To start out: hi, I'm Rojiru. I play Dwarf Fort a lot. I ignored it at first because of the learning wall, toppled it, now I'm having blasts.
I spent about a day and a half generating the perfect world, editing raws to include: cyclops which set themselves up as rulers of cities, growing larger than giants at 1000 years old. Giants growing in spurts up to their highest height at 700, but with a max age of 1300 and average death between that and 1000. The same with minotaurs, but their max age was much lower at around 450 - which lead to a lot of breeding (I was contemplating giving them the night creature ability to turn others into minotaurs instead of breeding and removing the female caste as a flavor thing, but that doesn't make much sense). I played with removing all megabeasts except for dragons in hope of more interaction between dragons and the world, which worked but only in the sense that their average kills were in the thousands instead of the hundreds. So I removed dragons eventually too, making the world void of megabeasts and teeming with a small number of cyclopean overlords, rampaging minotaur and giant clans, and apparently beastly cave dragons, trolls and jabberers. In order to keep the world gen scripts from killing all the civilizations in the world I had to set NO_EAT and NO_DRINK to the kobolds, goblins, elves, dwarves and cyclops. As a bit of flavor I added the banditry tag to the goblin civilization, which resulted in their number one cause of death to be murdering eachother (which I thought rather fit goblins) and an increased number of kidnapped elves, humans and dwarves. I added the same tag to elves and dwarves to no effect. No matter what I did I could not for the life of me get the amount of forgotten beasts to be lower than what I estimate to be about 100. Oddly enough every underground creature seemed to be interacting with every race except for humans, although dwarves are the only subterannean race (a bug, I think). So short of removing cave crawlers, cave dragons, jabberers and trolls (which I did), the death rate was almost as high as the birth rate until I removed: (big list) all megabeasts, all semimegas (besides giants, minos and cyclops), cave dragons, cave crawlers, trolls, jabberers and titans (and probably a couple more I can't recall). The world was filled with every type of subregion of decent size with max savagery in the western deserts and a totally serene mountain and coastline in the east with absolute neutrality in between. What resulted was a world gen with long lived civs battling eachother without being hunted to extinction by megabeasts and trolls or starving to death in the first four years.
ANYWAY...
I pick out a nice little spot of decent rock and metal formation near the peaceful mountain range and immediately set up my dwarves. A couple masons, miners, a woodcrafter, diplomat and... Urist Hunterdwarf, proficient ambusher/archer.
The hills are a beautiful shade of blue and green. Bubbles lazily float into the clear blue sky, twinkling away amid the wings of innumerable pixies and fairies. Unicorns run in graceful packs through the groves of immaculate cedar and willow, satyr and mountain gnomes are picking through the brush and playing enchanting melodies on their reed pipes.
A rumbling, raucous group of dwarves appear on the horizon, the thick wheels of their wagon digging furrows into the downy grass of the peaceful scene. Sitting atop the lead oxen pulling the wagon was a solitary brooding dwarf. Thick bands of leather encircled his legs and arms, seen from beneath a weathered and worn cloak. On his lap sat a crossbow, its burnished copper components glinting in the sunlight peeking through the billowing oaks. The dwarf scanned the meadow, his beady eyes darting between every aspen to spot a grazing unicorn or deer. One corner of his sun-creased mouth turned up, and he chuckled darkly. "Oh aye, I think we can make this place work."
The dwarves set to work immediately, hopping off the wagon and setting to the somber trees immediately. Other dwarves began their work by tearing a great hole in the ground in the center of a large group of lakes. Curious mountain gnomes approached, peeking from between the trees to spot the great mound of supplies sitting in the dwarven wagon. Booze. Their timidity forgotten, the diminutive and admittedly adorable bearded little creatures darted toward the wagon, hands outstretched and mouths open.
*CLICK* *SHUNK* *CREAK* *CLICK* *SHUNK*
The closest gnome's right arm suddenly sprouted a bloody new appendage. Screaming in fear and pain the creature fell to the ground, grabbing and scratching insanely at his wound. The sickly wet sound like raw meat being slapped against a steel wall resounded through the otherwise quiet forest as another bolt lodged itself into the gnome's middle. Another gnome fell in similar fashion, blood and viscera spilling out around the dwarves' outpost clearing.
