This is my first suggestion, so annihilate away.
When a dwarf immigrates to your fortress, it gains a small bonus to its starting skill. For example, a woodcutter would skill up woodcutting 10%, or whatever, faster. Just a small bonus, but you can still skill others up if you want. Peasants would gain a 5% bonus to every skill, to represent their "jack-of-all-trades" nature. Starting dwarfs would gain the bonus to their highest skill, or a random highest if there is a tie.
If a dwarf reaches legendary +5 in its bonus skill, it can create a magical artifact. Magical artifacts can be whatever (AKA, this could be combined with some other request), but they are definitely more special than normal artifacts made by unskilled dwarfs. A mason could create a table that makes a dwarf that eats on it go twice as long without food for three months, or a weapon-smith could make a hammer that doubles as a pick and combines the benefits of sharp and blunt.
However, creating this magical artifact accelerates skill rust to an extreme rate until the dwarf is back to legendary +1, and they lose the bonus to skills. I think that something that good needs a little downside as well, but not one you can't recover from. This could be RPd as the dwarf pouring all his god-given talent into creating the work of a lifetime. Once back at legendary +5, they work exactly as before, but cannot create another artifact.
Dwarfs who go into a strange mood before reaching legendary +5 in their bonus skill can create a magical artifact, but they will always use their previous artifact as an ingredient, which will break it into its component parts to put on the new one. The dwarf creating the second artifact will also take a heavier skill rust hit, down to great.
I wanted more interesting artifacts, but not ones that any new dwarf off the street can make. I think there should always be a little bad and a little good, hence the skill rusting.
Tl;dr version: Dwarfs gain bonuses to their starting skills. At legendary +5 in their bonus skill, they can create a magical artifact.
Questions? Comments? Swift kicks?
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Topic: Artifact idea (Read 635 times)