sense at bigger Birds of Prey like Eagles who can kill and eat an boaryoungling but never a full outgrown Boar.
 
[PLANT: ] does the same as [CREATURE: ].

 [SCAVENGER] implies scavenging from other creatures kills and corpses.

[GRAZE] on the other hand would be more for creatures like Horses cows and Sheep. This could work like Grasstrample thought one creature should not graze plank more then 1 to 3 Tiles an year.

[Neonivek]

I think it has enough in common to warrant it's presence here, but if I'm wrong, let me know and I'll move this bit to its own thread.) is an Alpha*creature* template

Well there are in essence two kinds of Alpha templates I could see

1) Your version which is essentially the Megabeastified version of a creature
and
2) A powerful version of a creature (The Alpha Wolf) who is usually a leader of a pack.

I personally think that the first one needs a different name as to not confuse people... Imagine if someone attacks a Alpha wolf expecting a powerful, but not megabeast powerful, version of the wolf.

The question is, how would the tags be formatted for replacing body parts?

I was originally going to do a write up of Imaginary Raws that could work, but interest in this topic kinda phased out. So how would you do replacing bodyparts? I cannot remember EXACTLY what I had... it was much more comprehensive then what I am putting down

[IfCreature1Arm=0] [Usearm= Creature2]

And things like that.

[Footkerchief]

Whoa, I missed this topic the first time around.  I'm extremely curious how Toady will be handling the randomized creatures in the near future, and this is certainly one approach.