I've only played a couple of forts, this is my first one with magma. The entrance to Irtirkosoth, "The Dangled Palace" (don't ask about the name) is a single shaft from the plateau at the top of the map. There are fortifications and a bridge system on the outside to protect the trade depot and an above-ground farm plot. The entrance shaft goes down two or three levels and joins into a large underground area where my permnanent main entrance and trade depot will eventually be. It's right beside the magma, and I intend to dig out a wagon tunnel which will become the only entrance, by bridge over the BOTTOMLESS PIT of SEARING MOLTEN ROCK! MWAHAHAHAHA!
Ahem. Anyway, there was a fire man and a couple of fire imps on the map which I had been eyeing nervously (never having fought them before). The area they were in was not accessible until I dug out a trench for a lava moat where I plan to have my grand entrance. I kept my marksdwarves stationed around the lava moat for a while, but none of the locals seemed interested in bothering me so I went back to the important business of digging after leaving a dozen sword traps between the moat and my main base. Better safe than dead in your sleep.
When my first wave of immigrants eventually arrived the fire man swam up through the moat to see what all the noise was about. I quickly ordered my military dwarves to their stations, behind fortifications and the aforementioned pointy bits, some of the new immigrants seizing my stockpiled weapons as they arrived and prepared to fight to the death. The fire man didn't like the look of my impregnable defences, and headed up the shaft to the surface where my trade depot is. Damn! He met the last straggling immigrant at the top, and chucked a fireball or two at him. Thankfully the immigrant had no friends or family; they would have had difficulty trying to ID him at the morgue. Do dwarves keep dental records? My farmer didn't fare any better, shot in the back while fleeing.
All the living were inside now, except my favourite dwarf, Thikut Uzoldeduk the horse-stalker. She started off as a woodcutter like any other until a gang of Rhesus Macaques <strike>killed the man she loved</strike> stole some discarded bone bolts and she entered a martial trance and scattered their limbs around the map. Now when she's not felling trees, she fells horses leaving a trail of blood and severed lower bodies in her wake. Unfortunately, she was out in the wild and would soon be returning with half a horse, unaware that a fire man was besieging my fort.
Meanwhile Atekkubuk, the rampaging fire man was stalking about my trade depot closing in on the two-humped camel I had chained at the gate to (quite successfully) spot kobolds. Poor thing, I felt terrible about it being chained there with no hope of escape after serving me faithfully. The fire man closed in for the kill and there was a mighty conflagration! When the flames died down, there stood Nomaban "Godconstructs" the two-humped camel knee deep in blood and ashes, with the severed head of Atekkubuk lying to one side!
Now my dead are buried, Atekkubuk's head is attracting flies and I have commissioned a series of commemorative engravings in honour of Nomaban, The Asbestos Camel.
This is the awesomest game ever!
I just wish I could take Atekkubuk's head as a trophy and build a shrine to worship my camel.