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[Kofthefens]

Check out the Chronicles of HammerBlaze in my sig. Summary:
Lever isn't pulled, goblins get in, dwarf goes berserk and murders all the hospital patients and some gobbos.

Also, thank you for your tutorial. It's what got me playing DF.

EDIT:
Here the story is:

The Chronicles of HammerBlaze

Gold, they said. Riches beyond your wildest dreams. Moldath, the king himself, would fund your expedition. And, fool that I am, I agreed. Now, with six of my friends, our supplies are nearly gone. For the glory of the Passionate Salves and all dwarves, we strike the earth. Daily, I grab my copper pick and mine out a hovel in the ground. With each stroke of my pick, the glory of HammerBlaze shall rise.

After a year’s work I may rest. I survey my proud domain. It is but a hole in the ground, but it is a self sufficient hole in the ground. Edzul the farmer tills the fields, the craftsdwarves churn out goods for trade, and the sounds of industry come from the forges. And I, I have dug out a masterpiece. A great project. No longer shall we fear the goblins. They shall fear us! I, with my hands, my beard, and my pick have dug to the bowels of the earth itself. A great sea filled with Armok’s blood, praise his name. Myself, it was me who dug a reservoir up at the surface, and, more importantly, the casing for pumps to bring the blood of the earth up. Now there is naught to do but wait.
The waiting the time, drags at me. I will create this masterpiece, if I do it with my dying breath. The masons carve blocks of stone; the metal smiths forge pipes and screws. As they create the components for the pumps, the mechanics create the power. 64 windmills, providing over a thousands Urists of power. A network of axles connects them to where the pumps will soon be. I go talk with my friend Edzul.
“How are the farms?”
“Very good,” he says. “How are you?”
“Good, good. The project is nearly complete. It’s nice to relax with a friend.”

At last! The project is nearly done! Magma is pumped to the reservoir. The masons even now struggle to enclose the windmills in walls; it would not do for the power to be scourged from the earth by Armok’s purifying wrath. The pumps to spray the holy flames were complete.

Glorious. It was glorious. I felt I could lose my self in the glorious heat. I was the heat. I had power to rival the king. No, power to rival Armok Himself! My holy power flooded the land. All caught in its blast perished. I had power over life and death. The world was on fire. I began to laugh. My life was complete. A decade of work, paid off in an instant. I laughed harder. Tears came to my eyes, washed away by my own holy heat.
There I stood, at the fount of the flames. And there they came to me. They pledged themselves to me. I was the founder, the creator, and now the ruler of HammerBlaze. Long live its might.

All who came against us were killed. Goblins or elves, none could contain Armok’s, our wrath. I was sovereign. One and all, the invaders were slaughtered, broken. Their filth was washed from the earth by my will. But it wasn’t enough. I reveled in the flame, but it lacked control. I am sovereign. I will kill where I want! I needed power and death absolute.
Once more, began a great construction to rival the gods. Pressurized magma, boiling up through holes in the ground with the pull of a lever. But now, there was a squad of goblins burning. I could see their faces shrieking in agony. Their clothing caught fire, then their flesh. Even their bones were consumed.
“Hello.” Edzul says.
“Leave me alone. There is work to do.” I reply.
“How long have I known you? Two decades? And now you turn me away?”
“I must watch them burn. Do you see how they burn? They cannot resist my power. None can fell me. They die. Do you not love that sight? That beautiful, beautiful sight. Surely you enjoy their deaths. Let me watch their pain.” Edzul walked away from me. That was sad. But now I could watch the goblins. Their flesh melted, blood ran from their skin, until it was boiled away.

