In language arts I recently had to write a short story. I thought about 1984, and I thought about this game's motto, and this is the result. Please do note that although this is based off dwarf fortress, it is not based off any one edition, so it has elements from 40d along with those from DF2010. It is written in the style of a journal, as all great tales of the dwarves are, and now... it begins. Do note that the appendix was there for the benefit of my class, although it does explain a few things that I had just made up..
Losing is Fun
This is a book. It is bound with donkey leather. It is studded with steel and platinum. On the cover is a purple dwarf and purple dwarves and turquoise dwarves done in dyed cave spider silk. The dwarf is above the dwarves above the dwarves.A1 It is the journal of Urist Datan-Nazush B1, Dwarven overseer of the outpost Kazarad-Düm.B2
The first of Granite, 1980B3
Wee.... Just me and six proles, told to come and strike the earth. Now, I know this probably won't make much sense to you so why don't you wait a bit while I start up the scene setting exposition. Anyway, I was a minor guy in the Ministry of Construction when a mysteriously glowing !!dwarf!!A2 entered the Ministry of Plenty's victory booze stockpile right before a huge explosion. Now, this may not seem like much to a human but to a dwarf, the only thing worse than not having any booze is having lots of booze AND BEING ON FIRE! Anyway, all of a sudden I was told that I'm supposed to lead a dwarven expedition out in the middle of nowhere to a probably certain death in order to thin down the population. Wait, it gets better! You know what they named the place: Kazarad-Düm. That thing over the "u" there: that makes the "oo" sound. Kazarad-Doom. Subtle. I must cease writing now, as Brother Armok watches all.
The thirtieth of Granite, 1980
We managed to mine into the mountain and get a trade depot set up in time for the elven caravans. Then, right in the middle of our negotiations with them the bookkeeper came in with a letter from central.
We have always been at war with Elfasia.
We have always been at war with Elfasia.
We have always been at war with Elfasia.
The sixth of Slate, 1980
Disaster has struck! Although we have trained all of the new animals we took from the elves, the floodgates on the underground farm have failed. Fortunately, we have set up a surface farm, so we will not starve, and it shall prevent cave adaption as well. However, it is unprotected and in the event of a siege it would soon be destroyed.
The eighth of Felsite, 1980
The humans recently arrived at our trade depot with TWELVE METRIC TONS of food. Apparently they heard of our plight and came here to help. We traded them some elf leather clothes and lots of carved elf bones for it. I have no clue why they want them though. I mean, I like an elf bone totem as much as the next guy, but I wouldn’t trade all of my food for it.
The seventh of Hematite, 1980
Nothing interesting has been happening for the past couple of months. Rather, that's what all the other outposts in the middle of nowhere have to tell the ministers to Brother Armok. Us: We tried to expand the dining room and found a deposit of iron ore the size of a FOOTBALL FIELD! Unfortunately we have run out of coal to fuel our smelters and forges. A deforestation plan was soon made to solve this problem.A4
The eighth of Sandstone, 1980
The elves tried to siege us because of our mistreatment of the trees. Sucks to be them I suppose. Elf hats anyone?
The 17th of Timber, 1980
Some migrants have arrived! This would be an occasion for joy if there were even one Dwarf among them who was SOMETHING OTHER THAN A FARMER! Congratulations suckers, you all get to be miners or solders.
The first of Obsidian, 1980
The elves tried to siege us AGAIN. Fortunately, a snowstorm started up and they all died of frostbite. Sucks to be them! However, this has convinced me there is a great need for security. In order to do such, I have set the proles out to dig a moat.
The eighth of Granite, 1981
The diggers managed to get themselves stranded in the moat by digging out all around them and flooding the moat, leaving them stranded in the center. I ordered bridges built out to them and all but one was completed. That one was one brick from completion when the mason rushed off to party in front of the entrance. What's even more annoying about it is that he is within twelve yards of the miner, and he’s simply sitting next to the statue of Brother Armok the all seer and drinking as his friend starves to death. Fucking proles.
The ninth of Slate, 1981
Our masons finally rescued the trapped miner, who survived by eating uncooked frogs. Now that we are done with that, I ordered them to destroy the bridges by removing the supports. When the last support was shattered, the bridge randomly exploded, killing two masons and injuring several nearby farmers. When I went to the Masons Guild to complain, they started to get mad at me for not knowing that they make their mortar out of detonite! To make them shut up I ordered them to get to work on fortifications for a ballista battery which they get the honor of dwarfing.A5
The third of Malachite, 1981
We have been sieged by the goblins, just as we were five months ago. All who tried to say otherwise have suffered "unfortunate accidents" and the rest have taken the hint. Apparently tying yourself up, hitting yourself with a blunt object, writing a farewell note, and then jumping off the top of the mountain is a disease that appears to be caused by unwise opening of the mouth.A6 I made the order for all dwarves to head inside and for the drawbridges to be pulled up but someone stuck the outer door open. That traitor! That goblin lover! That... monarch butterfly corpse?
