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[Desiderium]

So I've been playing this awesome game for about half a year now, and I just stumbled across this land feature for the first time. It's.... odd.

I've never encountered something that looked like this, it looks so perfectly hand-made and I KNOW it's not artificial, since this is my first fort on this world, and I've never touched that part of the map yet. I discovered it after looking for an imminent Orc Siege.

It's a circular rough-hewn rock wall room with sandy loam floors on the top and bottom of the chamber, and TONS of Cave Spider Silk EVERYWHERE.

I get a sinking feeling in my gut that lurking in that cave is my first GCS, but I was expecting it to be in the bottomless pit on the map, not in a tiny outlet hidden in the mountainside.

Anyway, here's a picture.

Clicky.

Oh, and there's two 7/7 murky pools right next to eachother in there too...

Anybody have any ideas on what could be in there, other than tons of Cave Spiders? Or if you've ever encountered this feature before?

EDIT: A very very scary thought just occured to me... in there could be "Death on eight legs", a GCSQ (Dig Deeper)...

[Ieb]

..it sort of looks like an UG pool that was exposed to the surface, and it dried out. But a pool like that would have spilled out everything the moment you embarked, since it has a corner open.

That'd explain all the cave spider webs too. Those tend to spawn in UG pools after it's drained.

[Desiderium]

That makes sense, I never thought about that. But I guess the two one-tile pools would explain it. I just expected it would be a full z-level lower, not just two tiles, so peculiarly placed.

That's kind of disheartening, now that it doesn't seem so creepy and epic.

But wouldn't the rock floor still be muddy since it's inside and it once had water on it? Or does a muddy floor eventually clear after a while, even when subterranean?

[gerkinzola]

what's an extinct volcano look like?

[Ieb]

I recall a dead volcano looks like a big circle on the ground of obsidian. A cap of sorts. Never been to one myself, so that's just my memory bringing up info.

Anyway.

Hmm, I guess you are right about that muddy floor thing. As I recall, muddy tiles don't get wiped clean, even above-ground. Maybe this is something that happened during worldgen? Like the pool was situated there, but erosion ate away the surrounding rock and left only those two spots of 7/7?

When you can, check if those two have cave fish or lobster. I wonder how much space cave vermin need to be around the map, or if those two will hold the entire population.

[Astramancer]

Sometimes underground pools will be dry on embark - which means no mud, either.  It can happen to both exposed and truly underground pools.  It's better than if you get a magma pool that's dry on embark...

[Lav]

So I've been playing this awesome game for about half a year now, and I just stumbled across this land feature for the first time. It's.... odd.

Could you share the worldgen info, please?

[gtmattz]

That is an underground pool which is dry...  I have seen this probably 4 or 5 times now.  I like to embark on areas with an underground pool and a river or aquifer so I can grow towercaps (I have some kind of mushroom tree fetish, gimme a break) and have run into this before.  I really have no clue why it happens but that is definitely what it is.  If you re-gen your world and check out the embark in the finder you should see the pool icon in the location of that feature.

[Quietust]

If you look at those 2 tiles of 7/7 water from below, you might find that they are each inhabited by a bunch of water creatures (which would normally be distributed evenly throughout the entire large pool had it actually been filled with water).

[Sysice]

Also note that those are cave spider webs, not giant cave spider webs. And that a giant cave spider queen is a megabeast.

[Viprince]

Unless you'v found an underground river, just muddy some subtareanian floor 4 tiles or so should be enough, you can use a bucket brigade. and some shubs or mud-cap saplings should appear in the near future.

The silk though is pretty convincing evidence that it is an underground pool (was?) since the spiders only occur in special underground features.

[Cardinal]

I've seen the outdoor region directly above a bottomless bit turned into a circular, cliff-sided (no ramps) area like this.

[Ubiq]

I've had a similar situation crop up before, but not with the murky pools. Are olms popping up in the site by any chance? If so, then it's an exposed underground pool. If not, it's probably the top of a bottomless pit.

