Bay 12 Games Forum

This idea isn't an important one by any means; at most, it would be largely for flavor & a bit of realism, to make the fort feel more lived-in & part of a larger world, and also for the visual appeal of occasionally seeing something that isn't a dwarf or animal moving around the map. Just a few notions for Toady & Threetoe to consider for long-future updates, after the game has developed enough features to be able to support the ones suggested here.

These "workshops" would come in 3 sizes, each with its own propulsion requirements; we already have the 1-tile Barrow, and the 3x3 Wagon. Let's add a 2x2 Cart, which would be pulled by 2 dwarves, or 1 dwarf leading a draft animal. Combinations, such as a Wagon towing a Cart behind it, might also be possible. A Barrow cannot be used to speedily transport high volumes of stuff into stockpiles--it may have started as a Wheelbarrow, but it's been modified to serve a more specialized purpose now. The same is true for Wagon-sized workshops.

Trade Depot: Peddler's Cart (still called a cart, even though it'll usually be a barrow)
     Instead of your fort interacting with its economic neighbors only a scant three times per year, with your broker having to control everything, now the residents of the nearby hillocks can visit your fort whenever they feel like it, and interact directly with your citizens, roaming your hallways as they call out what sorts of wares they're carrying. (Which will usually be food, or hillock-made personal goods such as toys & clothes, but sometimes can also be raw materials that you can't source on your own site, like shells.) Both the peddler, and the citizens interacting with them, would move & trade independently of player control. Benefits to the player would be the customers' happy thoughts about their new acquisitions, and the increased likelihood of safely exporting badly worn masterwork garments before your Clothier suffers the tragedy of art defacement. Drawbacks to the player would include the possibility of your citizens silently importing something you might not want, such as a female cat.

Mason's Shop: Stoneworking Barrow
   Stonemasons, sculptors, & engravers use a wide variety of tools: Many types of chisels, a few hammers, drills with various bits, splitting wedges, many grades of sandpaper, files, plumb bobs, squares, measuring rulers . . . in short, a lot for a single dwarf to carry, and way more than he can hold in his hands and still do useful work. He needs something to store it all in: either a backpack, or several pouches & harnesses, or a little wheeled cart--which would also serve to carry a raw stone boulder, enabling the stonemason to (for instance) carve a statue in its intended final position (rather than make it somewhere else and incur the risk of it getting damaged during transport), or even form furniture in situ right from the living rock. Dwarves smoothing/engraving walls & floors would be able to work far more efficiently (in other words, about as fast as their current breakneck pace) if they had the proper tools nearby. Multiple dwarves could even use the same tools more or less simultaneously: Just have each stoneworking barrow extend its speed bonus to all Engravers working within, say, 5 or 10 tiles of it. But if you're smoothing a huge room & you only built one stoneworking barrow, be prepared to see the dwarves fight over it, wasting time pulling it back & forth across the room.

Butcher's Shop: Knacker
   If an animal is sick, injured, or dead, it's sometimes more convenient to bring the butcher to it, rather than vice versa. Knackers would also be willing to use animals that actual Butcher Shops sometimes refuse to (for whatever reason), and so for realism/flavor, meat that's been butchered at a knacker's would have a high chance of being considered as "unfit for dwarven consumption," and limited to being fed only to the fort's meat-eating livestock/pets.

Dormitory: Sleeper Car
   A covered wagon with up to 6 beds built into it. If a large number of dwarves are working (mining, felling trees, removing constructions, hauling, etc.) in a fairly confined area far removed from their bedrooms, it could be a huge savings in dwarf-hours to move a temporary dormitory to the job site, rather than have everybody commute. The player would just have to designate a convenient zone for the sleeper car to be parked. As the work moves, so could the sleeper car, possibly even with dwarves still asleep inside it--at the risk of the occupants getting a bad thought about being jostled out of bed.

Kitchen / Tavern: Chuckwagon
   Similar to the Sleeper Car, a wagon built with a fire-safe block, an array of basic cooking implements, & a bin full of mugs, and loaded with 1 barrel of food & 1 of booze, as well as some fuel for the stove. Workers coming to the food truck would each use their mug twice: First for a drink, and then for stew. By the time all the mugs are dirty, the victuals should be just about gone, and the chuckwagon returns to the fort proper to wash up & replenish its stocks. If the player-designated zone is still in place, the chuckwagon (or possibly even a second one) will return. Optional: If the chuckwagon also carries a few wooden tables & chairs, those could automatically be placed nearby, and loaded up again once the wagon is depleted.

