Bay 12 Games Forum

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"Severedcoils 'I' or 'II?' Which should I read first?"
'Severedcoils' and 'Severedcoils II: The Reckoning' are two separate stories being told concurrently to form a single narrative from two perspectives. This gives you, the reader, some options as to how to tackle this story:

Fortress Mode: 'Severedcoils' is the original Dwarf Fortress community challenge, still in progress. In 'Fortress Mode,' read 'Severedcoils' first, learning all the backstory behind the fortress and all the events leading up to the cast of Severedcoils II being sent on their adventure. 'Severedcoils' is currently paused at a point in time in which the adventuring party is scheduled to arrive back, and will resume when the stories converge. Read 'Severedcoils' first up to & including page 54, when the stories split, then read 'Severedcoils II' to see what's happening in another part of the world. Feel free to jump back and forth between the stories from this point on, using the dates at the top of each post to guide you chronologically. (Concurrent storytelling does not begin until Chapter II of SCII)

Adventure Mode: 'Severedcoils II: The Reckoning' is a DnD 5e adventure about an adventuring party sent to collect magical treasures by the caretakers of Severedcoils - but for what purpose? And will the party find more than they bargained for? In 'Adventure Mode,' skip 'Severedcoils,' and read 'Severedcoils II' first; This will simulate the perspective of the real-world DnD players, who don't know the history of 'Severedcoils' and are learning as it's revealed to them, bit by bit. In this path, 'Severedcoils' becomes a [F]orbidden source of mystery, which might be a more enjoyable experience for new readers. Read 'Severedcoils II' first, and avoid all links to 'Severedcoils' until such time that the adventuring party is welcomed to read it themselves by means of a big, plot-related reveal.
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Chapter 1: The Sunken Citadel


Ages ago, a stronghold held sacred to dragonkind sunk into the earth.  Now, it is overrun with warring factions of kobolds and goblins, not to mention a new breed of monster made of living shrubbery.  Records of the site's history and inhabitants have all but vanished, save for the engravings left on immortal stone within, but now it is known as Akmammestthos - The Sunken Citadel.

This is a total conversion of DnD's 'The Sunless Citadel' into Dwarf Fortress 40d.  The idea is to run a campaign from the map while using the game in a paused state to reference details and items in rooms.

Get the save here!

Fortress Level

Noble's Level

Grove Level

If you want to use these maps for your own campaign, here are some sprites to populate it with, adapted from the Guybrush tileset.

If you're playing the Sunless Citadel from the 'Tales from the Yawning Portal' module, check out The Hearth of Wrath for when your party reaches the Forge of Fury.

*This story takes place in the same world as, and is chronologically linked to Severedcoils. The dates in this thread will line up with the dates in that one where they fall into place. To preserve the mystery of this story, it is recommended you do *not* read Severedcoils until the story is revealed to the players here

I want to host a Dungeons and Dragons 5e campaign where my party is tasked with establishing a base for beastmen.  I plan on using the game to represent the base's construction, provide maps, and to have a repository of character details and world history to pull from.

It also gives me opportunities to run a simulation of what's happening at the party's base while they're away.  For example, if the party is away on a quest for 1 month, I will play 1 month of game time, including constructing buildings they've commissioned, treating new migrants as NPCs, and letting in-game events such as invasions and Happy Fun Stuff as quest prompts. 

I'm not going to worry about modifying combat to match DnD rules; rather, I am looking to remove some of the game-y restrictions and treat Dwarf Fortress as more of a library of content, including the ability to move/remove/replace things at will.  In other words, I need God Mode.

Obviously, I'm not getting away with this without some heavy modding - and I've been away from the community for quite some time, so I need your help!

