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Voting closed: November 04, 2022, 09:24:51 am

[Maloy]

Apologies for the delay in updating. Christmas and New Years time was wild busy. Weird how we consider it a break when sometimes you end up working even more than during regular seasons.
I'm gonna keep doing prompts as already done, but also I think I'm gonna add some parts where we have influenced Tumam and made a permanent impact on his personality. I'll highlight yellow.
Also throwback, I know, but wanted to update that I checked legends from when the party of heroes fought the forgotten beast. Egem getting the kill wasn't a glitch! He fired a bolt and it perfectly pierced the beast's brain, but he and everyone else was blasted away from it so they were too far away to get the notification that it happened.
______________________________________________________________


Escaping the dwarf city thankfully was easier than it seemed. Despite being surrounded by angry dwarves, Tumam dove upwards, flying straight through the shaft and taking him to the surface before anyone could reach him.

Tumam fled east and flew through the night. Instinct guided him, much as it had called him to other locations, only now he was called to a different dwarven city.

this city was abandoned completely it seemed

According to the signs this city was known as Lashedfurnace. As Tumam descended deeper he felt another lost memory activate

I was in a great swamp. Why or where I can't quite recall, but I am in one.
I was watching dwarves. A whole camp of mercenaries;
Laughing, drinking, cursing and spitting around a fire.
They were looking for me. Why, I still can't recall, but they sought after me.
The sigil they each bore on their chest marked them as worshipers of a war god. A famous order of mercenaries from the city of Lashedfurnace.
I'm impressed that such a large array of enemies have gathered to destroy me. Also I'm particularly hurt by the dwarves too. I cannot recall why.

The vision ends. Although Tumam never came to this city personally it seems that it had a place in his past life
What are these visions? Are they real? Trustworthy?

Tumam enters a massive industrialized smithy, as dwarves like to make, where rows upon rows of forges line up. An army could be equipped in a single day with an assembly like this, but more important than the dusty anvils was the treasure lying amongst the forges.

A dead body. One of a giant flying insect. A very giant insect.
It almost certainly had to be the creature that had killed the city, and Tumam felt some gratitude towards it, but someone had recently killed it.
What heroes could possibly have done this?
He raised the destroyed of cities as his servant and departed with it.

From there Tumam flew to the ruins of goblins. Fortunately, they were all dead, as goblins were just a fraction more disgusting than dwarves.

The ruins were somehow melancholic despite the peace that existed in the absence of the previous inhabitants.
How do we feel about the death of another civilization?

Down and down flew Tumam into the deepest pits accompanied by a primordial horror that was bound to his will.
As it turns out goblins dump their dead in huge piles at the bottom of the pits and this is convenient as they are all in one place.


Tumam does the same at a second pit only a few hours away.


There was one settlement nearby to both these dark pits: A small bandit-like fortress of dwarves and goblin survivors.
This would be the best location to test his new army!

[King Zultan]

What are these visions? Are they real? Trustworthy?

Sure, why not, embrace your lack of sanity!

What heroes could possibly have done this?

Probably someone more skilled than you are, you gotta work on that at some point.

How do we feel about the death of another civilization?

Not sure why you're making such a big deal about that, it seems like there are a lot of those around, just another one on the pile.

This would be the best location to test his new army!

Seems like a good plan to me, nothing says fun like getting a hoard to kill everyone in sight.

[Maloy]

My responses(which I was slow to add)

What are these visions? Are they real? Trustworthy?

Lost memories of the hated dwarves. Filthy disgusting hairy creatures that almost certainly are the reason we are left in this amnesiac state

What heroes could possibly have done this?
Someone who actually knows how to fight, isn't running around naked, and was a fair hand with a crossbow I would say!

How do we feel about the death of another civilization?
It is inevitable. All is dust

Story Entry

The most noticeable sound was the chattering. It was strange, but rhythmic at a distance. Close up though it was deafening!
The sound of thousands upon thousands of bones clattering together as a horde of skeletons from the ruins of goblin kind.
Goblins made up the majority, obviously, but behind them were humans, dwarves, elves and even capybara men!
In front of them all a swan flew accompanied by an undead horror from the deepest abysses



The fort did not see Tumam or his forces coming at first. Although not known to Tumam the place was essentially a dumping ground for survivors of wars against goblins, the undead, and even demons!
Thus it wasn't very organized. By the time someone realized what the chattering sound was and called out the horde was too close to the front gate to bar it shut.

