Okay, another Dwarf Fortress post people. Not many screenshots, I'm lazy, sorry. I'm still using the same fortress, although I don't play too often since this game requires a shocking amount of mental willpower that I don't have lately. We're maybe 2 years out, and I've just started a very basic military where I'm not even sure if the army is training properly. There are absolutely no defenses, I'm still just living in a hole in the ground. Meanwhile I'm seeing people who are using moats and drawbridges and advanced militias by year 2. Hey, it happens to the best of us, maybe I'll just call this the pacifist run.
Anyways, I haven't really figured out hunting yet, and I don't like having to butcher my animals, so fishing is the prime source of meat for my dwarves, considering they live right next to a river. But here's the thing, TONS of mussel shells are being left ALL over the place. I don't even have a large enough refuse bin to store all of them, I had to make an entire section just for them. These things are useless, or at least I thought, so I figured I would just dump them all onto whatever poor caravan decided to trade with me by the end of the year. Even if I didn't get any value out of it, they were out of my hands, thank god.
Until, I'm scrolling through the crafts menu trying to find something: there's an option to create stuff using shells! So I set the task on repeat, and forget about it. A few in game months later however, I get a notification: my dwarf created a masterpiece, amazing! But you see, I had so many shells, and this dwarf was so dedicated to creating these, that I started getting masterpiece decorations, figurines, literally whatever, every couple minutes. Now I'm getting multiple in a short time span! These things are only worth like 50☼ for the masterpieces, but still! With hundreds of these, very quickly, I have a collection built up. The entire collection of shell crafts ends up being worth thousands. When the caravan rolls around, they buy it all for a pretty decent sum, and I manage to get nearly everything else of value they had. I had to dig out another stockpile to store everything!
And then, finally: the negotiations. Last year, they wanted quivers, which I didn't know how to produce, so I didn't bother with it. This year? They want FIGURINES! AT A 190% MARKUP! That's about 100☼ for a single masterpiece figurine that takes no time at all to produce! I'm gonna be god damn rich next year! I requested so much stuff and yet I'm still sure it won't matter.