Guide to intelligent wilderness creatures in adventurer mode

v50.12 · v0.47.05

This article is about the current version of DF.
Note that some content may still need to be updated.

Intelligent Wilderness Creatures^v0.42.01 are playable wild animals - any creature with [LOCAL_POPS_CONTROLLABLE] fits into this category. A wilderness creature can be played as long as a population exists in an [ALL_MAIN_POPS_CONTROLLABLE] civilization. Most wilderness creatures are animal people.

Size

The elephant man is the biggest land animal man. (In DF, size is proportional to strength, endurance and possible damage.) A simple punch from one of these creatures is enough to explode a human-sized foe's head, and they can also impale enemies with their tusks.

Honorable mentions:

Sperm whale man (5 times bigger than elephant men, but they drown on land)

Rhinoceros man (60% smaller, but still huge and has a horn to gore enemies)

Elephant seal man (males are the same size as rhinos, and also amphibious)

Being too big (or small) for common armors has the downside of being unprotected and thus dying from infection, or a lucky hit in the head. To make armor for non-dwarves, humans, or other sapient creatures in fortress mode, you must have at least one inhabitant of the species in question.

Venom

The most useful venoms are the ones powerful enough to paralyze a human-sized creature, thus stopping its breathing and asphyxiating it. Therefore, the best animal men in this category are, by ascending size order (although the difference is too slight to be noticeable):

Black mamba man

King cobra man

Bushmaster man

However, in adventure mode, syndromes work 72 times slower than in fortress mode. So, in the vanilla game, you can kill your victim with weapons 5 times over, before the venom kills it. To make combat-relevant syndromes work properly in both modes, you can mod their timing for adventure mode (by dividing all their timers by 72) and then add DWF_STRETCH:72 after them to slow down the effect in fort mode so they don't take effect instantly.

Honorable mentions: Strong pain syndromes may force foes to "give in to pain" faster. So, animal men with strong pain venom, like Adder man or Bark scorpion man may be a nice plus.

Amphibious

Amphibious creatures can breathe in or out of water, making them great for water exploration. The best ones are:

Capybara man, for being able to wear dwarf-sized armor.

Elephant seal man, males are the biggest (but females are much smaller)

Walrus man, big and can gore foes with his tusks

Pond turtle man, also able to retract in his shell (the shell becomes the only body part exposed to attacks)

Honorable mentions:

Gila monster man and platypus man have a venomous attack (but its effect is just some pain and swelling)

Alligator and Saltwater crocodile men look cool in this context, but some other amphibious animal men are bigger, and they are unable to jump like the animals they are based on.

Flying

Flying allows you to go up and down as if on stairs, but literally anywhere if there is no floor or ceiling - great for flying over obstacles, or even ocean, and to escape ground-based foes. The best ones are:

Swan man, the biggest flying animal man

Peregrine falcon man, the fastest flying animal man, moving at the maximum gait of 87 kph.

Honorable mention:

Mosquito women can suck blood with their trunks, which can be useful if you play a vampire.

Arachnids

Arachnid men have legendary-level skill in climbing, feel no pain, stunning, no fear, are immune to paralysis, have extravision (do not need eyes to see), do not need to sleep, and most of them have venom. They also have 6 arms (and 2 pincers for scorpions), allowing them to carry 6 (or 8) weapons or shields. Since using several weapons during the same turn make them less accurate, the most optimal way to play is to use 5 (or 7) shields and a weapon, to have 5 (or 7) chances to block attacks. But hey, using 7 weapons looks much cooler. However, they are unable to swim and can't consume vegetable based food. The best ones are:

Brown recluse spider man, who are also immune to webs (overpowered in DF). Their venom can also cause severe localized necrosis

Bark scorpion man, who have two pincers on top of 6 arms, thus able to use 8 weapons or shields

Shell

Retracting into a shell protects from many attacks, as the shell becomes the only body part exposed to these. Giant tortoise men are the biggest animal men able to do this.