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[Girlinhat]

Metal preferences sounds amazing.  I think I like that one most of all.  And it's true, every dwarf has a metal preference.

[KodKod]

If preferences are something you like the sound of then how about deities?

Your society could be split up into different cults based on the gods they worship and how devoted to them they are. Those who worship the god of the earth or other simple things are miners and farmers, stuck doing menial labour with and without an awful lot going for them in life.

Those who worship a god of trade or wealth could be a merchant caste, refining raw materials into valuable trade goods and pawning them off to other civilizations, and having more to show for it.

Then finally those who worship a god of something like gems or fortresses, they could be the ruling nobles, living in absolute luxury.

[slink]

In an earlier version, it was easy to organize a matriarchy based on religion, because every Dwarf worshipped only one diety and every Dwarf born in your fortress worshipped the same deity as its mother.  If you assigned professions to deities, you could make a very nice set of clans.

Now the Dwarves worship anywhere between none and three or four dieties, mostly two.  I haven't determined whether they take their worship at birth from both, either, or neither of the parents.  I suspect the answer is "yes", all three.  So that won't work as an organizing structure.

You could look at the dieties of the parent civ and decide which professions are most honored, or, conversely, make your fortress one of rebellion against the values of the parent civ.  But, you said that was too logical.

You could look at their emotional make-up and choose based on that, but you are going to run into problems almsot immediately because the migrants come mostly in pairs now.  You can retrain inconvenient spouses to new professions, but you can't change their hair colors or their personalities.

Also, starting a fortress from scratch with the issue of the children's clothing is a real problem now.

It sounds like fun, though, so good luck.   

[Girlinhat]

That's part of the point.  You can't change a dwarf's hair color.  That makes the caste system entirely more arbitrary and pointless.  That's the whole idea!  The social structure has no purpose except to flaunt its lack of purpose.

[Vanaheimer]

Metal preference would work well, and it never changes as far as I know.

Completely arbitrary and effective.

[Bihlbo]

It is clear that musical ability must play a part in this.

[tahujdt]

Color-code the floors, like in paranoia.

[Girlinhat]

If I were planning that, then I'd just do paranoia.

[Kofthefens]

I think metal preferences. It could determine profession. Iron and steel could be soldiers; copper archers; gold, silver, and platinum craftsdwarves; zinc and lead farmers; ect.

Yay I finally got to use a semi-colon in a list

[Bihlbo]

I think metal preferences. It could determine profession. Iron and steel could be soldiers; copper archers; gold, silver, and platinum craftsdwarves; zinc and lead farmers; ect.

Yay I finally got to use a semi-colon in a list

You sure did, buddy! 
I like this idea. Mind you, the whole thing is horrifying and fascist, but determining everything based on something so stupid shouldn't end with the posh.

[KodKod]

It is a terrible shame that we lack custom engravings.

WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

[Starver]

I like some of the suggestions, but nobody (apparently, in my quick readthrough) has mentioned what I thought was a fairly common societal delineation...  The "Original 7" are set most highly, and it therefore leads onwards that each immigration wave is junior to all those that are already there and senior to all that come after.

What to do with the fort-born children, though?  Well, they could take on the 'rank' of their highest-ranked parent, be inserted into the social structure one side or another of the Original 7 rank (i.e. new highest, or new second highest), or be treated as "level zero", "infra-red" or "untouchables"...  A lot of possible variation there.


Versions of meritocracies/technocracies are probably the standard (apart from stratocracies), from what I've read around this place.

(Personally, I always give every dwarf a bedroom (as soon as I can dig it out and equip it), whether noble or peon, military or civilian.  Only doing more for them when their intrinsic nobilic demands require.  Egalitarian, I suppose, in many ways.  A bit wishy-washy, but I've never seen any other separation to be important (save for my current obsessive need to temporarily isolateeach  immigration wave, against the so-far-illusory threat of vampiric immigration).)

[SRD]

I always thought of the original 7 as the inbred castouts from the last fort. Noone loved them and they were use-less so they were tasked with leaving and making a new fortress as a joke.

[Girlinhat]

The starting seven get no love here.  They get a bed, to share, and their own private box to be buried in!

[SRD]

They're lucky to get a box, if it was up to me they'd all be slabs!