Bay 12 Games Forum

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't even need the big mechanical system. I could just have a dwarf guide a minecart to a single tile chamber, close the door to the chamber (after the dwarf has vacated, hopefully), and throw open the vertical floodgate for a few ticks, filling the chamber with water, before opening it, which would spread about 5/7 of water around the general area, while still filling the cart. The cart can then be guided to a stockpile, and used as a trade good.

But, of course, pragmatism has no place in Dwarf Fortress. I'll set up a dwarf-operated system first, to see if it works, then go about mechanical nonsense later.

Apparently, its possible to have negative "items".

I have no idea what the hell this is, and if it actually exists, it'll probably cause the poor sod assigned to hauling it to spontaneously vanish in a puff of logic.

EDIT: Nevermind, it's gone.

I once had a vampire poet visit. I know this for certain because when they arrived, the UI announced that there were, in fact, an elven vampire poet.

So, I started a fresh fort, now in 0.43. Everything was going fine until the first autumn, at which point the local vulture population decided that my dwarves were a menace to society. Whenever a dwarf tried to go outside, they spammed about 50 "Interrupted by vulture" messages in half a second, then ran back into the fort. For some reason, basically every job, including things that should have been unaffected like sleeping several z levels below, or mining in a cavern, became cancelled immediately, despite none of the vultures actually being anywhere near the fort, and in fact being about 50 z levels in mid air at the time. As the two macedwarves that my military consisted of at the time could not fly, they were unable to remove the source of the problem, and nothing got done for several months, until everyone died of dehydration after being unable to reach any liquids due to the apparently telekinetic vultures.

Quite possibly one of the silliest ways I've ever lost a fort. Presumably, it was the work of an enemy stand elves.

Alright. So, a whole lot of stuff happened all at once. I'm still very confused, but here's what I DO know for sure:

I denied entry to the vampire, at which point they immediately became hostile, then ran away in fear when a chicken pecked at its legs. It then ran around in circles in a small open room my miners were digging in, while said miners chased it around. The militia (who I had armed with crossbows) then came down and began firing at the vampire, joining the miners in chasing it around the fortress for about 10 minutes, with the vampire dodging almost every arrow,  turning the area into a sci-fi battlefield of colorful lines flying everywhere, which I don't have pictures of because I'm dumb and forgot to take them.


(here's a page of the report. 16 pages of this, by the way.)

This continued for quite a while, until one recruit, who was armed with a shortsword instead of a crossbow, woke up from sleeping, plodded downstairs, and stabbed the vampire in the stomach, killing it, before going back to bed and sleeping for half a season.

While of this was going on, there were about 3 trolls trying to get into the fortress through a staircase leading into a cavern; each of them broke down a door, and then were beaten to death by an unarmed farmer, who kicked their heads in. At the same time, the aforementioned performance troupe that joined the fortress apparently broke the pathfinding of all the dwarves in my tavern, who began spamming several hundred job cancellations per second.

I'm still trying to figure out what happened, but yeah. If anyone cares, I'll post any details that I find.

So, as Dwarf Fort decided once again that it was time to create bizarre fortress inhabitants for me, I had a performance troupe join my fortress. As in, an entire band of about twenty three poets. But, that isn't the important point;

Several of the performers were more skilled in random tasks like fishing than actual performance arts...
(Yes, most of the performers were goblins. The other half were elves. This is an equal-opportunity hole in the ground.)


(A goblin ranger performer. I assume their routine involves sniping fruit off someone's head)


(A goblin fisherman performer. Presumably, they utilize magic tricks involving fish)

And one of them didn't even have a profession at all



The first two make enough sense, I guess, but I don't understand this last, generic one at all. Can anybody shed any light on this, or at the very least put a few ideas out there as to what happened here?

UPDATE: I checked their personalities; the two "normal" goblins (the fisherman and the ranger) are both somewhat cruel and dream of ruling the world, (which I guess is pretty normal for goblins) whereas the generic goblin is a pacifist who values nature and wants to travel the world observing natural beauty.

I'm honestly curious as to how this will work out.

Actually, couldn't one just modify the raws and make dorfs, by default, necromancers? Or, if its possible, make it so that every book includes the secrets of life and death, somehow? Doing something like that seems a lot easier.

Bards, Mercenaries, and all other visitors,

Stop trying to exit the area by walking directly into waterfalls spanning 20 levels. We have a perfectly good bridge, and you are encouraged to use it. There is nothing in that ravine except hippos, sharp rocks, and painful death.

Honestly concerned about the education system in your place or origin,
The Overseer