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[grelphy]

It is, in fact, possible to survive in a glacier. Just difficult.

My worst start was in a terrifying jungle somewhere--spawned on the map with about a dozen foul blendecs, which proceeded to happily shred first the three fire imps which jumped from the lava vent, then the ten or so war dogs I brought along in anticipation of this event, then all of my dwarves. Not a single one was even injured.

I have found myself avoiding jungles ever since. I'll deal with haunted tundra, taiga, desert, hell, I'll even embark in places with undead fish, but jungles are too hardcore.

[ShadeJS]

My roughest start:

I'm fond of a magma vent, and a right and proper river, in a 3-4 x 3-4 area.

So I start a new fort. Usually if you stay away from the mouth of a magma vent the Fire Imps will leave you well enough alone. (I usually wall off and deal with the vent locals after I'm in a more secure position.) For whatever reason, very shortly after embarking, a fire imp goes on a rampage. He manages nail a farmer dwarf that was busy hauling on account of having no agriculture yet... He runs toward the wagon and the imp follows... There be fire at the wagon and the farmer be dead... I quickly draft my woodcutter and 2 miners... The remaining 3 dwarves are running for their little lives... The 2 miners and woodcutter approach... A miner gets hit and set ablaze... One of the 3 dwarves running for their lives suddenly one gets 'carped' at the river staggers a few tiles and dies... Wham! The woodcutter and remaining miner bring the fire imp down.

So, I look around. It's still in the first season. I'm down a farmer, miner, and brewer. Better yet, there's an awful lot of smoke in the wagon area. At that point I didn't bother to check if a wagon can burn. I resigned that game...

[SirPenguin]

Settled near a magma vent which happened to be surrounded by a large forest. Imp popped out to give a hearty hello to a stray dog, lighting him and the entire countryside ablaze.

Well, at the story goes, I had no fort, nothing dug out, so I was pretty resigned to losing. I activated everyone and charged the imp bastard. They tore him like tissue paper, but 3 more Imps swum up, and Dwarves started to catch on fire...

...

It wasn't a good day to be a Dwarf. Everyone died, save for one injured Wood Cutter and a stray horse, who was currently unconscious (from smoke inhalation?). It was kind of ironic, having this logger laying prone in a sea of ashes where a forest once stood. He later died of thirst.

I guess it wasn't a rough start, as it was a rough end, but still.

[snelg]

Rough starts are more fun.

I started on an evil piece of coastline and started to burrow into the cliffs.  The only alarming wildlife I saw to begin with was a giant leopard on the hills above the cliff, so everything looked pretty good.  Then, just as I was starting to carve out the first bedrooms and manufacture the beds, a dozen zombie tuna beached themselves in the next bay along.

Zombie tuna?  I guess I'm safe, because they're fish, and they're now stuck on the beach, right?

Nope, zombie tuna can apparently walk.  And they run faster than a dwarf.  They immediately bit the head off my experienced marksdwarf that I brought along as a bodyguard, then chased down both of my miners, killing them far away from the fortress entrance.

I had already called the survivors inside at this point, and the tuna had become more interested in ripping my mule apart, but the food supplies were still outside on the beach.  So the guys are now trapped in a tiny cave with no food, no equipment and deadly wildlife outside.

I abandoned at that point, which with hindsight was a shame, as I thought of some interesting solutions afterwards (mostly involving live bait).

This sounds exactly like my first try on a beach fortress... The tuna and all. It was over in five minutes... The only difference is that my two miners were the ones inside the little cave behind a wall with nothing but their picks and beards. 

[Elvenshae]

My roughest start involves a bunch of dwarves who like to drink, and a really bad parking job.

So I set up my merry little band and embark to some hills by a brook.  There are, as usual, numerous little ponds all over the place, but they're hard to see what with the snow covering them.  So, a few days or weeks in, a large percentage of my dwarfs have moved back to the wagon to get their daily rum ration, when suddenly the temperature increases just enough to melt the ponds.

Well, wouldn't you know that the wagon was actually parked half-on, half-off a now-unfrozen pond.  Nearly half of my initial seven dwarf party - the Broker / Manager / Craftsdwarf (Stone & Bone), a Miner / Militiadwarf, and my Farmer / Brewer - all end up at the bottom of the pond.  With about ... half my food supplies.  And ... a good portion of my liquor.  And ... the anvil.

That fortress eventually recovered (though I left the dwarven remains in the pond), and is doing quite well, now - though the first wagon visit was depressing: really shoddy goods (no crafters with any appreciable skill) and no-one who knew how to trade.

[sorbius]

I started in a haunted swamp one time and there was a pack of beak dogs on top of where we started... 

[JamesP]

I once had a start on a frozen lake.  The water close to the shore was still liquid.  The water was not frozen all the way down.  Escape was impossible.  The 'fortress' ended at the bottom of that lake...

[LumenPlacidum]

There have been 4 waves of skeletal camels of varying numbers of humps and it's not even the middle of spring yet.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

It is, in fact, possible to survive in a glacier. Just difficult.