*

   I love to see things grow. Not only plants, though I am a farmer, but creations too. Perhaps that was why I joined this ill-fated expedition to found HammerBlaze. Truly, it does blaze. The mayor seems stranger lately, but my job’s to feed the fortress, not question its leadership. Once he was my friend. Now, I know not what he is.
It is good to help the weak. When I farm, I help the weak plants grow to be strong. If you are strong, you help the weak. It was pounded into me as a child. My father was a great warrior. He defended the scrawny dwarves against mighty goblins. I give the strong plants to the weak fortress. The fortress is strong now.
I love my wife. She is strong; not of the body, but of the soul. She is a doctor, the Chief Medical Dwarf in fact. Every day, she tends the weak so directly. She makes them strong. The only true weakness is to not be strong for others. If you have no muscles, but still do your best, you are strong.
The plump helmets were growing nicely. They were freshly watered. Well, time for a break. I passed the mayor.
“Ha ha! Another siege!” he cried, “Pull the lever!”
“Hey! I’m on break. Get someone else to do it.” I replied. But the mayor was already gone to watch the ensuing slaughter. I didn’t care, another dwarf could do it. I walked towards the dining room. It was just as I sat down that I heard the screams.
“Goblins in the fortress! They’re— urch…” I knew my folly. The gates had fallen. I dashed and pulled the lever. But… it was not enough. Nothing is enough anymore. All is lost. 2 score of goblins scour the fortress, killing any they find. I am hiding in the farms. Peering out, I can see the destruction.
Bodies fill the halls. Tears stream down my face. There lies my friend, Lor the woodcutter. He helped me many times, bringing water to me when I was sick. Now he is dead. Why? I see blood dripping down the stairs, a river of it. I can see corpses, so mutilated I can barely tell they were once dwarves. Their arms lie hacked off, their legs broken so they couldn’t run. Their faces are so coated in blood I cannot make out who they are. But where is my wife?
She would be in the hospital. She is always so caring, so kind. And now? She may be dead. I must get to her. A squad of goblins chases some poor dwarf’s pet down the halls. Now! The coast is clear. I dash to hospital foyer. The corpses block the door. I am separated from my wife by a wall of the dead. Miasma clouds the foyer. I stagger back. No! I must get to my wife.
I can’t bear to look at those I’m moving. Armok! Was that Atir’s head I just tossed aside so casually? Don’t look. Just don’t look. I must be hard as steel. Harder. As hard as adamantine. I empty my stomach. I can see light from the other side; I must be close. But a few of my fallen friends, and I shall be through. An arm falls on me; I jump and madly scramble the rest of the way through.
Covered in blood, I must be a fearsome sight as I scream, “Where is my wife?” But no one answers. There are perhaps ten dwarves in here, nearly all unconscious. All with gruesome injuries. One, with his intestines spilling out and his jaw torn half-off, slowly raises an arm. Then points behind me.
With dawning horror I turn. “No.” I whisper. But there she is. Lying there, in the pile of bodies I had ripped through so callously. “No!” This cannot be. Those who did this shall pay. They shall pay! “Give her back!” I shout at the earth. “Give her back!” Sobbing, I turn on the dwarf who pointed this out to me. “Why? How?” Another dwarf spoke up. “She died of thirst. She broke her legs and couldn’t get water.” This is his fault. He should have saved her. He was stronger than her! He could have gotten her water! She tended him when he was sick, why could he not repay the favor? He failed. He made the whole fortress weaker. Traitor! He is no better than the goblins! Worse! I punched him in the face, then ripped his intestines all the way out. They would pay!
The other dwarves are too injured to resist me. I fly at them, flailing, kicking. They cower on the ground, trying to crawl away from me in vain. I twist one’s head a hundred eighty degrees around. I stab another in the gut with my belt knife. They lie on the floor, all dead now. I do not care; I kick them, stab them still. They shall pay! My wife is dead, my kinsfolk slaughtered. They did this to themselves, not I. They deserve it. When they could have been strong, instead they were weak!
A squad of goblins marches into the room. Covered in blood, I give a feral scream. I launch myself at them, taking one through the eye before they know I’m there.  Another draws his sword slashing at me. I roll, dodging the blow, kicking his knees in then his face. The other goblins swear, flee. I chase them through the fortress, taking them down one by one. I hunt them. They have killed my wife. I will kill them! I will hunt them down to extinction.
 As we near the food stores, I am struck from behind. The hammerlord! The leader of the siege. I am struck again. I can hear my leg snapping from the blow. But still, I must go forward. I launch towards the hammerlord. I strike down another goblin, and then I am upon him. I stab. The hammerlord strikes me again and again, snapping my bones, crushing them to a powder. I do not care. I slash the hammerlord across the face. He steps back. I cannot follow.
“Come back you coward!” I cry. “Kill me!” The hammerlord ignores me. I must die! I cannot live with my pain. In desperation, I throw my dagger at him. The dagger flies true. It arcs across the air puncturing his jugular neatly. I can see the blood spurting into the air. I give a bark of laughter; we have enough blood of our own. The goblin lord falls to his knees.
The goblins are retreating. They have suffered many losses. But Armok, why, why did they not kill me. Why did they not end my pain? Where will it end, the pain. Not of the body, but of the soul. Armok! What have I done? I killed my fellow dwarves. They lay defenseless before me, and I killed them. Some of them were my friends! They were my friends, carp take you! My friends!

