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[Kav]

I have another about a true hero

A dragon had arrived. Peasants out farming, gathering lumber, and fishing were all scrambling to get inside the fortress walls. Many were struck down by the dragon's flames. Amidst the chaos one final large group made it over the drawbridge before it went up... But how? The dragon was almost inside. Was he out chasing a brave peasant leading them away? An investigation was in order.

The dragon was unconscious. A bolt had struck his right eye and he lay there while the remaining peasants filtered in. But how? There were no crossbow dwarfs in the fortress guard. After the dragon was captured by the traps under the fortress the investigation continued.

They found the body of a lone fallen hunter near where the dragon had fallen unconscious. He alone had stopped the dragon long enough to save the rest. Prior to his final stand the hunter's wife and child had been struck down by the dragon. He didn't want anyone else to have to die.

[Petrifyer]

I have one about a certain artifact people gotinto a craze about.

Recently, one of my moody dwarves made a cedar splint called 'Azuzsiknug' or 'Somberdwellings'. Most moody dwarves after this became obsessed with this splint. The next artifact, an amulet, had a picture on a gem of the dwarf creating this splint. 10 out of 15 of the engravings on my wall became images of Somberdwellings. I decided to engrave the nobles' bedrooms, but they ended up being of this freaking splint. Even the floor engravings were mostly of Somberdwellings. And then they became obsessed with plump helmets, too, 

Did anyone else have a similar situation to this?

[Petrifyer]

Another one for you all. Recently after the splint craze, my dwarves struck against a cavern underground. And, following this, a forgotten beast woke up. It wanted breakfast.
Licesi Necarithi Garetho Rayafa
A towering one-eyed lizard. It has a pair of long antennae and it has a bloated body. Its mauve taupe scales are jagged and set far apart. Beware its poisonous sting!

