Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Community Games & Stories => Topic started by: Sappho on July 26, 2008, 08:55:44 pm
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Taking my inspiration from the great Jonathan Coulton, I have decided to start up a new story fortress: Skullcrusher Mountain. I'm just getting started right now, but I wrote up a sort of introduction. In all those movies, you see this beautiful, polished evil volcano lair where the hero is ensnared in some overly complex trap while the bad guy waits somewhere else. I figure it'll be fun to explore the tedium of actually constructing the evil volcano lair. It didn't start out that pretty, damn it! Those minions worked hard, carving that lair from the bare rock and polishing the walls with their spit, and no one ever appreciates it!
With that, I give you the first chapter of Skullcrusher Mountain (http://www.jonathancoulton.com/mp3/Skullcrusher%20Mountain.mp3).
Chapter 1 (http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddfqpx6n_245dm5bzjff) - Initial Map (http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-3140-skullcrusher) - Year-End Map (http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-3146-skullcrusher)
Chapter 2 (http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddfqpx6n_258gp534pcw) - Year End Map (http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-3181-skullcrusher)
Chapter 3 (http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddfqpx6n_284hfjqvfsf)
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Can't wait to see what kind of devious, completely unnecessary deathtraps you come up with. Though I must say, that without water, you'll be pretty hobbled on killing machines. Not to mention no natural obsidian tower.
Still sounds fun. Good luck with your evilness and towerbuilding. Will there be sieges?
EDIT: Didn't know the language files don't contain 'horrible'.
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I'm working on the first real chapter still, but it occurred to me to post this just in case anyone managed to miss the greatness that is JoCo: http://www.jonathancoulton.com/mp3/Skullcrusher%20Mountain.mp3
Anyone have any ideas for integrating a half-pony/half-monkey monster? ...without regenerating the world? :/
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I have updated the document with the first year of Skullcrusher Mountain development. Click the link in the first post to read the whole thing.
I'm also opening up the story to audience participation, if anyone is interested. Who wants to be a henchman? Or henchwoman? And who has an idea for a gender-neutral term for that position? I'm thinking of "hencher" at the moment. I'd like to get "hench" in there somehow, since that's what they do.
They hench.
I'm also willing to listen to any ideas for additions to the lair. I'm thinking of turning invasions off as well, since they would be difficult to work into the storyline and force poor Dr. Destruction to focus her efforts on such frivolous things as a well-designed defense system. When would that leave her time to develop over-elaborate death traps?
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The beginning of chapter 2 is up! I've added a link to the first post, or you can click here:
Chapter 2 (http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddfqpx6n_258gp534pcw)
I'm interested in turning this into a sort of community lair. Is anyone interested in becoming a hencher for Dr. Destruction?
...You'll get college credit!
I'm also looking for a nemesis, and any other characters you folks might find it interesting to add. I have five unnamed henchers right now, and an immigrant wave should be coming soon. Any takers?
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Sounds awesome. I'm down.
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Glad to have you aboard, Smeej. We're very happy to see your interest in henching for Dr. Destruction. If you would please fill out this application form, we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
Name:
Gender:
Specialty:
Reason for wanting to hench with us:
How do we know you aren't a spy?:
Alternatively, if your interest lies in a position other than henching, let us know and we will locate the appropriate forms for you.
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Maybe you should just call your henchdwarves minions.
But if you call them hench-somethings you can call their kids henchlings. ;)
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No filled applications yet? I think it's a neat idea.
Name: Gravejob
Gender: Either
Specialty: I likes to carve the bones. Pretty bones. I likes to take the bones out and carve them. Horse, cat, donkey, dwarf, marmot, elf. Pretty Bones.
Reason for wanting to hench with us: I gets to take the bones out with a sword.
How do we know you aren't a spy?: Pretty pretty pretty bones.
I think the genderless term is just 'hench' actually. A hench, one who henches, the act of henching. One of english's funny-words. Minion, croney, mook, goon, they're all good.
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Thank you, Mr. Gravejob. Your application for the position of henching associate has been accepted. Your employment will begin immediately. Welcome to the Dr. Destruction family.
I'll probably try to get another update up sometime tomorrow.
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wOOt me too!
Name: Oddbins
Gender: Male for pref
Specialty: Fortress guard type person! Either Military or Fortress guard so I can lounge around skulking through the corridors armed with a cross bow!
Reason for wanting to hench with us:
I've turned my back on so-called society! They took away my crossbow and kicked me out oF my last position for getting drunk on duty and then winging the Barons Consort. Ugly little bugger, I mistook him for a troll.
How do we know you aren't a spy?: I have no where else to go! Plus Im cheap! All i wanna do is lounge around drink and shoot people! I meant shoot... things!
