In my continuing failure to successfully mod, I decided to check out a mod pack. I went with Masterwork, because it seems to have a lot of interesting features.
So I finally get a fort up and running, and things are going smooth during the first spring. Then I get this weird combat report about a dwarf finding some carp idol and smashing it under his foot. WTF? Weird, but it added a bit of flavor, and there were a few more strange messages like that. I started to ignore them, as they were becoming a distraction. The first year went by without much incident, the migration waves only added 3 dwarves each though, so the fort was somewhat short on labor. Finally spring comes around again, and I've got most of the basics running smoothly when a very unpleasant event occurred.
One of my crafters spontaneously turned into some kind of fish creature and immediately turned on my other dorfs. Oh crap. I quickly drafted the dwarves into a makeshift militia, but unfortunately, I hadn't discovered the iron deposits DFHack said was on the map. So this fish thing ended up being pretty hideously strong, and it made short work of the dwarves in the fort, ripping off arms and kicking in skulls. I just sat there watching this fiasco unfold, gritting my teeth, and waiting for the fort to crumble. I figured I'd get a reclaim going with some weapons and armor, and send a small party of dwarves armed with axes and spears and some armored war dogs against this thing. But it didn't finish off the expedition leader, the final survivor of the 13 dwarves I had. No, instead it spent about 40 pages or so of combat smacking the dorf in the head with a silk shoe. And then I lucked out, the spring migration wave came.
Instead of examining their skills, I just quickly drafted every last one of them into my army and hurled 20 some dorfs at this thing hoping they could overcome it with sheer numbers. I told three of them to pick up and use the axe and picks I had as weapons, because fists and feet weren't doing much. Anyway, the dwarf who was told to use the axe grabbed it and ran down to the pantry where there was a big brawl going on with the fish shit. Then she swung the axe at the fish and chopped its head off. I don't know exactly how many of the migrants got killed because I haven't checked the unit list. But of the starting 7, plus the first two waves, one got transformed, 11 were killed, and the expedition leader survived, though he or she lost a hand. On the bright side, the leader has some medical skills.
Rigth now, I'm doing some emergency cleanup. I wasn't going to examine these migrants in detail, and I needed new dwarves in every profession I had set up. I checked them with splinterz DT clone and assigned two new miners, two new builders (masons/mechanics/engravers), and a pair of doctors to care for the injured. I assigned a new farmer so the crops that were growing won't rot on me (I hope) and a carpenter to make the bucket, splints and crutches that I'm going to need. I'm going to need to set up some basic industries and one the miner get the graves I need dug out, I'm going to look to see just where the hell that iron is hiding at. There's several unhappy dwarves though, so we'll need to pull through the next few weeks without hitting a nasty tantrum spiral. The husband of the dwarf that killed this thing got moody just as the crisis ended, but luckily he just made a rock earring with some wood stuck on it, so that should at least cheer him up. And the elves have arrived to trade as well. Worse, I think whatever caused this is still going to trouble me, so I'm going to have to hunt whatever it is down and exterminate it.
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Topic: Well, that was unpleasant.... (Masterwork DF) (Read 8294 times)