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[Eric Blank]

I thought I was doing pretty well. I had the very basics of the fort infrastructure set up and had even exported some goods back to the homeland.

But I forgot about the local tower entity... The undead thralls came, along with their masters. I assumed, as is usually the case with these things, that the undead would appear, on the map edge and then immediately vanish, but that was my first mistake, and cost me dearly in time, because they instead advanced straight for the fortress. I had built drawbridges, but forgot to link them to levers. So there was nothing keeping the zombies out. I tried to build walls at the one and only possible choke point, but it was too late, because we were overrun. I didn't even have an inkling of a militia, nor any form of weaponry. I unassigned the miners and woodcutters from their labors and drafted them again to wield their weapons, but even with magical pets and their unarmed fellows covering for them, they couldnt stop the zombies. Because the zombies were fully outfitted in metal armor. A few got caught in cage traps, and most still fell to the dwarves. And the Thrall wizards leading the invaders fled. But the damage was done, and the fortress crumbled under the might of only a small handful of remaining dead.

The Comedic Violence turned out to be an apt name for the site government...

[Silverlock]

I had built drawbridges, but forgot to link them to levers.

Sometimes I forget that even the experienced and capable among us still have this happen occasionally.

The Comedic Violence turned out to be an apt name for the site government...

Indeed.

[IncompetentFortressMaker]

What's going on in my fort... where to begin this (literal!) madness? First off, I have only gold and platinum for metals currently, and my nearby brook is frozen for 3/4 of the year (melts only in summer). I've also had trouble trying to get bedrooms for all my citizens - the exact number is 97, but 10 of those are babies. A migrant clothier went stark raving mad some time ago so I memorialized him; now I have a moody diagnoser-turned-miner who wants a cloth type I don't have. Both my clothier and my diagnoser are/were possessed; two other dwarves became moody and successfully produced artifacts, both secretive dwarves. I have no military of any kind, but might be able to assemble a marks squad. I have no weapons-grade metals despite having lignite. I'm rather wishing neither of my successful dwarves could produce artifacts - my total wealth is nearly 200,000 and I've already been attacked by a werebeast (said werebeast killed somebody and left somebody else with a broken heart, so I don't actually have 97 citizens). My dwarves produced a: gold goblet with an image in chalk, offered to parent civ and worth 74,400; and a lignite mechanisms with two images in lignite and one in (I think) cherry wood, claimed as family heirloom and worth 8,400. I also have too many legendary dwarves for my liking - two legendary miners (through skill), two legendary armorers (through skill gained in worldgen), a legendary metalcrafter (strange mood) and another legendary dwarf, the one who produced the mechanisms. May have forgotten some dwarves. Don't have a hospital or well because for a reliable source of water I'll need to breach the caverns, which hasn't been done since my dwarves are defenseless if attacked from the inside. As you can see, I'm not in a great position here. Four stills are still (not intended) having trouble keeping up with my dwarves' alcohol needs, though there's food aplenty and I have rope reeds so can make clothing at any time of the year.

[MasterOfLazdumat]

Departing visitor: Say, why is everyone running back into the fortress?
Citizen: A dragon was just spotted northwest of here!
Departing visitor: Really? That's interesting. Oh, well, see you all later.
Citizen: Yeah, sure.
[Bridge to fortress entrance closes.]
Departing visitor: Hmm.

5 minutes later:

Departing visitor: ARGH I AM CAUGHT IN A CLOUD OF MY OWN BOILING BLOOD!!!

IT WAS INEVITABLE

[Dunamisdeos]

Related to your telling of above story:

Spoiler: a tangential story about DnD that sums up how dwarf react to danger in DF (click to show/hide)

I was DM'ing back in 3.5. PC's are relatively high level.

Party enters a cave located in a warm, humid forest. Inside is a big lake with a small island in the center covered in gems and gold. They were led here by a will-o-wisp. One of PC's made the knowledge check to know likes to lead people into traps for funsies.

They enter the lake cavern, temperature drops noticeably. Slight frost on the edges of some rocks.

