I've been busy with my quantum mechanics class, but the workload has subsided and a sick day resulted in me leaving 90% of my homework at school, so I have plenty of time for Breakfastpit now.
I appreciate you respecting dwarves' personalities, though it takes much time.
My favorite part of Dwarf Fortress (along with the memes and tragicomedy) is the stories that it tells you, if you dig deep enough. I am happy to share the stories that I find.
(I agree with what you said on the "what turns you off about DF" thread - it would be awesome if DF made the legends more accessible - but there is also a feeling of investigation, of research, of uncovering hidden depths, that appeals to me. Playing DF is different from reading a story because it's interactive in many ways - not only do you shape the world, but you decide what story you search for, and you're only given a skeletal plot that you must flesh in yourself.)
It is ...very DF that even if you close the gates, there's still a hole into the insides of pit. Perhaps fortunate, even.
Having your fortress be open to anyone in the first cavern who's willing to climb down a few feet is quite dwarven, but I think I'll try to increase the security in that area. No sense in having this fortress collapse from something simple like that when it could collapse in a much more interesting way instead.
And haha on "they killed a rattlesnake on the beach".
Schadenfreude is even stronger when their problems are the same as your own. It was very amusing to see how a significant number of the goblins weren't killed by us, but rather by a small watery channel and the aura of reanimation that is the bane of our beachfront existence.
13 isn't a child here; 13 is old enough to be legendary axedwarf in military with their own mood's artifact axe, and also as big in body size as somebody ten times older. (Toady could have made bodies stop growing at 25 instead and even grow smaller with age (see most livestock being adult at 1 but full-grown in 2-3), but he didn't.)
I don't disagree. People simply grow up faster in DF. The moral significance of age isn't inherently about time, but rather about maturity.
(And building on what I said before, 18-as-age-of-adulthood is probably mostly a modern idea, and having children in the mid-teens is realistic for the time period DF is set in.)
But Toady One has stated that he doesn't want DF to become known as the game where people can throw poop. In other words, certain mechanics could make DF infamous. (Given how there was apparently a minor "DF is bigoted" hullabaloo some years ago [though that's secondhand knowledge], I understand why Toady is worried about that happening.) Wouldn't
child marriage count as one of those mechanics? (In fact, if the wiki is correct, 23-year-olds and 13-year-olds can marry, and presumably they have sex, since children can appear a year or two later. In the real world, that would be very illegal and horrendously unethical.)
I don't want to start another "DF is bigoted" flame war. I'm not saying this makes DF bad. There aren't actually any real children being abused, and in-game there's no reason to suspect that any abuse actually happens. 13 in DF is equivalent to 18 or so in the modern real world. And I don't think many people actually delve through Legends mode enough to notice things like this, and those who do are hardcore DF gamers who probably won't complain about it. But this seems extremely worrying if Toady is trying to avoid infamy.
(I am coming to realize that perhaps I should not have talked about child marriage, and instead PMed Toady to see if he wasn't aware of this and the associated dangers. But I was never very good at noticing when something shouldn't be said. [tic]Now I am become Roko, spreader of hazards.[/tic])
Zombies believe they can fly. They're correct, of course, because undead beaches are why we can have nice things.
Can they actually? I thought, out of game, that zombies lost the [FLYER] tag.
You're not at war with humans, you're at war with 1 example of a PLAINS civilization. Easy mistake
But the summer (aka human) caravan will not come if there are no peaceful PLAINS (aka human) civilizations.
That's a lot of effort for a ring.
It's strange how there are so many artifact rings, and everyone's trying to get one. (Tastes like LotR.) I mean, the fabled Slippery Pillar is just made out of some stone found in marble (material value 1, not even flux!) and with the Skunk Mountain decorating it. Why would anyone spend years searching for the Skunk Mountain Ring? It doesn't seem to have any kind of special history that makes it valuable, either.
Once the Myth and Magic arc is begun, and artifacts can start having magical properties, this will make a little more sense. (It will taste more like LotR.)
The goblins...Hm, I think that's a type of visitor behaviour. Could make a trap that relies on it.
What behavior was that again? The swimming through channels to reach submerged entrances to the fortress? I can't think of any application better than the trap we already inadvertently have.
It'd be nice if the speardwarf had a flux stone instead of lignite or coal; then you'd have artifact of steel making.
Well, an artifact of iron-forging is almost as cool, right?
Ezum Nokimgerig has interesting to imagine personality changes. Sure, could just imagine Dumbledore, but there are more...fascinating...choices (such as Dumbledore is a S).
That makes sense! Ambition driven by a desire to positively change the world. Dumbledore is a good example of that archetype. Since Slytherins aren't required to be Selfish Evil, I think that Slytherin!Dumbledore would just be a more cunning, secretive, and manipulative version of...
...blessed excrement. Dumbledore's
already cunning, secretive, and manipulative enough to be an honorary Slytherin. (See
here for examples. I knew already knew those examples, but HPMOR!Albus was even more cunning and secretive and plotting, so I wanted to make sure I didn't accidentally project HPMOR!Albus onto canon!Albus.)
You could perhaps transport an eternally burning ring with retracting bridges on floor. 1 bridge flings it to the path of goblins, other one flings it back.
...Wasn't being naked one of the worse moodlets? Good job on that.
I don't think so. It's strength 8, so one of the weaker negative moods. But every little stressful thought counts, and I'm pretty sure that fully naked dwarves have that thought thrice, so it's still important to clothe your dwarves.
A werebeast doctor?
That's...macabrely amusing. They're already in the hospital if they need to be locked in!
