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[Kishmond]

If we can designate what kind of stone to use in crafting in the next version, can we choose which items to improve or encrust?

[Footkerchief]

If we can designate what kind of stone to use in crafting in the next version,

You can't, not directly anyway.  You can use burrows to ensure that workshop only uses stone from a certain stockpile.

can we choose which items to improve or encrust?

You can use burrows for this too, as long as you can get those specific items into a stockpile.  Otherwise, no.

[Vicomt]

If we can designate what kind of stone to use in crafting in the next version,

You can't, not directly anyway.  You can use burrows to ensure that workshop only uses stone from a certain stockpile.

can we choose which items to improve or encrust?

You can use burrows for this too, as long as you can get those specific items into a stockpile.  Otherwise, no.

I can see a long row of jewelers, each specialised in cutting and setting a particular type of gem, each dwarf makes it his life work to get the very best out of each gemstone, and design the perfect setting for it. Troops of haulers continuously haul furniture between the different jeweler, a vast, interconnected SINGLE PROFESSION O_O

[AbacusWizard]

I can see a long row of jewelers, each specialised in cutting and setting a particular type of gem, each dwarf makes it his life work to get the very best out of each gemstone, and design the perfect setting for it. Troops of haulers continuously haul furniture between the different jeweler, a vast, interconnected SINGLE PROFESSION O_O

"My name?" said the old grizzled dwarf. "My name... is sapphire."

"Sapphire?" I mused. "That's an unusual name."

"I may once have had another," replied the dwarf slowly, "but I do not remember, and it is no longer important." He stared at me for a moment, a vaguely forlorn look in his sunken eyes, then turned back to the almost mechanical motions of polishing the perfect blue gem in his withered hands. "Please put out the torch when you leave."

[father_alexander]

Regarding dwarven culture and analagous human cultures: I know that the usual tendency is to portray dwarves as stereotypical Norse (they mainly originated in Norse mythology, at least as we know them) or stereotypical Scots (thanks to... Warhammer, maybe?), but for a long while I have thought of them more as medieval Jewish...

this calls for a mod called "jewish or kosher fortress"

imagine if there actually was an option for making kosher food

and wen you think about it, this would make elves the opposite of jewish, wish means... A-HA! i knew it damn nazi elves!

[RedKing]

Let's take a step back here for a second and consider that you're debating the internal biochemistry...of a UNICORN. Granted, there's something to be said for injecting realism into fantasy, but it's worth keeping in mind the first rule of fantasy:

1. If it doesn't make sense, it's MAGIC.

Let's not even get into how a unicorn's horn can neutralize poison...

And Dwarf Fortress is Dwarf Fortress.  It's magic, aye, but what sorta magic?  If you're gonna have a world which can be interacted with on the scale of Dwarf Fortress, the program will need more info than "it's magic."  If you grind the horn up, does it still neutralize poison?  If so, how much ground unicorn horn is needed for the process to operate?  What counts as poison, anyhow?  Is alcohol on that list?  Do other parts of the unicorn's body (like meat, bones...) have similar purifying properties?  If you make a scalpel from unicorn horn, have you just invented a self-sterilizing scalpel? Can Dwarvern Science make use of industrial-sized herds of unicorns, farmed like we farm cows, or do the unicorns have to be roaming free within the sacred forests in order for them to do their magic?  Can unicorns even breed in captivity, or will chained unicorns wither away and die in sadness unless given the love and respect they feel they deserve?  Is it worth playing the part of a peace-loving hippie to start a unicorn breeding program, and simply make sure none of them realize what happens to their brethren taken into the mountain?

Dwarvern Science is not satisfied until it has the answers to every possible scenario, preferably obtained in the most amoral and appalling manner possible.  With magma, ideally.

I get what you're saying, really. But that's different than arguing that unicorn poo can't have special properties because it doesn't make sense. Dwarven Science is all about The Holy Raws, and figuring out what implications they have. So with that in mind:

CREATURE:UNICORN]
   [NAME:unicorn:unicorns:unicorn]
   [TILE:'U'][COLOR:7:0:1]
   [MODVALUE:10]
   [PETVALUE:1000]
   [PREFSTRING:magic poo]
             [EXTRACT:crystals and rainbows:4:0:1]
   [EXTRACT_VALUE:100]

There. Now it's SCIENCE.  (Granted, since creatures don't actually have excretory functions yet, it would have to be extracted by a milker....a process better left to the imagination) 

[Milksquid]

But what do you think DF dwarfs are like?  Honestly, I think by the end of game development they will be very diverse in character, do to the increasing number of variable characteristics (appearance, pantheon, preferences, biome location, even ethics)

I always felt that the dwarfs are what you make them like. If you wanted to have jewish dwarves, who live in the arctic and have aztec style technology, then umm you know, do that. If you dont want them to use rubber, dont let them use rubber.

[Greiger]

Dwarves are hard drinkin, long bearded short muscular booze sponges with an almost insultingly scottish accent and a liking of axes and gold!

Then again I generally perfer my dragons to be color coded for my convienience, generally neutral aligned, large reptilian, shiny object loving magpies too.  So maybe I just got brainwashed by D&D.

