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[TrombonistAndrew]

I just want to do a bit of brainstorming - I know this'll probably be a couple years down the road:

How can we make elves a playable fortress race and make them interesting?

Given what is already in place in the game, I think they don't really need any more professions, except for some kind of engineer to build tree forts. What I think they need may be a new racial ability with what professions they now have tied to them.

I propose:

[PLANT_MAGIC_HARVEST] This tag would specifically allow elves to harvest wood and fruit from plants without killing them, and to get wood without an axe. Should be significantly slower than the default "killing the plant" version. Furthermore, harvested wood comes already shaped to it's intended function: carpenters directly get their wooden chairs from existing trees instead of cutting wood, then taking the wood to a workshop to shape it.

[PLANT_MAGIC_GROWING] This tag would allow elves of a specific profession to take existing trees and alter their shape and size into something desirable. Elves wouldn't be able to morph tree trunks into completely contrived shapes - they should only be able to change trees in preconceived ways:

Trunks can be enlarged, hollowed out, and have stairs/ramps added. Trunks can also have points from which a limited amount of sap can be extracted for "water."
Branches can be turned into floors, stairs, and furniture.
Leaves can be turned into doors, grates, walls and fortifications.

In order to build, the wanted tile is "grown" from existing material and such growth pushes adjacent material away from the trunk. This means that it's possible to change the shape of existing rooms without destroying them, and that shape will change the shape of anything else that's farther away from the trunk than your tile addition/deletion. It also means that you can't suddenly add a leaf wall in the middle of your wood branch room if there are no other leafy tiles nearby.

This might also be a bit easier if trees were allowed to grow more than 2 Z-levels tall naturally.

Ideas?

[Pilsu]

I imagine elves would prefer to use bean bags as chairs

[Mikademus]

Bean bags? That'd make farmers and sacks rather than wood and woodcrafting the bases for Elven furniture making. Joke suggestion you made, but actually rather good

Anyway, I am going to do the forum nasty and quote myself from another thread. Here ya go;

...races should have different affinities: it is natural for dwarves to seek a Heart of the Mountain, and it is for elves to seek a Heart of the Forest. Humans might not be affine with any thing like this, perhaps being more generic and stronger with magic in general (at the onset) but also not able to attain the Greater Powers of possessing a Heart of their racial affinity. This makes the races naturally more qualitatively distinct and would entail each being played differently from each other == Big Win.

and this

Little's suggestion is nice: Elven civilisations (keeps, towns etc) could have a Mother Tree that is planted when a settlement is established and grows, and with it its power. Then mages could have their own trees that grow over time (Heart Tree?). This implies a nature-related ritualistic power different from the dwarven kind. Nice symmetry with the already existing racial profiles and proclivities. It also makes the Mother Tree a good target - imagine the happy thoughts of the dwarf with a bed made from an elven Mother Tree! I'd also like to see the artifact made from Mother Tree wood by a dwarf with a fell mood *biiiiig grin*

SirHoneyBadger, yeah, what you say ties well in with the rest of the concept, and also with that in the notion discussed here dwarves get a large boost (at least in potential) to their power when gaining the Heart of the Mountain. That the raw force contained in it would warp the Heart's surroundings (summons, mutations or whatever) adds a dimension to it, and also explains why the elves' Mother and Heart Trees grow slowly and are less powerful: it's an intentional check and limitation on the chaotic nature of the flux that is magic, and this in fact reflects nature itself which is a high-inertia equaliser on entropic chaos. Perhaps there could be some special buildings or mechanisms dwarves could make that buffers this creeping warp? Magic engravings (seals)? Making and planting fields (of special plants?) the produce of which absorbs the raw chaos (perhaps this would be good raw material for alchemy?).