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[tweinst]

I think it would be perfectly alright if rubber trees were specific to certain spheres. (am I using that right?) If you had to contend with werewolves and zombies and chupacabras to get it, that would be okay.

Why would rubber trees be found near sinister creatures?

Several reasons.

1) Rubber trees originated in the Amazon rainforest, home of exotic and dangerous creatures.
2) For game balance reasons, exotic materials are usually associated with extra dangers. cf. HFS
3) Chupacabras and Zombies are often associated in popular culture with South America, home of the rubber tree.

[PermanentInk]

Dangerous creatures come from every climate.  They're only exotic if you don't live there.  Chupacabras and Zombies are just two of the countless monster-myths that occur in cultures all over the world.  I don't see how you could consider these valid reasons.

I do like the idea of useful materials being guarded by dangerous creatures, though.  HFS is one clear example, and there are plenty of others (current or possible future):

• (giant) spider webs
• bone, shell, etc. from specific creatures
• eggs of giant creatures
• dragon hoards
• unicorn poop

[smjjames]

Err, I really don't think unicorn poo is going to be any more special than rat poo.

[Neonivek]

Err, I really don't think unicorn poo is going to be any more special than rat poo.

Neither do I... It isn't like they eat rainbows and crystal

We also don't have the technology to extract hormones from unicorns in the medeival ages.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

if we're havin unicorn poo and rat poo i want dwarven poo also

[umiman]

I'd like to see dung beetles rolling all that poo around in ASCII. It would be really cute.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

AH! yeah right, that'd be to good to be true, your haulers would have to do that themselves, or the beetles would attach to your dwarves as pets preventing you from butchering them because of the [POOROLLER] tag, we'd be talking beetlesplosion then. nothing comes without a price

[Saber Cherry]

I'd like to see dung beetles rolling all that poo around in ASCII. It would be really cute.

I'd like to see this, too...  but only if it was GIANT DUNG BEETLES.  Their balls have to be big enough to crush a goblin, and fireable from a catapult.  There must be periodic famines amongst the wildlife, forcing swarms of desperate, poo-starved giant beetles to storm through your corridors and randomly herd your stores of stone and ore, and possibly some of your fattest dwarves, to satisfy their rolling instinct.

[Chicken Launcher]

Their balls have to be big enough to crush a goblin,

hee hee [/theimmaturemiddleschoolerinsideme]

[Greiger]

Why is all I can think of now a dwarven katamari?

[dragnar]

Why is all I can think of now a dwarven katamari?

The perfect way to dispose of elves! Roll em' all up, toss em' into the stars!

[Warlord255]

I'd like to see dung beetles rolling all that poo around in ASCII. It would be really cute.

I'd like to see this, too...  but only if it was GIANT DUNG BEETLES.  Their balls have to be big enough to crush a goblin, and fireable from a catapult.  There must be periodic famines amongst the wildlife, forcing swarms of desperate, poo-starved giant beetles to storm through your corridors and randomly herd your stores of stone and ore, and possibly some of your fattest dwarves, to satisfy their rolling instinct.

Why not skip the middle step (Toady's already expressed his dislike for those anatomy functions as part of DF) and have giant BOULDER BEETLES.

[AbacusWizard]

I'm all for tropical stuff, makes the game more interesting.  And besides, the closest thing we have to actual dwarf humans, Pygmies, are almost invariably from the tropics.

Except for the difference in height, I'd say the closest thing we have to dwarves is Welsh coal miners. 

[Protactinium]

There was someone protesting to tropical things in game because high fantasy dwarves are a stereotyping of the Irish with medieval technology.

But the argument for rubber and their trees in the game is simply the issue of being too dwarf-centric. These things should still be in the game as -options- when we play the unusual settlers who actually choose to settle near a volcano or in the tropics or on a glacier, etc. They still need to be able to live off the land. If you had a mountain-dwelling nordic tribe move to the lowlands, they're going to start changing some of their habits. Things like architecture are because of geography.

[nil]

Note that the already in-game obsidian swords are pretty directly modeled on Mesoamerican weapons.  I can't remember where, but Toady has said they're really more like clubs with pieces of obsidian embedded in them, like this.