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[Matias]

While I was playing DF, I came up with a notion that critters doesn't leave horns after they die even if they have 'em. So I think horn would be a perfect material for craftdwarves as in real life it can be used to form flutes, handels for weapons, figurines, decorations etc. It also came to my mind that some aphrodiasiacs could be nice, like spanish fly. It would increase the chances for child birth. And as a Finn, I noticed that colder climate animals should include reindeer and bluefox. Bluefox could have expensive fur and reindeer could have horns (that could be used as an aphrodisiac after grounding).

-Matias

[Captain Mayday]

I dunno, mixing dwarves and aphrodisiacs kind of makes my brain want to melt.

[Eagle of Fire]

I don't understand the disgust dwarves give to people when they try to imagine them in normal human positions or activities...

[mickel]

It's the beards that do it...   :eek:

Anyway, horns is a good idea. Fur and pelts has been suggested in another thread.

[Eagle of Fire]

... I think it's a well established fact that, in most fantasy themed worlds, female dwarves don't have beards. Or if they have, it's only a very slight ... Don't know the word, fur?

[Tamren]

fuzz, or peach fuzz if its blond and or very thin making it hard to see.

Lots of people can barely grow anything more, including me. If i let my stache grow out it does NOT look stylish, just makes me look lazy    Same with about 4 of my friends though one managed to make a goatee. It varies greatly though, one guy i know has facial hair covering about 80% of his face, but if he shaves it all off and goes to white spot, he gets offered the kids menu!

Anyhow, horns. Horns would be good, but the whole animal products system could use a major boost. We discussed the problem awile back and this is what we came up with:

At the moment the way it works is the butcher cuts up the corpse and leaves us with a pile of meat, bones and one skin. If this skin is not cured it just rots away. Also all types of animal skin seem to be the same size. It seems that the fur on the pelt is stripped off and thrown away when the skin is tanned, which is a pity.

So how bout this:
1. It would make sense if the size of the skin mattered. An elephant skin could make many boots, not just a single pair. Considering the danger involved with killing even a single elephant, it makes sense that it would have a higher yield compared to say... killing 4 deer.

2. It would drive players insane if every type of skin had different properties. But we could divide them into categories based on how tough and protective they are. Squirrel leather would make good boots but you would want something like elephant or cow leather for making a set of armour.

3. Whenever an animal is slaughtered it leaves a skull. Any horns should be extracted from the skull of the animal by a bonecrafter at his workshop. If you just snapped them off it would damage the horn.

4. Now that we have a horn, what do we do with it? Someone suggested that ivory and possibly "rare" types of bone should count as a high quality material for bonecrafters to work with. It would be like making stuff out of crystal glass instead of green glass.

-You suggested furs, which is a great idea but in practice they would be a bit more complicated. If you preserved the skin and kept the fur intact it would not be usable for armour. That said fur cloaks and fur trimmed clothing would be awesome! Got any ideas to flesh it out?

The quality of the fur should matter. Bear and deer fur will keep you warm but more exotic furs command a higher price. Rare and exotic furs could be used to "trim" other clothing to increase value, sort of like how encrusting with gems work.

[Matias]

Ok, For the skin part, i'd have to say that it would be easier if an elephant (or any other big animal) carcass would just give more skins, like 4 (or 10 for elephant), It would make hunting big game a bit more profitable and make slaughtering kittens less favorable. In a resent game I slaughtered ten kittens just so I could provide fastly more clothing for my dwarves.

Fur trimming is an awesome idea! Fur could also be used as jewelry and decoration for weapons. It would also be great to have bear furs as carpets or hung from the wall...

-Matias

[mickel]

It has struck me as odd that an elephant blundering about takes up as much space as a fox, but then, you can fit 60 horses in one cage in the game too. I happily assume these issues will all be adressed at a later stage.

But yes, I guess the amount of skin you get from an animal can need a bit of adjustment. I haven't looked in the creature files, but it ought to be specified in them what the "yield" is? In that case it shouldn't be too hard to adjust.

Different strength of the leather is definitely something to look into, but I think it also has to do with how you treat the leather when you prepare it. (I forget the word for the process...) After all, the same cow leather that makes soft shoes also makes hard boots and tough aprons.

[Tamren]

Yeah there are many ways to treat leather. The most common are boiling it to make it tougher, not sure how that works. Some leathers are also waxed and studded.

Animals yielding a number of skins instead different sized skins is a good idea. We would need to assign a different name to it though, if the skin is big enough to be split up. It just doesnt sound right if an elephant yields "8 skins".

[irmo]

quote:Originally posted by mickel:
<STRONG>It has struck me as odd that an elephant blundering about takes up as much space as a fox, but then, you can fit 60 horses in one cage in the game too. I happily assume these issues will all be adressed at a later stage.</STRONG>

This is hard; see the last few pages of the Future of the Fortress thread for details.  I'd like to see it fixed too, but right now there's not even a well-defined concept of how big a "square" is.

quote:<STRONG>But yes, I guess the amount of skin you get from an animal can need a bit of adjustment. I haven't looked in the creature files, but it ought to be specified in them what the "yield" is? In that case it shouldn't be too hard to adjust.</STRONG>

Seems like the place to fix this is the tannery.  One fox hide becomes one fox leather; one elephant hide becomes 12 elephant leather.

[FaultyLogic]

quote: This is hard; see the last few pages of the Future of the Fortress thread for details. I'd like to see it fixed too, but right now there's not even a well-defined concept of how big a "square" is.

A square is infinite, and a circle does not exist.