Unfazed by their comrade's plight, the rest of the gnomish pack rushed toward the wagon with wild abandon. Urist hopped down from atop the wagon, dropping his crossbow on the ground. A grumbling roar issued from deep within his barreled chest as the stout, leather-clad and cloaked figure waded into the coming midgets. Another meat-packing crunch pierced the quietude of the forest as Urist's fist collided with the first gnome, sending the creature sprawling backward - his right hip and leg crushed from the impact. Two more gnomes took the injured's place, ducking beneath Urist's arms and jumping past him into the wagon. One immediately upended a keg directly into his face and beard, the excess sloshing over the edge of the wagon and mixing with the dirt and blood already filling the forest floor. Urist's face took an even darker cast at this point as he grabbed the offending gnome by the legs and with a mighty effort slammed the gnome's entire being into the wagon edge. The entity collapsed into itself, like the crunched up wrapper of a Cadbury Egg, making many similar sounds. Blood exploded from the mutilated corpse, covering everything in the wagon and washing over the enraged, hairy dwarf.
This sort of thing continued for years. The craftsdwarves pulled stone from the earth and walled up the wagon, eventually deconstructing it and placing its innards around the small outpost building. The outpost walls expanded, dwarven craftsmanship attracting even more dwarves from the mountainhome. Feats of dwarven engineering abounded within the above-ground walls, a single towering spire where diplomats met and decided the fate of trade, a dwarven garbage compactor, a deep pit ending in a floor of spikes behind a low wall which a constantly firing ballista was aimed. Elven and human nations were attracted to this outpost in the serene forest valley, trading their valuables and tamed creatures for ammunition made from the corpses of unicorns.
This seemed like the perfect fort...until...
Urist, now seventy-four years old, a good age for any aspiring dwarf, stalked silently through the woodland. His entire frame was covered in the dried, blackened blood of countless fantastic creatures. A pristine bolt was docked in his now even more burnished crossbow. He took aim, setting the heart of yet another unicorn in his sights... The alarm was raised by the fortress, a goblin was sighted by the sound of it. Urist exploded into movement, his stout form tearing through the heaped leaves of the late-autumn grove as he made for the fort. He broke through the treeline and just at the bridge was a solitary cloaked goblin, an empty sack tucked beneath his arm - no doubt for the the plunder of flesh he was attempting to broach. Urist charged forward, his crossbow turning out bolts faster than it ever had before. The distracted goblin batted the first bolt from the air with a wicked curving dagger, stepping back toward the bridge and setting off a series of stonefall traps. The white of the rhyolite came tumbling from the entrance, bashing the goblin as he tried futilely to both dodge unicorn-bone bolts and falling rocks until a single bolt passed into his chest and out the other side. The goblin fell to the ground, and Urist's pack of hunting dogs fell upon the prone creature...
This is where I have questions. After this the hunting dogs become hostile, or Urist becomes hostile, and Urist begins to systematically shoot and kill every single hunting dog he owns until he runs out of bolts and he has to chase them into the fort to beat them with his crossbow. As he does this every dwarf in the underbelly of the fort freaks out, tamed bears start joining the fight, limbs begin flying everywhere. The expedition leader in his white tower pulls the lever in his office, retracting the bridge in case of emergency. The dogs on the bridge go flying into the air as it retracts, exploding into pieces and scattering bones, guts and limbs all over the fort like spring showers in hell. The goblin's corpse falls into the bridge chasm - unfortunately nothing cool happened to it. Meanwhile the fort is going nuts. The statue garden is showered in blood as bears hold dwarves up to their legs in their giant maws, shaking them around and peppering the grand meeting hall in the plasma of its makers. Tantrums erupt, craftdwarves living in the earth for years finally taking their frustration out on the newcomers by breaking limbs and throwing the heaped bones of unicorns across the fort and into walls. The seasonal traders arrive on the site and stand slackjawed at the gate entrance, sounds of carnage echoing through the hills as blood runs over the walls.
All praise Armok, god of blood.
Author
Topic: Tales of Serenity and Madness - or the story of UristMcMarksdwarf (Read 1243 times)