Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1] 2 3

Author Topic: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.  (Read 11825 times)

Darchitect

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« on: February 27, 2012, 01:34:39 pm »

I went from from a fully functional metropolis of 267 dwarves, to a skeleton crew of 13 in a matter of a month. I'm simply stunned.

I believe it all began with twelve of my miners channeling a 10x10 hole about 15 z-levels deep. I refused to let them out until they had finished their job. I needed that drop for my mass pit, and I needed it yesterday. Goblins and other caged nasties were piling up fast. One of the miners managed to starve to death, even though i thought i'd given her a path out. I hadn't. Her husband, Urist McCarpenter, was understandably upset. But he talked to the mayor, she comforted him, and the world moved on.

What I forgot about was that Urist had a baby son with his lovely, now deceased, wife. Evidently, Urist forgot about him, too, because the child starved to death, alone at the bottom of that pit where his mother had passed on into the arms of Armok. Only when his first-born died did Urist remember him. And from that point forward, things started going badly.

As I started getting messages about "dwarven child has been slain" I jumped down into my half-finished diorite dorms to find several bedrooms covered in blood, courtesy of Mr. McCarpenter. "Sad," I said to myself, and waited for my Hammerer or Captain of the Guard to execute him or jail him. "So many useless children in my fort, at least this will thin out the herd a little."

Foolish, foolish noob.

Two of the slain children belonged to miners. Legendary miners.

This is where it went from bad to Dead Space 2.

The horror, the absolute horror of berserk, child-bereft miners is impossible to describe. The military, the archers; all gone within seconds. Walls of white, spattered red. Level after level of my marble tower, jutting proudly into the heavens as a testament to the glory of our barony, now dripping with blood. Peasants, screaming, running amok, cut down like golden wheat before the threshers. It all happened so terribly, viciously fast.

Eventually, and thankfully, the miners turned on each other. But the damage was done.

No amount of waterfalls, legendary dining halls, and tastefully arranged statue gardens could have saved the remaining 62 (that's right, SIXTY-TWO) dwarves from the emotional devastation of that massacre. Not even Ishgasol Sankestkudar, our glorious, native gold artifact cabinet (so beautiful  that it has an image of itself etched into its doors), could penetrate the desolation of so much lost life.

At some point, in the midst of all the carnage, my lone vampire was released from her prison. It was too much. Even for her. Now she wanders the echoing, empty halls. Listless, shattered, forever thirsting, but refusing to feed. Too much death, even for a vampire.

It's a blur, really. I'm still not even sure how I managed to save the thirteen dwarves who made it out of that nightmare. So many times I thought of abandoning Atolunol Thatthil. But I couldn't. I just couldn't.

Several months have passed now, and the Lucky Thirteen, as they are now known (and not without irony) back in Mountainhome, are slowly rebuilding. Ever so slowly.

We managed to seal off the caves to stave off the troglodytes. Our river bridges have been rebuilt, and we finally managed to get a new trade depot set up and running. Humans came late this summer and, by some mysterious fortune, one of our legendary cooks survived, so we had enough to trade for essentials.

A necropolis has been built at the foot of the falls. Rooms upon rooms of coffins house our missing loved ones. The ghosts don't haunt us as frequently as they used to, but there are a few left. Mostly children who had drowned in their locked burrow that was flooded by an insane, grief-stricken mother. We still haven't managed to drain it.

But soon.

And then the last of the dead can finally rest.




At some point, maybe I'll be brave enough to go back and read the logs. I think. But there are some things better left unread.

Truly, the God of Blood has been served.

TL;DR: Hide yo kids! Hide yo wife! Hide yo picks!
« Last Edit: February 29, 2012, 10:27:01 am by Darchitect »
Logged

Linkeron

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • My FB page
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #1 on: February 27, 2012, 01:42:42 pm »

That was a magnificent piece of storytelling. Well done.
Logged

Nimrod

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2012, 01:56:59 pm »

:D
I did enjoy the read. thanks!
Logged
---=== Inveniam Viam Aut Faciam ===---

miauw62

  • Bay Watcher
  • Every time you get ahead / it's just another hit
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2012, 02:04:33 pm »

That was a magnificent piece of storytelling. Well done.
Logged

Quote from: NW_Kohaku
they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the raving confessions of a mass murdering cannibal from a recipe to bake a pie.
Knowing Belgium, everyone will vote for themselves out of mistrust for anyone else, and some kind of weird direct democracy coalition will need to be formed from 11 million or so individuals.

yggiz

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2012, 02:18:13 pm »

This is Dwarf Fortress! Awesome!
Logged

Mormota

  • Bay Watcher
  • Necron Lord
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2012, 02:19:28 pm »

I don't have anything to add.
Logged
Avid Aurora player, Warhammer 40.000 fan, part-time writer and cursed game developer.
The only thing that happened in general was the death of 71% of the fort, and that wasn't really worth mentioning.

albatross

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2012, 02:19:52 pm »

I don't read books but if you're ever going to write one, not even blindness will stop me from reading it. Braille or no braille.
Logged

DungeonJerk

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2012, 02:47:27 pm »

Urist Mcdwarf cancels sanity, killing spree of legendary proportions.

Dwarf Fortress, where losing is FUN.
Logged

martinuzz

  • Bay Watcher
  • High dwarf
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #8 on: February 27, 2012, 02:56:27 pm »

A very well executed tantrum spiral, menacing with spikes of dead children and encircled with bands of !!FUN!!

Well done, sir.
Logged
Friendly and polite reminder for optimists: Hope is a finite resource

We can ­disagree and still love each other, ­unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist - James Baldwin

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=73719.msg1830479#msg1830479

ASCIt

  • Bay Watcher
  • ._.
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #9 on: February 27, 2012, 03:34:07 pm »

I approve. You have a gift, and have exercised it this day. If ever you should have the need, I'm sure many would hire someone of your talents. You're also really good at telling stories.
Logged
This is a very dorfy thread, and you WILL read it.

Vehudur

  • Bay Watcher
  • [evil]
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #10 on: February 27, 2012, 03:39:21 pm »

Brilliant.   In the future, if your miners are about to tantrum / go insane, disable the mining labor so they (hopefully) drop their picks.

Or isolate them, and give them everything you can to keep them happy.  If they go insane anyways, they can't do any damage.  If they recover, awesome.
Logged
Quote
...and a third died in his bunk of natural causes - for a dagger in the heart quite naturally ends one's life.

I used to have an avatar, but I was told to remove it after it kept making people go insane.

Stromko

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #11 on: February 27, 2012, 03:45:38 pm »

Glorious Fun, great read. Thank you for sharing. :)
Logged

Linkeron

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • My FB page
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #12 on: February 27, 2012, 03:59:59 pm »

Ten people agree, I think that warrants changing the name of the topic to include plus signs with '<<' and  '>>'.
Logged

Intrinsic

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #13 on: February 27, 2012, 04:00:24 pm »

It's so DF it brings a tear to my eye.

Bravo Sir, Bravo!
Logged
Start Duelyst with a bonus 100gold, use referral code: Buttfungus
Enter during signup or ingame under Settings.

Noodz

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: My first tantrum spiral. Wow. Just wow.
« Reply #14 on: February 27, 2012, 04:14:19 pm »

Darchitect, this could easily get into dfstories.com, or even tvtropes.org

Amazing.
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3