An extremely recent attack made me apreciate a single underdog dwarf.
Some background info:
Bomrek Bomrekestil was a simple dwarf. He was but a simple fish cleaner, married to a wonderful woman whith who he had two kids.
When he arrived at Blazemarks, the fortress that divided a wild shrubland and a monstrous jungle, he did not know what would become of him.
The fortress was struggling to survive the onslaughts of the undead at the time. Inmediately as he arrived he was drafted into the militia as a hammerdwarf. Taurus, the second in comand helped him hone his novice skills with the hammer and he soon became an asset to the fort.
As the fortress grew, so did it´s challenges. A year after Bomrek had enlisted the first goblin ambush arrived. The militia had been training for this and dealt with the menace swiftly.
They thought themselves invincible. They thought wrong.
The ambush was but a scouting party and soon the fortress was being besieged by goblins. The fortress still had no means to shield themselves completly and the invaders marched forth.
The militia was now a ten-dwarf-thick array of misfits that had managed to survive through iron wills, dumb luck, perseverance and the steel of their weapons. The two evenly-matched forces clashed and a bloody battle ensued.
In the heat of battle, Bomrek lost his right hand, and his silver hammer with it. Unrelentless, he kept batling the goblins with his remaining hand.
After the dust had settled two dwarfs lay dead, three, including Bomrek had lost their dominant arms, and half the goblins had escaped.
As he lay in bed recovering, Bomrek contemplated his future, as did the militia commander. Moldath Komanurdim was the first commander to survive more than a few months and had watched three previous commanders die to the flying undead hordes of the fetid, sludge-covered jungle. He lived on trough sheer luck and skill.
Bomrek´s experience was too valuable to lose. The fortress was still too weak. And so, Bomrek was made the leader of his own squad, the Just Irons, along with the other two maimed dwarfs and a fresh recruit or two.
The following months, Bomrek trained. He did not know what the future had in store for him but he had a role to fulfill, a family to protect and a squad to lead.
The future arrived. The fortress miners had dicovered two caverns and were setting up the means to tame these wild lands.
Now the fortress was one hundred dwarfs stong. Two half-squads of marksdwarves had been fashioned from the hunters. There were three half-squads of melee dwarves, Bomrek´s own Just Irons included. Taurus, the dwarf who had been such good friends to Bomrek, had been made captain of the second squad, the Ashen Irons. Moldath, the militia commander led the original squad of six, The Halls of Sounds.
Because of their injuries, most of Bomrek´s squad didnt use a shield. But they more than made up for it with their martial prowesses.
The fort was booming and the plans of many months were being finished quickly.
But the entrance was still not completely blockable.
This came to the attention of the dwarves when another siege force apeared in the horizon.
The invaders outnumbered the fighting dwarves three to one and were all mounted on giant beasts, some of which were flying giant bats. And they had trolls.
As the civilians hurried inside the fortress three unfortunate ones were ripped apart by the beasts.
The marksdwarves stationed in the courtyard and the three squads of fighters formed a line at the chokepoint that was the entrance into the courtyard. The goblins mounted on Ginat Bats did not waste time and attempted to dive onto the marksdwarves. This has a mistake for the marksdwarfs fired hail after hail of bolts. But this did not stop one mounted goblin to slip into the main entrance of the fortress!
A descision had to be made.
Bomrek´s squad was chosen to go after the goblin.
Just as Bomrek entered the fortress in pursuit, the other military squads clashed against the first wave of goblins and trolls. some traps caught a few of the invaders but the dwarfs were still vastly outnumbered. As the military dwarves fought at the entrance the marksdwarfs managed to position themselves to support them, firing volleys of bolts into the skirmish.
As this happened the Goblin in the fortress had reached a wide open area filled with underground folliage in pursuit of a carpenter. This area was to be the future pasturing grounds for the fortress herds.
Bomrek arrived on the scene. The rest of his squad caught in the skirmish behind. He charged the Goblin Axemanand his great mount.
In the hurry of meeting the invaders, he had forgotten his hammer.
The dwarf punched, kicked, bit and wrestled the Goblin Axeman and his Giant Bat simultaneously. With a swift punch of his remaining arm he knocked ht Axeman´s weapon off and made the Bat fall unconcious, buying him precious moments. The battle raged on in a flury of teeth, punches and kicks.
Aboveground the busy milita had taken many a beast and goblin life with the assistance of the marksdwarves and the war dogs but the battle had been raging for an entire week and the toil and wounds of war were showing. The war dogs started to die, two dwarfs sucumbed to beasts.
But the military made a final push and routed the invaders. As the invaders ran the military divided itself between those too injured to pursue and those who went after the invaders. Of the pursuers two died to last-ditch attacks of the goblins.
Down below Bomrek threw a final punch and shattered the Goblin´s skull. The Giant Bat had fled to the surface and had been skewered by the bolts of the marksdwarfs. There were only five uninjured dwarves.
Bomrek returned for the second time to the hospital bed. He wondered what the future held in store for him.
TL;DR Bomrek is Jackie Chan.
And no, none of the military have anything above Skilled in combat skills. Bomrek somehow became an Expert Fighter and Proficient Wrestler through all of that.
This just happened five minutes ago and Im quite impressed by this guy as hes missing his right arm but managed to take out a mounted armed oponent.
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Topic: Your Dwarf Fortress anecdote - Illustrated! (Read 104926 times)