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There's those little subterranean cattle that dark elves use, if we had dark elves.  Those would work as subterranean beasts of burden.  I have no problem with them using surface animals for surface travel, though.  I was trying to make a personal mental picture of Dwarves that included sheep and geese, that simultaneously excluded having surface crops with which to embark.

One point might be that all of the cities of your parent culture are 3x3.  On a 3x3 basis, mountainhome might be all mountainous terrain.  Then the complete lack of surface crops would be perfectly understandable.

The reason I asked this in the modding section is because I am looking at mods that offer a wide variety of plants and animals that are not normally associated with what I think of as Dwarves.  Plants pose no problem because the surface varieties don't show up on the embark screen.  All of the domestic animals do, though, and I wondered how people fit, eg, sheep and geese into Dwarven lifestyle as depicted in DF.  The answer is probably that they don't fit unless you think of them as exotic pets for which they probably would qualify to people living exclusively underground.

The nice thing about a game with such an open modding interface is that everyone can make it into whatever they like.  I think that is a wonderful thing.  It certainly would be nice to have more elaborate tags to distinguish Dwarven common domestic animals (ie, beasts of burden and working animals) from everyone else's, but at least now I can rationalize seeing waterfowl offered at embark.   

On #1:  I can't recall ever being asked to make a generalized craft item.  It has always been "scepters" or "puzzleboxes" or the like.  I suspected it would make fulfilling mandates much more difficult.   

On #2:  Yes, that is the mechanics, but how do we explain it to ourselves? 

I suppose if there are to be Dwarven caravans then they must use draft animals and pack animals.  The mountainhome, having settled various new locations in the history file before your seven embark on their journey of colonization, must have already discovered and mastered the concept of using large, surface, animals for carrying goods.  To use these animals as beasts of burden, they must have learned how to feed them, and incidentally, breed them.  This would lead to learning to eat them to deal with the excess stock.  They have obviously not learned to milk them (and yes, some people do milk horses).

So why haven't they discovered the concept of growing, eg, whip vines, since they love whip vine wine so much?  Herbalism is a skill your Dwarves can embark with, so they do know how to gather surface plants.  Why have they not taken the simple step of planting the seeds, as your seven will do?

One explanation could be that the soil is not adequate for this activity at the mountainhome.  I did a little research, and my mountainhome for one of my fortresses does have some badlands nearby, so they have some surface soil.  I could not embark there, though.  Apparently one cannot embark onto a location which contains an active city of one's own culture.  So, I cannot spy upon them and see if they are in fact growing whip vines but just not telling parties who go forth to colonize.   

I will ask the practical question first.  I have noticed that some people have put many additional instruments and toys in their mods.  What effect does that have on fulfilling mandates?

The philisophical question is really broader than just modding.  It is about the domestic animals available on the embark screen.  I was looking at the mods with additional animals, and while I am in favor in general of adding more diversity, I wondered if Dwarves would really be keeping all of those.  Then it occurred to me to wonder why they had horses and cows in their delvings.  I mean, the embark screen offers plump helmets as the only plants, and only the subterranean seedstock.  The animals available seem to reflect the surface biome to which you are travelling rather than subterranean lifeforms.  Surely Mountainhome has not got camels wandering about the peaks?  I am not complaining, mind you.  I am wondering how people fit this into their mental image of Dwarven life in the parent culture.

What if you had an island with a patch of mainland visible on one edge?

I have seen punishments still outstanding for Dwarves who have died, so I would guess the answer is no.

According to Dtil, the temperature is exactly the same on 1 Slate as on 1 Granite.

UG 10015
Surface 10144

10015 ought to be comfortable for Dwarves and it is the same everywhere UG, that I measured except for over the magma channel where it was 10100 (warm stone?).

"i" gives HOT on 1 Slate on anything to the right of some dividing line (biome?).  You can locate this in your stone tunnel leading to the floor over the chasm.  It is on the righthand side.  HOT stops at 7 counting left from the ramps on the right, on that level.  It is further to the left aboveground at the south of the map, where the sand swings left.  I imagine you could map the biome dividing line with it.

I can use "i" inside the magma, where Dtil says it is 12000, and there is no HOT warning.  I guess it should have an INCINERATE warning and hasn't got one?   

Browsing through the wiki, I get the idea that its purpose is to warn you that drinking water may evaporate.  If that is the case, then I would expect to see COLD on my arctic colony map, because exposed water freezes there in any season, yet I do not see COLD.

Island embarks with no landbridges. 

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