Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[SixOfSpades]

A cameo is a small portrait of an individual, always in profile, carved into layers of stone of two different colors. More exotic materials, such as gemstones and shells, were also sometimes used. They were quite expensive, and were often passed down as heirlooms.
See: Cameo, engraved gem

A bust is a sculpture of merely the subject's head, or head & shoulders, rather than the whole body. It can be made of any material appropriate for statues or figurines, using the corresponding labor. Lacking limbs, it cannot be "raising a masterful bone bolt" or "making a plaintive gesture"--it can, instead, have an expression, showing one of the wide array of dwarven emotions, and most likely reflecting one of the familiar set of historical events.
See: Bust

A niche is a small recess set into a wall, at about shoulder height. (If it goes all the way to the floor & is at least big enough to stand in, it's called an alcove.) It is used to display a single medium-sized object while keeping it out of the way, and (if outdoors) relatively out of the weather.

What would they add to the game? How are they an improvement on statues, figurines, and pedestals?
Because busts & cameos are always (admittedly, there are real-world exceptions, but they are very few) portraits of a single individual, players can specify in advance what they want the artwork to portray, without being slapped with a gigantic wall of text--it's just a list of names, likely broken down (or color-coded) into sub-lists like the population of the fort (living), the population of the fort (dead), gods & historical figures (your civ), and gods & historical figures (other civs). Each name only appears once, none of those "portrait of a dwarf and dwarves" or "duel between X the human and Y the night creature" variations.

In addition, busts would form a "middle ground of respectability." If you want to decorate a dwarf's quarters (or tomb) with an image of the occupant, a figurine might seem too diminutive and unworthy of the dwarf's achievements--while a full-sized statue would be too ostentatious. Goldilocks players would be happy to have an in-between option.

In contrast, cameos are small enough to be worn as a necklace, or even a ring. Dwarven stoneworking skills would enable their production to be relatively commonplace, enough so that an average dwarf could expect to see one carved into his/her own likeness at least once in their lifetime. This combination of being intimate and personal makes the cameo an ideal token to give as a declaration of love . . . the recipient can even then use the cameo as a gem, to adorn a piece of jewelry or other item, and gift it back to the original owner.

Niches, meanwhile, are mainly space-savers, acting as a way to decorate your walls (with things other than engravings) without cluttering up traffic flow. Until we gain the ability to control the content of engravings, niches give us the best way to micro-manage our decorations, by letting us choose whether we want the niche to display a candle, or a totem, or a specific book, or a figurine, or a helmet, etc. Basically, it's the mechanic of building/carving a fortification, with the functionality of a pedestal.
Variations on this would include a) carving shelves/bookcases into an existing wall, and b) carving a niche all the way through a wall, creating a small pass-through window.

[FantasticDorf]

I like it, its a bit of a random assortment of ideas though, only the first two really connect to each other as decorative additions centered around a single artistic subject.

Niches are pretty much containers either built into the floor or the wall, for a lack of wall furniture in game plus the fact it would need to be a 1 directional  it could be a issue but again that can be solved by possibly defining NSEW for relevant position facing way on a wall. I can see dwarves using it optionally instead of boxes or for a identical function of storing posessions so it gets a thumbs up from me in terms of variety and making it ideally harder to steal items.

I guess our ideas on niches differ, for you the're decoration alcoves and for me practical storage spaces. Skulls in catacomb niches anybody?

EDIT - wait i think i mis-read you mean a prefixed space INTO the wall for furniture rather than a furniture piece itself?

[SixOfSpades]

. . . only the first two [busts and cameos] really connect to each other as decorative additions centered around a single artistic subject.

Yeah, I really want the ability to specify the exact nature of crafts, engravings, and other artistry, and sharply reducing the number of things that could possibly be depicted (to just a couple hundred individuals) seems a good way to segue into that. Plus, as previously stated, I do want a middle ground between statues & figurines, and I do strongly like the ideas of dwarves giving each other gifts in courtship, and wearing an image of their spouse. Additionally, cameos seem exceptionally dwarfy: Not only does their manufacture rely heavily on stonecarving skill itself, but they'd also need their dwarven beard powers to sense precisely how deep they can carve before they go through one layer of stone & start biting into the color below. Maybe cameos could be particularly expensive, and/or good ones particularly rare, because they check the maker's Engraver and Stonecrafter skills.

