Talk:Discworld Bestiary

Hey, neat! Have you considered harvesting npcs from here? I've noted when I've found that they're aggressive, although I didn't actually attack them all to see if they pursue. --Ilde 05:46, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Nope, not seen that resource yet! And I need all the help I can get, especially when it comes to filling in the details on those critters which would see me a greasy smear should I try to attack. Groth 06:05, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Cool. :3 Do you think it would be a good idea to put something about alignment in the infobox? Although I guess optimally, it would probably three or four optional lines, for things like rabbits that have different alignments for different types... maybe that's not an infobox-suitable thing. I would suggest/volunteer adding it to the tables, but again that'd be awkward for the ones that vary between areas. Hmmm.

Hey, do you think this could be useful?

{{Details needed}}

It puts the text "Details needed." there, and adds the page to a category which I've called "Animals missing details", although that could possibly use a better name. So if you're missing a description or something you could put it there and then there'd be an easy way to find all the animals that were missing things on their pages. --Ilde 07:02, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Technically speaking spiders are not insects. --Gunde 20:38, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, spiders and scorpions are arachnids. --Frazyl 21:31, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

They're all invertebrates, though, and I don't think there are enough of those to split up into their own categories. Maybe just rename the section to that? --Ilde 22:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Name the section creepy-crawlies? --Gunde 22:24, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Added in the 'details needed' to the spider article; and spiders are not creepy! Okay, they are a bit crawlie, I will admit. Oh, and put in an indented alignment under the description because, as observed, probably not necessarily an infobox item. Groth 00:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Mmm... There's a duplicate spider in other, is that right? The component spiders from Granny's are not npcs, more like a gatherable, not sure if that's what's meant for Chronides spiders.

Possible alteration has been made under the spider page. Groth 05:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

For the lions, there's the "desert lion" in the desert that attacks you on entering the room but there's other lions and lionesses that are in the savannah I think that don't attack you, not sure if that should be two entries or just one? The desert lion doesn't follow.

The scrawny figure of this desert lion makes it look as though it hasn't eaten for days.  This makes it all the more dangerous, as it must be
desperate enough to attack anything it sees.

Yup, there are those pesky desert lions that attack you right away. At this time, to cut down on clutter, I have the vision of including all lions under 'lion'. All 'dogs' under dog, and so forth. The spider talk page may eventually shake that out, since a similar thing is under discussion. Maybe it will change, maybe it won't. That is what collaboration is all about, after all. Groth 05:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Infobox and creature types

Hey, how were you planning on breaking down all the creature types (type I and type II) for the infobox? If you give me a list, I can make the creature infobox so that it'll look at what you put in for the types, and then automatically put the page in categories for those types (and link to the categories in the infobox)... I did something similar for Template:Infobox ritual to make categorizing them all as misc/off/def/healing less hassle, and it seems to work fine. (If you look at Divine Hand you can see it in action.) --Ilde 00:43, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

That is something I've been contemplating what to do. Right now it is a mess and work in progress. Type I is easy, and is the major divisions. For type II, I'm thinking of all 'dog' types (i.e., dog, wolf, grass wolf) be 'canine', all 'cat' types (i.e., lion, mountain lion, cat) be 'feline', and so forth. I'd have to dig into the wikipedia or Book of Life for the more obscure things, but I foresee

• feline (cats)
• canine (dogs)
• rodent or rodentia (small squeaky things with big incisors)
• passerine (perching birds)

...etc., etc. Any thoughts? Groth 04:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like it would work... by "major divisions" you mean what it says under "type" in the tables? --Ilde 04:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

ETA: Oh! Actually, I found an easier way... I think. I just made it so that it treats whatever you put in (plus an s at the end to make it plural, unless it's " Fish"... it might need more exceptions later) as the category name, so you can make new categories of creatures on the fly, just by putting them in the infobox. See Chipmunk and Eel. --Ilde 06:12, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

ETA: And I've now separated out the bit that detects whether it needs a special plural into Template:Plural... easier to edit, I feel. :) It's pretty sparse right now, but you can add more to it easily. --Ilde 06:31, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Coolness! Groth 04:36, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Special harvests

Hey, what's the criteria for something being a special harvest? Do feathers count, for birds, or is it just a given that birds have feathers and not worth mentioning? --Ilde 10:16, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Something special or unusual, such as bile duct for lions, poison sacs for scorpions, 'chop' for BP pigs, or horns for antelopes. Granted, the latter two have no use that I am aware of (although it /seems/ one could get cooking TMs if one could only figure out how to fry up those pig parts), but they are also not typical body part harvests. Feathers for birds is pretty much a given, also the special uses part of the page would direct users to the appropriate pages in the case of specific spell components (like chicken/duck/owl feathers). Groth 04:07, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Ahhh, I see. Alright, then. --Ilde 20:23, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Capitalization

Hey... I just noticed that for critter names that are two words, like "desert fox", you've capitalized both words. Any special reason for that? Linking to one like that in the middle of the sentence will either look wrong or require special link text (like: desert fox) or need redirects from the non-capitalized versions. --Ilde 03:13, 19 August 2010 (UTC)