It commenced in climbing my stairs and entered my sandstone dining room, rampaging and killing most of the populace. Shortly after this, my legendary +3 miner entered with his copper pick from the embark. Keep in mind he is over 100 years old. This dwarf, named Stukos Syruppelt, mined most of this forgotten beasts limbs, making it so the walls were drenched with beast blood. The only limb not damaged after this was its right front foot, which still sustained a tiny straight scar. However, Stukos passed on, leaving a corridoor of dwarves running away to the dead end which lay ahead. The beast shambled along aimlessly before beign attacked by the mayor and her baby. The mayor viciously defends her people, punching and scratching the beast, as they roll away along the floor. Eventually, the beast takes the mayor down by her fourth finger, left hand with its right front leg and tearing her right upper arm, severing many nerves. The battle still rages on (it's actually happening while I type). The beast becomes enraged as the mayor bites on to the upper body of the beast. The baby watches from a few meters away. The mayor loses her grip, and the beast bends the mayor's legs. The mayor bites and latches on again, this time to its right rear foot. And the farmer comes to the rescue, flailing wildly and launching himself at the beast. Meanwhile, the beast decides there is a bigger threat to attack present: The Mayor's baby. The baby is shattered, literally, and keeps crying while some sort of dwarven mess looking a bit like the mayor watches. The farmer punches many times, continuously bruising muscles as he defends the mayoress. The beast is weak at this point, only able to take the farm down for a few moments and bruise a few muscles. The farmer, on the other hand, is feeling as fresh as a plump helmet. The only thing people are worrying about now is food and drink, as they are all starving in the dead-end. And, suprisingly, the farmer is eventually struck down by the beast. The beast, now bent backwards and mangled, grabs the mayor by the tongue. The mayor is killed in a final amazing hero scene, having her skull kicked and shattered and her brain sailing off in an arc across the room, hitting someone in the upper body. And a brawl starts in the end of the coridoor. On the bright side, a mandate ends. The animal caretaker, weak and shattered from the brawl in the back, attacks the beast. She dies. The beast then attacks the baby. The baby puts up a fight, but is knocked unconscious and left there. The beast proceeds towards the end of the room, towards the starving people there. Meanwhile, trolls decide to come up and join the party on the main layer. Yes, the beast was not attacking my main fortress, only the place where most people were. Now, up top everyone is starving to death slowly as a troll comes down the coridoor. The troll is attacked by a doctor and the cook, both starving. The troll is rather hungry too. The forgotten beast, meanwhile, is surrounded by dwarves and attacked. The troll strangles the next mayor. The beast crawls along and rampages, looking like a zombie (its upper body is town open. Its upper body is dented. Its upper body is bruised. Its head is bruised etc.). Flies swarm the fortress. The beast decides the finish the baby, suffering the EXACT same fate as his mother and propelling across the room. Most people have escaped the coridoor now, but the mechanic seems to be pretty pi**** off at the beast, launching himself straight at it. And dieing. The coridoor is mostly vacated, and the beast tries to crawl along it. Chaos and tantrums litter the fortress, and people decide to eat bones to survive, as well as the farm's plump helmets, which grow just in time to save people. But the farm is running out. The beast is making its way towards the doors. Children run, screaming. The gem cutter decides to attack the beast. Tantrums unfold. The gem cutter propells across the room. Chaos unfolds. Everything falls apart. Society collapses. The beast, now horrifically maimed, attacks the gem cutter again, killing him. The broker/miner suddenly appears, charging across the room with her copper pickaxe! The beast struggles to battle this armed force, but manages to bend some limbs backwards. Tendons are torn on both sides, but the miner dies, the only force left that could save the fortress. However, our doctor from the troll incident steps up to the beast. By now, the beasts upper body has fixed itself back together (). The doctor flees the beast, unable to fight. The flies descend. The beast enters the stairwell and ascends to the main fortress, attacking a mother and baby. The chef and other people close in on the beast, however, being bitten and scratched. The miasma, not being stopped by the single miasma vent far away, builds up. The beast puts up a huge fight, not gving in. It is attacked from two sides by people, yet remains solid as it kills two people. The huge cloud of miasma spreads everywhere except the dining room. It obscures the fields and dwarves. The cloud dissipates suddenly, and the mob is again revealed fighting the beast. Flies swarm the place, and the beast does not give up. Deaths appear everywhere, and the beast still does not give in. Blood lines the walls of the fortress. The beekeeper flanks the beast with the shearer, and still does not die. Tons of people close in on it, all starving and thirsty. People start going insane. I am not going to start a new world until I see this beast die. Alas, it's not going to happen. So, I'm going to watch until perhaps the beast flies upwards to destroy the next caravan (and flies into my traps, which are full of serrated blades). And so, as I wait, a goblin disarms one of my traps. The miasma builds up again. The beast still lives on, badly injured, having most limbs and body parts dented or crushed. Severed body parts arc constantly across the fortress, covering the fields in blood. The beast is obscured in miasma, while dwarf corpses litter the coridoors. Remaining dwarves are either inside; starving and dehydrating, or outside; starving and drinking river water. The miasma is following a pattern of building up and then drawining all at once out of the vent and exit. Body parts sail off outside of the cloud of miasma. The beast lives on. It emerges as the cloud dissipates, and dwarves attack it at once. The animal trainer is taken down by her earring. People die horrifically as the cloud once more builds up. The beast ventures the wrong way, into the path of a hunting dog. The dog is then strangled. The beast is getting worryingly close to the only other exit apart from the one I want it to go through. It gets close to the miasma vent, slowly. Meanwhile, a crazy soap maker goes around strangling babies. The beast shambles past the vent, luckily. Everyone is dieing. The hunter throws her baby at the beast and bashes the beast with her crossbow. Meanwhile, the battle is obscured by miasma. The miasma clears, and the beast is revealed. Alone. I end up hoping the beast goes towards the entrance, where my only ballista lies, loaded with a single bolt. As this all happens, somebody gets into a fell mood. A giant olm appears. The beast appears in the farms, launching people across the land, leaving a horrible trail of blood where they fly. I hoped at the beginning that I could add another engraving on my history wall. One of my legendary +3 miner striking down this beast. I was wrong. The beast continues to rampage. The fell dwarf claims a butcher's shop, and then 'collects' his dwarf, beginning his creation. The beast goes EXACTLY where I hoped it would, up the stairs. It only need to go up once more. But it didn't. It went back into its home cavern, leaving my fort in a state of probable disrepair. The beast didn't die - it probably has a place in the book of legends now.

And that was my story. The fell dwarf made a dwaf bone shield called 'Nalthishrigoth' or 'Menacedcrafts'. This story was rather lengthy, but it was mostly battle recounts anyway. There is a moral, though. It is...

