Decoration

xTATTEREDx  · +FINE+  · *SUPERIOR*  · ≡EXCEPTIONAL≡  · ☼MASTERWORK☼

v53.16 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF. Note that some content may still need to be updated. More Info · V

If you give your jewelers 185 types of cut gems and let them go crazy, this can happen.

Decorations are fancy embellishments of your goods that, while unnecessary, greatly add to their value for trade and other purposes by adding another material to the base item. Decorating with a material already present in the object, whether as its base or as an earlier decoration, is not possible. You can, however, place numerous decorations on a single item – the only limit is the number of materials you have available. Most decorations have quality levels: a base value of 10☼, multiplied by its material multiplier and quality multiplier, separate from the item itself. When an item is decorated, that is designated with double angle brackets - for example, a +steel battle axe+ with a base-quality decoration becomes a «+steel battle axe+». Decoration quality is shown outside the double angle-brackets, the item quality remains within them with the item. So if you have *«+steel battle axe+»*, you have a +steel battle axe+ with *decorations* on it. When an item has more than one decoration, the quality level of the best one is shown.

There are a number of caveats to these embellishments:

• Weapon decorations do not affect combat multipliers, even if your maul "menaces with spikes of steel."
• Adding decorations to an item does not increase its weight; this may be a bug.
• Decorations on "grey" items (with brackets) that were gained in battle, or stolen from or traded with a caravan, certify the product as "home-made" (brown), and make it count for your exports.

You cannot pick a specific object for a dwarf to decorate; their pathing will cause them to use the closest suitable object (which is generally not what you want decorated), but ignoring items which are assigned to stockpiles. With the addition of linked stockpiles, it is possible to set up more sophisticated methods of decoration: set up a stockpile exclusively containing the type of item you want to decorate, set up another stockpile with the decorations you want used, and set both stockpiles to give to the related workshop. Failing that, locking all the desired content up (including the workshop and misbehaving dwarf) Rumpelstiltskin-style, is the classic way to "specify" what to decorate. Using a linked stockpile in which the desired items are contained in bins, causes the craftsdwarf to also decorate the bins (once they are no longer assigned to the stockpile and the particular decoration job does allow for furniture to be decorated). While it is being decorated, other dwarves may replace the bin, possibly repeating this unwanted process. You can probably work around this, by using an in-between-stockpile, taking from the bin-stockpile and giving to the craftshop, but without bins enabled.

Types of decoration

This is an exceptional <*«≡steel battle axe≡»*>. It menaces with spikes of superior quality goblin bone.

Bone, Hoof, Ivory or tooth, Pearl, Shell

At a craftsdwarf's workshop, objects can be decorated with bone, hoof, ivory or tooth, and shell. (In theory, objects could also be decorated with pearl, but since that doesn't exist yet, this isn't possible.) Requires bone carving. You cannot choose what kind of object to decorate.

Gems

At a jeweler's workshop, objects can be encrusted with cut gems (including cut glass or cut stones). You may specify whether to decorate furniture, finished goods or ammo. Requires gem setting. Decorations made of cut gems (but not glass or stone) have a base value of 20☼.

Metal studs

At a metalsmith's forge, objects can be studded with various metals. Requires metalcrafting, but does not require fuel. The type of metal is chosen by the player, but the type of object is not.

There are several ways to place this work order:

• In a metalsmith's forge or magma forge, open the workshop [Tasks] menu, and "Add new task". Select "Other objects", and then select the type of metal that you wish to stud an item with. In that menu, scroll to the very bottom, and select "Stud with <metal type>".
• Alternately, you can place a formal work order there. Simply open the [Work orders] tab, and find the "stud with <metal type>" of your choice.
• A work order can also be done via the main Work Orders menu (default shortcut o ). Click "Create a new work order" and type "stud with <metal type>" in the search bar to place that order there. Select a specific workshop or not, as you prefer.

Remember that you cannot decorate with a material already present in the item to be decorated. This can be limiting, e.g. when all materials must be magma-safe.

Cloth

At a clothier's shop, cloth images (plant fiber, silk and yarn) can be sewn onto cloth and leather items, notably including leather armor, bags, ropes, and cloth and leather crafts. Requires clothesmaking.

Leather

At a leather works, leather images can be sewn onto cloth and leather items, with the same options and restrictions as the sewing of cloth images. Requires leatherworking.

Notes:

• On cloth and leather decorations: Only one image can be sewn onto an item. You cannot sew leather images onto items which already bear a cloth image and vice versa, and you cannot sew multiple images made of different leather or cloth types onto the same item.
• Statues appear to be able to be decorated with gems to create images, also allowing multiple images to be added as decorations.^[Verify]
• Images can take many forms, often influenced by the artist's preferences or interests. Group symbols can be depicted in engravings.

Decoration	Furniture	Crafts	Clothing	Armor	Weapons	Ammo
Bone, Hoof, Ivory or tooth, Pearl, Shell	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Gem	Y	Y	Y	N	N	Y
Metal studs	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Cloth	Y (bags)	Y(1)	Y	Y (leather)	N	N
Leather	Y (bags)	Y(1)	Y	Y (leather)	N	N

(1) only finished goods made from cloth and leather are acceptable. These are ropes, quivers, waterskins, backpacks and cloth/leather crafts.

