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[Kagus]

Rather slippery, those olmmen...  You have to be careful.

[Kalimar]

Tragedy....One of my Dwarfs got her upper body mangled by a fireball, and i drafted her husband into the military. For 10 years it never healed, and he visited her every day. Until we released the Demons, the husband got his hand ripped off by a frog demon, and he was laid in the same bed, where he died for lack of sleep. The wife went crazy and lept into the river...leaving their only child an orphan.

You might want to report this one as a bug.

No, that's not a bug. Some wounds just don't heal, and he should have had the bed unassigned... unassigned beds are Hospital.

Alright, here's my depressing story. I had a Marksdwarf lose both eyes and because of this, when he shot his arrows, they flew all over the place. Had numerous "Liddle Bruther" animals.

[DarkMagnus]

Tragedy....One of my Dwarfs got her upper body mangled by a fireball, and i drafted her husband into the military. For 10 years it never healed, and he visited her every day. Until we released the Demons, the husband got his hand ripped off by a frog demon, and he was laid in the same bed, where he died for lack of sleep. The wife went crazy and lept into the river...leaving their only child an orphan.

You might want to report this one as a bug.

No, that's not a bug. Some wounds just don't heal, and he should have had the bed unassigned... unassigned beds are Hospital.

Alright, here's my depressing story. I had a Marksdwarf lose both eyes and because of this, when he shot his arrows, they flew all over the place. Had numerous "Liddle Bruther" animals.

CRAAAAAWLING INNNN MY SKIIIIN, THESE >+TURTLE BONE BOLTS+<, THEY WILL NOT HEAL

[Eater of Vermin]

There is no more depressing sight than seeing a bunch of immigrants trundling across your borders, accompanied by the Baron, his Consort, a Tax Collector and Hammerer.   

[MuonDecay]

Update: Seeing a Fey mood FINALLY show up in my fort, on my primary smith...only to find out she wants something that I can't make, and don't have a prayer of getting for her until the Dwarven Caravan shows up. Three months from now.

I think I'm going to lose my best smith.

I fix those tragedies with Dwarf Companion. Change their demands to something similar that I actually have.

Sure it's cheating, but damn does a dwarf really think that having that image of a square in rope reed rather than silk is worth their life?

[Joseph Miles]

Update: Seeing a Fey mood FINALLY show up in my fort, on my primary smith...only to find out she wants something that I can't make, and don't have a prayer of getting for her until the Dwarven Caravan shows up. Three months from now.

I think I'm going to lose my best smith.

I fix those tragedies with Dwarf Companion. Change their demands to something similar that I actually have.

Sure it's cheating, but damn does a dwarf really think that having that image of a square in rope reed rather than silk is worth their life?

Yes, yes they do.

[Endless Mike]

I got a couple....

On my very first fortress, I got bored in the second year because I didn't like the way it was going, and decided to flood the fort. As I was admiring my handiwork, I noticed a single kitten trapped by the water in the long hallway leading to my crypts. It kept struggling against the current, trying to reach the stairs, but was pushed back each time. Eventually, it just sulked at the end of the cavern, next to the coffins, and waited for the hall to fill with water. Hell of an introduction to DF that was...

Another time, I was doing a variation on the Hermit challenge, using two dwarves, one male, one female, and killing off all the migrants, with the hopes that they would marry and live like villains in a fairy tale, killing off anyone who trespassed on their land (maybe someday I mod it so I can build a house out of ≡Plump Helmet blocks≡). Unfortunately, while digging out the new and improve migrant murdering room, the man built a floodgate from the wrong side and ended up drowning when the river thawed. The female set out to finish the deed, only to be ambushed by Kobalds. After charging them and killing one, she came to resemble a pincushion from all the arrows, and tragically bled to death. I had big plans for that fort, and between a quick thaw, and some rats with sharp sticks, they were ruined.

And finally, though this isn't really Fortress mode, I once had a Human swordsman adventurer designed to be a sort of mentor to drunks, gathering a crowd around him, and then nurturing them until they became forces to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, on the first quest, all 4 drunks were slaughtered by the Cyclops before he even could get into combat to save them. Saddened and disheartened, he traveled north, in a self imposed exile. Along the way, a friggen' wolf bit his eye out, and he suffered from chronic pain that would make him pass out at random occasions. My worst fear was that he would pass out in the middle of wrestling a naked mole dog and face an ignoble end. So I made the best of his remaining days and did quests for a town I happened upon. For some reason, this town had a ton of enemies, and so needed me to kill them all. After killing two minotaurs and an ettin, I was on my way to kill a cyclops. Unfortunately, I held down the down key too long, which the game interpreted as me wanting to walk directly past said cyclops without attacking it. Before I could even stop, my poor one-eyed swordsman's chest exploded in gore, and that was that.

