Bay 12 Games Forum

The breeding and culling of dragons continues in Facehugged. This is the first time I'm breeding them, and I did not know that dragon innards were magma proof. Tried dumping the leftover nervous tissue into my magma dump, but they just sit there without deteriorating at all. Will have to atom smash those.

Zuglarkun IV Kubukonul brings tidings from the east


"It was a good decision to have laid low this past year, it seems that the enemy knows of the purpose of those whom bear my title. I hope that the danger has past, but I cannot be certain. Therefore, I have come now to speak with you three that remain of the founding seven. I'm sure that you've discovered that the last two to bear my title were of course, impostors seeking some measure of fame and recognition. I assure you, I need no such proofs, nor do I seek any measure of fame or status. My fellows and I are ever at your service, so treat us as you would any other dwarf. Unfortunately for my predecessors, they took my place and succumbed to the nefarious designs the enemy had laid for me. It is unfortunate, but due to their meddling, whatever plans the first Zuglarkun brought with her are now irretrievably marred. That matters little now, for we must look ahead. But first you shall hear of the tidings I bring.

I hail from the far east, from lands that were once well known to the inhabitants of these parts, but are now only remembered by a handful. My people were once a part of the great migration that dared venture into The Universe of Destiny, as were your forebears. But we tarried on the path and eventually stayed behind while your forebears forged on and settled the land, founding great kingdoms here.

My people founded settlements in the unknown east, and have sought to maintain a distance by refusing the summons from the court here. Our great prophet Abras Nirurgelut said that a crafty rabbit has three dens, and that the time had not yet come, and so we waited. But we have not forgotten and we've sent messengers every few years to maintain close relations with the founding line here that has since become the royal lineage.

My forefathers once swore an oath that in times of need, we would come forth from the forgotten lands to aid our brethren. The elders spoke of an ancient enemy, the omniscient "Magdark". Our ancient records note that he was once thwarted, but that he shall rise again, though it did not specify in what shape or form. Our elders say that it falls upon us to thwart him a second time, and they deemed that the time of need has now come. For my people received an urgent plea from your queen saying that an ancient threat has been revived, and that they were harried from all sides by our ancient foes the goblins. We few have come as representatives of our lands, and now we seek to fulfill that oath, to give what aid we can in these desperate times."

The trench is for storing the magma right? The way I'm looking at it, invaders can breach the dike defenses by climbing around (not over) the trench walls near the 2 edges of the lake.

There is a way to circumvent this without removing your designs, though there is some risk involved. We would have to extend the trench walls in the southwest and northeast up to the lake borders (just the outer walls), joining them up to form a perimeter around the entire fort. This would be better than making tons of traps (that require maintenance) to cover a weak spot in our defenses.

I like the trade depot island suspended in a sea of magma you did though.

I think I see a spot where we can accommodate a magma pump stack without necessarily breaching the caverns. It will cut through some of the digging designations for the tombs and come up on the southern doorway towards the underground farms though.

Overall, I'm not worried about the surface defenses. I think we're doing pretty good (thus far) on that front. What I'm worried about is our cave defenses...

There are many ways of dealing with that particular can of worms though, just that I won't be the one to do it personally on my upcoming turn.

A pair of dragon hatchlings! I ran out of magma safe stone for making the magma proof hatches for the obsidianizer, so I will have to dig for more. This is the year that a good portion of the young fortress born dwarves finally come of age. Also masterwork gold statues everywhere. I need to have a few sets of those for the starting seven so that they might be memorialized forever before they start to expire.

Unlike the goblins and elves, us humans are born of mortal stock. Although the remains of our mortal husks may return to nourish the earth, our spirits live on even after death - much like the stunted folk with whom we share many of our customs and beliefs regarding the dead.

In human society, proper respects paid to the dead are also indications of piety and humans believe that such actions will result in the spirits conferring their ancestral blessings upon their mortal descendants, helping to steer them away from misfortune. Failing to properly venerate your ancestors results in the opposite - the cursing of the living with misfortune and misery. Because of this belief, the humans greatly revere their dead, building grand tombs to honor their dead, such as-


These tombs were erected to honor their fallen brethren, and humans do not take kindly to having their dead brethren defiled or even eaten before they could even pay proper respects. Such forlorn souls are cutoff from their proper place in the afterlife and are condemned to an eternity of wandering, unless they are properly memorialized. But most importantly, proper veneration of the dead is essential so that the dead remain dead and have no cause to haunt the living. Improper burials and the like cause great problems as the forlorn spirits have a propensity to negatively influence the lives of the yet living in a great number of different ways.

It is no wonder that the humans of The Heroic Kingdom have been quite aghast at the conduct of their neighbors, the elves of The Skunk of Speaking. As of this writing, their current ruler - a fellow called Rosmic Alliedfire, has ruled from Campdashed as lord since 156. Rosmic has taken up the anti-elf stance that has been propagated since the wars of 48, having since killed 6 elves with his own hands in The Hills of Twinkling.

This was not always the case though. Given proper segregation, the separate ways of elves and of men should nary interfere with each other. Alas, it was not to be. As I recall, it all started in 48, when the elves began the wanton expansion of their territories northwestwards, occupying all the lands south of the streams that flowed into The Lake of Amazements. Shortly afterwards, the elves began to expand further north, occupying lands north of the great lake, bringing them into direct contact with the humans of the heroic kingdom.

There are few remaining today that remember how the war began, but all surviving accounts point to a dispute over the the elvish custom of devouring the bodies of sapient beings that sparked the conflict that was "The War of Disembowelment"

I should know, I was there.


Shortly after these events, I joined the Laborious Mines and was inducted into the teachings of Indur the Insightful Tome, where I was able to learn the secrets of life and death. With that, my life as a ignorant human was put behind me, and I removed myself to Inchedfaction to devote myself to study the dark mysteries of the afterlife. Still, I had not completely put my past life behind me, as I continued to keep tabs on the growing conflict that had engulfed The Heroic Kingdom.

The conflict continued to rage on and off over the years,

eventually culminating in the takeover of several elvish sites in 136, the slaying of their high council of elven rulers and the enslavement and subsequent integration of elf prisoners into human society.

A new elven queen, Ririli Willglimmer, was chosen for her diplomatic ability and her more "positive outlook" towards the humans. Thus the great human and elf wars were ended, but not quite.

The humans enacted vengeance by proceeding to construct their own temples on these conquered elvish lands.

And to add insult to injury, they then built their own catacombs to house their own dead under these temples.

Eventually, many of the former elvish prisoners would relocate to these catacombs, driven to banditry in order to eke out a living under human law.

The humans and elves have since sat at peace to this day, though relations have been tenuous at best, and a spark of hostility might one day renew the flame of conflict and once again engulf both civilizations in the furnace of war.

Do you want a multi level cross section view from the inside or just a multi level view from the outside?

Stonesense can do both, though a cross section of the fort will be better represented with labels of multiple pictures of the different levels.

If its just an multilevel outside view, or a first person view, Armok Vision is the one you'll want. I used it for the screenshots of the fort on the front page.

I am done with the year, but how do I post the save? Write-up will be soon to come.

DFFD, under community games:
http://dffd.bay12games.com/