Oh, shiny rock. *wanders off*

[Chthonic]

If you grind the horn up, does it still neutralize poison?  If so, how much ground unicorn horn is needed for the process to operate?  What counts as poison, anyhow?  Is alcohol on that list?

"For decades afterward, the event known as the Great Unicorn Powder Spill was recalled with horror by its survivors.  The suffering that ensued was writ large across their hollow, shell-shocked features and in the trembling of their hands, stamped boldly into the fabric of their ruined lives . . ."

[Leafsnail]

CREATURE:UNICORN]
   [NAME:unicorn:unicorns:unicorn]
   [TILE:'U'][COLOR:7:0:1]
   [MODVALUE:10]
   [PETVALUE:1000]
   [PREFSTRING:magic poo]
             [EXTRACT:crystals and rainbows:4:0:1]
   [EXTRACT_VALUE:100]

There. Now it's SCIENCE.  (Granted, since creatures don't actually have excretory functions yet, it would have to be extracted by a milker....a process better left to the imagination) 

Wouldn't the prefstring just mean that people would "Admire unicorns for their magic poo"?

[RedKing]

CREATURE:UNICORN]
   [NAME:unicorn:unicorns:unicorn]
   [TILE:'U'][COLOR:7:0:1]
   [MODVALUE:10]
   [PETVALUE:1000]
   [PREFSTRING:magic poo]
             [EXTRACT:crystals and rainbows:4:0:1]
   [EXTRACT_VALUE:100]

There. Now it's SCIENCE.  (Granted, since creatures don't actually have excretory functions yet, it would have to be extracted by a milker....a process better left to the imagination) 

Wouldn't the prefstring just mean that people would "Admire unicorns for their magic poo"?

Hey, I'd be pretty impressed by magic poo.

[dragnar]

CREATURE:UNICORN]
   [NAME:unicorn:unicorns:unicorn]
   [TILE:'U'][COLOR:7:0:1]
   [MODVALUE:10]
   [PETVALUE:1000]
   [PREFSTRING:magic poo]
             [EXTRACT:crystals and rainbows:4:0:1]
   [EXTRACT_VALUE:100]

There. Now it's SCIENCE.  (Granted, since creatures don't actually have excretory functions yet, it would have to be extracted by a milker....a process better left to the imagination) 

Wouldn't the prefstring just mean that people would "Admire unicorns for their magic poo"?

Hey, I'd be pretty impressed by magic poo.

Eh, depends on what you mean by "magic".

[lordcooper]

CREATURE:UNICORN]
   [NAME:unicorn:unicorns:unicorn]
   [TILE:'U'][COLOR:7:0:1]
   [MODVALUE:10]
   [PETVALUE:1000]
   [PREFSTRING:magic poo]
             [EXTRACT:crystals and rainbows:4:0:1]
   [EXTRACT_VALUE:100]

There. Now it's SCIENCE.  (Granted, since creatures don't actually have excretory functions yet, it would have to be extracted by a milker....a process better left to the imagination) 

Wouldn't the prefstring just mean that people would "Admire unicorns for their magic poo"?

Hey, I'd be pretty impressed by magic poo.

Eh, depends on what you mean by "magic".

Urist McRanger has been ecstatic lately.  He has lost a child to tragedy lately.  His beard was shaved off lately.  He has sustained massive injuries in the last 30 seconds and is being actively tortured.  He has admired a sublime magic poo.

[Wirevix]

Pretty sure that 'nids don't actually buzz. The buzzing of literal bugs comes from their wings, and the tyranids have wings more akin to those of bats or dragons.

Random semi-nerdly off-topic post -

Buzzing does not come from an insect's wings.  Most insect wings are very quiet when they flap.  They're too small to make any significant buzzing noise - otherwise hummingbirds would buzz too, louder, and they only make a very soft thrumming sound.  The noises are instead usually made by the insect's spiracles (breathing holes), in the case of bees and wasps, or sometimes by small hairs rubbing together as the wings move (I believe this may be the case for locusts and grasshoppers, but I am not sure so it could be wrong.) 

In the interest of being somewhat on-topic -

The concept of any creature pooing anything magical is hilarious and reminds me of an old comic I read where a slime became enchanted because a unicorn peed on it.  Which could almost tie into an idea I'm sure I read somewhere in this thread, about Sphere-borne taints being carried around by creatures that are powerful enough - a unicorn wandering by a gopher causing it to sprout fairy wings?

[dragnar]

CREATURE:UNICORN]
   [NAME:unicorn:unicorns:unicorn]
   [TILE:'U'][COLOR:7:0:1]
   [MODVALUE:10]
   [PETVALUE:1000]
   [PREFSTRING:magic poo]
             [EXTRACT:crystals and rainbows:4:0:1]
   [EXTRACT_VALUE:100]

There. Now it's SCIENCE.  (Granted, since creatures don't actually have excretory functions yet, it would have to be extracted by a milker....a process better left to the imagination) 

Wouldn't the prefstring just mean that people would "Admire unicorns for their magic poo"?

Hey, I'd be pretty impressed by magic poo.

Eh, depends on what you mean by "magic".

Urist McRanger has been ecstatic lately.  He has lost a child to tragedy lately.  His beard was shaved off lately.  He has sustained massive injuries in the last 30 seconds and is being actively tortured.  He has admired a sublime magic poo.

Now that's magic!