I created a group that I dubbed "The Expendables" - 2 Male Dwarves, 1 Male & 1 Female Goblin. All were somewhat competent with spears, and they started off in Helmdepths, a Dwarven hillocks located about a week away from my recently retired fort, Hollowthrone. My party traveled about 4 days north-east to reach the fortress, and ultimately the journey wasn't too eventful, despite the high number of semi-megabeasts that are roaming this world. We did stumble upon a giantess with a necromancer's slab & a silver war hammer, after a brief chat she was nice enough to donate both to our cause. The party reached the fort and retired shortly after. Sadly, they weren't reputable enough to join the fort's military as full-citizens, so upon reloading the fort I found that all 4 were just lounging as partial citizens. They seem to be able to haul and build walls for me at least, so whatever. I'll say mission accomplished.
Fast forward a couple of years and our little bunker of a fortress has weathered a necromancer siege and a goblin siege with little rest in between. The zombie siege resulted in ~80% of my fort dead, but amazingly all 4 adventurers survived. I think mostly because I wasn't able to order them around as normal citizens, so they were saved from my awful rulership. I now had 1 goblin & 1 dwarf leading my military. The 2nd dwarf apparently had become very attached to the (former)citizens he'd met during his short stay at Hollowthrone, as he died of depression just a few short months after our last siege. Finally, the female Goblin "Lokki" fell into the caverns from about 5 z-levels high, after trying to complete a hanging up/down stair for an elaborate bridge spanning the caverns. She didn't die as goblins don't eat or drink, but nobody was able to reach her to provide medical attention so she promptly went stark raving mad. For the last year or so, she's been babbling naked down in the caverns. I have seen beasts and monsters of every size wander right up to her but they don't seem to be bothered by her presence. At this point, she's become a native cavern creature in the same fashion as the magic car that goes wild in Harry Potter II: Electric Boogaloo.
I am very tempted to use DFHack & make Lokki the queen of my civilization. My civ is near extinct, so adding in a mad queen of the caverns is too good of an opportunity to pass up.