Short version: hey, how specifically does ITEMCORPSE work? So I can make a creature drop a certain body part upon death that no other creature has.
Longer version: so I'm making a race of fellas who have a weird "mask" in place of a face. That mask body part is their center of thought, and if it is destroyed or severed, they die.
I've got that working perfect, so now I'm on step 2: when they die, their bodies turn to smoke (done via [NIGHT_CREATURE_NIGHTMARE]), ideally leaving behind their mask as an itemcorpse. Which I can't seem to figure out yet, as how ITEMCORPSE's syntax even functions is like... an inscrutable monolith to me. The mask is made of its own unique tissue & material, too. I also realize that rather than their mask, it'll likely just be a mask, but that's fine.
Funny little sidenote: so, after killing them, any severed limbs turn to smoke along with the rest of the body, right? But for some reason their masks don't. If I sever one's mask, it... stays. Could this be because the body part is TOTEMABLE or something?? 'Cause I mean, if the mask isn't cut off, it fizzles away with the corpse it's attached to. While this severing behavior is like halfway towards what I want to happen... I dunno why this happens. (Also, while I don't even really expect dwarf fortress raws to be capable of this, it'd just be cooler to sever the mask and have it remain where it landed, versus having the mask you cut off poof away and a new one appear at the body. If that... is indeed how that works. Because I now realize that, if I get itemcorpse working, oh wowee two masks yippee!)