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[Urist McDetective]

Inspired by the conversations in the Immigrant Requests thread.
I guess this goes under Bloat 27?

I called it fake difficulty since I believe labors difficult enough to have secrets like that should feature apprenticeship by a master until proficient anyway which in turn teaches you all you need.

So a body of knowledge in a particular fortress is either universal and exhaustive, or completely absent?

(related to Pilsu's quote) 'All that you need' should truly not be all that is available in terms of dwarven creations. I want to sit around wondering how I can use something bizarre to kill elves kill more elves advance dwarven civilisation.

(related to Silverionmox's quote) Have you heard of Legend of the Five Rings? (L5R)
It's an asian themed rpg/ccg (I won't go into too much detail on it) in which a bunch of gods were forcefully removed from the heavens & set up camp on Earth, each attracting followers & forming an empire. That is Rokugan.
Fairly early on in history, there are a few mortals that show insight &/or ability above most & set trends that persist to the current day. (I'm thinking of Kaiu & Mirumoto, but there are others)
 Kaiu, being an engineer / smith is probably a better example for DF. The rpg says that 1,000 years after his death people are still learning new (previously unknown/misunderstood) concepts from his works & writings.
 Mirumoto, arguably the best duelist / swordsman in the game, perfected the art of fighting with two swords & taught some in his clan. He didn't write down his techniques before he died; this was later done by his son. (who may not have been as skilled or written down everything) If I recall, there were some things that were unable to be taught through writing... but I could be mixing Mirumoto & Miyamoto Musashi - the quite legendary guy upon who he is based. Musashi also happened to write the (japanese) Book of Five Rings.



What am I trying to propose by mentioning this? A few things.

Originators of skills: actual living entities in the world who developed the idea of melting sand into a block or some such. Whether they are gods, dwarves or otherwise is another matter.

Some effect from personality traits while learning skills: Maybe Urist McGlassmaker the first, Mayor of BackWater, only taught his child before being struck down by a flying sock in the barracks. They quite like glass/are creative & later come up with a previously unthought of way to decorate thrones with glass ... spikes!
Perhaps quality items could be recognisable as coming from a particular civilisation if decorations are expanded enough, or even civilisation types identified by their trade goods if certain decorations equate often enough. (All your dwarven neighbors are trading spiky, skull covered weapons? worry about what is influencing them)

Teaching aids: ok, maybe not, but I thought it was worth throwing into the ring after mentioning books & writing down techniques. Maybe this could influence quest options.
Anything else that could possibly come from this idea ...

[Granite26]

People may be more familiar with Rokugan as the Oriental Adventures setting for D&D 3.0

[Urist McDetective]

 
... but it's not really necessary to know the setting in detail to understand the idea I'm drawing from. I hope.

[Tigershark13]

actually... that idea is pretty awesome, could be difficult to code though

[Pilsu]

Can you remember who invented glass? History doesn't work that way

Personally I really dislike old lame stories how "a god did it". It's a cheap cop out and disrespects the people who set the foundation to the world we know today. Not to mention unimaginative


Currently tech level isn't randomized so this wouldn't really work. Ethics and the like can be strictly controlled in the raws, I imagine it means Toady wants us to be able to customize the civs instead of relying on the RNG on not being stupid. Civs are already named Syrups of Bellowing, do you really expect the RNG to make anything interesting or even sensical?

[Urist McDetective]

instead of relying on the RNG on not being stupid.

I can dream, can't I?
When it comes to names, I don't mind the average RNG generation being a bit daft - it makes the cool names cooler. When it comes to game mechanics, I guess it's next to wishing the dwarves weren't (always) so stupid.

Quetzalcoatl.
Due to their cyclical view of time and the tendency of leaders to revise histories to support their rule, many events and attributes attributed to Quetzalcoatl are exceedingly difficult to separate from the political leaders that took this name on themselves.
He was known as the inventor of books and the calendar, the giver of maize (corn) to mankind, and sometimes as a symbol of death and resurrection.
If you take a look at the random DF gods, they have various similar attributes already.

"Risen Brandedsparks" - God from a dwarven civ
Most often depicted as a fire man and associated with trade, wealth, volcanos, fire, metals and minerals.

Trade, wealth, metals, minerals ... Why shouldn't it be possible to have specific dates that dwarves are shown this stuff? (assuming it happens after year 0) Or even the other way around? (dwarves giving gods a new portfolio? New gods picking up dead gods associations?