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[MadMonkey]

A forgotten beast has come! It is a great humanoid made of fire and shadow. It has wings and undulates rhythmically. It's horns are curved downward. Beware it's sword and whip!

The Mountainhome had been prospourus. The founder, Durin, was alive when the world was created. He lived so long he was called Durin the Deathless. *cough* vampire *cough* The craftsmanship of the dwarves was unmatched but after the great war they secluded themselves in under their mountain, digging in search of mithril adamantine. Their greed would be their downfall as their had awoken a terrible monster. The battle was feirce but Durin was struck down. His son Thrain and the rest of the dwarves were forced to abandoning the mountainhome. Thrain and six of his most loyal dwarves set out on a journey to find a new home. Their long trek has finally come to an end. A new chapter of dwarven history begins here at this place, Nimemonol, "The Lonely Mountain".

Nimemonol: The Lonely Mountain

This will be a succession fortress where our mega project is to model Erebor based on the version in The Hobbit movies. The mountain is a whopping 75 z levels tall and the fortifications will be dug into 60 of these. Silver, copper and marble are visible on the outside of the mountain. Trees are sparse but it should be managable. Building ideas can be shared in whatever format you would like as long as they are explained well enough. If you contribute your design will be listed for future reference even if your design isn't used. For example I have created a mock up of the fortifications which can be viewed below with each pixel representing a block. You are free to no follow other players blueprints but the basic dimensions of the wall will be decided upon to keep rooms within bounds and so we don't make any irreversible mistakes when digging out the front of the mountain.

Rules

Rules are not final and are subject to change with a majority vote.

• Each session will be one in game year or 3 irl days which ever comes first.
• Save files are to be uploaded with Dropbox or Mega.
• Square ascii tilesetss in screen shots.
• No mods or hacks.
• The front wall must stay stay within agreed upon depth and basic dimensions. You have more freedom with the rest and aren't forced to follow other players blueprints.
• If the fortress is abandoned or the mega project is otherwise doomed the previous save will be passed onto the next person.
• If the fortress is destroyed by a dragon we will play adventure mode to kill the dragon before reclaiming it.
• Levers must show what they are attached to using the in-game note system
• Before you pass on your save file you must log a story of your fort including changes to the following: deaths, nicknames, elections, artifacts, battles, trades, and what you built with blueprints if you would like someone to finish it.
• Include screenshots when useful.

[MadMonkey]

Sign Ups

Sign ups are 7 sessions in advance. Players can sign up for more than one session but not for 7 sessions.

#	|PLAYER	|DATE STARTED	|SAVE FILE	|PAGES
1	|MadMonkey	|	|	|
2	|bJAG9	|	|	|
3	|ShadowHammer	|	|	|
4	|	|	|	|
5	|	|	|	|
6	|	|	|	|
7	|	|	|	|

[MadMonkey]

Blueprints

These are some of the things we will need to make to reach our goal. Choose one that looks fun and give it a try or add to what others have done. Keep in mind how it will fit in with the rest of the fort.

DESIGN	|DESIGNED BY	|BLUEPRINTS	|BUILT BY
fortifications	|MadMonkey	|page 1	|
enterance hall	|	|	|
throne room	|	|	|
treasure room	|	|	|
front statues	|	|	|
secret enterance	|	|	|
trade depot	|	|	|
catacombs	|	|	|
forges	|	|	|
hall of the kings	|	|	|

[MadMonkey]

Reserved

This was originally going to be a community fort but no one seemed interested so I changed it to a succession fort. It should be a ton of fun as long as we can stay organized enough to make the mega project. I will be start the first session on Wednesday. Make sure to reserve a spot early if you are interested.

[bJAG9]

Gimme that second spot! Also, you might need to update the blueprints, because all the links but the fortress entrance do not work properly.

[MadMonkey]

Yay! Thanks for signing up. I will try and figure out what is wrong with the link. This project has made me start working on a web app for drawing dwarf fortress blueprints. It is going well so far and I might have a usable version soon.

[bJAG9]

Oh nice! I really like the idea of mega-projects in DF, and I've done a fair amount of web development myself. Interested to see how it turns out.

[Timeless Bob]

There's a bunch of fan fiction, maps and the like that have already been made by Tolkien fans - are you referencing any of those as guides for your blueprints?  While this IS Dwarf Fortress, you may not want to "reinvent the wheel" if the fortress is derivative of Tolkien's anyway.