Hospital: Ambulance
   A covered wagon with a built-in table & traction bench, and carrying up to 4 temporary beds (constructed of wood & cloth, each usable as both cot or stretcher as needed), 2 barrels of water (1 for drinking, 1 for washing), and stockpiles of cloth, thread, plaster, & soap, with a couple of splints & crutches. [As well as surgical tools & the like, once they exist.] Are you dispatching part of your militia to go raid a hostile site? Better send along an ambulance or two. Are you working on a dangerous construction that has the potential for a fall or cave-in? Better designate an ambulance zone nearby, just in case. Make the zone a bit bigger than the ambulance itself, so the nurses have a place to set up the temporary beds.

Are there any other plausible mobile workshops? I tried working a Tinker's Cart into this (seeing as how they were 100% a thing IRL), but there seems so little scope for them in-game that it felt like I was creating a problem just for the sake of solving it.

As a means of making DF more user-friendly (pffft!), realistic, and immersive all at the same time, I think there should be some loosening of the blanket restriction of "Item X can only be made at workshop Y, by a dwarf with labor Z enabled". For example, suppose you want to have a pewter bracelet set with cut citrines. In real life, that job draws heavily on both one's metal-crafting and gem-setting skills, so it doesn't make sense that a Gem Setter is the only dwarf who can do it, or that he gains no experience as a Metalcrafter for performing this task, or that the labor can only take place at a Jeweler's Workshop.

Having such a hard-cut distinction between closely related skills makes the game feel clunky & artificial. You might have a Legendary Stonecrafter, who can churn out magnificently worked mugs, rings, crowns, etc., all in the blink of an eye . . . but there's this bizarre force-field preventing him from making even the simplest stone chair, or smoothing a rock wall. And even if you turned that force-field off by giving him permission to do those jobs, he's still crap at them, because working stone has nothing in common with working stone, oh goodness no.

Removing this distinction would make the game easier for less-experienced players, and most especially send them running to the wiki far less often, as they no longer need to check if, for instance, copper chains have to be made by a Blacksmith at a Forge, or if they're a Metalcrafting job. The player shouldn't have to remember if leather gloves count as "clothing" or "leather" for workshop purposes--because, in this case at least, there's enough similarity & overlap that the gloves should be able to be produced at either type of shop, and by either type of craftsdwarf.

Spelled out, my actual suggestion is:
1) Expand the menu for each type of workshop, to include an entry for every job that could logically be done there.
2) Expand the list of dwarves that might be summoned to do each type of job, to include every kind of worker that could logically do that job feasibly well--either through familiarity with the base material (as in a Carpenter trying her hand at Woodcrafting), or the decorations (adding spices to the meal was done by the Herbalist, not the Cook), or the tools/techniques involved (a Surgeon stitching up new clothes instead of organs), or the type of finished product (the Mason making a wooden table instead of a stone one), or through the knowledge of being the end-user (a wooden hive being made by a Beekeeper instead of a Woodcrafter).
3) Add a permission option for every workshop: "Allow cross-training", which can be turned On or Off. With it Off, workshops would behave exactly as they already do: They would not display the expanded job lists ("make leather amulet" would not appear at a Leather Works, only at a Craftsdwarf's Workshop), and they would not summon dwarves who lacked permission to use the one applicable skill. But with cross-training turned On, the skill overlap would be allowed, and more dwarves would do more things.
4) Continuing from #3: With cross-training Off, again, nothing changes. The Gem Setter who decorates a bunch of metal trade goods with loose gems gains experience as a Gem Setter, and nothing more. But with cross-training turned On, a dwarf performing an "overlap" job would still gain the same amount of experience, but divided among all relevant skills, with the result that the same Gem Setter has a good chance of gaining a new level of Metalcrafter.
5) Since the point of this suggestion is partly to make the game more user-friendly, perhaps the "Allow Cross-training" setting should be part of the global Workshop Orders menu, not an individual toggle on every single workshop. (Or maybe even both, so the user can set the default to be open-use, but also still reserve a few individual workshops for specialists only.)

Of course, the goods produced by skill overlap are going to suffer a hit, quality-wise: A Legendary Weaponsmith using cross-training to make shields certainly isn't going to bang out a ☼shield☼ on her very first try. But, due to her expertise with the materials & tools, she might just produce a -shield- or +shield+.

