It does present some interesting ideas...such as crafting yourself equipment and storing things in your home...not sure what happens with pets though...i'm pretty sure it is possible...but you would need to be very careful...instead of pawning off old equipment you would store a backup set for if you do die to regain it...however regaining karma...will be interesting.
ok...so far...step 1...gather food from outside, get large enough piles to identify what is what(the largest pile will almost always be regular)
step 2...poke into puppy cave and gather equipment
step 3 will be run to derphy to revive petgot a treasure map while sleeping
step 3 run to the location of this treasure map...died 3 tiles from home due to starvation
stuck at home due to etherwind

Ah...it makes sense now...the 21 slot inventory, so you don't try to carry everything you can while your building up your stockpile of stuff