DON'T GO INTO CAVERNS WITHOUT A SERIOUSLY POWERFUL ARMY! SERIOUSLY, DON'T!

[wer6]

that is one hell of a long story.

[Petrifyer]

that is one hell of a long story.

Indeed.

[wer6]

i wish i have a stories.

[ThurisLord]

While I haven't been playing long enough to gain a really funny fortress/adventurer story, something happened while messing with arena that made me laugh.
I spawned a ettin and 100 adders in the circular part in the center, expecting a mass slaughter of adders. The adders won with about 45 casualties. 100 adders>megabeast

[Slayerhero90]

Arena mode is awesome.

I spawned multiple seperate groups. First was about 20 hunting riflemen. Then 36 shotgunners. It was a draw. The shotguns would blast away anyone who got too close, but the rifles somehow reloaded faster. Then I put my laser riflemen and improvised handcannoneers in the fray, and unconcious people flew everywhere. The Dragons, robots that fly and breath fire, entered on the tower in the fortressy area. Smoke, purple dragon hydraulic fluid, blood, broken bullets, and corpses lay everywhere.

[Lee72]

I created a quick embark to try out the CLA Graphic pack and this is what happened!

As soon as the dwarves arrive on the map a Skunk appears, and starts attacking my group, then a large flock of Kea swoop over the wagon and steal a bronze battle axe.
My dogs kill 3 of them, and the other Kea began to flee.
I send my miner off to dig down so i can quickly get my gear below, as the flock of Kea are still lurking about.
I send the woodworker off to cut some trees and 2 alligators come from nowhere and kill him after chasing him around the map for a while.
Then the Kea fly over to the woodworkers corpse and steal his Bronze Pick and Spider Silk Hood! (Why he had a pick is a mystery)!

[anthony62490]

I have a funny story. Before you ask, I have no idea how the mayor survived this ordeal. He should be dead.

The great fortress of Slysteel was doing very well by its fifth year. We had ample food and a bustling metal industry. We were just putting the finishing engravings of the great warrior Tekkid McBadass in our new living quarters. The site we picked out was home to an absurd amount of gold; more than we knew what do do with, actually. So you might say that things were gong pretty well.

We all could feel that it was almost time to elect a mayor. So we set about at once plating the nobles' quarters in gold. Everything was covered in the stuff. It had golden floors, golden chairs, golden cabinets, golden walls... The dwarf who was elected mayor would surely be living in the lap of luxury. It was enough to make any dwarf hungry to take up politics.

There was one other thing that our fortress had been blessed with, and his name was Doc. At least, that's what we all called him. We were fortunate to have stumbled across the finest doctor in the world. He could mend broken bones, stitch up cuts, and perform complex surgery with his eyes closed. Yes, he was a true miracle worker. So you can imagine his dismay when our manager walked into  Doc's room and found a corpse. Doc's pale, lifeless body had been completely drained of blood. None of us had any idea what could have killed a dwarf in such a manner, and no one was around to witness the crime. It was a puzzling mystery.

After a short and sad burial ceremony, we took up our ballots and voted on a mayor. There were several appealing candidates, but most of us were content to vote for our freshly appointed expedition leader. He was a strong, authoritative man who had taken over after our previous leader was smeared across the countryside by a ferocious were-weasel. You can imagine our surprise when he, after being appointed mayor, promptly jumped into the crowd and drained the blood of one of our best Craftdwarves. We were all so stunned at this turn of events that we all stared in bewilderment as Urist McVampyfangs took a seat in his golden throne as mayor of Slysteel.

There was no sheriff in our fortress and no jail, so no formal conviction could be made. But a small group of us refused to let this injustice go unpunished. We were still hurt by the loss of Doc, whose body was barely cold. Vengeance was in order. We decided that an “unfortunate accident” was in store for our new leader. While our beloved mayor was sleeping, I took the liberty of “securing” his door. A team of five dwarfs tunneled through the stone directly above the mayor's golden palace and weakened a chunk of rock. We could hear him. He was awake, and he was not happy. We could hear him pounding on the door, demanding to be let out, but there was no one around to hear him. With one last mighty swing of the pick, the rock was dislodged and the vile murderer was crushed under the weight of the sparkling, golden ceiling...