Another fringe benefit of "more dwarves doing more types of jobs" is the fact that dwarves who feel bad about not having practiced a craft/skill in a while, will have more opportunities to meet that psychological need.

   Currently (I'm still on 47.05), the only use of color in the Trading screen is just white, for "items made offsite & unaltered since then", purple for "items that are illegal to sell", and brown, for "everything else". That's a lot of wasted potential--especially considering just how much other information, that's highly relevant to trading, is inaccessible to the player without exiting the Trading screen (and therefore needing to select all the items all over again). I think something like the following would be a significant improvement, and save the player a lot of time. Some (most?) of these suggestions have been made in some form previously, I just felt the urge to combine & add to them, to form a cohesive plan.

   MODE 1: The main Trading screen, functionally identical to its current setup: You can select (and deselect) which of the fort's & caravan's goods you wish to exchange, choose which of your items (if any) you'd like to offer as a gift, and of course perform the actual trade itself. It shows the current bargaining prices, what both the fort and the visiting trader consider various items to be worth. The main change is that the items are color-coded to reflect their current trading premiums--the prices at which this merchant is willing to buy & sell each particular item--as a percentage of each item's base value. Just as it always has, the screen shows the caravan's goods on the left, and the fort's items on the right.

Bright purple: The trader is charging at least double the item's value								Cyan: Your item is currently trading at 200% its base price or higher
Bright red: Merchant wants 175-199% of the item's regular price								Bright blue: The caravan will give 175-199% for this
Yellow: The caravan values this item at 150-174%								Bright green: Trading this item will give 150-174% its regular value
Bright green: The merchant has set a premium of 125-149% on this								Yellow: This merchant will pay 125-149% for your item
Bright blue: The caravan wants 101-124% of the item's regular value								Bright red: Currently worth 101-124% of its base value
White: This item is trading at 100%, its default price								White: You will be trading this item at cost
Cyan: The trader is currently undervaluing this item								Bright purple: Item will be traded at a loss to this merchant

   Now, those are the colors on the items themselves. Once a fort-owned item has been selected for trade, the [T] selection flag to its right will also be given a color, depending on any potential negative effects of offering or trading it:
   Bright red: Offering this item for trade will offend or anger the merchants
   Perhaps flashing red if the traders are already angry, and therefore offering the item is likely to trigger immediate hostilities and/or outright war?
   Dark red: This item is currently under an active export ban
   Yellow: This item could be placed under an export ban in the immediate future (a noble, who has a Mandate unused at the moment, likes this item)
   White: All other items (no warnings). This is also the color of every [T] on the left-hand column of goods brought by the caravan.


   MODE 2: Future bargaining prices set by existing trade agreements, what costs are expected to be over the year to come. This mode is for reference only--it has nothing to do with making any transactions with the merchants currently visiting your Depot. You cannot select/deselect an item for trading, offer goods in tribute, etc, in Mode 2. What you can do is freely scroll up & down both lists of items, and [TAB] back & forth, to compare their premiums now with what their premiums will be later. The exact numerical price of each item in Mode 2 is also adjusted, to show what it would be under the expected exchange rate.

Dark purple: No one in the next year will charge less than 200% for this								Cyan: Item will trade at 200% or more at some point next year
Dark red: The lowest price next year will be 175-199% of its base value								Dark blue: This item will trade at 175-199% in the next 12 months
Brown: This item can be bought for 150-174% at some point next year								Dark green: At least 1 trader will offer a 150-174% margin
Dark green: At least 1 merchant next year will bring this at 125-149%								Brown: The premium on this item is expected to be 125-149%
Dark blue: The lowest scheduled prices for this are between 100-124%								Dark red: 1 of next year's merchants will offer 100-124% for this
Grey: The best price in the coming year will be exactly 100%								Grey: No trade agreements next year will affect the price on this
Cyan: At least one expected trader will sell this at less than its value								Dark purple: All traders in the coming year will undervalue this item

   If 2 or more traders scheduled to visit in the coming year will offer different profit margins on the same type of item, this function only reflects the one that is more favorable to the fort; the broker remembers when to buy each good for the cheapest, and sell it for the dearest. This rule will be ignored, however, in the case of items considered offensive by the merchants: Suppose that you have a trade agreement with the elves, granting you a premium of 186% on bracelets, while the humans will offer you only 154% for those same bracelets. So looking over your Finished Goods sitting in the Trade Depot (this is in the autumn, while you're haggling with the dwarven merchants), you should see all of your bone & metal bracelets shown in dark blue, reflecting the 186% that the elves are willing to pay . . . but the bracelets made with wood, or clear/crystal glass, are displayed in brown--because the elves won't actually buy those goods, so trading them to the humans is clearly the better deal, despite the lower price.

