Bay 12 Games Forum

Manipulation.

It's probably not directly relevant, but I like the word.

This is mostly about the bogeymen in adventure mode.
I spent a lot of time yesterday looking up mythical creatures, something which would have obvious ties to Dwarf Fortress, but I found something completely unexpected.  Under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legendary_creatures_of_the_Argentine_Northwest_region was this:

"If a woman had improper relations with one of the relatives of Almamula, he would punish that woman by transforming her into a series of different forms. First, the woman was transformed in a bogey that would stroll about in the night, seducing, murdering, and devouring any men that she encountered who were alone. Later, Almamula would transform the woman into a mule. The woman, in mule form, would be forced to drag chains during nights on which there were thunderstorms. Finally, Almamula would turn the unfortunate woman into a gigantic black dog with teeth of fire."

So... obviously the bogeymen aren't entirely based on this, because they don't try to seduce you, but most of that first part seems to fit eerily well, especially when wikipedia's main article on the "bogeyman" says that all it is is a creature used to scare children to keep them from being naughty.  Pretty much all the examples fill that roll too.  I don't think Toady's bogeymen actually care if you're naughty or not(anybody wanna try not fighting anything and see if that makes them safe at night?).

Also, I'm not sure if the creature was actually called a bogey or if that's just a translation thing.  Mostly, I just thought this was interesting and obscure enough that I should share.

I think it's safe to assume that the 'switching' isn't going to happen (even though that would be awesome).

'The dwarves will be forced to deal with the economic situation of the outside world'

But this might mean that maybe... just maybe... you won't be able to sell an endless supply of mugs because there won't be enough demand for them?

Nah, when the demand for them drops, you just have to sell even more.  The merchants only giving 1db per mug now? Trade him 300 mugs for that dog.  Now he's only giving you 1db for a whole crate of mugs?  300 crates!

And then one of your dwarves creates an artifact mug that's diamond studded, made of platinum, and only worth 1db.

I laughed when I saw one of my dwarves liked "lamprays for their beauty."  I also enjoy it whenever one of them animates their hands for whatever reason, or the one who "screams when surprised."

Oh, curl the tip of it or something too, or make it splashing down.  I'm not sure how well my idea would translate into a large-tiled mural, but a drop of blood plopping into a pool of blood on the bottom with two small drops popping out.

That'd be pretty hard I think.  I'm going to go with the chains to emphasize that Armok enslaves you.

Or hey, something like Rexfelum said while I was typing, a blood drop running down a spike.

Humans, because I often try to build human-like architecture anyway and I'm fond of aboveground construction.  I'd like it to be more viable.  But there's a lot of things I'd like that would be awkward to implement.  I also like humans in fantasy settings.

Lol, migrants.

"What kind of fortress are we going to, anyway, Doran?"
"Oh, it's amazing, Urist! I hear that they rip out blizzardmen's teeth, for fun! They must be really powerful and wealthy, with lots of booze and food!"

I like to think that the migrant waves that occur go sometihng like this:

"Hey buddy, you remember those 7 dwarves that left awhile ago?  Yeah, I heard they were going out to start out a new colony.  Betcha it'll be really rich.  Who'd go settle somewhere for any other reason than because there's tons of gems and metal there.  We definitely gotta make sure we're there before everybody else so we can get the choice jobs."
And in the case of a place where you leave with nothing, add a line about how they didn't bring anything with them, so the site probably has absolutely everything they need and there's no way anything could go wrong.

I probably should have started building slightly lower.

It's a fairly long story, full of learning experiences, but at this exact moment, at the beginning of the 6th in-game month of my fortress, 3 waterfalls are flowing out of a fortress built into a cliff-face because I accidentally breached the aquifer in the layer directly above it(I hadn't been having any problems, and didn't realize just how dire wet stone would be to me).  This particular fort is one I'm using to write a story, in the form of a detailed diary of events that take place.  The latest update is about the expedition leader being worried because two of his three friends where washed out of the fortress and plummeted 150 feet into the river below(for measurements, I'm assuming a z-level is 10 feet, although that obviously doesn't always work).  Those friends where 1 of the 3 miners I had, and the only farmer.  My only hunter also died in the accident, but wasn't his friend.  Besides, no game had shown up yet, so he was mostly being useless.  I'm not sure it matters about the farmer though, since I had to close off access to the farms.  All 3 died because that particular path had the most powerful water flow over it.

In addition to being worried about the death of his friends, the expedition leader is also trapped in his room with water on the other side of the door.  In fact, at least 3 dwarves are trapped in or near there rooms.  I'm not sure exactly where my two miners are, and I have a single dwarf trapped in the "safe" area where walls block all the ways water can get in, which unfortunately also keeps out all the other dwarves.  I just remembered that I hadn't designated a food stockpile, which would have been on his side, so he has no food, although he does have 5 dogs, a horse, and a butcher shop.  Now I must make a hasty rescue attempt and figure out what to do with the 6 dwarves I have, because 2 arrived just one week before all of this started.  I will NOT abandon this though.  Gemskin will become great!

Oh, the one in the safe room, he's one of the two migrants, and there's an entry just shortly before all this about how useless the leader thinks he is.