Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[The Bismuth]

I had a couple of incidents about which I had a blissfully ignorant view until I read the master engravings.

In a siege, once the orcs had started to rout, I decide to let my hammerdwarves have at them. One of my chapions Dakost Vesselsavior managed to scrag five of the fiends. As far as I was aware he had suffered nary a scratch during the melee, yet shortly after he was found sick in bed with a crushed aeosophagus. He choked to death not long afterwards.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Engraved on the wall is a masterfully designed image of Dakost Vesselsavior the dwarf and Atis Keyabbey the dwarf by Atis Stinastesh. Dakost VesselSavior is making a plaintive gesture. Atis Keyabbey is striking a menacing pose. The artwork relates to the mortal wounding of the dwarf Atis Keyabbey in Puzzlework in the early spring of 312."

I guess the lesson is that you should give your dwarves a chance to cool down a little before you let them start sparring.

We also had a pretty harmless family of batmen, flapping about in the local chasm. Our dwarves had gone so far as to give them names. "Oh great", I thought, "they've made friends with the locals". We had a little bit of an incident when one of ours got panicked by a somewhat overfriendly Mosus Roofbulbs. We had to shoo him away with a few warning shots, but no-one was harmed and he kept his distance after that. Then these batmen started disappearing. I checked the kill list of my folk, and found that they had not had a hand in this, so I assumed the locals must just be dying of natural causes.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Engraved on the wall is a masterfully designed image of Dastot Doorurge the batman and Mebzuth Laborbites the dwarf by Atis Stinastesh. Mezbuth Laborbites is striking down Dastot Doorurge. The artwork relates to the killing of the batman Dastot Doorurge by the dwarf Mezbuth Laborbites in Puzzlework in the midautumn of 310."

I do not have a Mezbuth Laborbites in my fortress. Some caravan following thug has been battering poor sweet innocent batmen without my knowledge. We wanted good neighbours. Now we have some seriously aggrieved, if slightly pathetic neighbours. I do not have the graphical or text base interface to tell my local merchants just what I think of them!

[Karnewarrior]

God damn merchants! I had a named Cave Swallowman (Blossomred, the most frilly name I have to this day seen in dwarf fortress).

He was brutally murdered by goblins because the bottomless pit was exposed to the surface.

[LegoLord]

The death of the batman is recorded as happening in a different fortress from the first one.  Are you sure that they refer to yours?

Granted, were it not for the inconsistency in locations for the two events, the situation you describe is entirely possible within a single fort.

[NW_Kohaku]

My batmen got names, too... I think it just happens if creatures like that stick around for 3 or 4 years.  I think I started with 6. 

One got "overfriendly", and managed to fly into my fort's open doorway in my first year, and flew into a cage trap.  Trying to move him accidentally wound up releasing him (should have built cage, not moved to a new cage), and led to quite the runaround, and killed one of the mayor's pet cats.  (The only female I had imported, although she had JUST given birth, so there was a female kitten.)

The rest have been basically decorating my minimap's far northwest or southeast corners, generally around 10 floors above ground level, causing no problems.

Then this summer's human caravan showed up, and they shot down two of my poor batmen.  (I actually watched that...)

In relation to things I only realize when I look at engravings, all I really get are tons and tons of failed elven seiges of the nearby goblin fortress.  (You'd think they'd run out of elves eventually, but legends say that elves are willing to throw out dozens of sacrifices annually.)

I did, however, get surprised to find out that butchering the absurd number of puppies I get will actually show up as an engraving, which prevented me from slaughtering more (I just slaughter higher-value unicorns, and cows, now... working on getting high enough 'gator, bear, and giant jaguar populations to slaughter those, too).

I also used Dwarf Companion to look up a training accident that happened early on in my fort - turns out that my dwarf died because the then-highest trained axedwarf in my fort had put an unqualitied copper (no silver at that time) axe STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HEART of her sparring partner, taking out a lung and spleen, as well.  No wonder he only left two tiles of blood trail behind him before bleeding out.  (My first knowledge of the event was the "has bled out" message, and you can't check wounds on a corpse)

[The Bismuth]

Yes the fortress is Puzzleworks, and the innocent man-beast could only have been slain by a dwarven visitor to my fort. I had not intented this thread to be a pity party for the poor lost souls although I feel the anguish absolutely.

I was hoping that folks would have similar stories of engravings that retold events ina new light.

