v0.34:Werebeast

2013-11-05T06:03:42Z

TigerHunter: removed typo

{{Quality|Exceptional|18:31, 27 October 2013 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

'''Werebeasts''' {{Tile|Ñ|6:0}} are [[night creature|night creatures]] that are procedurally created during worldgen. [[Deity|Deities]] may curse sentient creatures (including any animal man) to transform into an animal form on the night of a full moon. Creatures bitten by werebeasts are cursed to become werebeasts themselves.

Werebeasts may take the form of mammals or reptiles.

Werebeasts can take the form of an animal ''that does not exist in Dwarf Fortress''.

The behaviour of vanilla werebeasts in worldgen (i.e. fleeing town upon being cursed and conducting raids from their new lair) appears to be caused by the cursed individual's beast form having the [NIGHT_CREATURE_HUNTER] tag; removal of this tag from a generated werebeast extracted from a world.dat file and jimmied into the standard raws caused those cursed to behave no differently from any other unnaturally-immortal individual.

==Werebeasts in Fortresses==
In some regions, the full moon will herald the attack of werebeasts upon your fortress (triggering a message similar to the one that is shown when a Megabeast attacks), or instead the unwilling transformation of your own citizens into their bestial forms. The cursed will attack anyone they can find for the duration of the full moon, spreading their affliction even further.
Werebeasts of the same species will cooperate with each other and not normally fight, but those of different species will treat each other no differently than enemies.

==Defending your fort against werebeasts==

If you have not yet established a correct defensive perimeter and a steady, trained militia, it is quite likely that if a werebeast attacks, a dwarf will be attacked and bitten.

If a dwarf is attacked but not bitten, he will be just fine (if he survives the ordeal). If a dwarf has been bitten by a werebeast and survives, however, he will change when the next full moon comes.

There is no cure. To protect your other dwarves you should either keep the infected dwarf into an inaccessible pit so he does not infect your whole fortress, or if you do not want to take care of him, just kill him.

Infected dwarves will not die of old age, are sterile and do not seem to need food and drink. They may go mad, however, so if you want to make him work (or use him for a [[stupid dwarf trick]]) you should give him a bed, decoration, and maybe some alcohol (if he drinks it)

Or maybe you want something exceedingly more [[fun]] instead? Try the latter.

==Infecting your entire fort==

Yes, it is possible. Having only infected dwarves does not end your game.

'''Pros:'''
* Super-effective hospital service, your dwarves are fully healed once per month. No need for crutches or something.
* Nobody will die of old age... if your forts even go for this long
* No more pesky [[child]]ren to be kidnapped
* Food and drink needs are reduced, if not negated
* When transformed, civilian dwarves are less vulnerable
* Go for were-elephants or were-badgers for extra dwarven points
* Fun
'''Cons:'''
* Exceedingly difficult to set up, quite long as well
* May kill your most important dwarves
* When transformed, fortress activity grinds to a halt
* <s>May</s> WILL cause issues with military when transformed : military becomes generally far weaker
* May be exceedingly fun for [[Thought|dwarven]] [[Tantrum|sanity]]... but then again you ''were'' looking for fun in the first place

==Transformation Dates==

There are exactly thirteen full moons in a Dwarven year, so werebeasts transform on the same dates every year:

*25th granite
*23rd slate
*21st felsite
*19th hematite
*17th malachite
*15th galena
*13th limestone
*10th sandstone
*8th timber
*6th moonstone
*4th opal
*2nd obsidian
*28th obsidian

==Werebeasts in Adventure Mode==
In adventurer mode, werebeasts are usually found living in small lairs on the edges of civilization. Young adventurers will often be called upon to slay them, with instructions along the line of 'he assumes a bestial form' along with a description of what type of metal they are vulnerable to. However, as long as they are not visited on the night of their transformation, they are just common peasants, and can be dispatched easily. It would behoove these individuals to hide themselves among townsfolk, but what can ya do?

==Werebeast Characteristics==
All werebeasts are described as having glowing eyes of some random color, and are "crazed for blood and flesh" meaning they attack everything that is not their own race, including undead.

The transformation to a Werebeast seems to only affect physical attributes, mental attributes are not changed though the descriptions will be relative to the Wereform's average. A Werebeast never gets hungry, thirsty or drowsy, and will not drown when in Wereform. Werebeasts in Wereform are Building Destroyers, so doors and vertical bars will not contain them, however bridges or walls will.