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Name: Meatbag Gamma. I am not a robot.
Gender: Irrelevant. I am not a robot.
Specialty: I work with machines. I am not a robot.
Reason for wanting to hench with us: Because I cannot find work where I can work with mechanisms and wear the skins of my co-workers. And I am not a robot.
How do we know you aren't a spy?: I am clearly not a robot.
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name: Madgrabs they called me. yes,yes Madgrabs
gender: Madgrabs not now. Madgrabs killed them all.
specialty: Madgrabs like to work with the metal. yes,yes, shine it is.
reason for wanting to hench with us: they send Madgrabs away. they wanted to kill madgrabs but Madgrabs kill them all. yes, they dead now
how do we know you aren't a spy: Madgrabs no spy. Madgrabs kill them all yes. with shiny metal. Madgrabs likes shiny metal.
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Thank you, Mr. Oddbins. Your application for the position of henching associate has been accepted. Your preference for guard duty will be taken into consideration. Welcome to the Dr. Destruction family.
Thank you, Meatbag Gamma. Your application for the position of henching associate has been accepted. Your preference for mechanics duty will be taken into consideration. We notice you have not provided us with your gender. Dr. Destruction is an equal opportunity employer, and respects your right to gender confusion. All job titles are gender-neutral. Welcome to the Dr. Destruction family.
Thank you, Madgrabs. Your application for the position of henching associate has been accepted. Your preference for metalworking duty will be taken into consideration. We notice you have not provided us with your gender. Dr. Destruction is an equal opportunity employer, and respects your right to gender confusion. All job titles are gender-neutral. Welcome to the Dr. Destruction family.
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By the way, I'm considering having some of you henching associates go out and conduct some villainy on your own, in the form of short adventure-mode stories, which you would then report back to me on. Details would be worked out later, but for now I'd like to know how many of you would be interested in doing this?
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Fine by me. As you may have gathered, Meatbag Gamma is actually a robot, trying to pose as a dwarf. He's not a spy, just an emotionless killing machine who likes making all kinds of cool machinery.
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I though he was a dwarf, thinking he was a robot, attempting to pose as a dwarf.
Why do I always think so complicated?
Aaanyways, my application:
Name: NNnn.... yakayaka zooooNot-in-the-FaceIt hurts we don't like it
Gender:Where? I don't seezitwhathappendeaththeyalldiehappyflower
Specialty:Whatareyoulookingatdon'tlikemyfacehuhyougonnageatbeatdowndiediediediediediediediediediediediediediediedie Will you be my friend?
Reason for wanting to hench with us:Thequestionis:who'shenchingwhodundundunnIlikepieit'ssotastyImissyoumommy
How do we know you aren't a spy?SpieswhereIkillthemtheydiediediedie- mystomachtastesfunny.
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Thank you, yakayaka. Your application has been approved. Your preference for Whatareyoulookingatdo duty will be taken into consideration. Welcome to the Dr. Destruction family.
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In other news, Chapter 2 has been given a short update. Dr. Destruction is also putting up a suggestion box in the meeting room as we speak (or, at least, as we read and write). If you have an idea regarding how Dr. Destruction can make your henching experience more enjoyable, feel free to drop a note in the box.
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Aw, a gemstone artifact would have made a great focusing array for a spy-carving laser or something. Well, glad to see we're all making a good impression. To evil!
They used to call me a butcher because I likes to take the bones out. I likes the bones most, but the meats and skins are nice too. Scarface has plenty of work to do already - I likes to butcher.
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Just dump the bodies in the volcano. What kind of supervillain buries their henchmen?
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How about placing the coffins in some kind of death chamber?
Anyways, I have an applicant for consideration:
Name: Nashonluslem, aka Bloodypuzzle
Gender: Pick one, if I die, somebody else can take over my name and my work
Profession: I work with levers. I create devices, and the mechanisms used in the devices. I also create and place traps. Now, perhaps one of your minions would like to pull this lever? Come one, just pull the lever...
Reason for wanting to hench with us: To create beautiful devices of self-illumination, of course. Perhaps your guests would like to stay in one of my luxurious rooms, with complementary beef wellington? Just step over here, right next to the barrel with the food in it. Never mind that glint of metal. Yes, just a little closer...
How do we know you're not a spy? Just like you, I work for a higher goal than wealth or power. And if you're at all dissatisfied with my work, feel free to kill me and give someone else my name. After all, it's the work that's important, not the person. Besides, everyone else wants me dead, though it's not my fault. I didn't make them do anything...
What I suggest: We create traps where people chose their own fate.
Pull this lever, and they can leave without harm.
Pull that lever, and a dozen crossbows fire into them.
Tell them, "Feel free to grab a platinum goblet on the way out."
