The Short Happy Life of the Ringmartyr Dwarf Fortress

"All that wood felled by a single golden axe."

With the sudden destruction of Fresh Rope the dwarves of the Land of Wonder knew it was time to build a fortress using all they had learned to ensure its successful continued existence. And so the Ringmartyrs were chosen, and they laid out a plan for a fortress that was guaranteed to succeed no matter the location or circumstance.

(The Fresh Rope game ended due to a bug – it kept crashing, a real problem the longer a fortress survives, especially when a new release is going through its growing pains. Version 34.05 had been released and I was still using version 34.02, so I figured it was a good time to pull the Rope.)

They envisioned starting small and poor, and staying that way for as long as possible while the outer defenses were built up. The Fortress of the Ringmartyrs was founded on a forested plateau in a warm climate with year-round rain, and lots of small lakes. Unlike most fortresses, there was no mining the first year, in fact, the dwarves lived without any stone at all for over a year while they set up their site plan.

While the carpenters chopped the massive amounts of logs needed for the all-wood above ground fort and stockade, the miners put their picks to work digging trenches to connect the nearby lakes into a wide, murky moat. Within this ring, the carpenters built up a huge wooden fortress, housing the Trade Depot, carpenter’s shack, and a craftworks station, along with all the necessities for the food industry – kitchen, still, farmer’s workshop, butcher and tanner. This large building also housed a few beds tucked in corners and some tables and chairs, and eventually the entire compound was roofed, at the cost of thousands of trees. It is amazing how much wood putting on a roof can use. (I solved this spectacularly in my current glorious fortress, Shootflukes, which should get a write up eventually.)

After two years of enforced poverty the central fort was walled and roofed, and a stockade wall circled the inner circumference of the moat. The miners finally breached the ground and began digging out the level just beneath the fortress. Hemmed in by the moat, this level became a series of large store rooms. Then the miners delved deep and began digging out a massive centrally open grand hall, about 10 levels below ground. Around this central hall, corridors led off into a new unique layout of workshops, small stockpiles, and housing. Yet the workshops sat idle, as all hands were put to work hauling, chopping, or digging, rather than building and increasing the fortress’ wealth. The second year, no migrants arrived at all, due to the lack of the finer things dwarves have come to expect in their fortresses. For the seven – now 16 – original Ringmartyrs, simple meals, beer in great quantities, and an above ground dormitory were all they needed.

That is, until one of the dwarves entered a strange mood. He demanded metal bars, and I did not want him to go mad, so I set up a wood furnace, smelter and forge for the express purpose of melting down the few nuggets of ore so far uncovered, one of which happened to be solid gold. The dwarf took the gold, and made the coolest golden battle axe of all time, with a picture of a cacao tree on its blade. This axe, worth over a hundred thousand dwarf bucks, increased fortress wealth one thousand percent, and suddenly the Ringmartyrs gained celebratory status. 25 new migrants immediately arrived, nearly tripling the population. And they were not all…

I worried that the sudden, vast increase in wealth would cause an unsavory element to look toward the Ringmartyr’s fortress with envy, so I needed to prepare. The walls, moat, drawbridge, and cage traps would thwart any invasion, so no military had been set up due to the high cost of weapons and armour, but the golden axe had ended the Ringmartyr’s subsistence living with a single whack. So the newly built forge was put to work outfitting a single squad, as usual with silver war hammers. This was done in the nick of time, not for an invasion, but because of a single stranger who came trundling towards the Ringmartyrs from the east.

He was a were-tortoise, and the moat did not stop him; he paddled across with leisurely ease. Nor did the cage traps thwart him, when he transformed into normal looking dwarf. The were-tortoise ran amok through the fortress, before being chased out and all over the map by the squad. They chased him for weeks, all over the place before eventually the golden axe managed to hew through the shell and destroy the forgotten beast. As the exhausted and wounded (bitten) dwarves trudged back to the fortress, night fell, and a full moon came out. No less than half the squad then transformed into were-tortoises and commenced slaughtering the populace.

Weeks passed as the dwarves and tortoises fought through the darkened halls. The population dropped from a high of over forty dwarves down to nine survivors by the time the lycanthropy had run its course. The were-beasts had decimated the fortress, but somehow, due to the golden axe, no doubt, dwarves still sought out a new life in the fortress the Ringmartyr’s built, and so the population began to rise again. Blood scrubbers, undertakers, and coffin makers were in great demand.

After the decimation, things started to turn around. A chamber was set aside for the victims of the were-tortoise, and it held over 60 coffins, many of which were for children and babies, the most fragile of dwarves. (Babies and children are not counted as population, so while the population was listed at 43 at the time of the lycanthrope infestation, the total population including kids, must have added another twenty, judging by the high number of short caskets.

The rain quickly washed away signs of the struggle, and after the mausoleum was completed and stocked with the dead, the fortress began to pick itself up. Forges rang out day and night outfitting the dwarves in iron, while the craftworkers worked overtime to have a big selection for that year’s trade caravan. When a small goblin band of ambushers arrived, the dwarves went about their business with little fear of attack. They were secure by moat, walls, and cage traps, which would easily hold the goblins at bay.

Being safe from invasion, however, id not prevent the conniving little brutes from causing trouble. They continuously ran about trying to catch any dwarf who ventured across the moat – for wood, fishing, to collect a dead dwarf from the garbage heap for burial, or just out for a walk, and so I determined to lure the goblins to their demise. The reborn fortress needed freedom to rebuild!

It would be a simple matter to let down the drawbridge, and allow the goblins to cross and trap themselves in the cunningly concealed falling cage traps installed just inside the main entrance. To be sure nothing went awry, I stationed the squad of dwarves on the other side of the bank of cage traps, so they could deal with any goblins who made it through the gauntlet. It would be a turkey shoot.

The bridge dropped, the dwarves moved into position. The goblins noticed the way was open and streamed towards the bridge. There were more than I thought, and there weren’t enough cages for them all, so it was a good thing the dwarven squad was waiting for them.

The goblins hit the bridge. The dwarves saw them coming, and ran past the waiting traps to meet them on the bridge. NO! A furious battle took place, and all 10 members of the squad were slain, and the few remaining goblins made it into the fortress from a small sortie door wedged open by the corpse of the captain of the guard, golden axe locked in his stiff dead fingers.

Soon all that remained of Ringmartyrs were the ghosts. It was a great experiment gone terribly awry. That damned golden axe cursed them all.

Read Full Post »

What Fresh Rope is this? Dwarf Fortress 2012

Mount Fresh Rope with its Wagon Wood Wall Memorial

Seven dwarves set out from Mountainhome to forge a new civilization in the wild mountains far from home. They travelled in their wagon for many weeks before they found the natural wonder that would become the centerpiece of their new fortress. Three peaks came together where a mountain river flowed down one tall mountain into a great crack through its center that led to an underground lake by way of a thousand foot waterfall. Two rivers led out of the mountain from the underground lake, encircling it in a defensive embrace. Rich in all the necessities a burgeoning fortress would require, it was the perfect place for a fortress, and the picks were unsheathed at last. They named their new home Fresh Rope.

