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[Vengeful Donut]

So it's understood that at some point artifacts are going to do something. This has the potential to be really amazing, but all the stuff about it is rather scattered.
I'm trying to collect and generalize some of the ideas I've seen and add a few of my own. Realistic or not, let's try to think of some things that would just be downright awesome.



        What artifacts might be

• Really unique items. Things you can't usually make or find. Weird things you wouldn't expect. Stained glass windows. Other types of weapons. Strange furniture (what is a couch?). There is a lot of room to play here. Perhaps an [ARTIFACT_ONLY] tag for items would let modders even add silly things like buster swords. Item types that get freshly generated.
  
  
• A slightly different item. Perhaps a chest or barrel fits a different number of things inside. A spear that does gore damage. Any of the raw item properties could be changed around. A chair that looks like a..  is that a floodgate? Different colors. Colors you can't usually even get without modding.
  
  
• Sentient. They may have a mind of their own. Perhaps a soul. Maybe some of them even talk. In the extreme case they might get up and walk around; or even join your fortress.
  
  
• Objects of worship. This would be especially fitting if it was also alive. Seeing one of your fortress's artifacts in the list of things your dwarves worship would be pretty neat. Dwarves already like to go and look at artifacts. This could be taken a step further.
  
  
• Historically significant. Artifacts during worldgen could keep track of past owners. An artifact weapon (or an artifact that got used as a weapon) could have kills.
  
  
  what else...?
  
  What artifacts might do
  
  Stuff effects
  All of these have room for tie-ins to dwarf likes & dislikes. Also room for randomization by any type of stuff category (eg: fluids. contaminants. item type. item material. every item tag and material tag in the game can create a partition as well)
     
• Turn stuff into other stuff. Eg: Socks into mittens. Orthoclase into hematite. Water into blood. Booze into magma.
  
     
• Alterations of stuff. Eg: Why is there a green plump helmet in my farm? Is it safe to eat? Eg: Somehow whenever my hammerdwarf fights, chunks keep flying off in bloody arcs.
  
     
• Make stuff outright. Perhaps regular stuff. Perhaps altered stuff. Eg: I noticed all of my dwarves are wearing mittens. Even after all their other clothes have rotted off? Eg: AHHH! It's flooding my fortress with magma!
  
  Creature effects. All of these have room for tie-ins to dwarf likes & dislikes. Also room for randomization by and type of creature category (eg: good. savage. biome-specific. sphere-specific. every creature tag definition in the game creates a partition)
     
• Turn creatures into other creatures. Eg: Wereworlves into kittens; elves into toads; roaches into spirits of fire.
  
     
• Alteration of creatures Tweak an attribute here or there. Perhaps give it something new or take something away. Every creature tag is up for grabs here. Eg: Wh...  why is that werewolf flying? Eg: The carp is on land! Run away!!! Eg: I was reading the combat reports and it seems one of my dwarves attacked with his tail. Eg: Felix Felinename, Cat, has given birth to dodecuplets!
  
     
• Summon creatures. Maybe it outright creates them; or causes them to arrive from the map edge. Perhaps it just causes existing ones to approach it. Eg: It's raining cats and dogs out there. Eg: Elephants keep trying to get into my fortress. I'm not sure how much longer I can hold them off.
  
     
• Raise the dead. This could mean undead. This could mean the dead coming back to life. This could mean the soul of something that died gets stuck into something else. Eg: Urist Dwarvenname; Baby; Legendary Hammerdwarf; Married; Has 5 children. Eg: I keep killing the goblins, but they just won't quit!
  
     
• Cause behavioral quirks. They might make things friendly / hostile / berserk / melancholy / run terrified. An artifact might fascinate things and make them stare at it for hours. Eg: The carp has gone berserk!
  
     
• Dwarf thought/personality/skill/attribute effects. Happy / unhappy thoughts (eg: the hypno-sock told me to break things). Likes / dislikes (eg: the hypno-sock decrees that you love socks). Mandates (eg: the philosopher has mandated the contruction of socks! All hail the hypno-sock). Blanket (or very specific) skill boosts and penalties (eg: socks tend to come out better when made in the viscinity of the hypno-sock).
  
     
• Heal/hurt things. Maybe general, or unbearably specific. Eg: Why do so many goblins have a mangled third toe, left foot?
  
  
• Temperature effects. Heating things. Lighting things on fire. Melting; evaporating; cooling; freezing; putting out fires; melt-prevention.
  
