Here's an odd world that I run across the other day.
Sil Kodor is an island realm encircled by a massive serene ocean. The largest continent is a patchwork of forests, swamps, savannahs, and deserts, but the most impressive feature is The Dominant Tower. A massive mountain range that almost completely encircles a flatland of lakes, rivers, and temperate grasslands that is filled with dozens of human cities and dwarven fortresses, it covers the bulk of the land in the Northern Hemisphere in this world.
To the south lies the less impressive, but still majestic Peaks of Medicine, which saw two Dwarven civilizations start out in it. Sadly, one of the kingdoms, The Greatest Ships, fell early victim to the monstrous ambitions of a cat fiend and the city of Roughgrottoes fell. Normally, this would be the end for such a civilization, but the Greatest Ships preserved. The Legends of their Civilization mostly amounted to records of the Ships constructing bridges connecting Roughgrottoes to the nearby capital of the Realm of Razors. In time, Roughgrottoes itself was reclaimed by their dwarven comrades and prospered.
Despite having no cities, there would still be a Queen of the Greatest Ships up until a childless ruler died in the 171st year of the Age of Myth. Four years later, only a single Diplomat remains out of this once proud civilization.
For the record, I've tried to regen this world to try and stop the gen at an earlier date so that I could be sure of starting a Greatest Ships fort with a Ruler, but it keeps giving me a completely different set of civs since then. Adding Use_Any_Pet_Race might be the culprit.
You should give us the region's seeds. I would love to see a mountain range that actually contains large amounts of site-able land sealed off from the outside (do traders from external civs come eventually anyway?)
I wrote a couple stories that I felt were pretty epic. They were of one fort and the strange happenings in another. they come in spoilers bc LONG
Imepereve of Endless Rage
In 159 the fortress of Ok Agak Famthut, Finger the Anus of Horses (random name generation is fun), was founded in the mountains south of the Nazushotan ruins, meant as the final stronghold of the dwarves of Ulterolon, The Common Gear. As the dwarves trickled in year after year, refugees came from the crumbling ruins of Nazushotan and other beseiged fortresses, including the mountainhalls themselves, and this attracted the attention of the Elves of Thelasareve, The Adventurous Roses, and the occaisional human merchant or adventurer. In the winter of 160 Ok Agak Famthut experienced a great famine and drought as the refugees overstretched their resources and trade caravans failed to bring the necessary supplies.
Near the middle of winter, a single elven merchant and his Rait (dwarven word for a male Raik) serving as a pack animal, came upon the grizzly scene. As they peered into the valley below, seeing the riots and the bodies piled high, their minds were overwhelmed, the Elf, being sentient as well as experienced in war and having seen death before, was less affected by the sight, but Raiks are often troubled by the smell of blood and corpses, and the otherwise benign beast was set a-brooding.
The Merchant set camp on the plateau above the mountain to wait out the chaos and make the trade that would buy him his freedom from his goblin masters. They waited for well over a month, before the Raik went berserk. He turned on his master, threw off his packs and saddle, and destroyed the camp. The merchant was horrified, he screamed, "Imepereve! No!" and ran off into the darkness, to his forest home and family, and left the beast to tear apart his every possession.
The beast, Imepereve, remained for the rest of the winter and following year's spring and summer, slaying every creature it could, and suffering no serious injuries. All the while, the Dwarves in the mountain fortress made their slow ascent from madness back to everyday life, as the final lot of refugees arrived in the spring, bringing the population back up to thirty nine, from seventy the previous year. They replanted the farms and began greater alcohol producion and storage.
But, from the terrified elven merchant, the Goblins of Zospuamxu learned of the fortress' existence and poor state, and sent a series of raids to kill the survivors of the Great Suffering, whom they believed to be no more than a dozen unarmed, untrained, and anorexic bearded raisins. When the first squad arrived at the river running across the plateau, they percieved a small cluster of their prey drinking from it's waters and filling their buckets, and as they prepared their attack, a rather plump craftsdwarf stumbled across them, and screamed for help. They killed her immediately, and proceeded to charge at the other unarmed dwarves, having 7 in the squad, with 4 swordsmen, 2 wrestlers, and a crossbowman in the lead. They killed one more, before the dwarven militia stumbled up the slope and opened fire with a barrage of bolts. They soon entered a vicious melee, killing 4 goblins in all, and sending the remainder into a full retreat.
A league to the south, the other goblin ambush was creeping up the valley, and hearing the commotion began to move north along the river. Behind them, the Rait, Imepereve, was startled by the commotion aswell, and charged upriver in a bloodthirsty lather. Hearing his approach, the Goblins hid behind whatever cover they could find, having heard tales from previous scouts of his terrible fury. As he lept over the boulder behind which one of the goblin spearmen hid, he lay his hoof down on the creatures spine, crushing and killing it instantly, and causing him to turn and face the goblin ambushers. As it prepared to charge, the Goblin leader, a macewoman by the name of Olngo Rasplies, screamed "Kill him! Take him now!" and swung her mace with fury into it's crooked brow. The beast reared back, and as one of the wrestlers charged in to pulverize his leg bones, he beared down on it's meager body with fiery breath and cooked him to a crisp. The remaining three spearmen drove their shafts deep into Imepereve's body, and held them there in an attempt to hold him down, while Olngo and her last wrestler beat his hide endlessly, but without effect, as though the beast was a solid steel statue. Imepereve twisted to the right and snapped a spear loose, driving it's splintered shaft deep into it's wielder's leg, and freeing the beast of the other two. With agility and strength twice that of any other creature present, Olngo swung her mace into the right side of Imepereve's face, crushing it sharply inward, severely damaging his brain.