So, they surged forth swarming dwarves who were caught away from the rest and tearing them apart. Most of the residents huddled within a central building, and all Tumam had to do was fly to the other side of it and his horde would rush at highest speeds to catch up with him- tearing apart any living creature in their path while doing so.-

The horde descended.


The dwarves and goblins made a valiant stand! Everyone equipped for battle or simply willing to fight for their lives lined up against the building forming a wall of living flesh, muscle and metal to repel death itself.

Tumam could hear an incredibly loud crash and collective grunt as the two forces met and did battle. Tumam did not know this location and thus when invading he did not realize it was full of war survivors. The place was absolutely bristling with armored warriors and they did battle well. Tumam's forces were thoroughly outmatched in skill and equipment; with their only real advantage being that they were difficult to kill and most combatants did not know the secret: Destroy or sever the head. Or shatter the chest completely.


And the truth of the matter was that this place was more populated than the city he had tried to invade.


The wall of living flesh held and soon it turned into a semi-circle as it overtook and surrounded his horde.

Many dwarves died though. And even as the battle ended many began to give into their injuries and collapsed dead.
Amongst the newly dead tumam found a great prize. The mangled carcass of another swan man, or woman, it was hard to tell at this point.
Do we care if members of our own species die? There are very few of us

They were covered in iron armor that fit them and Tumam quickly stripped the corpse for the armor.
As he finished taking the dead warrior's treasures and identity he heard a baleful chant being taken up by the survivors.

It was a chant to the god of death - The Spry.

I sit upon a throne of darkened stone. The building glows with baleful light emanating from the stone itself.
This is my place. My home.
Creatures are on their knees before me showing obeisance. They beg me to teach them secrets of immortality.
To give them power over the world.
On the wall behind me is a great mural. It depicts a massive skeleton reaching down. It's appearance is divine as if it was never meant to be trapped inside flesh and tied to organs.
It reached down with great power shining in it's hands. Reaching for a swan. Reaching for me!
I am the chosen of The Spry and my will is his own!

The vision ends.

What do we do now?


My responses:
Do we care if members of our own species die? There are very few of us
Tragic that such a noble creature had to die, but they picked the wrong team. Perhaps once we purge the bearded worms from the earth we can build a place for our own people.

The wall of living flesh held and soon it turned into a semi-circle as it overtook and surrounded his horde.
To be foiled again! Pathetic! Enraging! Unacceptable!

What do we do now?
We will depart! You will train! We shall become unstoppable, raise more minions and go directly to that city that first defied us! We will find out who we were.
OOC:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So....We lost our horde. Sure, but Tumam needed some armor. I think the problem with a successful zombie horde is that we need heavy hitters who can do a lot of damage while the rest just absorb damage. More than likely Tumam needs to be our heavy hitter so he needed that armor. Intelligent undead would be fun to have, but their AI wouldn't register the dwarves as enemies immediately like the zombies do so they'd be standing around for most of the fight.

That fort is from early in Kanil's adventures. It was started by dwarves fleeing the war with the goblins. Then goblin refugees also came. Then after certain historical events the dwarves began persecuting followers of the Spry so a huge cult of them are here. Finally, losing their capital to the undead and fighting a war against demons drove even more refugees there.

It's currently the most populated location on the planet.

[King Zultan]

The wall of living flesh held and soon it turned into a semi-circle as it overtook and surrounded his horde.

Well shit, we don't seem to be having much luck with this undead horde thing.

Do we care if members of our own species die? There are very few of us

Everybody dies guess it was their time.

What do we do now?

