Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sphalerite]

The Fortress of Ibmatstukos, "Sparkrazor", was an exercise in architectural overkill.  The entire map was ringed with a massive curtain wall, topped with fortifications and guard dogs on chains.  Outside the wall the ground was covered in retractable drawbridges over pits, and inside were multiple layers of cage traps.  So secure were the fortifications that the fortress military consisted of a mere five dwarves - four barely-trained axedwarves and hammerdwarves, and one legendary marksdwarf.

That marksdwarf, Ingiz Mightyglaze, has arrived early in the fortress's history.  Before the curtain walls were finished, the workers were being harassed daily by mobs of enraged badgers.  When a Hunter arrived as an immigrant, rather than re-purposing him as a hauler or mason, I let him go to work on the badger population.  Within a year the badgers were extinct, as were every other species of surface animal.  I put him in the military after that, where he scored the occasional kill sniping goblins from atop the indestructible fortifications.

The fortresses defenses held against wave upon wave of goblin and elven sieges, and the occasional semi-megabeast.  Then the day came that Thon Fieldwind, the Hoof of Sacks the mountain titan arrived.  Thon ignored the retracting bridges, flew right over the fortifications, slaughtered the watch dogs, and walked right through the traps without setting them off.  I set the military on Thon.  Thon smashed them aside like toys, stopped briefly by one hammerdwarf who managed to dodge every attack until Thon breathed fire and set the entire inner courtyard ablaze.  The remaining melee soldiers were killed in the fire, but as the smoke cleared, I was surprised to see Thon was also dead.

Was Thon killed by its own fire?  No.  Checking the combat logs I saw that Thon had been struck down by a goose bone bolt to the brain.  Ingiz Mightyglaze, standing on the other side of the fortress, well away from the fire, had killed Thon with a single headshot.  With a training bolt, at that, as I hadn't had time to force him to switch to metal bolts.

Once the fires died down, Thon's body was butchered, and a feast of titan meat roasts was held in Ingiz's honor.

[Oaktree]

And the final chapter from the Ok Okbod series...
(the series for the next fort was a bit more technical since Ok Okbod started mid-fort and the reader wanted a description on how forts got started.)

CHAPTER 19 – The Saga of Lokum Adilibel (with dwarves like this anything is possible)

Grand Master Mason Lokum Adilibel, one of the founders of Ok Okbod heads to work in the Depot Tunnel.  Entrance #2 has gotten a new gate and the entrance area has been ordered roofed by the mayor.  As he turns into the northern extension to reach the new work area a shadowy figure jumps out at him.  GOBLIN!  Lokum staggers as the thief jams a silver dagger into his lower body and twists it.  He kicks clear of the goblin and stumbles south towards safety as more goblins emerge from hiding farther north in the tunnel .  Arrows start to clatter on the ramp behind him as he staggers to an alarm pull and then crawls onto the main tunnel level.   Lokum faints for a moment as the alarm tocsin starts to sound .

Coming to, Lokum starts to crawl eastward towards the fortress gate.  Two arrows strike him in the leg as the goblins archers come into sight again.  And their leader, a lanky goblin with a war hammer, approaches.  Lokum attempts to dodge the strikes but the goblin incessantly pounds on his arms and legs while easily deflecting his weak counterattacks.  The archers ignore him at this point and head down the tunnel s looking for other dwarves .  The goblin leader laughs.

Lokum lurches to his feet and charges the goblin.  The attack misses, but they collide and goblin and dwarf collapse in a pile on the ground.  Lokum draws back and solidly punches the goblin in the center of the back.  The hammer goblin breaks clear and stands up, but he is certainly hurt .  He is also no longer laughing.  The nearby archers start firing again and Lokum is struck by half a dozen copper arrows.

The hammer goblin closes in to finish things off.  Lokum rolls into the goblin to avoid the attack and takes the opportunity to bite the goblin in the right leg and grab a solid hold on the left leg.  Their field of fire temporarily blocks the archers shift position.  The hammer goblin struggles to break free.

