Hello! It's been a while since I've played. I used to love this game and recently felt the itch again after a couple of years. I recently bought a new macbook pro so had a bit of difficulty getting everything running but eventually found Lazy Mac Pack is the (only) solution. Just to get back into things, I generated a standard medium world with a medium history and picked a site partly on the mountains, a dense mahogany forest, and near a small river.
Scholarlances. Our image is that of a giant sloth.
Year 250-251:
The site seems blessed with a surprisingly decent amount of iron and coke-producing rock. A small near-surface level base is created with small farms and the basic layout of some bedrooms and offices. Food is plentiful and the tiny tavern serving custard apple cider and pomegranate mussel roasts quickly becomes jam packed with poets, dancers, scholars, and warriors. The continent I have selected has a burgeoning goblin kingdom nearly surround my site with 5 necromancer towers active. Many of the tavern goers are indeed goblins but everything is peaceful and flourishing. We even manage to pump out a few artifacts - albeit our first death occurs when a stonemason goes mad upon a fruitless pursuit for thread and refuses to drink - including a lovely little microcline mini forge decked out in mother-of-pearl and green glass. Our people are busy keeping the furnaces pumping out the beginnings of a steel industry but the sheer amount of scholars, chemists, and astronomers present cries out for the creation of a library. Below the main fortress floor containing the office of the mayor - a newly arrived necromancer, Nish - manager, and bookkeeper along with the The Bronze Onion, our tavern, and some rudimentary bedrooms we lay out a grand dining hall and space for hospital, jail, barracks, and yes - the library: The Bastion of Rings. The small river is channeled down through the entrance to the library and patrons delight as they are misted upon beginning their scholastic endeavors. By the end of our first year, a water wheel has been built in order to allow for a constant supply of pig tail sheets to the writers of our fortress: a veritable torrent of single page codices focused mostly on medical topics but also on astronomy and mathematics. The mayor necromancer is a legendary surgeon and teacher, so hopefully his new position as chief medical dwarf will pay off. Even if some abominations are born on the iron operating tables, that is a fair price for good health care. Platinum is found frequently as well and soon the great tavern, as well as most rooms, are guarded by the gleaming visages of giant sloths. As the second year begins, our dwarves find themselves existing in a multicultural utopia of elves, goblins, and humans with daily requests for residency in the well furnished inn rooms that have multiplied in geometric excellence around the taverns. We look to the future with hope.
Year 252:
Every fucking day somebody tries to steal the artifacts. When it started, the perpetrator would be interrogated and given a short prison sentence (it seems like everyone in the fort has been corrupted by some outside malignancy - the mayor, the captain of the guard, and the hammerer have all been found stealing) but I am DONE. Executions are common place. The artifacts are clearly visible to all in the library so whenever a theft occurs, it is detected immediately and the criminal proceeds directly up to crammed and goblin-vomit painted Bronze Onion to hand it off to some cretin. After both parties are identified - the militia, now fully donned in steel, cleans them up but there is no suppressing the corruption at this point. I believe there were at least a dozen separate plots to steal a papaya wood bracelet with papaya wood spikes and an image of a papaya wood bracelet in papaya wood. The library has been expanded and more and more of these infernal guests arrive everyday to drink our cider and steal our worthless trinkets. No more. It is Summer and maybe it's the heat or maybe it's the stress from the increasing number of goblin settlements overtaking the former dwarven fortresses in the immediate region but something snaps. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. It is time for a cleansing. The militia is given orders to wipe The Bronze Onion spotless. It is worth noting at this point that the population has quickly grown to around 100, 25% of whom applied for residency rather than arriving in migrant waves. The militia is led by a proud Urist and the first blow in the fracas is a beheading yet quickly it becomes apparent that chaos reigns over the follies we call plans. A cascade of factional violence erupts and every citizen becomes a combatant yet it is not clear which side anyone is on. A child hides in the forge chamber as the floors are soaked with blood and torsos claw their way in the futility over engravings of more noble times. When the dust clears, the population has been reduced to 40. Only one member of the original 7 and only one member of the militia have survived. Our mayor has vanished but further inspection finds his corpse at the bottom of the well in the hospital...how did he get down there? A DFHack command reveals he was pushed there by an elf. Of the applicees for the residency, two were spared from the Civil Brawl of 252 and both are goblins. The hospital is a scene in which every individual who will take part in the future of this fortress is either recovering or help somebody recover. The most deft suturer, a former bone carver, is selected to be the chief medical dwarf and by the time the last patient has crutched out of the doors she is a legendary wound dresser and suturer. The surviving member of the militia, one Ducim, has been given the role of commander and holds 8 kills personally. Across from the former jewel of the fort is carved a catacombs housing all who formerly schemed, plotted, or simply existed in these walls. As the forges begin to return to operation, a dwarf orphan exits the warmth back to her, now private, room.
