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[The Doctor]

No, they'd be made of Chalk. Trust the dwarves to come up with a tomb that chokes people who come into it.

[Skynet 2.0]

And I can imagine pyramids being made with a massive sandstone quarry.

Pyramids are usually made of limestone.

 Curse you Wikipedia!

 Eer, these are Dwarven pyramids! Although they would likely be made of granite.

Bah! Dwarves build their pyramids from the bones of their enemies!

[sonerohi]

No, IronBlood makes bone pyramids. All other dorfs must use the corpses of those that failed moods to make a pyramid.

[Reasonableman]

I have something to add, I think: to carve a single chunk of rock from a wall, you'd have to use that stress fracturing technique that everyone who watches the National Geographic channel too much knows, where you heat the rock and cool it suddenly to form cracks. It'd make charcoal and coal more useful, at least, plus buckets and water.

Big point in favor of this idea: solid blocks of stone will be stronger (as far as resisting siege weapons and the like goes) than any sort of brick-and-mortared rock. Well, unless they're chalk or something silly like loam.

[TettyNullus]

I have something to add, I think: to carve a single chunk of rock from a wall, you'd have to use that stress fracturing technique that everyone who watches the National Geographic channel too much knows, where you heat the rock and cool it suddenly to form cracks. It'd make charcoal and coal more useful, at least, plus buckets and water.

Big point in favor of this idea: solid blocks of stone will be stronger (as far as resisting siege weapons and the like goes) than any sort of brick-and-mortared rock. Well, unless they're chalk or something silly like loam.

Well, if you can bag soil/sand, and build walls out of them, I suspect it'd do okay, at least as single-level wall like fortification or special wall without support above it. I seem to recall that decent thickness of sand and soil blocks flying weapons very very well. Maybe require a couple bags of sand/soil per wall, and have no support from above, or add it as a fortification option?

[Reasonableman]

Huh? I'm confused. You're talking about sandbags, I'm talking about quarried chunks of rock. I think I see your point, though. Still, dirt can be dug through, rock... is much harder. (PUN HA HA)

[TettyNullus]

Huh? I'm confused. You're talking about sandbags, I'm talking about quarried chunks of rock. I think I see your point, though. Still, dirt can be dug through, rock... is much harder. (PUN HA HA)

Sorry, was responding to the siege weapon part, figured bags of sand and soil would be easier, more portable and somewhat more common than squads of haulers dragging big blocks around 

[Hectonkhyres]

And I can imagine pyramids being made with a massive sandstone quarry.

Pyramids are usually made of limestone.

In the middle of a black sand desert build massive pyramid out of obsidian blocks and place a free standing obelisk at each corner and you can be Mumm-Ra the Everliving! *obligatory mad laugh*

[madrain]

I have to say that I like the idea of sandbags being able to withstand the impact of things.  When a troll appears on the horizon, haulers could scramble to pile up the tiles behind the main gates with sand/soil-bags in order to reinforce the entryway.

That said I'd rather see constructed walls become engraveable before any sort of massive stone-movement.  In the real world there's no reason why a large wall made of wood or stone could not be engraved, even if the blocks constructing it were tiny.  In fact I think it should be even easier in the case of wood constructions, since any kind of error would easily be replaced with fresh wood and re-carved.

[Silverionmox]

Massive walls are better to engrave because there are no visible lines between the bricks. If it's plastered over for frescoes or so it doesn't matter. Additionally, it's more difficult to put the shape you want at the place you want, because a detail might be cut off there. It has been done, mind you, but there should be a quality penalty.

It raises the questions what engravings are: they could be anything from sunken relief over bas-reliefs to half statues.