Sigunmasos. A haunted land with a volcano, brook, a resident troll in a cave and lots of undead.
The first embark consists of seven axedwarves, armed and armoured, with minimal supplies.
They clear out the major masses of skeletal horses, badgers, buzzards and carp without casualties, and switch to mining.
A fortress is dug out belowground, supplies are moved down and all goes well. After almost a year the fortress swells to fourteen dwarves, with only one death due to a magma related mining accident. The dead dwarf is buried with full honours and a memorial chamber erected in his honour.
Until a sudden herd of eight skeletal horses catch me offguard and lay waste to the fortress. My axe/miners are slaughtered before I even have the chance to put them on duty, and the remainder of the fortress dies quickly.
To retake the fortress, another seven dwarves are sent. Hammer dwarves this time, armed and armoured and with minimal supplies. They take care of the now named, ambushing skeletal horses and troll, and start moving supplies downstairs. Until the entrance suddenly becomes impassable. The volcano which, on first embark, stopped one level belowground and is surrounded by a hollow caldera rising a further 20 stories above ground, has started to swell. For drama and fue to future grand, volcano based plans the entrance stairwell had been in the caldera wall and was now flooded with magma. As the magma continues to rise and swell, sending great plumes ever higher, work continues more urgently to get supplies below ground using an alternative entrance dug out. The plan is to move supplies down, wall off the new entrance before the volcano erupts, and seal it off, building a new, secure entrance, on higher ground.
Unfortunately, despite proud victory against the troll and skeletal forces with only one death, my dwarves cause the fortress downfall all by themselves. Once most of the supplies are downstairs, we start moving the corpses and scattered aboveground produce of the previous settlers below too, planning to make a decent burial for them all. One dwarf is suddenly stricken with melancholy. Another begins to throw tantrums. The volcano suddenly erupts, trapping three dwarves aboveground as magma floods below, immediately setting fire to the entire stock of food. The dwarves dig another emergency entrance, wall off the magma downstairs and begin walling off the entrance aboveground. Ghosts raise. Every movement is interrupted by skeletal beasts of some sort which must be killed, delaying our efforts to wall off the next entrance. The melancholy dwarf dies. Another turns raving mad. When the mad dwarf dies, still with the entrance unsealed and now leaking magma, another dwarf turns beserk and kills all remaining, sane dwarves.
A further group embarks to reclaim the area. No weapon skills this time. All the large enemies had been killed and the lava is spreading over much of the land now, and the main priority is getting items into a makeshift entrance downstairs, walling off all magma and sealing up. Once there safely we can create tombs for all the dead dwarves and begin retaking the magma flooded fortress. Except that the berserk dwarf from the previous fortress is still there, and is waiting for us. The dwarves scatter in terror, although fortunately the berserk dwarf falls to a fight with a skeletal sturgeon. But not before the magma floods our caravan, destroying all supplies not yet moved belowground. The dwarves all fall to ambush by skeletal horses.
A final group of axedwarves, accompanied by a fleet of wardogs to take on any beasts, arrives. They die to skeletal horse ambush before I can even assign them to a military. The caravan embark point is touching magma, and immediately goes up in flames.
It seems like the skeletal animals are planning it by now. They wait, every time, until I am at a crucial moment - the last piece of wall to save us from the magma, the last few supplies, the one remaining safe place.
I will write this up into a proper story at some point. Hopefully when I finally succeed in taking the place.
HEY!
Anyone want to try and take this place if I upload the save? I'll happily upload a save and give you the details to make the world yourself so you can go from scratch instead if you like.
Author
Topic: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG! *video, pics and saves etc now added* (Read 1236 times)