Early 2012 saw a new release of Dwarf Fortress in over a year. Besides numerous tweaks, bug fixes, and minor updates, the new release also introduced new undead and monsters. Necromancers, vampires and lycanthropes add a new dimension to the game. By dimension, I mean a new way to lose and fail. The new features, coupled with the fact that taking any kind of break from the game invariably results in having to re-learn the basics, interface, and commands, is sure to result in FUN (=losing.)

The new fortress began in an auspicious way, with a dwarf sacrifice. The dwarves decided to park their wagon on the extreme edge of the thousand foot cliff, and the first dwarf to leap out, leapt to his instant death far far below in the cold dark water. Within seconds of arriving, one dwarf was dead, and the remaining six were preparing to go the same route! I instantly gave the command to start chopping and gathering wood in the OPPOSITE direction of the waterfall’s cliff face. This seemed to work, but to make sure, I dismantled the wagon right away (to keep the dwarves from hanging out by it, and by extension, near the cliff edge. Then I had them use the first wood they gathered to build a wall along the nearest, most deadly cliff edge. A second dwarf was lost to the cliff during the erection of the wall, and with only five dwarves left, a month of spring gone, and no fortress, the dwarves knew they were in for a rough summer of hard work, and a long winter of sacrifice. And so it came to pass.

The dwarves, fond of labor, began the construction of a small wooden tower at the top of the mountain. Within its protective walls they set their trade depot and dug out a small cellar beneath, for storage of food and supplies. While the tower was being constructed above, the lone surviving miner descended to the base of the mountain and put his pick to work. He sought the base of the waterfall, to the bones of his brother, and dug a fine, straight corridor into the heart of the mountain, only stopping when he saw the light of day scintillating through water and mist.

At the base of the waterfall, just above the surface of the lake, he dug out a “misting chamber” that became the nexus and pride of the fortress. Not only were dwarves contented every time they walked past and through the waterfall, but they and anything they were carrying was cleaned of filth! The chamber was set off so that all dwarves had to walk through the chamber to get to the workshops, housing, or the grand dining hall. In time, they set up green glass grates so they could walk right under the falls, which became very popular. It also proved helpful when we were attacked by our first mega-beast, composed of filth and grime, beware its filthy spittle.

Behold The Grand Halls of Fresh Rope

Five years passed, and the dwarves dug deeper and prospered. Trading with humans, elves, and their own Mountainhome, they became rich, and known for their fine cuisine, such as their savory Great White Shark Eye Roast. With access to copper, silver, and iron (but sadly without the flux stone needed for steel) the dwarves soon had a sprawling metallurgy plant powered by coal and charcoal.

During this period, a murderer was discovered among the populace, having snuck in with a group of migrants. With many eye witnesses, Daton the Silver Hammerer made quick work of the criminal. About this time a feral child was discovered living on the top of the mountain, preying on dwarves who went out alone into the wilds. The feral child was apparently a changeling, and was never caught, though eventually his depredations ceased, about the same time as the first goblin invasion.

Also during this period, the deep dwarven miners passed through a cavern deep beneath the earth, and came to a second, deeper cavern, whence two oozing magma pools oozed up through an underground sea. The metallurgy plant was dismantled and massive new magma forges became slowly operational down below, with a shadow city rising around them. The search for better metal went on, fruitless.

Right as the sixth year dwarven caravan showed up, the Fresh Rope had its first goblin invasion. The wretched villains were easily dispatched, and a great battle took place on the silver drawbridge in front of Fresh Rope, for all of the dwarves to witness. Many Axe and Hammer lords rose to glory in that battle, and the caravan was so impressed, they accepted the loot from the failed invasion as a gift and took back stories of wonder to Mountainhome. With them went a letter from the mayor, inviting the king to come.

Come the king did. In year 7 he showed up with his entourage just as another goblin invasion launched. With four times as many enemies, Fresh Rope was caught off guard, and the invaders found a weak point – a rarely used side tunnel that led across an underground river by way of a copper bridge, and into an adjacent mountain. The copper bridge should have been raised, but wasn’t, and the goblins made a bee-line into the main fortress, being held off at great cost of life. The goblins fought to within one chamber of the famous Misting chamber, even as the king was making his triumphant march through the same room.

The Grand Halls and Waterfalls of Fresh Rope

The goblins were pushed back, the hotel, overlooking the underground lake with a row of green glass windows, was soon full of the dying and injured. All in all, over forty dwarves lost their lives. The King, however was impressed with the fortress as well as the dwarven tenacity to see it survive, and he announced plans to stay! In fact, Fresh Rope was named the new Mountainhome, capital city of the Dwarven clan who called themselves the Sacks of Leaves.

The glory was short-lived. Another goblin invasion came on the heels of the last, three times as big and featuring a squad of ogres as well as cave crocodile riding goblin marksmen. They descended upon Fresh Rope from all sides. The goblins up top slew an incoming elven trade caravan, littering the summit with debased dead elves and despoiled elvish goods before pouring down the mountainside like a flash flood of blood. The squad of ogres pounded towards the front gate and the silver drawbridge, while the crocodile riders found the side tunnel with the copper bridge. The dwarves had a plan though, until tragedy struck. The copper and silver drawbridge were hooked up to a new imechanical contraption called a lever. When it was pulled, the bridges would draw up, leaving the invading army with nowhere to invade.

Bloody, bloody business

However, no one ever pulled the lever, and the invaders poured into the fortress from two directions, the main entrance and the side tunnel. The king was caught between the armies, and with no armor or weapons, he ran back and forth between the two invading forces, trying to keep one step ahead. It was this action that inevitably saved the fortress.

As an added precaution, copper cages were installed above all major doors and important hallways. These would drop onto invaders, but they could only stop one invader per cage, and the numbers were on the goblins side. As the goblins tore through the weakened and injured army, reducing the population further from its height of 203 dwarves down to 125, they burst through into the main hall. At one end was the grand entrance – milling with ogres. At the other end, cut off by goblins on crocodiles, was the misting chamber and all the unarmed dwarven wives and children neyond. The king ran towards one army, and when they started to chase him, he led them into the copper cages, trapping a few. He would then run towards the other army and trap a few of them in nearby copper cages, trapping them one by one, until miraculously, the goblins called off the siege and began retreating. The king suffered no more than a cut on his cheek.

Fresh Rope was saved! However, the destruction was so great, with almost half its population brutally killed, it would take them over a year to scrub the blood from the walls, and the despair of so many lost loved ones might still prove too great a burden to the life of the fortress. Time will tell if the Sacks of Leaves will be able to pick themselves up from this latest tragedy, but the king is alive, long live the king of dwarves. He saved Fresh Rope.

Read Full Post »

Countess Thobthiket and the Fall of Diamond Vise

The Red Tower of Diamond Vise

Momuz Thobthiket was the dynamic dwarfish leader that led the expedition to found Diamond Vise. Building on the mistakes of her ancestors, she determined to succeed where they failed, and she achieved great success by making Diamond Vise into the greatest dwarf fortress to rise from the Realms of Dawning.

