Hello! As we noted in the last news post, I'm finishing up the villain work that was in progress before we move on to getting the Steam release together, and this work had just hit the 'post world generation' phase, where we take our foundational but abstract data and code that was used to make the world's history and get it into a form that can be used in player fortresses and in Dwarf Fortress's RPG mode. In the previous post, I'd just finished a basic assassination plot. The next step was to get the villain's lieutenants and handlers to work with assassins. In our existing plots from DF history generation, the villains don't always contact the assassin directly, in order to better conceal their identities. This adds some complications once you get into play, because the villain needs to contact the handler, and then the handler needs to hire the assassin, and each of these pairs need to meet in some location, which isn't always simple since the desired assassin (or the handler) might be doing something else, making an immediate meeting impossible. There are various sorts of possible missed connections, some unavoidable, but the basic two-step plots are working now. However, sometimes a villain or handler is just too important to go on a lengthy secret trip (they are a ruler, say). To solve this problem, I've allowed sufficiently important people to send messages more abstractly. An important villain might send a message to a handler, who then travels physically to hire an assassin, or a villain might physically travel to speak to a highly-placed corrupt official, who then sends word to an assassin via message. The messages still take time to travel, and they'll be a form of evidence when we get to the investigation process, where you as a fortress mode player or adventurer are trying to unravel whatever plot you've encountered. But in most situations, there will be people moving around, going about villainous business, and these will be the same people that arrive at your tavern in fort mode, looking to meet a conspirator or otherwise cause trouble for you. Some supporting features from history generation have also needed to make the transition to play. For instance, as I mentioned last time, we added some religious information (on top of mercenaries, merchant companies, etc.) in order to give the villains more connections for their plots, and I spent some time transferring that into a form that can be used once play starts. Each culture now tracks religious demographics and certain historical data (such as persecution and famous sermons) in a way that the in-play civilians can see. These include dwarves immigrating to your fortress, and the people you meet as adventurer. Additionally, I began updating the other (non-assassination) plots - there's still a bit to do there, right where the action of the plot happens (whether it's sabotage or a theft), but they mostly use the same code, because concepts like 'handlers' work the same regardless of the plot. - Tarn (P.S. a note from Kitfox Games: talk about this and other DF lore on the official, friendly [url=http://discord.gg/kitfoxgames]Discord[/url]! This past week we've had great discussions of hatching forbidden eggs, coffin advantages, and disarming prisoners...)