[MadMonkey]

There's a bunch of fan fiction, maps and the like that have already been made by Tolkien fans - are you referencing any of those as guides for your blueprints?  While this IS Dwarf Fortress, you may not want to "reinvent the wheel" if the fortress is derivative of Tolkien's anyway.

Yes I'd love to see all the reference material I can. The players will be able to use any reference they like. So far I looked Peter Jackson's interpretation of the entrance because I like it quite a bit. There are fan paintings closer to what is seen in Tolkien's sketches which is basically just a large arched tunnel with a river coming out of it. I also liked the movies version of the forges. There are channels for water and magma flowwing through it all controlled by water wheels and a big lever. It reminded me of dwarf fortress right away. The final product will hopefully look like a true underground city big enough for a dragon get around in but lets take it one step at a time.

[ShadowHammer]

This looks awesome, sign me up. Coincidentally, I was just reading The Hobbit not half an hour ago.

[MadMonkey]

This looks awesome, sign me up. Coincidentally, I was just reading The Hobbit not half an hour ago.

Great signed you up. We need atleast two more people before we can start.

[Timeless Bob]

Anybody know if Lord of the Rings Online has an Erebor map?  They might have more complete floorplans if so.

[MadMonkey]

Anybody know if Lord of the Rings Online has an Erebor map?  They might have more complete floorplans if so.

I don't think you could go to Erebor in LORTO. Actually I haven't been able to find any maps of the interior of Erebor. There are some amazing ones of Moria that are just to huge to fit in dwarf fortress. I think we might have to think up a lot of it ourselves which is fine. It doesn't have to be an exact model anyways. It just has to feel like it could be Erebor. We will still have to worry about sustaining our dwarves and being practical. Other than making the parts that have appeared in the book and movie I think we could have some design principals that will give it that feel. For example Erebor is basically a big mine with the used up parts being re-purposed as living quarters. The treasure room and other big rooms would be in the places richest with ore because those places are already hollowed out. The movie shows vertical chasms where the dwarves have dug away which makes the pillars look almost like skyscrapers. Maybe early players can start a quarry but another player will use the space to make a grand dinning room. Or they could keep digging down and add some catapults and minecarts to move heavy materials to and from the magma forges: http://youtu.be/4e90C2juVlw?t=1m15s Another principal could be to start from higher up and dig down. There are several reasons for this other than the fact that there is less distance to walk. In real life the higher parts don't need to support as much weight so they are safer to dig out. In Dwarf Fortress we need to channel out rooms from the top so we don't get floating floors that take a long time to remove and can cause cave ins. Erebor is refereed to as a city and not just a claustrophobic mine. A dragon should be able to walk around inside it without much trouble. We should make it feel that way even though the largest of Dwarf Fortress dragons still take up one tile. The trick will be making it seem very open while keeping walking distances down. Does any one else have any ideas along these lines?

[Timeless Bob]

How about forbidding the building of "floors" over empty spaces, but only being able to build "walls" so that in those big open spaces. Any cross-wise paths, (like those big arches in the mines of Moria that they escaped the Balrog from for instance), wouldn't be paper-thin like they are in DF.  Likewise, an big open space greater than a 10 x 10 area should be supported by supports at their center or corners, so that real world physics can also be supported to an extent.  If you really want to simulate that kind of architecture, each 10 x 10 ceiling should be supported only by the pillars, having the space bordering them channeled out then bridged over.  A tantruming dwarf could do some SERIOUS damage by destroying a foundation support however...

[GavJ]

Run the thing however you like, but my opinion: More people (including myself) would probably be interested in this without the seemingly very time consuming and extraordinarily detailed blueprint component to it.  Looking at the existing blueprints, I felt that learning how to even interpret the legend alone on the file would have taken longer than an entire normal community fort turn, and got very discouraged.  Also, following somebody else's down-to-the-tile blueprint feels like busy work, whereas translating a rougher concept into DF terms would involve good creativity, even if the basic vision were pre-decided.

It seems like a handmade quick sketch with some rough indicators of how many z levels are intended to align with the sketch would be sufficient and in many ways actually superior for this purpose?

Just my 2 cents though.


(Note that if done this way instead, you might need more leeway on the length of a turn. Something like "1-2 years, try to keep it to 1 but some room for going over if needed to finish a section")