Then, after they grab the goblet: "What, you're having trouble walking while skewered on that spike?"
Freedom of choice! The best form of chaos!
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Meatbag Gamma approves of Unit Bloodypuzzle's work. Gamma offers to facilitate the setting up of such devices. Great work requires Co-operation.
This unit is still not a robot, if you were asking.
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This seems pretty interesting! I like the song!
Name:Lovage
Gender: Male
Specialty: Security, surveillance, safecracking.
Reason for wanting to hench with us: Looking to take up a career that offers opportunities for advancement, a good safe defense system (or opportunity to design one), and ideally large amounts of unprotected valuables with poorly kept records...to protect, of course...
How do we know you aren't a spy?: I'm wanted in several Mountainhomes for 'security' and 'item ownership confusion' reasons.
(P.S Prometheus, high fives for Cave Story! Huzzah!)
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Thank you, Nashonluslem. Your application for the position of henching associate has been accepted. Your preference for deathtrap duty will be taken into consideration. We notice you have not provided us with your gender. Dr. Destruction is an equal opportunity employer, and respects your right to gender confusion. All job titles are gender-neutral. Welcome to the Dr. Destruction family.
Thank you, Lovage. Your application for the position of henching associate has been accepted. Your preference for security duty will be taken into consideration. Welcome to the Dr. Destruction family.
I also thought I'd post a list of available henching associates for you guys to adopt. There's plenty left, but I'm not expecting another immigrant wave until at least next year and I may do some... fun things with some of them. As of this post:
Miner x 1
Woodcutter/Carpenter x 1
Mason x 1
Mason/Speardwarf x 1
Metalcrafter x 1
Armorsmith x 1
Peasant x 6
Milker x 1
Butcher x 1
Grower x 2
Soaper x 1
Ranger/Marksdwarf (currently soldier with Oddbins on guard duty) x 1
Obviously I'm planning on giving most of these guys new jobs (at the moment they're all on hauling/smoothing duty), so you can take them as they are or let me know what you'd like them to be in the future.
Everyone who has put in an application is already in there.
I'll try to post a new update later today.
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I'd like for Gamma to have mechanics and siege engineering/operation as main skills, with partial duty on EX-TER-MI-NATI-ON, with a weapon of the good Dr. Destruction's choice.
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This is awesome! But I'm still trying to figure out how you're going to ignite the atmosphere.
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Eh, I'll just get some of my henching associates to do that. I'll name them my Doomsday Squad and tell them they'd better find a way to do it or they'll be spending the night in the volcano.
By the way, I saw a post a while ago about someone getting an Elf liaison who allowed them to request all sorts of fun elven trade goods. Anyone know how they did that? Cause that would be really useful to me and my plans...
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Name: Xen
Gender: Female
Specialty: Huntress/MarksDwarf (please train her to elite wrestling before giving her a crossbow please)
Reason for wanting to hench with us: She loves to kill things, not spy on them, the more things she kills the happier she is.
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Update! Chapter 2 is complete, and a link to the Year End Map (http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-3181-skullcrusher) for 1063 has been added to the first post. Enjoy!
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Name: Cepheid
Gender: Female
Specialty: Spying
Reason for wanting to hench with us: Because I have been ordered to spy on you.
How do we know you aren't a spy?: I am a spy.
In reality, she is just insane. Put here wherever you need her.
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Uh oh, Fire Imp leather and meat. I've heard they do terrible things to your food stockpiles...
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The beginning of Chapter 3 (http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddfqpx6n_284hfjqvfsf) is up, and a link has been added to the first page.
EDIT: Chapter 3 has been updated.
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Cepheid: "Yes! I must report back to my superiors about this FLOOR that is being constructed! Surely it must be part of some nefarious plan for world domination!"
*Cepheid notices the others staring at her.*
Cepheid: "What?"
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Chapter 3 has been updated yet again - this time with VIDEOS!
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Five economic stones says I have the shortest lived dwarf of this entire fortress.
Edit: Have you considered slavery for the spy rather than death? That is, assuming she is not dead yet from your death trap tests.
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Like the Videos, good to see the device works!
Hey, maybe Cepheid is a mute, and the horse who died was the real spy?
Just in case, why not leave Cepheid in the trap until it's needed, just to make sure?
You could draft some dwarfs who need dicipline into the army, give them no armor or weapons, and have them spar the best soldier. Undrafting or clever use isolated barracks should make sure the matchup is as uneven as possible. Who knows, maybe the dwarf will only lose their kneecaps!
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Name: Darkie
Gender: Male
Specialty: Being 1337 with teh Xbow! Pheer my skillz0rz!
Reason for wanting to hench with us: I'm in it pher teh lewt.
How do we know you aren't a spy?: You don't! 1337s has honor!
