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[FalconX]

I think DF needs 3 new professions.

Writer

The Writer profession is used to, obviously, write. Turning on the profession turns off all others [Writers do not work!]. A writer will need an office, some paper [Made at a carpenters workshop, 5000 sheets from a log i figure, maybe less.], and a pen [traded for, or made from wood, bone, or metal at a craftdwarfs shop.]. The writer can have a submenu [or just switch between them] to activate his style. He can do poetry, which would make shorter books or collections of poem books; History, where he simply writes down the history of the area; Short stories, where he can either invent situations, or take existing battles/situations and expand/change them. Books will grant dwarves a happy thought or a bad thought [Urist was deeply involved in a good book lately. <or> Urist was upset/disappointed by a book lately.]. Books can be sold to merchants, or stored in bookshelves [which have the room option of library].

Bookbinders can be wrapped into Writer, or craftsdwarf, but they actually bind the book in leather, and add things based on story quality [gems, bones, metal].

Cartographer

Once the arc is made that allows interaction with the outside world, the cartographer can be used. He is a dwarf that takes some paper, hide, a pen, and instruments [I figured he can use craftsdwarf instruments, but I know those are like drums. I figure they can also be sextants and compasses]. He goes out into the surrounding lands and maps them out, and when he makes enough maps he can make an atlas from them, and store them in bookselves. Atlases would be good for armys [not sure how they will work, but this would make navigation easier?], Embark screens [like a regional prospector?], and adventure mode [Points of interest, ect.?]


Those are my ideas. You can also add in your own ideas if you wish.

[Hackenslacker]

Ah, yes, the famous Dwarven authors of old; such as Urist McWritersblock.

Yes, Dwarves have also been big on writing.

[Kashyyk]

I believe this has been mentioned before, but I want there to be books in DF as well so I'm glad you posted it.
I also have some ideas of my own which could use paper/ books.

Artist
He uses paper and a brush to create pictures or could take a book and illustrate it, to increase its value. you could hang up pictures to give dwarves a good/bad thought, either randomly or depending on their preferences.

your historian could write about both the local area and prominent figures in the fortress or recent events. Maybe, the sooner the book is written after a particular event the closer to the truth it is, so if a dwarf was there at the time and reads a book which says something different to what actually happened he could get an unhappy thought.

This also ties in with magic, so to cast some ritual you will need 'Urist Mcdwarfs guide to ancient magic' to complete it. It aslo gives you another skill, Reading. Come on! no more illiterate dwarves!

[Grath]

It could also give Philosophers a purpose: Book-writing.

[Neonivek]

some paper [Made at a carpenters workshop, 5000 sheets from a log i figure, maybe less.]

At this time period? I cannot remember EXACTLY but I believe they made paper out of Cotton, wool, Silk, or Skin... rather then wood...
Ill have to check it out

[korora]

some paper [Made at a carpenters workshop, 5000 sheets from a log i figure, maybe less.]

At this time period? I cannot remember EXACTLY but I believe they made paper out of Cotton, wool, Silk, or Skin... rather then wood...
Ill have to check it out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper#History

Paper has been around in its current form since at least 200 BC.  Papyrus was used starting in 3500 BC.  Either of these would be viable options for dwarves both in terms of current in-game features and realism.

Edit: I fully support the above ideas.

[gamerman]

Now what would be awesome is to be able to go and read the books. We would need a "Random Poetry Generator", Not sure how it would work, but It would probably make some funny stuff. Dwarfs aren't known for their rhyming skills are they? I'm not sure how you would get the other stuff without loads of trouble. I guess it just generates a random plot, and then makes loads of stuff based on that. I guess history could just pick a random event, then they have a few lines they write depending on the topic. It would be fun if you could read book written in legends mode. Maybe Biographies on characters from the past, like *a name* dragon, or *a name* god. or something. 

[Granite26]

This is a book.  It is a masterwork epic about the BloodyRampage the Terror, a war between the Goblin Civilization of ScabbedKnees and the Elven Civilization of PantyRaiders.  The main character is Elfy TreehuggerPansy the Elf who was kidnapped by ScabbedKnees in 614 and killed 200 elves in his life.  It was written by Urist Mc'mour. It menaces with spikes of Platinum

[Alenth Eneil]

The writer would be well wrapped into the "Hidden Talents" suggestion made about two weeks ago.

[Pyrorex]

This is a leather book. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality. It is the story of Urist McPudding defeating the unicorn rebellion. On the cover a mule leather anvil is depicted in duck leather.

[gamerman]

I was bored, so I wrote out my thoughts on how random books would work.

but summed up, it's just files with different lines with different tags which are then randomly added to make a book.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Poetry.

Could pick a random thing to write about. spheres, or maybe another list.

and do something like;

*random title including what is written about*
*auther name*

then a random amount of lines, like 5 to 10 or something.

*radom line about the object being written about*

maybe they could be based on lines from a txt file.


like

I like [OBJECT], it's awsome.


maybe some other tags for random words.

Like different text files with a word thing like

[WORDS]

[WORD:JUMP:VERB]
[NAME:jumping:jump:jumped]

[WORD:TREE:NOUN]
[NAME:tree:trees]
[THING]


[WORD:text id of the word:type]
if verb:
[NAME:present:futer:past]
if noun:
[NAME:single:plural]
Then a tag for what type of noun it is, like [PERSON] [PLACE] [THING]

verbs have past, present, and futer forms. and nouns have singular and plural.

I'm not good at grammer so I'm not going to butcher the english language.



Then it could use the words in a line like
[OBJECT] is like [VERB:PRESENT] to a [NOUN:PLACE]
I like [OBJECT] like I like my [NOUN:THING], [that one thing that describes stuff.. adjective is it?] and [adjective?].

then several poetry wittings could be added to a book.

---

I'm not really sure how a book would work

---

A biography, on anyone or anything, would be somewhat easy I think. The length all depends on the amount of stuff that happened to the thing/person that the book is about.

for people it has intro lines like

This book is a biography on on [FIRSTNAME] [LASTNAME], who was a [RACE]. In [YEAR], [FIRSTNAME] was born to the two parents [FATHERFIRSTNAME] [FATHERLASTNAME], his father, and to [MOTHERFIRSTNAME] [MOTHERLASTNAME], his mother.

Then have different variations of that, along with different strings for the different events in their life.

This way people could add lines, and it would make it easyer to program.



.. any of this a good idea?

And I like the painting idea, it's like engravings, but you can put them anywhere.