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Animal person

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Revision as of 09:02, 31 March 2018 by Doorkeeper (talk | contribs) (grmr, mostly plural "peoples")
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This article is about the current version of DF.
Note that some content may still need to be updated.

Animal peoples are half-man, half-beast creatures with various animal-like traits (such as flying, thievery, and poisons), inherited from their base animal. They generally have significantly longer lifespans than their base animals, as well as the ability to learn. Animal peoples can join civilizations and live in sites. They can come to your fort as visitors.

Animal peoples are playable creatures in adventure mode. If they became established members of a playable civ (dwarf, elf, human), they will appear listed in the creature selection screen alongside the main races. Otherwise, they are selectable under Intelligent Wilderness Creature. Some animal peoples may not be available due to having died out or being uncontacted (e.g. excluded to an isolated island).

Wild animal peoples wander above the surface in savage environments or dwell underground in the caverns; these two populations form distinct groups. Subterranean animal peoples are actually a civilization of themselves, rarely encountered in small groups or "tribes". They are equipped with primitive weaponry such as wooden spears and blowguns (they are the only known source of blowdarts). Subterranean animal people will be labeled as Hostile upon discovery. They are not interested in negotiations and will attack your dwarves on sight. Encountering them often comes as a surprise, since there is no way to know about their presence before embarking. They do not appear in the civilizations menu.

Subterranean animal people are also found in generated sewers, formed from a collection of outcasts.

Subterranean animal peoples

Ethics

Being an entity in their own right, subterranean animal peoples possess ethics much like other civs. It's incomplete for now—their ethics are directly copied from kobolds and their values are all set to zero (none).

Like kobolds, subterranean animal peoples consider the killing of other living beings very much acceptable, but treason is unthinkable and they'll respond to the murder of their own kind by exiling the offender from their tribe. They oppose torturing as an example and the torture of animals, but consider torturing for fun a fair game. Assault is considered a personal matter, while slavery, animal trophies, and the consumption of sapient beings (which includes other animal peoples) are all unthinkable acts.

Other animal peoples

History

Present from the first official release of the game, the animal people did not exist as a class but were instead part of a small group of subterranean creatures that harassed your dwarves. Frogmen, lizardmen, and snakemen emerged from cave rivers, and antmen, batmen, and ratmen would come out from chasms to attack.

v0.27.169.32a released three-dimensional worlds, and subterranean creatures were moved to flock near generated chasms, underground rivers, and underground pools. Cave swallowmen and olmmen were introduced. The first set of above-ground savage animal peoples were also introduced: leechmen, snailmen, slugmen, and tigermen.

In v0.31, every creature was renamed and/or had their properties revamped (for example, "frogman" was changed to "amphibian man" and "batman" was changed to "bat man"). Not every animal people were redefined in this version, and some continued to use old codes for many releases. The version also introduced "creature variation" templates which made converting existing animals to humanoid (and giant) variations much more efficient. Underground features were expanded to the current caverns, and subterranean animal peoples formed civilizations. More anthropomorphic variations of animals present at the time were added.

More animal peoples were added to the game in v0.34.

v0.42.01 allowed animal peoples to join civilizations, live in sites, and visit forts. Animal peoples became playable as adventurers. A grizzly bear hammerman has much to offer a dwarven society. v0.42.04 added more animal peoples to the game.

Bugs

  • Humanoid versions of animals with the [MEANDERER] token will keep it when converted, leading to severe issues with their pathfinding. These animal peoples will move extremely slowly unless when performing a task.Bug:9588