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Author Topic: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.  (Read 3246 times)

fluiddruid

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A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.
« on: September 13, 2010, 08:12:38 pm »

At least it was painful for me.  Not so much for my dwarves, as you'll see...

So I got my first
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
.  Turns out he was made of coke.  Beware his deadly dust?  Hummmm.... wasn't sure what that meant, but I was somewhat alarmed as I had only just figured out my military controls in any real way.  My dwarves hadn't even dealt with a goblin siege yet, just some random stuff in the cavern I cracked recently, like olmmen and elk birds.

I sent all three of my squads down to the cavern post-haste, but they didn't get there in time, so I said "screw it" and sent in who I had.  Glad it turned out that way in hindsight, for reasons you'll soon see.  A couple of wardogs joined in.

After a brief battle, one of my adequate axedwarves lopped off the head of the mighty beast.  Only one dwarf was killed.  I felt fortunate for a brief moment...

...until I checked out the wounds from every one of the eight or so soldiers who made it into the cavern.

In addition to all having been blinded, every bit of skin, muscle and fat on their eyelids, lips, arms, legs, and every finger and toe was now suffering from advanced rot.  Instantly.  For every.  Single.  One.   Including my militia commander.

Thank Armok that their crippling and disfiguring injuries inflicted also made them completely numb.  Destroyed their nerve endings, I suppose?  At least they didn't feel it, and most of them were still quite content despite their massive injuries.

Fortunately, my recent migrant waves had included many individuals with health care skills who I had been using for hauling.  I freed them up, cranked out some soap, and got cracking.  Well, after my chief medical dwarf had a good long drink and a nap.  Of course.  Fortunately, the victims walked upstairs and put themselves in the hospital and were resting comfortably in short order, though there weren't nearly enough beds to go around. 

I hadn't messed with health care much -- just a bit of dabbling when one of my idiot farmers got hit by my idiot practicing siege operators with a ballista bolt -- so I thought I'd diagnose and see what happens.  The damage was, fairly obviously, beyond repair but I hoped to keep them going long enough to stretch out the deaths and avoid a tantrum spiral (I haven't yet experienced one but hear they're not much fun!)  After being cleaned, the victims would have needed several dozen surgeries each.   

What's worse... the miasma.  The constant traffic in and out of my hospital made the cloud disperse to the closely located central stair, so every level of my fortress was infected with it.  The huge cloud of miasma made it difficult for me to see what was happening.  I quickly forbade the main hospital entrance after mining another, which didn't seem to help much.  The clouds seemed to be moving away, all over the fort... how?  I realized that the wardogs were running around the fortress, with rotten skin, muscle, and fat on their paws (but not the rest -- oddly).  How the dogs were running everywhere with a rotten knot of flesh at the end of each foot baffles me, but okay. 

Before I could start tracking all of the wardogs down, I got a surgery cancellation.  Turns out the victims, despite being fed and watered, were tired of resting and went back to their barracks, leaving a huge stinky cloud behind them as they went.  The military, already demoralized, were sliding dangerously towards unhappy punching time.  I didn't want to see what would happen if one or more of them started keeling over right in front of my beleaguered troops.

I did the logical thing (I thought) and removed them from the military.  Despite being rotten everywhere besides the inner organs and brain and being frigging BLIND, they nobly went back to their normal tasks, happily hauling stuff  -- slowly shuffling, I should say -- all over the fort.   *facepalm*  How on earth are they walking when the muscle of every limb is rotten?!

Urist McManager: "Okay guys, today we're going to be hauling hair to the dump and---"
Moldy McStank: "I CAAAANNNNN HELPPPPPPP GUYYYYYS!! IGNOOOOORE MY LEAKIIIIIING FLESHHHHHH..."

Eughhhh... Finally, not wanting to send my brave heroes to an ignoble death under the drawbridge, I did the only logical thing.

I established a leper colony.

I had a large area intended for a finished goods stockpile unconnected with my main fortress, but behind most of my defenses.  I quickly installed beds, tables, chairs, and food stockpiles, and started assigning the putrefying dwarves to a burrow limiting them to the colony.   To simplify this process and identify them easily on the unit screen, I started giving them custom names.  Smelly, Drippy, Stumbly, Unlucky...

Just as I finished channeling out the ceiling to help clear the air... since the poor guys were suffering so badly already.... they started to die off due to infection.  Thank God.  Poor rotten-faced bastards.