Lokum suddenly stands and starts shaking and swinging the hammer goblin about.  Two more arrows strike home, including one into the already serious lower body wound.  Undeterred, the goblin is shaken about a few more times and then tossed across the tunnel.  Exhausted, Lokum finally surrenders to the pain and collapses to the tunnel floor.  Before he passes out he gets the joy of watching the hammer goblin expire.  His first kill after twelve years in the fortress .

The three archer goblins in the area lose interest in dispatching an unconscious dwarf and head eastward into the trapped section of the tunnel.  They are taken out by traps and the militia. Soon afterwards a rescue team comes into the tunnel.  To their surprise Adilibel is still alive and is immediately carried to the hospital for Dr Vucar  to look at.

The diagnosis is not pretty .  The nerve damage in one arm cannot be fixed.  Beyond that there are broken bones and severe lacerations in all four limbs plus the very serious gut wound.  Specialists are called for since immobilization of all four limbs is called for in addition to cleaning, suturing, and applying dressings to all the cuts.

A month later Lokum still lies in the hospitial.  Twenty-two wound serious locations are still in the process of being treated with sutures, dressing, setting, cleaning, or a combination of treatments.  Two locations have infections, with the serious gut wound being the most serious.  Whether he hangs on is still in doubt, but progress is being made.  If he does pull through the only permanent damage will be some nerve damage in one hand that will impair his ability to grasp.  In the next couple of weeks casts were applied to immobilize the broken limbs and carry out the last diagnosed treatments.  The infections are still an issue.

Two months later he visits the site of his fight with the goblin… 
… wearing four casts, two splits, and multiple dressings on his body.

[krenshala]

Started up my fort again since its been a week since I've played. Apparently one of my dwarves stationed at the main gate wandered off to the outer wall (no gate there ... yet), only to be silly enough to attack a passing panda bear.  I didn't see that part, only noticing after he bear was already winning (had shaken the dorf around by the head, lower arm and upper body!).  The results were pretty interesting considering my fort isn't quite a full three years old yet (founded in the spring of 4, and i've got no iron or copper, but some tin).  I have 21 spear dwarves (3 squads of 7) armed with one steel spear two or three iron spears and about a dozen bronze spears.  The entire third squad has nothing but training spears.  I've also got four marksdwarves with bone crossbows, but for some reason they didn't make an appearance even though they train in a spot that could see the fight.


- 3rd Opal, 6 (Mid Winter)

Deler Eshtannakuth, one of the speardwarves in the Bronze Spires (3rd squad), was attacked and killed by a gigantic panda bear today.  The rest of her squad was guarding the front entrance to the fortress at the time.  The Mountains of Blood (1st squad) were mobilized in an attempt to save her, however, we were notified of the attack far too late.  Their orders are to slay the panda, now known as Nulommostod.

- 4th Opal, 6

The militia commander was the first to catch up with the deadly panda.  With her steel spear and cedar shield she attacked.  Her first hit sank deeply into the panda's chest, damaging its liver.  The panda struck back, but missed.  Kogsak's second attack stabs the head, tearing nervous tissue in the spine as well as an artery.  The panda immediately fell to the ground, still attempting to fight back.  Kogsak easily avoided the now feeble attack and followed up her crippling spear attack with a swift, and fatal, punch that jammed the panda's skull through the brain.  I'm glad I appointed her to be the head of our troops.  We will need skills like that when the goblins find us.

[Giavanni]

E: OHOHOHO I said annals!

Teehee, I wasn't the only one who laughed!

Either I am growing old, or I am more mentally mature than you guys..
Either way, I didn't give that word a second thought.

I'm 14 y/o and i still dont find that funny either.....

[Aspgren]

hm... oh! I have one.
It is a story about battle, war and love. There are many dwarves in this story but we shall focus on ...