Momuz was the expedition leader responsible for founding the fledgling community, and she oversaw the creation of the first 13 or so levels of this, the greatest of Fortresses to straddle the Realms of Dawning. Her Red Tower proudly guarded the passes leading into the realms, and her foundation was stable enough to overcome the many obstacles of the treacherous country.

3 years after its founding, the dwarf High King granted the lands surrounding the tower a barony, and the dwarves unanimously nominated Momuz Thobthiket (who lost the mayoral race) to the status of nobility. The baroness was so excited about this, that she began spending more and more time outdoors surveying her lands. Goblins were in the vicinity, and more than a few snatchers were caught in traps set up on either side of the silver drawbridge.

So the baroness was outside picking flowers when a real siege by goblins began. She was pierced with arrows, one in each limb, and a silver arrow in her chest, piercing her lung. It did not look good. The captain of the militia had to choose between sending out the military to try and save the baroness while fending off the goblins, or to pull up the drawbridge and sentence her to death. He did the noble thing, and sent 3 of his 4 squads after the goblins, while he sent the newest squad to station where Momuz Thobthiket lay in the bloody grass.

The plan worked, and the squad got to Momuz while the rest of the army held off the goblins. Momuz was carried inside to the hospital, by members of squad 4, while the other 3 squads destroyed the goblins handily. The only survivor was one goblin archer who fell into the pit under the drawbridge.

Next, a call was put out to the surgeons and doctors, who suddenly found that their burrow consisted of the hospital. Surgeon to surgery STAT! In a tense few minutes of running back and forth looking for buckets and clean water, Momuz was stabilized and over the course of the next 3 months she remained hiospitalized and underwent multiple surgeries. Even as this was happening, the first adamantine was being pulled up from the depths, and Momuz was lucky to have her wounds sewed up with adamantine stitches. The lung was repaired with adamantine staples, but she will forever have a silver arrow sticking out of her.

One day, while in surgery, a letter came from the king, raising her up from baroness to countess. She would have celebrated had she been conscious. Eventually she regained consciousnees, and then her ability to walk with a crutch. After many long months, she wanted to get back to work (as a mechanic.) so she issued a mandate requiring 3 traction benches built. She then demanded that Diamond Vise not trade traction benches away, and taking up a crutch, she hobbled over to the new mechanics shop built right next to the hospital to build her beloved traction benches. The Countess was happily recuperating after a harrowing close call with death.

Meanwhile, the lone goblin archer had been making a nuisance of himself, scaring the dwarves who crossed the bridge, even if he couldn’t hurt them. Apparently dwarves hate the sight of goblins, and just seeing them was enough to get them to drop everything they were holding and back away. This was slowing down productivity and causing the drawbridge to become messy and unusable, so the captain of the guard ordered that the stone wall separating the pit from the barracks be turned into a fortification. This would allow the crossbow marks dwarves a little target practice eliminating the pest. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as planned. After turning half the wall into fortification, it was open enough that the dwarves could catch a glimpse of the goblin lurking within, and the stone mason was too scared to continue. Then more and more of them got caught up in the scare, since they had to go past the goblin to get to the main stairway, until practically the entire fortress was lined up in the room, refusing to walk past the goblin, and productivity ground to a halt.

Since the fortification was only half-built, the goblin had a corner to hide in, and the marks dwarves couldn’t get to him, so a cycle of hiding, then leaping out to scare dwarves started that literally brought the whole fortress to a standstill. The countess Momuz Thobthiket heard about the goblin and promptly hobbled on her cane steadfastly upwards to take care of the problem. First, she decreed the drawbridge raised – for the first time! – and when it happened, she was waiting there with a silver hammer for the goblin to emerge.

Bang bang, Momuz’ silver hammer came down upon its head, and two hits made sure it was dead. The Countess Momuz Thobthiket had saved the day! If only the story ended there, but little did the dwarves know that they were living the last golden days of their lives. Even as Momuz was solving problems up top, the miners were collecting all the adamantine they could 153 layers below the surface. They dug too deep.

It is too painful to relate the gory details of what was unearthed, but the adamantine pipe they were following led to a vast cavern, and the horrible screams echoing up from that bleak place echoed through the fortress, chilling dwarvish blood.

The countess was no coward and her last act was to confront a demon of the underworld with her silver hammer. She died, and her fortress fell in much the same manner as herself. Of the army of darkness that was unleashed upon Diamond Vise, the dwarves will be remembered for having slain a single demon, at the cost of their entire population.

Read Full Post »

Diamond Vise – The Red Tower

The Red Tower Barracks Level

The northern limits of the Dawnforge mountains are littered with the remains of failed dwarf mining colonies. Lust for the rich metal veins combined with dreams of magma forges led one expedition after another to try and set up a lasting fortress in the region, known as the realms of Dawning.

First came Minesport. It was an amateur affair, and the dwarves had little idea what they were getting into when they delved the shallow dirt-tunnels of Minesport, and it fell within a few seasons. The next expedition began delving Stasis Gem. These gem-loving dwarves were more interested in the precious stones they could mine than anything else, and their stoutly defended warrens lasted many seasons before crumbling. Digging too deep too fast, they were beset upon from above and below, and the fortress was flooded and wiped out in a season.

By then the dwarf High King of Mountain Home became interested in the Realms of Dawning, and he called upon a great structure to be built to guard the high passes into the realms. The third attempt to colonize was called Megadru the Hammered Pillar, and over the course of 10 years many expeditions set out to build the testament to the dwarves greatness. Finally, when a legendary carrion dragon took up residence in the hollowed delve, and the dwarves were unable to slay or drive off the beast, did the king regretfully ban any further attempts at re-colonizing Megadru.

Moving further into the pass, Thobost Gar was the next attempt. The fourth fortress showed more promise than any that came before, and they delved carefully for many years. Their plan was similar to the Pillar of Megadru, but this time they kept it close off from the surface while they hollowed out its foundations. It too eventually succumbed to the numberless goblins infesting the mountains. The bloody halls of Thobost Gar became a tomb.

Many years passed before the dwarves had regained enough strength to send another expedition, and this time, the wary leader determined that he would not fall prey to the goblins. He created the plans Diamond Vise, a highly defensible tower near the peak of one of the tall mountains of the realm of Dawning. From Hollow Mountain they could turn their backs on the surface world while they delved ever deeper towards the magma.

The Red Tower
From the peak of Hollow Mountain, a stocky red tower clutches the mountainside with its sturdy walls of red bauxite stone, trimmed in polished coal. The mountain peak has been flattened and its sloping edges cut away into vertical cliffs. Two bridges connect the tower to the mountainside. The first is a retractable bridge made of nickel, and it spans from the flat peak of Hollow Mountain to the next peak over. Then a deep pit gouged into Hollow Mountains flattened top is spanned by a drawbridge of pure silver, and this which is the only entrance within the stout red walls of the Red Tower. When the nickel bridge is retracted, the peak of Hollow mountain is sealed off from its surrounding. When the silver bridge is raised, the Red Tower is sealed off from the rest of the peak. Together, the bridges protect Diamond Vise from all overland threats.

Situated inside the walls of the Red tower are two huge ballistae, aimed right through the trade depot and out across the bridges. They have never been fired in anger. Also in the walled yard of the red Tower are two large openings that look down into the chambers below, where two catapult wait to unleash stony death on any army foolish enough to challenge the dwarves of Diamond Vise.