   Now, those are the colors on the items themselves. A lesser version of the color-coded [T] warnings from Mode 1 is also present here: If a fortress-owned item is of a type liked by any of your nobles, it will get a brown [T] next to it, reminding you that by the time the caravan that's offering the lucrative deal arrives at your fort, trading that item could be illegal, so you might be better off selling it now.
   Unlike Mode 1, Mode 2 will also show you colored [T] flags on the merchant's side of the screen--this is to take advantage of the profit to be gained by buying from one caravan to sell to another. The trader's goods will be [T]-flagged as follows, but only if you will be able to capitalize on it over the coming year. Let's get the flag colors out of the way first.
   Cyan: Item will trade at 200% or more at some point next year
   Dark blue: Will trade at 175-199% in the next 12 months
   Dark green: Trade offers will peak in the 150-174% range
   Brown: The premium on this item is expected to be 125-149%
   Dark red: Next year's merchants will offer 100-124% of this item's value
   Grey: No trade agreements next year will affect the price on this
   Dark purple: All traders in the coming year will undervalue this item

I explained above that in Mode 2, each item among the caravan's goods is colored by the lowest trading rate that you're likely to see during the coming year. Those items' [T] flags, in contrast, are colored according to the highest premiums that you're scheduled to see over that same period. But those flags will only be displayed if the trading rate(s) to come is higher than the rate at which you can currently buy it. So the presence of a [T] in Mode 2 means you can flip that item from one caravan to another, without doing a damn thing to it, and still make a profit--comparing the color of the [T] flag in Mode 2, with the color of the item itself in Mode 1, tells you roughly how large that expected profit will be. (And, comparing the numerical prices will tell you exactly how much profit there should be, but of course the color-coding is easier to look for.)

The game will treat Mode 2 as Inactive, and refuse to leave Mode 1, if any of the following are true:
   a) The fort doesn't have any active trading agreements (yet), making Mode 2 irrelevant.
   b) The broker is less than a Professional Appraiser: They're simply not yet good enough at the job to juggle all those figures in their head.
   c) The broker isn't the actual broker, just a substitute acting under "Anyone may trade". (Possibly redundant because of b? Would random citizens be familiar with upcoming trade agreements?)


I had plans for an additional 2 or 3 Modes, but decided they most likely wouldn't be of enough use to be worth the effort.
   Mode 3 was going to be about how "home-grown" each item was, an expansion of the game's existing record that reflects the extent to which an item was produced on-site. For example, compare a +pig tail sock+ that started out as a seed produced as a by-product of your Brewing industry, & was dyed with dimple cups similarly native-grown, with some («-alder wood crutch-») that you turned into an *«-alder wood crutch-»* by having your Jeweler throw some gravel at it. The sock is FAR more indigenous to the fort, and should be treated as such, at least by those players who care about such things. But then I figured, is the game even capable of tracking that kind of item history? Would it even matter? How useful is identifying native items anyway? The only thing I currently use that functionality for is easily picking out those items that I purchased solely in order to flip right back, and of course that's only of very limited utility.
   Mode 4 was about how much of an impact the transaction would have on your fort's existing stock of goods. If your fort had, say, 283 gabbro boulders lying around, but only 2 iron bars, then buying 2 more iron bars would have a much larger effect than selling 2 of your gabbro. I thought some players might care about that, but then decided, no they wouldn't.
   And the point of Mode 5 was its distinct lack of color-coding: Instead of a confusing wall of text slamming you with a discordant riot of multi-hued information, everything would just be a calming, easy-to-read palette of whites & greys. You know, for all of those people who play Dwarf Fortress because it's so simple, and low-key, and doesn't ask much of you.

