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[GrueSlayer]

Why is it evil for dorfs to cut down trees and make crafts, while the armok-damned pointy-eared hippy tree-hugging bastards occasionally known as elves consider it moral to make wooden crafts, weapons, armor, and tools to sell to the dwarves?

[Musashi]

Why is it evil for dorfs to cut down trees and make crafts, while the armok-damned pointy-eared hippy tree-hugging bastards occasionally known as elves consider it moral to make wooden crafts, weapons, armor, and tools to sell to the dwarves?

Devil's advocate here: maybe that's because they cut and process the trees in a ritual way, much like some kinds of food aren't kosher as is but can become kosher after being processed/made a certain way, and inversely, some meals stop being kosher if you add or remove something. Also, several native American tribes used to ask forgiveness to the animals they hunted, and explain what every single part of their body would be used for after death.
Maybe elves pray for the trees they will cut. Maybe they determine which trees can be cut (in a specific area, diseased trees, a specific species, when trees reach a specific age, or some other mystical calculations). Maybe burning trees is a complete blasphemy for them, and that would be why they freak out when they see things made out of soap or glass. Maybe they plant another seed for each tree that has to be cut. Maybe they bless wooden objects they make to be "forgiven their crime". Maybe some other thing. Maybe a combination of the above.
And they are certain dwarfs just don't do wooden crafts the "right way". Why? Perhaps they're just uptight bastards. Or they believe only they have the ability of doing whatever they are doing, and it would be therefore pointless to educate other races. Or they just know you won't do the rituals even if you knew them, and let's be frank, if they allowed you to cut trees only if you planted the same seeds afterwards and danced in a circle, and only burn trees on a blue moon, and only craft wood after praying for 7 days straight... that would get old very quickly. And dwarfs just prefer defying whatever superior entities there are rather than doing silly ritual in the vain hope to be forgiven for cutting the goddamn goblin-cap that was arrogant enough to grow right in front of a pump.

[/anthropology student]

[Zrk2]

Why is it evil for dorfs to cut down trees and make crafts, while the armok-damned pointy-eared hippy tree-hugging bastards occasionally known as elves consider it moral to make wooden crafts, weapons, armor, and tools to sell to the dwarves?

Devil's advocate here: maybe that's because they cut and process the trees in a ritual way, much like some kinds of food aren't kosher as is but can become kosher after being processed/made a certain way, and inversely, some meals stop being kosher if you add or remove something. Also, several native American tribes used to ask forgiveness to the animals they hunted, and explain what every single part of their body would be used for after death.
Maybe elves pray for the trees they will cut. Maybe they determine which trees can be cut (in a specific area, diseased trees, a specific species, when trees reach a specific age, or some other mystical calculations). Maybe burning trees is a complete blasphemy for them, and that would be why they freak out when they see things made out of soap or glass. Maybe they plant another seed for each tree that has to be cut. Maybe they bless wooden objects they make to be "forgiven their crime". Maybe some other thing. Maybe a combination of the above.
And they are certain dwarfs just don't do wooden crafts the "right way". Why? Perhaps they're just uptight bastards. Or they believe only they have the ability of doing whatever they are doing, and it would be therefore pointless to educate other races. Or they just know you won't do the rituals even if you knew them, and let's be frank, if they allowed you to cut trees only if you planted the same seeds afterwards and danced in a circle, and only burn trees on a blue moon, and only craft wood after praying for 7 days straight... that would get old very quickly. And dwarfs just prefer defying whatever superior entities there are rather than doing silly ritual in the vain hope to be forgiven for cutting the goddamn goblin-cap that was arrogant enough to grow right in front of a pump.

[/anthropology student]

Good thing you claimed devils advocate first. I would have had to punch you through the internet.

[Musashi]

Why is it evil for dorfs to cut down trees and make crafts, while the armok-damned pointy-eared hippy tree-hugging bastards occasionally known as elves consider it moral to make wooden crafts, weapons, armor, and tools to sell to the dwarves?

[/snip]

Good thing you claimed devils advocate first. I would have had to punch you through the internet.

Hey, I never said I was with the elves! Beside, real dwarves go to war with them. When they're done training their own grizzly bears into war grizzlies.

[Eric Blank]

Why do nobles ask for things they fully realize they can never hope to obtain, like a silver bed? :\

[Jacob/Lee]

Why do dwarves deem it appropriate to collapse on the floor and sleep in a cistern while it is filling with water?

[Urist Imiknorris]

Why do nobles ask for things they fully realize they can never hope to obtain, like a silver bed? :\

Their optimism remains unfettered by the chains of reality due to their never having to learn that BEDS CANNOT BE MADE OF METAL..

[cog disso]

I only have one baron and about 7,000 scepters and crowns.

[Dante]

I wonder why my entire fortress is obsessed with some Giant who moved to the region my fort is in in year 1, and then never did anything again after that.

When he sat down it shook the earth.

What I personally wonder is why dwarves bother making unfulfillable mandates. I mean, the sadism doesn't show up in their personality screen.

[sicksock]

I wonder if my dwarves have any concept of death, danger or appropriateness.

[Sutremaine]

That's what comes of having vermin with almost all the tags required for a full creature (like many other people I made my own livestock turtles, and the turtle raws need only a few lines messed with). Is it even possible to get teeth out of a moghopper? I know that a dwarf once had a macabre mood and made a moghopper earring covered with moghopper fluff, but can this be done at will?

[Demicus]

Why do nobles ask for things they fully realize they can never hope to obtain, like a silver bed? :\

Their optimism remains unfettered by the chains of reality due to their never having to learn that BEDS CANNOT BE MADE OF METAL..

Well actually...it's not so much that they never learned that beds can't be made of metal, because actually they can. Just only with the odd strange mood is all. Still hopelessly optimistic that they'll get to sleep on their favorite metal though.

[Dante]

That's what comes of having vermin with almost all the tags required for a full creature (like many other people I made my own livestock turtles, and the turtle raws need only a few lines messed with). Is it even possible to get teeth out of a moghopper? I know that a dwarf once had a macabre mood and made a moghopper earring covered with moghopper fluff, but can this be done at will?

Nope. Anything with the small_remains tag can't be butchered, and vermin can't be harmed so you can't just lop bodyparts like teeth off them.

It's really just one of those balance issues. It's weird that mood dwarves apparently no longer demand specific materials when nobles still want things based on preferences like these...



On the other hand, I just found out that
a) one of my dwarves likes unicorn horn, and is married to a bone carver who likes unicorn hoof; their child likes to consume unicorn. Win.
b) dwarves can like groupers for their lips and great white sharks for their ability to make people afraid to go into the water.

[Steele]

I'm currently wondering why my latest nobles arrived wearing finger/toe nail rings, earrings, and amulets..
Appropriately enough, they dumped it all on the floor in their rooms.

Edit: Well, the queen arrived. Ica Dipsack. Wearing a ring made of hair, which she promptly dropped on the floor of her room.

Edit 2: Now she dropped two more items she didn't even have when I checked her inventory after she dropped the above.. A hair crown, and nail ring.

[penco]

I wonder why dwarves will randomly stop digging in one room to run across the whole fortress to dig one square in another room.