Here's how it works.
I'll find a fairly fun embark, and start a year. At the start of each year, you (not me) must assign each dwarf a number and randomly pick one. I don't care how you do it- use dice, use a random number generator, observe which atoms in a lump of uranium decay after an hour, I don't give a damn. You must then find a way to kill this dwarf by the end of spring. Because, really, isn't random, pointless death for its own sake the whole point of this damn game? We're not being cruel, but in Breakfastcudgels, we will come closer to the true nature of Dwarf Fortress than any succession game yet: random killing with no mind as to number of friends, utility to the fortress, or potential for !!FUN!!. The dice gods tell us to sacrifice your legendary swordsdwarf who's singlehandedly driven off two FBs and an entire goblin siege? Do what they tell you.
(Exception: if you try to kill him in some way that no dwarf could be expected to survive- as in, he survives a fall off a 20-z tower and survives-he is too badass to die. Sacrifice the most useless dwarf in the fortress instead; he's exempt from all succeeding rounds of Russian Roulette.)
Obviously there's going to be an honor system implicit in this... if you rolled the dice, and the gods want you to kill Urist McNoviceLyeMaker, who has no friends, nobody can prove that they didn't tell you to kill Urist McLegendaryMiner, who also has 30 friends, and you just rerolled. However, I flatter myself I know this community. We've been through rampaging elephants, Operation Fuck the World, mermaid genocide, carp attacks, giant badger intrusions, and magma floods, and I think I can safely say we wouldn't risk a humdrum fort by killing a lonely cheesemaker when there'd be a lot more !!FUN!! involved in killing the mayor.
Let me find a sufficiently fun spot to embark. I'm getting impatient, so we stop at year 235.
Here's the embark- and actually, it isn't incredibly fun, but it doesn't have an aquifer, so I'll be able to dig down at least.
Our embark points are divided as follows.
2 x +5 miners (get us started down below early)
1 +3 grower/+3 herbalist/+3 brewer
1 +5 cook/+2 woodcutter (in the first year, our emphasis is on getting good living quarters going, and running jewelry will take time. Much easier to cook food and sell the best of it. He'll also function as our woodcutter.)
1 +2 stonecrafter/+2 mason (can't live without doors and walls, and why waste our wood on barrels when we could make us some pots?)
1 +2 carpenter/+3 furnace operator
1 +2 weaponsmith/+2 mechanic/+2 appraiser/+2 butcher/+2 tanner (our broker, and will make us some traps for defense. In his spare time he can keep our animal population under control and process their more time-sensitive byproducts. He'll also be dorfed as me. Oh wait, he's a girl. Never mind, the difference between the genders is non-existant.)
16 each of plump helmet, cave wheat, pig tail and sweet pod seeds, and 11 rock nuts
25 each of dwarven beer and ale
3 copper picks 1 stone, 3 copper nuggets, and an iron anvil.
15 each of turtle, duck egg, plump helmets and prepared mountain goat lung.
10 sheep wool cloth
15 cave spider silk thread
1 maple training axe for the woodcutter
5 sheep wool ropes
5 female and 1 male dog. They may cost us some embark points now, but we'll never want for lack of food. I also brought along a male cat to get rid of the vermin, 2 guineahens and a guineacock (best egg producers in the game, I think), a breeding pair of chickens (as an alternative), and a breeding pair of sheep (wool and milk. Don't kill any ewes, because they're valuable. Rams can still be sheared, but they're not as valuable and in a pinch they're fair game for butchering.)
Sign up and be dwarfed! Let's have some !!FUN!!.
Turn list
Finished
In Progress
Next up
1. dhokarena56
2. Elderont
3.futility
4.savolainen5
5. Crazy CowThe turn list is now on Futility's first post.