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TL;DR: For the purposes of managing a tabletop roleplaying game using features of Dwarf Fortress, I am looking for suggestions of mods that provide the following functionality:

-Create a civ as Beastmen/Goblins/etc.  Whatever other species are available to play as as a result of modding, I am interested.
-A save editor that can directly modify the species, traits, and/or equipment of individual units
-A way to enable "god mode" invincibility, but only for specific units (for PCs/important NPCs) for Fortress and Adventure modes
-A way to kill a unit on command (again, for PCs/important NPCs) for Fortress and Adventure modes
-A way to navigate the game world safely and quickly, including the ability to pan over wide areas of the map on demand (This might require creating a super-fast, invincible unit in Adventure mode to emulate it, but I'm just guessing)

I know I will probably need to combine multiple mods, and then I'll probably need to learn how to do the rest that doesn't already exist (which I will of course share if I get it working).  Got any ideas?

Rather than describe the challenge, I'm going to post this Youtube video and see if anybody understands the challenge proposal from that.   

I've noticed my latest fortress has three extra civilizations besides those that I normally trade or fight with.  Two of the extras are human, the other is goblin.

In the past, I've been attacked by goblin packs that were lead by humans, so I figured this was a big clue.  After extensive browsing through world history, I did find that some of the humans who attacked me were kidnapped from the extra human civs.  I guess on this point, can I just get a confirmation from someone that this is the way it works?

As for the extra goblin civ, I have no idea.  Do goblins snatch goblin babies from other goblin nations?  That one is going to be difficult to track down...

I've been kicking around an idea for a challenge that incorporates both Adventure and Fortress modes.  Basically, several players create dungeons in the same world, specify a specific artifact and goal location that the adventurers must find and reach, and put all of those dungeons in the same world.  Adventurers then enter the world with the goal of conquering every dungeon and collecting every specified artifact.

It would be nice if several people were able to work on fortresses at the same time, but I don't think this is possible (if anybody knows otherwise, please say so!)  So we'll have to impose a time limit on each fortress before it must be abandoned (preferably during a siege to load it with enemies) and the next player begins their fortress.

Rules for Fortress mode players:
-Build your fortress with dungeon design in mind.  Lever-based puzzles and mazes are encouraged.  Also encouraged are complicated traps to avoid, such as rooms slowly filling with water.
-I'd like to see pressure-plate based traps and puzzles, so we'll play with adventurer traps on.  As such, remove all other traps from your fortress before abandoning!
-Make sure it's possible to reach the designated goal!
-Because items become scattered, it might not be possible to restrain an item to a specific room.  Therefore, designate a specific construction that the player must take a screenshot of to prove they reached it.  The goal might be a statue in a peculiar room, or an altar to Armok.  Does anyone know if an item sealed in a room will remain in that room in Adventure mode?
-Please abandon your fortress during a siege.  The dungeon will be much more interesting with monsters inside it!
-You will have five years to complete your fortress, after which you must find a suitable time to abandon so that the world can be passed off to the next player, who will create a brand new fortress elsewhere in the world.
-Post the location of your fortress.  While it would actually be more fun to only provide the region name and make players search for it, nothing is preventing them from simply entering Reclaim mode and seeing where the dungeon is, so you might as well just show it up front.
-Every fortress submission will be reviewed by a judge (or judges) before being accepted and play resumes to the next player.  As OP, I will be the first judge - depending on number of interested players, I may ask for up to two more.  Keep save backups, because if we find a problem we might ask you to take another season or two to fix things up.  Unless you've blatantly broken the above rules, don't expect your fortress to be outright rejected.
-Limit of eight dungeon designers, and I'm claiming one.  So, that leaves seven available spots.  A waiting list will be available in case somebody misses their turn.

Adventure mode rules:
-Victory is achieved under the following two conditions:
--You post screenshots of your character in the designated goal room of every dungeon Fortress
--You post a screenshot of your character surrounded by every designated goal item.  Post screenshots of their description, too.
-Fast travel is allowed.
-Finding all of the items with the same character is not technically a requirement.  You could theoretically find some of the items, get killed, then retrieve the items from your old character's body.  You do not have to retake screenshots of you standing next to each landmark with the new character (but you're more of a badass if you do it all with one character).
-Bonus points if you do it as an elf!
-No limit to the number of adventurers.  Anybody can download the world and play in it!