Niches are pretty much containers either built into the floor or the wall,

Yes, a (usually) small shelf set a few inches deep into a wall. Google "wall niche" and see a few images. But your mention of floor storage gives me ideas too: more secretive individuals might feel a need to hide their valuables (and/or contraband, such as stolen goods) in concealed containers, such as small cavities carved into the floor & hidden under a rug or coffer or something. These would be called "caches" rather than niches, because their purpose would be the exact opposite (to hide, rather than display). Caches could be carved into walls as well, but would need to be blocked by some tall furniture (such as a cabinet) or risk immediate detection. Floor caches probably could not be carved in rooms where the level below is already mined out, or above water, magma, or an aquifer. If a tile is dug out directly below where a cache already exists, it would most likely collapse the cache, spilling its contents at the feet of the astonished miner. Just an interesting possibility.

. . . it would need to be a 1 directional  it could be a issue but again that can be solved by possibly defining NSEW for relevant position facing way on a wall.

Directional niches (and engravings) could easily be defined automatically, by the position of the dwarf doing the carving. Pillars would be a problem, as they can be carved from any direction--but nobody's going to put a niche in a pillar anyway.

I can see dwarves using it optionally instead of boxes or for a identical function of storing posessions so it gets a thumbs up from me in terms of variety and making it ideally harder to steal items.

Well, they wouldn't be much good for storing lots of stuff, as it's just one item per niche, kind of like this. But that's a benefit, as far as security's concerned: If you've got a shelf with 20 mugs on it, and somebody steals one, it could be weeks before you notice the theft. But if you're only displaying 1 item, then as soon as you get home, it's "Gasp! Who stole my prized gewgaw?!"

I guess our ideas on niches differ, for you the're decoration alcoves and for me practical storage spaces. . . . wait i think i mis-read you mean a prefixed space INTO the wall for furniture rather than a furniture piece itself?

That's pretty much correct. If you want mass storage carved directly into your walls, have Toady allow us to carve shelves (not just bookshelves)--we already have chests/coffers as the movable-furniture version.

Skulls in catacomb niches anybody?

That was one of my first ideas. Dwarves won't make totems of goblin skulls (their ethics don't allow it), but if niches existed, they could simply take the skulls and mount them in a low wall outside the fort. Probably with a couple of empty niches at the end, and a small graffito pointing to them reading, "VACANCIES -- Apply Within".

[GoblinCookie]

A cameo is a small portrait of an individual, always in profile, carved into layers of stone of two different colors. More exotic materials, such as gemstones and shells, were also sometimes used. They were quite expensive, and were often passed down as heirlooms.
See: Cameo, engraved gem

Isn't a cameo basically a image made *of* gems in game terms?  The game is rather full of them already, since we have rather elaborate artistic images already made of gems.  What they game needs and does not presently have is paint.

[SixOfSpades]

Isn't a cameo basically a image made *of* gems in game terms?  The game is rather full of them already, since we have rather elaborate artistic images already made of gems.  What they game needs and does not presently have is paint.

I grant you, cameos would be yet another craft item that dwarves could make from stone. But they have more in common with a figurine than anything produced by a Gem Setter. Where they would differ from figurines (even assuming we had the ability to custom-order figurines) would be:

• Carved from a gem, rather than regular stone (most likely only from onyx, sardonyx, and DF's 8 varieties of agate).
• Can be used as a gem, for the purposes of decoration. Cannot be decorated itself.
• Very difficult & time-consuming to create, and/or only possible by an artist of Master skill or better. Has a value to match.
• Might be treated as a quasi-artifact, similarly to books.

Admittedly, cameos wouldn't add much to the game, except a bit of flavor. Would that be worth the trouble of coding them? Maybe, maybe not.

[GoblinCookie]

I grant you, cameos would be yet another craft item that dwarves could make from stone. But they have more in common with a figurine than anything produced by a Gem Setter. Where they would differ from figurines (even assuming we had the ability to custom-order figurines) would be:

• Carved from a gem, rather than regular stone (most likely only from onyx, sardonyx, and DF's 8 varieties of agate).
• Can be used as a gem, for the purposes of decoration. Cannot be decorated itself.
• Very difficult & time-consuming to create, and/or only possible by an artist of Master skill or better. Has a value to match.
• Might be treated as a quasi-artifact, similarly to books.

Admittedly, cameos wouldn't add much to the game, except a bit of flavor. Would that be worth the trouble of coding them? Maybe, maybe not.

There is no mechanical reason we could not make make a cameo out of say marble.  It seems to be that cameo is a word specific to our language referring to a particular form of artwork made of gem, not something that really exists as a neutral concept. 

[Batgirl1]

I'm definitely in favor of adding more arts&crafts varieties to the game, and I like the idea of a bust being a half-value statue.

Having directional properties on the walls to accommodate niches could open up a whole door of possibilities by itself.  Smoothing and Engraving could be done on one side of a wall but not the other, meaning only one room would benefit from their value.  On the flip side, players could fit twice as many images into the same amount of space.