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[Dunamisdeos]

Taming bogeymen? Hey that's literally what its like raising a toddler, nonsensical cackling and everything. Toddlers are procedurally generated, even.

Good analogy.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

The last couple adventurers I made have also been killed going after the same ettin. Not giving up though, this may rapidly become a small megaproject.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Finally got the slab with an alligator man adventurer. Got a bonus ettin zombie out of the ordeal too. Now to terrorize the continent.

[Blastbeard]

I've got a tale to tell, a long one at that. It involves some save-scumming and DFHack trickery to get out of a tight spot, but I consider this acceptable considering the circumstances and outcome.

Spoiler: Dark Fortresses suck and this game needs explosives (click to show/hide)

After an ill-fated visit to the dwarven fortress of Tradesorbs, I decided to roll up on a dark fortress situated in a nearby tundra, intent on putting all that senseless violence behind me with some sensible ultraviolence. I honestly never bothered to check the name of this place, mostly because I've reached the same level of apathy about such things that it takes to rename a conquered city Alexandria for the thousandnth time. Imagine being self-centered enough to actually rename every town you take over after yourself.
Regardless, the dark fortress itself wasn't interesting, it was the inhabitants that are worth mentioning. Based on what I experienced, the only logical explanation for what I was about to witness is that the denizens of this dark fortress had somehow formed a telepathic network to become a collective consciousness.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The hammerdwarf who just strolled through an imploding fortress unscathed was at this point loaded for demon, and I was fixing to put him to use. I chose this particular dark fortress because a) it was relatively closeby and b) was currently housing 21 prisoners. The plan was to go in and go in and go in like the US marshals get in, rescue everyone at once, and get out before anyone noticed. A simple in-and-and out job that wouldn't even involve that much killing. Easy, right?

I snuck into the site without issue. A raging blizzard lowered visibilty to just a few tiles, even in the middle of the day. I quickly made my way underground and headed towards the central spire. As I reached an underground entrance to the spire, I caught two goblins having a chat as they travelled inside. I sprinted up, killed one with a silent charging attack to the head, and decided to save my game. This was where the trouble began.

The second golbin had already rounded a corner and couldn't see his companion die, and couldn't turn around in time to see the hammer come down on his skull as well. I would give about a dozen more goblins the same treatment as I made my way further down, the combination of a guaranteed hit from stealth attacks and the power of a steel warhammer ensured the work was quick, and relatively clean compared to what I saw in Tradesorbs. All the while, there was considerable lag, not an uncommon thing for a dark fortress, but perhaps worth mentioning for later.
I made my way down, down to bottommost level of the dungeon, just before the spire opened up into a massive pit leading even further down. Here lay the final set of prison cells, and from here I intended to go door by door, working my way back up until I had cleared them of prisoners. I wouldn't get the chance.
As I prepared to start opening cells, a goblin came down the corridor. Even while sneaking, there was no hiding here, and the goblin demanded I identify myself. I answered with a hammer to the face, and heard sounds coming from a room further back up. Fearing the worst, I doubled back to discover more goblins coming my way. Assuming I had been detected somehow, I dropped stealth and just started killing.
It went the same way each time. The goblin would come up, demand I identify myself, and get a hammer to the face. With my high skill, it was an almost guarenteed kill each time, though not always. Sometimes they would survive the hit and crawl away, paralyzed and suffocating. One woodcutter stood out by not only dodging my blows for a considerable length of time, but actually fighting back with her bronze haldberd, managing to land a few hits but never able to penetrate my steel armor.

