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DF Community Games & Stories / War Gods: A Dwarf Fortress story
« on: September 30, 2018, 11:42:32 am »
Hey. This is a dorf fort story. It's based on a lightly modded v0.34.11 fort that I have ran for some time, and still run now and again. The story focuses on a "realistic" take rather than embracing dwarven silliness. It also focuses a lot on dwarven culture, corruption, politics, relationships, language and other things that do not actually exist in the game to the same extent. It's still definitely dwarf fortress though!
I hope you enjoy the story.
Prologue:
Part 1: Dalzat
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
I hope you enjoy the story.
Prologue:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Dearest Marquess (or surviving successor),
Our great civilization, once the envy of surrounding lands, has come to grave danger. Ruin encroaches our borders. War has crippled our defences. A genocide is commencing against our proud and noble people.
Lenod, our great metropolis and home, has fallen to the hands of barbarians. Her citizens flee in terror in all directions. A portion are doubtless en route to your gates, and equally certain is that our attackers follow close behind. I have no doubts in your steadfast bravery and sturdy axe-hands, but the enemy's momentum is massive; there is no hope of confronting them from your position.
I beseech you: retreat to safer quarters.
There is relative safety in Logemoshur. This small camp, deep in the heart of the badlands, has not yet been discovered by our enemies, which buys our citizens time. When they arrive, we at Logemoshur will be ready. I pray to the Eight that you will be one among us then.
Make haste, and travel lightly.
Kukon's blessings on your heels,
Inquisitor Inolmosus
Our great civilization, once the envy of surrounding lands, has come to grave danger. Ruin encroaches our borders. War has crippled our defences. A genocide is commencing against our proud and noble people.
Lenod, our great metropolis and home, has fallen to the hands of barbarians. Her citizens flee in terror in all directions. A portion are doubtless en route to your gates, and equally certain is that our attackers follow close behind. I have no doubts in your steadfast bravery and sturdy axe-hands, but the enemy's momentum is massive; there is no hope of confronting them from your position.
I beseech you: retreat to safer quarters.
There is relative safety in Logemoshur. This small camp, deep in the heart of the badlands, has not yet been discovered by our enemies, which buys our citizens time. When they arrive, we at Logemoshur will be ready. I pray to the Eight that you will be one among us then.
Make haste, and travel lightly.
Kukon's blessings on your heels,
Inquisitor Inolmosus
Part 1: Dalzat
Chapter 1
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Meng flipped up the hood of her kaftan. Logemoshur's cavern winds carried no chill, but their howling set her teeth on edge, and she needed to focus.
Her boots scuffed along the cavern floor, kicking up trails of red sand in her footsteps. The scarlet wake clashed against the sickly yellow of fungiwood trunks that loomed over her; she weaved between them, eyes wide and alert. This path dodged through the densest areas of the forest to make good time, and that came at the expense of safety. Tension rode her body like a gnome on a whiskey barrel for the entire hike, tightening the knuckles of her fist, attuning her to every slosh of her wineskin and puff from her lungs. Stress edged her cranium, crawling at the edge of her mind's eyesight, but the hard edges of adrenaline and sweat whipped her concentration into shape. She rode the high of danger, demanding that it fuel her senses.
Out of the forest, higher on the hill, and then up a short, scrabbling climb. Danger didn't show its hand. The razor-edge of anxiety demanded paranoia from her, and the thunderous hammer of her dwarven intuition crushed that razor into a billion tiny pieces. She shook sand from the wool and leathers that clung to her frame, and peered back the way she'd come. The fungiwood caps glared up at her vantage point, stretching far into the dark. Cave floaters meandered between their heads, a hollow, gaseous parody of bee-and-flower synergy.
Her eyes flickered over the vista for several moments, but there was no sign of Stukos. The dwarf had taken the message she'd carried, and then stalked off into into the fungus without a word, crossbow in hand. She'd expected signs of his dinner kill, but the forest had been silent since. Perhaps the fungal stalks had swallowed the sound of his kill. Perhaps they had swallowed him instead.
Meng wrinkled her nose and pushed the thought aside, turning on her heel. Stukos was Stukos' problem. He was a southerner anyway, and those trippy crundlefuckers were near impossible to kill. She thumped on through the sand, towards home.
On a good day, it took Meng eight minutes by her sand-counter's reckoning to get from the top cavern's entrance to the Inquisitor's office. Today had not been a good day. Both sets of perimeter guards had insisted on bribes, and then she caught the evening rush of miners, thumping their filthy bodies into the bathhouse and clogging up the halls.
"Evenin', Meng." Edim, the Inquisitor's door-guardsman, stood at the ready with sympathetic eyes.
"Edim. Drink yet?" It was one badlander's greeting to another, complete with a courteous half-raising of her own wineskin.