Here's a somewhat related question: if you wall in the area, construct a roof over most of it,  and shut off weather the next time it rains, will a exposed and therefore dry underground pool hold water like a dry murky pool?

[Cardinal]

No, because the bottom doesn't have the Muddy Pool terrain-type.  That process only occurs on the specific muddy terrains that show up in drained pools (as evidenced by any attempt at expanding such pools).

[Desiderium]

Could you share the worldgen info, please?

Note: I have Dig Deeper v1.4

Code: [Select]

[WORLD_GEN]
[TITLE:LARGE]
[SEED:1992480574]
[HISTORY_SEED:3969392887]
[NAME_SEED:4138183067]
[DIM:257:257]
[END_YEAR:1050]
[BEAST_END_YEAR:150:5]
[REVEAL_ALL_HISTORY:1]
[CULL_HISTORICAL_FIGURES:1]
[ELEVATION:1:400:800:800]
[RAINFALL:0:100:400:400]
[TEMPERATURE:25:75:400:400]
[DRAINAGE:0:100:400:400]
[VOLCANISM:100:100:400:400]
[SAVAGERY:0:100:400:400]
[ELEVATION_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[RAIN_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[DRAINAGE_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[TEMPERATURE_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[SAVAGERY_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[VOLCANISM_FREQUENCY:1:0:0:0:0:10000]
[GOOD_SQ_COUNTS:100:1000:2000]
[EVIL_SQ_COUNTS:100:1000:2000]
[PEAK_NUMBER_MIN:50]
[OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:2]
[VOLCANO_MIN:200]
[REGION_COUNTS:SWAMP:1032:7:6]
[REGION_COUNTS:DESERT:1032:7:6]
[REGION_COUNTS:FOREST:4128:13:12]
[REGION_COUNTS:MOUNTAINS:8256:9:9]
[REGION_COUNTS:OCEAN:8256:7:6]
[REGION_COUNTS:GLACIER:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:TUNDRA:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:GRASSLAND:8256:13:12]
[REGION_COUNTS:HILLS:8256:13:12]
[EROSION_CYCLE_COUNT:400]
[RIVER_MINS:800:600]
[PERIODICALLY_ERODE_EXTREMES:0]
[OROGRAPHIC_PRECIPITATION:1]
[SUBREGION_MAX:2750]
[CAVE_MIN_SIZE:1]
[CAVE_MAX_SIZE:500]
[MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:200]
[NON_MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:200]
[ALL_CAVES_VISIBLE:0]
[SHOW_EMBARK_RIVER:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_POOL:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_M_POOL:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_M_PIPE:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_CHASM:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_PIT:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_OTHER:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_TUNNEL:2]
[TOTAL_CIV_NUMBER:75]
[TOTAL_CIV_POPULATION:20000]
[PLAYABLE_CIVILIZATION_REQUIRED:1]
[ELEVATION_RANGES:8256:16512:8256]
[RAIN_RANGES:8256:16512:8256]
[DRAINAGE_RANGES:8256:16512:8256]
[SAVAGERY_RANGES:8256:16512:8256]
[VOLCANISM_RANGES:0:0:16512]

I've already discovered a bottomless pit chasm, and there isn't a chasm bottomless pit on this map. During the site-finding on embark, I wasn't able to get a map with both a chasm and a bottomless pit, but I was able to get one with a bottomless pit chasm only, which was this one.

When you can, check if those two have cave fish or lobster. I wonder how much space cave vermin need to be around the map, or if those two will hold the entire population.

The two pools are completely empty, as far as I can tell after observing them for any movement for about a minute.

EDIT: After reading Ubiq's post, I searched my map for any subterranean water life, and sure enough I was able to find about 4 Lizardmen hanging out relatively close to the landmark. From this information, I'm able to draw the conclusion that it is, in fact, an underground pool, possibly drained upon worldgen, but the creatures just never decided to leave until they were bothered (by my embark).

Second Edits in red: Correction of map features.