But they just kept coming, an endless tide of goblins. They weren't a threat to me, they weren't even hostile, even after I finally introduced myself as a member of an enemy civilization. They were more intertested in the lower levels of the spire I previously mentioned, hellbent on getting down there for some reason. You could argue that I could have just stood aside and waited for them to pass, but there was no end in sight.
I wouldn't be able to get the prisoners out safely with a neverending stream of goblins in the way. If a fight broke out between a prisoner and a goblin, the prisoner would just keep attacking and I would have to leave them behind. I reasoned that, just maybe, if I killed enough goblins, they would stop coming down here, and I tried that. I really did.
Entirely too much real time and about two thousand dead goblins later, I realized this wasn't going to work. I had been in the same room in the same dark fortress for four god damn hours and had made no worthwhile progress. Checking the surroundings with DFHack's reveal command showed me two things. The first was that the goblins were still coming, pouring into the spire from both the surfance and underground access points. The second was that these goblins had absolutely no reason to be doing this. The area they all appeared to be trying to get to, that bottommost part of the spire, wasn't that interesting, it didn't even open up into the underworld, it was just there. The only thing of interest down here was me, and somehow these goblins knew I was there.
I was about ready to call it a day, but before I did I used DFHack to slay every goblin on the map, just to see what would happen. All the goblins died, and I waited a few turns before revealing the map again, only to find a fresh wave of goblins pouring in from the edges of the map. They weren't going to give up so easily.
It was then that I realized that if I wanted to see an end to this, I was going to have to depopulate the entire site. A site with a population of approximately eleven thousand. Nope. No. Hell no. Not doing it, it would take twelve hours or more and I am not doing that. No, no, and no. Just no.

So I hit the reset button. Just like that, I was back at the entrance of the spire, the first goblin dead at my feet. Curious, I revealed the map, and felt my heart skip a beat.
The goblins were already moving towards me. All of the goblins were moving towards me.
Take a moment to imagine what I saw. A map full of multicolored 'g's, hundreds of them, spread across dozens of z-levels. Each and every one has a green arrow indicating the direction that g is moving in. Each and every one of those arrows was pointing toward my position.
Somehow, somehow, killing one goblin alerted every single goblin except the one right next to it, and now they were all coming to confront me. What the fuck, Dwarf Fortress?

I understood how it was going to be. If the game wanted to fight with cheese, I was willing to fight with cheese right back. After all, two can play at that game. I knew that simply spamming /exterminate wouldn't work, goblins would keep appearing form the edges of the map. Besides, that's not very satisfying. So I got creative.
/liquids was my weapon of choice. Water for those underground and in the residential areas, magma for those aboveground and on staircases, and both at certain specific points in the map. I took some time to paint the map, closed the liquids menu, and advanced the game.
The effects of magma were instant and obvious, but I feel that water was more satisfying, due in no small part to the spectacle of a group in the burial pits getting swept into a nearby chasm, plunging into the depths where their fall would be broken by the bones of their dead and the hard cavern floor. However, it was the obsidian walls that brought me true satisfaction. By sealing off all but one entrance to the spire's dungeons, and sealing off the adjacent tunnels with the except of a specific path leading back the way, I managed to completely cut myself off from every goblin on the map, with the exception of the dozen or so already in the dungeon. The goblins had no walkable path to my position, and wouldn't have one until the screen shifted.
For my efforts, I was treated to a truly rare experience. Depsite all the flowing liquid on the map, Despite the sheer number of creatures on the screen, Despite everything, there was no lag. Revealing the map showed that the goblins I hadn't incinerated or drowned had stopped dead in their tracks. They had no way to path to me, which means the game didn't have to process it. In doing so, I had created a lag-free dark fortress. Needless to say, It felt good.

Finally free to go about my business, I wasted no time, dispatching the prison guards and leading the prisoners on with promises of rescue and free candy. Compared to what I had been through already, wrangling twenty-one children was a simple task. I lead my throng back the way I came as fast as they could follow and as the map shifted lag spikes punctuated each of my steps. I didn't even bother revealing the map, I knew what was coming. It didn't matter, I knew the way out and my group was moving at full speed, there would be no stopping us.
Escaping through the tunnels was uneventful, but as we reached the ground floor of an outlying tower, a goblin accosted me with an all too familiar demand to identify myself. I mistook his nose for a nail, but this turned out to be too much for a dwarven girl who had done a great job of staying right behind me until then. She broke down crying, and refused to move. There wasn't enough time to sit around and wait for her to get it together, and I wasn't about to leave her after going through all this trouble, so I used DFHack to forcibly drag her behind me. No Child Left Behind may not have worked for me, but I was sure as hell going to make it work for her.
The added weight slowed me down slightly, but allowed the other prisoners to catch up. We were on the home stretch now, a short distance from here and I would be able to fast travel to safety. I had to kill another goblin, which led to another mental breakdown, leading to me dragging a second child kicking and screaming to safety. It didn't matter at that point, because ten steps later I was looking at the fast travel screen and moving as far away from that cesspit as I could get.

