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Come all, gather round, and you will hear the tale of Urvad Strangercanyon, the fiercest dwarf ever to lift an axe.

Urvad was born in a small settlement called Laboredowners in the year 786. 


Not long after he was born, he was visited by three werebeasts, and each time he fought the werebeast off and fled. 

Please, you mustn't think he was a coward for fleeing, for he was only a few months old and not yet strong enough to lift his axe. 

The very next year, a goblin slinked into Laboredowners, shoved Urvad into a sack, kidnapped the child, and imprisoned him.


While he was gone, the fates were not kind to Laboredowners.  The settlement was attacked by a vicious goblin war party.  Everyone was killed and their bodies desecrated by the savage invaders.  The settlement was destroyed.  We can only assume this is what gave Urvad his great hatred of goblins and fierce determination to protect his homeland.


After 4 years of goblin imprisonment, Urvad managed to escape; and after 7 more years of wandering, he found his homeland and discovered what had transpired in his absence. Upon seeing the devastation, Urvad vowed to protect his homeland and to never let anyone remove him from the land that was his birthright. 


Now, a dwarven vow is not a thing to be taken lightly.  It is said that the mountains themselves will move to get out of the way of a dwarf under a vow.  Had the goblins known of the vow Urvad had taken, perhaps they would have steered clear of the site.  Then again goblins are not know to be the most intelligent of creatures, so everything may have gone exactly the same.

As it was, a few short months after Urvad had reclaimed his land from the wilds, the goblins sent their horde to kill the child.  You must remember, Urvad is barely more than a child, only 12 years old. 

^{Followed by 5 more pages of "struck down".}

Urvad must have entered a martial trance, for he claims no memory of what happened; only that he awoke drenched in blood and gore, and surrounded by a field of dead and dying goblins and trolls.  Out of the eighteen hundred invaders sent to kill a single 12 year old dwarf, over thirteen hundred lay dead. 

The next year, the goblins sent a second war party to investigate the unbelievable claims of a child slaughtering almost the entire mighty army.

^{And and additional 4 pages of "struck down".}


The battle was fierce, but ultimately one sided.  This time the goblins had only sent seventeen hundred soldiers to take down the dwarf.  And over twelve hundred were slaughtered.  (That's a total of 2525 kills before the age of 14.)


^{☼Engraving☼ by BeruangSarkis}

To this day, Urvad Strangercanyon lives there at Laboredowners with his 64 cats and 64 dogs and the rest of his livestock and fowl.

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And his stats:


^{and so on...}

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World gen ended right after the second battle (750 years).  I've tried to recreate the world to let it run a few more years, but had some problems.

Only mods in play are Modest Mod + No Skill Rust

Save is here.

edit: Added BeruangSarkis's image, and fixed a misconception I had that EvilBob22 pointed out.  I didn't realize all members listed were actually at the battle.  Seems silly now.

I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, and for piercing aquifers it's only really useful on volcano embarks, but it is pretty easy to pierce an aquifer layer with magma.  The same technique can be used to create magma workshops on the same level as the rest of your fortress, without all that messy machinery.  It's really a modified version of the minecart pump (or water cannon).  This is how I did it:

Channel out a tile that you will fill with magma.  Create an access point next to said tile, so your dwarves can get in and out of it (stairs or ramp, your choice).  Construct a ramp leading out of the magma tile.  Build a track leading up to the magma tile, and build a track stop at the end.  Put some kind of accelerator on the track, before the magma tile.  Create a haul route, set it to leave immediately and set it to be pushed.  Then create a stop at the end of the track, and remove all depart conditions.  Also, build a track stop at the end of the route to catch the cart.

Build track (I had to b-C-T construct it rather than d-T carve it) leading up to piercing point (in this case, from the north).  It should be long enough to prevent steam burns.  Build a track stop on the piercing point set to dump south.  channel the tile just south of the piercing point, (the dump point).  Create haul route, and create a stop at the north end of the track, set it to leave immediately and set it to be pushed.  Then create a stop at the bottom of the track, and remove all depart conditions.  Finally, fill the channel with 7/7 magma.  If it's less than 7/7, it won't work (or it didn't work for me.)

Now, create a magma safe minecart.  Assign it to track 1, stop 1.  It should get pushed, run through the magma, and come out the other end, filled with delicious red fiery goodness.  Next, assign it to track 2, stop 1.  The dwarfs will carry the minecart to stop 2.  Then the minecart will run down the track and create obsidian in the aquifer layer. 

Deconstruct the track stop, and construct a new one facing east.  Repeat the process to make obsidian there.  Deconstruct the track stop, and construct a new one facing west.  Repeat the process to make obsidian there.  Deconstruct the track stop, and deconstruct the track on the pierce point, and just north of the fill point  Create a track stop on the tile two tiles north of the pierce point, set to dump south.  Then channel out the tile just north of the fill point.  Make obsidian there.  Now the middle tile can be turned into stairs, and your aquifer is pierced. 

A multi-layer aquifer is a bit more work, but doable using the same technique. 

If you just want to move the magma, follow the same instructions as above, but instead of creating the dump stop on the piercing point, create it just north of the fill point, and channel out the fill point.  Repeat the magma moving procedure twice to get 4/7 magma, which is enough for the magma workshops.  (BTW, magma workshops don't use up the magma.)

The problem I've had is getting the speed right, as the minecarts sometimes get stuck in the filling pool, but it does work at least some of the time.  Maybe an accelerator in the magma would help, or more speed before entering the magma. 

So, I've been playing and lurking for a while.  I've resisted registering because I try to have as small an internet footprint as possible.  This finally made me break down and register.



What about you?  Have you had any interesting encounters with the random number generator?