We of the Charcoal Urns have reached our seventh year in Tholrakust, "Deeptombs" in the common tongue. A bit of backstory: The fortress is a 1x2 (vertical) embark with half savannah and the other a terrifying lone mountain. It frequently rains human blood (or snows in winter) and the dark powers of the mountain also have the effect of raising the odd corpse or two, though thankfully less powerful than when alive. Still, it makes hauling a dead forgotten beast to the butchery a dangerous effort.
The first embark attempt was destroyed after a werehyena ravaged the fledging militia and the reanimated corpses killed the rest. The second attempt was a squad of macedwarves who, quite sadly, did not have their weapons equipped upon arrival and died soon after. The third (and current) was a band of axedwarves who, lead by our expedition leader Zefon Cometposts was finally able to retake Deeptombs. The mountain continues to resist our excavating of its core, raising corpses and raining vile weather whenever it can spare, but we seem to be doing alright. A forest has literally just sprung up in the past year or two outside the gates and we like to think that it is a reflection of us taming the dark force and enabling life to regrow. The entire fortress is built around a 4x4 plunging chasm of empty space, so the dwarves need to be careful when merrymaking in the tavern not to tip off the edge and to their deaths. Burying citizens in coffins doesn't seem to work so their remains are atom smashed and their entire life history etched onto a small slab and chucked into a big room with all the others.
I am keeping it small and compact to avoid fps death and am hoping it will be a long lasting fort. I recently spent loads of effort into finding suitable matches and have
conscripted arranged certain dwarves into marriages with compatible others. The aim is to bring up population to 50 to enable a mayor and then leave it trucking along there.
Let me know if those images don't work as I really don't know how to work the image system on this forum.