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[Chthon]

Since Toady One is putting in curses and "Creatures of the Night", might I suggest the much maligned Wendigo?

This is a supernatural creature of Native American mythos.  It is a cursed human cannibal who has been cursed for his cannibalism.  The curse gradually removed all intelligence and all thoughts except where to find another human to eat.  Other effects of the curse are vastly increased strength and size, as well as hair growing all over their body.

Usually commiting cannibalism once was not enough to curse someone, but the risk grew the more you did it.  This meant that most people who ate someone else just to survive due to lack of food didn't turn, but a habitual cannibal would be risking it.  However there was a belief that on cursed grounds, such as the cold NW US and Canada was believed to be, even doing it once would mean you became one.

Wendigo were reportedly powerful predators, and retained all the cunning of a human.  Wendigo who just turned still looked human and could live near a village of prey without arousing suspicion.  However the more they eat, the more they changed until they truly looked inhuman and were immensely powerful.

I think this would be a fitting addition to DF with this new release, especially since it's all about curses and supernatural creatures.

[Spelguru]

I return from outer space to endorse this suggestion. Now I return to outer space.

Guru awaaay!

[Jacos]

I like this idea.

May we could have some gods who despise cannibalism more than others, and may be more likely to curse people because of it? Maybe there are some gods who like cannibalism for some reason, and thus people make cannabilist cults to capture and eat people, hoping to gain "power" from eating the flesh?

[Dutchling]

So it's a zombie/vampire/werewolf? Sounds fun, though I won't really care if it will be in or not.

[Chthon]

You know, I was thinking about it, and Wendigo, Bigfoot, and the Abominable Snowman might all be related in myth.

I'm not really up to speed with mythologies behind the other two though other than that they were hairy men in various parts that tended to abduct people.

[blizzerd]

what about making set curses, add in some randomisation on world gen

like have all the stock ones, but also randomly generate some like this or others

[RabidAnubis]

Agreed.

[truckman1]

Wait, so this would only happen to people who's gods frown on Cannibalism right? Because elves would be in trouble otherwise. Of course, this could always lead to some amusing problems with worldgen if an elf society somehow winds up worshipping an anti-cannibalism god (Perhaps they could adopt worshipping that god from the humans, gobbos or dwarves by being conquered, or migration, there's plenty of ways it could conceivably happen in worldgen) they would be fucked. Like, they'd all get cursed and turned into Wendigos. At that point, would they even become monsters who prey on towns and live in lairs? If they're ALL turned into horrible abominations, and ALL already liked eating dead sentient things, why would they care? They'd continue go about business as usual, but now they're wendigos.

Edit: I don't watch Star-Trek, but I once read that Something similar happened in The Next Generation: Now, in the Patrick Stewart-era  of Star Trek they actually had a big budget for costumes and such, while back in the Shatner-era the show was broke and the set and wardrobe guys had to cannibalize old props, costumes and sets from the studios (hence, "ooh look, a WWII/Ancient Rome/Gangster planet!"). So while originally Klingon's were just guys with waxed eyebrows and bad sunburn, in TNG they all had the ridged foreheads and crap. So anyways, apparently instead of just ignoring it/retconning their appearance, in one episode of TNG they reveal that between the series', some Horrible Thing happened that spontaneously mutated the foreheads of every single Klingon anywhere. While they were quite distressed by this, the  Klingon's just kept on Klingin', and it was only never brought up before because it's still a painful topic or something.

[Cespinarve]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDXwOzG7fE


This is not a reference to the poster's ideas, but this is the only experience I've ever had with things like the Wendigo- yamaglachi (Yaniglachi?) in this case.

[thunktone]

This sounds a lot like werewolves to me. There were cases in medieval Europe where people were found with human meat in their homes and convicted of lycanthropy. Lycaon of Greek myth was turned into a wolf for murdering and eating a child.

[darkflagrance]

You could even mod this in as a default interaction for most creatures, as a syndrome on humans that leads to the wendigo interaction on humans who eat human flesh.

[Dradym]

how about a wendigo for each major race? a goblin-wendigo would be different from an elf-wendigo....in some way. maybe differing on the biome from which it hailed dwarves-caves-mole-like, elves-forests-wolf/bearlike, humans-plains-felinelike(or depending on where they live, bearlike...etc), goblins? humanlike and more intelligent, but crazy still, and can be worked with to kill goblins

or if they are just in the tundra/northern wastes, some elemental...powers like vanishing/appearing with snowstorms. or more generally, any low-food situation, basically having a surplus of food will keep them away since usually the wendigo is one of your dwarves, like an alternate berserk.

in short, wendigos are a cool idea but they might fall under the stalker category if not lycanthrope

[nil]

maybe it's just because Ravenous is one of my favorite movies, but I love this idea.  low hanging fruit that would really fit DF generally.

You could even mod this in as a default interaction for most creatures, as a syndrome on humans that leads to the wendigo interaction on humans who eat human flesh.

yeah, really the only tricky thing would be getting sentient to turn to cannibalism when and only when they're desperate and starving.  would be far from impossible, though; we're already tracking food presence in world gen, and in fortress mode, Toady could get a good start by spicing the macabre mood code with the vermin-hunting code.  maybe limit it to something like dwarves with no respect for tradition and/or who don't care about anything anymore.

[cameron]

I'd always heard of Windigo as being tall pale and gaunt as if they were dead or even just being an angry spirit of the woods, them being particularly hairy is new.

It seems like alot of the stuff that the Windigo is defined by seems to already be covered as a variation of the classes of creature toady is introducing anyway at least as long as he includes cannibalism as something some of the gods will curse people for.

Getting people to break ethics to turn cannibal really should probably wait for some sort of more general ethics overhaul as there are a lot more common immoral behaviors which should appear where a persons personal ethics and desires conflicts with their civ's ethics


also

However there was a belief that on cursed grounds, such as the cold NW US and Canada was believed to be

why is all of Canada cursed grounds? I had assumed the Northern US and Canada were the only places that had the windigo.

[truckman1]

also

However there was a belief that on cursed grounds, such as the cold NW US and Canada was believed to be

why is all of Canada cursed grounds? I had assumed the Northern US and Canada were the only places that had the windigo.

Clearly they've angered the Gods with their blasphemous placement of milk in bags...


EDIT: Don't want to double post, so I'm posting a link to this picture here: http://www.keiththompsonart.com/pages/wendigo.html
Keith Thomson's art is pretty good, especially when it's of the pants-shitting-terror variety (look at Pripyat Beast in the undead gallery).
I know this picture is of an Aztec warrior who mutated from eating people, and that the Wendigo myth is from nowhere near the Aztecs, but this is just a possible imagining of the Wendigo. Besides, just because the people who believed in Wendigos weren't in South America, doesn't mean that it wouldnt happen to South Americans (if Wendigization was a thing that actually happened). That dude also kind of looks like an adventurer, with his mix-and-match clothes (including a spaniard-skin onsie as an under-layer) and the helmet full of blood.