As Imepereve raged over his injuries, the goblins fled, all except the spearman pinned to the ground by his own spear. Imepereve became aware of him struggling there, and bit down on the goblin's leg, ripping a massive chunk out of his thigh, freeing the spear shaft from him and lodging it in his own throat, sealing his fate. The goblin crawled after his comrades in retreat, but they were not looking back. Imepereve stumbled down river a few yards, where he finally collapsed in a heap of lather and gore, and closed his eyes the last as the batmen circling overhead set upon him and the retreating goblins.
Imepereve unwittingly defended the very dwarves that had driven him mad, as their remainging militia could not have defended against a second attack with a meager four poorly trained soldiers. He will be remembered in stone and legend as Imepereve of Endless Rage.
and Nazushotan
In the year 150, in the region of the globe known as Orid Tamun, the dwarven fortress of Nazushotan, BloodWines, was founded. Masonry halls and farms were dug out immediately, walls were constructed around a large courtyard, and within four years the population skyrocketed to over 150. The dwarves lived in luxury, the first settlers enjoyed personal palaces, other rooms had been built for anyone with a spouse or child, and still more were being planned. There were mine shafts everywhere, extracting hundreds of tons of ore and gems, workshops dotted the upper halls, and the population included half a dozen legendary laborers, all fortress guardsman were unparalleled wrestlers, inspiring and training the fortresses' mighty military.
But in the year 155, the first goblin raiding parties arrived, hearing of the fortress' vast wealth and brave and organized army, whom they would feel glory in defeating. The raids arrived while the dwarves were unprepared, and struck down several civilians caught outside, and the only true axelord, Decap. Once the guard was called to arms, however, they made short work of the first three parties, consisting of a few wrestlers clustered around one or two bowmen, while the fourth and fifth fled. In all, the fortress had lost only four civilians, and a single off-duty soldier.
The same year, as winter approached, the goblins sent two battalions, around 30 pikemen and bowmen combined, and beseiged the gates yet again, The battle was waged in a defensive manner, the dwarves stood ready at the entrance, being moslty wrestlers supported by several marksmen, and let the goblins walk down the hall to their deaths. At the end of the day, twenty goblins and six Dwarves had perished, the fortress was saved and one of the dwarves, Urist, had achieved status as a master marksman, becoming head of the defense forces. The fortress prospered for another six months, stamping out weapons and ammunition in anticipation of yet another seige, sacrificing the luxury the residents had come to expect in their beautifull forest retreat.
In summer, 157 the fortress fell under seige again, from three traditional goblin battalions, and one battalion riding beak dogs. The first three infantry battalions attacked from the west, at the fortress entrance, where the traditional dwarven army, having doubled in size from before the previous seige, stood ready with bows and their new pikes and shields in hand, and masterfully designed steel plate armor around every limb. The goblins charged blindly into the halls of traps and bolts, seven were cut down instantly, and as the melee dwarves crashed into them, another eight fell, the goblin archers fired down the hall as the mighty dwarven phalanx charged outwards and into their ranks, crushing the unarmored lines of bowmen with ease, sending the remaining eleven goblins into full retreat, exactly as planned. In goblin eyes.
As the dwarves gave chase, the fourth battalion of goblins, riding their beak dogs, burst from the brush around the North walls, the animal's feet silent as an owl swooping down on it's defenseless prey. The dwarves had their minds set on the retreating goblins ahead of them, and it wasnt until they heard Tekkuds' screams of agony did they turn to face the fifteen goblin pikemen and archers, led by a the hammerlord, Xateng. The beasts of war charged forward, and the dwarven bowmen fired, cutting down several of them before they clashed. Every dwarven bowman was cut down mercilessly, and the battle between the two phalanxes raged for over 15 minutes, until both sides were decimated, in the end, only three mounted goblins survived and retreated into the forests, leaving a single dwarven pikeman to drag his wounded partner back to the gates, where the peasantry bowed their heads in mourning, and began to collect the bodies of the dead for burial.
Although the goblins had retreated, they had accomplished their mission, to break their enemies' will to fight, their will to live. Over the course of the next two years, no seiges were executed, though the goblins sent spies to check on the situation as they waged war elsewhere. The fortress of Bloodwines decended into chaos, suicide was common, insanity even more so, one fifth of the population died after the first year, and their fate was sealed when a pair of flood gates were smashed by a tantrumming peasant. As the fortress flooded, most of the already depressed population did nothing, many remaining in the lower living quarters where they drowned or seaed themselves in their homes where they suffocated, food production was halted and inaccessible since it flooded first, and the stairwells became waterfalls of torrential death which none could climb, all but fifteen dwarves drowned, trapped in the depths of the fortress.
These few survivors slowly starved until in 159, there were only five left, not seeing a single caravan or immigrant in two years, as their civiliation lay in ruin. At that time, the goblins returned, with four more battalions of armed soldiers, they came to the gates, and asked for surrender. The miserable, impoverished dwarves could do nothing but sign themselves into slavery for their children
The goblins that marched to the gates in 159 were lead by two human hammerlords, and two goblin axelords, they immediately put the remaining dwarves to work as slaves, and had pillaged as much of the fortress as could be stripped in a month, then returned to their towers, where they live to this day, champions and masters of the battlfield, devils in flesh and blood.