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[Meph]

Even ice blocks are magmaproof.

[ElenaRoan]

An enormous quadruped composed of small fire gem.  It has wings and it undulates rhythmically.  Beware its webs!

My first thought: guess I'm not going into the first cavern any time soon (digging invaders OFF, I really don't want to deal with that yet). Then I set up a cave-in trap and opened it to the cavern when I finished it. The Forgotten Beast wandered in eventually, looked at the support for a bit then wandered off again. I was a bit disappointed but figured he'd come back eventually. Then a troglodyte ambush occurred, and one of the blasted creatures decapitated it with a MACE!? Grrr. So much for setting up a forgotten beast silk farm...

[zlurker]

I think you just got trolled dear sir.

[jonveck]

I'm in my 12th year in my latest oceanic embark.  The floor of which I safely breached to provide indoor saltwater fishing with a desalination pump that diverts some of the water into a fresh water cistern.  The ocean has also allowed me to build sea traps and, after successfully capturing a pair of giant orca, I was thrilled to cage three giant sperm whales and "drown" three more.  The dead whales were butchered to yield stacks of approximately 10,000 meat apiece.  One stack combined with three barrels of dwarven syrup has given me a pile of curry worth over 4-million dwarf bucks.  Since two of the caged whales are female, they've since given birth to a total of four calves, and I'm currently considering my options when it comes trying to farm them, though I'm currently stumped.  Needless to say, food is no longer an issue -- at all.

Militarily my fortress has seen the deaths of over 1,500 to date.  I have a system of passageways that lead over cage traps, followed by a "dodge this" pathway, that then circles around to a minecart grinder of my own design (although I'm sure others have made similar setups).  The minecart spins around in a roller-assisted 3x3 loop over a pit that connects with the "dodge this" pit.  This means anything with [TRAPAVOID] that skips over the cages and weapon traps (or when those 45 cages are all full and the weapon traps are jammed) is struck by a welded wolfram tanker cart full of magma and sent hurtling over the edge.  The pit is 5-levels deep and has a system of bridges and pumps that can fill a level of the pit with both seawater and magma.  First the water is dropped, then the magma, thus entombing the hapless survivors in obsidian.  I dig it out and reset the trap.  Captives in the cages are disarmed and pitted into a colosseum where my soldiers train.  My fortress' greatest warrior who wields a masterwork legendary welded mithril long sword has over 500 kills.  She and the Guardian of Armok my priests summoned prove sufficient at handling the handful of flying creatures who make it past my hallway of death, or the 1-in-50 kobolds who manage, by some miracle, to run past the minecart.

Current plans (besides trying to think of an efficient way to farm the whales) are figuring out if there's a good way to clothe my populace in leather armor rather than rely on deteriorating suede clothing; trying out the steam power generators as an alternative to the windmills powering my minecart; relaxing my pop cap to allow some new migrants which will then be promptly turned into golems; create a golden tower and/or one formed completely out of artificial emeralds; and test more of the magic system (I have a 2-level water wizard but all she tends to do is cause herself and others frostbite, and my attempt to make a vampire out of one dwarf failed -- I have a handful of dwarfs who refuse to leave their guilds or turn into anything else).

[ElenaRoan]

Jonveck: might want to look up the thread on sea serpent farming. If I recall correctly it had a method of separating babies so they could be caged then retrieved by dwarves. It's a bit old, the concept hopefully will still work though. http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=75780.0

[urmane]

Olympus, under construction:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Olivine block stairs up to the top Z (I like the green, and it lends that Minas Morgul feel ), marble block floor on top Z and top Z minus one.  Plan includes gold statues, throne room, and noble rooms for our beloved leader.

[jonveck]

@Elena:

Cheers. I had foolishly not thought to have the pool have an exit back to the ocean -- and the dog window is a good step, too.  It's a little silly to set the thing up given that I already have some 40,000+ food, but it'd be fun.

[urmane]

"Your diplomat has declared a war."

[Boltgun]

Okay I have discovered metalwraiths. Goodbye perfect hungry miserable volcano fort.