Time to train, gather a new horde, and try again

[Maloy]

*Cue swan-based intense training montage that lasts for a good while*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YYmfM2TfUA

Shortly after a now incredibly muscled Tumam flew down from the mountains to the place of his first defeat: the city of Oarpassionate


Tumam arrived at the market square on the surface of the city and noticed a few of things:

-Two dwarves were still moving dead bodies from his earlier escapade
-One of those bodies was the king of the dwarves
-it was mostly children on the surface other than the two corpse haulers

At this point Tumam's reflexes were now lightning fast and so with one hand he gestured and all the corpses that were salvageable begin to wriggle, writhe and rise.
With another hand he swiftly lashed out and sent his morningstar through a dwarf child's head killing it instantly.
Do we care about the children?
He raised the child as a zombie too and his small mob of death swarmed the two adults and other children.
Tumam flew ahead to catch one adult who was making a run for it and quickly dispatched the dwarf. Then he raised that one too!


The staircase downwards was the most bloody affair. There was no space to maneuver and so when violence frequently broke out the dead were crawling over each other to get in reach of dwarves holding the line. It was a disturbing orchestra of grunting, roaring, growling, squelching, crunching and rattling noises. Blood would soon fill the entire stairway as well as bodies too damaged to salvage.

Tumam focused as a line breaker. Interfering where dwarves got in the way or were turning the tide.

He reached the residential levels where he had been foiled last time. Only now he still had plenty of undead and he himself could fight quite well. His mob was busy attacking a pair of dwarves holding the lower stairs and so Tumam used this time to float into the residential area to begin purging. He killed a street preacher who shouted of the apocalypse and raised him to bring a new message to the city. The new zombie quickly scampered off to chase another dwarf while one of Tumam's zombie children from the surface caught up with him. The child was now covered in gore with baleful light in his eyes. He was a wraith.

Tumam floated down hallways looking for other dwarves and one baron, covered in jewels and crafts, ran by. The child wraith sprinted after him and the nobleman was too weighed down by his baubles. The dwarf kept trying to crawl away as the child savaged him and Tumam merely floated on.

He checked all the hallways in this quarter and came back to find the nobleman far too mutilated and mangled to be raised again. This seemed to be a problem with the zombies: They were so enthusiastic to snuff out life they often tore it apart too much to raise it as another zombie. Do we care about wasted corpses?

Finally, Tumam descended to the deepest parts of the city! The dwarves would deny him his truth no longer!

More resistance on the way down, but Tumam had raised a horse and it quickly did terrifying work. Even quickly killing another horse that aided the dwarves; which Tumam also raised.

In the final room a great pile of treasure had been stacked. Chests and bags overflowing with the most expensive of dwarven crafts and decorative items. Tumam was no appraiser, but assumed the value was massive.
Although Tumam was unaware of the current political goings on in the city; more than likely the remnants of the necromancer goddess Cor's army were looting everything of value in the city. With their numbers being reduce and with no way to create new intelligent undead or zombies they were likely taking everything of value to move to another location.
Tumam was unaware, but also he did not care about the purpose of the treasure pile.
His horde surged over the dwarves protecting the trove and as it was being decorated by viscera Tumam picked up a beautiful tome he found on the ground.

As it turns out Tumam forgot how to read.




Tumam stood for awhile perplexed. Waiting for...something?
Finally, a vision came to him!

I saw Oarpassionate, but it was different. Far more grand, bustling with life, hope and potential!
This is not the Oarpassionate of today, now a cemetery, but the one of my youth. Oarpassionate was my home where I lived as a craftsman.

Yet questions remain for Tumam:
Why was he imprisoned?
How long has he been gone?
Why does he feel this need to destroy the dwarves?
Who was the man from the tavern and who was the one who set him free from prison? and why?

Clearly the only way to find definite answers was to press forward and continue to follow these inhibitions to the unlocking of his total memory.

He led his disgusting bleeding host upwards and scoured the residential quarters once more.
A dwarf came out with a knife "Villain!" he spit at Tumam and missed
"I will slay your evil host and save my people!"
The young dwarf warlord was no match for the horde. Tumam tried to kill him quickly, but by the time he died his body was far too mangled to use.
Are we going to get to have heroes chasing after us now?