Unfortunately two of them are still alive and refuse to go in the colony.  Instead, they wander about outside, in the sun, being miserable.  And a horde of partially rotting wardogs I haven't had time to deal with yet, who I had previously assigned to various dwarves, have of course settled in nicely outside my most critical (and doorless) workrooms, nestled in my most frequented stockpiles.  Naturally, this is right near my central stairway.

After all this, and the perpetual rotting reek in the halls for months now, it's only going to take one dwarf going crazy and I'll have some real 'fun' on my hands...
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MilestoneTwo

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Re: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2010, 08:41:51 pm »

I'm having a similar problem right now, actually, but just with my war dogs and war jaguars. They're running all over everywhere getting lovely clouds of miasma into everything. Most of 'em have been slaughtered but there's a couple of pet cats who somehow got their paws mangled too, and they're trotting all over the fortress and I can't slaughter them anymore. Shoulda got 'em earlier. Anyway, all my dwarves are so sick of it that I'm fairly sure that my very first tantrum spiral is coming on. I'm almost looking forward to it, this was a pretty crappy fort anyways.
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fivex

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Re: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2010, 08:45:57 pm »

Put the kittens in a cage
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ledgekindred

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Re: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2010, 09:00:21 pm »

Ok that was all pretty damned funny but this

Moldy McStank:

made me snort water out my nose for some reason.  And then to top it off we get "Smelly, Drippy, Stumbly, Unlucky..."

I don't think I have laughed so hard at disaster.  And totally unexpected because the first statement that your FB was made of coke I expected you to set him on fire and get a totally different kind of Fun as an ever-burning FB rampaged your fort.
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I don't understand, though that is about right with anything DF related.
I just hope he dies the same death that all dwarfs deserve: liver disease.
The legend of Reg: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=65866.0
Atir Stigildegel, Legless Hero of Diamondrelic: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=83136.0

melomel

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Re: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.
« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2010, 09:16:49 pm »

Hey...  if you have to lose a fort, you could do worse than losing it to a tantrum spiral brought on by the shambling, rotting, and yet still hideously living and mobile remains of its stalwart defenders driving everyone else insane with the stench of their fetid, festering flesh.

It beats a tantrum spiral kicked off by some noble who didn't get his three hoary marmot tooth windows.
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I HAVE THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND CRAFT ITEMS. I WILL TRADE THEM ALL FOR CHEESE.
7+7

mnjiman

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Re: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.
« Reply #5 on: September 13, 2010, 09:34:47 pm »

This thread is full of awesome. made of awesome, dipped in awesome and encrusted with awesome. After words, there is studs of awesome as well. There is art work of of this thread being dipped into awesome, and on that work you can see that the pattern just repeats itself non stop.

Need I say more?
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I was thinking more along the lines of this legendary champion, all clad in dented and dinged up steel plate, his blood-drenched axe slung over his back, a notch in the handle for every enemy that saw the swing of that blade as the last sight they ever saw, a battered shield strapped over his arm... and a fluffy, pink stuffed hippo hidden discretely in his breastplate.

fluiddruid

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UPDATE!!
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2010, 09:35:24 am »

Well, kiss my grits and spank me raw.

ONE OF THE VICTIMS HAS SURVIVED!

Smelly the Axedwarf isn't rotting anymore!  Apparently, the emergency surgery on his farking upper lip to remove the rotting flesh has caused the rot on the rest of his body to scab over, because now he's just covered in horrible disfiguring scars.  He's still blind, pale, yellow-wounded on every area of his body and suffering 'severe blood loss', but he dang well lived!

Of course, knowing that you're going to survive as a faceless, blind freak for the rest of your days can only elicit one response: tantrum.

Thank goodness he had dropped all of his military equipment at his feet and forgot about it.  He threw something, punched a dog, and bruised the fat (??) of one of his doctors, who came by to check on him (yeah right, he was there to rifle through his discarded armor).    Now he's been called to a meeting at the mayor's office for some reason instead of jail.  I have to agree; I think a talking-to and a slap on the wrist is more in order than being slapped in cuffs at this point.

In other news, my engravers have commemorated the events.  Not so much the killing of the mighty foe, but:

"Engraved on the floor is an exceptionally designed image of Deduk Breachabbey the dwarf by Erush Ostarzas.  Deduk Breachabey is in a fetal position.  The artwork relates to the fatal illness of the dwarf Deduk Breachabbey in Blowwire in the late winter of 1052."

