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[Gr33kjester]

I once had a Talented Axedwarf attempt to fend off a siege, on her own, then, she was unconscious, but still alive, then, her comrades in arms came to her rescue, then, after all that...
She died due to an infection...
She got a brilliant tomb and a title...

[Xenos]

This happened to me in my second or third fort.

I didn't know about mass butchery via the stock screen animal management back then, so I had a shitload of them lingering around. Especially dogs, for some reason. Eager to try out new stuff I then decided it'd be time to check out how training animals works. So I built a kennel, assigned a random migrant for animal training, and set "train war animal" on repeat.
I then more or less forgot about that guy, only noticing the steady increase in war dogs, of which I positioned quite a few on chains or in cages outside the fortress.
Some two ingame years later or so, I suddenly notice a huge trail of stray war dogs following a single dwarf, and sure enough, it's the Fortress' only animal trainer. The very guy I assigned to the job.
Apparently, these dogs, having been strays with no owner for their entire lives, kept following the single dwarf who ever took care of them. And by that I mean following him literally anywhere. Even when he was asleep, every tile of his small 2x2 room would be occupied by at least two war dogs. Including his bed.
Later I noticed that he had no friends to speak of either.
I like to imagine that he was content with being surrounded by his dogs. Even if they were not "officially" his.

This must be the dwarf fortress equivalent of the 'crazy cat lady.'

[Gzalzi]

I don't think I've had any heart warming moments, but I've had a few awesome ones.

The Dabbling Lasher who used a dead goblin's Scourge to kill 6 trolls by himself comes to mind.

[Untelligent]

So I started a fort in 40d. With some creatures modded in. Shortly after I embark, four of my seven dwarves die in a fire. The two miners survived because they were doing some digging; I made a meeting zone in the cave and one of the farmers fled there just in time.

Later, during the first winter, an Arcane Dragon arrives. He wanders into my mountain and eats one of my miners, then backs up a bit and sits in the food stockpile for some reason, trapping the rest of my dwarves in the kitchen. The only dwarf with a weapon is my last miner, Vabok Ralrigoth, doing some digging on a different level of the mountain. I have him dig a side-tunnel off to around where the dragon is, then draft all of my dwarves and they all bum-rush the dragon, who eats my legendary weaponsmith (who JUST made an artifact uranium warhammer). Then Vabok sneaks up on the dragon and brains him with his pick.


So Vabok Ralrigoth ("silverycrafted") becomes my favorite dwarf, and apparently everyone else's too, because they elect him mayor. He marries Cilob the farmer, the other survivor of the original seven. I start planning out the base of a big ol' tower to be dug out of the big mountain to the east, and I imagine Vabok to be thinking up all these crazy schemes for massive dwarven architecture. Some stuff gets built and dug. The tower gets put on hold for now, but it's completely designated, I just need to find a year or two of spare time to dig it.

A few years later, I have around 120-150 dwarves, some awesome things like a 32-story statue of a dwarf-head icon, a rainwater-catching device, and a murder tower made entirely out of cassiterite. All designed by "Vabok." Then a goblin siege comes. I'm not prepared for it at, especially due to the lack of useful metals on the map. After the goblin archers destroy my real military and a bunch of my dwarves, the caravan guards and the fortress guard come and finish them off. The damage has been done, though, and my fortress slowly descends into a tantrum spiral. I start doing everything I can to make my dwarves happy, which I've been neglecting due to the various projects. I make a legendary dining room, which helps a little but not much. Then I start cranking out coffins for the dead dwarves. Quite a few died in the siege, but at this point corpses are turning up all over the place due to the murders and beatings. I think far more dwarves died from the tantrum spiral, whether by tantrumer, guard, or starving in prison, than in the siege.

Anyway, I never got around to making a spot to put the coffins so by the time coffin production catches up with demand I've got a whole mountain full of caskets. The room I made for the kennel has more coffin than kennel. The barracks (which doubled as what passed for a hospital in 40d) is also full of coffins. At this point the spiral is starting to die down, thanks to the Fortress Guard deciding to be nice for a change and just jail criminals instead of beating them, which has the lovely side effect of giving them a massive happiness bonus when they get out of jail. I'm down to around 30 dwarves from well over 120, but the fortress shall survive.

Then I get a message that Mayor Vabok Ralrigoth has died of thirst. Apparently he brained the Captain of the Guard's dog with his pick during the height of the spiral, and got shoved in a jail cell with the rest of the tantrumers. This being 40d, nobody fed or watered him.