Iden Ancienttorch the militia commander.
Tosid Towncoal the weaver.
Stabsplash the reptileman.

The dwarves were exploring the caverns in a desperate search for metals. In their way stood a large tribe of reptilemen. The recruits were lead by Iden who was the only man in the young fort who had any military experience. They had no weapons, no armor, no nothing. They had mined a bounty of jewels and goblins would start showing up any minute. Finding metals was of utmost importance to the entire outpost!
 10 brave dwarves went below to fend off the lizards with what they could gather. Bone armor! Leather armor! Wooden shields, practice weapons and ONE bronze mace.

 The first battle was a disaster. Two dwarves fell dead and all others were routed. This is when Stabsplash made his name known. Iden was one of the wounded in this battle.. but the lizards had suffered more than the dwarves had!
 After everyone was patched up fresh recruits were gathered and they prepared to attack again. This time against fewer opponents but with less equipment .. one dwarf was killed, two lizardmen decided to turn friendly and all other lizards were killed. Except for Stabsplash.

 Stabsplash was violently opposed to the invaders! In a fit of rage he threw himself after the dwarves and routed them on his own. This time they didn't have time to lock him underground .. Iden was wounded once again and chased away by the furious monster.
 Stabsplash broke into the fortress and slayed a dog and a civilian with ease. This is when he saw Tosid.
 Tosid and Iden were friends and for some reason Stabsplash went apes over Tosid . He chased her up and down the fortress, soldiers ignoring the "KILL" order or being stabbed in a foot or hand and pushed out of the way.. only to seek medical treatment.
 Iden didn't seek medical treatment though. He went to the hospital but left there in the hurry when he saw his friend in need.. Tosid had been pinned to the ground.. but before Stabsplash could fiinish her Iden came upon him and tried to wrestle the spear from his hands.
 He failed miserably. Stabsplash cut him in the ear and pushed him away.. but it was all that was needed. Tosid was free and fled into a mining tunnel where Stabsplash cornered her.

 This was it, I thought. I watched as she recieved not one, not two but THREE stabs to the body before turning the table on her attacker, pushing him down and kicking his knee, breaking it and fleeing.
 Stabsplash was done. He couldn't fight much anymore and the regular recruits killed him soon after .. slowly and painfully with their wooden swords.

 I was worried for Tosid because her lung was punctured. I checked up on her and I checked up on Iden.. only to find that they were engaged! Only minutes after the whole ordeal was over Tosid must have walked up to Iden in the hospital where they were both being treated and said "You are my hero. and now you are my man."

A few years later, when I abandoned the fort, they had their third child. Though Iden never saw any of them, he was blinded by a forgotten beast pretty soon after his run-in with Stabsplash . Keeping up the proud family tradition of being terrible at dodging.

[Ostrogoth]

The only remotely noteworthy story I got was when two of my dwarves (well trained and equipped) decided that the best method to kill a wolf was to slowly bite it to death over the period of a few months. It was rather funny, if horribly painful for the wolf (I think they spilled his guts at one point).

And there was that time when a legendary hammerdwarf dodged two full barrages from two goblin crossbow squads and proceeded to kick the snot out of them.

[Nyxalinth]

My best and brightest 40d fort had wrestlers that routinely kicked the crap out of siegeing elves, goblins, two dragons, a hydra, and a Titan.

I should have named them all Urist McChuckNorris.

[King DZA]

↓See signature↓

Other than that one, I've got a few decent stories of battle ultimately ending in my demise, but I don't think I can consider them "good" if I was unable to emerge from them victorious. More tragic if anything.