Against all odds, I evaded the green tide and escaped into the snowy wastes with their entire prison roster in tow. Well, almost all of them. Ducking out of fast travel to take stock of the situation, I realized we were one short. When I looked through the gamelog to see what happened, I found that one of the prisoners had happened upon someone claiming to be a parent during the escape, and left my party to join them. Oh well, twenty out of twenty one is good enough for me. As far as I was concerned, victory was mine.

Unfortunately, the story's not over yet. For all the trouble I went through, There was still one more ordeal to endure.

Spoiler: Dorf McHammerface and The Travelling Orphanage (click to show/hide)

So I had outcheesed a goblin dairy farm and made off with a prize of twenty one twenty children, leaving me with the task of ensuring each and every one found their way to a caring home. Splendid.
Asking around the group, I figured out where each one needed to go. Fortunately, most had family near places I had already intended to visit. The worst cases, the human children, all came from the same town, which still wasn't that far away. I decided to start with a nearby hillocks, home to one of the kids I had to drag along towards the end. The human town was fairly close to the hillocks and I would be able to get rid of the humans shortly after.

It took a day, but we made it the hillocks without incident. Offloading the child was simple too. Her father was in the first mound I checked. As they reunited, I stepped outside and suddenly had the idea to tell the human children about my adventures up to this point, so they would go on to spread rummors of my greatness among their kind. As I did so, I was interrupted by the sound of battle coming from inside the mound, along with the dwarven child's father crying for help. I investigated, only to discover the father had a crossbow bolt embedded in his chest. Further inside the mound, I saw the dwarven child fighting with the other dwarves. There was no mistaking her, it was her name and the description matched her perfectly, but she was now wearing a different set of clothes, and wielding a crossbow she most certainly had not owned just a moment before. For reasons I cannot fathom, as soon as the child stopped was regarded as rescued, they became hostile to their friends and family. I was also mildly insulted that this did not include me, as the prisoner turned marksdwarf was still friendly towards me and the other children. I quickly fast traveled away, hoping to offload the site quickly in an attempt to prevent any further harm.

I was troubled by this turn of events, and changed my plans accordingly. I decided I would instead return to the fortress I had started out in, see to it that every child was adopted by a dwarf, and then retire. I hoped that this would somehow prevent the children from becoming hostile towards their new family. This did nothing to prevent the children from becoming hostile towards their new family.
I safely returned to my hometown, and as I approached the trade depot with the kids in tow, the townsfolk gathered there began to flee in terror, despite a lack of hostile action or intent from me and my party. I think they knew what I had in mind and were objecting the only way they knew how.
I worked quickly, greeting old acquaintances and asking them to look after these downtrodden youths. Despite their obvious reservations, most happily accepted the task when directly asked, although some among them did refuse outright. The mayor, bless his beard, actually agreed to adopt three of the little scamps.
Just like before, as soon as each child was released from my care, they approached their new parents to initiate a 'bonding excercise'. This time, however, none of them pulled weapons out of thin air, and their mischief amounted to nothing more than chasing their new neighbors around. Progress.
After everything I had been through, the adoption process was relatively quick and painless. Before I knew it, my party was empty and the fortress population was nineteen larger. Better still, nobody had died, although one of of the human child was showing bruises from a fistfight with their adoptive mother. Turning a blind eye to child abuse and refusing to press my luck any further, I retired right then and there. Soon enough, I found myself back at the title screen, and congratulated myself on a job well done.

