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[Harlander]

From the stuff they made in the movies, the dwarves did seem to like their spikes.

[Toady One]

Regarding the detailing, that all sounds good.  There are only 5 or 6 ways to improve an item right now, and spikes is one of them.  Dwarves apply them evenly, but it'll really change once I get back to that.  Right now, the animals and images a dwarf makes are based on the artist's own favorites 80% of time.  Other races put image of known creatures, so a human civilization will have a lot of hippos and elk and elephants (animals you currently can't see), and elves don't use spikes...  I think...

Now we are at 39/192.  I left a few wrestling moves behind, but that's bound to happen, since plans get bloated beyond recognition if I work on their topic for more than a few hours.  I can't talk about the next 9 core things, but on the plus side, they shouldn't take too long.  Then it'll be on to fire and extending magic...  of course, as dwarves, you are mostly on the receiving end, but that's your lot.

[Gezol]

Mostly implies not entirely- what sort of magic can the dwarves use? I'm picturing alchemical type stuff, or some way to enchant weapons. Or is it just that they can get magic items through trading?

[Toady One]

Yeah, that's pretty much it -- occasionally a master artisan can produce a special item, and an alchemist can come by to handle things like antidotes and things.  I had planned a few things you could get from the elves too.

[Harlander]

Ooh! Do they use rune magic with giant magic phrases carved in an ancient runic alphabet in man-high letters on their walls, which flare with a cryptic light as foes draw near?

Or is it something else?

[Svirfneblim]

I might be going too far here, but if a dwarf has a fondness towards a particular object, will he be slightly more happy if he will have his belongings decorated with this stuff?
For example a dwarf who likes wine would like his belongings to have grapes and leaves as ornaments, while a hunter might want hunting scenes...
How about the phrases that the philosophers think up to be engraved on items?

"This broad, mithril axe with oaken handle is decorated with three big rubies of average quality and engraved with a design of two dwarfs fighting a dragon. There is "Never say defeat, fight with all your strength" inscribed on the blade. The item is in good condition and slightly rusty."

How about that?
Any dwarf who ever defeated a dragon might like such a design i guess...
But i'm so being capricious now...

[Toady One]

I had some note somewhere about runes, because of the gates of Moria (although the elves made those runes?  or did they work together...  all so complicated).  More bloats.  Bloat bloat bloat.  This would include those writing bloats as well.

A lot of those dwarf preference things are already in.  You might have seen the list of things they like in their thoughts -- this directly influences what items they prefer to own.  Since I don't have the scenes finished, I hadn't thought about that as much.

Hrm, I have items becoming worn, but I don't have rust.  I guess I should do rust, since people go out in the rain all the time.

[Silleh Boy]

some materials would have to have flags to prevent them rusting, however. i believe mithril was supposed to never rust, corrode or tarnish, or something like that. where as, Iron/steel rusts with water contact, aluminium oxidises with air contact, zinc rusts in place of iron/steel in some way (or something like that.)

[Harlander]

Now it's time for a bit of science talk in which I'll affect an air of much greater authoritiveness than I actually possess.

Although aluminium is highly reactive and corrodes quickly, it is this corrosion which leads to its corrosion resistance in use, as the oxide forms a thin layer on the surface of the metal, rendering it highly resistant to further decay.

Because of this, as well as its other properties, aluminium has been considered as a possible real-world analogue to mithril. Another real-world candidate is platinum.

Who says you never learn anything on web forums?    :p

[Toady One]

I've read a bit about aluminum in the past, and I know it takes a lot of electricity to refine it in general.  So where did the pre-commercial sources of aluminum come from (Napoleon III had some plates supposedly, etc., and it was considered more precious than gold at that time, according to one source)?  Did they luck out and find a big lump that had once the oxidation film only on the outside?  And then they made it into plates, instead of soda cans.  IDIOTS.

Anyway, it was the electrical issue (and the fact that we have Dookstar, the precious metal) that made me exclude aluminum from the game.  It also sounds too futuristic to me, but if there were a number of rare ancient examples, I could stick in very sporadic and very valuable lumps for the dwarves to use.  I'm leaning against it right now.

[Eagleon]

Aluminum doesn't occur in its pure form in nature.

I did some research. There was another (highly inefficient and extremely complicated) process which used potassium amalgam (an alloy of potassium and mercury) heated with aluminum chloride under reduced pressure, which caused the mercury to boil away and leave aluminum. It doesn't sound -too- complicated until you get into the production of each of these materials, most of which are dangerous in some way or another. Unless you want to add an entire alchemy system (which could give other neat things, like acids and glass additives), I don't see how they could develop it, really.

[Toady One]

Right now I'm using galena for silver, since it often contains a lot of silver impurities, but galena is a lead ore, and you can't make lead now.  Maybe we can get lead poisoning in somehow.

[Silleh Boy]

i was going to say how at least we're sfe from the dwarves using electrolisis to coat things such as iron with gold and sell them off as 'expensive' items, but then i recalled that they apparently found what resembled ancient batteries from one civilisation. as well as models that resembled aeroplanes somewhat, in their form.

the solution to this is we blow up all the ruins we find and smugly continue to think we did it first. err. i mean...

[Toady One]

Yes, it's true.  The dwarves will build Mayan televisions.

[Gezol]

But the question is, can they build satellite dishes as well? I bet they'd start grumbling about not having enough channels and missing out on the hit shows over on the elven channels if you didn't build one.

Anyway... Dookstar? Is that the game's equivalent of mithril? And is there any connection to the whole dook thing way back in this thread? That would be pretty funny if there was...