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[Galick]

I don't know about morbid, but bloodthirsty? I can tell you one about that.

It was in the 40d version. I'd duplicated the goblin entries twice, made each duplicate race bigger and with more DAMBLOCK than the last, and renamed them Hobgoblins and Orcs. This was back when a well outfitted champion was neigh invincible, remember.

After embark, every male immigrant instantly got drafted, married or not. The entrance to my fort was a modestly sized building aboveground (maybe thirty tiles accross, each way. ) A C-shaped hall around the edge of the building lead through the barracks, which were right next to the wagon. I had about forty soldiers and they were my entire defenses. No traps of any kind, no drawbridges, just forty male dwarves who soon became legendary wrestlers. When they got up to legendary in one weapon, I switched them to a new one, finishing off with swords. I like swords for my military because of what they represent. Battle. Other weapons are used for other things- hammers for smashing rocks and pounding metal, axes are used to cut wood, crossbows and spears are used to hunt, and maces are just a derivative of hammers. But swords are made specifically for warfare.

With three seige races next to my settlement, I was under attack almost constantly. The cleanup effort was legendary and I could hardly do anything outside without getting ambushed. I eventually abandoned that fort when all three races stopped attacking. Five years without so much as a snatcher. I was sad to have to do it.

Now, my most morbid? Prbably the one I'm working on now. My first megaproject involves two huge stone pillars and a 50 z-level high sky. At the center tile of each pillar, on every level, will be the corpse of a sentient creature. Dwarf, elf, human, doesn't matter. They'll be needed for the final step.

alright, I gotta ask.  What's the bloody final step.

[Particleman]

That's a secret. I plan on uploading a copy of my map to the DFFD once it's time for the final step.

[Vastin]

Was playing a succession game in my office a year or so ago. Got the fort in year two and despite some extremely odd design decisions by my predecessor, handed it off in excellent working order.

Three years later it came back into my hands... 

One of the successors had taken to murdering all the caravans coming through, which hadn't resulted in any overt disasters but had resulted in a few dwarvish deaths and some morale issues, but the next had involved himself in all manner of bizarre water projects - including a waterfall arrangement that didn't work very well, except for the manner in which it frequently drowned dwarves in a rather unrecoverable manner.

Needless to say, the fortress was well into its death spiral by now, and the captain of the guard spent most of his time killing off tantruming dwarves - those that didn't simply hurl themselves into the moat to drown. When I actually got to CHECKING the moat, I found over half a dozen waterlogged corpses that had already been left there by my predecessor. It was a wonder that a single dwarf was still sane.

I thought I had almost sort of managed to stabilize things with a fair dozen or so dwarves remaining. That's when I watched one of the few remaining dwarf children lose it, and the little girl who was his best friend was forced to kill him in self defense.  Then a day or so later the little girl's mother flung herself into the moat. 

At that point, I was so depressed by the madness and carnage that I had to abandon.

[mal7690]

My return to DF starting a few days ago, the fort ended today, mostly me being lazy.  I think I hold the record for fastest tantrum-caused fortress failure ever.  I happened to embark on a perfectly good spot, river, flux, trees, yay!; except there were harpies and ogres.  The harpies managed to kill of my doc and a miner a couple of months in, making the other miner tantrum into shooing the other dwarves out of the fortlet, where the ogres were hanging out.  Mass carnage.

It gets better though; the sad and lonely miner, after watching all his buddies die, proceeded to be kicked around for a season by one of the ogres without dying.  Migrants came before he died.  Those migrants, save two died, and the survivors got kicked around by the other ogres,also not dying.  It was a bloody inverse version of the law of Ninjitsu.  About halfway through Winter, I decided that the ogres weren't going to kill the dwarves any time soon,  so I abandoned the fort and started a new game.

And that isn't the bloodiest fort I've had either, just the most recent.

[oolon1]

Sometime during the previous major release cycle I embarked on an exposed chasm.  Over where the chasm ended (which happened to be pretty close to my wagon) was a giant cave spider.  I don't particularly remember why my dwarves wandered over there (to get to one side of the chasm, they had to path all the way across the map to go around it, so they went right around the end of the chasm).  Lost at least three dwarves, if I remember.  Ugliest start to a fortress I've ever had, and very fun.

[Sir Finkus]

What do I win?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

:Edit: actually, come to think of it, my dwarves are ecstatic.  Grim for the humans though

[jei]

FB ramming everyone to death slowly all over the fortress, breaking all the doors, tables and chairs in the process.
Demons doing everyone in... more than once.
Gobilns have actually managed to get my fort only twice. And the second time was due to the fact that I never got
any immigrants due to not having any neighbors, and the 7 initial dwarves didn't last more than 6 game years. Last 4 survivors were all male and after realizing it, I just gave up the fort when the last ambush had gotten the only female of the then 5 survivors.

