I might also move golems from an independent creature to the dwarven creature, using a caste. This would mean that golems do labor, join the military, equip armor and weapons... and can be controlled by direct commands. I didnt do this previously, because the creature would still look like a dwarf. But now I have a golem-tile in the tileset.
Please, please,
please do this, I just lost a squad of elite marksman because the golems that should of been guarding them all ran off when I told the civilians to go inside. Right now the only thing I find golems really useful for is warlocks, and that says more about the warlocks than the golems.
Drawbacks of this: Golems might arrive as migrants, just as many as Mages atm. So not many. And these "foreign races" might be fortress born. How often that might happen I cant tell, but I assume that a low percent of children might end up like this.
Honestly, I would not mind this, given the description says this is a golem sent to you by the moutainhomes having one migrate makes perfect sense. However, you can change the amount of them with the [POP_RATIO:25000] tag; I'm pretty sure you can give different caste different numbers there and it will control how often they appear naturally. Also, no children for golems.
And of course the workshop idea I had: Arbalest Post. A custom siegeengine. You make ammo for it, dwarf goes to Arbalest, runs the reaction: "Load and man Arbalest" and transforms into an immobile arbalest-gunner (or whatever you will call him). He will stay on the Arbalest and will get a ranged interaction that shoots material emissions, simulating him firing the arbalest and using up the ammo. After 1 month (or similar timing) the dwarf goes back to normal. Different types of ammo could transform into different castes of the gunner-creature, allowing different effects.
Something sorta along these lines, first a question: Can you make a building able to be hooked up to a lever/pressure plate/ect? If so, maybe a sorta trap that sprays poison gas when triggered. Arm/fuel it with some glass vials, one of the toxicologist poisons, and a magma flask to vaporize the poison. It would be a sort of poor mans version of the mines, that could be made before you had gnomes, and of course wouldn't be vulnerable to being shot at.
And just for my own peace of mind: A complete tileguide for the MasterworkDF tileset.
Love the abacus, the traction bench, not so much. It doesn't look like something you would lay on top of, or like a traction bench. Maybe if you told me it was for dwarfs I could think it something that you might use to stake someone out for the crows, or stretch them on the rack, but not a traction bench.
Mage: Give them their staffs and shield to make 'em look more badass and less like an Alzheimer patient wandering about in their bathrobe.
Golems: More detail, more colors. They are too bland. Give em a bit of detail work. I also notice, in my current game, they are getting colored by their profession tinting, i.e. farmers being tan.
Undead: More sharp edges, it looks like a stuffed doll or something cuddly.
Drow: No beard for drow.
Rat: That's supposed to be a rat? Not even if I squint a little.
Spider: ? Is that a mistake? I don't see a creature in that.
Bees: Too similar to flys, make them larger.
I also noticed that all allies and greenskins have a tile, so I could theoratically make "foreign race" migrants, having the odd human/gnome/elf/drow migrants, or even captured goblin/kobold/orc migrants. These would also do labor, join the military, and so forth. I think this would be great as an optional part of the mod. I know it would add some flavor.
You would have to make them so they never throw tantrums, slaves don't do that and get to live. Also they shouldn't be able to make friends or socialize, who talks to the help? Or cares when one is killed.