I originally posted about this problem in DF Gameplay Questions,
here, back in February 2008.
Using unmodified version 0.27.176.38c, I am still playing that same fortress, and basically the problem is that every legendary artifact gauntlet that any dwarf in this fortress makes as a result of a strange mood always turns out to be right-handed; never left-handed. I'm not sure if this is a common problem or I'm just doing something specific that is causing all my legendary artifact gauntlets to turn out right-handed. One point to note is that these gauntlets have all used adamantine as the base material.
Some examples of the right-handed gauntlets follow:
An armorsmith who liked gauntlets once entered a strange mood, giving me a chance to experiment. From testing, I had already discovered that although the artifact name is decided upon as soon as the mood begins, and although the category of artifact is based on the dwarf's current skills, the
type (plate mail, chain mail, greaves, leggings, gauntlet, etc.) of artifact created is not actually finalized until the moment the artifact is completed, so I saved the game and reloaded
ten times to see what kinds of artifacts would be made. Since the dwarf liked gauntlets, I was hoping I might have seen a selection of left-handed and right-handed gauntlets after reloading a few times. However, they were all right-handed gauntlets, as shown here (note the identical artifact names, indicating that they were all created by the same mood):
I also took screenshots of four artifact gauntlets resulting from various other dwarves' moods (note the different artifact names, indicating that they were this time not all created by the same mood):
Finally, to help show that this was all happening in one fortress, I took a screenshot of part of the list of fortress artifacts; highlighting all the gauntlets that were displayed on that screen, all of which were right-handed:
At first I thought I may have just been unlucky, but the problem persisted.
I thought perhaps the first few dwarves were all right-handed, but it continued to happen with different dwarves, and I'm not even sure if dwarves can favor one hand over the other, nor how to check which hand they favor.
I've read that some people have made left-handed artifact gauntlets out of other materials, so I wondered if maybe it's an issue relating to using only adamantine as the base material for the gauntlets.
Perhaps these consistent right-handed gauntlet artifacts are a result of a rule or a feature of DF that I'm unaware of, but it seems unusual that right-handed gauntlets should be exclusively chosen like this over left-handed ones, so I thought I should point it out.