ToME Wiki
Einherjar subrace: tweaking the death script
After reading Skizzaltix' death script on the ToME forums, I was inspired to add an "Einherjar" subrace for player characters. The racial details belong in my player-races section, but some of the original code needs tweaking:
- Einherjar should also be cured of the Plague (Norseband's "Black Breath" equivalent) when they're returned to life; I'm not sure whether that is a timed effect now, or a true/false flag as it was before.
- Their hit points should be healed to the full maximum allowed, although drained stats don't return (the usual cures for those still work). Flag-based traits gained during adventures, including insanity symptoms, don't disappear either.
- They don't lose gold for being reborn (the Eddas don't mention Odin charging his chosen heroes for new bodies); their XP and game-score penalties should be enough to offset near-immortality.
- Their starting (and returning) town is different from those of other subraces; the subrace code may handle that, although I'm unsure about that.
Mapmakers needed!
I'm looking for help with basic town and wilderness maps for Norseband; special/quest levels can wait until I've got ideas for fixed quests. The central wilderness should depict the Old World as Norsemen knew it from their travels. Around those lands, an encircling ocean should separate the "real" places from gateways to the "mythical" ones (Jotunheim, Muspellheim, and so forth). The towns, both Nordic and foreign, should be based on real ones in the proper locations; I see at least three in Scandinavia, plus at least one for each of the other cultures in the game. Some of them, of course, will be small settlements or ruins (as appropriate for the time and place).
Are any of the skilled mapmakers who've helped with ToME before, willing and able to help with this part of Norseband? You'll be listed and thanked in the game's credits file, of course... 
P.S. I say that my ancient towns should be "based on" the real thing because not all of them have maps or detailed descriptions preserved from the Middle Ages. Any decent approximation you can find and/or create will help me.
Death screen: design ideas welcome!
The usual tombstone scene (grave marker with a cross) is anachronistic for a medieval Nordic setting. (Besides, what follower of the Norse gods would want a burial like that? 
) I'd like a death screen that fits the new theme more closely; if anyone has design ideas, please post them here. (You don't have to show the ASCII art, just write a description in this section.) Whoever submits the best design idea will have it used (and his/her name listed in the credits file). Good luck!
MariAi: Well I'm sure you've thought of this, but the most classic possibility has to be the runestone. I guess it isn't exactly a gravemarker as such, rather a way to remember big happenings like people going on a journey and not coming back. But you could see it as describing the sad tale of the characters heroic ending. A simple stone with a snake curled on it and runes following the inside of the snakes body.
If you want to go with the with the actual burial marker then looking at a ring of stones in the shape of a ship outline from the side and slightly above might work. The lines would be rather simple, but I have no clue if it can be done in ASCII. It's called a skeppssättning in Swedish, but I don't know what that translates to.
IngeborgNorden: If either the runestone or the skeppssättning image can be done in ASCII art, those would indeed be good choices. (I speak Swedish myself and have seen one of those stone arrangements in Eastern Sweden; you're right that English lacks a convenient word for them.) As for a suitable text to accompany the character's death stats, I thought of this quote from the Poetic Edda:
Cattle die, and kinsmen die,
And so one dies one's self;
But a noble name will never die,
If good renown one gets.
Cattle die, and kinsmen die,
And so one dies one's self;
One thing I know that never dies,
The fame of a dead man's deeds.
BucketMan: Robert Louis Stevenson, 'Requiem':
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave, and let me lie.
Glad did I live, and gladly die...
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you 'grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter, home from the hill.
IngeborgNorden: Beautiful imagery, especially the sailing and the verse-as-memorial parts; I'd still prefer to use the Poetic Edda stanzas though, since those came from ancient Scandinavia.
SkizzaltixZaxali: You could have a picture of a flaming ship. Dunno how good that would look in ASCII, though.
The death script:
hook(hook.DIE_PRE, function()
if player.chp() < 1 then
winner_state = 0
death = FALSE
player.leaving = true
dun_level = 0
player.wilderness_x = x
player.wilderness_y = y
player.oldpx = cur_wid / 2
player.oldpy = cur_hgt / 2
player.px = cur_wid / 2
player.py = cur_hgt / 2
timed_effect.reset()
counter.reset()
if player.has_intrinsic(FLAG_WHATEVERITIS) then player.set_intrinsic(FLAG_WHATEVERITIS, 0) end
inc_piety(god.WHO, -50)
return true, true
end
end)This will (in order): See if the player has less than 1 hp confirm that they aren't dead make them leave the area (Allows change of wilderness area, and refreshes all maps) brings them to dungeon level 0, IE, outside brings them to wilderness x coordinate 'x' brings them to wilderness y coordinate 'y' puts their old town coordinates x and y at exactly the middle of the town map (Sorry, I can't get it to do just specific numbers) puts their current town x and y coorinates to the middle of the map resets all timed effects resets all counters (Sanity, health, experience) removes flag 'WHATEVERITIS' this may need a 'return' in between the 'then' and the close paren increases piety to the god 'WHO' by either 50 or 50%, I can't figure out which tells the engine true or true (In other words, that they aren't dead after all)
If you want something else in here, just tell me, and I'll see what I can do. If I gave you a similar script somewhere else, use this one. I only figured out how to have them leave all dungeons just now. Hope it works!
IngeborgNorden: Thanks for the script, Skizzaltix! Norseband will treat insanity differently, so it's dropping the Sanity stat (too Lovecraftian for a heroic-adventure setting, in my opinion). Otherwise, your work seems good so far...
P.S. If someone could do the flaming ship in ASCII art, that would look great for a death screen. (Even converting an existing picture would work, if it's simple enough to recognize afterwards.) Historically, only rulers and great chieftains got burning-ship funerals; but considering the player character's importance (and the player's familiarity) that choice still makes sense.
ShrikeDeCil: I'm with the flaming-ship burial myself. But I thought I'd key off the 'only chieftains got that' lead. There's nothing preventing multiple death screens. Like: Level 1-5 -> unmarked grave. 5-10 -> marked..... level 30+ -> burning ship.
IngeborgNorden: The closest custom Norsemen had to a "marked grave" is a memorial runestone raised nearby. That would involve some pretty complex ASCII art, unless you just wanted to add the outline of a standing stone with some vaguely Norse pattern where the runes would have gone. If that works for you, though, I'd have the death screens ranked as follows. (The numbers below assume a maximum of 50th level, as in old-school ToME.)
Levels 1-15: a simple burial mound outline, with the standard character-death info placed wherever it would best fit.
Levels 16-30: a standing "runestone" outline, with the character-death info and the Poetic Edda quote.
Levels 31 and higher: same as before, with the flaming ship replacing the runestone outline.
Winners (assuming a follower of the Norse gods): a rainbow leading to the gates of Asgard, with the player's basic info and WINNER status noted.
Calendars: which to use?
Now that T-Engine 3 allows customizing the game calendar, which one do you consider most suitable for Norseband? The conventional Julian months, the Norse ones, or a choice depending on the character's race and/or religion? I'd also like suggestions for a starting date: Frodo's birthday is meaningless in the Nine Worlds, and not every culture agrees on which days are important.
P.S. Eventually, I hope to vary the length of day and night in different locations, based on the gameworld seasons: a summer day in Scandinavia should be v-e-r-y l-o-n-g, for instance. Does the game engine allow doing this yet?