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[Airpi]

I once had a fortress that I started near an open magma vent. While digging out obsidian from around the vent one of my miners was mobbed by fire imps. I drafted him and he immediately starting wrestling, he managed to choke one of them to death before they took him down. I had my surviving dorfs start making crossbows. Once everything was ready, I activated the remaining six and marched them down to the vent. It was six untrained crossbowdorfs against at least that many fire imps. By the end they had killed them all, but two more of my dorfs died. Almost immediately after being deactivated, my foreman goes berserk. He throws his crossbow away (which hits another dorf and knocks him out) tears all of his clothes off, and sprints back to the magma vent. He just stood there, at the site of the battle, until he died. I couldn't even recover the bodies, he would attack anyone who went there. I prepared the best tomb I could for him and abandoned the fortress once he was interred.

Manly tears where shed.

[Cthulhu]

I had a dwarf kill two goblins after getting hit in the throat by a crossbow bolt and getting it stuck in.  I quickly set up a nice tomb and designated it for burial.  I started waiting for the dwarves to carry him to his final resting place.  I continued waiting.  I got irritated and checked the coffin.  It was already in use, by a dwarf who was crushed by a drawbridge!  There's an empty casket dedicated to an idiot who stood under a bridge while the body of a war hero rots where it fell!  Stupid dwarves.

[erendor]

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

Arguably, that's still suicide...yeah, I know you probably mean 'showy' suicides, but well - isn't it even sadder knowing that your dwarves are so depressed, so utterly disheartened and tired of life, that they don't even have the inspiration or the will to off themselves quickly, but instead just slowly fade away?

[Cthulhu]

Not really.  It's just kind of lazy.

[jplur]

An untrained wrestler was knocked unconscious with a red leg wound in my first ambush.  Once he was in bed I appointed him to the fortress guard and forgot about him. 6 years later I'm looking through the furniture storage level and I notice he's still unconscious with the same wounds. "Man, this guy will never heal", I think.  On a whim I check his inventory and see he has an iron bolt stuck in his leg.  Sheepishly I order the bolt dumped, and wince as an idle animal trainer runs up and yanks it out.  Maybe now he will wake up, though I doubt he could handle the culture shock.  When he was knocked out the fort was little more than a hole in the ground, now it is a bustling 200 dwarf metropolis on top of a terraformed, mined-out mountain.

[d3c0y2]

theres this little donkey that sits up on the hill away from my fort, were his master was struck down, he's survived a seige and a goblin ambush sitting up there ... all alone.

[Anfold]

See my post in the epic failures thread.

As for my dwarves, I had a Marksdwarf squad made of up of two members, both female who had become best (only) friends during training.  The human caravan shows up, and so does my first ambush.  I quickly send out my tiny military. hoping to pick up a couple of kills while the caravan guards took care of the wrestlers and the lashers, unfortunately, they were slower to respond than my marksdwarves.  The squad leader took out the lasher with a single shot, but then was completely surrounded by the wrestlers, who broke every bone in his arms and legs while the squad mate looked on,  stunned at the violence of what was happening before her eyes.  Soon the goblins had finished with the leader, and had broken the remaining marksdwarf's wrist when the caravan guards finally arrived and slaughtered the wrestlers.  The wounded dwarf was quickly moved to the barracks, where she tantrumed in her sleep as the corpse of her only friend rotted in the sun. 

Cut to two years later.  Having learned my lesson, I assigned all my marksdwarves at least one wardog.  The remaining marksdwarf from my first squad had not only survived, but now thrived.  She had recently married, and always had happy thoughts in her profile from her new pet dog.  At the time I was expanding the top of the fortress, two z levels up as I prepared to create an outdoor fortress to deal with the future seiges.  I designated some floor tiles to be channeled away that were over the shooting range, I had already mined out the floor beneath them (they ruined the rectangular shape of the roof).  I designated the wrong two to be removed, and soon recived a message about a section of cavern collapsing.  To my dismay, I receive a message about first a dog, and then a dwarf having been killed.  I quickly maneuvered to the area, and was shocked at the 5-z level hole now running through my fortress.  Worse was the strange coincidence of fate that had aligned the poor marksdwarf's loved ones.  The roof had collapsed on the lone square directly beside her, Exactly where her dog was standing.  I followed the hole down to where the cave-in had stopped, directly on top of her sleeping husband.  There on a single tile lay about a dozen pieces of rock and two corpses, the dog and the husband.  I unpaused and I received a message about my most veteran military member having gone insane. Not two seconds later, she jumped down the same newly formed shaft that had claimed both her dog and her man, joining them in eternal slumber.

