I'm working on a few from scratch civilizations, not taking the bones of another, and I decided: hey, smart apes! My whole approach is basically taking slightly bigger apes, some the size of dwarves, some a bit smaller, some bigger than humans, and working them into a civilization. The apes will all be from scratch as well, I'm working on a 80000 sized gorilla like creature for the base one. So instead of having them be as smart as humans or dwarves, they'd rely mostly on copper, bronze, and stone for their materials. They'd have access to wooden, stone, cloth/silk/leather/plant fiber crafts and clothing, and some parts of the metal industry, but not much. Their unique bonus would be hardened/er leather, as I'm under the impression the leather armor and such in Dwarf Fortress if fully hardened. Sometimes leather armor was cured and prepared heavily to be effective armor, sometimes it was just made quickly. I think the Dwarf Fortress leather armor is of the latter. So why not have these apes be experts in leather armor? My idea is: take two leathers, maybe some thread, and I'm thinking a liquid, I'm not sure which, and work it into one hardened leather, which would make armor better than bone armor, and master work bone armor rivals base copper. This wouldn't be the only armor, they do have access to copper and bronze, but not all armor types. They can make axes, picks, bolts, and maces from metal, for weapons, and breast plates, helmets, shields, and chain leggings for armor. Gauntlets, boots, greaves, mail shirts, hammers, swords, and spears, all unavailable to their metal workers. So they could replace them somewhat with stone and leather counterparts, especially since cloaks and robes cover much of the body. I'd give them a more likely chance to breed, and have at least two kids each, so in a siege, you'd most likely be outnumbered by a lot of apes. They'd be good with both underground and above ground crops. They'd live in tree retreats, hillocks, and hamlets. Nothing too huge, like fortresses or cities. Their trading season would be the winter. They'd like trees and any animal depiction, if I can work that in. So what do you think of a rather un-advanced ape civilization roaming around?
Edit: Just to clarify, I'd give them stone axes, swords, spears, bolts, basically all weapons but picks, in stone variations.