*

What happened here? What tragedy, what apocalypse, what death? I came on this journey because I heard HammerBlaze was stronger than the Mountainhome itself. Instead, I only found only ashes. Ashes and the dead. Some of the bodies were still warm. Are there any survivors? I started to lose hope, when I found a gibbering dwarf hiding among the dead.
“What happened here?”
“Dead. All dead.” He gave a wild laugh. “All dead.” Before I could investigate further, he had fallen into my lap. I checked his pulse. As he said, dead. I consulted with my fellow migrants. I told them that we couldn’t leave the bodies piled up in the halls like this. Some of the rooms were unnavigable because of the dead.

Looking back, it is strange how easily the mantle of command fell upon my shoulders. I suppose everybody else was too shocked; somebody had to maintain order. I told one to start making coffins. The others would help me with the clothing. The clothes were all blood soaked, smelling of death. I told them to throw them in the magma. I could smell burning flesh as the goblins were incinerated.

At last, the bodies were clear, the ghosts put to rest. What happened, I shall never know. And I like it that way. I want to live, without fear of what happened, to kill a fort hundreds strong. At least, I am beginning to make out the arcane scribblings my predecessor left. It involves magma. Lots of it. But that is for later. HammerBlaze lives on. Shaky and weakened, but it lives on.

[Nyxalinth]

Here's a little something from my fort Largebusts:

Largebusts was a mighty fort between the years 200-212.  At its peak, it had 150 dwarves.  What no one expected was that in the first spring, the elves would not bring cloth to trade, but instead would bring war.

The elves rode in on their warhorses with their wooden weapons and armor.  The dwarves had not yet finished their preparations for war, and were unarmed and unarmored.  the elves killed some pets (cats, a few dogs) and made their way on up to the main gate...

...and were greeted by a massive rush of hastily assembled, untrained, and VERY angry dwarves.  25 elves against 40 untrained dwarves.  Many dwarves were cut down by the archers, but one dwarf, Zulban (his last name lost to history and a dead hard drive) prevailed mightily.  Before being too injured (sprained back, broken leg, broken arm) to move, much less fight, he took down 10 of the foul tree-lovers.  The remaining few fled off the map.

Zulban was taken to bed to rest and recover.  His recovery was slowed somewhat as he kept tantruming over the loss of friends from his bed.  Things were touch as go for a long while, until he was adopted by a new friend: a kitten who'd wandered in and sat on his bed, purring.  Zulban went on to recover, become one of the fort's legendary champions, and it wasn't until the second of two dragon attacks that he finally succumbed to death.

[TinyPirate]

Bump for more!

And geez, just looked at me stats - me old tutorials are on 4,000 views a day since the new version came out, double their normal traffic hehe.

[Saoromant]

I think it's quite canonical situation

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Toady One]

(stickying this up here for TinyPirate for the month or so he'll need it)

[Aggel]

Here is a *long* story of tears and blood and body parts (there actually more body parts than anything). And one brave dwarf woman who had to clean the mess (human woman would go insane, I think, it's good we have dorfs).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So, as it goes, seven brave dorfs left their homes in search of better place. Well, they came across nice ravine and a river full of fish rolling around the hills. All good and pretty, but everything around this side of the river was just dead. Dead grass, dead shrubs. Nice scenery it ought to be as their wagon broke and they decided to settle on the place and immedeately dug in to the ground. They cannibalised their wagon and got everything inside when a flock of undead thripsmen came. Looking at ten rotting, skinless, dripping pus and icor flying corpses of insect men dorfs wisely walled the entrance and, feeling secure and jubilant set to digging, drinking and sleeping (well, the usual stuff).
They actually set a door before the walls, but it was more an afterthought.

