Bay 12 Games Forum

heh i do actually have half a novel somewhere that i started almost a decade ago.  Ive always liked creative writing and its easy with as rich a world as DF.  You might become Grue, its a little easier:)

Embark

The wagon jolted across the rocky plain and Rith Atisrath cursed as someone bumped into him from behind.  He half turned in his seat to let out yet another curse at the huddled shape in the gloom, he couldnt see which of them it was.  As his eyes returned to the route ahead he caught a glint of light from his right, was that a river in the moonlight?  He dismissed this half-formed thought impatiently, there was no way they would be stopping here at any rate, even by moonlight the plain radiated heat, Rith almost expected the ground to glow a sullen red.

A howl echoed from the darkness to his right and the horse pulling the wagon snickered softly and increased speed. 
"Across the river at least", thought Rith with some relief.  The sound had not been welcoming.

"Rith, what was that?", asked Mosus from behind him, a note of panic in his voice.
"How the hell am I supposed to know?", he snapped back.  "Quit asking stupid questions and just....keep your eyes open."
"For what Rith?", came the morons voice again.  A muffled thud and a yelp of hurt outrage indicated that Knarfle had saved him the trouble of answering this particular idiotic question with application of his fist.  Mosus was a fool, none of the small band really liked him, but he had been a part of their crew ever since Rith had met him as a young teen.  The guy had surely never been born, such a man must have been hewn from living rock, he stood a clear 2 heads taller than most dwarves Rith had met and was about as wide across the shoulders as he was tall.  A mountain of muscle that the crew had put to good use on countless occassions down the years, shield, seige engine, beast of burden, a key to open any door.

Another howl in the darkness brought Rith's attention back to the now.  This one had been from the darkness to his left......he flicked the reins and the horse stepped up another gear.  A chorus of soft growls behind him indicated that the dogs were not happy either, they didnt really belong to anyone...unless the gang could be said to own them.  Rith was glad of their prescence right now.

"Eyes up lads", he growled.
A glance over his shoulder once more and he saw movement from the boys, shapes crowded the rim of the wagon and 6 pairs of eyes scanned the darkness.  Five, he corrected himself, Mosus appeared to have dropped off to sleep.

"We really ought to have stopped in that forest Rith", it sounded like OmnipotentGrue, none of his other lads would use the word 'ought' in the right context.  He was ofcourse right, but Rith had spotted groundhog tracks in the undergrowth and over-ruled the rest.....he detested groundhogs.

"Well, as soon as we're off this plain", he replied.  "I want to make those hills we saw at last light, cant be much....ugh!"
Rith broke off as the wagon gave a violent lurch and a heavy body slammed into him for the second time that night, a nasty splintering noise, unnaturally loud in the dead night echoed out from below him and the floor of the wagon dropped to the ground, throwing Rith into a sprawling heap.  As he groaned and rolled onto his back another howl sounded from the dark and every hair in his beard stiffened.

"Rith!", a call from the darkness.  That was MetalMilitia for sure, the accent of the northern mountainhomes unmistakable.  More voices now, to his left, he scrambled to his feet and shuffled towards the noise, stubbing his toe on what on close inspection proved to be the wreckage of a wheel from the wagon.  A moment later shapes loomed ahead of him and his outstretched arm brushed cloth.
"What the hell happened..""What are we gonna do...""Where'd the horse go?", everyone spoke at once and Rith growled in exasperation eliciting silence from his small band. 

"Shut your traps, the lot of you.  I dont want to draw anymore attention to us, I dont trust this place", he muttered.
"We've got no options, zero, the cart is fucked and we're goin no further.  We're gonna make the best of it and setup shop right here."

"But Rith, you said we needed a rich site, this was our chance you said", sounded like Kol, might have been Morul, didnt much matter.

"I know what I said", he snapped into the dark.  "But like I said, no options.  Could be worse, it's flat and theres a river.  It's hot as a bitch but we'll crack it, we always manage.  Real riches are underground anyway and we got no access till the next passing caravan that has a pickaxe for trade.  We're here lads, and this is us, as soon as the sun rises we'll get to work."

General muttering followed this speech but he could tell by the tone that they had accepted their joint lot, now all that remained was to wait for the dawn and see how fucked they really were..

hehehe, at least the dwarf masons have the sense to remove the wall they put up to lock emselves in rather than trying to 'mine' their way out.

Bet while that guy repairs the damage he did to his neighbours wall he pulls the same stunt again

ofcourse ghosts also only appear if you have an evil square in your biome somewhere

heh I love the Darwin Awards, Dwarfin Awards however may be a little tricky.  Just because every dwarf qualifies like all the time.

Miners who dont know how to channel without dropping themselves in
Engravers who run the wrong way (or not at all) from the lava they just tapped

and so on

Hehe, Genesis mod has provided me with a lot of surprise laughs starting this fort, update tonight hopefully.

Always fun thinking up uses for the army of idlers.

Under Genesis mod the combat/seige side of the game is slightly tougher than vanilla, therefore i'd say you want to up your defenses.

If your military is light on numbers then thats an obvious destination for your fail immigrants, if you are already somewhat happy with the military then consider a small project.

Perhaps a series of walls outside your fort, the idea being that invaders must follow a long snaking path to get in.  You either cover this path in traps, design something evil to drop on them, or just use it along with a tethered guard animal to give you more warning on ambushes.

As for actually getting the idlers working.  All my 'useless' immigrants get the following jobs: Masonry, Carpentry, Mechanics.  I then restrict through 'workshop profile' the appropriate workshops so that the hoard of dabblers cant build items there.  The upshot of this is that any walls/floors you build will go fast as your dwarves swarm the site, the mechanics is useful as it allows you to link levers to traps/bridges etc with an increased speed.  ( while 1 skilled mechanic links faster than 1 unskilled, 10 unskilled is faster than 1 skilled if there are 10 seperate jobs)

Another common job for idlers is stone detailing (smoothing not engraving, you want masters/legends to do that part).  smooth every square of exposed rock.  Be aware this increases created wealth and may trigger DOOM!

that could certainly be a contributing factor.  As the guy above you mentioned you need enough backpacks to go around, and ofcourse neither miner nor woodcutter uniforms come with a pack