Bay 12 Games Forum

Here's a copy of Severedcoils.  This fort is being narrated here.  9 1/2 years, vanilla, includes a room full of levers;  Some may cause you some... difficulties, but nothing you shouldn't be able to avoid in time if when you pull them.

Kenbo, I suggest that you use the next noble to test the magma deathtrap.

Not that drowning them and pushing them into chasms isn't fun, I'd just really like to see some... burning... noble chunklets... that's all.

I think that can be arranged!  I'm estimating the trap might be finished right around when the next noble comes, so I could set up something special for him/her.

Also, I think I'm noticing an undesirable side-effect with using disabling Invaders for one season... it feels like the game has reset my enemies' aggression with me.  Even though Invaders is on, I'm not getting any ambushes or sieges, just a couple of stray thieves as if it's my first year all over again.  Anybody know if this is true, or am I just getting (un)lucky?

It doesn't take three years per consort.  The reason I wasn't getting them was because the goblins were preventing the dwarven caravan in Autumn.  This year, I disabled sieges only for Autumn to ensure the caravan came, and the following spring I got the consort.

So, as long as I continue to do this, I should be able to get another consort every year.

How do you open that bypass, anyway?  I looked everywhere for the lever and couldn't find it.  It was really bugging me... on my turn, all traffic went in and out through my magma trap because it was the shortest way.

11th Felsite, 209, Late Spring
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One wrestler, one macedwarf, six peasants, one butcher, one blacksmith, one potashmaker-- I mean mason, one hunter-- I mean mason, one herbalist, one metalsmith, one fisher, one bonecarver, one armorsmith, two stoneworkers, one animal tamer, and two children.  These all came along with the latest count, consort, and... a philosopher!

Lolor Ekastathel, the Count, waltzes right into the dining room and stands on a table.

"Ah, Severedcoils!  What a quaint county you have here!  Well, fear not, laborers!  I, Lolor, have come to bring you wealth and prosperity!  See the fine dwarves I have brought with me!  I have brought along just enough to make this place a Duchy!  See?  Already, I bring you wealth!"

Grendus bangs her (Copper war hammer) once on Arbostsarvesh, the adamantine buckler.  "We've been doing a pretty good job of that ourselves."

Lolor jumps down from the green glass table, completely ignoring the rising concerns of the dwarves around him.  He looked around the room, scoffing at the engravings all over.

"Egads, how atrocious!  'The Influential Charity?'  A masterfully designed image relating to the ascension of the dwarf Zon Castleweakened the Skinny Morals to leadership of The Crypt of Crowns in the early spring of 201?  Who calls this 'masterfully designed??"  What kind of a name is 'Castleweakened for a leader, anyway?"

Tholtig Gúradil sulked.  "Hey, that's my masterfully designed image of Zon Castleweakened the Skinny Morals the dwarf and dwarves..."

My eye started to twitch, as Lolor Saveringed (as if that's a better name for a leader) paraded through the halls, nitpicking at everything in his way.

"Egads!  What's this watery mess doing next to the stairwell?  I refuse to walk through so much mud and filth every time I use the stairs!"

"That's our mist generator," I say boldly, arms crossed and beard thoroughly ruffled.  "It keeps us happy through the goblin sieges."

"Mist be damned!  I demand this wreck be shut down, and the stairs mopped, and-- dear Kovest, you're all covered in blood and vomit!  Have you dwarves been working outside?!"

"Here, Lolor, you must be weary from your journey!"  Let me escort you to your room.  It's right downstairs... we'll take the other stairway, if we absolutely must avoid the mud."

"Oh, we absolutely must do something about your clothing!  What's a woman such as yourself doing in XX-cave spider silk trousers-XX??  Have you no shame?  Is that giant bat blood spatter??"

"You bet your noble ass it is... but come!  Your lovely quarters await!  It's fortunate that one such as yourself should be so obsessed with cleanliness - ((DFMA)) ((Movie)) your room is the only one with a functioning shower!"

I reset the trap and head back inside-- only to find a witness has followed me with the duke!!


"Ack!  Um... Imush!  You didn't see anything, did you?"

"...Ha, ha, real funny!  Is that another crack at me missing both eyes??"

"Oh... Um, sorry!  What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I had a question to ask of Lolor, so I followed.  I was hoping he brought some spare eyeballs with him.  I fell asleep for a bit, though to be honest it's kind of hard to tell when I'm awake and when I'm unconscious - it's dark either way.  Then I woke up here!  Where is 'here,' anyway?"

"Oh!  Uhh... you're... in the magma forges!  Goodness, Imush, be careful where you step!  You might fall into a smelter and get burned by magma!"

Imush raised an eyeless eyebrow.  "Wait a minute... the forges have a very particular scent about them.  Like magma, and burning rock, and dwarf sweat.  Here it just smells... dusty, and musty, and faintly of a groundhog bone... cabinet?  What room is this, anyway?"

I was frantically searching my mind for a better lie, and then-- "Oh!  You can't tell whether you're awake or asleep?"

"Uh huh."

"Then, clearly, you're dreaming!  No such room exists in the fort!"

"I'm dreaming?  But my dreams usually make a lot less sense than this."

"The prickle berries said they think your hoary marmot turned midnight blue.  You'd better bake some aluminum grass.  Here, swallow this giant eagle, and then you can encrust finished goods with donkey tallow."

"Ah, yes, I'm definitely dreaming," nodded Imush.  I'll just be on my way then.  I wonder where I can find Lolor...

Imush wandered out of the room.  Phew!!  That was a close one...

As I'm walking out the snaking passageway to the duke's deathtrap, I pass the new philosopher.


"Oh, hi.  You must be--"

"Yes, yes, of course.  One moment, you forgot to reset your lever."

A chill runs through my beard.  "I... I did?  How did you know?"

"I'm Quietust, the philosopher!  I know!  And one must never leave their levers unpulled.  Excuse me!"

"Um... do you know what that lever does?"

"I assume it must be something completely unimportant and inconsequential, otherwise you wouldn't have forgotten to pull it again!  A moment, please."


Quietust rushes on to go and pull the lever again to close the trap.  I could have sworn I had already done that... Regardless, I hate to be rude, but I'm of no mind to meet anyone right now, so I sneak off while she's busy.

I have trouble resisting the urge to suggest importing of other players' dungeons into your world... unfortunately, that presents all kinds of geology problems when you consider most forts contain parts of rivers, chasms, etc. and varied terrain height and slopes that the world you're importing into wouldn't contain.

Similarly, I think the biggest hangup with procedurally generated dungeons would be traps and lever mechanisms.  The game would need to know how to put together a dungeon that will allow access to the goal with or without the aide of levers moving objects that would block your path.  Simple bridges might be easy enough, but some of the more complicated stuff - like pulling a lever to obsidian-cast a walkway across a deadly magma-filled gap - is probably something the game couldn't figure out itself.  On the other hand, maybe it's best that the more complicated dungeons are left to the player's creation!

Does it work in the version you copied to?  If so, I'd just play from that copy.

This sounds really, really awesome!  I'd love to dig down into a hellish landscape and try to manage a fort there.  Even better,  what if you could start within the HFS pit playing as clowns, and build up your forces near the circus peanuts until such a time that an unknowing dwarf civ mines out a hole for you to escape through?

Can we get this suggestion into the Eternal Suggestions thread?  I'd definitely vote for it.