I can't tell if "fatal illness" is a polite euphemism, or if the dwarves are genuinely flummoxed as to why their companions coincidentally all started to rot to pieces at once.


Thanks for all the responses all.  For the record, the afflicted cats are already dead, and I think most of the wardogs now.  Unfortunately, it's been hard to identify them since a bunch of perfectly healthy animals seem to be requesting diagnosis for no clear reason, but we're making progress here.

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fluiddruid

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Re: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2010, 09:36:56 am »

Awww man... a moment later (they're still in a meeting) and:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Crabapples.  Oh, and the goblins apparently died at some point, since they're not on my civ list.  Sucks, but I'm not about to abandon now.
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jei

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Re: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.
« Reply #8 on: September 14, 2010, 10:23:30 am »

  How on earth are they walking when the muscle of every limb is rotten?!

They're called Zombies. Logic doesn't apply.

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Scaraban

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Re: UPDATE!!
« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2010, 11:04:20 am »

Well, kiss my grits and spank me raw.
NO never, ever say that... ever
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fluiddruid

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Update #2
« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2010, 11:09:39 am »

Oh boy.

I thought my defenses were decent, but I had forgotten one thing:

... the ceiling to the (now empty) leper colony.

The beastie flew in and proceeded to smash up some furniture.  A pack of stray dogs, not yet even trained for battle, took on the beast nobly.  The results were predictable.  I quickly forbade the room and stationed my military outside while I hastily build some traps and floor him in.  He seems content for now, and the open air seems to be helping, as no spittle has been sighted.

Unfortunately, the meeting with the mayor seems to not have sorted things out.  Smelly was carted off to jail for 70 days.  The other survivor, Unlucky, has also pulled through after an emergency surgery to his eyelids.  Dang, if I had known they would only need one surgery apiece, I would have tried harder to save them.  Unlucky is unhappy, but working doggedly at hauling as instructed.  Poor fella.  Wish they'd elect the guy mayor; he's a real trooper.  Sadly, he has no real crafting skills to enjoy his retirement with.... I'm considering re-drafting him.

While the titan has been happily smashing my statues and beds, I've finally issued orders to slaughter the last of the rotten dogs.  This is helping the odor immensely, and my masons are crafting more coffins for the overflowing pet cemetary.


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Jayce

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Re: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.
« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2010, 11:42:10 am »

Try giving them a bath.
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Dariush

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Re: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.
« Reply #12 on: September 14, 2010, 12:35:19 pm »

Try giving them a bath.
Living dead are stumbling around your fort? Whole fort is submerged in miasma from corpses? Fear no longer! The Corpus Washus Company will wash all your corpses for mere 100 dorfbucks apiece! Call right now and we'll wash your living as well... FOR FREE!

fluiddruid

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Update #3
« Reply #13 on: September 14, 2010, 01:17:15 pm »

Well, after he bypassed the cage traps (flying?), my military made short work of the titan.  So, relieved in that area, and I'm closing off the ceiling entrance.

I thought all was on the right track until random pets are also coming down with the rot-foot problem en masse.  Including an elephant calf that I'm damned sure was nowhere near the battle with the beast in the cavern, since I only started freeing up cages from other projects.  I tried to get them slaughtered but now half a dozen dwarves, mostly miners and haulers, are cancelling activities to rest, and showing various levels of foot rot and, in some cases, complete numbness.  WTF is going on... are they tracking through something that's hurting them somehow - I don't see anything? Miasma everywhere.  Need to expand the hospital...  Are we cursed?  What's causing these afflictions?  Can't slaughter the adopted rotting pets, trying to get them confined...  it's gotta be something, the milking herd is chained up in an isolated spot and not affected.

Migrants at last.  Got none last season in the midst of the initial bout of rot. Pressed most of them into service as at least the military seems isolated from the rotting problem.   Smelly was freed and is ecstatic after venting his spleen to the major and getting in a fight, so what the hell, put him back in the army.  At least he won't tantrum in the foreseeable future, and he held his own in a fistfight well enough.  Unlucky, too, is in good spirits now so I've added him as well. 

Things are beginning to look dire.

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Vaftrudner

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Re: A first for me: some spoilery fun. Slow, painful fun.
« Reply #14 on: September 14, 2010, 01:27:17 pm »

They've probably dragged around the deadly dust all over the fortress, and contaminants never disappear. I recommend turning your entire fort into a leper colony and let the survivors and migrants carve a new one. Hilarious story by the way!
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