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Bone armor
Bone armor and shell armor are not full suits, but rather several possible individual pieces that can be produced in a Craftsdwarf's workshop by a dwarf with the bone carving labor enabled. Quality aside, bone and shell armor is inferior to armor made from any other material - a dwarf should rely on this only as a last resort, or for style points. But it's better than nothing - although bone and shell armour sucks, so do head, neck and internal injuries.
Bone armor is lighter, but the difference in protection is usually too large to ignore unless speed is the only consideration - any very strong or agile dwarf should not worry too much, and otherwise the loss in speed is still hard to notice.
Bones and shells from different animals do not give different protection values, but, as with any armour, better quality improves protection.
There are 3 different pieces of armour possible with shell armour, and 1 additional with bone -
It takes one shell to make any shell armor item.
It takes 1 stack of bones (regardless of the size of the stack!) to produce any but the leggings and greaves, which take 3 stacks. All have a base value of 15 except greaves, which have a base value of 30. (Unless you have a master Bone Carver and are using the shells/bones of a highly value|valuable creature, the difference in value produced is minimal, and greaves have a significantly higher protection value than leggings.)
Despite being made from the same materials, the various items belong to different armor levels: Both helms will be worn from leather level upwards, both gauntlets will be worn from chain upwards, the same goes for both leggings, bone greaves require the plate level to be set active.