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Snailling Race

Update: More graphics! Snaillings sprites now display armor. Frankly, I will not be doing sprites for all the clothes. I just don't have the willpower. Armor sprites are subject to change. If anyone has advice with how to make sprites look the way you want them to, please let me know. I'm not 100% satisfied with them, especially mail armor.

Adds a playable race and civilization of snail people. Physically, they are like human-sized anatomically accurate snails, but with a more upright posture and four tentacle arms. They generate civilizations, and you can play as them in fortress mode and, when it comes out, adventure mode.

DIFFERENCES FROM DWARVES:

Snaillings differences in gameplay, other than being snails, is that they have four limbs allowing for four weapons/shields to be equipped (for best results, have them use 1 weapon and 3 shields), and they typically tame all the wildlife they encounter, making them about as good as the elves when it comes trading for animals (or, if you are playing as them, you can start with a much larger selection of animals depending on what your civilization has encountered as it grew in worldgen). They also birth in groups of 1-4.

Their downsides are their lifespans (60-80 years), their lack of a skeleton (exo or endo) resulting in being highly susceptible to limb loss, and their physical weakness. Their physical stats are not very good, though their strength is helped somewhat by their size. It is highly recommended that you give them armor before using them in combat. I have found that highly skilled snails, like dwarves, seldom take damage, but when they do it will hurt if they are unprotected.

Snaillings can craft a handful of weapons that dwarves cannot. These weapons are:
-Halberds
-Two-Handed Swords
-Whips (WARNING: kinda OP)
-Pikes
-Blowguns

Halberds and two-handed swords are uncraftable by dwarves I think due to the fact that they are too small to wield them. Snaillings are bigger and able to wield them and thus should be allowed to craft them. Blowguns are used by subterranean civilizations, and since snaillings come from the depths themselves, it makes sense to me that they should use them. They could be a cheap alternative to crossbows (though darts are better used with poison, which is notoriously difficult to apply). Whips are craftable because I want them to be. So there.

CUSTOM ANIMALS:

Snaillings, before civilization, lived in the underground caves, particularly near water bodies. As a result, they domesticated subterranean creatures and use them rather than other domestic animals you may be used to. The creatures are as follows:

Buglet: A small creature descended from bugbats. It is used as a house pet and as pest control.
Naked Mole Hound: A large, pale rodent with loose, hanging, hairless skin. It is descended from naked mole dogs. It is used as a pet and hunting companion.
Underhorse: A large, long-bodied grazer with a thick mane. It is descended from Draltha. It is used for labor and milk.
Scruffer: A huge monster with an enormous tail, covered with thick fur. They are descended from Rutherers and are sheared for their wool.
Suckernub: A medium-sized land-dwelling mollusk with eight arms. It is used for its eggs. Suckernubs don't really have an undomesticated variant since they haven't changed much from their wild ancestors. Wild suckernubs are found in freshwater tropical swamps, which are an aboveground biome that snaillings tend to favor, and was thus perfect for them to domesticate early in their development.

Unfortunately, the giant cave spider proved too challenging to domesticate, so if you want a silk producer, you gotta do it the old-fashioned way.

COLORFUL SPRITES:

This mod comes with custom sprites that reflect the snailling's skin colors. Includes a sprite for all 36 possible colors in both adult and child proportions, as well as a sprite for babies (though this feature is currently not available due to the fact that Toady has not yet created the baby tag for the new steam layered graphics. Until he implements this, babies will display as adults, which isn't too obtrusive since they are always being held by mothers who match their skin color, so you won't even notice except for the citizen list). They also hold their weapons and shields, and armor is displayed if equipped. I will not be doing all clothes.

The animals mostly just use the sprites from the creatures they come from. Suckernubs use the octopus sprite, though they aren't directly domesticated versions of them. I may give the creatures some more distinct spritework just to make them visually different from the creatures they descend from.

CUSTOM GOVERNMENT:

Snaillings have their own government. While it's mostly similar to dwarven society (using alternate names for flavor), it has a few key differences. The Archsnail (monarch) is elected. Additionally, snaillings prefer impalement via the spear as a means of execution over hammering, so be warned: It is unlikely for snaillings to survive execution. No candy hammers for you.

WHY SNAILS?

I made this mod primarily because I have a mild mollusk obsession and didn't like the fact that the already existing snail people in the game had legs (This was changed with the steam release, they no longer have legs in the vanilla game). While this annoyance was so easily fixed that even a complete novice to dwarf fortress modding like myself could do it, I ended up using it as an excuse to learn to make mods because I wanted MORE. Once I made a civilization of vanilla snail people (with my legless edit), my need to control the details forced me to recreate the entire race from the ground up. Unnecessary? Definitely. But it gave me a reason to learn how to mod, which allowed me to create whatever I wanted after that point.

KNOWN ISSUES:

-Snaillings that have named armor and weapons don't display.

Unfortunately, this is currently a bug with Dwarf Fortress as a whole. This problem occurs with vanilla dwarves too, so until it gets fixed, this issue will persist.

-Snailling hatchlings appear as adults.

Another issue with vanilla Dwarf Fortress. Despite the baby update happening, actual babies are not implemented. This may seem confusing, but for now, we just have to wait until Dwarf Fortress implements proper baby, child, AND adult sprite distinction. Right now, there is only adult and child.