They send a water elemental to scout the water. It finds a large underwater cave that it can't see into. They literally say eh, it's not important, we'll check later. And they don't look inside, by choice.

As it is obviously safe now (?) half of em swim to the center to grab the free loot.

It's illusory loot. The 8-headed Cryohydra living in the underwater cave pops up to say hello and attacks. Everyone is upset, as there was nothing they could have done to avoid or prepare for this ambush (? ? ? ? ? ? ?).

Actions taken are: The Fighter uses a sunder to sever a head of the hydra, the cleric (WHO HAS PREPARED PROT. FROM ENERGY TODAY) shoots his bow at it, and the warlock shoots a cold ray at it. You may recognize this as the literal worst actions they could possibly take outside of purposely drowning themselves.

After a few rounds the Cryohydra ends up blasting the fighter and those behind him with cold breath, slaying multiple party members. The Warlock eventually has a light bulb and outright oneshots it with a fire spell.

The last thing said in the session was, quoth the PC's "Welp, there was nothing we could do".

It was very dwarf fortressy. I'm reminded of it every time a dwarf goes out to collect socks during sieges and the like.

[nezclaw]

speaking of dragons. the one that had just arrived at my fort made a beeline for the crypts and is now smashing coffins. i am building cage traps to capture it should it turn around. this.... might be a while. there's a lot of coffins there. it isn't even the main branch of the crypts.
the section in question. i walled off the bottom exit but... unless i can poke it with some dwarves without them getting killed... it's gonna be a while.

[Naturegirl1999]

Why does a dragon feel the need to smash coffins?

[nezclaw]

I have no idea. It's stopped now, and is just sitting there amid the corpses. I made sure to forbid everything in that section so Urist McDumbass wouldn't try to collect the remains.

[anewaname]

You can convince some tame animals to visit the dragon if you use walls of locked doors to seal off the dwarves while the tame animals are pastured on the other side of the wall, then make a meeting area near the dragon and unpasture the animals.

[TD1]

Dude, didn't you read the "don't feed the dragon" sign?!

[nezclaw]

i captured an enemy marksdwarf that i'm gonna chain up in the entrance behind the cage traps. thing is, how do i get the dragon to actually go there instead of just flaming? it melted two of the initial cave traps i rigged. i did set up one with an artifact mechanism later but...

[Eric Blank]

Dragonfire doesn't cross z-levels, so display your prize through fortifications on one level, with cage traps on a second level (above or below) the dragon must path through but doesn't have sight line to the target from. The dragon will only breathe fire on the level where it has sight of the target, but will path through the level with the traps, where it won't be trying to breathe fire.

[Staalo]

Dragonfire doesn't cross z-levels, so display your prize through fortifications on one level, with cage traps on a second level (above or below) the dragon must path through but doesn't have sight line to the target from. The dragon will only breathe fire on the level where it has sight of the target, but will path through the level with the traps, where it won't be trying to breathe fire.

I'm sure I've seen a dragon shoot flames upwards from an underground hidey-hole once. It managed to start a brushfire that raged through the map, despite never venturing to the surface.

EDIT: Yes, that was in the two hundred megabeast thread. Well that was several versions ago, so things might have changed.

[xordae]

A mercenary who was part of my army for a while, this elf got depressed so I took her out of the service. She spent a few months trying to cheer up, another month or so in prison, threw a tantrum, toppled a statue in the temple, punched a war lion to death and then was herself punched to death not by my hammerer (whom I chose for being a weakling), but by an elite swordsdwarf. I guess the curse was death by irony.

[Lendemain]

I started playing again, after several years without the possibility to play videogames. This is a new version for me! The trees have changed, they are super big now. Adventurers want to settle in my fortress to "kill monsters" which apparently means hang out and sing in the dining hall? And oh, a voracious cave crawler managed to get in the stairwell and munch on a bunch of dwarves before I could get around to walling off the cavern entrance. Gee, that's a lot of dead dwarves. It's different, but it's still the same!