Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Salmeuk]

Almost 10,000 blocks later, the pyramid base is complete.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Work slows as the next phase begins. All hands are recruited to work the ashery and the glass furnace. The magma has risen to the edge of the caldera, and high above the red sand desert, hundreds of clear glass blocks are formed and cooled.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

No sign of goblins for some years now. Good. The soldiers prefer the creative work of glassmaking to the rough sparring of a full training schedule.

The pyramid will need some kind of entrance, but it remains undecided how to create this opening. Will it be a raised bridge, set upon great columns, reaching towards the pinnacle? Or an entrenched tunnel that dives beneath the sand and towards the great halls of the under-fortress? Or will an entrance be needed at all, considering a mountainhome's worth of dwarves live, work, and worship all within the confines of The Spry Volcano?

[brewer bob]

Oh my, that's quite an amount of blocks.

[King Zultan]

Dang that's a lot of blocks and that's one big pyramid.

[Salmeuk]

Pyramid go UP. Dwarves fall DOWN. Big Splat.

Dwarves sing, dance, then fight. Hatred boils over, blood coats the walls.



Will we survive the winter? The glass flows smoothly, many blocks are formed, but not yet enough to finish, and the workers are dying in great numbers.

Damn loyalty cascade caused by my own impatience. Some trade wagon got stuck within the pyramid, forgotten for years, so long that their horses began to breed. So they were "removed" by the swordsdwarves.... someone must have witnessed this, their second cousin twice-removed losing their head, and a slow revenge is being enacted. Poets and bards and miners and masons, all are dying, one by one. Half the fortress hates the other half and runs in fear at the sight of one another, destroying productivity. This may, in fact, be the end. .

[brewer bob]

Oh man, loyalty cascades suck big time.

They can be interesting if it involves only a small group, like what happened in Smithbridges (I think?), but yeah, horrible bug.

(Hope it's been fixed for the Steam release, since it can be quite game-breaking and not fun most of the time. Newcomers surely won't appreciate stuff like that.)

[Salmeuk]

I agree, it's one of those mysterious !!FUN!! events that um can turn out super frustrating when you invest so many hours into a single fortress. luckily I am in the camp of players who don't mind a complete dissolution of my dreams before my eyes. . . it makes for some great excitement watching the survivors attempt to claw their way back to a functional society.

edit: down to thirty insane dwarves. the end is nigh, I cannot bear to watch the total failure of this rather insane (somewhat tedious) project.

Let it be know, in 9 years, we ALMOST built a grand pyramid. The original founders all died under mysterious circumstances, or vengeful ghosts. Insanity befell the remaining population of workers and soldiers.

The glass pyramidion remains half-complete. As the sun sets, a complex of shadows and reflections are formed underneath this sloped ceiling. The large empty volume beneath the white blocks remains warm and toasty, but is now covered in blood and rot.

ASCII overview:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Stonesense overview:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The planned spiral ramp:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Such is the brutal life of dwarven labor. See yall after the steam release 

[Maloy]

The progress and work are fantastic!

[TheFlame52]

There's a DFhack command that fixes this. Unlike a tantrum spiral, loyalty cascades are bugs, and I have no qualms about hacking to fix them.

[King Zultan]

Well dang guess we'll never see the pyramid finished now.

[Maloy]

Wait, you don't wanna reclaim it? It's so close!

I do understand the post-cascade burn out feeling, but there is something really satisfying when you overcome it!

[Salmeuk]

oh I am pretty angry with myself for using militia to kill the traders rather than something "neutral" like a drowing trap (Ah, the morality of DF . . .)

with the new release coming up, I am hoping to start streaming my misadventures in Dwarf Fortress. so I think there is a very real possibility of "The Pyramid 2: Electric Boogaloo".

I must admit, even my most compelling fortresses become tiring to manage. super curious if the new version and associated updates improve this feeling

[TheFlame52]

I might try a volcano embark myself, though I probably won't build a giant pyramid over it.

[kesperan]

The pyramid must rise again!

Great story Salmeuk.