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[Marek14]

It seems to me our concepts are quite similar.

My question is, who do you envision creating the laws? (Practically, in the game.) There are various possibilities, perhaps not entirely mutually exclusive.
Of course, the founding civilization could have its own fixed set of rules, but taken to extremes, that seems rather dull. You would essentially be stuck with a single-faith fort from the beginning to the fun. (Although this opens some possibilities for the patriotic rules and traditions you mentioned.)

The second basic possibility is for the fortress to make its own laws, which could either happen automatically (once a religion achieves a certain position of prominence, it's promoted to a certain status and starts issuing binding rules in a way analogous to nobles) or it could be done by players decision - the dwarfs would demand and require some rules and become upset unless the player yielded to their requests, but it would ultimately be up to the player to make the decision.

I think the fortress is, basically, a "colony" -- its relationship with mother government would be defined mainly by the distance, measured in how long does a journey there take and how risky it is.

If the fortress is close, it should keep close contacts and get bigger migration waves from the motherland -- migration waves to far places might be thinned by dangerous terrain, animals, plants and even some of the nastier minerals before they get to you.

Migration: that's the key. Your seven starting dwarves are fairly monolithic. They come from the same society, they will likely share the same values. Migrants are not limited to your dwarven civilization and can bring multiculturalism, new ideas and new problems.

Looking at the migrations in the real world, there are several types:

1. Official migrations -- government sends dwarves to settle in your fortress. All would come from your civilization and the size would be dependent on distance, as they could die on the way. These would be generally good citizens of your motherland.
2. Penal migrations -- criminals exiled to your fortress. People deemed "unsuitable" for your civilization. These would bring new ideas, they could be heretical cult leaders, etc.
3. Immigrants -- coming from any civilization.

And you could eventually either become the  capital of your civilization, or declare independence

[Fidna]

Coming from any civilization; do you mean any other dwarven civilization or just any civilization at all? I think it'd be nice to attract a very limited number of immigrants of other races who are enticed by what religious or cultural or whatever other ideals your fortress puts forth, given certain conditions in the fortress. That could bring some unusual synthesizing of totally foreign aspects with the fortress (given it's unlikely such a person would be unlikely to ever truly abandon all vestiges of their former people), though such people would naturally be very limited in number. But that'd also depend on the sheer level of introversion of the civilization you're part of, and how you run the fort itself.

[Marek14]

If the immigrants could come from non-dwarven civilizations, that would lead to a whole host of other complications (interracial marriages, possible crossbreeding, etc.).

[Gloster]

I'll assume you didn't mean it that way, but why is the prospect of interracial marriages bothering you and why should it be a complication?

Crossbreeding could simply be declared biologically impossible, as it probably would be.

[Marek14]

I'll assume you didn't mean it that way, but why is the prospect of interracial marriages bothering you and why should it be a complication?

Crossbreeding could simply be declared biologically impossible, as it probably would be.

The problem with crossbreeding is that there are past fantasy precedents on either side of a continuum, this is a point where something must be chosen. Were the various races in DF created or did they evolve, for example? If they were created, possible crossbreeding issues would be in god's discretion; if they evolved, we can't off-handedly dismiss possibility of hybrids, perhaps sterile or with reduced fertility, like mules. Or unviable babies that won't survive, but can still cause some MAJOR anguish in their parents.

Most of all, though, I'm concerned about having too big differences between your citizens (not just dwarves at this point). You wouldn't be able to ignore that. Some of your citizens wouldn't need alcohol. Some would prefer living above ground. What started as a fortress would evolve into multiculturalistic melting pot with all the benefits and disadvantages. That might be too far from what we have now to be palatable for some players.

[Fidna]

Being able to establish some basic policies for each fort you make may alleviate that comfortably. Simply say that if a non-dwarf, or even dwarves of a foreign civilization, show up, your people just tell them to stuff it and keep going.