The level just below the surface is taken up with the squad training chambers and siege engines. It is the last line of defense from up top. There are two more ballistae in here pointed at the doors leading to the surface. If the Tower should ever be breached, a hallway filled with traps, a crack squadron of x-bow dwarves, and those two ballistae should put a grim finish to the battle. Thus is Diamond vise defended by the Red Tower and its marks dwarves.

The Vaults
The Hollow Mountain gets its name from the Vaults. Beneath the red Tower and its defensive chambers, the stairs wind down a long way to open up into the high ceilinged Vaults. Massive chambers measuring hundreds of cubits long, wide and tall, stretch out to almost fill the circumference of the mountain. Into these massive chambers are packed the store-houses of the dwarves. One such chamber holds no fewer than fifty thousand barrels of dwarvish rum.

Besides the vaults, much of the mountain is made of sandy clay, and into these chambers, forests of mushrooms have been allowed to grow, tended by dwarves knowledgeable about underground farming. Great forests of giant mushroomes sprout up and are cut down for use as wood, while the smaller mushrooms and other fungus provide grazing for their many alpaca, goats, and yaks.

Besides the vaults and the mushroom forests, the Hollow Mountain also has tunnels connecting chambers to a swift flowing mountain brook, and with a complicated series of flood gates, the dwarves of Diamond Vise are slowly creating a waterworks system that will allow them to flood, and un-flood, any level of the fortress. This is a never-ending work in progress due to the tedium involved as well as the risks.

Beneath the vaults, and into the roots of the mountain are many levels of workshops. The crafters, smiths, woodworkers, glassmakers, and other all have their shops here close to the main storage vaults, but protected by the many tons of stone above them. Layered between the crafting halls and the housing level is the first of the treasure vaults. This series of chambers holds the first, and lowest valued, of the dwarves many treasures, including their supply of coinage and their gems, large and small.

The main housing district is built at level 10. Here are two grand chambers – one for dining, and one for drinking. The mayor holds court in the dining chamber, while the drunkard of a baroness spends her days idling away in the great Beer Hall. Surrounding the two great meeting halls are the homes and offices of the majority of Diamond Vise’s residents. From ten foot hole in the wall to palatial mansion, level 10 is the place to live.

In the future, the housing will spread out, as individual dwarf homes are carved out of the rock nearby the work areas of those dwarves who show the most promise. Every legendary dwarf will get his own comfortable home attached directly to his private workshop. In this way, it is hoped that the efficiency of the dwarves of Diamond Vise will be increased, and the most skilled dwarves will do the most important work.

Continuing down, the 11th level is made up of the sheriff’s office, with attached jail. Beyond the jail is a growing dungeon, where enemies of the dwarves are locked in cages and left to rot behind green glass, while a promenade winds its way through, allowing the dwarves to take casual strolls through the dungeons, laughing and taunting their erstwhile enemies, who starve pathetically behind glass. Dwarves are not known for compassion, especially to their enemies.

The great caverns of the underdark were breached at level 18. Here the Rough Wanderers, a crack squad of dwarves in adamantine breastplates, and wielding silver warhammers, makes their home in an advanced barracks and training hall. From here down, exploratory shafts have been dug down, down down, to the level of 153, where a pipe of adamantium was discovered cutting up into an underdark cavern. Where there is adamantium, magma is close, and the dwarves struck magma at last 158 levels below the surface. It is along walk through dark tunnels and steep steps, but already the plans are in work for a deep off-shoot colony to build the great magma forges that have drawn so many expeditions before this one.

Read Full Post »

Thobost Gar – the Death Girder – a Dwarf Fortress inspired Mega Dungeon Campaign

When Megadru the Hammered Pillar was abandoned, the dwarves were not ready to give up on the region, and so a few years later, they launched a new expedition. This one was named Thobost, the Pillar or Girder, but it soon became known as Thobost Gar, Girder of death, due to the excessive number of dwarves who lost their lives building and defending it.

The region, known to the dwarves as the Realms of Dawning, was a mountainous highland plain. Surrounded by peaks, the sandy badlands was inhospitable to all but the most wretched creatures, like goblins, trolls and ogres. But beneath the ground, the layers of stone provided ample veins of precious stones and metals. Deeper, it was connected to the vast linked underworld caverns, and even deeper yet were the fabled magma seas, which the dwarves hoped to tap into for their magma forges. It was too good a site to pass up, and so the fourth expedition launched. They passed by the ruins of Stasis Gem, shaking their heads sadly. They gave Megadru a wide berth, fearing Corpse Dragon who had claimed it for its lair, until they came to the site of the new fortress. This time, they would stand the test of time, and build a bigger, better fortress: Thobost Gar, Girder of Death.

Campaign Note: One of the ideas behind this campaign will be simply FINDING the correct mega dungeon out of the ruins of previous attempts. The Dawnforge region will have at least 3 (hopefully just 3, although Thobost Gar is in a tenuous position at the moment) ruined fortresses and the first goal of the campaign will be to determine the site of the true mega dungeon. Hunting through the ruins of previous failed attempts will be a great low level endeavor, and will include clues to the whereabouts of the true goal, as well as having treasures of their own to uncover, such as the magic elven amulet Fancypresent and a certain magic iron boot named Dancefortress. See the previous article for the plan for the campaign game.

Another expedition broke the ground on the edge of the plateau near a swift flowing mountain stream. This plan called for a preliminary guard station, where the 7 founding dwarves would carve out more or less temporary quarters and work rooms as they delved further. Eventually this zone would become a guard station and have its own tower jutting up at the corner of the walled Pillar. The dwarves, you see, had not given up on their vision of an awe inspiring tower straddling a deep, open central shaft.

The dwarves had learned from their mistakes, and the leader was skilled in mechanics, engineering, and architecture. The expedition leader Kaz, chose to begin work on a waterworks system to bring fresh mountain spring water to the halls from the outset. By fall, the fledgling fortress had running water, and thirst would not be an issue. It was a good thing, because Kaz had seen a vision.

It was of a fortress destroyed by thirst. From 55 dwarves at the beginning of the Autumn Freeze, the dwarves died one by one until only a mother and her dwarf infant remained. Then the mother died, and for a long sad month the baby crawled from dining hall to dining hall over the decaying corpses of its aunts and uncles, searching for its parents. Miraculously the baby didn’t die of thirst, its mother having nursed it even while she was dying, and when the Spring Thaw came, new migrants showed up. But not in time, even as the migrants were trundling down the stairs to their new home, the baby finally died of thirst. It was so sad, and the migrants fared no better. They spent the summer clearing out carnage and had no time to make barrels of beer, or to fill the water cistern, and they too died of thirst. (OOC After this disaster I reverted to a previous save.* Thereby becoming “vision” rather than reality. It was pretty gruesome.)

Kaz knew the devastation of thirst-crazed dwarves and his waterworks system saved them that first year. They laughed as the stream froze solid, while they were still having hot baths and running water in their warren. Good times.