And if they injure anyone without killing them, they can patch them right up afterward!
That reminds me: I should really fix the current setup. Akko keeps wandering off just before the full moon before I can notice and station her back in the cell to be walled off. I think a burrow and a lever-operated bridge-door should work.
Coffin hauling...Could use sphere of coffins surrounding the forts with high-priority tunnels so that anything to be placed in a coffin uses side tunnel and goes away from the fort.
But then wouldn't dwarves always be going through the tunnels? I guess if the labyrinth is large enough, corpse haulers probably won't come across anybody else while dragging their morbid work items to their coffins. Even then, dwarves will still be taking roundabout routes all the time, slowing everything down.
Actually, given the already labyrinthine structure of the fortress as it is, that could be an
improvement.
Now a werebead anti-FB unit, that's better.
It's rather tricky to infect and manage multiple werebeasts, so I think I'll leave that project to the next overseer.
Seems to be going well. Maybe Auze will get to become a docter yet.*
*if he doesn't die, of course
You like peace and helping people, and you're a great mathematician. I think I will take you off active duty and make you an actual scholar. If you don't mind, that is. (You're also a High Master Axedwarf, plus you have a need to practice a martial art, so you'll stay in the militia, but you'll have enough off-time to do scholar and doctor things.)
have I survived this far? also, is the corpse stockpile still just below the magma glass area I made? I needed to put it somewhere with less traffic then before, but by now it might no longer be the best spot. was always meant to be temporary.
You're alive but haggard, drawn, and depressed. You've been beaten, you've seen a troll die, you've seen dead bodies, you've been hungry and thirsty while chained up. You've been reliving the trauma and shame of being beaten, and the nagging hunger and dry parchedness that ate away at you while others walked by, ignoring your pleas for food. You've dreamed of the troll's gruesome death most nights. Your wife Shorast is dead. All your other family is elsewhere, except your baby daughter Rakust, who died. (There's also a crippled nephew and a scarred, half-paralyzed niece, but you don't see them very often.) Your head is dented, your beard is torn, and the smell tells you the injury from the beating probably got infected. Your nose is entirely ripped from your face. You tried to meet with the mayor to complain, but couldn't find him.
You got beaten up by Killermartian, the new captain of the guard, because you beat up Mistem, the baroness and legendary glassmaker. The beating was humiliating enough, but what made it worse was that you had recently been demoted from your position as interim captain of the guard. You had been beating up people yourself, both legally and illegally, and neglecting to investigate your own illegal actions too hard. But the mayor figured out your shady doings and installed a new captain of the guard. You used to be the expedition leader, you know, and now you barely have any power. You're the captain of the archer squad - a bunch of ragtag novice marksdwarves who happened to use a crossbow at some point in their lives. Dozebom is also in the squad, but you can't do anything even if you want to. If you tried anything, you'd be beaten and dragged off to jail again. You might lose an ear this time, or an eye. And the jails have been moved, so while you wouldn't have to watch people walk past you as if you weren't there, nobody would notice if you died down in the deep prison, whether of hunger, dehydration, or something else.
And there's not even any good food here. That was the entire purpose of this fortress! Why does this miserable pit even
exist at this point, if not for the breakfast?!
But yes, you've survived. It's questionable whether you'll last much longer, though.
The (third? fourth?) corpse stockpile is still south of the magma workshops, yes.
I would like to be dorfed. Name of Memphis, any dorf with poetic skill.
You are Memphis Otsusgoden, a competent cook. You're also a novice wordsmith, a great poet, a novice reader, a great speaker, and an adequate teacher. You've dabbled in the poetry form "The Learning of Poetry", which is an accurate enough name, as well as the music form "The Chocolate Works-Girdles" and "The Creative Syrups". (You rather like those last two forms.) You are the author of The Black Girders and Raunch, and The Birth of Shade.
You are currently drunk, and quite happy about that. You're not feeling too bad - sure, there have been many corpses here, and you're always grouchy when it rains, and you don't actually have a room of your own, but look! They have finely-made bridges in Breakfastpit! There's also a legendary dining room in which interesting and delightful performances are held (some of which are your own). There's plenty of work for you to do, and it's satisfying for you to improve your skills. You were traumatized once, and you saw Thikut Lengthmines die at the same time, but you were rescued, and the bravery and altruism of the dwarf who saved you reminds you how much there is to be grateful for. There is a well-stocked library filled with books with titles such as "Unknown Dwarf", "Secret Author", "The Knowledge of the Village", "The Book of Roomsounded", and "The Student's Composition". You've read all those books, and they've been satisfying, as was the improvement in your reading skill.
You have one pet, a brown male duckling named Avuz Sobirzuglar. You don't worship any gods. You have only one passing acquaintance here in Breakfastpit, a surgeon named Tekkud Nishothsin.
You're weak and clumsy, but that doesn't matter very much. You have an amazing memory, good endurance, great empathy, and a natural inclination toward language, and that gets you through anything you want to do. You are bald with a gray bearded braid. You are 136 years old. You hate purring maggots. You don't think truth and self-restraint matter very much, but neither do you like merrymaking.
You'd like to raise a family, but you're not very lustful. You are moved by art and natural beauty, but you dislike the natural world. You are slow to trust others, but you form deep emotional bonds once you do. You're ambitious. You are orderly but wasteful. You avoid crowds and don't really care what people think of you. You are altruistic and practical. You tell pointless stories when you're nervous, and you talk very quietly when you're angry.
You are somewhat focused. You have a good balance between work and leisure, and you've done something creative recently. There's good art and drink here, but no friends or family, and no decent meals. You'd like to practice a martial art.