Civilian dwarves cannot wear any sort of armor, not even leather. Why?
Soldiers cannot (actively) be Miners, Woodcutters, or Ambushers, as these labors create an invisible "uniform" that interferes with the military uniform. Why?
Civilian dwarves who happen to be attacked while carrying perfectly serviceable weapons (most notably picks & axes) will instead prefer to fight back with their bare hands. Why?
Dwarves who enjoy acquiring material objects have zero qualms about visiting the Finished Goods stockpiles & casually helping themselves to jewelry, even crowns. Yet civilian dwarves who enjoy fighting wouldn't dream of declaring ownership of a weapon--not even one taken off a dead goblin. Why?
Urist is badly distracted after being unable to practice a martial art . . . even though he's been carrying an axe around for years, and there's a barracks right there for anyone who wants to do some Individual Combat Drill. Why?

For a race that prides itself on its military prowess, dwarves sure do seem to have a bass-ackwards way of going about it, even to the point of deliberately making it unreasonably difficult for a dwarf to defend his own life . . . unless the mystical overseer (in his infinite wisdom) flips the 'You Iz Milisha Now' switch that toggles between "crazy drunk idiot that makes stuff out of bones" and "crazy drunk idiot that makes bones out of stuff".
Why?

Every RTS game that I know of, like StarCraft & Age of Empires, makes a huge distinction between workers & combat units. Workers cannot fight, soldiers can do nothing but fight. Why?

Dwarf Fortress is supposed to be a fantasy-realistic model of the real world, and in the real world, the line between civilian & fighter is anything but sharp. IRL humans get drunk & have fistfights far more often than DF's so-called 'dwarves' do. They attend combat-based sporting events, they pay to attend martial-arts classes and even enroll their children in them. Some even gather together in costume, and (re-)enact full-scale mock battles. Depending on local custom/culture, carrying a weapon (or at least a tool that could easily be used as a weapon) is perfectly normal, even expected. And every single day, all over the world, these supposed "civilians" assault and kill people. Meanwhile, "soldiers" cook food, wash clothes, repair vehicles, operate surveillance equipment, catalog warehouse inventory, clean things, fill out paperwork, and perform any number of tasks that in no wise prepare them for anything resembling direct physical combat.

Long story short, my actual suggestion is to take the list of Why?s at the top of this post . . . and correct them.
1) Civilian dwarves can wear armor, and should even want to wear (at least some) armor if they a) are in the militia part-time, b) have personality traits that influence them that way, c) have a profession that might put them at risk, d) have been involved in a Siege (however indirectly) in the past year, or e) have directly seen a hostile creature in the past year, or have a friend / relative / co-worker who saw one in the past season. Now, what armor they choose to wear will partially be controlled by their labors: Obviously, no Gem Cutter will be able to do his job while wearing metal gauntlets--but simple leather body armor, or even a mail shirt, won't inconvenience anybody. Players should be able to designate what armor items [types, materials, and quality levels] are free to be claimed by civilians, and which are reserved strictly for active-duty military.
2) Everyone should be armed. Not necessarily with a militia-grade weapon--Take the existing list of "Tools usable as Weapons" like boning knife & carving fork, and expand it to include things like hammers, chisels, saws, shears, sickles, etc., until a wide variety of professions have something they can carry around that will both serve in self-defense and be helpful (at least cosmetically) with their associated labor. And everybody, whether they have a trade or not, should (want to) have their own eating knife . . . with the possible exception of small children. Dwarves who lack a knife, and who feel threatened by the sight or rumor of hostiles, should without exception try to carry some kind of weapon at all times, even if all they can manage is a sharpened stick or rock.
3) Proper threat response. Dwarves should answer challenges, insults & grudges with a simple unarmed fistfight or wrestling match, that's well and good. But if their opponent breaks the rules & pulls a knife, or if they come upon a goblin / cave crocodile / vampire, they must respond in kind and go all-out with everything they have.
4) Dwarves that feel a need must also feel a desire to fulfil that need, and independently try to fulfil it. A dwarf that wants to pray, and has access to a space dedicated to that purpose, will occasionally do so. Why should a dwarf who wants to fight, or at least practice a martial art, be any different (at least, provided he can find someone willing to spar with him)?
5) Civilian dwarves should spontaneously morph into quasi-military in response to a threat. I don't mean every Herbalist should try to take on a whole ambush squad by herself--I mean that instead of the universal civilian response of "flee in terror", they should all retreat toward the entrance to the fort, and from there progress toward meeting areas, until the combined mass of available dwarf-flesh is roughly equivalent to the enemy's--and then attack. Also, when multiple dwarves are within sight of both the enemy and each other, the more heavily-armored (and/or militarily experienced) dwarves should try to stay between their friends & the danger, acting as Tanks to help their companions get to (relative) safety.