There is the story of Gorerape's very most recent siege, and while not quite as spectacular as the one in my sig, it was still pretty neat, and I survived it. I guess I'll tell that one:

We had not even finished cleaning up from the last siege(the likes of which had gone horribly wrong)before the trolls were tearing away at the floodgates of the outer wall. I hadn't finished refilling militia's ranks to make up for previous losses, and we were short one demigod of a swordsdwarf(may she rest in peace). As quickly as I could, I assembled some fresh soldiers to join the squads of battle hardened warriors.
The entrance into the heart of Gorerape is surrounded by the(incomplete)DeathMaze, currently made up of three walls and a few traps. There's an eastern and western entryway through the outermost wall, the trolls focused on the closed off western entryway, while I left the eastern entryway open, as it is protected by a pair of alternating atom smashers.

A squad of axegoblins foolishly followed their leader into the eastern entrance. After seeing seeing a few of their kin be erased from existence, the survivors decided to flee. I wish that their had demise actually mattered, and that it could be considered a great victory over our attackers. Sadly, the worst was was yet to come.
As soon as the western floodgate broke down, squads of bowgoblins, axegoblins, speargoblins, hammergoblins, and trolls flooded the DeathMaze. They headed to the only entryway through the second maze wall, located to the south. A squad of bowgoblins, lead by an elite, hastily used a ramp and climbed atop the southern section of the wall where they engaged in ranged combat with one of my three soldier marksdwarf squads stationed on the hill in the center of the DeathMaze, containing an elite of my own.

This was not the first time a battle like this had occurred, so I was confident that they could handle it. However, I was horribly surprised by the efficiency of their elite bowgoblin. He fired through the fortifications lining the hill as if they weren't even there, managing to fill one of the marksdwarves, Nil Desisgoden(Snarledropes), with no less than six arrows. With the second wall's entryway now breached, the squads of melee goblins, trolls, and a single squad of bowgoblins made their way toward the entryway of the innermost wall, located to the north(which was unable to be closed off due to a misplaced xhoary marmot leather dressx). I had little choice but to pull the marksdwarves back.

I ordered all of the 27 soldiers I had to guard the entryway of the innermost wall. The goblin horde turned the corner, and the battle began in the final corridor before the center of the DeathMaze could be reached. the melee fighters collided, while range squads on both sides unleashed hell. Dwarven soldiers fell to the ground as a result of enemy fire, while the goblins chopped away at the ones overwhelmed by the discord.
By far, one of the greatest goblin warriors there, was Tode Gozrungebo(Stinkscorpion), hammerlord. He strolled into battle, bashing in dwarven skulls with incredible ease, only after being greatly outnumbered by a cluster of soldiers did he meet his end. The wall-mounted bowgoblins had been keeping themselves busy by picking off civilians(I had forgotten to assign them to a burrow), and I was losing soldiers fast. I ordered the remaining twenty or so soldiers back into the DeathMaze's center, and prepared for a final stand. Upon passing through the entryway, several trolls were quickly swarmed and killed before doing any damage, unfortunately, this caused a few to charge out to combat the remaining goblins once more. Feeling that the end was near, I once again ordered the militia to fight the goblins head on. And, by some miracle, the goblin squads began to break. Macelord 'Akil' Akrulducim(Tinworked) the Armored Homage of Fortunes, my militia commander, charged fearlessly toward the bowgoblins firing upon him and his kin, and struck them down with his masterwork steel mace. With such large losses suffered on their side, the bowgoblins atop the wall began to retreat. After that, it was only a matter of cleaning up the few goblins and trolls still running around.

A lot of veteran soldiers died in that fight, and Nil Desisgoden later succumbed to untreated infections, so the victory was hardly something to rejoice over, but it was a victory nonetheless. Gorerape stands strong.

[Oaktree]

So, what percentage of your population did you lose from those two attacks?

They make for great stories, but I've gone much more defensive in my layouts in order to avoid these in my later forts.  Most of the tales have turned into "goblin squad obliterated by pit, traps, and then mopped up by small squad of steel-armored legendary axe dwarves".

