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[coalboat]

who writes on a scroll every year to document what happens during this period.

[FantasticDorf]

I mean, yes, kinda, sounds good?

The lack of content in the original post leaves me a little bit hungry of context, since we already have a historian skill for scholars who apparently go over the history of sites as a book-topic and obviously the player & engravers own dilligence to write down the history of a fortress engraved onto its walls also exists.

Perhaps you could add a bit more to your original post or a follow up post about it? Like are the pages readable like a engraving and book compilable?

[coalboat]

This idea occurred when I inspected a sculpture and found out that it was about The Assault of Mobs. I realized that the sieges that were unceremoniiusly broken by my legendary dwarf squad all have name, and are remembered by the dwarfs of the fortress. However, this knowledge is not easily accessible to the player. Of course we can mass produce sculptures with image of history about our site, but this produces a pile of unordered and much repeated information.

A chronicler of fortress can produce a site history, that, has its place in the game world(a scroll), and at the same time easily accessible to player(number of year in title, historical event as the content). We can view our fortress from the point of view of local dwarfs. This also presents player fort in a way more alike to the non player sites that we can read about in Legend mode, and makes it feel more as a part of the in-game world.

[FantasticDorf]

That sounds a lot better, but would we be able to export the `Chronicles` to other sites like we can currently export copies of books and have them enter the game-worlds circulation? It would be nice to re-purchase a copy of a saga or a few series with multiple pages to read a bite-size legends mode or learn about the summarized history of another world-generated site.

Dwarves and adventurers could in-world learn trivia about things and lessen the nessecity for them to know everything, by putting more hooks in where appropriate so that dwarves are neither absolutely knowledgeable about things outside the site or 100% ignorant without living a shut-in turtled existance their entire life.

Some DF players do play the game like it was some sort of nuclear shelter with no contact with the outside world, sometimes out of nessecity.

[Pillbo]

Sounds a bit like having limited access to Legends Mode in Fort Mode, which I think would be a good use of fortress historians & libraries. Site history, Histfigs/Artifacts related to the site and information learned from rumors and books could all be collected into one mini Legends Mode of knowledge available to your dwarfs.

Most times I leave Fort Mode to look at Legends is to find this kind of info (directly related to my fort) and there's not really a good reason for it to be unavailable to the player. It might even be preferable to Legends Mode if you don't have to filter though thousands of histfigs/entities/artifacts to find the few relevant to your fort.

+1

[Azerty]

We already have a Historian skill, so chroniclers might appear soon.

We could even see some let their bias in the story, like a chronicler thinking the slave revolt he brutally suppressed had it coming.

[FantasticDorf]

We already have a Historian skill, so chroniclers might appear soon.

We could even see some let their bias in the story, like a chronicler thinking the slave revolt he brutally suppressed had it coming.

I was just about to mention something along these lines, it'd be funny if the art description screen was used & streamlined for this purpose to specifically choose events, then dictate to them through your will of the fortress into portraying events a certain way, or let the dwarf free with their own bias and analysis of the event like you said.

A dwarf who hates aquisition of power over others is likely to exaggerate the conquering of a place as a negative event, and highlight the worst facets about elves as much hated enemies arriving to siege with a little breakdown of the battle event; all part of your dwarven propaganda machine.

[coalboat]

I think maybe every site, player controlled or not, should have a chronicle. Then we can buy these of other sites from caravan. Very organic way to give access to Legend without complete spoiler.

However, IMO opinionated work should be written by historians, like what they are doing now, each book for a piece of essay on a specific event. Chronicle should just be a list of events and when they happened.

[J4SNT]

Would it be feasible to make knowledge seeking a system handled by agents?

Could a lord of a site order a chronicler to go to a far off place and collect it's history and return?

I feel like that could open up an avenue into a rudimentary form of espionage or civ relations.

[Azerty]

I think maybe every site, player controlled or not, should have a chronicle. Then we can buy these of other sites from caravan. Very organic way to give access to Legend without complete spoiler.

However, IMO opinionated work should be written by historians, like what they are doing now, each book for a piece of essay on a specific event. Chronicle should just be a list of events and when they happened.

And historians could use these chronicles as sources, along with direct testimonies.