Well. I haven't had any megabeast visits in my forts for a while, which may be because I tend to gen new worlds and/or make new forts because of a sudden idea or loss of interest.
Strapoars, it was a nice little place. Notice the past tense. It had a booming stonecrafting industry of obsidian crafts, a number of metalworkers, and a population of 96. The human caravan had just arrived, and had found everything edible within their wagons purchased and stored. But then, disaster struck.
"Something the Skeletal Dragon has arrived!"
A skeletal megabeast. Huh. Well, no biggie, I thought. I had an army of 10, 5 champions, 3 elites and 2 marksdwarves. I figured that they would be enough to defeat this menace to the dwarven life. However...
My militia had problems grouping. While one half, and the marksdwarves were more than eager to place themselves to position to welcome the beast(I hadn't thought of making traps in the entrance. I decided to learn from the mistakes of the past, and am doing so in my current fort in the same world), the other half...
One champion was guarding my armor and weapon stockpiles, where a year ago I had stationed them because they kept doing things other than picking up the equipment I wanted them to wear, chain and plate mail. Another was guarding my mayors room, where they had been stationed two years prior due to a miserable stoneworker, in case he decided to go berserk and wreck havoc(never happened).
So I had only half my forces ready to fight the enemy. No biggie, I figured. How bad could it be?
Turns out that a skeletal dragon could be very, very bad. I think the fact that to add survivablity to the mega(and semimega-)beasts, I gave them all CAN_LEARN. I imagine it had a part to the following events.
My champions charged the dragon, and through the spitfire they went, unharmed while my marksdwarves began pelting the creature with bolts. Of course it being skeletal, I figure the best the thing could have done was to act as targetpractice.
And then things got ugly. A problem I have with my military, is that I always just pick people in it without checking, and things like "Champion has given birth to a baby boy/girl" tends to happen more than often. The dragon went for the baby, and after a brutal display of skeletal powers, I had a lovely mention of a dead baby. The mother ran away, but not before the dragon set her on fire from the behind. Seconds later, it killed my other champion, and went for the marksdwarves, who proved to be no match for the creature.
I should mention at this time, that the champions, while iron-armored, were all equipped with bronze hammers, that I had made and given them as practice weapons. In hindsight, it was probably a stupid idea.
It descended to the next level, where a number of civilians were simply hanging out, and in one swift move, it bid hello with a wave of fire. So many civilians were set on fire that it wasn't even funny. Smoke filled the corridor, and the burning dwarves only helped to spread the fog of war. The few champions that had refused to guard with the previous squad attacked the dragon, and all of them vanished into the smoke. Everything and everyone I could see was burning, and those who weren't, I had no idea where they were due to the smoke. I was hoping to see "Skeletal dragon has died" or anything similar, but no such announcement showed up, although the dozens of messages of dwarves cancelling things due to being on fire and so on sort of distracted me.
At one point I was sure that the thing had perished, but a wave of fire which bursted from the smoke told otherwise. The battle went on, and finally a champion who had been sleeping decided to join the fray. The surviving three cornered the dragon, and began what had to be a furious battle, but to no avail. They were getting tired, over-exerted, and the Dragon had lost but one leg and received a few small wounds, fractured bones and so on.
Meanwhile, the fortress was going downhill and fast. People were sad or miserable from all the burning, death, decay of friends and of course, the smoke. The champions weren't doing so well either. The Dragon finally caught one of them, and tore off his leg, and I was down to two conscious champions, one which was shortly after set on fire.
It was at this point that I realized that the fort was doomed. And when faced with certain doom, there is only one thing left to do. Recruit everyone, and hope for the best. With everyone still alive a new recruit, they charged the dragon, who was making beef jerky out of the unconscious champion.
Needless to say, a large group of unarmed civilian now-soldiers were not doing much. I can just imagine the coughing dwarves, tears in their eyes from the smoke, death and fear, pounding feebly on the skeletal horror as it picked them off one by one.
However, suddenly they all stopped. There were no more announcements of recruits being struck down, and even after checking the unit list, the dragon was not on it. I must've missed it, I figured, and checked again, but no dragon in Hostile. I dared to look, and there it was, among the deceased.
Strapoars was a fortress of 96 dwarves the day the dragon arrived. After all was over, 28 were left. Now, I am a man who likes a challenge. Even thrives on it, which is why I added some challenge to the game by modification to the beasts, but Strapoars was finished. This was simply because the burning people had done the worst thing possible, and decided to go for a drink. Since I still had all my food in a single room(the fortress wasn't even that old), I found alcohol barrels exploding, and foodstuffs catching on fire. Even the most brazen of dwarves fell to their knees and screamed when they heard that the alcohol was all gone.
Shortly after, everyone packed up their things and left Strapoars, smoke from the dead still billowing from within its corridors.
I checked the history soon after, to see just who was that dwarf of dwarves who struck down the beast which doomed my fort. It didn't turn out to be Kol, or Zuglar, or any single dwarf. The dragon had died after catching on fire, and burning to ashes. I would like to think that a burning dwarf did the world a favour, and after being set on fire, charged the beast in one blaze of glory, saving the lives of everyone else.
Lensfilled is my current fort in the world, where the mistakes of the past will be eliminated. I will still continue purchasing fine art from caravans, which have elves striking down humans and so on. But at least I know, that never more, will a skeletal dragon threaten my fort.
Unless all dead dragons can rise as skeletons. I'm not really sure how it works.
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Topic: Funny but sad/disturbing moments in Dwarf fortress (Read 210798 times)