Miraculously, McVampyfangs survived the “accident.” He was in a bad state, but for all intents and purposes, he was alive. Both of his legs had been shattered and he had lost all use of his jaw. He was placed in the care of our new Head Medical Dwarf, Nursie McFumblefingers. After several months of setting the bones and re-breaking them after they healed poorly, Nursie gave up and had his legs amputated. What a bitter irony, we all thought. If only Doc been around. He could have fixed him up.

McVampyfangs remains our mayor to this day. He doesn't govern too much; he mostly just lays in his golden palace and stares at the hole where his ceiling used to be. And wouldn't you know it? We haven't had to put up with a single mandate in years!

[Petrifyer]

Hey, guess what? Another one!

Basically, there was a Giant Sponge in one of the 3 branches off of my lake (perfect map choice ^_^). The Giant Peach-Faced Lovebirds, however, did not like it. In fact, they didn't like it so much that one of them dived towards it and attacked it. Soon after this, another dived and attacked. More and more of these Lovebirds dived and attacked this indestructible Giant Sponge. By the time I decided to write this down, 8 of these were latched on firmly to the Giant Sponge. To be honest, I was surprised they didn't drown or anything. It was also a good thing, because those lovebirds seemed to attract the carp, saving me a whole lot of grief fun.

[Lee72]

I put 2 Vampires in a new squad, so I could move them to a lever room and lock the door. After the squad was created a wave of 6 goblins arrived. I sent the vampires out to the battlefield, and they basically punched the goblins to death over a period of 5 minutes. I was pissed on Gin at the time and couldn't stop laughing!

[LHLF]

Well, I started playing Dwarf Fortress last week, and yesterday I witnesses the final months of my first fortress.
Since I am still a beginner, I don't have incredible stories of demons and necromancers or involving pumping magma all over. Actually, I am yet to find any magma. Nevertheless, I thought it was quite a first game, since it lasted long 4 game years, and decided to share it here. I apologize for not being as epic as the other ones, but I thought it was loads of FUN.

DWARF FORTRESS DISLIKES CAREFUL NEWBS


I did not take all the reviews saying that this was an absurdly complex game lightly, so I did not try the game before reading about it a lot (but I don't know the HFS yet, so I still have lots to discover!). I bought the "Getting Started With Dwarf Fortress" book, which I cannot recommend enough. The book actually helped me get through the basics almost painlessly and in a few hours I had my fortress running with a self sufficient food production, crafts and booze being prepared, everyone had their own room, it was a dream.
My stock was neatly organized in appropriate stockpiles, I had tons of barrels and hordes of migrants kept coming in. I already knew how to customize their professions, so I had a fraction of the population focused on hoarding and the other fully focused on their specialties.
Needless to say, being a first timer, it felt truly joyous. I read stories of how people usually had everyone die of thirst and starvation in a few days, so I felt good! I thought "well, this fortress might actually WORK!", so i decided to do everything as perfectly as I could, and started digging a lot to find gems and ores. I couldn't wait to make my own metal weapons and armor!
One day, a "Ñ" appeared on the corner of the map. It was a giant ape. I was terrified. When the game was unpaused, it turned back into a human and went home! What about that luck?? It felt like the world wanted me to have this chance to thrive.
Time passed and my population increased to 78 dwarves. It was around that time that an "evil force of darkness" first appeared. It was a small handful of goblins, and it did not seem that menacing. HOWEVER, the book had taught me the basics and I had not yet continued to read. Since no beginner will manage to learn how to build defences and armies while fumbling with the controls and UI, these aspects were only covered later by the book. The author assumed that you would die countless times before understanding those first topics.
In other words, there I was, with 78 dwarves, with NO moat, NO bridge, NO gate, NO traps, NO army and NO weapons, with three tiles large entrance just invitingly gaping towards the goblins. I panicked, I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know about burrows to make my people hide. Needless to say, they massacred us. My population fell from 78 to 33 dwarves in a few minutes, until i actually managed to build a wall and keep them away. They gave up and went home.
I felt stupid, but didn't give up. In a few minutes a bunch of migrants came and I have almost 50 people again. Then they came again. and butchered my dwarves once more. Once again I managed to lock some of them some levels below and waited for the goblins to go away. Now I had 28 dwarves left. I couldn't even find a corpse that was WHOLE in the coffins, everyone that died was dismembered. I noticed it was time to read some more.
I read the book all the way to the end, and learned about the burrows, and the moats, and the bridges, and the levers, and armies, and nobles (insert endless list here). And felt that NOW I was prepared.
So I built my moat. I thought that it would take too much time dig one bigger that the size of the first level of my fortress, so later I discovered I had sun shining through a line in the roof of my fortress (yay! I'm stupid!). Nevertheless, Now I had a bridge and the goblins came again, and they couldn't reach me, HA! Ignorant fools, thought I, how dare they think I would be such an easy target.
And I thrived once more. The population soared to 95 dwarves, and I started building all sorts of workshops, even though I was still unable to use most of them. I finally found ore, but still had to establish a melting system, but I wanted to find magma for that, so that I could same more wood. I was greedy.
Then, the game decided to scare me, and sent a minotaur to visit me! I wanted to save everyone, so I sounded the alarm and waited for everyone that was outside to enter, but it was darn FAST. Also, I had sounded the alarm, which also evacuated everyone from the dining room, where the LEVER WAS. He got in.
It started to bang on the head of a child dwarf while I tried to create an improvised army and sent them after him with my fingers crossed. My army took the long way to where it was, but I was flabbergasted by how many beating that child was managing to receive. Then I discovered that the Minotaur was armed with a SOCK (no, really) and it was actually getting TIRED of beating the child so much. My army got there and beat the minotaur to a pulp with their bare hands in seconds, and my fortress was saved. It was very funny "Nice one, DF, you actually scared me this time!", I thought.
I kept going with my new projects, which were to make an underground bedroom and workshop level, to then dedicate the first level to the military, as proposed by the book. I felt victorious.
Then, another force of darkness appeared. Dragons. 6 of them. But they couldn't fly according to the description and they were far away. This time, I was prepared! I had made a different burrow including the room where the lever was so that it wouldn't be empty after the alarm. Everyone got in, now I only had to give the order: "PULL THE LEVER".

WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS THE LEVER?

Only a mechanism stood in its place. did it break? Did I order it to be taken apart by mistake??? This can't be happening.
I ordered the bridge to be destroyed while I checked how many enemies I was facing.

65 GOBLINS and 6 DRAGONS, including a GOBLIN LORD. I felt the game had decided to give me a message:
My time had come.

I shouldn't have tried to survive, and now all I could do was to watch the results of my newbieness. Obviously I couldn't destroy the bridge on time. I also wasn't able to lock the door leading to the room where the stairs were, because I had  MOAT passing tight over it, creating a gap that I couldn't fix, lest the moat be rendered useless.
The dragons entered through the moat and found the corridor that led directly inside the level where all dwarves were gathering (another result of my badly designed defenses), while the three goblin armies swarmed throught the main entrance. Everyone in the first and third levels were mangled, dismembered and smashed in seconds. Leaving only 4 people on the second level.
The dragons liked my cemetery on the third level and just decided to chill out over there, while the goblins, after killing the remaining cats and chickens, entered the mayor's room (the most beautiful room I had) and stayed there as well, all of them. The remaining 4 dwarves,which included the mayor, were terrified and refused to leave the second level and die honorably. They started throwing tantrums and then the first one went mad and ran around naked endlessly through the mining corridors. The mayor after throwing a bunch of stuff around died of thirst, making the doctor mayor. He thought that this was his last chance to shine as an important person and started banning exports and requiring things to be built.
The third one, the miner, had a baby, then went mad, took all her clothes and ran, assuming the place of the other raving mad, which died of hunger. Then the mad miner rushed inside the farm, and killed herself with a bunch of seeds. I actually have the screenshot saying that. Then the doctor died while the baby was "quite content lately". Then the baby died of thirst.

This was the end of Edtûlvabok, my first fortress.

[Jetman123]

-snip-

You poor, poor newbie. I mean that honestly. All that prep... If only you had read Boatmurdered! It's never too early to start building up defenses. Oh well. Losing is fun, and there goes your first helping of it!

[Arquestro]

Ironic short-story.
Once, my leatherworker had fey mood and after two month of hard leathercrafting he created the most expensive artifact quiver in my fortress...
Then later, after 3 years there was a goblin ambush near my fort...And after blood-dust-and-kitten battle between my brave warriors and these filthy goblins, my greatest legendary leatherworker was laying on the hospital bed, loudly moaning: there was a silver arrow in his lower spine... After a month of that battle, the quiver was stolen by mysterious adventurer...

P.S.:True Game Story.