By the spring of the second year, the foundations of the Girder were complete. Another innovation of the engineer Kaz was to dig out a room, then channel out the floor, eliminating the need to dig the room below, and also vastly reducing the chance of a dwarf falling to his death. Five floors of open space, with a massive winding staircase ascending the center was their reward for a years worth of mining.

So far Thoboast Gar was a stunning success. It was however fraught with its own turmoils. These dwarves were fond of their food, and they had brought along cows, donkeys, goats, and lamas to milk and butcher. Fortune smiled on the skilled animal handlers, who were soon swamped with young. Meanwhile, the cook and brewer were spending all their time planting, brewing, and creating lavish meals. They turned milk into cheese as fast as they could, but the amount of cheese they were producing became overwhelming until it began to rot, creating purple miasma.

Goblins were another threat, and after suffering many casualties holding off a small raiding party, Kaz decided it was time to build a curtain wall surrounding their fortress entrance, and immediately set to work. The work of the fortress was demanding, and they had to cut corners to get it built. The military was one such cut, and it led to losses, so when winter of the second year set in, Kaz turned to his Captain of the Guard and ordered 3 squads – 2 of heavy armor, and one crossbow squad. You see he had another vision:

This vision was of a complete curtain wall by spring, right as the Elven caravan arrived with all the wood they would need the coming season. While the elves were overstaying their welcome, another goblin raiding party showed up, but this time they were stymied by the walls. They milled about, not doing any harm, but keeping the dwarves, and now the elves, penned in all summer. Finally Kaz threw up his arms in disgust and ordered a surprise sortie of his crack three squads out to engage the single troop of goblin invaders. It was an ambush! 4 more hidden goblin troops waited just outside the door, and it became a bloodbath.

It would not have been so bad except for one of the dwarves died defending the entrance to the fortress – literally RIGHT in the doorway, and so the doors were stuck open. The three green squads were defeated, the goblins entered the fort, and all dwarves were mobilized to fight for their lives and home. When the goblins were finally driven off, or rather left after engorging themselves and pillaging, barely a dozen of the 70 or so dwarves were left alive. Good thing it was a vision (Revert to autosave.)*

Kaz reminded himself, keep the doors locked AT ALL COSTS! More to come as Thobost Gar begins its third year, the year of delving deeper and training a crack squad of goblin slayers. They need those magma forges!

Updated to add: The fortress was not lucky enough to survive the next season. The goblins could not be held back and they eventually breached the fortress, sending another colonization attempt to ruin.

*A note on cheating. I prefer not to cheat, and only do so when serious tragedy strikes before I am ready to call it another failed fortress. Even then, I have it set to autosave every spring, so if I revert to a previous save, chances are I will have lost hours or play-time. It is not done lightly.

Read Full Post »

Another Dwarf Fortress Crumbles to Dust – Toppling the Hammered Pillar

Year one ended with a ton of dwarves packed into Winter Haven, while miner after miner risked, and ultimately lost his life to mine the central shaft of the Hammered Pillar, sunk down to bedrock 5 layers beneath the surface. A great shaft, open to the sunlight, was their reward for such suffering. It was the foundation of their glorious undertaking.

During the spring of their second year, the dwarves finally began the arduous process of moving out of Winter Haven and into their new fortress. Of course, with only two bent and mangled picks, and two wet-behind-the-ears dwarves to wield them, the mining out of the great halls beneath the pillar was a time consuming task. The level just beneath the pillar was to be a military zone, so they had to dig one below that, down to level 7 for the dining hall and private chambers. This was a process that took all summer to complete, as more and more dwarves showed up.

Being open to the air had drawbacks as well. Even though a wall was built around the pit, flying creatures were a problem, and the workers were continually beset by curious buzzards flying down into the shaft, and thence into the rest of the underground network. Many doors were needed to seal off the interior of the fortress from the outside, while a quick glass-making factory was set up to produce green glass grates to seal off the surface and enclose the shaft in beautiful emerald refracted light.

As summer heated up, the buzzard attacks continued and eventually a dwarf was knocked off a platform and into the new fountain being filled below. The water was red with his blood, and before it could be stopped, the water was drank up by the hordes of thirsty dwarves toiling away.

So began the summer of madness. A disease was released from this corrupted water, and within a few days, the dwarves were becoming insane. Lack of a hospital contributed to the mania, and the miners were diverted into hollowing out a chamber for the care of sick dwarves, but their were so many dwarves that the beds were used by the scores of floor sleepers, and little healing got done.

Right at this time a new mayor was elected, who began throwqing tantrums that he had no bedroom or office. With heavy heart Lolor the now defunct expedition leader had to be removed from his sumptuous chambers to make room for the mayor. Bad mistake. The mayor was now contented but Lolor immediately flew into a berserk rage that left him and many other dwarves dead.

Within days, every level of the fortress was rife with rebellion and fighting. Out of water, unhappy with the lack of quarters, injured, and out of work dwarves took to the halls with anger in their hearts. 20 or more dwarves lost their lives during the uprising, and their decaying, stinking bodies caused clouds of purple miasma to waft up and out through the central shaft, increasing the illness, anger, and sadness of the dwarves in a spiral of doom that continued into late autumn, when the goblins attacked.

If only that were the bitter end, but no, amazingly the dwarves pulled together, and while the entire fortress ran to Winter Haven for protection, two quickly formed squads of dwarves actually managed to repel the goblin raiding party. They returned to find a small room full of 60 or more angry dwarves unwilling to do anything but fail at getting drinks of water. The fortress became untenable, and with a heavy heart, the mayor called off the expedition and the survivors abandoned the Hammered Pillar and returned defeated to their mountain home.

If only that were the end of the sad tale, but no, two more expeditions were launched to recover the Hammered pillar. The hardest work was done, and a newly stocked expedition could take over where the last left off. Only the roofing of the shaft was left undone, but careful management of floors and green glass grates could see it done.

What they didn’t count on was a huge buzzard-like forgotten beast, who had taken over the pillar as its lair. Both expeditions were wiped out trying to slay the beast, and finally, the king under the mountain decreed that the Hammered Pillar was a failed experiment and that none shall try and reclaim the lost riches of that place. Haunted, forlorn, and finally forgotten altogether, the dwarves would have to plan a new strategy.

The magic amulet Fancypresent was never recovered.

Read Full Post »

Megadru the Hammered Pillar, A Dwarf Fortress Year 1

Auspicious Beginnings

Join me as I recount the trials and tribulations of Megadru the Hammered Pillar, a dwarf fortress meant to stand the tests of time. This fortress is meant to provide the foundation for my next dungeons and dragons campaign. See [this article] where I go into some details about my plans. For now, though, sit back and enjoy reading about the stubborn dwarves known as the Gilded Picks Guild.

The Gilded Picks Guild set out from the fortress of their fathers in the year 260 by their reckoning, and headed north, to a previously scouted area that lay in a mountain pass where the black sands of an arctic desert give way to a conifer forest. Here in this pass they struck their picks into the sand and soil and broke the foundations of their vision: a dwarf fortress of such magnitude that the world would sing its praises until the end of time.