There was a little accident involving aquifier, a little flooding of one part of growing fortress and disappearance of one axdorf (he was cut off on lower level and eventually starved to death in loneliness).
There were two yaks with them no one paid much attention to. Well, as it goes, one of them starved to death and before long came back to life. So, you can guess what came next: blood, bodyparts flying around as the zombie set on jamming skulls through brains of every living thing inside the little dungeon. It's first victim - miner Stukos Koganudib - had risen to undeath just minutes after his first death and joined his zombyak buddy. The another miner arose. This one missing his arm and his head was a bloody mess. Farmer Adil Dodukzagot had it really bad then, as all three zombies jumped him near workshops and tore him limb from limb (literally). Some dorf seen this and actually vomited all around the place. Then he was done in too.
Just as last one of original seven been busy having his arms and legs broken in several places at once and his ear being chewed by his friend, there came about a family of dorfs. The wife, Sibrek Emalmonom. The husband, Rovod Ruledtin. The child, Rib Goldsabres. And also a dyer, Ahdo Zapaspenoc came with them.
They immediately got separated by some undead thripsmen, undead giant thrips and (suprisingly) undead giant mantes (too bad dorfs didn't invent insecticide). Rovod managed to get to the entrance and disassemble one wall but there came a surprise from the other side that looked like five mutilated shambling corpses and two thin dead yaks. Well, Rovod set on running and zombies set on chasing him.
At that time some undead insectoids were merrily dining on Ahdo's corpse, others were busy chasing Rib (as it goes, zombies hate fast food), and Sibrek rushed into the fortress. As she stood in the doorway she heard the screams of her dying husband as thripsmen broke his bones, tore his flesh and generally made a bloody mess of him (actually, a giant undead hamster joined in). She saw her child become a snack for some giant undead monstrosity. Swallowing her tears, she shut the door tight and went inside the fort.

Pools of blood, decomposing body parts and someone's mutilated corpse met her at the stairway. The stench was repulsive, but Sibrek was a strong woman. She dug a room and stored all body parts (there was actually a lot of them, makes you wander how zombies even managed to walk and grab) inside and locked the door. She cleaned the floor and walls. She slept in dirt. She grew mushrooms. She made herself bed, table and chair. She was haunted by a ghost of axdorf. And then she was haunted by another ghost (this one is Adil, the horribly mutilated farmer dorf)! All the while fighting against crushing depression. And what's worse: there were only few barrels of ale left.
But Sibrek put spirits to rest and set on digging elaborate tunnels under the river to trap all the undead filth inside and have her revenge before she herself will succumb to thirst and hunger.
She didn't know about undeads lingering at the door, waiting for her to come out. And didn't know her child Rib caught a cock and screwed its head off for fun and food.

Then there came a human caravan. Three brave knights in shiny armor made short work of every zombie that came in their way. They thoroughly mutilated already mutilated corpses, disembowled already disembowled and cut up one headless cock. Merchants unpacked and everything seemed good and merry. With some crafts Sibrek hoped to buy some alcohol but then there came a flock of damned undead thripsmen. Well, you know what happed next: blood and ichor flying around, body parts coming to second life, all second-time dead coming to new undeath etc. Humans were overwhelmed, eaten, mutilated, disembowled and a little bit later joined the ranks of undead.

So now there are about thirty undead things for Sibrek to have revenge on, including her husband, her husband's undead hand, her mutilated child, some undead arms of thripsmen (they have a good supply of these on their bodies, yeah). Her plan is to trap them inside labyrinth and then feed the things to some forgotten beast, or smelt them in magma, or open the passage to hell and watch as demoni make stew out of every last one of damn corpses and parts of corpses. Only if alcohol will last.
She tried digging out far on the other side of a river, but entire undead army immedeately started shambling towards her (side remark: quite hillarious seeing pools of blood flowing downstream as zombies cross the river). She has no wood to make barrels. But her spirit hardened by all the horrors she lived through and she is determined to live till bitter end.

Well, after all this it looks more like a story of bad management 

[ThatAussieGuy]

Suppose I should offer up the Checkerboard , though ye gods do some of you have dwarfy stories of slaughter and madness.  I am truly humbled by the lunacy that lurks within the tunnels of your forts.

Spoiler:  I do have another story though. (click to show/hide)

 I had a fort called Knifemurders.  In it's world, the dwarves were at war with the elves.  Now, Knifemurders was built in the side of a mountain about halfway up and it was my first real fort that I used to learn everything with.  The elves ambushed the place every so often, riding in on giant eagles but they never managed to break the locked doors and get inside.  Except for one occasion.  A single elf on eagleback managed to get inside and kill a single dwarf before the Militia cut him and his eagle to pieces. 

