#the mythical beast update will hopefully be out around next month? idk i like testing pretty extensively

[chickenmcnuggies]

sometimes I see you on my dash and I'm like "wow these posts are pretty good but I dont remember why I followed this person" and then I load up my dwarf fort with my beloved hippogryphs

YEAAAAH im glad you like them! the hippogriffs and griffons are two of my absolute favorite creatures, so im very biased to them :) (also glad that you can tolerate my other post lol)

i suppose on that topic, it gives me a good excuse to show off the last 6 beast/giant variants going into the mods since i already finished all their sprites.

first up is the stymphalian bird! it's a small bird with feathers composed of bronze. they're docile by nature but are capable of shooting out their metal feathers to attack their predators

...on the other hand there's the giant variant, which is vicious by extension of living in savage lands

speaking of giant variants, there's 5 other ones being added

(griffon, fae dragon, bicorn, warg (it's default sprite was changed and the old sprite repurposed), and chimera)

the other brand new creatures are:

owl bear, a large carnivore with claws capable of slashing through metal. inspired by the cool looking owl bears from baldur's gate 3 that i saw when a friend was streaming the game. can be war trained if tamed

basilisk and mandrake

the basilisk are aggressive carnivores which possess a gaze that can turn their prey to stone, similar to the gorgons. unlike the gorgon's stare though, supposing their victim doesn't die while in statue form, they will return to normal after an in game week (they dont require food/water/breathing while afflicted)

Mandrake are small plant creatures who live rarely in underground lakes, where they 'breed' by planting their seeds in the ground. upon death they drop their seeds which can be planted to make very potent ale. the ale has many beneficial effects, such as helping infection and stress relief, but also has a grocery list of rare (2-10% odds) of triggering multiple ill side effects, such as nausea and sending a person into a fit of rage. made entirely just to make taverns all the more FUN

something i didn't plan to add, but added based on request: a tressym! flying cats from forgotten realms (and also baldur's gate) that i thought looked cool and had interesting enough lore to make a good addition. I only actually finished their sprites earlier tonight, and their raws aren't made yet.

going off what i read about them, they were going to be the same size as a cat, capable of being 4 different colors/coat patters, and immune to poison. it also mentioned them being able to see invisible creatures, so i'd like to play around with them having extra vision/high stats to be able to detect ambushers, tho i'd need to test to make sure they dont completely trivialize it. Was planning to make them like the griffons and wargs, where they have the [PET] token, but not [COMMON_DOMESTIC], so there's a chance for dwarves and humans to tame them in world gen, but they would hopefully be very rare due to their spawn biome (taiga?) and frequency (was thinking around 7%)

last but not least, another mega beast, this time the Undead Dragon! an undead mega beast that's intended to be a similar difficulty to the bronze colossus. it lacks blood, and damaging organs or connections doesn't bother it. It is capable of raising corpses once a day, and breathing a cool breath that makes a target drowsy and nauseous. while it can of course be killed in the usual dwarven solutions (magma, crushing) it can also be killed instantly by being speared in the skull by a spear, or decapitated. it is not capable of flight due to it's body being too rotted.

#answered #modding #dwarf fortress #sorry if the response was much longer than you anticipated! but i realized i haven't shown stuff off in awhile #i did do a bit of balance testing with a fort last month but i haven't been playing df as much lately #i was pretty busy working on the last gay fates update but now that that's done- #the mythical beast update will hopefully be out around next month? idk i like testing pretty extensively #on one hand im not proud of the mandrake sprite on the other hand it's very silly and it charms me #i do think i kinda cooked on the giant sprites tho. im very proud of how they all turned out! #the giant griffon especially bc the regular griffon sprite was the very first one i did #and i still feel i didn't quite capture what i wanted to with it. though i have come to like the normal griffon sprite now