I have a woodcutter possessed, in a strange mood. He's taken up a Carpentry shop. Hitting Q only shows the label that he has taken it. How do I find out what he wants? Usually it is listed as something he is saying... right?
[EDIT] Nevermind he started doing what he was supposed to do. Weird.
The workshop only shows the needed materials if the dwarf can't get them. Since you had everything, he just grabbed it and started working.
One way to find out what's needed (and to manipulate what he can get) is to forbid everything in the fort of the first type. For example, if a dwarf takes a craft shop and grabs bone first, forbid all bone in the z-stocks menu. He'll then stand in the workshop and scream/mutter/whatever what is needed. You can then unforbid only the dragon bones and he'll grab those, or forbid all but the sapphires if he wants gems, etc. That's how people end up with artifact axes with hanging bands of platinum and pictures engraved in diamond.
On a fairly standard embarkment I'm quite a ways down and have found zero lignite or bituminous coal. Is this common? Should I keep looking in hopes of finding it or give up and tunnel to the magma?
How do I get dwarves to release hostiles from cages without levers? Unassigning the enemy from the cage seems to result in a dwarf carting the cage back off to the stockpile and replacing it with a fresh empty one.
I've had embarkments with tons of magnetite and no coal/lignite. My current fortress is short on iron ore (yay for goblinite), but waaaaaayyyyy long on bituminous coal. You shouldn't need coal anyway, besides for steel. Just tunnel down, go around the caverns, until you hit magma. Set up your smelters and forges down there and get cracking.
As for hostiles, you could try pitting the hostiles. I think you need to have at least a 1 z-level drop to do so (maybe not, haven't pitted anything in a while), but they'll just toss whatever down there. You can leave your military up top, or have your dwarfs pit captured goblins down into the barracks. That's always fun.