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[Magnus]

Oh god...

We drove off the goblins without any military casualties. I've sent the haulers to drag their gear inside, lots of nice armor and weapons, not to mention clothing which is in woefully short supply. Amazingly, the apple picker we had written off as dead survived the ordeal, despite taking five crossbow bolts in various limbs, AND being left out in the rain for a WEEK before someone had the wits to carry him inside. All credit goes to our fine medical team for putting him back together, although he will likely remain on crutches for the rest of his days.

The vampire casualties continue with alarming frequency. The culprit has now moved on from children to mature dwarves, with our furnace operator Burnie being the first to fall as such. I am fairly sure the Mayor is involved somehow, but he might not be the only one! During his meeting with the human council another victim was found, and witnesses saw the military second-in-command rushing from the dormitory minutes earlier. He is of a similar type as the Mayor, a genius with the sword and highly skilled in conversation. Nobody heard or saw anything, as usual, but if we are indeed beset by two vampires then I fear for our futures...

And if this wasn't enough, we're dealing with the repercussions of a werebeast invasion! A mighty human weresheep came to our door, slaughtered our guard dogs and took the full might of our military (fortunately, the marksdwarves now had ammo!) to bring down. It was only later that we discovered that such beasts spread their curse to the surviving victims. Berryclams, one of our gatherers and fishermen, had been the unfortunate first one to encounter the beast, and while he was brought inside and healed in our hospital, he subsequently sprouted fleece and went berserk in the meeting hall while partying. He managed to bite one of the children, who later shapeshifted just as Berryclams had done. The freakish child-sheep-dwarf then attacked a farmer and ripped his arm off... The circle of violence continues as I write. The screams from the hospital never cease, and Bloody, our butcher who doubles as surgeon, looks about to crack from the pressure. The military have been stationed near the hospital, but they are in disarray too, seeing as Slasha, our finest axedwarf, was the first of their number to fall in battle with these beasts. Only the Mayor and his second-in-command seem completely unaffected by all this...

Thirty sarcophagi have been placed, but we always need more. Our mason, Stoney, was found contorted in fear and lifeless in his room a while ago. A grim fate indeed, for such a promising craftsman to be strangled by his own deceased child. They have since both been put to rest, but I fear for similar incidents. I am in half a mind to have another anvil forged for a second metalworks, to speed up the burial process.

Tholtig is still alive, albeit on crutches. She was gravely hurt by one of the werebeasts, but seeing as her skin was not pierced I have hopes that she will not turn like the others have. She seemed okay with being reassigned to animal care duty.

Still, there is hope. Three children have been born since the siege ended, giving a much needed boost to morale. We have begun engraving the hallways, and are at least adequately stocked with food, booze, weapons and clothing. Provided that the violence dies down and we finally manage to bury our dead, this fortress may yet survive.

EDIT:
There is no hope. Half of us are werebeasts, the rest are dying. May Armok have mercy on our souls.

[Nyxalinth]

I had this happen to me last year.  I got over-involved with some huge project, and ran out of booze.  Then winter came.   Population was down to 23 by the time things leveled out, down from 100.

Well written!

I am Tholtig. I swing an iron pick. I smooth the walls and carve out images of our history in them.

I drink in the hall with my fellow dwarves, the hall that we carved out during the first year.

Life was good then. We dug deep, built great halls, erected statues and made wonderful crafts encrusted with gemstones. Both human and dwarven traders alike praised our craftsdwarfship. When we grew hungry, we slaughtered one of the horses. I remember the taste of horse. When we were thirsty, we drank. First from the barrels, then from the brook.

We should have remembered the brook.

There was no iron or coal in our fortress, but that did not stop our metalsmiths, for our mountain is laden with silver and lead. Silver makes for heavy warhammers. Lead makes for all sorts of furniture.

How many were we before the Thirst? 70? 80? I do not know.
How many have been rotting in the pile outside, ever since the winter when the brook froze, the barrels ran dry and the well failed us?

This I do know. 48. There are 48 niches carved into the walls in our new water reservoir. The Thirst took them, but they will never want for drink again.

I am Tholtig. I dig lead ore. I carry lead sarcophagi. The small ones are the heaviest.

There are goblins outside now. The others closed the drawbridge as soon as we left, sealing us out for the greater good. The fisherman and the apple picker are both dead. I liked him, the apple picker.

I am Tholtig. I swing a silver warhammer. I am alive.