The most tragic things to me are the ones that either are horrible dragged out, or happen so suddenly, you don't know what happened. And all too often, that's the way things happen in Dwarf Fort.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I had a fortress attacked by goblins, and I wasn't anywhere near prepared, so to save the last few dwarves, I walled them in. 10 dwarves where locked away in the semi-flooded underworks of my fortress. Well, the flooding was my fault for a first attempt at irrigation, but meh.
of the 10 dwarves, 5 were a family with 2 children and a baby, and another was a badly crippled founder dwarf, a former miner.
Slowly, they all died off over about 10 years.
The old miner committed suicide by throwing himself into a flooded stairway.
The other 4 dwarves died in various ways, mostly drowning or the odd cave in.
The baby died in year 1 of starvation, and the mother and father in a cave in that claimed one of the anonymous dwarves in year 5.
For 5 years, those children grew up, sparring down there to avenge their family and friends.
They took down the wall, and were instantly skewered by a remaining marksgoblin, who had hung around for years.
I only kept it going to see what would happen, and it was just a little anticlimatic.

[Dr. Von Uristein]

So, it all starts out with the message: Urist RandomDwarf has been taken by a strange mood.  So I think, cool, I wonder what sort of not useful or particularly valuable, yet strangely cool artifact I'll end up with.  I was engaged in designing a new legendary dining room with skylight and waterfall, in a busy fort of about 120, so I ignored him until I get the claimed workshop message.  I go to find him.  Urist RandomDwarf happens to be an excess immigrant metalsmith I'd assigned to an exiting career as a hauler of heavy things.  I find him and think to myself, "huh, this guys really moving slow.  Why does his status look wacky?"  I find that the poor bastard has a red upper torso wound and a yellow lower spine wound, so he's pretty well hosed.  After looking at the justice menu, I find that my newly arrived Hammerer has already been busy making friends.  So, I've got this poor bastard of a crippled dwarf slowly dragging himself around my workshops, obsessed with making some legendary widget, which given his pitiful condition, might end up going insane before he can even get all of his junk together.  MC Hammer is now confined to quarters.  I then spend days looking for the one dwarf in my fort that has even the slightest interest in helping others. 

Now just to add to the holiday atmosphere, a bronze colossus rolls in, posing as a security consultant, to show me where the one hole in my defenses is.  The colossus goes about it's merry way, giving me a lesson in why trap based defenses alone are not neccesarily enough to protect a fort full of drunk, partying dwarves.  My token military managed to give the colossus a grey finger wound.  The colossus collects his consultant fee of 30+ dwarves, before getting caught in one of the cage traps I've been frantically building inside.  On the plus side, MC Hammer got smeared all over the walls when I let him out to join in the festivities.  Strangely, he attacked the colossus instead of my dwarves, go figure.

While the festivities have been in full swing, soon to be Legendary Cripple Urist RandomDwarf has started working on his artifact beard trimmer in one of the metalsmith shops. 

Several of my until recently ecstatic dwarves, strangely enough, start tantruming after seeing their friends and loved ones used to paint the masterwork engravings on the walls and floors.  Strangely enough, they also don't seem to be enjoying those same friends and relatives rotting in the halls.  I had no idea miasma clouds could get so big. 

About this time Urist PartyAnimal decides to throw a party.  Which I think saved me from a total tantrum meltdown.  I think Hollywood could make a great dark comedy based on DF.

My Legendary Cripple has completed his artifact nose hair trimmer <will edit with actual artifact later>

After running some damage control, I check on my newly minted, and hopeless, legendary metal crafter.  He is resting in a bunk, with... my medic dwarf, who got chewed up by my security consultant.  Having them both in the same bed seems to be interfering with either of them getting anything resembling health care, more so than the usual level of neglect. Both are dehydrated and starving.  I deconstructed the bed to try to get them rescued.  I also build another bed in the room they're in, and... find them both in the same bed again, but they've gotten some care in the meantime.  I attempt to deconstruct again, which gets them separated, but ends up with the medic enraged and being killed by one of my remaining war dogs.

A year and a half later and my fort is still recovering.  My legendary dwarf's torso wound healed, but he will remain an invalid thanks to MC Hammer.  I don't have the heart to off the poor sod.  I think I may make him a palace guard or something, since his work days are now over.

I now have a strict policy of confinement for Hammerers, and the next wave of emmigrants is getting drafted.

[ShadowDragon8685]

That was some of the funniest pitchblack humor I've seen since I played Portal and discovered that the cake was a lie!