Edit
---

Diary of Boltgun, Engineer guild, chief marksdwarf.

Roomuniverse has been abandoned in panic. Rumour is that human settlements has started sheltering starving dwarves claiming strange stories such as "The ore fought back". As king Melbil see this outpost as too important in his expansion plans, he ordered a squad built to take control of the area until new workers could be sent.

I assembled a squad with 1 speardwarf, 1 sworddwarf, 2 marksdwarves (myself included).
Despite this being a military operation, we needed the aid of two designers to provide any structural defence the outpost could be missing.

1st Granite 102 - We have reached the target and set up the first step of the reclaim. Thanks to the speed of our operation, the installations show little wear and Crops are still in the ground. Our stone designer wanted to note that the architecture was not meeting standards.

3rd Granite 102 - Noise of rumble could be heard near the shaft.

5th Granite 102 - As we scouted the surroundings of the volcano, we have found bodies of the fort's previous defenders. Their wound confirm that they have been attacked with blunt weapons. We salvaged coffins to honour them with proper burials. I insist that no weapons has been found within or around the fort and I suspect that they had fought with their bare hands.

15rd Granite 102 - Our wood designer insist that slight tremors could be felt in the higher levels. I immediately put our fighters on active duty and started patrolling the immediate area.

23rd Granite 102 - We have failed our primary objective and could not guarantee the security of our civilian escort. A creature of golem class made or metallic ore has taken advantage of our shift to attack our stone designer. As he fled in panic down the shaft, our fighters could not reach it in time. A report of the death of Kivish Okzeduth will be given at our first liaison visit. I will take full responsibility for this death. The threat however has been neutralized and I am now initiating a lockdown until we are relieved from duty by civilian workers from the mountainhome.

[firefly68]

Yeah, metalwraiths are a problem if you strike them too early. They don't stand long against military, but they sure can be a problem if you're not ready for them. The first metalwraith I had only managed to kill a couple of my dwarves though, since it chased a pet into a room so I was able to lock it away until I could deal with it

[Jamuro]

I finaly got to the point where i can build golems ... and not a minute too soon.
Several dwarfs were throwing thantrums like mad, just because i might have killed my whole minerbrigade during an unfortunate FUN! cavein.
Thantrums ... not in my fort ... all angry dwarfs please report to the golemforge 
Several of those dwarfs were mothers with babies ... sometimes even two or three
I expected them to starve to death or something, after their mother is golemified but to my big surprise they became golems too.
FOR FREE!!!!
Oh i can't directly control them, but they still stay on the same tile as their golem mom.
Now my fort defense has an awesome set of baby golems 

[zlurker]

Even ice blocks are magmaproof.

The DF TVTrope page even specifically has this as one of the examples about just how badass dwarven masonry is.

I finaly got to the point where i can build golems ... and not a minute too soon.
Several dwarfs were throwing thantrums like mad, just because i might have killed my whole minerbrigade during an unfortunate FUN! cavein.
Thantrums ... not in my fort ... all angry dwarfs please report to the golemforge 
Several of those dwarfs were mothers with babies ... sometimes even two or three
I expected them to starve to death or something, after their mother is golemified but to my big surprise they became golems too.
FOR FREE!!!!
Oh i can't directly control them, but they still stay on the same tile as their golem mom.
Now my fort defense has an awesome set of baby golems 

Name them the anklebiter brigade!

[Silver Dragon]