[Skullsploder]

Well, having half of your fort be werebeasts is, believe it or not, one of the best things that can happen. It's bad news for the other half, though. But anyway, werebeasts heal all of their wounds each time they transform, up to and including missing limbs (I should know, my captain of the guard got his arm ripped off by a werekangaroo and it grew back the following month!), and werebeasts of the same kind won't attack each other. What you should do if you want to facilitate full-fort transformation is segregate everyone suspected of the were-curse, unequip all their armour, and send unturned into the werebeast section with full armour save one body part - leaving off gauntlets is a fairly safe bet. That way, when they are beset by were-creatures, the bites will only break skin on the hands, rather than, say, the jugular. What works best is locking several unturned in a room with a single werebeast, so that there's less chance of them being killed outright.

Alternatively, if you prefer more sanity in your forts, just segregate. Equipping your hospital with individual rooms, each with a door and a drawbridge, means anyone attacked by a weresheep can be locked in until the following month. If they don't turn, they're clean. Otherwise, it's off to the werebeast quarters.

Naturally, if you manage to get them segregated, werebeasts make great soldiers - all their wounds are healed on a monthly basis.

[Magnus]

Well, having half of your fort be werebeasts is, believe it or not, one of the best things that can happen. It's bad news for the other half, though. But anyway, werebeasts heal all of their wounds each time they transform, up to and including missing limbs (I should know, my captain of the guard got his arm ripped off by a werekangaroo and it grew back the following month!), and werebeasts of the same kind won't attack each other. What you should do if you want to facilitate full-fort transformation is segregate everyone suspected of the were-curse, unequip all their armour, and send unturned into the werebeast section with full armour save one body part - leaving off gauntlets is a fairly safe bet. That way, when they are beset by were-creatures, the bites will only break skin on the hands, rather than, say, the jugular. What works best is locking several unturned in a room with a single werebeast, so that there's less chance of them being killed outright.

Alternatively, if you prefer more sanity in your forts, just segregate. Equipping your hospital with individual rooms, each with a door and a drawbridge, means anyone attacked by a weresheep can be locked in until the following month. If they don't turn, they're clean. Otherwise, it's off to the werebeast quarters.

Naturally, if you manage to get them segregated, werebeasts make great soldiers - all their wounds are healed on a monthly basis.

I did not know about the healing! I kind of regret abandoning my fortress now. I was down to about 10 dwarves. 2 of them were indeed vampires (I checked the Legends), the rest were either weresheep that slept on the floor all the time or dying dwarfes with horrible injuries. For some reason nobody would carry corpses outside, so the halls were thick with miasma. I just felt like I could do much better if I restarted and organized a new fort properly, but I could have used the vampires to do some science regarding booze/blood addiction... Oh well.

Next time I'm going to build a staggeringly vast amount of farm plots. Nobody will go hungry or thirsty! Everything will be perfect!

[AbanShakehandles]

The small ones are the heaviest.

.............

[Sadrice]

...our engineers are a dim-witted rabble of nincompoops that don't know their arses from a hole in the ground. The trench they had dug from the surface brook to our underground water cistern would hardly fill a bath tub in a season's time, much less deliver enough water to supply the fortress well in any foreseeable timespan. Even so, the work did not start until late Autumn, whereupon the brook soon froze solid. Had they at least started by leading the water underground, we might have averted the worst ... But no, the last part of our great installation was the brook channel itself, which of course remained dry and frozen hard as bone until the first of Slate.

Water takes a long time to flow across flat canals if you build them wrong (magma is even worse).  Rather than stretching a canal from the brook to above your cistern, and sending it down a hole there, you should have it go down a z or two right next to the brook.  This will make it flow much much faster through the pipe to your cistern.

Also, send it through a diagonal at the top level of your cistern to keep it filled.  Pressure isn't transmitted diagonally, so this is a foolproof method to avoid flooding incidents.

[Badger Storm]

I am Baymax, your personal health care assistant.  Do you require care, Tholtig?  Your mental health is important.

You're pretty darn good with your words.  I am definitely satisfied with my reading experience.

[LMeire]

Neat story, I like your writing style. ^v^
--

... And anyone who speaks up against the Mayor's rule, or gets sent to prison for ignoring his ridiculous mandates, are neither seen nor heard from again. Such is life in the Bloodfort.

I actually did something really similar last spring, it probably wouldn't work with the new emotions though.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I just let the vampire/mayor run loose and pinned all the murders on dwarves that had a less-than-positive view on "tradition", leading to deadly beatings by the sliver-hammer equipped fortress guard; liking tradition means an extra happiness boost from talking with nobles while hating it means they'd only get more upset, so under my "justice" system grieving dwarves would schedule meetings with the murderer about their friends and family getting killed and end up happier than they were before about it.