  
• Weather effects.. Rain. Snow. Drought. Hail? Tornadoes?
  
  what else...?
  
  When do they do things
  
  
• All the time. It never quits. It gives 110% every tick of every season.
  
  
• Weather determined.
  
  
• Periodically. Moon phases? Seasonal? Daily? Weekly? Yearly? Centenially?
  
  
• When used. Eg: When a sword is swung. When a statue is placed. When a table is eaten at. When a bed is slept in. When a bucket is filled.
  
  
• When it feels like it. If it's a sentient artifact with a mind of its own, then it could..  well.. have a mind of its own. Eg: If it lights things on fire and it doesnt like elves, maybe you should keep it away from the elves (or not, depending).
  
  
• When it's creator/owner wants it to. He made it. Maybe he knows how it works and can get it to do what he wants when he wants it to.
  
  
• Thought/action triggers of those around it. Could be related to a particular tought or category of thoughts (happy; unhappy; death-related; admiration). A particular task or group of tasks (perhaps by profession?). A particular dwarf or group of dwarves (squads, families, nobles, guilds, professions). Eg: Whenever one of the owner's family members admires a mitten, the hypno-sock kills a kitten.
  
  
  what else...?
  
  
  
  
  In the interest of expanding this as much as possible, contributions are more than welcome. What would make a really cool artifact? What kinds of things did some of the legendary artifacts do in your favorite stories?
  
  
  See also:
  http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=5834.0
  http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=4028.0
  http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=30549.0

[Sordid]

Lots of neat ideas here. Also, this:

• Sentient. They may have a mind of their own. Perhaps a soul. Maybe some of them even talk. In the extreme case they might get up and walk around; or even join your fortress.
  
  
• Objects of worship. This would be especially fitting if it was also alive. Seeing one of your fortress's artifacts in the list of things your dwarves worship would be pretty neat. Dwarves already like to go and look at artifacts. This could be taken a step further.
  

Reminds me yet again of the Dwemer and their robots, the largest of which was quite literally a robotic god.

[Niveras]

An artifact that raises all the bones and skulls in your mausoleum as skeletal dwarves, who are friendly and then rejoin their friends and family in the fort, would be pretty hilarious.

Urist McPeasant cancels task: fleeing in fear at the disruption of the natural order.
Urist McRisenPeasant cancels task: just wanted to make a new friend.

[Granite26]

What I'm interested in is how to make this stuff emergent... Sure you've got some interesting ideas, but it's like Legos...  Fancy new pieces are expensive.  What you want is a building plan for how to make cool stuff out of a bunch of 1x4's and whatnot.

What are the 1x4's of artifact powers?

(Oh, and I'm 100% about historically significant artifacts)

[Grendus]

I believe Toady intends to do this at some point, as several of Threetoe's stories suggest more significant uses for artifacts (trading an artifact as part of an alliance for example). The hard part is Toady tries to script as little of the game as possible, eventually everything in the game will be controlled by some form of AI to make the game almost 100% dynamic. That's the only hitch in this suggestion, either the system has to be automated or Toady will have to write in so many unique artifacts lest the players start to get frustrated when they get their fifteenth singing sword or their twelfth undead-raising pendant that summons dragons when it rains during the full moon ("I HAVE SO MANY CAGED DRAGONS I'M MAKING BURGERS OUT OF THEM!").

That said, the suggestion is brilliant. It's very similar to others suggesting that artifacts should tie in to the magic arc, which is probably where Toady will fully flesh out his ideas on this. The one caveat that I would have to add would be that with how common artifacts currently are dwarves would quickly be buried under a mound of magic artifacts. Either the frequency of moods would have to be lowered substantially or magic artifacts will need to be only a small portion of the total artifacts created.

[dragnar]

Maybe most artifacts could have little/no powers, but a new type of artifact could be added - one created by a magic-user.

Urist McMage has entered a strange mood
Urist McMage has claimed a workshop
Urist McMage has changed a sword into _________ and now it menaces with magic spikes!

[Vengeful Donut]

Granite26 - In order to make the stuff emergent, we want to find a satisfying way to categorize what the stuff is. As we acquire more categories, we can usually combine lots of the smaller groups into larger ones, indexed by a few properties. Having more of the small ones to look at helps find the larger ones. That's one of the goals here.

Grendus - I see exactly where you're coming from. We want to keep things as general and non-specific as possible so there is lots of room for randomization. While I'm trying to adhere to that as much as possible, there are probably more abstractions I'm missing.