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[Endiqua]

Wow, there's some seriously entertaining (and pretty damn creepy) reading material here.  God, I love this game and the community it spawned. 

[flieroflight]

The wagon and its crew of dwarfs set off from the mountains in high spirits, as would any group of friends setting off on an adventure. Mandel and Irktuz, a married pair of miners, Reztarn, a woodcutter and carpenter, Narkhine, a mechanic, Greshaine, a brewer and fisher, Heldarn, a spearman sent as an escort and finally the doctor Vaas'ralk.

As the weeks passed on their journey, spirits sank as the magnitude of their task became clear, for they had seen what lay ahead of them. from the peaks of shattered tusk pass, they saw their destination- The Ashen Forest- a land where only the bare minimum was known, that it was a fetile land with an abundnce of metals and running water in plenty. What this group of travellers saw threw their foresight into stark relief- a plain filled with stunted, knarled trees that seemed oddly sinister, ground covered in an ash reminiscent of ground bone and a faint haze hnging over the area that seemed to block all of the suns rays, and drain the hope from them.

A they entered the depths of the plain, the trees grew thick around the trail, and their shape shifted until it seemed tht the trees were beings watching the group. With weeks left until they reached the very centre of the forest, where their destination lay, they decided , as one, to turn back. better to face the wrath of the mountainhomes than spend ny more time in this accursed forest. for that was what it was, accursed, a relic of the time when the world was young and gods and demons walked the world, a mighty realm rent asunder by their gods wrath for turning from them in their greed. As they began to turn, A mighty quake shook the area and a rift split the road behind the wagon, forcing the group to continue.

when the group reached their destination, Mandel and Irktuz began fratically arving out a dwelling among the ruins that surrounded their destination while Reztam began to cut down some of the twisted trees surrounding the small , ruin-strwn clearing thew found themselves in.
then Heldarn saw the beast. A humanoid creature with ragged scraps of clotthing covering it, it sprang at him with a snarl that seemed to echo in his very soul. he impaled it throughthe chest and blood began pouring out, but as its claws raked across his face, he found that it had stuck fast. as the beasts jaws began to close on his leg an he felt himself being dragged off through the pain and blood clogged wreckage of his vision, he saw Reztam and Mandel hacking the beast to death with their tools.

Vaas'ralk managed to save his life in a frantically cobbled together surgery, but he had lost his left eye forever. as the days passed, he seemed changed, harsher in personality and with an evil glint in his eye from time to time. these changes grew more pronounced as time passed, with the full moon heralding doom.

the others were in the dining room when they heard an imhuman scream echoing down the halls and the doors were flung open to reveal an abomintion stanidng in them. Hldarn had a grizzly haired and muscled arm, with the hair extendin over his body and the bone visibly growing with sickening crunches and creaks. as the fur spread over his face, a new eye slowl grew into the empty socket of his old. with an inhuman roar h threw a boulder at Mandel, shattering her spine and flining her against a wall. from there, pinned by the rock, she watched as the thing heldarn had became decapitated her husband with a single blow and lapped from the pool of blood sprining from his neck. As her screams of anguish filled the chamber, the beast roceeded to slaughter every last dwar invthe fortress beore slowly crawling over to her and staring. the last she saw was the easts jaws extending over head, and the last she felt was its teeth crushing her skulllike paper.

silence filled the clearing, with the wagon decaying to become just another piece of wreckage in the ruins of ages past, and before long, another group would leave to try and uncover the riches of the Ashen Forests.

[Cellmonk]

As her screams of anguish filled the chamber, the beast proceeded to slaughter every last dwarf in the fortress before slowly crawling over to her and staring. the last she saw was the beasts jaws extending over head, and the last she felt was its teeth crushing her skull like paper.

I thought all dwarven skulls were made of paper.

[Aspgren]

I remember my first ghost.

I don't know how he died but he hovered several Z levels above ground .. just outside the gem window of an appartment... this struck me as very creepy for some raisin.

[Powder Miner]

Why would a raisin want something to strike you as creepy?

[Tiruin]

Why would a raisin want something to strike you as creepy?

