Bay 12 Games Forum

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"Severedcoils 'I' or 'II?' Which should I read first?"
'Severedcoils' and 'Severedcoils II: The Reckoning' are two separate stories being told concurrently to form a single narrative from two perspectives. This gives you, the reader, some options as to how to tackle this story:

Fortress Mode: 'Severedcoils' is the original Dwarf Fortress community challenge, still in progress. In 'Fortress Mode,' read 'Severedcoils' first, learning all the backstory behind the fortress and all the events leading up to the cast of Severedcoils II being sent on their adventure. 'Severedcoils' is currently paused at a point in time in which the adventuring party is scheduled to arrive back, and will resume when the stories converge. Read 'Severedcoils' first up to & including page 54, when the stories split, then read 'Severedcoils II' to see what's happening in another part of the world. Feel free to jump back and forth between the stories from this point on, using the dates at the top of each post to guide you chronologically. (Concurrent storytelling does not begin until Chapter II of SCII)


Adventure Mode: 'Severedcoils II: The Reckoning' is a DnD 5e adventure about an adventuring party sent to collect magical treasures by the caretakers of Severedcoils - but for what purpose? And will the party find more than they bargained for? In 'Adventure Mode,' skip 'Severedcoils,' and read 'Severedcoils II' first; This will simulate the perspective of the real-world DnD players, who don't know the history of 'Severedcoils' and are learning as it's revealed to them, bit by bit. In this path, 'Severedcoils' becomes a [F]orbidden source of mystery, which might be a more enjoyable experience for new readers. Read 'Severedcoils II' first, and avoid all links to 'Severedcoils' until such time that the adventuring party is welcomed to read it themselves by means of a big, plot-related reveal.
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STOP! If you are one of my players in the Dungeons and Dragons 5e campaign, this thread contains MASSIVE SPOILERS you should not know about yet.  It'll come up at the right time!  For now, please turn back.

This story is now effectively the background history for Severedcoils II - The Reckoning, a DnD 5e campaign built and presented using Dwarf Fortress.  Both stories are in active progress, and events coincide between them in real-time, using dates as reference.

What does this mean?

-See above for instructions on how to consume this story. There are two different ways to read it: Fortress Mode (read 'Severedcoils' before 'Severedcoils II'), and Adventure Mode (read 'Severedcoils II' before 'Severedcoils'). For new readers, starting with 'Severedcoils II' might be more interesting since it treats the history of 'Severedcoils' as the source of a mystery.

-These two threads are telling the same story from two different perspectives. The players in 'Severedcoils II' are [F]orbidden from reading 'Severedcoils' for now, so they only know what's been shared with them in their game/their thread.

-Because Dwarf Fortress progresses time very quickly, and a DnD adventure (the action, anyway) typically takes place over a few days, that means right now the bulk of the story is being told in 'Severedcoils II,' and it is the more current story.

-'Severedcoils' will continue to see updates either in the interim between adventures (when the party is assumed to be traveling for several days, that gives me that much time to work with in DF), or when the party is actually visiting Severedcoils. Both threads will continue to tell the same story from two different perspectives. However, due to the nature of how time passes in these games, that means 'Severedcoils' will frequently be left on hiatus between adventures - so rather than wait for updates, go ahead and start 'Severedcoils II' when you reach the end of this thread, since that story is being updated actively.

I'm noticing the following behavior in my megaproject:

.X++
..D+

.: Open space,
+: Floor,
X: Floor building designation,
D: Dwarf.

The dwarf is building the floor diagonally north-west of it.  Not that it matters, but it's standing on a floor.  I commonly see dwarves build floors diagonally like this.

Meanwhile, dwarves will not build floors diagonally in this example:

==+==
XX=XX

=: Wall,
+: Floor,
X: Floor building designation.

The dwarves will not stand on the floor tile in row one to build the diagonally-connected designations in row 2.  This is really frustrating to me because the dwarves can, but won't build in this condition, and what it means is that I'll have to deconstruct one of those walls, replace it with a floor, deconstruct the floor later, then reconstruct the wall.

I'm not sure if this is intended or not, but it seems to me like odd behavior that causes unnecessary micromanagement.

((Editted to make correction pointed out below))

I'm noticing a few oddities with my fortress regarding strange injuries, and I suspect doors to be the culprit.  I have some doors in the way of my dwarves' most commonly used path, and on the floor beneath some of these doors is a pool of blood.  I'm not noticing this anywhere else in my fortress, just in the same tiles as commonly used doors.

Meanwhile, several of my dwarves are turning up bedridden with broken limbs, and I don't know why.  I realize that broken bones take a while to heal, but I've noticed a miner from my most recent migrant wave with a broken leg, and I don't know how it happened.  It isn't just miners either, it seems to affect any job.  I've been writing it off, thinking maybe a goblin landed a shot on one of these guys and I didn't see it... but it makes me wonder again about the blood under the doors.

This suggests to me that doors can cause injuries... maybe the dwarves are pushing the door open into another dwarf trying to enter from the other side?  Is this possible, or is there another explanation?
 

This isn't really a bug, but rather behavior I find to be kind of odd.  I have a legendary Royal Guard who was recently imprisoned for 100 days for "Violation of Production Order."  Meanwhile, this legendary guard has to her name 3 dwarf kills, all of whom died while sparring with her, and she has never been charged with Murder (yes, I had my Baroness for at least one of these kills).  I find the dwarven justice system increasingly bizarre.

I realize nobles are annoying and do what they want, but isn't it pushing it a little to lock away a guard for not obeying a mandate?  Building stuff isn't in their job description... Now I have to worry about a champion throwing a tantrum and escaping my prison

I ran into a bug that was, admittedly, probably brought on by user stupidity (first time using pressure plates).  I misunderstood the suggestion to make a pressure plate "repeatable" and assigned a trigger to be added with the Repeat command (the plate was being assigned to a hatch).  I let it go for a while, realized my mistake, then canceled the task.

Upon canceling, my game nearly froze, then proceeded with a terrible framerate.  I saw a warning that said "Mechanic cancels Link Up a Hatch x120."  I checked the announcements screen - by now, the number had grown to x165 (I'm estimating the numbers here, I don't know their exact values).  The game continued to hang considerably, meanwhile the warning messages continued updating, each time adding another 40+ cancellations to the job.  It finally stopped at about 1600 cancellations of the same job.  I'm not sure why it stopped, but one possible reason could be that I got a different announcement regarding a cat being slaughtered.  When that happened, the game resumed at normal speed and the cancellations stopped growing.