Tumam raised a dead giant ant-soldier as a zombie. The other ants seemed to be hiding well, but Tumam felt no need to kill them specifically.

He did find one goblin warrior hiding: a living soldier of the necromancers


He killed him too and when confident that the city was scoured thoroughly he ascended back to the surface.

Oarpassionate is one of the two cities that dwarfkind was originally birthed from. It's political, religious and cultural significance to the species can't be denied. Even when under necromancer occupation the dwarves still lived in their home city and sought to live as well as they could. Their was a major difference between Tumam and the goddess Cor though:
Cor and her minions only sought to despoil. To take everything of value for themselves and tyrannize weaklings with their army of the dead. Tumam just wanted to burn it all down.


So the most sacred of dwarven sites was left nothing but a cemetery. It's corpses that were beyond salvage were not even properly buried, but fated to be mold colonies for cavernous fungi. Perhaps one day the entire city would just become another mushroom forest?


OOC
Finally! A WIN!

Oh also I noticed this in previous worlds I play:  warlords start cropping up as chaos ensues in civilizations. I played one civ that was almost completely conquered by goblins and when I went to their destroyed homeland it turned out that almost the entire dwarven race were soldiers serving under a warlord! So this means we've made a negative impact! YAY!

[King Zultan]

Do we care about the children?

No, probably not. I mean it's not like their our kids.

Do we care about wasted corpses?

A few wasted corpses doesn't matter since we can always make more with what we have.

As it turns out Tumam forgot how to read.

Damn man, why'd you go and do a thing like that?

Why was he imprisoned?

No idea I wasn't there.

How long has he been gone?

Not sure on this one ether as I wasn't there for it.

Why does he feel this need to destroy the dwarves?

I mean why not it seems like a fun thing to do, do we really need a reason?

Who was the man from the tavern and who was the one who set him free from prison? and why?

Not sure.

Are we going to get to have heroes chasing after us now?

Probably, the bastards never let anyone have any fun.

Tumam just wanted to burn it all down.

Always a good goal to have.

So this means we've made a negative impact! YAY!

Huzza, that's the best kind of impact!

[Maloy]

Yeah I'd say similar responses from me! Here's our global concentrations of dwarves using map overlays! Not too much working to do!



Source: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/or8eL

The small group of dwarves were gathered in what others would call a heap of rubble, but to them was known as "the pit". The pit was the only place to get a drink in Leapbodice and when people weren't digging around for valuables in the rubble or dreaming of safer places to live they were here.
Mato supped on an ale that was diluted with 2/3 of water. He and his fellow drinkers that day were miserably quiet. What was there to talk about other than the same terrible news? Leapbodice had its hey day once! Used to be a dwarven capital with a world of trade that humans helped build a highway towards just so they could get a taste of all that wealth.
Then the demons came. Bad for everyone else sure, but for guys like Nako and the rest it was fine. Demons rewarded well and they all feasted on the spoils of the countryside.
Until the alliance of men, elves, dwarves and even the undead stopped them and sealed the portal to the underworld.
Alliance didn't have enough manpower left to root out guys like Nako though and left the city a heap of ruin. This seemed to turn out fine too, because when the necromancer died one of her lieutenants came here and took over. The cultists of Leapbodice essentially just became bandits that were particularly vicious.
Then the heroes came. Killed the master of the ruined city and slew the super-powered undead she-dwarf that was leading the whole military!
A day later a small army of humans from another bandit tribe invaded and the cultists barely survived their luck. Dwarven invasions were regular and they they just barely made it through the last one by collapsing a whole section of the city and sealing everyone inside. Including Mato's wife!
There were three times more corpses than people now and the city felt a lot like Mato's ale.
At this point the survivors agreed to lay down arms when the next force came through. Dwarf military usually didn't kill civilians and so the cultists just laid their gear down wherever it fell and dressed normally to show they wouldn't fight.
All Nako and the rest could do is sit around and stew on their misery dreaming of better days of glorious pillaging and in Mato's case his pretty wife that he had lost.

