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[Eita]

Might as well contribute my most depressing sight: in my oldest fortress (some 7 years), I was building a gigantic arena (spectator level, above that a balcony level, two empty levels below and finally the arena floor level, all about 30x15 squares). Due to being new to the excavating thing, I had finished the four lower floors before working on the balcony floor, and, due to even more newbiness ended up splitting the 'to-be-excavated' floor in half and almost completely disconnecting it from any support. I managed to collapse one half without casualties, but the other half took my legendary miner (also one of the founders) down with it. Still, he had a glorious death, I suppose, riding a massive chunk of rock down a four z-level drop...

You call that sad? He died recreating Dr. Strangelove!

My saddest though didn't really have that many redeeming qualities. He was my Outpost Leader, and a Legendary miner, so when I designated some tiles to be mined for my underground farm project, he got right to it. When that was done though, there was the the breaching of the river. I realized too late that I had also designated some tiles behind that as well. In a mad dash to save him, I ordered him to make tons of channels for the water to be diverted into. He ended up being pushed into said channel and drowned.

[Kuli]

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.

The most depressing thing I remember was one time in the 2D version I accidentally flooded the fort.  Unfortunately I neglected to build any doors anywhere so the water flowed around unhindered.  All of the poor sleeping dwarves were suddenly awoken by rising water.  They only had enough time to rush out to the flooded hallway before they drowned.  I always felt bad for how terrifying it must be to awake to that situation.

[Eita]

And yet, I can only laugh....

[Joseph Miles]

I keep coming back here because it makes me happy I *heart* dwarven misery

[Sartain]

I suppose my most depressing experience would be the tragedy of fortress Mirrorhoof. The fortress was built by a brook, with workshops and storage on one side of the brook and housing, dinings halls and such on the other side, with overland passages between the two isolating the fortress from the outside world.
Of course, when the Giant Bat Of Doom arrived and reduced my population from 50 to 20, I realised roofing those passages might have been a good idea.
There were hatches that were supposed to isolate the areas from the overland passages, but the bat got into the workshop area before they were closed and while it was causing havoc, the wall seperating the brook from the workshops broke somehow, and the entire area started to flood.
After the flood, there were still around 10 survivors, and my food storage had been isolated from the flood, so we dug some new tunnels and relocated the workshops to the still non-flooded living area. We also started to dig a very large hole with the intent to drain the flooded workshop area come winter.
Of course, immigrants arrived before winter and when the brook froze, I first designated one area to be dug out, but realised the water wasn't draining fast enough for my liking.
So I designated another part of the brook (a part that was directly linked to my non-flooded part of the fortress) to be dug out to speed up the process. As my masons started working, goblins ambushed. And then again.... And again. Then some diggers got encased in the ice, which was apparently much more freezing than the ice 200 feet to the east, which meant we lost their picks as well, slowing down the walling of the frozen brook. And then the goblins attacked again, and again, killing and chasing off diggers all the way till spring and the flooding of my until now unflooded part of the fortress.
After that I had 5 dwarves left and they were all confined by very large amounts of water, doomed to starve to death

[Jetman123]

For some odd reason, while I was building a floor hanging off the side of the mountain two dwarves decided to get married and hold their wedding in the meeting area right under construction. Some people where still working on the above floor. And, due to a miscalculation on my part, there was a a cavein on the wedding. The wife died. The husband suffered red damage to his arms, yellow to one of his legs, red on the other leg, and I think there was brain damage too.

I've heard of throwing rice at the couple but that's just ridiculous.

 In DF, that custom could be lethal! Hire a firing squad while you are at it.

My apologies for dragging this up from the first page (and doubly so if someone posted this joke before and I missed it), but:

The spinning Rice grain strikes Urist Lokumdastot in the head!
It is broken!
Urist Lokumdastot's left eye has been knocked out!
Urist Lokumdastot's throat has been blackened!
The spinning rice grain strikes Urist Lokumdastot in the throat!
Urist Lokumdastot's throat has been poked out!
The spinning rice bowl strikes Bomrek Lokumdastot in the body!
Bomrek Lokumdastot's heart has been pierced!
Bomrek Lokumdastot's left lung has been pierced!
Bomrek Lokumdastot's right lung has been pierced!
Bomrek Lokumdastot's liver has been pierced!
Bomrek Lokumdastot has bled to death.
Urist Lokumdastot has suffocated.



As for the most pathetic thing I've seen, I beleive it was in another topic chronicling the building of a very large tower by dwarves. It wasn't mine, but he mentioned that one guy went nuts and tried to kill himself by throwing himself down a drop of eight feet on a stairwell. He'd get up without a scratch, climb up the stairs, and throw himself off again, over, and over, and over, and over. The sheer mental image of it was both funny and depressing.

When dwarves want to commit suicide, then by Armok, they _will_ commit suicide, even if they have to spend the rest of their lives working at it!

Edit: Whoops, it seems I was long beaten, as I figured. Still, I think both our posts are funny.

[Awayfarer]

I don't think anything I have can compete with the rest, but here goes anyway.

1: The Fort Ngeutegkar of the "Gates of Recreation" is built in a wonderful little valley full of ore and jewels. Nearby neighbors include the human civilization "The Empire of Recretion" and all in all it sounds like a pretty nice place to live.

