Bay 12 Games Forum

Hi all,

I've been a lurker for a long time here, mainly enjoying the threads and anxiously awaiting the latest version.  The other day I started a new fortress and it received the random name "Bookcloisters."  This got me thinking...

What about a Dwarven book industry?

Imagine it this way:  two new nobles are created, the Historian and the Poet.  These two nobles, along with the already-existing Philosopher, will sometimes be taken with the urge (something like a fey mood) to write a book.  Writing the book requires a long time, and its ultimate value is based on two things:  the worth of the physical materials used in the creation of the copy itself, but also the worth of other books consulted in the composition of the new tome.

Other books--that's right.  There will be other books in circulation as trade goods, valued according to their materials and their contents.  Books might be of three classes (poetry, philosophy, and history) depending on who wrote them, and these classes would also determine their appeal to various trading partners.  Elves dig poetry, humans thirst for philosophy, and other dwarves, of course, seek glorious accounts of the glorious doings of the glorious dwarves.

While these nobles produce books, other (non-noble) dwarves--call them scribes--could be given the task of creating copies.  Novice scribes produce cheap paperback editions, but expert scribes produce elaborate, multivolume, precious-leather-bound editions studded with jewels and etc.  Perhaps a truly gifted scribe might someday pass to the status of author itself.

The neat thing for the player would be opening the books' descriptions:  this could be a place where (as with engravings) the detailed and rich history under the game's hood world could be revealed further.  Obviously, new programming would be necessary for selecting and combining the elements of history (and maybe even relating them to current events in the player's fortress), but Toady's history engine seems designed for just this kind of thing.

Books could be a neat addition to the DF economy.  Since new books take values from the books already owned by the fortress, there is an incentive to amass a library.  And libraries would have to be protected:  kobolds steal books (the covers are shiny), while goblins launch crusades to destroy heretical volumes.  Perhaps heresy could be bigger than that:  possession of books offensive to a certain civilization could cause problems with trading unless the offending book is handed over.

Perhaps some books could even call down certain powerful enemies... Necronomicon, anyone?

Anyway, this idea came to me in a single flash, but it seems to make sense.  Perhaps it has already been discussed.  What do people think?