Shriveled grapes are scary...Imaging getting all your liquids sucked out and your dried corpse eaten.

Actually, something like that got my hospital dwarf. He died of depression in his hospital bed. Nobody bothered to move the corpse or even enter the hospital to take care of the rest of them as they were choking on his miasma.

Then I noticed, the door was locked.

[eggrock]

I once had a mother's three babies (this was a very productive fortress) be swept away be an artifcial stream I had built. The babies were never seen again. (actually they got stuck in the grates but it was too dangerous to get them out).

I read something similar--or maybe it was your account and it's always stuck with me.

A bathing area was constructed for the pleasure and cleanliness of the dorfs, but the Overseer noticed babies clogging the drains, and eventually realized that the water flow was pulling babies out of mothers' arms, sucking them into the drain system and drowning them.

I like to tell this story to non-DF players whenever possible.

---

In one of my first forts a FB showed up in the caverns, carrying along some syndrome or another. That was no problem because the caverns were walled up, except-

After some period of time I saw a some miasma near the stockpiles. The cloud dissipated rapidly and revealed the corpse of a dorf laying nearby. In time, another dorf approached--and violently exploded, causing another giant cloud of miasma to appear and disappear. And another. And another.

The FB was nowhere near that I could tell, but this was a very early fort and I never figured out what happened.

[daggaz]

It was late winter, and the last survivor of Brokenhammer was pouring the final dregs of the meager booze supply into a chipped stone mug for one last draught before, he felt, he too would succumb.   Barrels lay broken and scattered, a thin mixture of blood and dusty mud coated everything, evidence of a vicious end to times past.  Footprints tracked the mess across the room, an overexposed film caught in time; careful, cautious footprints, sprinting tracks, the frenzied press of a panicked mob.  Bloody handprints fingered every surface.  And the curious, sliding, triple-track that chased every single path of dwarven passage, the unspeakable horror that traipsed its way through the fort, the slippery trail of death and gore that led, finally, to the depths of the magma forges. 

That door was bolted and braced, the bloody handprints testimony to a dying survivor's final efforts.   The body still lay crumpled in the corner, nearby.  Urist would not turn his gaze in that direction any longer, could not accept the death of his last living companion.  Instead, he peered out thru the glass wall of the once mighty meadhall, into the dark of the snow covered fields outside.  As he raised the mug to his lips, a shadow caught his eye.  Something was moving out there, pushing against that impossible cold, the wind blown snow whipping past the spectre, nearly obscuring it completely from his sight.   

He choked, nearly spitting up his precious drops, but swallowed the bitter heat instead, his last reminder of everything lost.  His gaze locked on the outsider, his mind raced.  Was it someone to his rescue?  An immigrant, perhaps just an elven liason, but help none the less?  Impossible, just the one.. too cold, why only one?   The shape drew closer thru the drifts of snow. 

He squinted, peering desperately.  Details began to seep past the throbbing pain that threatened always to take his consciousness.  Torn clothes, rags in the wind, perhaps the lone survivor of a goblin ambush.. he must be freezing.  The being drew closer, Urists' gaze remained locked, his mug frozen in place, empty and silent at his lips.   One leg, broken, bone jutting out raw, ribs exposed.  A hand outstretched, blackened nails clutching, the eyes empty, the mouth open and hungry.   

Horrified, he could not break his eyes from the vision, the monstrosity dragging itself thru the snow.  The cold wind seemed to touch him then, blew through him, an impossible, uncomfortable shiver that seemed not to care of the walls which still stood between the mountain home and the howling elements outside.  Shaking it off, he peered closer.  The snow, so deep, and yet...or were there?  His reflection in the way, obscurring his piercing gaze, the room, ghostly images, ethereal furniture placed outside..  The spectre drew ever closer.  No, indeed, it left no tracks in the snow.  So strange, was it even real?  Was his mind broken?  It passed a ghostly table.  It shuffled forward, approaching an upturned chair, a shadow in its path.  And then it placed its hand on the chair, it seemed, and slid it to one side, and the noise echoed behind him and that cold wind blew through him and through his beard and shook his body with spasms, and his stone mug lay shattered on the floor.