I think I'll be leaving rescue missions to fortress dwarves from now on.

[Arcturus]

Just hunted down some criminals. They didn't attack me so I didn't feel like murdering them in the middle of this town. I had a long argument with their leader about the value of law though. Finally convinced him that it was right to obey the law. No more trouble from him.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

My last adventure was fun, I played an idealistic crow man who had an ambitious quest to locate all the divine slabs and use them to banish the tyranny of demons from the mortal world once and for all (after acquiring a sufficient amount of XP, of course). It...didn't work out so well. I had a good initial run clearing out a few bandit camps and slaying a vampire law-giver to return his artifact spear to its rightful owner (the sacred lake of the Blue Denomination), but I got slashed to death by a goblin swordsman in the dungeon of a small town.

Maybe I'll carry on the quest with something a bit more robust than a bird man.

[Dunamisdeos]

Be an elephant man and punch heads.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

You read my mind.

[Superdorf]

Found a fortress, forge some elephant-sized steel/adamantine gear and a nice axe to go with. Then be an elephant man and sever heads!

[TeaAndRum]

I made an adventurer, whose companion went melancholic and left my company (didn't know it was possible, he suddenly just stopped moving, and flashed the depression icon, and left the party), in the very day I left the hamlet. Then I sheltered in hillocks nearby, failing to recruit anyone there.
I continued, and noticed that the only structure before the seemingly endless wilderness was a town, Flaxapples. Well, I remember this town having been sacked by goblins a few centuries ago, so I assumed it was ruined and thought about scavenging stuff, perhaps recruiting a bandit and living to se the next day.
Turns out, it was packed with goblins, and just goblins! FPS sunk to 5 or something. City was so full of them, that I accidentally pushed against someone (I think?), which started a fight. As is done in fight with goblins, I attempt to kill them all. With almost nonexistent framerate, it's slow but steady. It's difficult because they're running away and I'm going to starve soon. But so very worth it, for all the trouble they gave me in fortresses.

[Rumrusher]

well currently roaming the lands in a dark ages mod, with a wizard name Etru.

uhh so far the goal for this adventure is mostly finding 'new' creatures and races and try to insert them into the camp(with dfhack or just assign zones then disbanding them), and watch the horrible results doing so.
so far the camp is filled with wizards, fighters, and now these Sea-Shamens. the sea shamens came from etru walking into seeing a stalker sea-shaman getting mauled by a diety elder vampire and etru just yank the shamen back to camp for recovery and using dfhack kinda filled the camp with inhabitants of the same race which didn't end up like the verminancy civil war.
the Civil war ended up with bunch of wizards fighting wizards after realizing verminancy kinda makes the user hostile and the inhabitants with verminancy all jump the other wizard inhabitants this event happen pretty early in the camp lifetime so the place is littered with dead wizards everywhere from the battle.

[SpaceMetal]

My bard/axedwarf stopped by the local drinking mound in search of information and booze. She found the former, though oddly not the latter. She also saw Fikod Merchanttactics kill Minkot Beachcaves, for some reason.

After a few conversations and a performance, she spoke to Fikod with the goal of reforming her, or at least dissuading her from suffocating anybody else. She managed to convince Fikod of the value of peace, harmony, tranquility, and self-control, and the worthlessness of power, competition, and martial prowess.

[ZM5]

"Goodbye."

I must have accidentally thrown a dagger at her by mistake, so once my crew was done fighting the bone soldiers down in a town's catacombs, this happened. Perfect timing.

EDIT:
Damn, haven't seen this werebeast message before - interesting that the game has it, considering how rarely I see them becoming civ enemies.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

I just made a rather neat discovery that it's possible to "disturb" vermin in adventure mode. Upon hopping down into a giant's lair, my human adventurer received the message "many rats have been disturbed". Anything similar ever happen to anyone else?

[ZM5]

I have seen that before, yeah - happens in other lair types too. You can use the "search thoroughly" command to do something similar and find live vermin.