The subject line is "Discussion" because the actual game won't be run here; this is merely discussion for the setup.  If you feel rules need to be added, removed, or amended, please make suggestions.  If you want to play with certain mods, that's something to vote on, though my vote is for vanilla.  At this time I don't have a world in mind, so this is something that we need proposals for as well.

Items in need of discussion:
-Who's interested in dungeon design?
-Any modifications needed to either set of rules?
-Any world proposals?
-Are mods desired?

I've had some weird artifacts come out of the craftsdwarf's shop that normally aren't available.  Weirdest yet was a salmon bone war hammer, but just recently I also got a groundhog bone cabinet (it was made using only two bones... go figure).  Worst artifact ever, weighs in at only 1800 dwarfbucks, but that's besides the point.

I think that once a dwarf creates a unique artifact, the knowledge of how to make such an item shouldn't be forgotten.  Add an option to applicable workshops to make one of these unique items (in my case, a war hammer or cabinet) after the artifact was successfully built.  If the dwarf who created the artifact that unlocked the option dies, the option is lost. This gives you more incentive to protect your legendary dwarves.

You're never going to reach the same value as the artifact that was created, but in some cases - like a bone weapon - this could be extremely beneficial to an early fort that hasn't reached the point of creating that specific item yet.  It's also incredibly useful in the case of specific mandates - I recall one person reporting their consort demanded Pig Iron items, which normally wouldn't be available, but an artifact Pig Iron item could unlock something that could be constructed repetitively to suit those demands.  Otherwise, it's quirky and adds a unique flair to your fort, since you'll have access to certain constructions that others wouldn't (unless they, too, got a similar dwarf mood).

In real life, not everybody goes insane because they couldn't get the tools they needed to finish a work of art.  The primary reason?  Fear of punishment.  On the flipside, the strength of the message needing to be expressed can counter those fears and make one forget about the consequences.

To me, the time it takes for a dwarf to go insane seems arbitrary.  I think there should be a few factors that can increase or decrease the time it takes for a dwarf to go insane because they couldn't complete their artifact in time - however, insanity should always be the end result if things can't get done.  This is a neat little trait for dwarves that makes them interesting, and I wouldn't want anything to take that away from them.

Suppression:
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Most importantly, the presence of Fortress Guards should suppress insanity for a time.  It's common sense, really.  In real life, officers of the law don't just respond to crime after it happens.  Their mere presence prevents some from ever committing serious crimes in the first place because of fear of the consequences (and maybe the net effect is dependent on individual dwarf behaviors).  The best part: this gives players a reason to hire guards! 

The more guards you have, the better the suppression, but only up to the maximum needed that's displayed on the military screen (this way, you can't exploit the system by making your entire military into guards).  Also, the calculation should not be updated when you add more guards, again to prevent abuse of the system.  This one is easy to explain though; the dwarf could become so focused on their task that they don't realize more guards have been added, therefore their suppressive presence hasn't been realized by the working moody dwarf.

Catalyst:
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Though not always true in the real world, the best thing DF has to measure the worth of a masterpiece is... well, its worth.  Even though human artists sometimes ignore monetary value and focus instead on what their work means to them or others, is this also true for dwarves?  For ease of calculation, we should just use the monetary worth.  The more expensive the item will be worth, the less time the dwarf has to realize his/her dream before going mad.

Scale:
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A control needs to be added to the equation to make sure it doesn't end up unreasonably short for larger projects, or vice versa.  The scale can be the number of items required to make the artifact.

Thoughts?

I've been confusing the hell out of the elves lately.  I traded pretty favorably with them for about 7 years, then started seizing all their stuff any time they brought nothing but rope reed cloth.  I'd still buy from them when they brought crafts, animals, berries, and stuff I actually wanted.  After three straight years of seizing cloth, the following spring I had an elf ambush.

I expected elf sieges to follow... but instead, they sent more traders with animals and berries and weapons and the good stuff!

From this, I have two questions:

1) What did I do to change their minds about war?

2) Is this possible after you've been sieged by the civ, or is there just sort of a grey line with ambushes where it could go either way?