"Fine, thanks. Y'self?" Edim maintained a proud, waxy moustache that waggled constantly as he spoke. It was endearing, and a subject of much gossip and jealousy from other dwarves. Meng had heard that the precise recipe for his wax was a close secret, but her money was on something based on purring maggots. The man was well-paid, but not -- as far as she knew -- paid enough for surface products.
She winced, flicking back her kaftan's hood. Sweat trickled tracks in the grit-stained contours of her face, and Edim's eyes switched from sympathy to empathy. "Bossdwarf inside?"
"Yeah, still readin' letters." The guard slid a sound along his tongue, rather like the "ng" in "hang" stretched out for too long. One open hand rose parallel to the ground and tilted side to side. Cautiously good; kinda iffy. Meng chewed on her inner cheek. On the one hand, the Inquisitor wouldn't notice that she was late if he was still reading. On the other, it meant that he had received news, and these days, news was rarely good for anyone involved. She nodded her thanks with a downward "mmm" and slid past the guard.
A small chamber with a water basin stood between two sets of beaded curtains. The space was thick with incense, which burned in a bowl before a circle of eight icons mounted on the wall. After kicking off her boots and washing her feet in the basin, Meng selected the fifth of eight scents: burning pine. Sacred to Kukon, god of chance. Safe choice, her grandmother often advised her. Who doesn't want luck on their side? She tossed the stick into the burning bowl and shouldered through the second set of curtains.
The Inquisitor's office contained little: a dozen stacks of parchment and a few unadorned chests against the far wall, alongside three sand-dials at curious offsets. The dwarf himself sat at a stern bloodthorn desk. He cut an unassuming figure: squat and well past middle age, with eye sockets taxed into a sunken posture. His eyes flicked up from the parchment in his hand.
"Ah, Meng. I am glad you have arrived. I trust that the deliveries have been completed successfully." His accent still threw Meng off. The Inquisitor was a Dunie - a native of the western desert. Meng's badlander ears were used to few words and a huge range of intonation, leaping from one vowel to the next in a fluid jamboree of communication. But for the Inquisitor, sentences were a flat, drawn-out staccato of clipped consonants.
"Yes." She flattened her tone; it still rang like a harp's melodious reply to the Inquisitor's sullen tenor drone.
"That is excellent. After a recent, vital communication, I have received many responses from outlying colonies. Some of them are challenging. Reluctance and stubborn egotism, our classic obstacles, resurface to corrupt our noble plans. Nevertheless, there is good news. The colony will want to know of the situation and discuss it, and so it is vital that all are present." Meng played the sentences back in her mind. The Inquisitor's mysterious, double-sealed letters had stumped her when she had passed them to messengers a few weeks ago. The shadowy powerhouses of the dwarven senate would no doubt have questions. With this reveal, the Inquisitor was flexing his religious-immunity muscles for the whole fortress to see. Badlands politics was a brutal, cutthroat game... Even a foreigner like the Inquisitor would know that. Surely.
"I understand." Meng thought back to precedents for the Inquisitor's behavior. A couple years ago, some new bureaucrat had noticed the fort's wax stores were running low and written to the capital about it. He'd brought the issue up to the senate (after sending the letter) and then gone home to dinner. Before breakfast, he'd had a freak accident involving disembowelment via a rusty pitchfork.
"That is very good." Each of the two's trains of thought whizzed past the other, heading opposite directions. "I look forward to seeing you there. Bisek's blessings," he concluded, before turning back to the letter in his hand. Meng scrutinized his face for a moment. The Dunie stiff upper lip was infamous; he gave nothing away, no indication of whether he even understood the games he was playing. The only clue was in his final words: Bisek, goddess of longevity and youth. Or was it a clue at all?
Meng turned on her bare heel and strode back towards the exit. There were better things for her to puzzle over than cryptic Dunies. Her favorite choice of casket, for instance.
Her boots scuffed along the cavern floor, kicking up trails of red sand in her footsteps. The scarlet wake clashed against the sickly yellow of fungiwood trunks that loomed over her; she weaved between them, eyes wide and alert. This path dodged through the densest areas of the forest to make good time, and that came at the expense of safety. Tension rode her body like a gnome on a whiskey barrel for the entire hike, tightening the knuckles of her fist, attuning her to every slosh of her wineskin and puff from her lungs. Stress edged her cranium, crawling at the edge of her mind's eyesight, but the hard edges of adrenaline and sweat whipped her concentration into shape. She rode the high of danger, demanding that it fuel her senses.
Out of the forest, higher on the hill, and then up a short, scrabbling climb. Danger didn't show its hand. The razor-edge of anxiety demanded paranoia from her, and the thunderous hammer of her dwarven intuition crushed that razor into a billion tiny pieces. She shook sand from the wool and leathers that clung to her frame, and peered back the way she'd come. The fungiwood caps glared up at her vantage point, stretching far into the dark. Cave floaters meandered between their heads, a hollow, gaseous parody of bee-and-flower synergy.