Given the recent proliferation of "art" generated by artificial intelligence, and the fact that DF by its nature is very light on the graphics end of the user interface, I decided to throw some text at an art-bot, just to see what happened.

"Dwarf Fortress Legendary Cheesemaker"


"Dwarf Fortress Some migrants have arrived."


"Dwarf Fortess pig tallow roast"


"Dwarf Fortress the miner punches the magma crab in the left wing and the part sails away in an arc!"


"Dwarf Fortress A elven caravan has arrived."


"Dwarf Fortress masterwork silk sock"

A very minor tweak, simply sort the list of owned animals so that all creatures of the same species are grouped together. It doesn't matter if the order of species is alphabetical, or mammals-first, or biggest (average) size to smallest, as long as players don't have to hunt through what may be several screens of units to see how many goats they have.

Also, please add a new column for each animal's gender: ♂, ♀, and 0 for gelded males. Yes, most animals already have names (e.g., ram/ewe) that indicate sex, but pets' names override that.

It might also be worth adding another column, showing whether each animal is Tame, or trained for Hunting or War. Or alternatively, just organize the list further, so that in each given species, pets are shown first, followed by War & Hunting animals, with general livestock last.

Dwarves with certain combinations of traits (low Decorum, high Merriment & Humor) should enjoy playing practical jokes on their friends, family, romantic interests, etc. Once hobbies & other free-time activities become implemented, I for one would like to see dwarves:
Put vermin creatures into somebody's bed
Throw buckets of water at each other
Tie someone's beard & mustache together while they're asleep
Lead livestock animals into rooms where they don't belong
Use fluids (blood/dye/etc.) to scrawl graffiti on walls
Carve figurines that are less than flattering, and/or depict their subjects in dubious circumstances
Knock on bedroom doors & run away
Smear tallow or soap onto floors, to make others slip & fall
Do the same with doors, so they can't be opened until they're Cleaned
Steal all of somebody's socks, & scatter them around the fort
Steal somebody's spare clothes & replace them with garments that won't fit them
Build an entire workshop in somebody's room (area permitting, of course)

The pranksters should receive a positive emotional return from this stress release, and their victims' reaction should vary according to their own personality--perhaps altering their relationship with the prankster. These behaviors would be most commonly seen among children.

   A grab-bag of thoughts for Toady & Tarn to peruse while they're working over Mythgen. Currently, the DF gods are fairly good, but they could certainly stand to have a lot more personality (they're little more than collections of spheres), as well as exposition: Neither the mortals of the universe, nor we the players, can know if the gods actually exist as individual beings, of they're just facets of Armok's power, or if they're all just constructs of their worshipers' collective imagination. I would like to help rectify this, and also make the gods more intriguing & far more dynamic.

Part I: The Gods
   First things first: The gods can't be much fun if they don't exist at all. I would place them right at the intersection between God and Man (they were created by Armok, but also shape themselves to better suit the preferences & expectations of their worshipers), as well as the intersection of Worldgen and Mythgen: Introduce all the gods at the start of Worldgen, but add the relevant spheres only as each successive layer of the world is laid down, and have the gods compete with each other for control of whatever spheres appear to be the most important at the time. Give the deities personality traits: Some are more greedy for sacrifice, some desire to show off for non-believers, some are vengeful, some are afraid of battle with other gods, etc. These traits will influence each god's relative preferences for the different spheres, as well as allow them to form friendships/alliances/grudges with the other gods. Most importantly, let the deities use whatever spheres they happen to possess, which will add a very flavorful layer to the myths dating from the time before time--as well as permanently mark the biomes where the spheres were used. Some deities are driven mad by the conflict and become doomed to wander the earth, while others hide themselves away and become forgotten, perhaps taking their spheres with them.
   As Armok finally creates sentient creatures and history begins, the various surviving deities coalesce around the fledgling mortal civilizations, forming pantheons for their mutual benefit. Each deity now takes (and/or is given) a name and an appearance, which may or may not include symbolic details such as being represented with a specific tool/weapon/garment, etc., or having part of their body maimed or replaced with an animal part. Every individual god still also remembers his own friendships and enmities with the others, resulting from their actions during the time before time, and this will continue to drive their relationships going forward. The tumultuous nature of the Age of Myth is echoed in the divine realm, as the gods are still jostling for spheres in their attempt to consolidate their power and be more easily worshiped by mortals. This settles down as each pantheon gradually stabilizes, yet there are always changes that can occur:

• Gods can willingly trade spheres between one another
• Gods can steal one another's spheres, or take them by force or threat of force, or even kill each other outright
• Gods can hide one or more of their spheres, which temporarily prevents their feeding off of that sphere's worship but also means they don't have to guard it from other gods
• Gods can happen upon the spheres hidden by another god (or possibly those lost by slain Titans & Forgotten Beasts, if you choose to go that route)
• Gods can sometimes create copies of spheres held by gods outside their own pantheon (usually at the cost of surrendering some of their saved worship power in exchange)
• Gods can form new friendships, alliances, rivalries (especially if they both have spheres of similar power in the same domain), grudges, and blood-feuds with one another
• Gods can form familial bonds, friendships, and romances, even to the point of getting married and having children, with each child getting at least 1 sphere (either inherited, or created)
• Gods can sponsor certain exceptionally favored mortals by endowing them with one of their lesser spheres, thus elevating the mortal into a demigod

   Additionally, gods (especially gods of travel and trade) can occasionally go between different pantheons, either just for a visit or actually gaining worshipers from among that civilization's citizens. Almost all of the above interactions can happen with "foreign" gods: e.g., a god from a landlocked civilization might have the sphere of Oceans, which of course would be useless to her, so she visits one or more "neighboring" coastal pantheons to try to trade it for something else. These interactions need not be benign: a rogue god from one civ could travel to another to steal a sphere from one of their gods, or indeed possibly even abduct an entire deity (either for the purpose of a forced marriage, or to extort one or more spheres in exchange for their freedom). Naturally, these kinds of hostile acts would almost certainly trigger a war between the two civs in question.
   Gods can also leave their pantheon entirely, for instance a civ that has two deities wrestling for control of the Sky domain might border a pantheon that has no gods in that area, so one god might logically cede the disputed territory in exchange for being the uncontested master in the new land--provided that the other civilization is receptive to their neighbor's beliefs, of course. Roaming gods happen most importantly when a civilization goes extinct, forcing its deities to either find new homes, or starve. The foreigner deities might have to pay a sphere or two to buy the acceptance of their new divine roommates (just as any refugees from the destroyed civ would be lower-status in their new one), but that's only fair. (Homeless gods that are similar enough with already-resident deities might even merge with them.)

Part II: The Spheres
   The charts that I have spoilered here are mostly based on the game's current list of spheres (along with their Parent/Child, Friend, and Preclude lists), with some additions and minor tweaks of my own. They are not representative of what I think the game's final setup should be, particularly in light of the upcoming major revisions to (or even outright additions of) major elements such as the caverns and magic. These charts illustrate only what I think is a good method for organizing a stable theology, upon which the procedurally-generated gods are based.

   List all of your desired spheres, and arrange them into some arbitrary number of Tiers (which sort the spheres by relative power/importance), and another number of Domains (which group spheres of related themes together). Here, I have 171 spheres scattered across 9 Tiers and 23 Domains:
   Then, chart out how the various Domains interact with each other:
   This, when combined with the various Friend and Preclude lists, each god's inherent personality traits, and the spheres that they already hold, determines the level of desire that each god feels for each sphere that they have yet to obtain. Clearly, the most powerful spheres in the top Tier would generally be in the highest demand--but also the most zealously guarded by those who hold them. It is in each deity's best interest to collect spheres that are all related to each other, in order to make himself as easy to worship as possible; "For everything related to the sky, pray to Lun Starrained!" is a lot more convenient than "Erib Bronzesilvers the Copper Rocks is the god of minerals (but not metals), crafts, dusk (but not night), trees, and trade." The more focused your control over a particular area, the clearer the image that mortals can have of you. Of course, the obvious pitfall there is that if it becomes common to see just one god per domain, then each pantheon of gods will start to seem pretty much like any other, and a good-sized facet of DF's replay value will be lost. What I hope will be an effective countermeasure is the large percentage of spheres that show up in multiple domains: Every single one of my Domains has spheres from at least 3 other domains in it. Hopefully, this would mean that even well-concentrated gods would be infringing on somebody else's territory, and/or have still other deities intruding on their own. The domain overlap would also likely tempt gods into trying to hold clusters of spheres in 2 or 3 domains simultaneously, rather than monopolizing just one, or scattering spheres randomly. And gods spreading themselves over multiple domains means more interaction--and likely tension--with the other members of their pantheon.