[King DZA]

The casualties are never too crippling, but this is mainly because as soon as my pop. cap drops below 200, a wave of migrants make their way to my fortress in a matter of months, sometimes less. It's like they're waiting at the outskirts of my embark, until just enough people die off...
Anyway, for each siege, the average amount of deaths on my part is normally anywhere from five to a dozen, not counting the animals. If my population wasn't always so quickly refilled, I wouldn't be surprised if I had lost close to 1/4 of it by now.

Ironically enough, despite Gorerape easily having the largest death toll(not including end-of-fortress situations, where everyone dies) out of all my fortresses, it's my longest lasting one yet.
Needless to say, the reason for many of the deaths is because I rely so heavily on my non danger room trained militia. The end goal is to have the DeathMaze filled with many dangerous and complex traps, and have my soldiers act as more of a cleanup crew for the few enemies that survive, but because the DeathMaze is still so far from completion, my militia is forced to act as the primary defense of the fort for now.

[ZAHZERA_DA_ZEBRA]

Well I got a couple here fore ya. Once these merchants came by(this was my first time playing) and I accidentally offered them all my stuff, and I couldn't figure out how to undo it so I had my military of like seven kill them all. They were successful...too successful the squad leader decided to kill the rest of my squad as well. Then the squad leader went outside and paced back and forth for a bit. Then she came in the fort and started trying to fight everyone, never got in any fights just interpreted them. I figured she would just starve to death or die of thirst, but after a while that wasn't happening so I recruited one of my dwarfs to kill her. I forgot to give him a weapon, I thought he killed her and stuff but way later when I was randomly looking to see if anyone had any wounds or anything turns out he was missing an arm. I looked at the battle logs, it said the guy went punching her wrists until she hacked off his arm with a mining pick and then starved to death right there.

[Deus Machina]

Just last night, I had a dwarf run out of the front gates, Matrix his way through the bolts of an entire squad of goblin archers or crossbowmen (two and a half pages of 'Urist McNeo dodges the silver bolt'!), get into the midst of them, and kick four of them to death before any of the rest of his squad showed up.

I wasn't aware that dwarves can kick a goblin in the side of the head, and this guy gives me six pages of 'Urist kicks Gobbo in the head/ankle/leg/chest, chipping/shattering the bone!'

[Oaktree]

Just last night, I had a dwarf run out of the front gates, Matrix his way through the bolts of an entire squad of goblin archers or crossbowmen (two and a half pages of 'Urist McNeo dodges the silver bolt'!), get into the midst of them, and kick four of them to death before any of the rest of his squad showed up.

I wasn't aware that dwarves can kick a goblin in the side of the head, and this guy gives me six pages of 'Urist kicks Gobbo in the head/ankle/leg/chest, chipping/shattering the bone!'

Yep, I imagine those as some sort of funky kung-fu flying kick attack.  Had a dwarf squad vs goblin squad fight in a tunnel.  The goblin squad leader was out in front and the combat report for his demise was one line as a spear dwarf did a one-shot boot-to-the-head kill. The dwarf basically not breaking stride heading towards the rest of the goblins.

[restricted]

Goblin ambush came. Mopped them down, 0 casualties. But wait, I was wrong, there was one casualty. Lo and behold, my new marksdorf had such great aim he shot my militia commander in the back of the head with his crossbow, piercing the iron helmet, and killing him instantly. He had no other kills. I burrowed him to the caverns, and he wrestles 3 GCS to death. Still kicking, Armok bless his soul. I dropped him a training axe and now he's getting herbalist experience while brewing his own booze.

[Doughnut189]

I had embarked in the tundra/ice, and there was a yeti that kept running up to the wagon whilst I dug out shelter, the yeti mauling the odd dwarf, and then running away.

This kept on for about three mauled dwarves.

Then it ran up to Urist McSoapmaker. I'd written him off as a goner. Then I look again- Next to Urist McSoapmaker lie a yeti corpse, thoroughly drenched in blood, and a yeti head.

He ripped the yeti's head off and then went back to freezing in the snow.