When transforming to Wereform and back, all health regenerates, including missing limbs, although effects induced by insanity are not reversed. All carried items will be dropped as soon as the beast enters a fight, making only the natural abilities of the creature available for combat. These abilities differ from creature to creature (Claws/Hooves/venomous Bite etc.)

If you become a werebeast and transform in adventure mode, you can pick up your weapon and shield that were dropped in the transformation, but, seeing as werebeasts seem to have minimum body size of about 80000, armor will become too [[Clothing#Size|small]] for you to fit in. Hauled items will also be dropped on Fast Travel, potentially lost forever if traveling from a location that doesn't save.

Werebeasts also tend to change back into humanoid form at the worst moment, like when they are charging a group of axedwarves. Sometimes a werebeast's humanoid form is more dangerous than the werebeast form, most obviously for [[DF2012:Serpent man|snake man]] werebeasts.

Even if the werebeast is dispatched while in animal form, werebeast kills are listed as being of the original race.

{{D for Dwarf}}
Sometimes a werebeast arrives in humanoid form, and the game then announces the arrival of a normal, intelligent creature as if it was some terrible beast. The naked, confused creature usually runs away, probably scared by your dwarves' laughter.

v0.34:Obsidian

2013-11-05T00:20:40Z

TigerHunter: added a section explaining how to make obsidian short swords viable

{{layerlookup/0}}{{av}}{{Quality|Exceptional|21:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)}}

'''Obsidian''' is one of the types of "[[stone]]" (technically volcanic glass) that forms entire [[Stone#Stones forming entire layers|layer]]s. Obsidian is also found surrounding magma pools and volcanoes, exactly 1 tile thick, and has the distinction of being the only stone that can be [[obsidian farming|created during play]]. Obsidian is considered an [[Economic stones|economic stone]] by default; in order to allow general use at workshops and in architecture you must enable "obsidian" in the [[stocks]] "Stone" menu.

"Obsidian" is also the twelfth month of the dwarven [[calendar]], covering late Winter.

==Rock short sword==
Obsidian can also be made into obsidian [[short sword]]s with one log at the craftsdwarf's workshop. If you embark on an obsidian [[mountain]] or manage to reach [[magma]] before finding metallic ores, these are good at first to defend your fort from early [[wolf]] and [[giant eagle]] attacks, but weak in comparison to any metal, having difficulty cutting even mundane animal hides. Note that with the use of wood (presumably used in the handle), [[Elf|Elves]] will be be offended if you trade obsidian swords and refuse the trade.

Obsidian is the only rock that can be used to make stone-based weapons.

==Obsidian formation==

Obsidian can be formed by mixing [[water]] and [[magma]]. Any tiles containing both [[water]] and [[magma]] will be replaced with unmined obsidian, generating abundant amounts of [[steam]]. When dumping water via a pond zone onto magma, the water has to fall free for at least one z-level (i.e. the pond zone must be two or more z-levels above the magma); otherwise only steam will be produced.

Most non-[[magma-safe]] objects that were in the [[magma]] prior to the formation of obsidian are completely destroyed, which can be an effective method of removing unwanted items or enemies, although long exposure times to magma are suggested to ensure destruction. All [[magma-safe]] items will be entombed in the tile, and can be regained by mining it along with any magma-unsafe items that happened to survive the casting process. No instances of globs of molten metal surviving obsidian formation have been noted, though apparently [[fire|burning]] objects can remain on fire when cast in obsidian. The survival rate of magma-unsafe items is believed to depend on the exposure time to magma being short enough to not cause the item in question to melt or burn before obsidian formation occurs--fragile items placed in [[water]] that is then exposed to magma tend to survive casting unscathed.

[[Obsidian farming]] can be used to produce large amounts of obsidian for masonry, crafting, or construction.

==Modding==

Obsidian is frequently modified to be more glass-like in an attempt to make swords made of it viable. This is done by adding [SHEAR_YIELD], [SHEAR_FRACTURE], and [SHEAR_STRAIN_AT_YIELD] tags to obsidian's entry in inorganic_stone_layer.txt. Values used are typically those of glass: 33000, 33000, and 113, respectively.

<gallery>
Image:Obsidian.jpg|Obsidian
File:ObsidianDomeCA.JPG|Obsidian rock face
File:Teotihuacán - Obsidianklinge.jpg|Obsidian blade
File:Snowflake_obsidian.jpg|Snowflake obsidian & an obsidian arrowhead
</gallery>

{{gamedata}}
{{stones}}
{{Category|Economic Stone}}

Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

v0.34:Werebeast

v0.34:Obsidian