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[Itnetlolor]

This does bring in an interesting perspective of "Your body is your temple". How you build your forts and how well you protect them and such is representative of how you view yourself and such.

Apparently, I'm OCD as fuck, surprisingly low-maintainence, or just plain lazy, and am an orderly chaos. I also like to tackle high-end megaprojects (See: Signature) to amuse myself, and for the sake of the challenge. Surprisingly, if maintained well enough, it's simplicity within it's own complexity will make it thrive for generations on end (Wavehandle makes an excellent example. It's my longest-lasting fort on original embark; no reclaim).

[Salmeuk]

We aren't the fortress, because the we wouldn't exist until the miners dug the first room. Who, then, would be giving the orders to dig that room?

Instead, I have always though of us as an unnamed god, spirit, or essence. The embark represents our domain of sorts, with the dwarves as our subjects. We aren't very powerful gods, so rather than directly influencing the world we give strong suggestions to our subjects.

However, this also holds untrue because without player input the dwarves do not build their own fortress. After embark (the original seven having been motivated by an unknown call to the wild), the dwarves will sit around and starve without input. This suggests that as players, we replace dwarven motivation with our own, tearing out the old and implanting our own preconceptions and plans.

We aren't the fortress, we aren't simply the god, we're the Dwarven Mind as taken over by a God. Every mind is us, we are every mind. At once and forever.

This is good, because it also explains other strange occurrences during the fort. Strange moods aren't actually possessions from a fey spirit, but the original dwarven mind returning to control. The mind now back to it's original owner goes into a panick, and tries to make us (the god) as happy as possible so as to spare a brutal death. They become legendary only to stave off the bored and wandering mind of the indomitable overseer.

Vampire dwarfs are similar - their mind never returns, but their basic chemistry has changed to that of something else besides a dwarf. While you can control them most of the time, they reach a point of hunger where the vampire takes over and you (the god) loses control.

As you appoint nobles, you grant them a small amount of free will so as to take some of the strain away from yourself. As such, they start to make demands: surely they are necessary to the fortress, being given free will? They refuse to believe that you (the god) would actively seek their demise. And how wrong they are.

Dwarven traders? Why aren't they taken over as they step onto the embark? Easy - their minds are already full of compulsion planted by another such god.

[Aslandus]

If you were the fortress, would that mean the retiring a fortress causes the fortress itself to disappear, leaving the dwarves sitting confused in a field until you return, helpless should the goblins choose to attack?

Instead, I have always though of us as an unnamed god, spirit, or essence. The embark represents our domain of sorts, with the dwarves as our subjects. We aren't very powerful gods, so rather than directly influencing the world we give strong suggestions to our subjects..

So if we're a minor god, what do they talk about when they're making friends? And does the whole mood thing mean they go insane breaking free of our influence when they become too stressed, becoming either depressed at their existence (melancholy), enraged at the player and trying to bring the tyranny to an end (berserk), or just break their mind altogether (stark raving mad)?

[Icefire2314]

I don't physically mean the carved or built fortress itself. Many seem to misunderstand me. I mean as in the site, or the dwarf fortress. This is still bad example as it represents as a physical entity. Think more along the lines of a spirit possessing or owning a region, and you come along and build on it... but almost as if you expected them to? And were waiting for them, to help them build up a fortress? I'm having difficulty expressing this properly, but I'm trying.

[Aslandus]

I don't physically mean the carved or built fortress itself. Many seem to misunderstand me. I mean as in the site, or the dwarf fortress. This is still bad example as it represents as a physical entity. Think more along the lines of a spirit possessing or owning a region, and you come along and build on it... but almost as if you expected them to? And were waiting for them, to help them build up a fortress? I'm having difficulty expressing this properly, but I'm trying.

That makes even less sense, at any point you can choose to get up and leave for a new site if you get bored with tormenting dwarves and the local wildlife in the area you're in...

[Itnetlolor]

I don't physically mean the carved or built fortress itself. Many seem to misunderstand me. I mean as in the site, or the dwarf fortress. This is still bad example as it represents as a physical entity. Think more along the lines of a spirit possessing or owning a region, and you come along and build on it... but almost as if you expected them to? And were waiting for them, to help them build up a fortress? I'm having difficulty expressing this properly, but I'm trying.

That makes even less sense, at any point you can choose to get up and leave for a new site if you get bored with tormenting dwarves and the local wildlife in the area you're in...

Sounds like a spirit with a massive ego claiming some chunk of land is valuable, and calls forth some poor fool to build upon it. In this case, 7 of them, and eventually, many many more.

[Kuikka]

I stick with the idea that player is the expedition leader/chief/guy in charge - or his/her ideas that are being obeyed - as it's how it works. Careful designing. Decisions about production, jobs, areas and so on without having control over individuals own actions. Certain crimes also have to be acknowledged by player and so on.

[MobRules]

I don't physically mean the carved or built fortress itself. Many seem to misunderstand me. I mean as in the site, or the dwarf fortress. This is still bad example as it represents as a physical entity. Think more along the lines of a spirit possessing or owning a region, and you come along and build on it... but almost as if you expected them to? And were waiting for them, to help them build up a fortress? I'm having difficulty expressing this properly, but I'm trying.

I think "genius loci" is the term you are looking for .

[Bumber]

I view the player as a deity, likely Armok. Adventure mode is the possession of an individual. Fortress mode is the possession of the dwarven hive-mind (subconscious,) but not the individual minds.

[Eidako]

we're the Dwarven Mind as taken over by a God. Every mind is us, we are every mind. At once and forever.

Know that I am the Overmind; the eternal will of the Swarm,
and that you have been created to serve me.