Their vision was of a wide square shaft, over 100 cubits on a side, drilled down into the sand and soft clay five levels, or about 100 cubits. The stone they used to create this shaft would in turn be used to build a great stone tower to encompass the shaft and rise as far into the air as the shaft’s descent. Skylights would be placed into the tower to give natural light into the shaft, all the way down to the stone floor below. It would be splendid, and the green glass windows would allow for indoor farming. The Pillar would then be surrounded by a high wall, and two spires would mark the grand entrance. There would be no entrance into the pillar itself from above ground.

With the floor of the Hammered Pillar five levels below the surface, the bulk of the working fortress itself would be deeper. Level 5 would be a major military zone, and the tentative plan is for level 6 to house the vast warehouses, level 7 will be the workshops, level 8 will be the housing, level 9 will be the treasure vaults. At some point another defensive bulwark will be set up at the entrance to the underdark caverns, and then of course, like all good dwarves, dreams of magma forges would keep them digging ever further down.

The complexity of the task meant Lolor, expedition leader, had to plan for temporary housing whilst the Hammered Pillar was completed. Now, the site between two mountain roots featured a small drop off between the highland desert and the lowlands of the pine forest. There was a sloped area that formed a sort of three-sided cupped or protected valley-like area that Lolor decided would be perfect for the grand entrance. Drilling into the slope would provide an excellent grand hall to get to the Pillar, but on the other wall to the left, a smaller entrance was mined out. This would eventually be an off-shoot guard house when the fortress was complete, but for now it would be a completely disconnected burrow for the fledging Hammerer Guild. It was into this burrow, named Winter Haven, that the dwarves wintered their first year, and they hoped they would be out of it before the second winter hit.

While getting the fortress set up for the massive undertaking, his miners, Thob and Zan began mining a staircase down from Winter haven, and dug through layers of soil then stone until they hit an open space at level 11. They had broken through the roof of an underworld cavern, and so they immediately ordered a pair of hatches to seal the doorway from any flying creatures that might find dwarf tasty.

Moving back up the stairs they began hollowing out a set of chambers 5 levels below ground. These rooms were meant for various needs of the fledgling community, including a water reservoir that they totally failed to fill before winter set in, causing the dwarfs to become mad with thirst, as usual for one of my games; but we are getting ahead of ourselves, it is still spring.

In the far north, the ice doesn’t melt until sometime in late spring or early summer, and after the The Gilded Picks Guild arrive, one of them, we shall call Erimikus, went out hunting for plants to brew. He was the brewer, farmer, and all around expert horticulturist for the entire colony, but mere days after arriving, he drowned. Erimikus was foolish enough to cross a pond of water just as the thaw came, and fell into the deep pond and drowned. Being down to six dwarves right out of the gate, especially a dwarf so important to the survival that first year, was a major setback. In addition, none of the other dwarves could retrieve his body, and by the end of summer, the ghost of Erimikus was haunting the pool. It was a sad affair.

With the temporary burrow done, the miners Thob and Zan spoke to Lolor and got the first orders for the grand undertaking. They would spend the winter months mining out the deep shaft of the Hammered Pillar, by digging out five layers, then going back and removing the floors between each layer. Now, thob and Zan were professional miners by this time, having single-handedly dug out Winter Haven, and they took to the new project with gusto. They followed Lolor’s plan to a tee.

Now Lolor is only a dabbling architect, and his plan called for clearing out each level, then going back afterwards and removing each floor between levels, starting with the level below the surface. They decided to leave the surface unbroken until the outer wall of the tower rose to encompass the shaft, thereby protecting it from nosy neighbors. This was a good plan. Removing the floors between open levels, however, not so good.

Thob was the first to go. He was working on level one, happily clearing floors and opening up the shaft, when he got turned around and started clearing out the floor sections that connected him to the edge. This caused a cave-in, and he dropped all four levels, breaking through the floor of each level on his way down, until he smashed into the rock floor of level 5. He didn’t survive the fall.

Zan, shocked by his brothers demise, was called off duty for an emergency mission to prepare a crypt down in the basement of Winter Haven. The stone mason was called in to prepare a stone sarcophagus as well as a slab for engraving the great deeds of Thob the legendary miner. Luckily his pick was recovered, and a new miner was chosen amongst the 11 new immigrants to show up, hearing of the Hammered Pillar as its fame spread. This miner didn’t last long until he too fell to his death.

Lolor is a dwarf driven by success, and at this point he made a private decision that the Pillar was the most important, and that it had to be continued at all cost. Taking up the two bent picks, he nominated two more miners from the new immigrants, and continued picking new miners as each one lost his life. Poor Zan was next to go, and the work was finished by a series of low-paid novice miners. Four miners died, and a carpenter who was struck by a falling miner, as well as countless injuries, but by spring of the second year the shaft was done.

Right in time for an influx of 24 new immigrants. Over the course of a few weeks in early spring, before even the ice had melted to allow fresh drinking water, the Hammered Pillare almost tripled in population, up to 55 dwarves. This was good news and bad. More dwarves would help the fortress to success in the long run, but in the short term there was little housing, food, or beer to go around.

Stay tuned to find out what happens during the second year of the construction of The Hammered Pillar.

Read Full Post »

The Dwarf Fortress Mega Dungeon Campaign Megadru the Hammered Pillars

By the time my first successful fortress fell to a goblin siege, I had hundreds unique chambers spread over about 34 levels. Each room told a story. Each was filled with goods, engravings, or furnishings that depicted its main use, and many were the items (including legendary artifacts) that an adventuring party would covet. While playing I constantly paused to imagine the goings-on as the dwarves went about their daily lives, trudging up and down endless flights of stairs, drinking in one of the vast meeting halls, or fighting denizens of the underworld as they came up into specially prepared murder halls. The levels each had their own themes, both in the material they were constructed from as well as the usage to which they were put. In short, I had built a mega dungeon, out of a working, thriving Dwarf Fortress.

For a few weeks now, I have been obsessed with the free independent game known as Dwarf Fortress. You can read my preview of it here, as well as my two part series detailing the Rise and Fall of Stasisgem. While playing the game, I was continuously struck by how much of the game could be used for a mega dungeon in Dungeons and Dragons. Then the idea hit me – why not put it to that use? My plan is to play a game of Dwarf Fortress with this end result in mind. I will use a roll of Gaming Paper to transcribe my fortress (once complete, and by complete I mean inevitably abandoned) and I will have the seed for an entire campaign ready to detail out and play.

The idea here is that an organically grown mega dungeon will be more realistic than one created from whole cloth. It will be useful that the needs of the dwarves are what lead to which chambers being carved, and that it will make sense to the future explorers, rather than being a random assortment of rooms and creatures. The adventurers will spend their time searching for the fabled treasure vaults, uncovering the giant mushroom farms, seeing the destroyed barricades down where the fortress penetrates the underdark ( underground caverns) and other inspiring locations, ALL BASED ON ACTUAL GAME PLAY.

Dwarf Fortress is a complex enough simulation that almost all the details of the game will translate well into D&D. There are legends, artifacts, treasures, monsters, heroes, villains, epic pets, ghosts, and everything else one associates with a dungeon. Nearby trading communities and enemies will provide above-ground opportunities, and the life and death of the fortress will help to re-populate the abandoned fortress for future dungeon delving.

