Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[VerdantSF]

After decades of crap artifacts, I got a lead mace called Drumseer the Contemptible Loot.  The macedwarf who wields it has the highest kill count in my fortress, which is a first for me.  Usually, it's an axedwarf in my forts.

[dirkdragonslayer]

I had a platinum warhammer before, spiked with native platinum and encircled with hanging rings of kitten bone. It was a while back, but if I remember correctly it was something along the lines of "AncientLaw". My captain of the guard got the magnificent thing, and then fell into a lake and drowned while fighting badgers. some say Ancientlaw still sits in the murky depths, waiting for some lucky migrant to pluck it from the depths of the lake. others say I abandoned it, cause this was around the time minecarts came out and I was super stoked to build trains in a new version.

[sonerohi]

Beamsorrow the artifact steel chain mail. At first I loved it because it is so incredibly useful, and it came right at the tail end of the forts first siege, which had claimed a number of dwarves, something of the order of fifteen brave souls. I started burying the fallen, when I noticed that one of my dead was a guardsman rather than a solider. I try to make my soldiers my no-family, no-friends killers and make my guard out of the useless-but-social migrants. Since a guardsmen died, I start looking for unhappy dwarves, anyone that knew Cog Towerbeam. I find only one sad dwarf, one of my blacksmiths. Now, I notice in this smiths relations that his wife is the smith that just made Beamsorrow, and checking her page shows the guard is her little brother. A very concise web of depression inside the family.

[Syphenion]

So I got this. (Modded with Masterwork DF)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our fortress!

[Sheaim]

Two adamantium gauntlets, strikingly similar.

Only that one had the picture of the second on it.
And the second had one of the first.

Same materials (I think it was dog bone), and menacing spikes of green glass on one and red on second.

Made by brothers.
Within three years of each other.

Their father made a helmet a few years later with two artworks on it: one of each brother making their gauntlets...

I love this game.

[Beast Tamer]

I once had an armorsmith mood and make a simple adamantine breastplate. I say simple because its only decoration was rubies set into an image of a rising sun. I made a special effort to make a full set of adamantine armor, but never got anything else besides a helm and boot.

[Tardigrade]

I am currently playing a reanimating evil embark. I vaguely recall reading somewhere that blunt weapons are better than piercing or slashing weapons against undead (although I don't know how much of a difference it makes, since crossbow bolts also seem remarkably effective), so my army consists largely of hammerdwarves.

My first artifact was a lead hammer. I was very happy with this (I forced the moody dwarf to use lead in the hope of getting a hammer), but I only noticed about three in-game years later that "Nom Nugreth" actually translates as "The God of Weather". I wonder if Thor wants it back?¹

I since acquired another artifact hammer called "Gisstirmingtuth", "The Fortuitous Contingency". So I gave it to the captain of my reserve squad and renamed them The Contingency Plan.

---

(¹Although apparently Mjollnir actually translates as "that which smashes", which I admit would have been even better...)

[Tawa]

Two things:

One, a golden corkscrew.
Two, a figurine with a picture of the corkscrew on it.

[Swonnrr]

Context: scorching untamed wilds, rocky wasteland, Masterwork.
I had an artifact mechanism, made with oil shale, encrusted with oil shale and meacing with spikes oil shale. (oil shale compose most of my embark, and all of the 10 first layers.) (I play masterwork) made by the 2nd year, after i defeated a few sieges by intelligent uses of cover, bridges, and using the local wildlife as a source of bones for armor and weapons.
"On it is a picture of blah blah... It relate to the founding of whispybarricades, in 201."
Right as i began the big engineering projects. (redirecting the local river, begining mining operations and forging, setting up defences...)
It ended on the well, feeded by a river redirected by a windmill, 3 pumps shielded and 4 grates, as well as 200 urists of tunnels, with floodgates, grates and redundant security,
where every dwarves could see it.
That whole system is still kepping every dwarf supplied in water to this day, and never let any threat past it. Not even amphibious ones.

I like to think it was built to remember them where they come from, where they were going, and that no threats could stand in the way of dwarven engineering.

It's not "my best artifact ever" by it's usefulness or awesomeness, but... It's the most fitting artifact i ever had.

[Urist McWangchuck]

My best artifact is Guzvostaz Ribar Uzan, Simplehustle the Homage of Allegiances, a yellow zircon scepter.  It catalogs the rest of my artifacts.

This is a yellow zircon scepter.  All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality.  It is decorated with kangaroo bone and encircled with bands of round basalt cabochons.  This object is adorned with hanging rings of yellow zircon.  On the item is an image of a yak in yellow zircon.  On the item is an image of echidnamen in wild boar leather.  On the item is an image of giant toads in echidna leather.  On the item is an image of The Umber Breath the bronze hatch cover in steel.
On the item is an image of Edzul Winterportals the dwarf and The Elevation of Bites, the giant cave spider silk chausse in cave spider silk.  Edzul Winterportals is raising The Elevation of Bites.  The artwork relates to the creation of The Elevation of Bites in Violencehall by the dwarf Edzul Winterportals in the early winter of 127.
On the item is an image of a forgotten beast in cave spider silk.

I guess I'm supposed to breach the caverns now.

[Victor6]

Only that one had the picture of the second on it.
And the second had one of the first.

- How is that even possible? The 1st guantlet couldn't have a design showing the second because that didn't exist until 3 years later.

[Solon64]

Only that one had the picture of the second on it.
And the second had one of the first.

- How is that even possible? The 1st guantlet couldn't have a design showing the second because that didn't exist until 3 years later.

Common "Feature" of DF artwork with references to other artworks.  The game designates that the first artwork (in this case, the first gauntlet) should have a description of something on it.  It does NOT designate what that artwork should consist of until the artwork is viewed.

Simply put, the first gauntlet has an undeclared "artwork" on it.  Later, when the second gauntlet was made, the player viewed the first gauntlet, thus prompting the game to define what its undefined artwork is.  In this case, it was of the second gauntlet.

I prefer, however, to imagine that artifacts are divinely inspired, and that when the first gauntlet was made, it had on it a premonition of things to come.  Spoooooky stuff, there.

[Solon64]

As to my best artifact ever, I take "best" as "most accurate name/title of artifact, in addition to its usefulness."

With that in mind, my best artifact was a (Masterwork DF mod) Orichalcum War Hammer.  Named "SquirtingColor"

Oh, yes, much color was squirted with that weapon.  Mostly various shades of red with the occasional bright cyan troll color thrown in.

[Melting Sky]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Worth 157200.
I wonder how much damage gold weapons deal.

Wow, it looks like that artifact shows all the history of dwarves being elected to be leaders on it.
Too bad show all history isn't on.

My current fort is cursed in this manner. Had I known the price I would pay I never would have culled my history for performance gain.

[StupidElves]

Best artifact I ever had was a rope made of GCS silk, and it had spikes of obsidian. I thought about using it to chain a T-rex to a wall as a guard animal, but then I got an artifact bucket. So I used the two of them to make a really nice well.