This story dwarf fortress was played in Masterwork version. I will stick to the truth as much as possible, but I will add my own dialogue to add taste to the story and give my own thoughts on what happened, outside the fortress. The constructions were inspired by the dwarf machinists of Dragon Age and Skyrim. I hope you enjoy this story, it was my longest lasting and biggest fortress without using any external apps (except dtherapist) The City of SubetoddomBaronness: Come here children, do not be alarmed. Let me tell you a story to pass the time.
A long time ago, there was a magnificent fortress built out of silver and gold; a wondrous and horrid tale of great riches and their inevitable downfall; built from the lives and deaths of hundreds of dwarves. On the surface, the mega-construct was a sight to behold with 2 walls of defense made of pure silver, surrounding a tower, made out of pure gold, reaching 15 stories high; however, this is only the tip of the iceberg. It is told that the tower stretched many miles deep to the great magma sea itself. Today we will delve into a story, thrown into the records as a myth, of one of the first greatest civilizations that almost made and destroyed the world as we know it. Every story has a beginning and an end, so grab a seat and immerse yourself in this tale.
It was the beginning of the recorded world, many civilizations has started to become aware of the strength in numbers and fortifications. The dwarves were a smart race and had a natural talent in masonry, but they were also cursed with small stature, making them easy prey for larger predators. After being hunted from cave to cave, a group of 7 dwarves were forced to trudge the vast desert of "The Marked Hills." When the caravan was about to lose all hope of finding safe haven, they came across a site with multiple oasis nearby. There was no caves to seek shelter, but sand is also rock and stone withered down by many years of high winds and friction. Luckily the dwarves moved with a savant with an unusual talent for smithing, a talent that was not known during those times. He was able to use fire to hold the sand in place and create tunnels into the land. Intrigued with the notion of sand turning to glass, the seven dwarves wasted no time in creating shelter from the cold desert nights. The oasis provided enough water and wild life to sustain their lives, but like all sentient life forms on this world, they felt something was missing and wanted more from life. So they started to dig. In hopes to create a permanent home for themselves, they dug deeper to find a rock-bed. It made them comfortable to know that the roof and floor was stable and not prone to collapse. Each of them worked day and night, delighted that they can create a new home for themselves, they created storerooms, individual sleeping quarters, and masonry's. Weeks past by. The nearby oasis provided them with plenty of water and enough wild life to live comfortable and carefree; however, one night, a creature known as the white tigerman sneaked into their little haven, to scout and steal what he can. They became aware of this and protected what little they had. The seven dwarves came to the realization that they're not dreaming and that there were still beasts and large predators lurking out there to take what they want. Reality hit them hard and they did not want to lose their home again. They knew sooner or later, an evil darkness would come to prey on them.
Dwarves may be small, but we are not weak and we are definitely not dumb. So they started to build walls for defense and stonefall traps for any beasts lurking nearby, but that wasn't enough, they also knew that they can't live in peace with so few to protect their home. So everyday, 2 of them would go scout the area to forge alliances with any neighboring villages that weren't hostile. They wanted to create weapons to protect themselves, but the trees were too few, cactus was too frail, and stone was too heavy to create efficient weapons, but they had plenty of sand to create glass. With the discovery of coal deposits and a the construction of furnaces, they were able to craft many items needed create a safe haven. Soon they were able to build proper defenses and luxurious items for themselves and the scouts would find lost dwarves and trade caravans. The small home created to live peacefully, would soon turn into a city with an armed militia...but a thriving city would only give evil creatures more to steal and pillage.
The Marked Hills is a vast desert filled with nothing but sand and heat, the wildlife is scarce and dangerous, and the dryness makes water more valuable then gold; however, the land below the city of Subetoddom is a lot more generous and provided an abundant amount of resources to trade with other cities. With the creation of glass products, trade caravans from other villages and cities would barter items and knowledge for trinkets made by the desert dwelling dwarves. With the knowledge of forging, the city was able to make use of the large amount of mineral veins beneath their feet. Records say that the city of Subetoddom was so rich, they didn't have enough space in their treasury to store all the silver and gold, so they used their metals to make their city more beautiful. The walls and roads were crafted out of pure silver and made a tower out of gold to store their riches. Sentient beings from all across the land would travel to this magnificent city, just to see a glimpse of its beauty. Some would go to live their, others would go to trade, but most seemed inclined to destroy or take the city for themselves. Such a gaudy display of wealth made many creatures despise these dwarves and the city soon found themselves sieged by armies from: white tigerman, war elephants, goblins, frog men, jaguar warlords, ferric elves, warlocks, orcs, undead, serpentmen, badgermen, raptormen, and even the fabled minotaurs and jotuns. Most were all out with the intent to destroy this city and the dwarves hubris, but the humans were stricken by greed and wanted to capture the city for themselves. For years, each species eyed the jewel on the Marked Hills, but the city was turned into a fortress and the outlying sands turned into a mass graveyard for any who tried to invade. For every 10 fallen enemies, the city would lose 1. The enemies weren't weak and they started building alliances among eachother to attack multiple sides at once. Even though the city guards had higher ground, they were still few compared to the amount of evil that lurked beyond the gates. How did this city stand so strong with such overwhelming forces, you might ask? The city counselors were smart, they were using their brains and decided to create a strong medical branch within the city walls. Constant attack and accidents among the miners, kept the hospital filled up and trained many dwarves to be proficient doctors. As the years went on, more and more dwarves migrated into the city and with it, a stronger military. Soon the city was becoming overpopulated and the miners had to start digging deeper, not knowing of the dangers that laid below.
Wealth is a funny concept. Every creature can succumb to greed and corrupt the core of their soul. The city had more wealth then they could spend and controlled the trade caravans throughout the world. The city was so self reliant it didn't even need to trade with other cities, so they decided to control wealth traded throughout the world...but that wasn't enough. The city of Subetoddom became the most advanced city and there was nothing left to learn and since there was nothing to learn above ground, they wanted to learn everything below ground. The various amounts of metals made the dwarves in this city want to dig deeper to find new metals and more of it. Some miners were so focused on discovering new veins, they haven't touched the warmth of the great fire in the sky for years. This brought an adaptation they never expected; the deep miners never used their eyes because it was so dark, so they soon grew blind and used their sense of touch and smell to navigate through the mines...until they came across a blinding light deep beneath the land.
The blinding light was a gigantic cave covered in a type of glass we call crystal, light was somehow trapped within this cave and it reflected off every crevice in the vast cavern below. This was a new place the dwarves never new about. The new plant life and knowledge to be gained excited the whole city and wanted to discover the mystery to the crystallized lifeforms. More then half the city created expeditions to harvest the plants and create living quarters in the new place. Underlying rivers gave them a way to create energy through waterwheels and give them a much more efficient way to carry out manual labor. Automatic machines gave the dwarfs more leisure and jumped with joy at the thought of this. They started expanding and some dwarves created houses for themselves in what looked like a giant terrarium. Everything was going well, until they discovered that the world below had lifeforms of its own. Strange creatures started popping out of horizon; the scholars wanted to study the creature, not knowing of its malevolent nature. The crystal chasm was soon abandoned to all civilians and city created a military base to keep the monsters away. They created the base because the the city now had access to a forest, the world has not discovered yet. Even with the new dangers, the dwarves wanted to dig deeper and learn what other secrets await.
End of Part 1.
Trying to remember my first fortress in this land is quite difficult and takes quite a while to remember what I was doing exactly. It's a long story, just want to share my nerdiness with everyone. 
Part 2 will come up within the next day or 2.
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Topic: Share Your Funny Stories With Me! (Help DF Talk) (Read 87849 times)