This would not be much of a problem normally, but this dwarf seemed to have been friends with a good chunk of the fortress' population.  The displeased population, driven to grief by the loss of their dear comrade, began to tantrum and fight in the main dining hall.  The resulting tantrum spiral quickly turned lethal as they began beating eachother to death and soon spilled out into the hallways.  Locking the dining hall doors stopped most of the trouble, and fighting died out just outside the dining hall as they calmed down or died. 

The damage was done by the end though.  The room was filled with broken furniture and the dead numbered in the hundreds.  It took several decades for the surviving population, now far to hardened by their trauma to care, to entomb their fallen breathen. 

[Crustypeanut]

I'd like to offer up the only real fortress I've had that has any special meaning to me, Specialsurprise.  It was an attempt cut short at making a Legendary Doctor, with some ‼Medical Science‼ thrown in for good measure, recorded like a science journal.

[FritzPL]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In that hall, almost the entire population of Unnoskalur was gathered - 92 dwarves - except for those, who were busy forging armor, weapons, and preparing fortifications and traps. People were mostly optimistic, but not the militia commander, Domas Ellestlogem.
'Cheer up, Domas!' exclaimed Mosus, the macedwarf of The Rare Labors, 'we have enough plump helmet roasts to survive for next two winters!'
'You forgot about the booze, you moron' commander looked at him askance 'besides, I do not feel like drinking, eating, and doing stupid contests like 'who puts out a candle with a fart first'.'
'Oh come on, it was only one time!' Mosus laughed, then he became serious 'listen mate, if there is anything I can help you with, just ask...'
'Thank you, but no. Just stop trying to "cheer me up", okay?'
'Sure thing. You know where I am if you need anything.' said the macedwarf and he wandered off to the main crowd.
Domas remained there, sitting in the corner of the dining hall, remembering his life at mountainhomes, the stupid trick he did by sneaking into a supplied wagon, and staying there. Then, the first months of mining out this fortress with his friend Fath, who was the expedition leader. As soon as he saw him, lying scared behind some barrels, he helped him get out of there and gave him choice: travel back to the mountainhomes alone, or stay with him. He chose the second option, as during the last days of the journey, he heard rest of the group talking about badgers and wierd humanoids with horns. Falling in love in Unib Nishudist, the woodcutter, carpenter and axedwarf of the newly founded fortress... her long, brown hair, her smell, beautiful smell of sun berries and prickle berry wine... moments they spent together in the very corner of the hall he was sitting in...
'...mmander! Domas Ellestlogem!'
Everydwarf started clapping while looking at Domas, so he stood up, looked around and spotted the mayor, Unib Oggezmafol, standing on a table and calling him. He walked over to her, being indiffrent to the applause. Mayor smiled, and shouted:
'Everyone welcome our hero, Domas Kinpainted!'
Everydwarf in the hall was clapping and cheering now. Domas bowed stiffly, and then Unib waved for silence. When the last soaper was silenced, she started talking:
'Thank you, everyone, for coming. As you might know, we have been installing some mechanisms in the entrance corridor of the fortress. Some of you didn't mind that, others asked me few times a day what does that mean. Well...'mayor hestitated' I wont lie - there is a siege of goblin pikemen right outside our gates.'
Agitated crowd whisphered, and Unib raised her hands once again to ask for silence.
'Thank you again. It is my duty to tell you the bad news - all of dwarves that were outside during the siege, were chased down and killed. Some of those were your friends, lovers, maybe wives and husbands. I cant express how sorry I feel for you all.'she tilted her head for a moment, then continued' Livestock has been also hunted down. But it is not the meat and milk we are talking about - its the very thing that they DARED to come here! Our fortress is populated with over ninety dwarves including children, and it is a number that they SHOULD worry about! 'Unib stopped for a second to catch a breath, and then continued quieter 'Our milita consists of 5 dwarves. Small number, you say. It is a small number, but all of the militia members are trusted, hardened, and determined to wipe the greenskin out of this place. 'She looked at Domas with a question in her eyes. Commander nodded almost imperceptibly.'Domas, the milita commander, told me that while he is satisfied with the people in the squad, he needs more troops, if we ever want to get those murderers killed. So now, I ask you, citizens of The Trussed Diamonds, members of Hooffriends the Horses of Magic, brave, short, and drunk bastards of Unnoskalur, Hoofthrones - which one of you wants to kill some goblins?'
After her words, there was a moment of silence. Shortly after, all dwarves started crowding beside the table Unib stood on.