   One last note about the spheres. Two of them are quite unusual:
   * Toady originally set down the Preclude list of which spheres are mutually exclusive with each other (such as Fire & Rivers, or Food & Blight, or Beauty & Deformity), and I think that's a sound plan. But I also think it'd be fun to occasionally throw a spanner in the works with the sphere of Opposites, which has the curious property of subverting the Preclude list, making its possessor god desire to hold spheres that are in direct conflict with one another. So every once in a while, you might get a deity of both Chaos & Discipline, or Forgiveness & Revenge, or perhaps a god of Dawn & Dusk that happens to be in a parent/child relationship with a god of Cycles. The sphere of Opposites should also make its holder feel less desire for spheres that are not conflicting.
   * The sphere of Twins cannot be held by just one god--essentially, it splits its possessor into two deities. It cannot be obtained by any god that did not already have at least two related spheres: Either two complementary spheres of the same domain (such as Fish & Fishing), or opposing ones (e.g., Consolation & Misery). The holder(s) of the Twins sphere perceive a lowered desire to hold any spheres that are unrelated to those already held. Each pair of spheres is divided between the new god-halves, with attention paid to each sphere's Tier so that the resulting twins are (about) equal in power. This can result in two gods peacefully sharing control of a domain equally between them, or two violent enemies whose spheres are nothing but polar opposites of one another, or a love/hate relationship anywhere in between. If the original deity held the sphere of Balance (or it is obtained after the split), it is shared by both. The sphere of Opposites, if held, must be dropped.

Part III: Why?
   The obvious problem of implementing this system is--What's the point? We already have gods who frequently have spheres that make sense together, gods whose names occasionally bear some relation to their sphere(s), and the god of Death (if there is one) is usually portrayed as a skeleton. This is a very complicated plan, it sounds like a hell of a lot of work for Toady, and all for arguably very minor returns. I concede that all of that is true. And pretty much my only reply is Yeah, but it would be bitchin'.
   Greek mythology isn't just about knowing that Hephaestus is the god of labor & invention, it's about Cronus trying to eat all of his children (yet somehow being fooled with a stone), and it's about horny Zeus impregnating every mortal woman he could get his static-clingy-hands on. Norse mythology isn't just about how Freyja is the goddess of love, fertility, & death, it's about how Loki once gave birth to an eight-legged horse, and how Buri was licked into being by a primeval supercow. There's more to theology than just listing off names & powers like an accountant--mythology is about myths, about telling stories. The gods need to interact, with each other at the bare minimum, and if possible with mortals as well. And DF provides the perfect framework for it: In Legends mode, we can read about the hectic free-for-all as the gods battled it out while Creation itself screamed all around them . . . and then as civilizations formed, a small group of them took The Confederation of Treaties under its collective wing and defended them from all comers. In Fortress mode, you could be delighted to find that your civ's god of Metals has given her High Priest the ability to go dowsing for ore--at least until you learn that a nearby civ's god of Birds stole your Sky god's attendant vulture, so, whoops, you're at war now. And in Adventurer mode, you could wander into an unfamiliar church, ask the clergy about their faith, and learn that this civ has a god of Lust but not Marriage, and that the god of Lust has children with two other deities--and because pantheons usually reflect the beliefs of their followers, you deduce that this culture is likely accepting of polygamy and/or extramarital sex. And that's before your adventurer becomes powerful enough to pique the interest of the gods themselves, one of whom assigns you a quest to kill a specific Titan . . . and maybe, just maybe, to claim its sphere for yourself & become a demigod, enabling you to travel to the astral plane & rub shoulders with actual deities. Bitchin'.
   Yeah, coding it would be a lot of work--but perhaps not that much, as the gods behave pretty much like dwarves. Model them on existing traits, preferences, and social behaviors to develop their friendships & grudges. Allow garments & trinkets (the spheres) to be claimed by multiple people at once to make the gods fight over them like Infinity Stones. And replace the gods' physical needs (food, drink, sleep) with spiritual ones (belief, worship, sacrifice). It would provide a very good reason for certain biomes to be associated with specific spheres. And it would be fascinating to see certain events play out in the divine realm to mirror those down on the mortal plane--and vice versa. As always, whether or not this expansion would be worth the labor is for Toady alone to decide, but I hope it's at least worth considering.