The Forgotten Races (Alpha Released, Download Available)

Game Talk The Lab
1

Human civilization is gone. Long hidden creatures once relegated to myth and legend step forth from the shadows to reclaim the world.

This is an idea I’ve been thinking on for awhile. I’d like to add some more variety to the wildlife and give the world a bit more flavor. While walking around, the player may come across a multi-way battle between the various races, the zombies, robots, etc. Or you could step into a cave and be swarmed by a pack of kobolds or smashed by a solitary ogre. The basic premise is that these mythic creatures were pushed into hiding by the humans and their technology. Now that the humans are mostly dead and their technology is decaying, the forgotten races have come out to try to take back the planet. I want to see multi-faction battles and everyone against the zombies.

I’m requesting ideas. More fantasy/mythic races, possible equipment loadouts, habitats and habits. I brainstormed for a bit and came up with the ideas below, please share yours and I’ll try to make an awesome mod.

-=Races=-

[spoiler]Good:
Elves(Forests: agile, delicate, leather and light chainmail, use bows for ranged, swords up close),
Halflings(Forests: fast, hard to hit, relatively weak attacks with daggers at all ranges, leather armor),
Dwarves (Caves and Mines: sturdy, heavily armored, melee variety of weapons)

Evil:
Goblins(Swamps: Rags and skins for armor, wooden spears, rusty swords and daggers, weak but fast, fear fire, attack weakness, swarming attacks),
Orcs(Forests: Heavily armored, slowish, brutal weapons, large groups),
Trolls(Swamps: Unarmored, Melee attackers, incredible health and regeneration, small groups)
Ogres(Caves: No Clothing, Armored flesh, clubs of wood and bone, massive size, knockback attacks and high health, solitary),
Kobolds(Caves and Mines: Slaves to the drow, light armor and weapons, swarming attacks),
Drow(Caves and Mines: Fast, deadly fighters with light ranged and heavy melee, exceptional armor, low numbers, numerous slaves)[/spoiler]

This is a very early version. I didn’t want to release it yet, but things are rough IRL and I probably won’t be able to work on this for a couple weeks more at least. I would like feedback on how strong the monsters are and suggestions on equipment. The spawngroups will eventually be replaced with hidden overmap specials to avoid the feeling that orcs, elves, halflings and goblins are omnipresent.
Goblins are fairly numerous and spawn everywhere, even though they are only added to GROUP_FOREST. They will run if you kill a couple, which is a nice emergent mechanic that I enjoy. I am also releasing a version of Combined Monster Groups which incorporates this mod, edit as appropriate for your mods of choice.

Alpha version 0.01 for Experimental 4304
Google Drive

2

I would like to suggest a few more “races”

Magi: creatures with the ability to use magic, may or may not be human in origin.

Spirits: The souls of the dead, the blob took their bodies, they have come back for revenge.

3

I’m going to add an undead faction. Opposed to all life (despite appearances, blob-zombies are actually alive) and animated by some evil force. Think Evil dead…

4

So true undead? I see, spirits would be nice as well.

5

Werewolf species that can go to two directions I’m thinking of:

  1. Human npcs who transform at night.

  2. Intelligent humaniod wolves who succumb to bloodlust (adrenaline withdrawal) at night.

Friendly with wolf packs, always by their side.

6

Ah, interesting. Guessing this is that thing to mentioned you had the DF-style mod I posted on hand for. o3o

7

Yep. I could totally see adding ‘professions’ for each race later on. I want to get a handle on creating monsters and adjusting spawnrates and drops first. I’m not working on it this weekend, but I’ve got a skeleton of the itemgroups done; fleshing it out is taking more time than I thought. And I want to redo the descriptions of everything, it’s all placeholder text for now. Currently there are Dragons, ogres, trolls, orcs, goblins, kobolds, dwarves, halflings and elves.
I’ve been playing with the mod for a couple hours and mostly what I see are halflings, elves and goblins. I set them to spawn in the forests, but they spawn EVERYWHERE instead. I think I’ll need to make overmap specials for everything to spawn in instead, as that will be both easier to maintain and less overwhelming. Caves are not great for spawning things, they are almost always empty or have a rat king, no matter how high i set the frequency.

8

Ah, nice. o.o

9

It be pretty cool to arrange the professions for races like orcs and trolls based on a hierarchy of rank, like in lotr.

10

GdQon8P.png897×498

11

Sweet, how do i get to play as a kobold…or at the very least make one a pet.

12

I’m gonna have to link to that thing again. Or maybe I should’ve made a thread for it. o3o

13

What thing?

14

Posted here: http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=11982.0

15

ThoughtStreamBegins
Use monster evolution to increase difficulty gradually.
Initial exposure to forgotten races could be tiny (is TINY a possible size?) “scout” creatures, brownies, fairies, single goblins and kobolds. Spawned in hidden(cabin in the woods style) overmap specials for plains resembling faerie rings, circle of flowers surrounding a large rock or tree (several types?). As time passes, stronger monsters will spawn in the circle. Forest specials that are empty at first, then populated by orcs/elves. Random goblin groups start tiny, get larger. Goblin/kobold filled caves, later overtaken by ogre’s and dragons. Sewers become overrun with kobolds. Multiple evolution tiers? Faeries->goblins->orcs->ogres->dragons?
Can lua be used to manipulate the environment? Maybe use new calender functions from STS to replace center of faerie ring with entrance to a cave? An invasion of creatures from below, maybe sideways a dimension(underhill)?
End

I was working on something else and as usual, all these ideas started coming to me. Sorry for the rambling nature, I typed them as they came to me. I’ve not been able to do much on this mod the last week, I stalled out on equipping things, it’s incredibly boring. I’m going to buckle down and finish the current implementation so I can get feedback on the monster strengths, then dive into making map tiles to replace the current monstergroup setup. In the mean time, I’ll be releasing a forgotten races specific combinedmonstergroups mod in allthemods and vanilla+FRonly flavors.

