Map of Earthheads:
(click for full image on ImageShack)
Hello, ladies and gentlemen of the Bay12 forums! I thought it would be nice to share the first real Fun I've had in Dwarf Fortress.
Be warned, I am new to Dwarf Fortress, and only play a little bit. I am not good at a strategy, and usually am overwhelmed at the third migrant wave. This fortress is one I'll never forget.
A short while ago, I embarked in a new world, to a fortress called Earthheads. Earthheads was a randomly generated name, and I quite liked it. Little did I know how fitting the name would become.
The world on which I embarked had two Towers. One in the north, another in the south. I did not want to have to deal with two towers at once, so the dwarves of the Common Silvers went to the south. The area had Flux, Low metals, Deep metals, a river, and cliffs. What more could 7 dwarves want? I got to mining out a small home for them, and then crafts production was started. Around a year and a half later, Earthheads was pumping out steel and gold. Then, it happened. Out of the blue, undead creatures started raising up from the refuse pile outside. I sent the military to investigate.
My biggest mistake with Earthheads consisted of only having 5 military dwarves. Bad idea. I could've made enough gear for 20, but I was lazy. Anyway, the military spent some time beating up on horse hair and an Emu Head. I sent them to scour the hills, but unfortunately the necromancer was not found. Oh well, perhaps he left.
Nope. Some time later, it happened again. The dwarves of Earthheads were deathly afraid of a head rolling around and some horse hair doing whatever undead hair does. So, I decided to scour the hills once more. Aha! A human farmer necromancer! Too bad the fat dwarves couldn't catch her. If they had, perhaps Earthheads would still stand. She ran away, off the map. I decided to do the cowardly thing: lock ourselves up in the fort until we could better deal with the undead.
It turns out that I had allowed the chefs to cook away all our drinks. Oops, now everyone is blinking blue. I set full speed alcohol production. This was going fine, until we ran out of barrels. Most of them were outside, sitting in the carpenter's shop. I decided to drain a pool of water in order to get some water for the fort. That was most likely the cause of the later disaster.
The pool, of course, was stagnant. I facepalmed. That was dumb. I decided to drill an underground tunnel to the river, and set up a weird well/pool/floodgate thingy. It kind of worked, until my legendary miner/broker dug himself into the reservoir. He escaped by swimming not to the easy staircase out, no, he swam THROUGH the reservoir, up the tunnel, and dragged himself onto the riverbank, coughing and sputtering.
It was then that the Elves came to trade. Two traders and their mules. I can only imagine their first impression of Earthheads. A half drowned dwarf with a pick dragging himself up from a river, gasping. Then, the miner ran up the hills to Pickup Equipment (what?) and promptly discovered a Goblin Ambush. Perfect timing (these were the first goblins to attack). He was chased for a while, and then I lowered the gate and let out my 4 dorf army (one died of thirst from an injury). The goblins were killed, easy enough, and the miner made it inside along with the elves.
Then it happened. I noticed some undead creatures by the refuse stockpile and burial room. This was inside the fortress. Oh crap, a necromancer had made it inside Earthheads. If you'll notice on the map, the Dining Room is very near the Burial Room, only separated by a marble quarry-ish room. I saw what would've been very funny, had it been not actually happening to me. The entire idling populous of Earthheads (approx. 40 dwarves) was cornered in the dining room, all cowering against one wall, while in the other, an undead reindeer head rolled about on the soil floor. I suppose Earthheads was aptly named, eh?
This went downhill, fast. I ordered the military to the burial/refuse room, in order to try and flush out the necromancer. Nope! They got distracted and started bashing the brains out of the undead reindeer head. The necromancer then shows himself. Along with
3 friends. That's right, 4 necromancers in my refuse stockpile. They had resurrected my militia dwarf that died of thirst earlier, and two that had fallen victim to a vampire attack. The undead slaughtered my underdeveloped militia, and quickly killed the idlers. Boom, 40 more zombie dorfs. Some hunters took a valiant last stand, shooting bolts into the horde without even being ordered to. However, the army of evil quickly consumed them. They made their way down the stairs, and to the sleeping quarters. Earthheads was as good as dead. I was laughing.
The Elves made a cowardly last stand, as they fled into the tunnel that lead to the coal mine, screaming like little girls. They were soon eaten by the zombies.
What a way to go. The lever to open the gate was in the dining room, so no dwarf could escape. Locked in with the horrors they tried to lock out. The last surviving dwarf was a cheesemaker. He went melancholic, and strangely the undead didn't kill him. A bug? I like to think that the necromancers were letting him rot away amid the horde of death. A kind of sick, twisted torture.
One question remains, though.
How did they get in?
Author
Topic: Earthheads, my experience with the undead and Fun (Read 1093 times)