My first fortress that didn't starve to death anyways. I had read plenty of stories, Hamlet of Tyranny and Boatmurdered among others, and decided to give Dwarf Fortress a try. (v. 34.11)
This is my first shoddy attempt at writing the story of my first "proper" fortress.
This is the story of
KNIGHTEDGATESIt all started so nice and easy. A fortress in the wilderness, what could possibly go wrong?
After some initial trial and error fortresses, I had finally gotten the hang of farming and workshops, and was moving my way to the military. After reading up on the wiki, I managed to create a squad and issue simple orders, like train or kill. It was a ramshackle militia, with rudimentary weapons and little armour, if any at all. But they weren't all bad, they managed to repel a goblin siege, helped by a heavily trap infested hallway which turned most of the goblins into salsa. The second siege was a bit more memorable.
A goblin siege, two full squads, and a creature, exactly what it was, I can't recall, shows up at my doorstep. The goblins and the creature appeared almost on top of eachother, so naturally I thought they were cooperating. But the goblins immediately turn on the creature, turning it to mincemeat in seconds. Shit. Any army that slaughters a creature like that would definately slaughter my military and fortress with ease. I put my hopes in my traps. But alas, it turned out these goblins were using their heads a bit more than the previous group, as they didn't charge headfirst into my traps, the leader prefering instead to stand just outside, just... waiting, staring. The rest of his group ran around the map, killing plenty of my animals in the meantime. I thought my fortress was done for and prepared for Fun. Fuck it, lets send the militia. What's the worst that can happen at this point? I expected the militia to be slaughtered like sheep, but my militia commander runs up to the goblin leader, and chops his head off. Just like that. The rest of the goblins panic, and the few that didn't make it of the edge of the map were easily dispatched.
I began looking at my ramshackle militia with pride.
At this point, I had dug down pretty deep, and managed to craft some iron armour and weapons for some of my military, now numbering 10
half-trained lazy alcoholics proud soldiers, defending the other ~90
untrained lazy alcoholics proud civilians. Things were looking good, and I found both platinum and aluminum in the earth, and a magma sea. I went about setting up the magmaforge, almost killing three dwarves in the process, but still, I made it work without sacrifices. Then, suddenly...
"A Dragon has appeared!"It imediately went to work, scorching the map with fire, killing what was left of my animals. I sent the civilians to the newly made burrow, and waited for the dragon to enter my trapped hallway. It was content wandering the map, breathing fire all the while.
"Send the militia!"
It went about as well as you would expect, they were ashes before coming within 10 tiles of the beast. It turned its attention to the fort proper, and I was getting ready to watch the reenactment of Smaugs assault on the Lonely Mountan. It charged through the first weapon-trap field, not even slowing down. This time, it's going to be Fun. But alas, not just yet. The second (and last) field of stone-fall traps did the job, crushing its skull. And to my amazement, the dwarves hauled it to the butchery. The food stores were dwindling, and suddenly there was more than enough. What suprised me most (aside from surviving) was that it was possible to butcher and
EAT the fucking thing.
Artists rendition:
At this point the tantrums started. I drafted
random the most skilled dwarves still of (relatively) sound mind into the devastated ramshackle militia, now a pathetic shell of its former
pathetic state glory, which is saying something. In total, about twenty dwarves threw tantrums, my military butchering them one by one as they snapped, man, woman and child alike. The miners were mostly unaffected by the ensuing chaos, most likely because they hardly interacted with the rest of the fort, toiling away in the mines all day, every day. I somehow managed to curb the tantrum spiral, and had ~50 dwarves left. The fortress was a mess, with corpses, refuse and miasma everywhere, and several ghosts form the former militia and several civilian ghosts walked/flew around pestering my dwarves, but all in all, things were turning around.
And then:
And I set the miners to work. I started to forge a few adamantine weapons, with armour as a second priority. This was to be the revival of Knightedgates!
(And I swear to Armok, just when this popped up, it started
fucking thundering outside, IRL. Shook the freaking building. Slightly memorable.)
There was no way to save the fortress. I shut the gate, dooming the remaining dwarves.
My dwarves
were used as footballs fought valiantly, and one particularly unlucky dwarf got kicked almost across the map, bouncing of the walls all the way. Almost all his bones shattered, They spent a week beating him until he bled out.
Only three dwarves remained outside, standing in a scorched and scarred landscape. Amongst them was one who managed to escape outside before the gates were sealed. He quickly went berserk with grief over the gruesome deaths of his family and friends, getting himself killed by another surviving dwarf. The two remaining dwarves aimlessly wander the map, and I abandon them to their fate.
I like to imagine the two survivors walking into the sunset, leaving the horror that was Knightedgates behind them.
Author
Topic: My first fortress (spoilers) (Read 1217 times)