Into the rubble pile did a white stork man hover. His wings gently flapping to keep him from touching the floor while his morning star jingled on its chain. None of the dwarves recognized this particular white stork man and this one flew down to meet with the one they did know on the other end of the pit: Bosa Singehate/
Bosa was technically the new boss over the whole city. Former plague doctor and in this city that meant she brewed plagues to use on enemies. No one left to lead so now the doctor was in charge, but she did hardly anything.
All the dwarves watched the two white storks speak, but none could hear from this distance.
Suddenly, Bosa stood up and nodded her head to the newcomer. She quickly walked out without looking back as if afraid.
The newcomer floated over to the watching crowd.
"You lost?" asked Nako. It's difficult to read the face of a bird person, but it seemed as if the white stork man was smiling. The newcomer proceeded to kill every single person in the bar.


Tumam's quest proceeded well. After destroying the dwarf city he immediately led his band of undead, which were mostly animals, to the next dwarf village. It was a massacre. Every undead horse became wighted and by the end were so quick and strong they could kill a dwarf in a single kick while dodging from any blows. The sheriff was being attacked by one and a child ran out to save him. The sheriff used the child's distraction to run away and left the boy to be beaten to death. Thankfully, the sheriff did not escape although his body was too mangled to use after.

While his forces did all of that Tumam crept into another village into the night and snuck by its elven guards. He killed every single dwarf in his sleep, but did not kill elves for he was not sure how he felt about them yet other than a vague sense of intimidation. Do we wish to spare elves we run into?
He finished both villages and left his band to pick around the ruins while he followed his instincts to the next dwarf city known as Leapbodice.
He spared the white stork woman who ruled it and gave her the chance to flee. Running into his own kind was rare and she was a pretty bird!


After decorating the sorry excuse for a tavern with brains and blood he hovered downwards into the ruined city. As he did so he saw a passage covered in rubble. One of many, of course, but he could sense something beyond it: Life force.

Using a spell he remembered he was able to articulate just where the rubble ended and teleport to the other side...

Kivish did her best to keep spirits high, but it was difficult. Every dwarf here knew that there was little chance they'd ever escape this ruin.
Kivish had been a spy for the dwarves of the craterous glazes to the city for four decades! She had been here for the whole demon war and the banditry after. The information she provided was critical in routing both. She helped oversee what was to be her final mission. She even took out her old armor and weapons with it and triple layered steel mail.

The dwarves had come to finish this city's foul contributions to the world's history. No more bandits, cultists or demons. They even brought along medical dwarves to oversee civilians living here and administrators to help transition them back to dwarf society. One such was the wife of the baron of Arrowcrevice. Came despite urging from her husband and court.
It was going to be an easy and merciful task, but it didn't work out.
Kivish did not count on the cultists intentionally collapsing part of the city on top of the invaders. She also did not count on her husband, Mato, being the one to do it. She did not expect that to hurt as much as it did even if she had hidden her status as spy from him.
It had been a month and the survivors were living on what little fungi grew through the ruins and a pathetically small drip of water that fell through a corner of the ceiling. She was glad she had written a letter to her adult children before this and so either way she knew they would know of her love for them. The few cultists in this tunnel system agreed to a truce as they had also been betrayed.

Suddenly, in the distance, Kivish heard screaming! Out from another portion of the tunnels they were in a dwarf crawled out covered in blood only to be leaped upon by another dwarf whose body was so damaged he shouldn't even be alive! Kivish drew her blade as more rabid dwarves followed...

Purging the tunnels was decently quick work. To save time Tumam raised the dwarves he killed so they could chase the ones running like wolves chasing rabbits. The armored she-dwarf was interesting though. She ended up single-handedly killing every single one of his zombies! Around 7 of them and Tumam was quite worried about fighting her, but as it turns out a zombie had wrestled her helmet off before being slain. He quickly ended her with two strikes before she could go at him with that fell blade.
He then killed the baroness-consort and her staff and then followed a staircase down into the rest of the abandoned tunnels.

