v0.31 Talk:Night creature

Night creature definition

While people commonly refer to the procedural trolls and hags as night creatures, in the context of the game, night creature actually means those, the bogeymen, and the fortress mode ghosts. And in the next version, more new night creatures are arriving, at the very least necromancers, disturbed dead, werebeasts, and vampires, with possibly stalkers, Frankensteins, animated furniture, and other undead, and the animated dead being classified as night creatures as well. As such, it would make sense to me that this page could become a hub that links to, and quickly describes, the different types of night creatures.

Of course, this does become problematic with the troll/hag night creatures already described here - they'd need a new general name. Hag and troll are too specific and troll is already used. It could be derived from their raw tags, though - they use the NIGHT_CREATURE_HUNTER tag and SPOUSE_CONVERTER tag. The former doesn't lend itself very well to any kind of name, but spouse converter, while technically referring to only one of their castes, does describe the creatures reasonably well.

Thoughts?

Knight Otu 08:02, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I think Hag is a fine name for the spouse converters. Sure, it's a little specific, but it's easier to remember than "spouse converter", especially for someone new to the game who hasn't read the raws. And really, kidnap and marry people is pretty much what hags do in folklore (well, that and eat children). For trolls, just have a disambiguation page somewhere.

And this page should definitely become a hub.

Igfig 21:18, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation page for trolls sounds like a good idea. Troll (Night Creature) perhaps? --173.9.15.26 01:19, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I've also posted this discussion on the forums, by the way. Here's what I added there:

With those replies, my thinking now would be to make the Night creature page a hub, with a note that most people mean the hags and trolls when they say night creature, move the current content to Hag, and add a note to the troll page linking to the Hag page (something like "This page is about the ordinary, stock trolls. For the procedurally created trolls in adventure mode that abduct and transform people, see Hag"). I suppose a Spouse Converter page could exist as a redirect to Hag as well, but probably isn't necessary.

Knight Otu 18:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

The latest Dwarf Fortress Story mentions "night troll" - perhaps that would be a better name than "hag"? --Quietust 17:14, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It has a nice ring to it, and it also has the advantage to come from Threetoe. I'd say it works.

Knight Otu 20:20, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Draft versions for Night creature pages

First draft for this page. Needs to be updated for the actual night creatures and features making it into the release. I linked the disturbed dead to mummy as I assume that this is the name most will use anyway.

Introduced in v0.31.17, and further expanded in v.3?.01, Night creatures are a class of hostile creatures. Many of them are generated procedurally, whether as a full creature, through an interaction changing a normal creature, or a mixture of both. Due to their larger exposure, night trolls are generally called night creatures on the forums.

Each type of night creature is depicted in the game as either a ñ or Ñ of a different color. The currently existing night creatures are the following:

• Night trolls, which abduct certain civilized creatures of the opposite gender, transform them into a spouse, and mate with them. They are represented by a dark green Ñ.
• Bogeymen, which ambush lone travelers at night, chasing them relentlessly until the victim can retreat indoors or manages to survive until daylight. They are represented by a dark grey ñ.
• Ghosts, the restless spirits of the dead that weren't properly memorized. Depending on circumstances, they have various ways to interact with the living. They are represented by a white Ñ.

• Animated dead are the skeletons and zombies that arise in evil regions or under the thrall of a necromancer. They are represented by a dark cyan Ñ that slowly flashes over their basic creature tile.
• Necromancers are historical figures that have found secrets of life and death, becoming immortal and gaining the ability to animate the dead. They are represented by a light magenta Ñ.
• Disturbed dead are the dead rulers of civilizations, interred in grand mausoleums. They will arise if disturbed by graverobbers and lay curses on the trespasser. They are represented by a yellow Ñ.
• Werebeasts are people cursed by the gods for profaning their temple, or those to whom they transferred that curse. At the full moon, they will transform into a ravenous monster. They are represented by a brown Ñ.
• Vampires are undead blood drinkers that can often pass for living, moving on when suspicion on them grows too much. Occassionally they might start immortality cults instead, and might make a bid to seize power over a whole civilization. Vampires that don't pass for living are represented by a dark red Ñ.
• Stalkers are undead that arose from brutal killings and executions, taking on aspects related to their death. They are represented by a dark magenta Ñ.
• Intelligent undead are undead creatures that do not fit into the other categories of undead. They are represented by a light cyan Ñ.
• Constructed creatures are creatures like Frankenstein's monster, with mismatched limbs, sutures, and grafted weapons. They are represented by a light red Ñ.
• Animated furniture is a feature of certain haunted houses, making sounds, moving about, and attacking the unwitting soul entering them. They are represented by a light grey Ñ flashing over their basic furniture tile.

In addition to the existing night creatures, Dwarf Fortress Talk #14 reveals future plans for other types of night creatures, which are as follows:

• Light green night creatures will be various sorts of evil beasts, such as evil rotten cabybaras or evil animated trees.
• Dark blue night creatures will be monsters of the sea, including aquatic hags and trolls such as Grendel.
• Light blue night creatures will be cursed people of the sea, such as undead pirates or seafarers.

The potential first draft for the Night troll page, based on this page

Night trolls are a type of night creature introduced in v0.31.17. They are supernatural monsters which kidnap non-goblin civilized beings, transform them into spouses, and then mate with them to produce young. The children are all the same sex as the night troll, never that of the spouse. In adventure mode, night trolls and their spouses can be given as quests.

Like bogeymen, forgotten beasts, and titans, each night troll is randomly generated and different from all the rest. Not all night trolls are named as such - the possible names, apart from words indicating night, evil, or darkness, include crone, freak, hag, horror, man, monster, ogre, ogress, troll, and woman.

Their lairs are mounds or holes in the ground with doors or hatch covers. Depending on the night troll, they can contain various tools, small amounts of discarded coins and clothing from their victims, corpses, organs of sentient creatures prepared as food, cauldrons of blood, bone meal, and ground vermin.

The night trolls' lairs, according to Toady One, have a unique tag that causes items placed there to not be scattered around or rot.

Thoughts? Should the night creature page use a table? Should the Ñs be colored appropriately?