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[krisslanza]

Good luck to all! I just went and read both comics again, they're short but still enjoyable reads. Too bad I have no cool fortresses to pitch.

[TomIrony]

This still remains the most epic fight I've ever had the fortune of playing:

Wildnesspaged was built in "joyous wilds", a place that had swarms of pixies, fairies and fluffy wamblers. It was an elf's greatest fantasy. By the time we were through with it, the region was a blasted wasteland that was long past being even an echo of its former self.

This was due in part by the efforts of the dwarfs themselves, and also the ancient evils they awoke in their lust for precious minerals. The fortress itself was fairly standard: a tower surrounded by a chasm, accessible only via a retractable bridge. But there were also a few non-standard features, such as chimneys built above refuse piles that purposely spewed miasma out onto the surface. Everything was clear-cut, and unicorns were hunted with weapons made from their very bones.

I will always remember the doomed elven caravan that arrived from downriver, pulling their wares past abandoned unicorn carcasses that bristled with unicorn-bone bolts. They unloaded their goods just as goblins attacked, and all of the traders save for one were shot and killed.

But the most epic was when five forgotten beasts managed to breach the surface. You see, I had built a separate downward shaft to breach the lower caverns while keeping the bulk of my dwarfs safe. While this shaft was trapped to high heaven, it wasn't enough to stop the beasts from seeing the light of day once more.

Three of the beasts were taken care of with relative ease, but two of them posed a bit more of a challenge: one was a blob made of fire, the other a giant winged serpent.

Now, as soon as the blob of fire emerged, fire spread across the land in its wake. Whatever we dwarfs hadn't already desecrated, it burned to ash. The two beasts lunged towards the fortress and, mercifully, we managed to injure the serpent's wings so that it couldn't fly over the protective chasm.

Most of the dwarfs made it inside, except for one: a recruit marksdwarf. She was a young thing, but skilled. From a hill next to the fortress, she sniped the beasts, striking the blob of fire in its heart so that it exploded next to the serpent. The serpent had all of its skin melt off, and then it went after the recruit.

The two of them fought amongst the flames that now engulfed the entire map while dwarfs from the ramparts fired down at the beast. They mortally wounded each other, and it wasn't until it snowed ash that we were able to retrieve her corpse, but she had single-handedly stopped two forgotten beasts with nothing but a crossbow while the world burned.

[raptorfangamer]

Woot.

I loved bronzemurder and oilfurnace, I learnt to breach aquifers with the last one.


I dont know if this may suffice, but...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I was playing around my fort (floodingchambers) when I decided to upgrade my pump sewage system (as I was testing how effective it would be), everything was dug into a fortification off-map, I was about to dig the last parts when I saw my legendary miner starving because I forgot to make some exit stairs so no dwarf is left behind.
Shortly after I dug the holes, forgetting one was connected to the invader drownpit (which was accesible and full of water) that was finally draining, I forgot to forbid the goblin clothes and armor, and saw how my haulers got pushed down the current with the items, one was about to make it to one of the exit stairs and drowned like, a single urist away.

[ISGC]

Back in 40d, I embarked on a Goblin fortress which came along with a Fire Demon who sat up on top of their tower.  The goblins were passive at the time, but I found out that, on the first siege, they would all become hostile.  And so I tried several failing ways to kill them and the demon including trying to collapse the tower, walling them in (the demon could fly) and even a really short lived attempt at flooding their tower.  And then one day, a kobold ambush interrupted one of my axe dwarves in the line of sight of the demon, who proceeded to descend to the ground and incinerate both my dwarf and the kobolds with a couple flame balls which set the ground on fire as well.  But the great part is, the FIRE DEMON burned to death in the very fire he lit as well as killed every single goblin that ran out to help him defeat the kobold ambush.  I was completely amazed by this, and can probably dredge up some pictures and names if you want me to.

[Mitchewawa]

In Dwarf Fortress, success is measured in failure. In the new terrifying biomes, on the same reclaim, I have been wiped within minutes by acid rain, then again by swarms of zombie giant mosquitoes, and again because evil mist entered my small shelter which had a skylight for farming, and again because dwarfs stepped into a river because of pathing and got flushed downstream off a waterfall. All 7 of them. Each time getting closer and closer to mining out and building the base proper.

But I made a reclaim that stuck. And now my fortress has natural defences against invaders; the front of my base is covered in acid which burns their feet. To get to my base they need to fight the zombie wildlife, and their zombified comrades. They need to dodge the evil mist. And if none of that works, I can reroute the river to flood my entrance, flushing the goblins off the cliff into the river below (where the zombie carp, alligators, otters and previous attackers await).

And the randomly genned name of the fortress? Hopediamond.

[truckman1]

Interesting and epic dwarf stories, eh?
....Well, we don't talk about him anymore 'round these parts, but....     
There once was a dwarf.
A bad dwarf.
The bad dwarf.


Obok Meatbod. The Worst Dwarf Ever. I don't think anyone wants his adventures illustrated though.
Okay, maybe the first one, with the giants and the copper hammer.

[eataTREE]

Haven't played the new version long enough to have a story worthy of your considerable talents, Tim. Oilfurnaces and Bronzemurdered are awesome, especially because they are great for explaining the appeal of Dwarf Fortress to "normals". Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

[Ross Vernal]

On a unrelated note :

Dear Strem Frightspite the Lonely:

You are a Forgotten Beast Theropod with Deadly Blood, a Bite, a Horn, and Claws.