 :(

His wife Cilob (who becomes the fortress's first Legendary Cook later) is then elected mayor. She inherits Vabok's office, dining room, and artifact-cage-with-an-alligator-thing-in-it (which eventually has to be moved to the Chamber of Artifacts due to the baron being cranky about Cilob's room being fancier), as well as his desire for giant architecture. She commands the fortress fort the next twenty or thirty years, and oversees the construction of a great many things, including the great tower, which was named Vabok's Tower in his memory.


Eventually, all the workshops, farms, and living quarters of the fortress were moved into the tower. The mountain where the old fort was was completely emptied, save the coffins. The mountain now consists entirely of abandoned rooms full of coffins. It's spooky.

[Zaerosz]

Reposting from the 'Little things that brighten your DF day[2]' thread:

During a recent goblin siege my militia commander (a Legendary swordsdwarf who arrived as Talented) had his arm and leg broken by a goblin hammerer. The next siege saw all 20 remaining members of my militia - 7 each of swordsdwarves, axedwarves and speardwarves, minus the commander - slowly and methodically dismembering every single invader and beating them by hand until every one of them had bled out. When the hell did Toady implement revenge?

And later on, when the commander had healed enough to walk, I get the message 'Urist McChild has organized a party at copper Table.'

Urist McChild was Urist McCommander's only daughter.

[Zrk2]

Oh 40d, you so funny.

WTF, DF has no heartwarming! Only blood magma and death! (Not necessarily in that order)

I have had no heartwarming moments.

[Zaerosz]

Technically magma is heartwarming. And lungwarming, liverwarming, gutswarming, fleshwarming, brainwarming...

[Korva]

Some soldier of mine arrived with two pet puppies. Once they were grown, they somehow got into the danger room when their owner was training there, despite multiple tightly closed doors. One of them died instantly, causing a massive happiness hit. The other survived ... with three broken legs. I was much relieved since losing both pets at once would likely have sent the dwarf over the edge, but at the same time I felt awful imagining what pain the poor animal must be in. That dog, constantly flashing red from its major injuries which never healed, slowly but faithfully crawled along after its master for several years. Every time I saw it, I felt rotten and considered putting it out of its misery.

Eventually it took that choice out of my hands by getting into the danger room again, and this time it mercifully died. It is now buried next to its long-dead fellow. I like animals and look after my dwarves too to keep them happy, so I really wish there was a way to restrain pets, at least if their owner also owns a room where they could be kept it.

[Hivemind]

Why not chain the dogs in their room, if they aren't trained war dogs? I think dwarves will only release pets from cages, but I could be wrong.

[Mr. Argent]

Oh god, finding out that my broker was injured in a siege. This was the same broker that i had made a massive tomb for, after he managed to cooperate with a tamed animal and stop a rampant dorf in an act of badassery...His legs are OK, he should be able to walk...i hope.

Even if dorves ARE fictional little smiley faces, it's surprisingly easy to become attached to them.

[FrisianDude]

Heart warming; seeing my 7 newest migrants (from the second wave, doubling my pop! :D:D:D) sleeping at the same time, each in their room and the rooms next to eachother in a row. ^^

[madciol]

This must be the dwarf fortress equivalent of the 'crazy cat lady.'

Equivalent? There ARE crazy cat [dwarven] ladies in game.

[Willfrey]

I gave an embark dwarf some teaching skill, and set him as the milita commander to dispense his combat wisdom.  In a face-palm moment I left my both drawbridges in trade depot airlock open.  Two ambush parties got through and caused a bit of chaos.

After the smoke was cleared he was missing both his feet and was suffering from brain damage (would do the whole move four squares & fall alseep, spent most his time between the meeting hall and the booze), also I noticed he had lost a loved one to tragedy. 

Being injured I had to retire him from the military he spent several years moping around.  Eventually when I started doing engravings a common recurring scene was escribed of how he cried when stripped of command.  I'm sorry!!!

[K17U]

This must be the dwarf fortress equivalent of the 'crazy cat lady.'

Equivalent? There ARE crazy cat [dwarven] ladies in game.

This. Which is quite heartwarming in itself if you think about it.

Also, he gave me more the the impression of a homeless pigeon person.

[Zrk2]

Never link a forum to TVTropes! The posts per hour invariably dies off until we bury it. I posted four different link to it once, not a single post happened in forum games for eight hours.