I know I can loot my Fortress in adventure mode for good gear. Can I drop items inside a retired fortress and find them again in Fortress mode? I have a bag of unicorn teeth in need of turning into necklaces! Well, not really, but you get the idea.
I believe it'll get added to the items in the fort, though it may be hard to find later on.
You may need someone more knowledgeable about reclaiming.
Any confirmations from prior experiences? I'd hate to bother making a fort and adventurer just to invent a wheel someone else already perfected. If no one knows, I don't mind some !!!SCIENCE!!! and will march off to create a hut on a tiny embark and also gather unicorn teeth in adventure mode.
Thanks for your input!
I can say with certainty that when I had my adventurer "give into starvation" (I wasn't paying attention, and thought I was retiring him) inside a temporarily retired fort (in other words, retired, not abandoned), his corpse, along with all his stuff, was there when I reclaimed the fort, right where he had died. I assume this means that dropped items will also stay put, but I haven't actually tried that.
If you want to make it !!SCIENCE!!, you need to start some fires in adventure mode and see if they're still burning when you reclaim the fort
(note - I am 99% sure they will not be, as when you fast travel or sleep in adventure mode all fires go out, sadly).