He's had so many caravans slaughtered, how can he not have enough crap lying around to satisfy any mood?
Hey! I don't slaughter caravans! They just leave in less than ideal circumstances. Generally via the spiritual plane...
I didn't mean that
you slaughtered them. If so, I'd have said "
He's slaughtered so many...". I just meant that so many have been slaughtered, and thus you should have access to their
loot leftovers contents. They don't generally take that stuff with them to the spiritual plane.
I think I've only lost one dwarf to a failed mood in my current fort. He went moody just before a series of nasty ambushes and I got distracted. The rest of them have all found what they needed with little or no action on my part necessary, because I keep a large selection of stuff around. I think the only things I've needed to attend to were a couple that wanted rough gems and all of mine were already cut. But that was easy enough to fix. It's not that hard to keep stuff stocked for moods, just a little of each type of cloth, a little of each type of raw glass, and some stone/metal blocks. You can pick up all of those from the first few caravans. Everything else is stuff that's usually lying around any fort. Any fort beyond it's first year ought to have everything a moody dwarf is likely to need.
I did have a guy just yesterday who specifically wanted pig iron. His preferences said he liked it. I had forbidden all metal bars except for steel because he was a weaponsmith and I didn't want something lame like a lead sword. After I noticed what he wanted and unforbid the pig iron, he ended up making a large, serrated pig iron disc, which I promptly combined with a masterwork obsidian mechanism to make the final trap in my entrance. Everyone going in or out gets to admire it. I've never had a moody dwarf ask for something that specific that I didn't have handy, though. I'm not sure if I've been lucky, or if a dwarf will only want a specific type of item he prefers if you have some around. If I hadn't had any pig iron, I'm not sure if he would have just asked for any metal or if I'd have had to whip some up quickly. Considering how common preferences for a specific metal or gem is, I'd think we'd run into that all the time. I've seen plenty of dwarfs that like stones or gems I never see, but don't recall every having a moody dwarf asking for a blue diamond or stibnite blocks.