It seems that every other minute in a large fortress you get the message "Dakost McCraftsdwarf has created a masterpiece!". Especially if you have rock crafts on repeat or something.
Now, I know the dwarves are known for their exceptional crafting skill, but this does seem a little excessive. In our world, there are very few things we label 'masterpiece', such as the Mona Lisa or Michelangelo's David. I challenge anyone to name a masterwork larch barrel or diorite mechanisms.
At the same time, I've been thinking about 'artifacts' at large, in particular what that word actually means. We're after awesome relics, or in a fantasy setting such as this, powerfully magical objects that are associated with dramatic historical events. It seems strange that somebody who is only a dabbling clothier, for example, can throw together a few bits of cloth and metal to make a sock worthy of kings. And as a result of this, attain legendary skill in this trade. I don't know about you, but this is a point of narrative dissonance for me. To use the example again, would it seem strange if the painting of the Mona Lisa had been the cause of Leonardo's artistic skill?
However I really like the idea that dwarves who commit great military deeds will bestow a name upon the weapon they used and think that the idea be expanded to non-military situations too.
So let me propose a new idea: change what is called 'artifact'
- Only dwarves who are legendary skill can enter a strange mood. They still claim a workshop and demand certain items as currently happens.
- When they successfully complete the mood, the resulting item is called a 'masterpiece'. It still has the full value that it would have under the current system.
- No special announcement happens for what would normally be called masterpieces now. They still happen, and are still worth as much, but are not a special enough event to warrant the distraction.
- Items can be promoted to 'artifact' status as currently happens when military dwarves name their weapons. In fact this type of item is MORE significant, because they're attached to significant events. This narrative significance could go so far as to modify the stats of the item to make it more effective, or even to imbue it with magical effects based upon what it became famous for. In worldgen, historical figures who also accomplish great deeds should be able to name items and create artifacts this way. We want this to be based on the rule of cool: i.e. how powerful an artifact is should depend on all of how old it is AND how significant the events that it's attached to are AND how valuable its base materials are, etc. By how 'powerful' an artifact is, I mean how much its effectiveness has been enhanced by the RNG. Naturally these items would be desirable to other historical figures, who could go to war or go on great explorative journeys in order to posses them. Then any great deeds they accomplished in worldgen with the item would also be recorded, further contributing to the significance and power of the item. Artifacts made in this way would play a significant role in the narrative dynamics of the world history. Items of power are always pretty good plot points in fantasy stories.
Notice here that since artifacts currently made by moody dwarves don't actually posses any ingame effects, changing their name to masterpieces would not actually remove anything from the game. In fact it makes more sense, since in this case masterpiece is actually a more accurate description than artifact anyway. Under this new system, there is more incentive to look after your moody dwarves since if they fail, you lose a legendary skilled worker. As it is, moods aren't very special or noteworthy and if something like a peasant-dabbling-clothier dwarf goes moody, most players would currently just kill them straight away and avoid the hassle.
Of course, we'd probably want dwarves to still be able to create artifacts from scratch as this is usually what dwarves are known and famed for. I don't really have any ideas for this. There could be an event meter that gets filled up by windowed/zoom events such as finding adamantine or megabeast arrivals or masterpiece creations, which when full makes the next strange mood create an artifact. Or something. Open to suggestions on this one.
Ok, to sum up, this is what I'm suggesting:
Remove masterpieces as they are from the game.
Make the current strange moods create masterpieces.
Make artifacts creatable by significant events, like how dwarves will currently name their weapons.
Add artifacts like this to worldgen and let historical figures interact with them.
Also give artifacts enhancements and powers based upon these significant events.
Let dwarves occasionally craft artifacts in moods, depending on how many significant effects happen to your fortress.
I gather that a lot of this stuff will likely happen anyway, particularly artifact powers and interactions in worldgen, but this is my spin on it. What do you think?
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Topic: There are artifacts, and then there are ARTIFACTS. (Read 1662 times)