Her eyes flickered over the vista for several moments, but there was no sign of Stukos. The dwarf had taken the message she'd carried, and then stalked off into into the fungus without a word, crossbow in hand. She'd expected signs of his dinner kill, but the forest had been silent since. Perhaps the fungal stalks had swallowed the sound of his kill. Perhaps they had swallowed him instead.
Meng wrinkled her nose and pushed the thought aside, turning on her heel. Stukos was Stukos' problem. He was a southerner anyway, and those trippy crundlefuckers were near impossible to kill. She thumped on through the sand, towards home.
On a good day, it took Meng eight minutes by her sand-counter's reckoning to get from the top cavern's entrance to the Inquisitor's office. Today had not been a good day. Both sets of perimeter guards had insisted on bribes, and then she caught the evening rush of miners, thumping their filthy bodies into the bathhouse and clogging up the halls.
"Evenin', Meng." Edim, the Inquisitor's door-guardsman, stood at the ready with sympathetic eyes.
"Edim. Drink yet?" It was one badlander's greeting to another, complete with a courteous half-raising of her own wineskin.
"Fine, thanks. Y'self?" Edim maintained a proud, waxy moustache that waggled constantly as he spoke. It was endearing, and a subject of much gossip and jealousy from other dwarves. Meng had heard that the precise recipe for his wax was a close secret, but her money was on something based on purring maggots. The man was well-paid, but not -- as far as she knew -- paid enough for surface products.
She winced, flicking back her kaftan's hood. Sweat trickled tracks in the grit-stained contours of her face, and Edim's eyes switched from sympathy to empathy. "Bossdwarf inside?"
"Yeah, still readin' letters." The guard slid a sound along his tongue, rather like the "ng" in "hang" stretched out for too long. One open hand rose parallel to the ground and tilted side to side. Cautiously good; kinda iffy. Meng chewed on her inner cheek. On the one hand, the Inquisitor wouldn't notice that she was late if he was still reading. On the other, it meant that he had received news, and these days, news was rarely good for anyone involved. She nodded her thanks with a downward "mmm" and slid past the guard.
A small chamber with a water basin stood between two sets of beaded curtains. The space was thick with incense, which burned in a bowl before a circle of eight icons mounted on the wall. After kicking off her boots and washing her feet in the basin, Meng selected the fifth of eight scents: burning pine. Sacred to Kukon, god of chance. Safe choice, her grandmother often advised her. Who doesn't want luck on their side? She tossed the stick into the burning bowl and shouldered through the second set of curtains.
The Inquisitor's office contained little: a dozen stacks of parchment and a few unadorned chests against the far wall, alongside three sand-dials at curious offsets. The dwarf himself sat at a stern bloodthorn desk. He cut an unassuming figure: squat and well past middle age, with eye sockets taxed into a sunken posture. His eyes flicked up from the parchment in his hand.
"Ah, Meng. I am glad you have arrived. I trust that the deliveries have been completed successfully." His accent still threw Meng off. The Inquisitor was a Dunie - a native of the western desert. Meng's badlander ears were used to few words and a huge range of intonation, leaping from one vowel to the next in a fluid jamboree of communication. But for the Inquisitor, sentences were a flat, drawn-out staccato of clipped consonants.
"Yes." She flattened her tone; it still rang like a harp's melodious reply to the Inquisitor's sullen tenor drone.
"That is excellent. After a recent, vital communication, I have received many responses from outlying colonies. Some of them are challenging. Reluctance and stubborn egotism, our classic obstacles, resurface to corrupt our noble plans. Nevertheless, there is good news. The colony will want to know of the situation and discuss it, and so it is vital that all are present." Meng played the sentences back in her mind. The Inquisitor's mysterious, double-sealed letters had stumped her when she had passed them to messengers a few weeks ago. The shadowy powerhouses of the dwarven senate would no doubt have questions. With this reveal, the Inquisitor was flexing his religious-immunity muscles for the whole fortress to see. Badlands politics was a brutal, cutthroat game... Even a foreigner like the Inquisitor would know that. Surely.
"I understand." Meng thought back to precedents for the Inquisitor's behavior. A couple years ago, some new bureaucrat had noticed the fort's wax stores were running low and written to the capital about it. He'd brought the issue up to the senate (after sending the letter) and then gone home to dinner. Before breakfast, he'd had a freak accident involving disembowelment via a rusty pitchfork.
"That is very good." Each of the two's trains of thought whizzed past the other, heading opposite directions. "I look forward to seeing you there. Bisek's blessings," he concluded, before turning back to the letter in his hand. Meng scrutinized his face for a moment. The Dunie stiff upper lip was infamous; he gave nothing away, no indication of whether he even understood the games he was playing. The only clue was in his final words: Bisek, goddess of longevity and youth. Or was it a clue at all?
Meng turned on her bare heel and strode back towards the exit. There were better things for her to puzzle over than cryptic Dunies. Her favorite choice of casket, for instance.
Chapter 2