-------

Some stuff of mine, I was inspired after I looked into my commander's relationships - his friend, former expedition leader, bled to death because no dwarf would ever dress his broken legs, arms, and a knee pierced by an arrow, all broken during a stupid dwarf trick. His lover, Unib the axedwarf, was the first militia commander ever - she died because she forgot to bring an axe to fight with a moose woman.
She recieved proper burial in an engraved 3x3 tomb. Now, even though I have decent quarters, LEGENDARYLEGENDARY dining hall, and masterwork plump helmet roasts(they almost killed my fortress - I lost all plump helmet seeds, couldn't make booze), his mood is sitting at fine.

An old tale of Hoofthrones, I never really got to finishing it. Enough to say that when I opened the gates and launched an attack, my plan kind of failed - the militia wouldnt fall back to a perfectly placed serrated discs trap. Some of the goblin pikemen separated from the combat, and ran straight into the fortress - they turned back shortly after without a limb or two, only to meet an end from a sword or spear.

All of the siegers died, some of them even got caged.

And the fortress' casualties?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Domas Ellestlogem, the militia commander.

[Newbunkle]

My most memorable event happened when I was still relatively new. Once I'd mastered the game's basics I decided to celebrate by building a series of glorious marble towers above ground, linked by walkways and bridges. Then this happened:

In the aftermath of a rather bloody goblin attack a woodcutter went insane and stalked the fortress halls, slaying any dwarves that crossed his path. My one surviving combat-dwarf was the captain of my marksdwarf squad, still stationed atop one of the towers. I told him to fire at the crazed brute before I ended up losing everyone.

The marksdwarf started spraying bolts, but for some reason he could only hit him in the legs. The woodcutter's legs looked like a pincushion, but he slowly shambled up the tower steps, axe firmly gripped in his blood-soaked hands. He was moving slowly but he just wouldn't die, like some kind of bearded Jason Vorhees.

When he reached the top of the tower he gave the markswarf a kick. I don't recall from the report if it landed or not, but the next thing I know the marksdwarf is plummeting to his death. The crazed axe murderer returned to the lower levels, but he was too slow to catch any other dwarves. He eventually starved to death.

[Yobgod]

Ok, so I haven't played in several months, but the new release brought me out again.
My story isn't hilarious as such, but it is a classic Dwarvish story out of time. I could see mothers telling this to their children (while carrying them and clubbing orcs to death with iron socks at the same time).

Note: I was in a hurry to play again, so I took the completely inadvisable "Embark Immediately" random set of dorfs and stuff.

Surprisingly, things were going reasonably well, despite the preponderance of fisherdwarves and giant mosquitos.
Then all the yaks died of starvation, in the central dining hall. (I had, it seems, neglected to designate a pasture, so they hung out there until they died)
The miasma was terrible.

Then my only competent farmer got possessed by the Fey. She collected a few things then kept muttering about "rocks and bones" "rocks and bones".
I told her there were unforbidden dead yaks just FULL of bones right across the hall, and rocks freaking everywhere, but she was not appeased.

Eventually she wandered back into the dining room and starved to death.
The miasma was terrible.

[FrisianDude]

A while ago a helmet snake appeared near an emDwarfed area of the first cavern. I immediately sent my militia because helmet snakes are nasty little buggers. The captain who arrived at the scene first charged right at it and punched the snake square in the face. Haha, fuck you snake.

[Sir_Castic]

I don't know if this counts, but I once killed a cyclops and a pack of boogeymen by stabbing them in the head with a sock.

[Loud Whispers]

The city of ScribedFortress, 180x100 tiles of limestone, with a massive limestone dome in the center. Adamantine stairs crossed the guard towers, and within the doom stood blocks of bedrooms, studies and dining halls, built one upon the other. An artificial mountain.

Twice it had fallen, once to an antman horde caused by an accidental child tag misplacement, pages upon pages of flying carapaces stormed the fortress, slaying all. The last to hold out were the military squad: The Knights Parity, who fought by the gate house slaying many antmen. Thus beginning a tradition, of noble warriors named the Knights Parity, heroes to the fortress.

The second time was caused by an entire goblin siege finding its way through a back door into project Eden: It was supposed to be paradise.

