I started in on Adventure mode for the first time after having to replace my old computer about a month ago. My first-ever Adventure-mode character was named Urist Fightevil, a human outsider with skill in Swordsman, Ambush, and Fighting. He died within twenty turns because I didn't know that human peasants could be that badass.
My second character was Kor Fightevil a dwarf from a small kingdom in the warm hemisphere with skill in Swordsdwarf and Armor, and he ended an age.
An explanation is in order, I think.
First, perhaps due to a quirk in worldgen, my gen'd world stayed in the Age of Myth for well over a thousand years. I started out in the year 1207, directly after Urist died, with Kor.
His first three missions were to kill local bandit leaders around the human kingdom he started out in. He racked up twenty-seven injury-free kills in the process, using the steel sword and shield he started out with. (btw, he started with steel armor and he never so much as took it off for cleaning.)
After that, he got a Minotaur, an Ettin, and another Minotaur. The first 'taur tore off two of the fingers on his right hand, and the Ettin broke his right foot and tore the muscle. Both injuries healed. All three monsters died (severed heads for the 'taurs and bisected body for the Ettin). He had no help whatsoever. The second 'taur (Ehil Bronzeburned the Terror of Thrones) earned him the title 'the Power of Mortals.'
After he finished depopulating the minor legends in the local area, he was pointed to the capital of the human kingdom he'd been in thus far. He got to the capital after a few days, five bandit ambushes, and a random encounter with another 'taur (which bled to death after losing both arms). The capital was ruled by a demon made of salt (whose name I can't be bothered to remember). Between Timber of 1207 and Obsidian of 1209 Kor depopulated the local and not-so-local area of another seventeen legends, ranging from a FB that somehow wandered to the surface during worldgen to two dragons that camped out in the same ruins. Between Granite of 1210 and Moonstone of 1249 (the temporary end of his adventuring career) he accounted for over two hundred other menaces to history and civilization. In almost forty years his injuries amounted to six fingers (two lost - one from each hand, two broken, three bruised - including the one he lost from his left hand), a bruise on his upper left leg, and the loss of two of his teeth. Most of his enemies lost their heads or lower bodies. Most of his 'major' kills were monsters, dragons, rocs, and various other unnatural creatures. In the time between these legendary battles he found time to kill over eight hundred civilized beings (spread out over roughly 90 bandit camps and ambushes, not counting around 150 goblins from a citadel he stormed in 1233.)
At that point I had him retire, so that I could start a Fortress. That lasted for about sixty years before repeated sieges from the humans, elves, and goblins in tandem finally destroyed it. Thinking to see what Kor was up to, I resumed his travails from where the world left off.
He was still just as he'd been, albeit bald and with a really long beard. I steered him across the land, killing bandits and creatures and two fish and every yak I could find. One steel longsword, one steel shield, and a set of <<steel armor>> were the only things he ever carried. No food, no water, no companions.
Between Slate of 1322 and Malachite of 1324 he killed nineteen creatures of various supernatural descriptions and broke the four-digit boundary on his civilized-being-killcard. On the 19th of Malachite, 1324, around midafternoon and standing in a pool of the blood of a night creature, the long-awaited message appeared on the screen. "The world has passed into the Elven Age."
wait, wtf?
I retire Kor and check the Legends screen. In the years my fortress was built and destroyed, most of the human and dwarven empires either were conquered or crumbled (I can only assume it was the aforementioned worldgen quirk that led to around 95% of the civilized world being ruled by demons, most of whom Kor had killed during his legend-slaughtering rampage back in the 11th century.) Eight kingdoms remained in the world. One apiece of Human and Dorf, and six Elven of comparable size.
I went back to Kor and switched out my sword for an axe.
Kor came out of retirement in 1325. The world passed into the Dwarven Age on the 27th of Slate, 1340. It had made a brief stopover in the Golden Age starting in Hematite of 1337, when one of each kind of kingdom remained in the world.
In fifteen years of constant combat, Kor lost his right hand (and by extension the faithful steel shield that had kept him protected for over a century) and the rest of his teeth to an Elven Maceman. He sustained no other injuries more severe than a bruise. All in all, his full tally of injuries after just over 133 years of adventuring was one lost hand, one lost finger, multiple lost teeth, a short straight scar on his right foot, and a few bruises.
His kill list is unloadable. I'm serious. I've tried loading the page with his kill list on it, and it crashes DF. I did the math, though, and at the time of the Dwarven Age's beginning he'd racked up just shy of 10000 kills (around 15% of those random wild animals and more than 70% of them Elves.)
The current date is Slate 28, 1340. It is midmorning. Kor is standing before the ruler of the last remaining Human civilization. The last Dwarven civ is a stone's throw up the mountain. The last goblin settlement in the world is on an unreachable island in the middle of the Sea of Sleeping, and cannot be reached by any means I've ever found. That leaves two large kingdoms, both of whom idolize Kor as nothing less than a living avatar of Armok Almighty. He has single-handedly killed every legendary beast that was alive when he started adventuring. He has brought law to the lawless lands, brought the mighty to heel and carved his name indelibly into the rock of Ages, having caused shifts between them five times by his own hand (starting with Myths, then to Legends, then to Heroes, then to Elven, then to Golden, then to Dwarven). He is almost two hundred years old, has just passed the 133rd anniversary of his initial wandering. In all this time, he has never had a travelling companion. And he has avoided all streams and pools of water like the motherf***ing PLAGUE.
Here he stands, sword held at the ready, searching among the world for the last vestiges of glory to be had.
Now, my question for the Bay12 forums.
What next?
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Topic: Kor Fightevil the Power of Mortals (Read 3453 times)