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Author Topic: [47.02] Endless Legend mod (1 week challenge)  (Read 3058 times)

Atkana

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[47.02] Endless Legend mod (1 week challenge)
« on: February 16, 2020, 01:20:19 pm »

Forewarning: I set myself the challenge of seeing what I could make in a week, with the intention of releasing it by the end, and this is the result. The mod might be (well, definitely is) lacking polish, nuance, and testing within certain areas, so be aware there might be some jank :P Perhaps in the future I'll pick this up again and continue to add to it, or maybe not (there's still a lot more I could add!). Or, if anyone else wants to add more, they're welcome to.
The whole experience has been pretty fun - I learned a decent amount about managing my time, was surprisingly productive, and ultimately got to add some new things to DF that I like (at least, I don't think anyone's done Endless Legends stuff before). I'd highly recommend anyone checking this out to try a one week challenge themselves to see what they can get made. Anyway, on with the mod...

Download Link
This mod adds a few of the creatures, factions, and resources from the game Endless Legends.

Each entity added by the mod is in its own file, so you can pick and choose which ones you want to use. There's also a settings file (c_variation_endless_settings) that you can edit to change a few of the default behaviours of the mod:
  • Enable flying for the civilised creatures that should be capable of flight. It's initially disabled because of problems with pathing that can arise in fort mode.
  • Allow playable civilised creatures to be able to have strange moods. I know it's supposed to be a dwarf thing, but it does make playing forts more fun.
  • Make Drakkens lay eggs. Egglaying is a bit janky for civilised creatures in fort mode from what I remember, so this is disabled by default.

New Civs and Creatures
There are five of the major factions included in the mod, with four of them being playable (didn't have enough time to make the necrophages the way I wanted them!): the Allayi, the Drakken, the Roving Clans, the Cult of The Eternal End, and the Necrophages. There's not a whole lot of variation between how they play - they're all effectively human-tier civilisations, with basic fort mode positions up to mayor - it's basically breadth over depth :b. Additionally, three of the minor factions are included as well: the Bos, the Ceratans, and the Sisters of Mercy. Each is limited to only 1 instance per world, in an attempt to limit how significant they are (though worldgen can always have other plans...)
You should be able to start as an adventurer from any of the factions, even the unplayable ones.

Allayi
The Allayi are man-sized canids, dedicated caretakers to the world. As the cycle of the moon reaches a point where it is more than half full, the Allayi's natures shift from calm and peaceful to something far more aggressive. They strongly value nature, competition, and tradition. They begin with access to the great Skyfin - a large flying snake creature - which they employ during sieges as attack creatures and mounts. The Skyfins can also rarely be found in the wilds, worming through the winter air in the remote tundras and glaciers of the world.

Drakken
The Drakken are a draconic people, who hold the ideals of knowledge and peace above all else. They can be born as three distinct castes: first, the Drakken, they stand slightly taller than a human, with a natural grasp on diplomatic aspects (increased social awareness, patience, and empathy); equally as common are the Drakkenlings, slightly scrawnier Drakken the size of humans, who are naturally built to be soldiers (increased agility, toughness, endurance, and kinesthetic sense); finally, and most rare, are the great Ancients - large wyverns with a perfect memory, and strong linguistic abilities and intuition. Knowledge comes easily to the Drakken, and they develop skills at an accelerated rate when compared to their peers.
A council of twelve rules Drakken civilisation, formed from the most promising of the eyrie leaders from across their sites. Each site is managed by a duo of eyrie leaders, who are each as demanding as a mayor, even for fledgling sites (so be warned).
The Drakken naturally have access to wyverns - dragon-like creatures with a slight natural talent for biting and wrestling prey - and they employ them as siege units and mounts. Wyvern appear rarely in mountainous biomes also, for civs with the bravery to attempt to tame them.

The Roving Clans
The Roving Clans are a human civilisation, who travel the land to seeking great profits. They are cultivators of the gigantic Setseke - absolutely massive scarabs that are usually tasked with carrying buildings or entire cities upon their backs. Unfortunately, DF doesn't yet support city-carrying creatures, so they just serve as pack animals. They've been downsized to fit better into the game, but they're still as big as the biggest creature in the game (the giant sperm whale), so maybe think twice about angering one. The Clans also employ a heavy cavalry creature called a Yirmak for almost all purposes.
It might be difficult to tell this civ from other human civilisations, since they all get grouped under the umbrella of "human". Look out for the groups that use words related to wealth, trade, or travel.

The Cultists of the Eternal End
Strange, robotic beings, whose goal is to unite the world under their banner. Burden bearers - beings similar to them, but without arms - are employed to drag carts and carry weights, and Fanatics - large mechanical tripods - are used as mounts to trample anything that gets in their way.
(Unfortunately, I couldn't really tweak them to be genderless, single-city beings like in the games. It might be possible to make something workable with some time, but that's something I ran out of ^.^;)

The Necrophages (not playable)
The Necrophages live in hives as a great swarm, bent on conquering and consuming all they come across. Workers and flying drones serve their hive's queen, employing acid spit and toxic corrosive gas respectively to engage their prey. Proliferators - large, wormlike creatures - aid the swarm, infesting nearby corpses with parasites which reanimate them into Battle Born - soulless, mindless soldiers of war.

(They don't seem to do very well in worldgen, probably because they don't have access to any armour. With a bit of tweaking it can probably be fixed to make them far more threatening.)

Centaurs (minor faction, not playable)
The Bos are centaur warriors and messengers. They build simple, temporary mounds as shelters.

The Sisters of Mercy (minor faction, not playable)
The Sisters of Mercy are a human faction, who try to enforce their ideals of mercy upon the world. Their warriors are also healers, and they are known to make use of pixie bloom and its healing effects.

(Ideally, they'd have some female-only noble positions to reinforce their matriarchal faction setup, rather than relying on generated positions. That's something for a polish-pass, if one ever happens.)

Ceratan (minor faction, not playable)
Half-human, half-spider, the usually cave-dwelling Ceratans occasionally make their way to the surface to found simple towns to house their eggs. While they will hunt prey with their sharp, scythe-like forearms for food, they are otherwise largely pacifistic. They weave webs which they use to help tend to other's wounds.

New Resources
Redsang
A lichenous plant that grows in wet climates. It can be ground at a mill into a precious spice to increase the value of meals.

Glassteel
A viney plant that grows in wet climates. It can be processed in a smelter into metal bars. Glassteel has the material properties of bronze, while also being incredibly lightweight - think of it like adamantine-lite.

Grassilk
A plant that grows in dry climates. It can be woven to produce a fine and precious silk.

Pixie bloom
A flower that grows in dry climates. In addition to being used for oils and soaps, it can also be ground down into powder. As a powder, it can be brewed at the still to create healer's tonic, a drink that grants its drinker the magical ability to heal the minor wounds of others for a time.

(This is based on Endless Legend's pixie blood resource, translated into a flower for ease of application).

Titan bones
A slightly precious material that doubles as both stone and bone. It occurs in veins at the soil level.

Blood crystal
A fairly cheap red gem found in clusters in all stones. It can be ground into a powder and then brewed at a still to create blood crystal tonic. Blood crystal tonic is a drink that is a boon to soldiers, making them completely immune to feeling pain while the tonic is in their system.