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[Muffindog]

I had two smiths die of strange moods (no anvils on embark, traders only bring steel anvils, I've got little to trade, they end up insulted and leave :/) I buried them and made them a slab in their honour.

The slab said "In memory of Urist McMoody, creator of *artifact's name*

The engraved slab treated the mood like it went okay and the artifact was produced.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Just to bring another bit of evidence into the discussion and return to a comment about savescumming:
1. artifacts don't change their name, but do change their type when you savescum (so if you are getting something call the Merchantfrumpt the fumbling of Cats you will still get it, but it might be a barrel, or a bed or a table--whatever the workshop in question makes).  This means it would make sense for an artifact to expect another artifact by name, but that it makes no sense to expect another by type.

I'd be interested in seeing if the armor-stand artifact that was predicted is savescummed as it is about to complete, and if it will in fact turn out to be an armor-stand after the savescum, and whether the prophesying artifact changes to adjust or continues predicting the wrong thing

2. In older versions, right after the ghost release, ghosts of dwarves who died moody represented them as the creators of artifacts, even when no such artifact existed.  This suggested that dwarves who began to make an artifact, were, as far as the game is concerned, fated to complete them, regardless of the actual outcome. This too make me wonder; since it implies some sort of fate system in the raws that works to construct the dwarf identities.  Ok, that sounded a little too comp. litty.

[rtg593]

Seems to me like the game determines ahead of time the name of the artifacts for its history ahead of time, and uses em one at a time...

[Stoup]

Is it not also a possibility that the exact details of the newer artifact were not determined until you attempted to observe it, and therefore it drew on more recent events for exact decoration?

[Girlinhat]

So we seem to confirm that artifacts are ordained in fate and the dwarves are nothing more than vessels through which the dwarven genetic moods take hold.

Does this imply a set number of artifacts?  If you embark enough, and fulfill enough moods, will they stop?

[JelloSnark]

I'm not so sure they would stop. Maybe each dwarf in the entire world is fated to end up creating an artifact sometime in their life. So it's quite possible for every single migrant you ever have to create some object of bad-assery.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Is it not also a possibility that the exact details of the newer artifact were not determined until you attempted to observe it, and therefore it drew on more recent events for exact decoration?

An easy way to test this involves creating a planepacked-esque artifact that is guaranteed to have lots of historical data on it, and then create lots of history events (deaths, appointments, masterpieces, etc.). If true, the artifact's description would include events from after it's creation if you avoided looking at the description until much later.

[Girlinhat]

Step 1: Generate a short history world.
Step 2: Planepacked!
Step 3: DON'T LOOK AT THE QUANTUM LIMESTONE BOX!
Step 4: Kill.  Everyone.
Step 5: Observe if planepacked now shows several in-fort killings done after its creation.

[Callista]

Is it not also a possibility that the exact details of the newer artifact were not determined until you attempted to observe it, and therefore it drew on more recent events for exact decoration?

Could be--maybe the description's generated when you first view the artifact, or if you don't view it, perhaps when you save the game after creating it. That armor stand and toy axe were created right after each other; were they created in the same play session?

[MarcAFK]

It seems like the Mood is actually triggered earlier than the point when you're notified of it, the game determines it's name and what workshop it needs, if another mood is triggered before the first artifact has actually been made then as far as the game is concerned that artifact exists and is a valid target as decoration.
This should actually be on the bug tracker since dwarves need to have at least seen an artifact to be influenced enough by it to want to engrave an image of it.

[schismatise]

It seems like the Mood is actually triggered earlier than the point when you're notified of it, the game determines it's name and what workshop it needs, if another mood is triggered before the first artifact has actually been made then as far as the game is concerned that artifact exists and is a valid target as decoration.
This should actually be on the bug tracker since dwarves need to have at least seen an artifact to be influenced enough by it to want to engrave an image of it.

I agree with this post. Also, your forum avatar looks like Gir riding a piggy, so that's extra bonus agreement points right there.

[MrAnderson]

will put it on the bug-tracker soon, I'm at work now

[Mercur1c]

This would actually be a pretty cool feature, dwarves/creatures making prophecies, and the result legends stuff...

[Kaos]

I got something similar, a recursive artifact, a throne with an image of itself... 


Must be like those eternal mirror in front of another mirror, the image has a throne with a smaller image of itself, and so on until is physically impossible to engrave such a small image on a image on a image on a image... you get the idea...

Spoiler: "pic or it didn't happen" (click to show/hide)

And fits the engravings from the future issue too, how could he engrave an image of an artifact that wasn't really done yet? I mean he was building it, how can he know how it will end up looking when finished in order to engrave the image? paradox? 

[schismatise]

Must be like those eternal mirror in front of another mirror, the image has a throne with a smaller image of itself, and so on until is physically impossible to engrave such a small image on a image on a image on a image... you get the idea...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droste_effect