Year 253-254
Normalcy has blossomed slowly but surely. A special vault with a draw bridge has been constructed to hold the crown jewel papaya wood bracelet of our fortress and overall crime is far down...seems like that massacre wasn't necessary oops. Once again a necromancer has taken residency in the traditional apartment quarters of the mayor and Ducim has become an excellent teacher for the new generation of warrior dwarves. The one surviving member of the original seven is the foremost scholar of The Bastion and has added considerably to the bulk of medical texts on our platinum shelves. In fact, there are now so many doctor dwarves that a doctor lounge cum guild hall has been added by way of corridor to the hospital. A few of these medical professionals are also necromancers so through a secret passage in the chief medical dwarf's apartment is a cozy drowning chamber with a draw bridge/wall that separates this water closet from a barred in giant spider. A number of our residents have gone through some remarkable transformations here....others have not been so lucky but this is Scholarlances: a place where the adage of "practice makes perfect" shapes our every waking thought. The inn complex now hosts a wide array of artists and intellectuals who have come from far and wide to experience the signature custard apple cider and famous steel bound codices lining the platinum shelves. A giant attacked and was quickly dispatched of gaining our fort a beautiful bronze battle axe with rubies and elephant bone - no papaya wood bracelet but in the vault it goes; here we use steel. Speaking of which, all forges, smelters, kilns, and glass furnaces have been relocated many levels below to just above the magma layer. It is a long trip down from the relatively surface-oriented floors of the foot so down there is shaping up a mini colony of its own with, of course, the furnace operator guildhall, two taverns, a small library, and our usually-empty jail. While residents rarely enter into such savageries as days past, events do still occur every now and then but jail is so primitive when there is a perfectly good process of physical and spiritual re-formulation. Who was once a criminal, is now a Pale Hunter. Goblin attacks have been beginning with increasing frequency. The first two were quickly repelled by Ducim-led militia squads but the third was rather devastating to our large stock of swine, cattle, and reindeer so in retaliation, raids have been launched on surrounding goblin settlements and a necromancer tower for good measure. We have been rewarded with many beak-dogs and even a very special book from the local tower that has proved to be a regular best seller but finally the day comes when a huge siege arrives. Goblins, dwarven recruits, trolls, and beak dogs. There must have been 60+ belligerents. Alarm bells sound. Bridges are drawn. The militia is stationed outside the doors of the crimson, cinnabar tower that marks the grand staircase down into our world ,in the wind and rain, while the rest of the citizens hastily hurry down to the dark warm depths. The battle is immense. An entire squad is wiped out completely. Archers go through all of their bolts and the forward guard, led by Ducim, tears through the remaining enemies with ferocious passion. The dwarves are now green exclamation marks, pulsing through piles of limbs and beaks. All around are steel weapons and custard apple cider filled flasks but finally, it is done. There are 8 survivor militia dwarves. Ducim is badly injured and is taken to the hospital where he promptly dies along side several others...a small animal pen zone is created right there in the hospital. The "special" militia squad that does not see the same sort of action as the others arrives and a certain spider is assigned to the pen. The ritual begins. There are 15 surviving militia dwarves, Ducim among them. He is badly injured and must, for now, crawl but he will make it. All peacocks are slaughtered and a lavish feast is prepared for all those who still eat in celebration of the victory. The grand hall is given a new series of engravings to commemorate the mark of a new chapter for the fortress.
254-255
(In progress) Most are recovered from the fight and new dwarves have filled in the ranks of the military that were emptied. Oddly, several of those most exotic survivors of The Burning Assault of 254 have already applied for citizenship again and Ducim once again finds himself heading the militia. Yet fortune is a fickle mistress and as soon as the newest recruits are no longer recruits a massive shadow covers the paper mill on the river. An immense flapping is felt all around and for a second it is as if the entire world and ground as a heart that is beating. But alas, "Tusnung Sizzlefortunes the Wealth of Silver" the Dragon has arrived. The weary alarm bells sound. The green soldiers led by their crawling, stitched, literally fearless leader reach the surface together and charge at the great beast that crossed all of times to be here. The air is rended by a blast of flame that instantly takes out several soldiers. The fighting drives the serpent back, each few tiles costing a dwarf, until - miraculously - the battle ends up descending the staircase of a mine shaft to a tight corridor. Many are killed but crawling from behind is Ducim who slashes with his steel axe and bites with gravestone teeth. With barely 20% of the militia remaining, the dragon falls. Ducim has felled it and with this stroke, adding one more kill to 24 notable and over 60 others, earns himself a new name to match his new, cold flesh: Slayer. We will be dining on dragon flesh tonight.
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6212828 times)