[JoRo]

I had a great champion swordsdwarf who unfortunately brought her baby into battle when a an ambushing squad of macegoblins materialized on my doorstep.  She and the rest of her squad of badasses easily slew the green menace, but when it was over I noticed she had the blinking red wounded cross.  "Oh no!" I thought and rushed to check her wounds, but it turned out that she was unharmed.  I guess she blocked a hit with her baby or something, because it had a mangled right leg and arm.  The baby held on for at least a year, never healing, constantly fading in and out of consciousness, until it grew up and was promptly deposited into a hospital bed, where the poor child spent a year before finally starving to death.
 Luckily losing a child to tragedy was no match for my totally awesome dining room (with artifact Kaolinite table) and the hallways paved with gold.

[Shzar]

Someone once posted about seeing a jeweler throw a tantrum and start beating his wife right in front of their children.  That was pretty depressing.

Something similar to that happend to me. I don't know if I posted the story before, but here it is (again) ...

This was back in a 2D version. I had a nice, bustling fortress, and a wave of immigration brought my population to the 80-dwarf range. Among the new arrivals were a mason/engraver (useful) and his peasant wife, who I promptly drafted and made into a sword dwarf. The mason also had a pet mule.

Since I was implementing a massive fortress-beautification project, the mason had plenty of work engraving. That, combined with the wife's steady paycheck, meant they could rent a room. Soon after that, they started having children. He became a legendary engraver, and they had a total of five children, the most I've ever seen from a couple. Years passed; all the children left their mother's teat and walked freely about the fortress.

The tragedies ensued with a sparring accident: the poor sword dwarf suffered a broken leg and was confined to bed; the real trouble started when a poor decision (courtesy of yours truly) saw two masterwork engravings destroyed. Predictably, the mason had a fit. He rampaged through the fortress, destroying multiple buildings and killing a poor cat. He was unbelievably agile, so he outran the plodding sheriff.

Once he calmed down, he went to the room where his wife was resting. Three of their children were there. Alas, his calm was only temporary; he tantrumed again and beat his wife in front of their children. She was uninjured thanks to her armour, but was naturally upset at this once-so-calm mason's violence.

By this time the sheriff finally caught up with him and started dragging him to prison. He had none of that. He sucker-punched the sheriff in the neck and charged off again to destroy a trap. Once again the sheriff caught up, threw the mason in prison for his 150-day prison term, and beat him, breaking an arm.

But simply being in prison would not save the fortress from his rage. His mule came to visit him in prison; he smacked his dear pet with his good arm, earning him another 30 days in prison. The jeweller who owned the now deceased cat was thrown into prison after his own little freak-out; the mason beat the new prisoner unconscious. This earned him a hammerstrike, which ended his miserable destructive reign.

His wife, now distraught, went melancholy. She crawled to the river and drowned herself. One child went berserk and was killed by the military. Another child went melancholy and drowned herself in the same river her mother went. A third child drowned during a seasonal flood, again in the same river. The jeweller-prisoner died from lack of rest. The other two children survived, but I never got to see them grow up.

The mule, made ownerless, was butchered for meat.

[DarkAvenger]

I have a wardog with a missing right lung, He hasn't died for some reason. But he bleeds randomely and passes out.

[Haven]

EXPOSITION:
Well, my rocky waste fort, Silvercreed, had been the victim of many, many marksgoblins. Every goblin event was made of marksgoblins. It was a 2x2, so I walled off the front and put up towers for my marksdwarves to pick them off from, which worked all right for a bit. Then some goblins appeared from the unwalled south cliff and began plugging my dwarves through the skylight. After a few casualties, they were driven off, but I figured I'd need a wall along the cliff to avoid having everyone in the courtyard need to hide in the 40-odd statue Parthenon tower.

MOMENT:
So, I send my wonderful useful dwarves out to the south cliff, to make a nice long wall to guard against the bolts and arrows of outragous fortune. When it's just about done, I pause and take a nice look at my happy dwarves and think 'Ha, no more getting plugged full of arrows for you!'

And my first seige comes up a second, and 15 marksgoblins see 12 dwarves lined up against a wall.

A miner survived long enough to crawl across the narrow plateu and into the fortress, where he promptly died of his wounds. Everyone else (and their children) died.

(And ow... That's pretty hardcore, Shzar.)

[VeryBadThingsDownHere]

My Countess Consort was carrying a baby when she decided to be useful once in her life and help get rid of some constructed walls that were causing some slight flooding problems outside.  The whole structure was supposed to be an automated magma flush system for the entrance to the fort, but needed some tweaks.  So while she is removing the wall, water is flying everywhere, and Armok forbid Murphy's law sets in: the baby is swept away in the flow, crawls a couple tiles, and somehow gets into the magma channel.

That's not as sad as when I was getting tired of the red tape in my fort so I nuked a few dwarves to start a tantrum spiral.  A glassmaker who was carrying an infant flips out, and tears all four limbs off her own child before jumping in the well.