Apparently a monarch butterfly managed to jam itself with extreme precision exactly in the place where the drawbridge winch is held. What with all the elf goblin guts sprayed all over the entrance way, no-one appeared to be bothering about insect corpse clean up. I had a ballista created just behind the inner drawbridge however, and when we opened the door the goblins were quickly annihilated.
The tenth of Limestone, 1981
All the farmers were killed in the assault so we've been reduced to eating soylent green. Why green you ask? Simple. Goblins are green and they taste great if you cook them properly. Goblin steak, goblin chops, and (in the case of the herding program we've got set up), goblin veal. No, it’s not cruel. It's not like they're real people after all.A7
The sixth of Moonstone, 1981
Nothing important happened this month except for one thing: Immigration, and what came after. Several dwarves have arrived and most of them are useful. Better yet, some members of the inner party have arrived. I immediately set all of our blacksmiths to work on platinum plated diamond encrusted furniture for them. As those just below Brother Armok, they deserve respect. Then a miner ran up to me and we had a conversation somewhat like this:
Urist McMiner: Sir, we have encountered a magma pipe! I already breached it for you!A8
Me: Great!... Wait, what do you mean already breached?
Urist McMiner: I opened it up.
Me: And you encountered this pipe where?
Urist McMiner: Sublevel seven.
Me: And the inner party members are residing where?
Urist McMiner: Sublevel eight.
Me: Crap. This will not look good on my quarterly report.
And, as I stated there, it did not. Sublevels 5 through 9 are flooded with magma and sublevels three and four are rendered uninhabitable due to the heat, thus making it imposable to reach the platinum deposits. Fortunately, the remaining members of the inner party have allowed me to stay if I can do something to turn this disaster around.
The nineteenth of Opal, 1981
I certainly managed to turn this around. I believe I have created the most Dwarven thing in existence: a pressurized magma cannon. It has almost no range but since the entrance is made out of bauxite and the blast radius is three miles that is not much of a problem.9 Better yet; we have now hit a vein of the wonder metal, adamantine. It keeps an edge better than that of steel, is imposable to melt without intense heat, and has a strength that no blow may break, yet is still light as a feather. This metal is what all true dwarves strive for.
The third of Slate, 1982
We have made an amazing discovery! While following the adamantine vein, our miners broke through a wall into something whose discovery shall benefit all of dwarfkind! We have found a huge cavern, over twenty Z-levelsB4 high in places with temperatures ranging from 10,040 to over 12,000B5 Urist in places near the magma pools! Why, there could be all sorts of things down there! Things dwarfkind has forgotten, and things we never knew... Dear Armok, I feel like I just fell into a Jules Verne novel.
The ninth of Hematite, 1982
These caverns are amazing! We have already made a cave spider silk industry, and have captured several giant cave spiders and other cavern beasts for use in our new arena. Better yet, the ground down here is already muddied so we can set up a farm plot with no effort at all! Digging on the adamantine vein has been postponed however, as the metal below is scorching hot and we hope to find asbestos nearby, and perhaps other things as well.
The tenth of Galena, 1982
We have managed to find a calcite vein which is useful because it’s hard to get calcium and vitamin D while living in a dank hole in the ground. We have set a chef to try and find a way to make it taste like something other than overcooked rat. Meanwhile there have been several invasions but all those in them were caught and sent to sit in the corner of shame AND MAGMA!
The sixth of Limestone, 1982
The elves besieged us. I had just sent out some tame giant cave spiders when the spiders were killed by the elven cavalry who were riding on unicorns. Ah well. MAGMA TIME!
The twenty-first of Limestone, 1982
The humans came and the leader traded almost the whole caravan for some of the larger carved unicorn horns. She must really like those things. No clue why though.
The eighth of Timber, 1982
After having our local wizard turn temperature off in the init file, we are now able to finish the mining of the adamantine vein! There are noises from below, but we care not.
(The handwriting becomes shaky at this point.)
The ninth of Timber, 1982
Horrors! Demons in the deep!
The sixth of Moonstone, 1982
What have I done! As the monstrosities advanced I dropped my pick and ran. When I looked back I saw that the pick had cracked the walls. By the time I had escaped, magma was leaking in. Now I am trapped in this cavern, stuck on an island in the center of a lake, and soon to be devoured by the beasts within. The tide rises.
The seventh of Moonstone, 1982
Freedom! Some champions from the fortress above have arrived and rescued me from this carp infested hell. Soon we shall leave these caverns.
The ninth of Moonstone, 1982
Bad luck strikes again. The exit was shattered by a horrid fell beast, a skinless dodecahedron that wobbles and pulsates. Beware its poisonous sting! We have managed to escape its wrath but I doubt we will be able to do so for long.
