#all dcss tiles are made from and are automatically

[divine-regret-index-j]

one of the curious things about being one of the two main content devs in the past year of an open source project is having to go clean up the half-done efforts of other devs' given projects. decoupling transformation magic from spellcasting into various talismans did make it so many more character builds can access transformations than prior, but by tossing out the prior connections to other schools of magic it also left a relatively plain set of transformations rather isolated and singular in its progression. having every troll and octopus end up aiming to become storms and statues is substantially less varied than earthshapers and weather witches of all sorts possibly dabble into the corresponding [earth | air] + transmutations form.

after a lot of brainstorming with my partner about the needs of variety and with the makeshift art compositing capacity I've picked up, actually coming up with enough forms to provide reasonable spread-out options then clashes strangely with the need to match the prior species-

-resulting in the absurdity of depicting a spine-coated cephalopod, a two-headed snake with cat ears, or vampire and werewolf armadillo-taurs. it does mean, also, in comparison to That Other Roguelike's permitting immense bodyhacking for a steadfastly genderless player-perspective, a character can actually divest experience towards transitioning into a traditionally-feminine mythological feline with a chest and an armoured skirt. who knows how popular that'll be compared to becoming a walking hive, though?

(will still need to get volunteer artists to cover a few remaining things- no compositing really will get a werewolf cat- but it's not too bad for preliminary art compared to other programmer-art.)