There he saw something he wasn't quite expecting. A dwarf covered in metal armor and emblazoned upon his chest as the symbol of the long dead goblin civilization: The Plagues of Forking.
What's worse is that the disgusting creature's eyes glowed blue! He was one of Cor's Cold Hunters! Tumam's undead would not recognize this dwarf as an enemy and so would not help him, but Tumam knew that the only thing standing between him and a new memory were the lives of this city's dwarves. He readied his morningstar.


OOC:
Pausing here because fighting Cold Hunters is near impossible normally and that'll be a long one! This one is armored! I never fight armored ones! This is what I was worried about running into for a long time!
Incorporated legends lore for the city, Mato, Kivish and the baroness consort.

The city has a common glitch for both dwarf and goblin fortresses where it generated whole portions of the city that are completely cut off from the rest. Since its a ruined city I'm just gonna go with that it was collapsed intentionally to cut it off and it works out because the whole section was full of Craterous Glazes dwarves and not cultist ones

I didn't kill the elves because they were Neko's entire extended family including the ones we saved with Kanil. I CAN kill future elves we run into. I didn't this time especially because we can have a few elves survive into Fairy Tales and I think I want it to be his family.

I'm hitting that part of the game I knew would be hard for me: I feel really bad wiping out populations lol. For some reason I have an easier time being evil in games like Baldur's gate than dwarf fortress. I think maybe it's because df npcs have such complex personalities that they feel a little more real? Seeing acts of heroism, cowardice, begging for their lives, or screaming in rage at the end. All hits different. I'm weird I know

[King Zultan]

Do we wish to spare elves we run into?

No why should they get special treatment.


Good luck fighting the cold hunter, hopefully goes easier than the last few, but the addition of armour does have me worried it might not.

The city has a common glitch for both dwarf and goblin fortresses where it generated whole portions of the city that are completely cut off from the rest.

I didn't know that, maybe that's why I can never find my way out when I spawn in a fort.

[Maloy]

Thinning the dwarf population going good, but wanted to post before update with some ideas.

After dwarves are dead we should be in age of twilight from there we only have two phases left before fairy tales!

1. Elven Extinction
2. Pruning(basically prune down remaining numbers to make humanity more than 90% of pop)

I was trying to think of a fun spin for elven phase and here is my idea:

What if I make the save available for any and everyone. As many of us as are interested can play and wipe out the elves and share our stories of doing so! At the end we can decide which one we want to be the canon save, but the stories would still be up as alternate timelines.
Sound fun? Any interested takers? I know Avolition said he was down for more extermination!

[King Zultan]

Sounds like some exciting stuff in the works for the future.

When it comes to the second phase does that include wiping out the animal people or are there other things that need to be removed instead?

[Maloy]

From what I understand reading the wiki I don't think we need to purge the wilds of the randomly spawning animal folk. Only the ones integrated into society.
Kobolds too.

Basically we will just be pruning numbers down. As of right now I think the number of humans is in the 380s? So  there can't be more than 30 non-humans on the population screen if we wanna play it safe.
I'm wanting to reserve those spots for our adventurers and favorite npcs like Nemo and Tosid and what not.

[King Zultan]

That's good to hear that you don't have to hunt down every random critter in the woods.

Also dang having to hunt down and murder all but 30 of each race is going to be quite the task.

[Maloy]

I've done an incredible amount of genocide while the forums have been down! Chugging along to achieve our goal!

I'll probably make one or two big posts about what all happened and go from there. Also expect more lore posts.


Of the people who read these updates: Any of you want to take a copy of the save for my "exterminate the elves" competition? I'd like to see more than one of us doing it at a time and basically we all just vote on the cannon extinction event!

[King Zultan]

I've done an incredible amount of genocide while the forums have been down! Chugging along to achieve our goal!

A bit of genocide is always a a good use of spare time.

[Maloy]

Tumam stared down the Cold Hunter. He felt an endless sea of malice and murderous intent behind it's eyes! Tumam blinked first. He quietly backed away and decided to go around and focus on the other dwarves.
He hunted each one down! He bashed a baroness' skull in and dueled with a dwarf sworn to a long dead goblin kingdom. Tumam supposed it was fitting that all the players in this war represent things dead and gone.