Please, when future goblins / elves fall into your lonely dodge trap, use those to kill, instead of the pig fiber tunic you're somehow carrying and trying to gradually beat broken things to death with.

Next time, you might lose your other Horn when some goblin decides "I should fight this thing instead of running away screaming."

Dear Overlord Ross Vernal,

RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!*

Yours truly,
Forgotten Theropod


*Translation : But it's so pretty and soft...

Dear Forgotten Barney:

My apologies, it's a cave spider silk tunic.









PS: SERIOUSLY!?

Less of an anecdote, but this is a friggin T-Rex beating a goblin to death with a silk tunic. I cannot tell you how much this needs to be drawn.

[Mercenare]

I recently started a .34 fort, little did i know how dangerous terrifying biomes have become...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The fair group known as the Boots of Frost, a infamous explorers group, thought they had conquered all. They traveled the land and claimed it in the name of their patron and kingdom, The Tools of Dashing. For their next big settlement, they decided to try something risky... They headed into a notorious region known only as the The Lonely Goo, an area wrought with terror and unspeakable horrors. Little did they know the fate that was in store for them. They set out with a group of seven, comprised of two stoneworkers, a woodworker, a fisherdwarf, a quartermaster, a master-at-arms and their beloved leader Regs Gemisitatis. It was along the stream Devilclod that they set up their camp, Shadeboard. Soon after settling in they began to dig a palisade, but their efforts were futile. Not more then a few nights after setting up camp were they surprised by a group of Wild Boar Corpses! The brave master-at-arms rushed at the foul creatures in hopes of slaying them, but was quickly trampled and took a hoof through his cranium. Seeing their master-at-arms dead, the rest of them panicked, and ran away in fear. The boars chased the group till they finally banded together and fought off the boars. They emerged triumphantly, but not with out losses. A stoneworker and quartermaster both died while fighting the boars. The remants of the band of explorers, although bruised and shaken, returned to camp for the night, agreeing to bury their dead on the morrow.

As the sun began to rise in the sky, so did the dwarves, as well as the corpses of their comrades. Regs made his rounds, waking up his comrades. As they grabbed their spades and headed to where their fallen friends were, they were shocked to find the corpses gone! Where did they go? Dire thoughts raced through the minds of the explorers. Suddenly a creature let out a howl and shambled towards them! It was their dead friends, now possessed by the foul force they died fighting. Regs died first, with a torn off face, then next the last stoneworker, then finally the fisherdwarf, leaving only the woodworker alive. Seeing his friends struck down sent the woodworker into a fit of rage. He lost control, killing two ghouls with his bare hands and shoulder throwing the other, breaking its neck. The woodworker returned to the camp, his rage boiling with in him. Hours passes, and he calmed down. His once living friends, the stoneworker, the fisherdwarf and Regs. As his friends encircled him, the woodworker made a move to run through a hole in their circle. One of the ghouls grabbed him and he was quickly torn apart.

And so ends the ill fated story of The Boots of Frost.

[TinyPirate]

These are great - keep 'em coming!

[DoctorMonch]

I've got two, semi interesting tales-

The first being Bowmined, the story of the rise and fall of a fortress, as told on /v/, and chronicled on Tumblr-
Bowmined
(The structure of this is a bit screwed up. The first entry is on the last page, and it reads from back to front. Blame my poor planning.)


The second being BeastBreakers, the story of a rather disturbing megaproject I undertook to have a breeding pair of 1 headed hydras, chronicled in this thread-
Beastbreakers

I'm just leaving these here for the time being. I'll likely come back and prepare a synopsis of each one. I put a lot of time and effort in to these fortresses, so it'd be pretty nice to see them commemorated in some way.

Edit-
Also, not to sound like a kiss-ass, but I absolutely fucking ADORE the Bronzemurder and Oilfurnace stories. Bronzemurder was one of the reasons I started playing Dwarf Fortress.

[Ferozstein]

Tholtig. Please, please don't waste this opportunity and immortalize Tholtig with your project. If her story isn't epic and awesome enough, nothing is.

[Twobeard]

I just fired up a new fort on .34. Just after the one year mark, all of my dead things suddenly become undead. They attack leaving a dozen dwarves dead or maimed. No  immediate cause is apparent. Then i discover a Necromancer has smuggled his way into my fortress in an immigrant wave. On top of that there was another Necromancer travelling with the human merchants. After finally putting to rest the undead, i deal with a few goblin invasions. Things go back to normal for awhile.

Then while i have my senior military dwarves holed up in the 'let loose the trap and kill the sorry bastard goblin/animal that emerges' room one of the Necromancers returned. As a ghost. And started raising the corpses of the previously killed goblins. And kept raising them. Then when my dwarfs started dying, they joined the ranks.

The only saving grace was i had locked the door to that room. Otherwise that would have been a short and bloody end to my fort. Was still the brutal end of many a fine dorf.

[Talvieno]

Tholtig. Please, please don't waste this opportunity and immortalize Tholtig with your project. If her story isn't epic and awesome enough, nothing is.

Isn't Tholtig already immortalized? She's got a page on the wiki, tons of fan art... A place in the Hall of Legends, too. I think Tholtig would be cool for him to do, just like you do, just pointing out she's already immortalized. 

[TinyPirate]

Thanks for the ideas. It would really help people's cases if they included a paragraph or two summaries of the funny/sad/whimsical/best bits of their stories. Otherwise I am going to have to spend hours digging through web pages!