I always prepare for the worst and build plenty of coffins to cover everyone and their pets. It saves a lot of grief and has been the deciding factor for my fortresses success more than once, imho. Instead of raging dwarves, I get active ones even when the crisis is hitting pretty bad. Took me a while to learn this trick, but ever since then my fortresses really haven't fallen due to dwarves losing their mental stability in waves during crisis like they used to.

[lolghurt]

My current fortress is full of blood, because Urist McArterialBleeding won't keel over. And now the butcher is tantruming.

[Vastin]

Yeah, for those who aren't aware, death spirals CAN almost always be avoided. The fastest/cheapest ways to keep your dwarves from losing it are:

- A couple very high value native aluminum/gold statues in your meeting area and/or dining hall. A very simple way to keep morale up in general.

- Don't let dwarf corpses decay! When a dwarf's body decays the morale hit is far, FAR worse than when they die. Can't emphasize this enough. Dredge the lake if you need to, just get Urist McDead out of the water and into a coffin ASAP.

- Don't let your dwarves hold year-long parties or socialize TOO much - the better they know each other, the wider the hit when one dies, though I think a wide circle of friends does help dilute it a bit?

[melomel]

What do I win?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

:Edit: actually, come to think of it, my dwarves are ecstatic.  Grim for the humans though

That.  is.  awesome.

The fortress is badass, as well, but where did you find your icon pic? 

[cog disso]

Not really grisly, but I once built a ziggurat made entirely of goblin tallow soap, and then populated it with caged goblins, and at the top was the Baron's bedroom.

[Sir Finkus]

What do I win?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

:Edit: actually, come to think of it, my dwarves are ecstatic.  Grim for the humans though

That.  is.  awesome.

The fortress is badass, as well, but where did you find your icon pic? 

I've actually forgotten, but I thought it was rather relevant to this particular forum.

[Eric Blank]

Back in 40d, while I was still trying to figure most things out, I managed to create a definite hell-hole, Finger the Anus of Horses.

I had learned somewhere that waterfalls generated mist, mist generated happiness, and happiness kept the drunken idiots sane slightly longer. So I dug out some stockpiles and farms at the base of a cliff up in the north-west corner of the map, the only area with trees, all of the rest being mountains. with a cavern running from about the center to the southern edge, where i immediately attempted to dig out a channel from the brook to the chasms as a waterfall area. I learned early on that sealing my fort with some form of door was a necessity, and since i didn't know about the power o the drawbridge I used a trio of floodgates. What are the chances of your dwarves leaving something right on top of your floodgates? Higher than the chances of them pulling the lever to actually attempt closing the gates. 90% of the ambushes actually fought with my marksmen and axemen squads, the entryway was a scene of death like nothing I've seen since in my forts; dozens of goblin corpses, piled atop dozens of my soldiers, piled atop dozens of idiot civilians that were doing the entrance dance, atop dozens of pets that were following their owners. The plateau above my fort was more of the same with a single center-point of pure rage; Imepereve (of endless rage, i've added), an elves' pack animal that went berserk (because they were at that time too stupid to go home when locked out.) and started wandering the countryside killing everything it came across. In it's anger it managed to slaughter dozens of goblins, and dozens of mountain goats, before eventually being beaten to death by a goblin ambush. Nobody ever cleaned up the corpses, just stole their socks.

This wasn't everything, however. Back then I didn't understand why the wiki told me to make a chamber to hold the water being used to irrigate my farms, I had no idea the game actually had some semblance of pressure. So what did I do? I tried to build a well off the chamber channeling water down from the brook, right before the pressurization chamber, and directly connected to the farms with no doors in-between. Results are clear, just not clear enough, so I'll skin my fingers on this keyboard. the southernmost end of the farms was used as the food stockpiles, and when I discovered the flooding, I ordered a tunnel be dug to channel it into the chasms. The tunnel wasn't big enough, so the chamber continued to fill until it became inaccessible. I of course had nothing outside that farming area to feed my dwarves, so a massive famine ensues. Within 6 months the population has dropped from 70+ to maybe 10-20. Over the next 6 months the tantrum spiral/my sadism kills all but a single fisherman. Needless to say nobody wanted anything to do with the place by then except the goblins and Imepereve, but I wanted this guy to suffer in his miserable loneliness so i didn't abandon. I did, however, completely and utterly forget to lock the doors (of course I really couldn't, the fisherman needed water since I had no barrels). The poor sober fool was torn to shreds by a squad of swordsmen when he went into the cellar to grab a snack. A miserable end to a miserable hell-hole, Finger the Anus of Horses.

[JAFANZ]

Not really grisly, but I once built a ziggurat made entirely of goblin tallow soap, and then populated it with caged goblins, and at the top was the Baron's bedroom.

Did you need to mod Ethics to allow making Goblin Tallow? & if so, where do I find out what to Mod? (the DFWiki page on Ethics lists the tags, but doesn't mention where they go).

[Josephus]

Not really grisly, but I once built a ziggurat made entirely of goblin tallow soap, and then populated it with caged goblins, and at the top was the Baron's bedroom.

"not really grisly"?

That's like the definition of grisly, dude. Kudos on making a sick ziggurat.