I embarked on a glacier surrounded by terrifying biome, got underground and was doing generally well exploreing and fortifying a cave when i lost my best dwarf to a pile of bad moodlets with others slowly following suit into a lovely tantrum spiral, after burrying all the bodys i re-embarked and by some luck managed to get the highest tier of black mage, the lich, which i after a very short debate immeditaly made him my character/record keeper/ leader so on "The lich SilverDragon, Immortal Overlord" and 10 military dwarves that viewers requested, though i only had enough armor to fully equip one of them, as i embarked things generally went well, i started to fill all the holes left on the surface before i i quickly abandoned things noticed 2 undead centuars approaching, so i equiped my one guy fully armored, sent him into the frey and surpriseingly he moped the floor with them, shorly after there demise i was suddenly ambushed . . . by one of my old beserk dwarves . . . who started chaseing squirls . . . *cough* so ya, for the safety of the fort as he started to chase them closer around my forts enterance i sent my warrior to go end his madness, my former colleague was swiftly put down and draged into my new refuse area, just as i was ambushed once again, this time by a ogress, inside my fortress XD, who quickly begun fighting and killing some of my dwarves, so sent my warrior in, and from what i could see afterwards it seems this ogress was attempting to hug the warrior (clearly it was just looking for love) however the dwarf spurned her advances and promptly had his skull punched in, the ogress now infuriated continued her killing spree as the rest of the fortress decended on her in desperation, most of the dwarves brought over to serve the military died in the struggle but in the end the ogress finally fell, however it was hardly a victory as most of the remaining dwarves were injured and were starting to tantrum once again, thoughts of leaving and trying once again with a new force emerged however the immortal overlord SilverDragon lich would have none of that, and begun to bring back his former warriors as his new bone golem minions, content to let them defend the fortress for the other forces of evil as he waited for the new batch of dwarven flesh to arrive which was not long to be waited for, thus does the fortress of AncientEvils continue its reign with The Unholy Temptations Of Insanity.
And now, for your enjoyment, in video form http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YlEVvncnds
Feel free to comment and hey maby ask for a military dwarf, the immortal overlord SilverDragon the lich and the fortress of ancient evils welcomes all new flesh puppet*cough* ahem i mean shineing dwarven heros to join our rank of undead minio *ahem* i mean loyal and totally well treated dwarven heros to be treated with all the fine ale and dwarven women to satisfy after you take a short totally not fatal trip down this dark (not trap lined) corridor of heros!
The fortress of ancient evils welcomes all you noble dwarves to our undead army*cough* i mean ancient and noble breed of legendary heros and wishes you great luck and fortune to all aplicants, so apply now and apply quickly! (Please ignore the mass ammount of bone "statues" at the enterance of the fortress, they are not watching you . . . seriously your imagining things)

[Meph]

Nilus the Impaler can be a thing, if you use the rename script of dfhack.
See your dfhack init:

# gui/rename script - rename units and buildings
keybinding add Ctrl-Shift-N gui/rename
keybinding add Ctrl-Shift-T "gui/rename unit-profession"

[Innocent Dave]

I love golems.

Shortly before my last fort died of a terminal framerate shortage, I'd turned my melee squad into steel swordgolems.  They never got to kill anything (I'd have had to wait all day for them to cross the map by that point), so I was overjoyed when they started arriving at my new fort with waves of conveniently skilled migrants.

Fast-forward a few years, to my fortess which doesn't quite have a military yet - partly due to my inability to convince my miners to turn up to fights with their battle-picks, rather than dropping them off in their rooms and charging in with their fists (anyone know why this happens?), but mostly because it doesn't seem like a priority with a swordgolem chained at each entrance and a couple others pastured just inside.  So I'm caught a little offguard when around half a dozen goblin ambushes show up simultaneously, with one of their deities in tow.  I close the gates, but not before one of my golems and a few unlucky dwarves run out to meet the invasion.  Assuming they're all dead (the dwarves were in seconds), I head down to the workshops and order everyone to start making crossbows.

A few weeks later, I stick my head aboveground again to find a rather different scene.  Abandoned outside the walls, set upon by over a hundred goblins and assorted warbeasts,  the swordgolem now known as "Deler Waddlingsyrupy the Visions of Man" has dragged his broken body across the snow, spilling precious oil from dozens of wounds, battered by whips and bolts, and one by one has dismembered the greater part of the attacking force.  By the time I open the gates so my haulers can salvage the dwarven caravan, the pitiful remnants of the goblin force were hightailing it over the horizon.

I'm in love.  I've ordered all of the masons to crank out statues until I get some of him, so that his name can live on through history.  Shame it's such a silly name, really...