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[Neruz]

as many sweet pods as your points will buy.

You get a ton of barrels for free with them. so, turn some of the the sweet pods into alcohol, turn the rest into syrup and bake them syrup into roasts. Use the wood from the wagon for workshops, then when everything is done make it into a trade depot. trade the roasts to the dwarf caravan for whatever you need.

This way you can embark in any location (aquifer, frozen with nothing to use herbalism on, etc) and still survive.

Edit: sweet pods because first they are processed into barrels which you are getting for free, though I guess if you want to make alcohol roasts any plant will work - I feel making all booze roasts is cheating though.

But wait, if you do this you'll just end up with lots of barrels full of sweet pods. You need at least one empty barrel to make booze or syrup I thought. All of yours will be full.

Make a big food stockpile with 0 max barrels; your dorfs should take the pods out to stick them in the pile and leave empty barrels behind.

[Lav]

Picks. In fact I'm currently running a fort which I started with 6 miners and a single stonecraft/jeweler (no farmers, no smiths, no anvil). Of course I didn't play a challenge and took a healthy 3-year-long stockpile of food along, but since training initial seven is ok, switching two miners (probably even one will be enough) into herbalists/cooks will be enough to keep your population fed.

With a dedicated stonecrafter/jeweler you'll be swimming in exceptional quality stone crafts encrusted with gems and priced in the range of thousands by the time your first caravan arrives AND you will have enough time and resources to work on a megaproject or two just to keep yourself entertained.

Starting with zero skills and no items at all is also perfectly possible but your choice of locations will be limited. Bottomless pit or chasm will provide you with silk but without skills or weapons there are certain risks. Starting in a swamp will get you a rope reed clothing industry running. Or you can just kill one of the dwarfs, collect his giant cave spider clothing and use it as trade goods, though personally I consider this a cheat.

[Nightwind]

I checked anvil
You can fit TWO anvils into a wagon, if you sacrafice skills down to a sliver.

[sunshaker]

Starting with zero skills and no items at all is also perfectly possible but your choice of locations will be limited. Bottomless pit or chasm will provide you with silk but without skills or weapons there are certain risks. Starting in a swamp will get you a rope reed clothing industry running. Or you can just kill one of the dwarfs, collect his giant cave spider clothing and use it as trade goods, though personally I consider this a cheat.

Thinking about it you might just be able to forbid or dump the clothing and keep the dwarf alive...

"Urist we need your pants."

[Incendax]

I think it's a given that Trading makes this challenge null and void.
I think the end goal should be the arrival of the King having used only that single item type.
(And no cheating by having him arrive as a peasant)

So, if we can only choose one item type from Embark, and are never allowed to trade, I would vote for the Axe. This allows me to build Beds, Walls, Ceilings, Bins, Barrels, Workshops, Crossbows, and Bolts. I would gather plants to start a Farm for Food and Rope. I would offer the Rope to Traders and dump whatever I get from them, unless Offering counts towards Exported Wealth (to entice a Baron).

[The Orange Mage]

So, no trading for new items for an even harder challenge? One thing that I haven't seen brought up is that migrants end up bringing equipment depending on their skills. So what, forbid the pick he brings? Getting a Miner really cracks open things but still no access to metal.

[Leafsnail]

2 anvils sounds like a great idea, but unfortunately to melt down one of your anvils you'll need fireproof material, ie not wood.  I don't think there's any way to get them without mining.

2 items would work fine - 2 anvils plus a pickaxe would work great, but this is the one item challenge.

I still like the idea of trying an "Embark now!".  I set up my last fort in the swamps, and I quite like it here (except for the occasional alligator).  Swamps should mean abundant supplies of plants and huntable animals, as well as plenty of water.  You could get a clothing industry going quite quickly and so on.

Hey!  Wait a moment!  Ambushers get a free crossbow, right?  That would certainly help stop any defense issues you have on this challenge.

[The Orange Mage]

You can get a crossbow pretty easy off of an "Embark now!" by butchering your two free pack animals and making your weapon and ammo from their bones.

[They Got Leader]

It really depends on the settings. If you got seven dwarves, go with the axe. Make a wooden fortress for the beginning part of the game until the traders come. Not to mention, you can smelter the metal objects you buy for metal to forge your own pick.
If you have just one dwarf. Go with the pick. Entrench yourself and wait til migrants arrive. A dwarf can make it a year without a proper bed.

[RAM]

Wait, yeah, get an anvil and just live off the land hoping for a pick, with an anvil and a pick you can do anything... One anvil would leave many unspent points, two would cut into skills, would it make much difference spending the spare points on camels?

[Sutremaine]

Make a big food stockpile with 0 max barrels; your dorfs should take the pods out to stick them in the pile and leave empty barrels behind.

Mine never do that. They just leave the barrels where they embarked. I have to get the bookkeeper set up so I can dump and claim the items manually.

[forsaken1111]

Make a big food stockpile with 0 max barrels; your dorfs should take the pods out to stick them in the pile and leave empty barrels behind.

Mine never do that. They just leave the barrels where they embarked. I have to get the bookkeeper set up so I can dump and claim the items manually.

Can't you manually view the barrels with k and dump the contents?