Thank you Mehp and the entire masterwork team. The charm here in Dwarf Fortress has always been dot dot dot. Potential. It is the raw, unfinished, candy-coated gem that you wish you could work but you cannot. There is not yet a work-shop for it, the reaction remains un-concieved even within the strangest mood.
Ahem. Sorry, don't know what came over me. I meant to say that I have had the most fun of any of my many forts (vanilla, custom, or masterwork) today.
I set out with a party of kobolds. Turns out we have no domestic animals. Welp. Embark on a cavern on a mirthful plain on a Blessed Sera world. I name all the bold after dogs I know or have known. Violet Thunderpaws is a wood cutter wielding a wooden training axe. We wall of the cavern as quickly as possible, but a giant bat escapes. Our hunter menaces it with wooden bolts, bruising pretty much everything. The bat attacks various workers, and each one gets a solid punch (one memorable punch caused the bat's nose to explode) in before it flies away. Until it attacks Violet Thunderpaws. She's minding her own business and cutting a tree down when it slashes her axe hand 'mangling it beyond recognition.' She pukes and passes out. The bat PICKS HER UP IN ITS TALONS AND CARRIES HER SIX SQUARES UP. Our hunter, Snick, peppers it with more darts, but it doesn't really do any damage. Violet wakes up and punches the bat's right foot with her good hand, breaking it but accomplishing little else.
At this point I already regard this as epic, and yet it's just the warm up.
Violet then, with her mangled hand, punches the bat's head into gore. The bat drops her. Its corpse hits the ground so hard that the butcher gets to take the day off. Violet herself lands on her feet, or rather more accurately her right foot. Which is also mangled beyond recognition. She takes one step toward our walls, pukes, and passes out.
The remaining six dedicate themselves entirely toward a hospital industry. After two painstaking months of constant washing and suturing and splinting, she is up and about with a crutch. With which she is very quickly becoming skilled. She also happens to be ridiculously happy.
I don't...I'm afraid to play this save. Can I keep her alive against an entire planet worth of creatures trying to kill her and her friends? What is this game?