[Willfrey]

This was my first haunted/sinster tileset experience--

The wilderness was overrun by foul blendecs, werewolves, goblins and kobolds.  My three best soldiers were a Legendary Treeslayer/Axedwarf and my two Legendary Miners/Wrestlers that were part of my original 7. 

The axedwarf had the two wrestlers under his command, I'd rush the three out to any ambushes or whatnot.  I find the elven caravans got targeted the most, in spite of them getting murdered/injured several years in a row.. I can only imagine...

"As you know last year's caravan to Bluntedtowns never returned.  And the caravan before that, but who's counting?  Anyway I need a show of hands of who is going this year.   Hello?  Anybody?"

Anyhow since my miners were always down below the axedwarf would usually kill most anything in his way, until one day I ran into a great mix of blendecs, goblins, and two werewolfs (lucky day!).  My axedwarf was killed in the brawl and one of the wrestlers was hurt badly (yellow leg).  The remaining wrestler took the corpse to burial, came back and collected the crippled dwarf and cared for him while he healed.

Thankfully my two legendary miners were again back in service, until yet again another ambush struck an elven caravan and I dispatched my wrestlers.  This time the other wrestler was critically injured, while his friend fought off and wrestled four goblins to death.  He took his friend back to his bed, and stayed by his side until he died...   

Anyway, that fort was comically doomed due to my newbieism.  At some point I totally pulled all dwarfs back inside the fort and locked it up good.  I needed a fresh source of water (couldn't figure out pools) and I had only a single miner left.  In tunneled to the river, and needed a channeler from the other side, yet the landscape was full of evil baddies.  I found my bravest soap maker, clotheir, dyer, tanner and wood burner and gave them a pic and set them loose on a five-tile long channel on a remote corner of the map.  If anyone wondered who'd win in a foot race you'd be right if you said soap maker.  Amazingly he finished the channel while the blendecs were busy mauling his fellow miners, though his success was short lived when on his way back he was ambushed by goblins. 

The really depressing part is how I messed up the channeling so.. yeah, no fresh water in spite of their efforts.  On top of that I stupidly used all my pics in the endeavor, so now they're all outside.

[Doppel]

An untrained wrestler was knocked unconscious with a red leg wound in my first ambush.  Once he was in bed I appointed him to the fortress guard and forgot about him. 6 years later I'm looking through the furniture storage level and I notice he's still unconscious with the same wounds. "Man, this guy will never heal", I think.  On a whim I check his inventory and see he has an iron bolt stuck in his leg.  Sheepishly I order the bolt dumped, and wince as an idle animal trainer runs up and yanks it out.  Maybe now he will wake up, though I doubt he could handle the culture shock.  When he was knocked out the fort was little more than a hole in the ground, now it is a bustling 200 dwarf metropolis on top of a terraformed, mined-out mountain.

Haha, thats awesome.

Anfold's story is almost too good to be true. Great stuff.

[Jualin]

I'd decided to cancel the construction of a bridge fortress. I was bored, thus I plummeted the whole project to the bottom of the sea, leaving just two dwarves (and one baby dwarf) with a limited supply of food and a slowly rising level of water approaching. There were two sources of lava on the map, and so to truly bury the fortress from prying eyes forever, even if I managed to swim in, I decided to unleash lava in the sections of my fort that still were not flooded.

They were unable to follow out my orders to dig out the lava, but they were able to deconstruct something I'd put together to block off imps and magma men after I had discovered a magma lake.

I thought that nothing else could happen, and I can say I was wrong.

Spoiler: What happened (click to show/hide)

The dwarf with the baby became a mayor, at that late hour. She seemed to be taking this all in stride, never once tantruming, while the other had tantrumed twice already. They were both absolutely miserable, though. The dwarf with the baby was a 5 times over legendary socialdwarf while the other was a legendary miner dwarf. The other then decided to attend a meeting with her, to settle some things out. Things were settled.

The other dwarf tantrumed in middle of the meeting, just as the water began to reach the room they were in. After throwing around their food, she quickly gave her 3 red limb wounds (both legs and an arm) one yellow limb wound (the other arm), and a dark yellow upper body wound. She didn't have time to deal retribution, as she was rendered unconcious. The baby crawled away from his unconcious mother, away from the water that surrounded his mother and the other dwarf.

The mother was called Atir Constructproblem. Her assailant, Zasit Tempesttower. The baby, Dishmab Workmobs.

I ordrered Zasit, commander of The Present Tools, to march to an open magma pool for corporal punishment. As she went, Atir threw a tantrum.

At the pool, Zasit stood motionless. Four imps and a magma man frolicked below in the magma. None came near. Then, one came, an imp. The imp ascended, moving closer, and closer...