Now really, put me wherever you wish, I just made him more l33t for making the story more spiced up when you speak through him.
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Name: St. Rheealpy (Or was it "the Real Spy."?)
Gender: Male
Specialty:Information gathe- Er...Cook. Thats right..The cook.
Reason for wanting to hench with us:To serve the Dr. of course.
How do we know that you aren't a spy?: I believe my credentials speak for themselves http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comics/057.jpg
Could you make it so this guy loves cats? Maby if he gains enough status have his room entrance be a giant cat head =]
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I would like to put an idea in the suggestion box. maybe you already know this trick but it doesn't matter. If you put a
dwarf spy in a room full of cage traps he will eventually fall asleep and if a dwarf is unconscious on a cage trap he will be trapped in the cage ;D It's really useful if you want to get rid of unwanted people because you can put the cage anywhere you want and also use mechanisms to open the cage
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Lovage does not consider this your typical marriage so much as a marriage of convenience. It's good to be close to the dwarf that knows where all the traps are, and what lever does what.
Not to mention the tax benefits...
(Also, a suggestion! A slip of paper, anonymous and devoid of fingerprints, with 'coin minting operation + vault, secure airlock system, remote control' written on it in a neat handwriting.
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Name: Fred
Gender: Male
Specialty: Guard Duty
Reason for wanting to hench with us: Worked for another mad scientist fellow. Never came out of the lab. We found the fellow dead of starvation one day, and then I decided to seek reemployment. Anywhere else Evil Henching would be a negative thing to have on a resume.
How do we know you aren't a spy?: If you think I'm a spy, fine. Lock me up in a room. As long as I have a bed and some food in my belly, I'm just fine with that. If you don't want me, fine. I'll go. There's got to be somewhere else hiring...
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Is Sappho still around?
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Sorry guys, just taking a few days off. Feel free to write up a side-story or two if you like.
By the way, I should warn you all that I won't be around in a few weeks. I'll be moving to a tiny little village in the Alps with no TV or internet, and I'll be living there till next June (with a week or two break to come home around Xmas). So I'll have to try to finish as much of this story as I can before I go, then pass it off to someone else I guess.
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Oh well. Might as well get in on it while it lasts.
Name: Fingers
Gender: Male (if none left, female is fine)
Specialty: Larceny, extortion, creative bookkeeping.
Reason for wanting to hench with us: The money's good, and some places don't much care if you skim a little off the top.
How do we know you aren't a spy?: I won't be, for as long as you pay more than the competition...
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Gamma liked his work. He made mechanisms. Sometimes he installed mechanisms. He always had work with Bloodypuzzle and Lovage since their mistress, Dr. Destruction, was always demanding all mechanisms to be over-the-top and highly elaborate. Every extra trigger meant more mechanisms and more work. Creating such complex machines was a work of nothing but pure love. Seeing how everything fitted together and worked fluidly to drop hapless spies into pits of magma and other such was such a brilliant use of his skills. Every time the lever would be pulled, he would know the satisfaction of a job well done, as well as the glee of knowing that one less organic scumbag was wiped from the world of the living.
With a metallic creak, the dwarfbot lifted another piece of stone onto the machine shop's workbench and began shaping it into gears and axles and counterweights.
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Name: Alegero
Gender: Female
Specialty: Guard duty
Reason for wanting to hench with us: My parents, grandparents, and so on for about 12 generations, each served in a diabolical industry, larceny, scams, politics and the like. I'm continuing the family tradition.
How do we know you aren't a spy?: It would be an insult to me. My family has both a strict code against ethics and a strict code against betraying your employer. I'll admit that they do occasionally conflict, though.
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Name: Rawry
Gender: Male
Specialty: Architecture, but sometimes dabbles in mechanics
Reason for wanting to hench with us: I want an excuse to design pointlessly complicated traps!
How do we know you aren't a spy?: Look at me -> ;D <- No-one could accuse someone with that face of being a spy!
One more thing - can you include a big meeting table where each chair can be seperately dropped into lava, just in case you need to dispose of some unneeded business associates?
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Sorry I haven't been updating this, guys. I have come to the conclusion that I just don't have the time to write anymore proper story before I leave next week. I am still playing this a little in my spare time, though, and I plan on posting a little wrap-up chapter and giving you guys the save file to use as you wish at some point before I go.
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These things happen, fun while it lasted.
Hope we meet the nemesis!
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No worries! Have a great time hidden away in the alps!
Its a great idea for a story and really enjoyed it while it was going!
All the best ;)
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Thanks for the well wishes, guys. Unfortunately I just haven't had any time to finish this, but I did upload the save file for all to enjoy however you please. I've started building a dome over the magma. Everything else should, I think, be self-explanatory.
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=454