The sixth of Obsidian, 1982
We have survived the trek across the caverns, but when I arrive, I learn that much has been lost. The pump stack for the magma cannon has failed, thus flooding the lower levels with magma. Worse yet, we are unable to access the bauxite deposits for the repairing of the pumps.
The first of Granite, 1983
I have been fortunate enough to survive for a while, but I fear that even if the fortress is recoverable, my career will not be. I have become a liability, and soon the inner party will have me YES WHAT IS IT?
Urist Mc.Doombringer: The elder dragon, Ansgalon the black has come!
Crap.
The fourth of Granite, 1983
As the dragon swooped above our fortress, we knew we had no hope. We sent out our greatest champion, one of the original seven, out to battle the dragon in order to stall for time. As he walked to his doom, it was obvious there was no chance of victory. We were wrong. The battle took three days and nights, and ended on the mountaintop. There, the great warrior, bleeding from multiple wounds, threw his weapon in a mighty arc, slashing straight through the dragon’s throat. The dragon then suffocated in its own blood, gasping for a breath that would never come. I am afraid to say that I have begun to doubt the inner party, for if a lowly prole could do that, then why do we not let them try?
The twelfth of Granite, 1983
I have begun to remember a song from my youth, from before the new rule. All I remember is the first line. Sometimes I wake up at night with it haunting me. “Hi-ho”… and that is all I remember.
The third of Slate, 1983
Project terraform has begun. Now we will discover what really happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.
The sixth of Felsite, 1983
The project was a success! After much work tunneling, we have managed to drain the ocean into the magma sea. Now all that remains is for us to tunnel through the obsidian. However, the mining of the wonder metal shall not be resumed for some time.
The twelfth of Hematite, 1983
I talked with one of the elders today. He says the next part of the song is “Hi ho, it’s off to work we go.” but he can’t remember what comes after that.
The eighth of Malachite, 1983
I begin to doubt the inner party more and more. I look back at the book about what things were like before, with nobles in their purple robes, who enslaved the common people using an evil thing called an economy, and begin to wonder if that ever happened. Did the nobles really exist, or were they all beasts of the imagination?
The third of Galena, 1983
At the entrance to our fortress we found a box of that which has brought low many fortresses before us, and will destroy many after all here have been forgotten. I sent a prole to go collect the box and from inside it… they came…. the monstrosity that spells doom for all mines. For inside the box we found… cats.
The sixth of Limestone, 1983
Production has ground to halt due to the masses of animals now skittering around the floor, thus making it imposable to move. Even with the butchers and leatherworkers going at full tilt, we have failed to make a dent in the animal population. You see, due to the power of dwarven pseudoscience, tame animals need no food and instead survive on symbiotic bacteria in their intestines. Due to cats breeding like rabbits, this is not a good thing. Already, one tenth of our fortress is occupied by animals that can’t be killed due to their ability to control dwarves, and already they have several party members under their thrall, who now do nothing but sit around with the cat and mutter things like “who’s my snugglepufkins?” Worse yet, some of them have started engraving captioned pictures of their cats on the walls! What the hell does “I can has cheeseburger?” mean! Although we have no proof, we believe this is a plot by Elf Quada.
The fourth of Sandstone, 1983
Those pointy eared bastards! I knew those cats were a sign of doom! Using horrid druidic magic, the elves changed the creature files to make a cat’s body temperature over ninety thousand Urist! Fortunately, we had stuffed them all into a cage in order to clear the halls, but the detonation still managed to kill half of our workforce!
The twelfth of Timber, 1983
The new orders have arrived from central. We have been using more resources than we gain, and now mining of the wondermetal must restart. I now have to leave and the champions are coming with me. Down we shall go. Down into the depths. Our plans follow:
(At this point the majority of the book is rendered illegible due to scorch marks and damage from some sort of claw, larger than that of a dragon.)
The third of Granite, 1984
This fort used to be something. We had all that we had ever wanted: adamantine, power, everything!A10 However, all that is long forgotten now. Most of the inner party that resided here are dead, and many have been lost to the deep waters of the past. We followed the adamantine veins down you see. However, we delved too greedily... and too deep.
I was digging alongside the proles who I refuse to leave unsupervised since the exploding bridge incident when we suddenly broke into a horrifying chamber. Inside it we found horrible images of dwarves burning, and spikes from the floor with limbs impaled upon them. Worse yet were the cages, with burned and scorched beings inside. Then, from the walls... they came. What I had once thought to be a tale to keep disobedient children in line I now knew to be true... for there are demons in the deep... horrible monstrosities that should not have been born. The cavern was quickly walled off, but after a quiet and peaceful year, the demand from the inner party came: Mine more adamantine. The wall was soon destroyed.