Maybe I should say more about puzzleworks. How the site was left unmolested for two years, and then a goblin horde descended with bows and maces, how the founders beau leapt into the fray unarmoured slaying many foes before being cut down by missile fire, how his dog crippled from the waist down managed to catch and kill a kobold intruder.

Maybe I should mention HazelDoors the iron chainmail, a genuinely useful artefact which has yet to be taken up by anyone. Maybe I should tell you about the flute our founder made, which proved so subversive she was overturned as soon as it was made.

That was not the point of this thread.

[The Bismuth]

Damnit,
            I am hearted by the fact that other people feel the same way I do about innocent demi-monsters. I had got the impression you were quite a ruthless bunch.

[The Bismuth]

I also used Dwarf Companion to look up a training accident that happened early on in my fort - turns out that my dwarf died because the then-highest trained axedwarf in my fort had put an unqualitied copper (no silver at that time) axe STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HEART of her sparring partner, taking out a lung and spleen, as well.  No wonder he only left two tiles of blood trail behind him before bleeding out.  (My first knowledge of the event was the "has bled out" message, and you can't check wounds on a corpse)

That's not nice.

The annoying thing for me was that it was the upstart hammerdwarf that killed my champion. I had just upgraded them plate armour, so i assumed they would be able to handle anything. If I could have chosen one to die...

[DarkDragon]

I did, however, get surprised to find out that butchering the absurd number of puppies I get will actually show up as an engraving, which prevented me from slaughtering more (I just slaughter higher-value unicorns, and cows, now... working on getting high enough 'gator, bear, and giant jaguar populations to slaughter those, too).

Are these the engravings that go something like:

"Engraved on the wall is an exceptionally designed image of  the dog by Urist McCrazyEngraver.  is screaming. This engraving relates to the killing of  the dog in FortressName in X year."

Note the spaces where the names should be.

I get a bunch of these in my current fortress, and I also run a puppy-slaughtering mill. The action line is anything from " is screaming" to " is in a fetal position" and even " is falling"

But never any name. Just " the dog", with the space where the name should be.

[o_O[WTFace]]

LOL lucky.  I never got any meat industry related engravings, not even when I was experimenting with knocking them unconscious on top of 10 steel disc traps. 

"Engraved on the dining room wall is an image of  the dog you are eating and serrated discs.   The dog is making a plaintive gesture, the steel discs are laughing"

[smjjames]

@NW_Kohaku: We'll be able to see the corpse wounds in the next version, sort of an instant autopsy I think.

[NW_Kohaku]

I also used Dwarf Companion to look up a training accident that happened early on in my fort - turns out that my dwarf died because the then-highest trained axedwarf in my fort had put an unqualitied copper (no silver at that time) axe STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HEART of her sparring partner, taking out a lung and spleen, as well.  No wonder he only left two tiles of blood trail behind him before bleeding out.  (My first knowledge of the event was the "has bled out" message, and you can't check wounds on a corpse)

That's not nice.

The annoying thing for me was that it was the upstart hammerdwarf that killed my champion. I had just upgraded them plate armour, so i assumed they would be able to handle anything. If I could have chosen one to die...

Actually, I remember something else not nice about this...

At the time, this was my 2nd or 3rd wave of immigrants, and I only had a small handfull of military dwarves.  The guy who died was the first person to bring children (none yet given birth), two daughters.  He died about a month or two after settling in.  Next year, the economy started, leaving his two young daughters to pay for their own food and rooms.

(But they were fine, they're absurdly highly skilled farmers, and one was something like 10 when she arrived, and she is now a marksdwarf.)

[Calhoun]

Once i accidently flooded my trade depot, and i had just received a migration wave, the the depot is in between the main entrance and them, and the elves had arrived shortly before them, so i had just sealed up both sides of the depot right as the last migrant made it in.

And what does my legendary engraver decided to show on the walls? Burning Dwarfs. They are Everywhere!

[mrbobbyg]

Damnit,
            I am hearted by the fact that other people feel the same way I do about innocent demi-monsters. I had got the impression you were quite a ruthless bunch.

Agreed.  I hate killing the bat/slug/snail/etc men.  I LOVE killing slimes...but they tend to love killing me more.

[NW_Kohaku]

Actually, once I finally get around to properly breaching the underground river (once my waterworks are done), I modded and plan to trap, tame, and make pets of snake and lizardmen.  I wanted to have a civ where snakeman and dwarf work side-by-side.

~ SERPENTINE AND IVORY ~ Live together in perfect HAR-MO-NY!