I love the idea of secrets; I would like to see something similar for artifacts. As it stands right now, they are created and then when the fortress crumbles they just lie in the ruins forever unless a player-adventurer picks them up. I would love to see more artifacts produced during worldgen and then:
- being "inherited" by descendents of the crafter, or
- being passed down to heirs in an entity ruler's family and included in dowries, or
- serve as instruments of office; e.g. a ring that is passed from commander of the guard to commander of the guard as the person holding the office changes, or
- being coveted, sold, stolen, seized, or
- being carried off as booty by invaders and monsters, or
- becoming the destination for pilgrimages by appropriate dwarves; e.g. millers making pilgrimages to see artifact millstones or worshippers of a diety making pilgrimages to see an artifact with their diety's image on it
- being lost, forgotten, or buried only to be rediscovered hundreds of years later (maybe as a result of artifacts having a magical property that makes them 'want' to be found, like the One Ring
especially useful or valuable artifacts would leave a burning swathe through legends mode, inciting wars, betrayals, quests, etc. More mundane artifacts would be family heirlooms; it would be cool to see a migrant arrive carrying her great-grandfather's artifact cedar chest. This could make even "worthless" craft artifacts more interesting since they would be the possessions of specific dwarves rather than of the fortress as a whole. And perhaps her neighbor could even have a combination of character traits that would incite him to try to steal it from her...