From here the momentum of destruction sped along at an unbelievable rate. Cor's conquest of Adelaathira was far different from Tumam's. Hers was slow, patient and methodical as she played forces against each other, assisted the alliance with defeating the demon invasion, and raised the greatest heroes from each of these wars. Cor sought to rule the world and its inhabitants. Tumam only wanted to purge it completely.
Without being compromised by greed or a desire for minions to command Tumam had no need to slow himself down. His horde advanced and what took Cor decades to achieve: Tumam accomplished in a week. The dead do not sleep or hunger and advanced ceaselessly.

The first two hillocks were caught entirely unawares. Zombies and wights brutalized the populations. Undead horses in particular were overwhelmingly deadly for they lacked the fear that kept their living variants from unleashing lethal force. Each kick of a hoof left a dwarf dead!
The new queen of the silver of staves hid while a brave woodcutter tried to buy time for her to escape. In her fear though she merely cowered and was swarmed. The woodcutter slew two zombies and attempted to break free when realizing it was hopeless, but he too fell.

All were raised, but Tumam couldn't recognize which dwarf was the former queen with what a brutal state they were all in.

Oh there were many tragic scenes too. Whole homes full of children that Tumam himself looked away from as his horde did their work mercilessly. In the very first hillocks a sheriff ran in fear from the horde, but was too slow. A child charged in and bought him time and he continued to run as he left the little girl to be torn apart. The sheriff was still hunted down anyway.

The next few hillocks had time to prepare a motley defense. New self-proclaimed warlords rallied dwarves clad in steel encrusted with jewels. The finest soldiers left in all of dwarfdom: veterans of the war with the demons!
New barons, counts and kings were selected since the last hillocks was destroyed and these were now also steel warriors.

They seem to finally be responding to us fittingly, right?
Tumam briefly retreated, but only to find a graveyard...

Someone had left a whole fortress of dead bodies ripe for the resurrecting.

With this horde and the last elite of the combined Silver of Staves and Craterous Glazes a battle of legends ensued.
The outnumbered dwarves danced in martial trances and weaved bloody ruin amongst the horde. The undead nails and teeth could do little against the armor! Each soldier took a name for himself or herself as a warrior of this world's legends!


Source: Bottom of the picture
The dwarves would most certainly have won the battle were it not for the glaring weakness of the living: They grow tired.
One by one dwarves would fall in exhaustion and the dead would pummel them and pull their armor off.
The whole time Tumam floated in the background and watched the carnage, but as dwarves would fall he would often hover in and deal killing blows instantly.
This might seem a mercy, but in reality he wished to preserve the legendary warriors for reanimation. The new legendary zombies could punch and kick with such strength as to collapse in the skulls of enemies completely!



Dwarven civilization would fall with a battle-cry and piles of dead mangled enemies. Although the bearded fiends would surely never choose extinction this is likely the only ending they would ever find acceptable.

Source: https://rare-gallery.com/4563265-dwarfs-warrior-fantasy-art.html


Tumam's horde shuffled around as he floated a few feet from the ground and looked up.
His work was partway done. Dwarven civilization was all gone. All of it!
Yet, still, many of the bearded vermin dwelt as bandits, nomads, refugees and mercenaries in the anarchic human lands to the south. The majority of the species, in fact.

His quest was entering its most important phase. Tumam was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he did not even notice the living dwarf standing beside him until the dwarf coughed "Ahem"
Tumam turned slowly. Shocked that the creature wasn't torn limb from limb by his minions.
"Found yourself yet, Tumam?" he said
Tumam recognized this one. He was the tavern keeper from Oarpassionate the dwarf capital!
The dwarf didn't even seem concerned that he was standing on the ashes of his own dead kingdom, but instead pulled out two mugs and a flask and began pouring. He handed Tumam a mug of dark liquid and smiled warmly saying "Let's have a chat for old time's sake"


OOC:
The number of epic battles and horrifying moments was beyond counting and I love that about dwarf fortress. It is a story generator! The most interesting ones will probably be lore posts instead of forcing myself to slow down the progress to fairy tales just to fit every little thing.