16

[quote=“Malkeus, post:15, topic:11223”]ThoughtStreamBegins
Use monster evolution to increase difficulty gradually.
Initial exposure to forgotten races could be tiny (is TINY a possible size?) “scout” creatures, brownies, fairies, single goblins and kobolds. Spawned in hidden(cabin in the woods style) overmap specials for plains resembling faerie rings, circle of flowers surrounding a large rock or tree (several types?). As time passes, stronger monsters will spawn in the circle. Forest specials that are empty at first, then populated by orcs/elves. Random goblin groups start tiny, get larger. Goblin/kobold filled caves, later overtaken by ogre’s and dragons. Sewers become overrun with kobolds. Multiple evolution tiers? Faeries->goblins->orcs->ogres->dragons?
Can lua be used to manipulate the environment? Maybe use new calender functions from STS to replace center of faerie ring with entrance to a cave? An invasion of creatures from below, maybe sideways a dimension(underhill)?
End

I was working on something else and as usual, all these ideas started coming to me. Sorry for the rambling nature, I typed them as they came to me. I’ve not been able to do much on this mod the last week, I stalled out on equipping things, it’s incredibly boring. I’m going to buckle down and finish the current implementation so I can get feedback on the monster strengths, then dive into making map tiles to replace the current monstergroup setup. In the mean time, I’ll be releasing a forgotten races specific combinedmonstergroups mod in allthemods and vanilla+FRonly flavors.[/quote]
In one of my mod reverse engineering exercises I discovered the advance technology mod spawns monsters via lua, maybe this can be modified to your needs. Also, glob/fungus spawn nature could be use to infest areas.

17

@Noctifer That is very interesting to know, I’ll have to dissect that mod to learn it’s secrets. I’d like to make goblins and kobold behave like the ants, that would be really cool.

18

Preliminary version released, I’m not happy with it but I am unable to put more time into right now. Better to get feedback on it now so I can address problems when I am able, rather than leave it languishing on my harddrive.

I am asking for feedback on monster strengths, group sizes and suggestions on equipment and drops. The current locations are not final.

Download available in the OP.

19

[spoiler=massive monologue about various races and applying science to them]
I have been working on a story that works on a similar premise and I see room for overlap so…

Basically I am building how universe not like our own might work and building laws around them and stuff and it breaks down like this.

There are Three Universal “foci” that universes function on, some only function on one, other use two or three to various degrees. The “foci” are Natural, Magical, and Technological (like Earth).

“Natural” based realities/physics being like Starwars “The Force” and general Gaia type worlds/natural laws Creatures having heightened sensitivity to the world around them and good “sixth sense” seeing auras, and telepathy and such generally fall into this reality. Most natural based worlds have a big focus on unity/hivemind and or balance of living and/or nonliving things.

While

“Magical” : based realities/ohysics being very Eragon or “The Name of the Wind” transfer of energy. Every “spell” and manipulation having a cost however finite it may be. Pulling the heat/light/motion/chemical/mass energy out of an object or being and using that to power a spell that creates or changes energy. Making/ increasing heat, light, fire, chemical and/or mass energy. Note that alchemy would fall under the magical umbrella.

and of coarse “Technological” realities are very orientated around the magnetic and electric properties that form them from the highly reactive nature of electrons in “Tech” universes.
Tech based races focus on the use the increased reactivity of electrons to create both high reactive explosives, nuclear weapons/energy, as well as highly UN-reactive stable multi-bonds between atoms to create alloys and strong material.

So for Cata purposes… you could…

The other “Nature” and “Magical” Races are from other dimensions and the focus of the DDA Universe has been thrown into flux making the ‘return’ of the races practical as they rely less on technology than we humans do, preferring more nature and magic based realities where they can be more comfortable and ultimately stronger (like a fish in water as opposed to out) Due to the new flux they have all begun exploring, trading, and some even establishing forward bases, and outposts on the ‘renewed’ Earth ‘Frontier’

Not so much “they went into hiding” as our world simply became an impractical place for them to be as our world shifted into a “realm” of technology, and so they left or waned in ability until the “natural” and “magical” physics returned.

Then mix and match realities/universal properties based on what the race demands. So Kobolds, probably mostly natural with some magical as well. Elves? Very high in Natural and Magical, not much tech. The locations they come from follow the same rules/outlines. Makes for a universe multiverse that can quickly be grown to epic proportions with very little effort. I look forward to having my characters run through an odyssey rivaling homer, using the laws/ physics I have laid out.

First place main character visits is Technological planet that has lost all technology in a matter of months due to a universal focus shift in their realm and is now a planet filled with overgrown ruins from a society that tore itself apart when the Technological laws that were holding up their world fell out from under them.[/spoiler]

20

That’s some very…curious ideas there. o.o