Specific Decoration Multipliers

The different civilizations have different tastes when it comes to decorations, and consequently may offer (or ask for) more, or less, than the item value shown on the item information screen. For example, elves dislike spikes and will not adorn their own items with them, and will also refuse to offer anything for the decoration (except for the bonus value due to decoration quality, ie. masterwork spikes will give 30, while no-quality spikes will give a value of 1 as that is the minimum decoration value). On the other hand, they will estimate a decoration depicting a tree at twice its normal value, because elves like trees so much. (Or, images of religious significance, so to speak.)

These modifiers only affect the value of the decorations themselves, not of the base item. They also only affect values when trading with visiting merchants, the fortress-internal value ratings are unaffected by such preferences. Most of the modifiers are regulated by entries in the entity_default raw file, which the table below had been pulled from.

Decorations Multiplier Table

Decoration	Dwarves	Elves	Humans
Good	N/A	384	N/A
Evil	N/A	0	N/A
Own Race	N/A	512	512
Plants	64	384	N/A
Trees	64	512	N/A
Hanging Rings	64	N/A	N/A
Bands	384	N/A	N/A
Spikes	384	0	N/A
Items	N/A	32	N/A
Fanciful	N/A	N/A	640

Calculation of Decoration Value for Civilizations

For all decorations, which are not images, the civilization specific value is computed as follows:

1. Calculate base_value = base_decoration_value * item_specific_modifier/256, where base_value is rounded down to the nearest integer, base_decoration_value is 20, if the material used for the decoration is a gem, otherwise 10 and the item_specific_modifer is the value of the corresponding Entity_token for that type (ie. 0 for spike decorations of vanilla elves).

2. Calculate dec_value = base_value * material_value * quality_modifier + flat_quality_bonus, where dec_value is rounded down to the nearest integer, material_value is the material value of the material used for that decoration, quality_modifier is the quality modifier for that quality level (ie. 4/3 for superior quality) and flat_quality_bonus is the added "value bonus" for that quality level (ie. 10 for superior quality).

3. If dec_value is 0, then set dec_value to 1.

The resulting value (dec_value) is the value the civilization will offer for that decoration.

For image decorations, ie. art images, the civilization specific value is computed as follows:

1. Let k be the number of image elements of the image and let art_image_element_modifier[i] (with 1 <= i <= k) be the value of the art image element modifier (of that entity) for the ith image element. Then calculate base_value = base_decoration_value * item_specific_modifier/256 * art_image_element_modifier[1]/256 * ... * art_image_element_modifier[k]/256, where after each division by 256 the value is rounded down to the nearest integer (and thus base_value is an integer).

2. Calculate dec_value = base_value * material_value * quality_modifier + flat_quality_bonus, where dec_value is rounded down and material_value, quality_modifier and flat_quality_bonus are the same as in 2. of the non-image case.

3. If the image decoration has any image element depicting creatures, then calculate facet_value (see below) and add facet_value to dec_value, if the resulting dec_value is 0 then set it to 1.

The resulting value (dec_value) is the value the civilization will offer for that image decoration.

Let k be the number of image elements of a decoration, let art_image_element_modifier[i] (with 1 <= i <= k) be the value of the corresponding art image element modifier (of that entity) and let j be the first image element depicting a creature, then facet_value is computed as follows:

1. Set facet_value = 0

2. For i = j to n do the following: If the ith element is depicting a creature then calculate facet_element_value = 10 * is_fanciful * is_own_race * is_evil * is_good, where is_fanciful is 1, if the depicted creature is not fanciful, otherwise is_fanciful= art_facet_modifier_fanciful/256 (where art_facet_modifier_fanciful is the art facet modifier for fanciful creatures), is_own_race is 1, if the depicted creature is not of the "base race" of that civilization (ie. the depicted creature is an elf in case of vanilla elven civilizations), otherwise is_own_race = art_facet_modifier_own_race/256 (where art_facet_modifier_own_race is the art facet modifier for "own race"), is_evil (resp. is_good) is 1, if the depicted creature is not evil (resp. good), otherwise it is the corresponding art facet modifier divided by 256. Also after each division by 256 the resulting value is rounded down to the nearest integer before the next multiplication is performed. The resulting facet_element_value is added to the rounded down value of facet_value * art_image_element_modifier[i]/256. If the resulting facet_value is zero, then facet_value is set to 1. If the ith element is not depicting a creature then only facet_value = facet_value * art_image_element_modifier[i]/256 is computed, where the resulting value is rounded down to the nearest integer.

3. After performing the for-loop facet_value is multiplied by the material value and then multiplied by the quality modifier. The resulting value is the facet_value of that decoration (for civilizations of that type).

Note that if the last image element of a decoration depicts a creature, then the minimum value for the "art facets" (and with that the minimum value of the decoration) is material_value * quality_modifier (even if all art_facet_modifiers, item_improvement_modifiers (for images) and all art image element modifiers are 0 for civilizations of that type).

Notes

• Dwarves will decorate worn clothing and other abandoned junk that was left in the workshop, linked stockpiles, or in close proximity to the workshop.
• Goblins also have an ART_FACET_MODIFIER, hating good and loving evil, but they will never trade in game.