Indeed, Dwarf Fortress already has an “Adventure” mode, where a player can take on the role of a hero and explore abandoned mines, fight monsters, and that sort of thing, in a computerized D&D-like manner, so this idea isn’t as far-fetched as it may sound. Bringing it to a role-playing source is more about taking it out of the computer and putting a real live DM (that’s me!) behind the screen. So what would a Dwarf Fortress mega dungeon campaign look like?

The Nuts and Bolts
First comes the playing. The Fortress must be built, must grow to appropriate size, and with a mind to the future, must be destroyed. It would be awkward to try and loot a thriving dwarf community after all! With that in mind, the next few weeks will see a series of posts on “Megadru the Hammered Pillars” a dwarf fortress in the northern highlands. Situated in a mountain pass that is the dividing line between a cold sandy desert and a pine forest, the Hammered Pillars will grow to become the Next Epic campaign I run for Dungeons and Dragons. (That is, if my dwarves survive. It may take a couple of tries before I get a fortress with sticking power.”

As the game progresses, extensive notes will be kept regarding notable events, personalities, and items. These notes will be used to create story elements, rumours, legends, and quests. For example, in the year of its founding, the brewer Lolor the Blind fell through the ice while plant harvesting. Not only are his whereabouts worthy of a quest, but the items he had on him could also be valuable. It could be that he had seeds, or a recipe for a now extinct brew of dwarf beer. Using these notes will help to provide a rich tapestry to weave into a campaign.

The basic premise is that the fortress Megadru was lost (unknown why at this time, though I suspect it will be goblins) and that after 100+ years, the abandoned fortress has been found. A pioneer town has built up nearby to cater to the increasing number of adventurers. This alone is enough to spark a campaign, but for Megadru, I want to go further, and embed certain over-arching campaign goals.

Each character will have the following goals, associated with them being a representative of their culture, come to reclaim what rightfully belongs to them:

Amass 1 million gold pieces. Personal wealth and items do not count toward this goal, it must be ‘banked.’

Retrieve certain artifacts from the Fortress (Each PC will have 2-4 items they are responsible for finding).

Determine the fate of each of the 200 dwarves who lived and died at Megadru.

If all these conditions are met, which I foresee taking 10-15 levels worth of adventuring, then the character can be assumed to have ‘won’ the game. I hope to come up with a few more goals, such as something including the engravings, or piecing together certain historical events. I would also like to add something for retrieving dwarven historical tablets, or steles. And in addition to these general goals, each character may have a set of specific class or race goals associated with the dwarf fortress.

The options are limitless, but the intent is to make this a pure dungeon exploration campaign with distinct, attainable goals. That is not to say that all adventuring is done in the fortress, there can be wilderness and other adventures, but they will (or should) relate to the primary goals outlined at the start of the game.

Having played for 4+ years in fairly non-linear open ended games, it will be interesting to have such a straight-forward campaign to play. And for any of my players reading this, do not worry about being forced to retire your 13th level characters any time soon. The game itself will take weeks to play out, and when it ends, the job of transcribing the results into a workable mega dungeon will begin. I see 3-6 months passing before the campaign is ready to kick off.

Read Full Post »

The Descent and Fall of the Stasisgem Dwarf Fortress

The Descent
The Stasisgem Fortress was built to stand the test of time, and for many long seasons it continued to thrive, digging ever deeper as its dwarves greedily mined the mountain of its gems. Earlier the initial fortress, or “Ground Zero” was described, and how it was hewn from the stone of Misty Mountain during that first long winter. When spring finally arrived, Meng and his cronies set about planning the full fortress in all its glory. Level Zero was meant to be the bulwark of defense for Stasisgem, and the true fortress would be spread out on the many levels below. Meng, architect and engineer as well as expedition leader, set out the mining plan for the next seven levels.

The plan for Stasisgem was to dig as deep as possible, in hopes of setting up a magma forge. It was unknown how deep the dwarves would have to dig (level 32 it turns out) and so they planned a newer, larger burrow on level 4. This would be where all the housing, dining hall, cooking and brewing would take place, as well as the Royal Chambers and private treasure vault for the eventual leader, once Meng stepped down as expedition leader to make way for a mayor.

Moving upwards a level, we come to level 3, intended to be the main treasure vaults of the fortress. This massive chamber would contain all the finished goods of the fortress, and its many sub-chambers each housed a specific type of treasure, including one room set aside for nothing but raw adamantium. In addition to the vaults, level 3 also contained an extensive crypt and eventually a rough hewn chamber housed the hospital and recovery rooms as well.

Above the treasure vaults, we have level 2, the workshop. This level of the fortress had outer and inner arcing hallways with many side rooms each housing a workshop and small storage area. Thus the entire output of the dwarves took place on this level, from coal forges, carpentry shops, to clothiers and bowyers, level 2 rang with the sounds of dwarvish industry day and night. As the fortress expanded to two or more of each type of workshop, more looping hallways were added.

Next we come up to sub-basement level 1, or the level directly below the initial fortress. This massive, sprawling series of chambers was home to the main stockpile. Anything not a treasure was stored here, including food, raw ore, and trade goods. Carpenters had full time jobs making bins for this level, which eventually numbered in the hundreds. Of to one side, a rich loamy clay was unearthed, and a secondary chamber was mined out for kennels and additional farming, as well as some underground plant harvesting.

These four levels were the main backbone of the fortress. They were defended above and below, and were intended to be inviolate. Indeed, during the life of the fortress, no enemy ever managed to breach levels 1 through 4. That is saying something about the design, which featured among other things, staggered stairwells. The dwarves learned early on not to use one central stairway for the entire depth of the fortress. With a single step and an enemy can (and will) step out onto whichever floor they want, and this is not good. With this in mind, Ibuilt level 7, the home of the Brazen Hammerers, and elite squad of heavy armor wearing melee dwarves.

Level 7 was built with an up stairway at the south end, and a long l shaped passage leading to the downward stairs. In this passage a ballista was erected, as well as a wall of fortifications, behind which the Hammerers had their barracks and training rooms. No enemy from the depths ever made it through this gauntlet, including some pretty ferocious underworld creatures, including the Gorlak, and the Gorlak’s son.

Levels 5 and 6 were set aside for exploratory mining, as they were primarily marble with lots of gem clusters. Over the life of the fortress, when the dwarven miners were not digging deeper, they would return to levels 5 and 6 and continue digging in a grid pattern to locate the most valuables. While I uncovered much marble, and many valuable gems, I never found any veins of metal other than iron. Gold and silver would have been nice, and indeed my search for gold helped lead to the inievitable fall of Stasisgem, as we will hear about shortly.

Once levels 1 through 7 were complete, the next phase of Stasisgem fortress kicked off – to dig as deep as they could go. Level 13 was important, because here they cracked into a vast underground cavern which included an underground freshwater sea, as well as valuable gem out-croppings, giant mushrooms and other plants, and various denizens of the underworld.

Out of game note: I would have slowed down game play here to get the most out of the caverns, but I was intent to get to the magma as quickly as possible. As I continue to learn more about how the game works, I can see earlier mistakes becoming compounded, leading me to believe this fortress was doomed from the beginning. Activity zones and stockpiles were something I didn’t fully understand when organizing the first few levels, and it led to the dwarves doing much more walking back and forth than they should have.

