After spawning a dragon in the object testing arena and watching it insta-kill as many dwarves as I could spawn, I developed a healthy respect for the creature. But I never had one attack any of my forts, so I didn't give it a second thought until 102-03-17
A couple years prior, everything was peaceful and green. Dwarves doing individual combat drills dodging arrows. No one expected what their fate had in store for them.
First it killed the puppies
Then it killed the children
I think it did more damage to itself by breathing fire and getting my dwarves' boiling armor all over itself than anything the dwarves could do.
The first blow not dodged by the dragon was landed by a child!
Somewhere in the log a poet gets his lower left arm severed, then his right hand is clawed off. I hope he wasn't planning on writing any of his poems down...
And then Recruit Oburrigoth demonstrates for everyone why not to bite a dragon in the head. Or at least why not to latch on firmly after biting a dragon in the head.
Not an Axelord, Spearmaster, Swordmaster nor a Hammerlord, but a dancer is the first to stand toe to toe with the dragon and land some blows.
Although to be fair to the Axelords and Swordmasters, this is day 2 of the fight and I'm pretty sure they have all been turned into boiling iron, steel and blood at this point.
3 solid days of fighting and 16 pages of combat reports later, the dragon was defeated. But not before wave after wave of my own dwarves were sent in for their armor to turn into boiling iron and steel. 51 adults, 26 children, and 3 babies were killed by the dragon, plus everything in the fort was burned and destroyed. Also all the outside plants and trees caught fire. A lavish roast and several other items burned for months. A pile of burning coal managed to catch my wood stockpile on fire 6 months after the dragon was killed, which proceeded to catch everything outside the fort on fire again.
Now with all the trees being partially burned, cutting them down leads to parts of them collapsing and knocking the woodcutters unconscious. So far none have been substantially injured by this, just knocked out.
Since all the tables and chairs in the dining hall have been melted, that Z-Level is being re-purposed into the tomb room.
It wasn't intentional, but I'm now noticing that this particular Z-Level looks a bit like a skeleton. I think I'll leave it that way given it is now where all the dwarven skeletons will reside.
I was going to start a new fort after getting inspired by some
cool fortress designs, but after surviving a dragon attack, I think I have to keep it going for at least another few years. I just upgraded my pc, raising my FPS from about 40 to 60, so that makes it easier to continue.