Our champions managed to destroy the first wave, and our miners dug through the bottom of the pit, but then we realized that which was above is naught but a warning. Through the hole I saw a eerie cavern. The air above the dark stone floor was alive with vortices of purple light and dark, boiling clouds. Seemingly bottomless glowing pits marked the surface. Then, horrible screams came from the darkness below. Through the gap came the true demons, the spirits of fire and flame. They rushed forward, burning straight through our front lines, and behind them, a worse monstrosity to behold, a Lovecraftian abomination of misshapen limbs and flaming organs. I hid in the stockpiles with a fey dwarfA11, just a minor gem cutter, making a jeweled sword of incalculable worth and beauty. Then, on the bridge, we faced off against the monstrosity. As it advanced, he shouted out: "Vile ampersand!A12 You! Shall! Not! Pass!" and the demon toppled, and smote the bridge in his wake. Then, there were only two dwarves left alive. Me and an engraver, stuck on a cliff above a bottomless chasm. Then, I blacked out. When I came to, I saw the following image engraved on the walls, one whose beauty is imposable to show in words:
This is a detailed granite wall. On it is a dwarf and a demon done in granite. The demon is in a fetal position. The dwarf is laughing.
Although that description does not convey all the beauty of the image, I hope it managed to convey the gist of it. Even as I lay here, dying by inches and writing this in my own blood, I still hope. The reclaim team was coming! I knew with them would come the spark of hope: proles. Those uneducated plebeians can do amazing things. After having seen one, just a common jeweler, take down a monstrosity of the elder days, I knew anything was possible. If you read this, please spread the word: Down with Brother Armo-
This is a page. On it is a splatter and a splatter done in dwarf blood. The splatter is next to the splatter. Stapled to it is a note. The staple menaces with spikes of iron. On the note are words and words done in ink. The words are next to the words. It says:
Urist Datan-Nazush never existed. All information in this document is a fabrication. Remember:
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Losing is fun.A13
P.S. The song goes “Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go, hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-“
-Acebesh-Nill B6
-Hammerer. B7
THE END?
Appendix A: Stuff.
1 All decorated items were created using stock templates which always said "It menaces with spikes of (blank)." If the item has something shown on it than the description always said: “it shows (blank) (and (blank2)) done in (blank). The (blank) is (blanking) (with the (blank2) OR the (blank2) is (blanking)).”
2Anything that was on fire had two exclamation points added to either side of its name.
3 Dwarven farms were underground and had to have water splashed on them in order for the food to grow.
4You can fuel a smelter using two things: refined coal or charcoal.
5A ballista battery is basically some ballistae set up behind fortifications.
6 “Unfortunate accident” was the term for when an unwanted dwarf gets knocked off.
7 He's supposed to sound like a jerk here.
8Dwarves were idiots.
9Bauxite is a magma safe material. It is also the ore of aluminum but the dwarves did not have the technology to use it.
10Admantine was a metal sealing up the entrances to HELL.
11Fey Dwarves are those who gain an idea for a legendary artifact, and, if it is made they gain legendary skill in whatever was used to create the object. If they cannot find the material for it, or a workshop to create it in, they will go insane.
12The demons were represented by ampersands.
13 This was the unofficial motto of Dwarf fortress.14
14A meta-footnote! I have now usurped Terry Pratchett! I am the footnote king!
Appendix B: History, language, measurement and culture.
1 The name was based off of “Captain” Ironblood, and Urist McBlank, the everydwarf. As to what Ironblood did to earn the reference, just Google “Nist Aketh dwarf fortress” and let the intertube do the rest.
2 This meant “Mine of Fun”.
3 The dwarven calendar was something like this:
Month Real life Season
• Granite March Early Spring
• Slate April Mid Spring
• Felsite May Late Spring
* Hematite June Early Summer
* Malachite July Mid Summer
* Galena August Late Summer
• Limestone September Early Autumn
• Sandstone October Mid Autumn
▬ Timber November Late Autumn
♦ Moonstone December Early Winter
♦ Opal January Mid Winter
• Obsidian February Late Winter
4 A Z level was the dwarven measurement of height, equal to about two meters. Do note I used the word height. They used the square for length. A square was equal to about one meter.
5 The Urist was the dwarven heat measurement system which can be converted to Fahrenheit by subtracting 9968 from the Urist total. If you want a conversion to Celsius, I suggest you remove the stick from your ass and start using the metric system.
6This was dwarvish for lunatic.
7There were three levels of dwarven justice: jail time, lashes, and hammering. The hammerer’s job was to give justice by means of a large steel warhammer. These punishments were handed out for not giving nobles platinum encrusted rooms and so on. They might have theoretically been given out for breaking laws, but that never happened in the history of dwarven civilization.
Appendix C would be here except the story had an appendectomy.
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Topic: Losing is Fun. A dwarf fortress tale. (Read 1313 times)