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[hexatic]

Well I'm starting to think my lucks running thin and need to know if I'm doomed. I embarked on a map with a volcano and an insanely hot climate. Well water drys up faster than it collects here and every cavern I've dug into has been barren of water thus far.

Magically no one has been injured but I can't fathom this lasting forever, I mean these are dwarfs we are talking about. Do I have any options besides tunneling into my lava chute and having a dwarf BBQ? Help me find a dowsing rod or something

[Teneb]

Go for a no-military, trap-only fort. Or keep digging. You already have easy magma, so setting up a trap shouldn't be too hard.

[hexatic]

That's been my strategy thus far, just hoping I don't run into any unforeseen "fun"...or maybe that would be a good thing

[Garath]

and you'll have to pay more attention to your justice system too. If you have a jail, prisoners wont be given water, so you'll need to stockpile booze in their reach

[Fayceless]

Well if there are murky pools, you can dig a drainage channel to an underground reservoir.  The water may just trickle in for a while when it rains, but you'll slowly build up a decent water source.  Once it's underground it will be safe from the climate.

Make sure to dig the channel to the side of the pool (don't destroy any "murky pool" tiles!), and keep the whole thing underground.  Build a shutoff gate, or use the diagonal wall trick at the bottom, to prevent flooding.

[Nan]

I think it should be possible to survive even without water. Have a small, well equipped militia to reduce injuries. Prompt medical attention can usually get dwarves back on their feet before they die of thirst. It's not ideal, but it should work out well enough to survive.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Have you fully explored all three caverns?

[Jerg]

Embark with huge amounts of seed, and make half of your dwarves farmers. Since it's desert you have all the sandy soil needed to farm, just make tonnes of plump helmets that go straight into brewing. Make like 8 Breweries.

[Sutremaine]

If you get any 2/7 tiles at all in your murky pools you can collect water. Just make your water collector a 1x1 shaft, because you won't be getting much and you want to minimise the number of 1/7 tiles knocking about. From there you can create a regular reservoir that the water collector(s) can be emptied into.

Have you fully explored all three caverns?

You don't need to. If there's no water in a cavern layer, there'll be no ground cover and no trees. The third layer will have blood thorns, but they're the only things that'll grow in a dry cavern.

[Teneb]

Have you fully explored all three caverns?

You don't need to. If there's no water in a cavern layer, there'll be no ground cover and no trees. The third layer will have blood thorns, but they're the only things that'll grow in a dry cavern.

I think what Urist meant to ask is if the OP has opened all 3 caverns, instead of just the first.

[NonconsensualSurgery]

Salty or stagnant water from murky pools can be drained into an underground cistern and purified with a pump.

If you do eventually find a cavern with water in it, then it can be efficiently brought to the surface with a 1x1 shaft and a well on top.

[hexatic]

Just wanted to thank those who responded, I ended up draining it into a 1x1 holder and let it pool up. Amazingly I explored all three cavern levels and failed to find a drop of water that way :O.  In the end I got bored and dumped magma into a burrow of unsuspecting dwarfs, onward to the next fort with knowledge gained for my next hot/dry embark!

Curiously, the poster above this makes me want to ask, how far down can a well reach? I've been under the assumption only the Z level below it....

[NonconsensualSurgery]

Just wanted to thank those who responded, I ended up draining it into a 1x1 holder and let it pool up. Amazingly I explored all three cavern levels and failed to find a drop of water that way :O.  In the end I got bored and dumped magma into a burrow of unsuspecting dwarfs, onward to the next fort with knowledge gained for my next hot/dry embark!

Curiously, the poster above this makes me want to ask, how far down can a well reach? I've been under the assumption only the Z level below it....

The ropes seem to be as long as you need them to be, sometimes extending dozens (possibly hundreds) of z-levels. You will see a little animation of a rope descending down to the caverns with a bucket symbol on the end of it each time a dwarf goes for a drink.

The only downside is that ropes must be physically reeled down and back up again. This takes a second or two if the water you're after is deep enough underground. However, even massive fortresses still only need a few deep wells to keep thirst at bay.

[Triaxx2]

I usually put one in the hospital, and one in the dining room. Enough water to keep everyone happy.

Try using DFReveal, to see if there's any at all. If you're across multiple biomes, you might only have a tiny little bit of water. I've had as little as a single tile. Perhaps it's just off in the far end of nowhere.

[Tharwen]

A well can reach as far as you want.

Theoretically, you could have a well taking water from the bottom of an eerie pit all the way to the top of a tower on the surface. It would just take several days for the bucket to get back up to the top.