rename/reflavor demigods to something awesomer

[luckless]

Demigods have a legitimate gameplay niche, but obviously their lack of special powers is so confusing and/or annoying to people that threads requesting that special powers be added to them keep cropping up. In my view, this is evidence of a misalignment between flavor and mechanics; if demigods can be reflavored to something at least as cool but less jarring, they should. Here are two possibilities; I think either would be a big improvement.

• Demigods are golems, beings created by magical rituals for specific tasks. As such, they are identical to humans in all but two respects: they are capable of extraordinary physical or mental ability, depending on the purpose to which they are set, and they lack souls.
• Demigods are humans from the future (or another dimension), in which technology is indistinguishable from magic. While the circumstances by which these future-humans were brought to the dungeon prevented them from bringing any equipment, they at least retain the advantages of millennia of genetic engineering. However, the concept of faith is utterly foreign to them.

There are probably other options, too, if people are interested in coming up with them.

[Plantissue]

Keep the description but call them Demihuman.

[Lavandula]

I agree. "Pure" demigods heavily overlap with other demigod species, such as minotaurs and centaurs.
https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... _or_asuras

Also, there are tengu. They aren't that much against serving as game states - for example, there was a legend about tengu named Kaidan Toshiotoko who served in Zen monastery - the problem with tengu is that they are basically gods. Many have their own shrines, and one source claims that Sojobo has his own cult. So, what do you think about merging Te and Dg?

[luckless]

idk about tying demigods, titans, etc. to actual mythologies too closely.

this probably has to do with my having lost what little avant garde cred I once had now that I'm in my thirties, but frankly these days my main cultural reference points for demigods and titans are this and this, respectively.

[duvessa]

Just remember to rename them to some gibberish like "Degudogo" that keeps the abbreviation Dg please

I'm also not sure this would help - usually the people who hate Dg hate humans too. I don't think it's a flavour issue so much as players wanting more gimmicks and/or buttons to push.

[ion_frigate]

Demigods are golems, beings created by magical rituals for specific tasks. As such, they are identical to humans in all but two respects: they are capable of extraordinary physical or mental ability, depending on the purpose to which they are set, and they lack souls.

Just remember to rename them to some gibberish like "Degudogo" that keeps the abbreviation Dg please

Demigolems?

[chequers]

I like Golem, and it doesn't have to keep the abbreviation. It can be a rename like Kenku -> Tengu or Bultungin -> Gnoll.

[luckless]

I like golems too (better than future-humans, fwiw). thanks for writing it up!

[duvessa]

I like Golem, and it doesn't have to keep the abbreviation.

But it's much better if it does, since Sequell and scoring pages exist

[Sprucery]

Disgrace

[kuniqs]

I really like the concept of the Demihuman from the future. You don't even have to change the abbreviation.

[nago]

Humans from the future seems too sci fi for me but +1 for golems

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I really like the concept of the Demihuman from the future. You don't even have to change the abbreviation.

Don't you? Where's the 'g' in 'Demihuman from the future'?

[Majang]

Don't you? Where's the 'g' in 'Demihuman from the future'?

Demiguy

[Sprucery]

Surely you mean Demigal!

[Shard1697]

as far as I'm concerned guy and dude are gender neutral terms, as per the way they were used my entire childhood and highschool

[Shard1697]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqMODweN8lQ

[invertedeye]

Their flavor makes fits their mechanics perfectly. People just want more gimmicky crap like how about a species of playable squirrels? or a humanoid swarm of insects? or an ostrich?

[duvessa]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqMODweN8lQ

https://youtu.be/f0JYY-oL57A?t=40s

[Lord Haart]

The name most reflective of their gameplay would be "Deminogod".

[luckless]

People just want more gimmicky crap like how about a species of playable squirrels? or a humanoid swarm of insects? or an ostrich?

Maybe, but the advantage of renaming demigods is that it refocuses the question.

If demigods are changed to golems, people would still be free to propose adding demigods with innate special powers or any other new and exotic species. The difference is that these proposals could then be assessed on their own merits--that is, on the basis of whether they would actually add anything to the game--and so in addition, rather than as an alternative, to the species that trades god access for better stats.

Of course, this assumes that golems or future-humans wouldn't create flavor clashes of their own, which could be contested. For instance, some people might want player golems to count as non-living for purposes of negative energy resistance etc. Personally, though, I don't have this problem at all, since on some versions of the actual folklore golems are indeed are human-like in most respects. (However, I do think it'd be fine if player golems had some small, mostly flavor-based mechanical changes, like not needing food maybe.)

[Lavandula]

If demigods are changed to golems, people would still be free to propose adding demigods with innate special powers or any other new and exotic species.

Crawl has golems already. It's called Gr.
Flavor-wise, merging demigods and tengu is the best solution, because it's their mythological niche. But I'm not sure that cutting entire species is a good idea from gameplay perspective.

[Siegurt]

Donutgobblers! Because once you start eating donuts you cant worship anything else, and clearly earing lots of donuts leads to superior stats.

[Cheibrodos]

Deep golem

[Shtopit]

Deep golem

Sounds cool. Cuz high int, therefore they're deep.

[cerealjynx]

Change them to something Aasimir?

[archaeo]

Diamond Golem? Duralumin Golem?

[BobIsDead]

The obvious mythological creatures to fill the godless niche are fomorians, jotunn or titans. I guess "demigiants" would work if you wanted to keep the "Dg" thing going.

Alternatively, if you want to make Crawl even zanier than it already is, making them aliens with no concept of faith also works. Like Kryptonians or Lunarians or something. Don't know what you'd have if you wanted to keep the "Dg" thing. Probably "Deltagrammarians" or "Dlingons" or something.

[Shtopit]

Dontgodders.

[Fingolfin]

Demigiants would be coherent with high aptitudes

[Zooty]

Didgeridookin

[Shtopit]

Dirt Golem? Dwarven Gear?

[Factorialite]

Delicious Gyros