My worst start was in a terrifying jungle somewhere--spawned on the map with about a dozen foul blendecs, which proceeded to happily shred first the three fire imps which jumped from the lava vent, then the ten or so war dogs I brought along in anticipation of this event, then all of my dwarves. Not a single one was even injured.

I have found myself avoiding jungles ever since. I'll deal with haunted tundra, taiga, desert, hell, I'll even embark in places with undead fish, but jungles are too hardcore.

This just gave me an idea for the most destructive thing ever.
Never mind the ender goblin, what about the ender carp
Undead ones.

[Mephansteras]

My roughest start involves a bunch of dwarves who like to drink, and a really bad parking job.

So I set up my merry little band and embark to some hills by a brook.  There are, as usual, numerous little ponds all over the place, but they're hard to see what with the snow covering them.  So, a few days or weeks in, a large percentage of my dwarfs have moved back to the wagon to get their daily rum ration, when suddenly the temperature increases just enough to melt the ponds.

Well, wouldn't you know that the wagon was actually parked half-on, half-off a now-unfrozen pond.  Nearly half of my initial seven dwarf party - the Broker / Manager / Craftsdwarf (Stone & Bone), a Miner / Militiadwarf, and my Farmer / Brewer - all end up at the bottom of the pond.  With about ... half my food supplies.  And ... a good portion of my liquor.  And ... the anvil.

That fortress eventually recovered (though I left the dwarven remains in the pond), and is doing quite well, now - though the first wagon visit was depressing: really shoddy goods (no crafters with any appreciable skill) and no-one who knew how to trade.

Wow. You get credit for persevering and making that fort work after such a rough start!

[Fikes]

The first time I used regional prospector to find a hidden magma vent and chasm I was excited to get in and start my fortress. I dug into the side of a mountian and set about the normal process of moving supplies around and setting up the first couple of work shops. All at once I got the message "You have discovered a magma vent!" No "digging canceled, warm stone located" nothing.

It turns out I had dug perfectly at the top of the vent through sheer accident. I immeditly set all my dwarves to masonry and nothing else and began to wall off the 3 spots my dwarves had broken through.

It wasn't going to happen however... two fire imps must have been listening to the digging with anticipation and waited just on the other side of the earth wall for my unfortunate miners.

Fireballs and blood everywhere.

I restarted the fortress and built much much further south. 5 minutes into the game everyone started canceling their jobs because of the troll. I looked all over and didn't see a troll anywhere, not even on the unit list.

I used reaveal.exe and realized I had dug right in the center of a troll infested chasm. No one died but it was too late to redesign everything. I abandoned the fortress and found a new map.

[VeryBadThingsDownHere]

I'm usually obsessed with starting with seven picks so that all the digging goes very fast and I don't have to wait very long to set up rooms and whatnot.

So I have seven dwarves with mining enabled to destroy the hillside at my command.  I choose a nice rivery location, and it has a pretty significant waterfall.  I think to myself, Dwarves like waterfalls, so I'll make the fort's entrance behind the base of the waterfall!

Come winter, the river freezes over, and a soggy mess is left in the entranceway (that has trailed considerably far back into my stockpiles.)

So the first thing that comes to mind is to dig out some of the frozen river in front of my entrance so that the remaining water can run off.

Ten seconds Later:

Lokum Fathkalan, Miner has become encased in ice.
Rigoth Rigothsobir, Miner has become encased in ice.
Kogsak Mismorul, Miner has become encased in ice.
Shem Dodokurvad, Miner has become encased in ice.
Dakost Besmarmorul, Planter has become encased in ice.
Asmel Amemilral, Mason has become encased in ice.
Lor Datankon, Brewer has become encased in ice.

Your settlement has crumbled to its end.

[Boatmurderer]

My roughest isn't nearly as bad as everyone else's, apparently. I started in a terrifying woods, and the first two things that caught my eye were 3 harpies and 2 ogres. My plan was to dig down until I get to stone, make a hatch cover, and lock it. 3 layers of nothing but dirt on top of an aquifer! Once I got the brilliant idea of making it out of wood, I sent a woodcutter up to get a few trees down, That called in the harpies who butchered him, then swooped in that empty hole after the rest of the dwarves. Got everyone except the miner, who was able to kill all three.

Stubborn as I am, I decide to try to salvage it, and set him to woodcutting. Guess who's waiting outside to make ground dwarf...

The reclamation force is doing okay, though. Got a nice wooden tower built up, and making anything I can out of glass.

[Makrond]

Heh... I just embarked in wilderness with two aquifer layers. Should be interesting... bring on the elephants!

EDIT: Oh, this isn't a rough start at all... I found flux, magnetite, and the humans have rather kindly built a massive two-level temple in my honour. And there's a legendary human Hammer Lord taking care of the various beasties that try to invade my home.

Plus, I dug into the side of a cliff and found stone, so the aquifers weren't a problem.