Reclaiming ScribedFortress, the Dwarves were met with dark corridors and familiar rooms, and found that the minatour child which had been allowed into the Fort had now become fully grown, picked up a masterwork steel battleaxe, and begin defending its master's former home with zealous fury. They were all cut down.

The next reclaim party arrived with dogs and attempted to reason with the minatour, even trying to get past it in the narrow corridors, but alas the Dwarven defenses worked against them, they were swiftly cut down.

The following reclaim party arrived with copper warhammers and shields, angered at the loss of their bretheren. The reclaimers deployed animal distractions - chiefly large swarms of rabbits, and lured the minatour away long enough for them to infiltrate the fortress. What they found was horrific.

Corpses infested the hallways, and the skeletons increased as the path led on. Eventually it broke into the open cavern - and a great madness was greeted by the Dwarves. The minatour, finished with the animals, hunted them down one by one. Goblin and Dwarf alike fell to the minatour and to the caverns, individual pockets holding out against the Giant Spiders and Crocodiles, Serpent men and Jabberers, but ultimately to no avail. It was here the Dwarves discovered the four great adamantine spires, the same ones which would make ScribedFortress great, and found the fury that resides in the denizens of the caverns. For even the hammerdwarves perished when they were isolated from the stairwell, and fought to the death against swallow men - who had dispatched the minatour by peppering it full of darts. They single handedly cleared the caverns alone, before dying of their wounds in the dark expanse.
The last Dwarves made sure to kill the few remaining goblins, and took great satisfaction in spreading the brains of one particular goblin - a goblin law giver, across the floor.

Every now and then enough wild animals were captured that during a siege a lever was pulled that released a stampede of badgers, rhinoceros's, giraffes and giant big cats. Of a population of 250, 116 were full time soldiers armed with adamantine and steel, and I had a huge underground nature reserve where I kept a few herds of wild animals, and danger room trained an army of goblins to breach the HFS. The only thing that stood between the goblins and the clowns was an artifact jade portal.
In a time of crisis, the entire fortress could be called to arms.

Only twice has this happened. This was the first.
There was Rith Uzolód, Rakost Tulonvunom, Etur Soloncg, Tun Ledaran and Urdim Thatthinil, the first five Dwarves to fight my first Titan, Zothrol TwilightMoistened the plains Titan. The entire fortress was called to arms, Dwarves hurriedly placing armour on their shoulders and picking up weapons. The masons attempted to wall in the Titan within a spiral, but a tree - a single tree gave the Titan warning to attack. It was not met by the hundreds of soldiers, but instead only 5. The Titan was slain, yet all of them were blinded, had their nerves burned off and spent days recovering, and after extensive surgery involving adamantine thread (metal sutures in their eyes as well!), they became my first Fortress Guard, and after noticing the Dwarves following my every order to the letter, the first super soldiers involved in eye removal programs. Rith scored the killing blow and became the captain of the guard, and Rakost became the fort's permanent mayor, and guard member.

The Buck of Rot, and artifact adamantine crossbow was made. It was placed by the foot of an artifact limestone throne, the impervious griffons, within a steel fault, in the hope that some day the Dwarven Queen-General would arrive.
She never did.

A farmer was attacked by a siege of goblins, got shot in the shoulder and passed out on top of a cage trap - which saved his life. The entire fort armed itself and went to war against 56 goblins, many of whom were crossbowmen or lashers. 11 Dwarves lost their lives, many goblins were slain and the farmer was saved.

A migrant processing machine involving a small drop was invented to train the team of doctors, it was very effective.

Eventually an FB with a vaporous extract was captured using an elaborate cave in trap - it chased a cat only for it to find itself surrounded by the walls of its future prison, and every now and then a squad of soldiers would be stationed outside, an animal dropped in, and all of them would be blinded and made immune to pain, and thus began the super soldier program.

And over 30 Dwarven years scribedfortress still stands.

Hardly a short story, but I felt like I needed to drop it here

Also, my adventurer never fast travelled. Crossed two mountain ranges, acquiring 291 giant eagle kills, taking a single feather from each one.
Each feather became a deadly projectile.

[Meta]

One of the stories I'd really like seeing drawn is the one of Reginald:
The Life and Times of Reginald Goblinstomper, Elephant at Large.

For those of you who didn't read it, go read it now!