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[Waxonian]

I play DF a while now, but never encountered such a history of blood and tears:

Dungeonvault the Bloody Hellish Fortress-camp of Aquamarines was a rising fortress. It had survived several titans suffering a dozend or two victims over time, and even handled a werellama transforming in the splendid tavern. Only a few kills, and 4 infected dwarfs were successfully separated and eliminated. One of them was kept locked in as manager, will come back to this later. 7 years of peaceful growth.

Then fun started, as we all know and love it. Tantrum, a murdered dwarf, the murderer went to prison for one month. When he was released, he went beserk. A swordsdwarf immediately stopped him, but the damage was done. Nothing unusual so far, the population dropped from close to 200 to about 50, and the situation stabilized.

Until I realized that the werellama manager had been released by accident. I tried to confine him, but he insisted to save wounded and give water and refused to pull his trigger - until he transformed and wiped the hospital completely, killing all the poor souls he had saved before. He was killed, but had infected two others. Unable to take care of them in time with all the dead and wounded, they rampaged one month later, killing almost all remaining survivors.

With the help of a few surviving dogs, they could be stopped; luckily there were no more infected. The survivors were

• 1 healthy dwarf: Oddom Bridgecalms
• 3 wounded
• 9 children, some wounded too

Normally I would have abandoned such a ill fated place. But here I had a new challenge: can it be brought back to glory?

It was hell on earth: corpses, blood, vomit, bodyparts, miasma everwhere. Oddom Bridgecalms went from wounded to wounded, did what he was able to do. Somehow he managed to save them all, thanks to a still well equipped hospital. Only one additional dwarf who got caught in a cage trap during the rampage died, going stark raving mad after being released.

There was plenty of cloth, weapon, armor, food and booze, but still, the situation was desperate. When ghosts started to scare the survivors, engraving slabs was the highest priority. With depression raising, Oddom (now mayor, reelected again and again ) was busy attending meetings and trying to boost morale. All 4 dwarfs had noble rooms assigned, since there were no more nobles, but happiness dropped further and further.

Miasma eventually stopped, but more than hundred skeletons still covered the fortress and scared the small group. And another problem rose: turkey and rabbit numbers started to explode, since livestock was designed for a full blown fortress. The turkey plage could be at least stabilized by deconstruction of the hives, but bunnies were everywhere

Almost one year they had to endure, no immigrants came to relieve the poor souls. Until one day:

Some immigrants have decided to brave this terrifying place, knowing it may be their tomb.

We made it! I never was so happy seeing immigrants. With 20 additional helping hands, a steady flow of coffins and slabs could be established, hundreds of body parts collected, days and weeks of cleaning started, and the bunnies could be handled. The fortress will rise again!

The fortress was down to one single active dwarf. Oddom Bridgecalms will always be remembered!

[Salmeuk]

nice writeup - reminds me of Rimworld and the way you can let the fortress run regardless of the presence of the living. .

dogs and war dogs remain the most logical fortress defense due to their tendency to be present anywhere dwarves congregate

in a similar event, I recently had my starting seven all murdered by a jabberer.. a creature I have never seen as particularly violent or deadly before, but alas it climbed up the staircase and whacked a fool.

I was only saved when the Jabberer, exhausted from fighting, itself escaped to the surface deserts, so burdened it was with the newly granted post-killing title. .