This wuld be true if it were not for the goblin presence. The first clue that goblins were present was a pile of bleached goblin bones on a cliff 10 z levels up. The second clue was the sudden ambush and slaughter of Urist Kelzasit the jeweler at the front gates. His horse escaped.

But now the horse returns daily to the gates, the last place it saw its master, and peers down the east and west roads as if waiting for Urist to return. The poor thing doesn't realize that Urist isn't coming back.

(In a nutshell, the horse keeps going back to where its master was slain. This happens to be the crossroads at the front gate to the fortress.)

[Kuli]

How come everyone else gets suicides?  All of my depressed dwarves just mope around until they starve.

[Aqizzar]

In one of my very first forts, I was jacked by three kobold thieves while I was still unloading the wagon.  All my dwarves were off hauling so nobody made it back in time to catch them, and one of them stole my starting anvil.  Really.  From a dwarven perspective this is plenty sad.  To me it was hillarious - I have this great image of three kobolds, grinning and cackling, as they huck their way home toting an anvil over a mountain range.

Then a few weeks later, the carpenter bought it to a lucky fire imp.  Misery ensues.

Where it gets sad is that, I guess kobold raids are based on how much they get away with, because later that same year, a team of seven kobolds with spears showed up and stormed the entrance.  They slew three dwarves outright, badly wounded two others, and killed all the animals except for one cat they mangled as they buggered off.  So one guy tries to care for his two hideously wounded friends unlucky enough to survive, while a cat with a pierced lung follows him around feinting.  Eventually, both the injured guys died of thirst, despite their friend's effort.  I didn't have the heart to watch the last guy linger on and abandoned - I like to imagine he went back home with his poor cat.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I flooded one fortress accidentally, but the water sealed off the main entrance first. So the dwarves were running around down the hallways trying to get away from the water but they were blocked in. This was back when I figured one miner was enough, and he drowned pretty quickly when I released the water. So I had no way of rescuing anyone.

I set a soaper to mining, and he ran off into the water to get the dropped pick, but kept getting distracted by the water and ran back with the others.

I had no smithy at this point, and I was in the habit of leaving the anvil behind for more food and skills.

So these dwarves were probably going to die, since I couldn't do anything. Some of them were crowding around a pit where I threw my trash. I managed somehow to dismantle a pair of single doors from back rooms and seal off the main passage before it flooded. But they were sealed in, three levels underground, and the caravan would never come down to help them.

It was then my milker tantrumed, running around bashing people. Her profile looked like she lost her baby - it had somehow fallen down into the trash hole. She moped, and other people moped, and started getting thirsty. Then someone else tantrumed and went straight for the doors holding back the water.

[Jude]

I dunno, to me, whenever a dwarf bites the dust early in the fort before I've dug out any grave/tomb area, and ends up sitting in the refuse heap rotting, that just seems wrong to me.

[FlamingCow]

When my 5 legendary craftsdwarves (2 bone, 3 stone, apparently, only craftsdwarves are allowed strange moods in this fort) run out to pick up the armor from a fallen goblin, yes, the one in front of the squad of marksgoblins... damn.

[iskurthi]

(In a nutshell, the horse keeps going back to where its master was slain. This happens to be the crossroads at the front gate to the fortress.)

I had this happen with a dwarven mother once. I was trying to divert a river, and a rigged structure... activated prematurely. Several dwarves were killed immediately in the cave-in, and from there it was a frantic rush to try and salvage the project. Constructions were designated and dwarves scurried frantically through the swirling waters of the muddy riverbed to try and complete the diversion before the water returned. One of these was a productive dwarven woman who thought nothing of carrying two babies with her into danger. Somehow, during the chaos, one of them became seperated from her, and drifted the few squares towards doom before its mother could retrieve it. The little '?' flashed briefly over it and then it was sucked down the drain to its horrible doom 15 z-levels below, amongst the fallen rocks and the remains of the other dead dwarves.

There was no possibility of retrieving the body, of course. And ever afterwards, the mother would occasionally get 'Cancels Work: Seeking Infant' and walk as close as she could get to the accident site and just... stand there for a while.

[Mephansteras]

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.

[Joseph Miles]

Just remembered another thing that happened. This was way back in the 2D version.

I had two projects going on at once, I think it was my first year. One of the projects was making a residential district, all 3x3 rooms as per usual. The other was making a farming area on the left of the river. So, I finish up the farm and pull the lever. Next thing I know, PERMA FLOOOOOD!

Fortunately, one of the dwarves was locked in the residential area and lived. He stayed there for about a year. With him was his pet puppy, and two stray horses. I setup a butcher's shop and killed the horses, miraculously before he starved the flooding STOPPED. How? I have NO clue. I registered just to post how the permaflood stopped and I have no clue how it did.

After the flooding subsided, I ended up getting immigrants. The problem was, at this point I just wanted to scrap it, my one dwarf fort idea was dead. So, I lock them all in the residential area except one, the one that was out pulled the lever. He drowned, the others starved to death.



Another thing thats more recent, I found an underwater pond or lake or whatever it was with a bunch of Olmen, frogmen, lizardmen, etc. I figured it was a good place to test my military. The sheriff/marksdwarf held it alone for awhile then went away to get bolts. Eventually, I got NO action down there and took my military out. Then one escaped. I put him down and locked the door I had down there, but wanted sort of a final solution so I could use the area. So, I end up making a huge channel AROUND the area to kill them all in a cavein. Unfortunately, I lost four dwarves in it...