(I think this is the right area for this kind of story. Please tell me if it's not.)
So like any newbie with half a brain, I first looked at the evil/haunted/terrifying biome that always winds up on my map and immediately went "Yeah, I'm going to avoid that area like the plague."
Well, I recently decided to try building there because thus far, safe areas are good for building, but boring. Let's face it, building a successful fortress is fun and all, but we're all here to see what happens when things go bad and then watch in horrified fascination as that bad picks up worse and smacks your dwarves over the head, pounding them into the ground like a nail into a plank.
I am pleased to report that after 5 IMMEDIATELY failed attempts to build a fortress in an evil or worse location, I have successfully begun building in a terrifying location.
I will record my initial experiences here, along with anything else that happens that may be noteworthy on down the road. As soon as I figure out how to take pictures, I'll add a few of those to the post too.
So, I thought I'd start with my initial thoughts
"Okay, I'm not immediately murdered by skeletal eagles. Great. Start digging. and chopping wood. Huh.. purple trees. Is this really all I'm going to get in this area?"
(not even five seconds later)
It has started raining blood
"gyahh... disgusting"
The rain of human-freaking-blood does not let up for five minutes. Curious as to how my dwarves are taking it, I check my expedition leader, who has double duty as both broker and miner. His experiences include "has had a wonderful bath recently." GYAHHH!!! What kind of lunatic do we HAVE running this thing!?
Things are relatively quiet for the next two month, if blood covered, as the rain of blood keeps stopping and restarting in 15 minute real-life intervals. At one point, I learned that regular rain cleans up blood when it stopped raining blood, started raining water, and then it started raining blood WHILE IT WAS RAINING WATER!
Of course, my first real challenge is figuring out how to get the military to work. Some harpies decide my farmer and wood cutter look like tasty appetizers and start chasing them around. I skip the usual playing of Yakkity Sax and try to first figure out how to get the axe man I brought along for this purpose to be apart of the military, and then try to figure out how to get it actually do something other than drink in the preliminary dining room I will later turn into something else (I would normally turn this area into a leather works/butcher/tanner/fishery area later, but I'm not sure it's the best idea yet. It's not an ashen landscape, so I still might). The axeman eventually takes the four harpies out, leaving them four piles of blood and feathers, and the two workers get back to work.
Well that's all I got so far.