Zasit was incinerated in the scorching heat of the magma. Whether the imp acted as Charon or Ares, I do not know. I'd like to think Zasit went willingly.

Dishmab changed direction entirely as Zasit was going to her death. He instead walked right into the room from which the fortress was flooding, standing right among rock and water, staring at the thin, polished rock wall stopping all water but the waves of the sea from entering the domain.

He played there as Atir calmed down and calmly demanded that someone make her a trifle pewter item, as she lay dying. She then proceeded to tantrum again, after the period of a few seconds silence. With both legs mangled, she couldn't move, so she seethed alone, laying down in water, calming down, and then tantruming again. And again. And again. She ceased her tantrums then, as she began to grow hungry and thirsty, the water covering her crippled form, but saltwater, unfit to drink, with her food just beyond her reach.

The baby, too began to notice his thirst as he played. He was unhappy, without knowing why. He crawled slowly, deeper and deeper into the room from which the flooding had come. He saw places where construction met polished and unpolished stone floors in a mess. But it all held no meaning for him. Far away, his mother held another tantrum, calming just as it began to rain, only to cry out in anger again.

Somewhere in the distance, a rhesus macaque swam for whatever it might find in the ruin of what once might've been able to boast of being a grand bridge once, hitting its head on the rocks by accident in the process.

And then the world faded to black, my fortress having crumbled to its end.

Suffice to say, I'll make a trifle pewter statue in tribute.

[Brian]

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

Arguably, that's still suicide...yeah, I know you probably mean 'showy' suicides, but well - isn't it even sadder knowing that your dwarves are so depressed, so utterly disheartened and tired of life, that they don't even have the inspiration or the will to off themselves quickly, but instead just slowly fade away?

I had a melancholy marksdwarf. He was recovering two broken legs for over a year.  It turns out that whole time his particular bed was too close to a workshop and he got no sleep at all.  He hadn't been fed or watered properly either.  Anyway he decides to off himself.  Luckily for him, there's an open magma vent.  Unluckily for him, there's a 1-Z level drop used to keep goblins at least 1 extra square away from my fortifications.  Guess which one he threw himself over constantly until finally dying of starvation?

[Kishmond]

So it turns out I nickname two dwarves for my oceanside fortress. One I name after myself and the other I nickname 'Emo' because of her tendency to get depressed. After looking around a bit I notice the dwarf-me is romantically involved with Emo. Hmm.

Cut to two years later. My fortress is a mess, the bedroom level slowly flooding from a small hole. Dwarf-me is lying permanently unconscious in an empty bed, with two broken limbs. I have a well that is almost underwater and unusable. Less and less dwarves are wading through the rising saltwater on the bedroom level and retreating to higher ground, while I'm slowly dying of thirst behind a closed door. Emo is standing around my supine body, able to do nothing as we are now sealed in a 3x3 room with water. I figure screw it, and make more holes to make the fort flood faster, and as of this moment am waiting for dwarf-me and his girlfriend to die of thirst, surrounded by water.

That is the first and last time I ever name a dwarf after myself.

[Haven]

Everyone should name a dwarf after themselves. It opens up the DF world's possibilities and translates them quite well.


A sad little coincidence, I ended up embarking on aquifered desert. In a rather desperate attempt to get through, my two miners dug out an irregular column and dropped it into the hole they'd dug. It was, however, poorly judged, and it smashed over top of the hole instead, cutting the two miners off with the only picks trapped alongside their good arms under the column, and in the other hand nothing but an eternety to starve to death.

Irony kicked in when I saw they were the only worshippers of a deity of sky and wind, stuck underground trying to get the cavern venerators home.

[pavlov]

The first time I've ever felt pity for goblins - a goblin siege of 15-20 wrestlers/lashers appeared in a corner of my map, right next to 3 zombie horses. Guess who won? That's right, three zombie horses whooped a goblin army. Guess you can't defeat a zombie by whipping it / trying to force its arms to the ground. The goblins just kept whippin and wrasslin away to no effect, until they became over-exerted / somewhat bruised and beaten, and just slowly crawled back off the map. By the time my small military showed up, only one straggler goblin remained - and the zombies were piled on top of him biting him to pieces - he died before my army got there. 2 marksdwarves + 3 elite wrestlers = no more zombie horses.

[Snikers]

Realizing I had somehow trapped my miner at the bottom of a ramp and that she was starving to death trying to catch vermin in a 1x1 patch of black sand. I dug her out, but she died of starvation...in the dining room, ten paces from food.

At least she was ecstatic when she died...probably due to the freshness of a new love between her and the farmer.

 

Her profile says she likes stars, so I think I'll put her in a glass coffin under the open sky. Any suggestions?