Bay 12 Games Forum

All in all this should be more about the dwarves than the gods right?  We want DF not Populous, so I would guess that the impact of religion would have to be small, or at least the supernatural part.

Maybe irrelevant but...

Just would like to point out that in the field of sociology it is agreed that holidays came to be only after there was an evolved "city-state" type government in place.  Civilizations such as the Rome used holidays (more than half the year were holidays) to appease its citizens (while taxing them heavily).  Holidays have historically been tools of the governments.  Even religious ones.

I disagree with randomly generated holidays but what about...

Fortress's aniversary
Hero's death aniversary (Only X most loved Champions)
Disaster remeberance (>10% population died)
King's Day (Day of King's arival/random)
Labor Day
Vetran's Day
Celebration of Partnership(When caravan comes and has passed set trader profit limit)

See The Elder Scrolls series for an example. There definitely are real divine entities, magic, etc., but everyone interprets it a bit differently and nobody is ENTIRELY sure of the details

   Elder Scrolls is one of the series I was using for example, I am not very familiar with the series (just the last two titles) but especially in IV there is one "mainstream" religion that is very real, and very active, I don't remember anybody "denying" there existance.  Of course there are the necromancers and Dagor worshipers, but they are the "seedier" side of society and not part of the mainstream.

I realize that you guys were having a very well-informed debate and I threw in a random comment, but that is what I see all across the fantasy genre, one Greco-Roman polythesism worshipped by everybody, with a neo-Zeus cult.  Maybe that is just because fantasy literature is dominated by Teutonic/Scandinavian folk-lore.

This behaviour is extemely common in Napoleanic times, gunsmiths, cannon foundries, tailors you name it, set up shop in the surrounding suburbs when the attacking army besieged a city.

Anyway, I have a story to go with this.

It all began spring year 3 or 4, of my favorite fortress of "Stronghold".
I finished building an arch for style out of chalk.
Within minutes, a fire consumed everything around my fortress (luckily my chalk walls prevented it from getting in). And two kittens died in the fire. KITTENS DIED!
Well, in the mean time, I had all the dwarves in the command of "dwarves stay indoors"
I forgot to shut my bridge to get into the fortress, and somehow goblins got into my fortress (via the bridge I guessed).
There happened to be an elf caravan at the trading post, and they all were killed in a bloody mess. I brough my guards in as fast as I could. The trading post was on my production layer (i know, i shouldn't have it organized like that, it is not efficient), but there was 1 dwarf killed in that incident (along with all the elves).

Anyway, a dwarf broke out in insanity and killed 3 dwarves (yeah 1 dwarf can kill 3, but goblins could kill only one, proves they are inferior, but they were also on my production layer as well).
Well, two dwarves went on tantrums, and now they destroyed some chairs, tables, and the trade post (still with elf supplies on it, lol).

Aftermath, dwarf bodies everywhere, dwarves thirsty and hungry, and everyone is traumatized.
Now many are going insane because of the chaos, and more dwarves die.

Why can't I have this much fun?

I don't necisarily won't to make the game much different, could somebody direct me to a raws tutorial or decribe how I would create a dwarf-compatable low-damage weapon made of 1 log in the carpenders workshop?

P.S. I was forgetting the obvious answer this whole time, a crossbow without any ammo....doh!

Oh I was just exaggurating and going off on a tangent, I am not neccisarily saying that I wished it were that way, (though it would be very rogue-like-like to have the very identities of your dwarves an imminent threat)