Drilling down from level 13, we went all the way to level 31, where we discovered aomething amazing. At level 30, we were surrounded by wet stone, due to vast underground water reserves, but found a vein of adamantium, holding out the water. The vein was wide and deep enough that the dwarves built a stairwell inside the protective adamantium and drilled down to level 32, where we found our first magma. The adamantium continued downward, so we kept building stairs ever further, all the way to level forty, where a vast sea of magma opened up, preventing any deeper mining.

Now, on our way down through this adamantium ‘pipe’, the dwarves drilled through water and magma both. As they came back up, they began carving out chambers in level 31 for the magma forges. Here would be the Stasisgem secret forges. Constructed of adamantium, hidden from above, and protected by their own squad, the Still crystals, with their own rooms, dining hall, and food/alcohol storage, level 31 was designed to be almost self-sufficient. Dwarves would have no outside interference to keep them from hammering away on their adamantium anvils. Sadly I did not fully understand the workings of magma.

The fall
The Fall of Stasisgem came from three sources. The first was magma. The dwarves had a perfect stairwell , but they could not resist mining out the gems, and when they mined a certain cluster of fire opal, it opened up a crack that allowed the lava to pour through into the stairwell, turning it into a magma chute straight down the the magma sea, and totally unusable by the dwarves, even the ones trapped below when the magma started flowing. This also made it impossible to mine out the floor below the smelters, as a pool of magma (4 deep) is required directly below any magma powered workshop.

Eventually the dwarves found a way to channel out a room below the forges and smelters, and even managed to open it up to the slowly filling magma, but because the stairwell continued to drain, the room was never able to fill to the capacity the workshops needed. It was a tragedy of poor design, that surrounded by magma, my deep dwarves could use none of it, and the secret forges never were fully operational.

Incidentally, when that adamantium stairwell broke through the roof of the vast magma cavern, a message popped up saying that unspeakable evil had been released. However, by turning the stairwell into a giant impassable magma waterfall, Stasisgem may have actually been saved from whatever unspeakable evil was aroused.

The second cause of the fall was a nearby mountain brook, which wended its way along level 3, the treasure vaults. Hearing about how gold is often found in mountain streams, the greedy dwarves dug out chambers, shafts and tunnels near the stream in hopes of finding that gold. They never did, but they eventually broke into the river itself, unleashing a never ending tide of water that began to fill level 3, and eventually everything below. Doors and walls could stave off the water, but the flooding of the crypts, treasure vaults, and hospital was such a blow to the dwarves that they could never recover, especially with what was happening on the surface.

The third major reason, and the ultimate cause of the abandonment of Stasisgem was at the hands of loathed goblins. Two sieges were launched against Stasisgem in 2 years. The first siege was handily repulsed, as I shall describe. At this point in the game I had 3 squads. One, which I forget the name, was stationed at the entrance. The second squad was stationed on level 7, and the third was the private defense of the secret magma forges, on 31. The goblins easily scaled the wall (and open doors) surrounding the hidden valley, and the first battle took place on the valley floor. I had my squad retreat into the mountain, nd the goblins were decimated by my fortress entry fortifications, including cages and stone fall tracks. While 1st squad defended the halls, second squad assaulted out onto the valley floor, and 3rd squad assaulted up out of the valley and to the gates. Third squad was decimated, but they drew the fire of the goblins as they charged.

The sacrifice of 3rd squad allowed 1st and second to mop up their areas, the main entrance and the valley floor, and so together, 1st and 2nd came to the aid of 3rd squad and repulsed the goblins off the mountain. I got enough silver goblin arrows from this siege to begin minting commemorative silver coins.

The second siege, a year later, caught me unawares. 3rd squad had never been rebuilt (due to the tragedy happening down on level 31) so 1st and 2nd squad were all I had to defend. As magma was flooding the lower levels, and the river was pouring into the upper levels, the goblins chose this moment for their second siege, and they gained the walls, and valley before any squads even mustered. So began a long, losing battle in the upper works, that eventually led to the population being reduced from 125 down to forty.

In one glorious moment, old Meng, the legendary miner, and original expedition leader, strapped on the first artifact of the Stasisgem, the legendary iron boot Dancefortress, and with the only adamantine battle axe in the fortress, he waded into the enemy goblins and trolls, striking to and fro with wild abandon. The iron boot sits there still, buried under the bones of dwarves and goblins.

Three things combined to doom the Stasisgem fortress: greed, thirst, and laziness. Greed for gems brought about the loss of the magma forges, while a thirst for clean water caused the river to be diverted into the fortress. Finally a laziness in reforming the 3rd squad, as well as a general lack of consideration for the might of the goblins, was the nail in the coffin. They were trounced so soundly the first time, the Stasisgem dwarves gambled that they would not be back soon.

Farewell Meng and your doughty band of survivors, you will be missed. However, the world continues to rotate on its axis, and another Dwarf Fortress is in the works. The next fortress will be bigger, better than before, and there will be some other unique features that are sure to prove exciting. Stay tuned for MEGA DUNGEON.

Read Full Post »

Stasisgem- A Dwarf Fortress Conceived to Stand the Test of Time

The Hidden Mountain Valley of Stasisgem

The Stasisgem dwarves were so named for their unquenchable lust for precious stones. They refused to trade or sell the gems with such fervor that they eventually earned the strange name. this eventually led to turmoil in Mountainhome, and so the leader of the Stasisgems, Meng, chose to strike out and form a new stronghold where him and his seven allies could mine gems to their hearts content and never have to sell or give them away. After mulling over the world map for many long nights, Meng stabbed his finger down to a spot in the Misty Mountains and said “here will be our fastness.”

With a wagon full of mushrooms, barrels of ale, peacocks, and a goat, they began a trek of many weeks that at last found them in an idyllic spot. Near the peak of a forested mountain, they found a small valley surrounded by crystal clear lakes, with a swift flowing brook far below. One wall of the valley was made of red clay, while the rest was hard stone.

Meng knew the stories of previous colonists. They invariably starved, died of thirst, or were destroyed by enemies known and unknown. He was determined that this fate would not befall the fortress of Stasisgem and he had measures to prevent it. Eggs, milk, and mushrooms should provide their sustenance through that first deadliest of winters. Little did Meng suspect that there are other dangers that can befall even the best prepared pioneers.

Stasisgem, Fortress of Dwarfitude

The first thing, after sighting the region and picking out the optimal place to begin digging, was to set up shelter. While his pair of miners began the task of digging into the side of the mountain, he sent the rest out to forage for wood and plants. One miner drilled a shaft due south into the mountain. This long hall would be the main entry, and Meng was already planning for its defense. Long and straight, it would eventually be full of traps and fortifications. Halfway down the hundred foot long hall he cleared out two rooms, one on each side. Eventually these would be staging grounds for the door guards, but that was a long way off. For now, one chamber would be a combination workroom housing the carpenter and brewer, while the other would be a temporary storage depot. As soon as the rooms were complete, he ordered everyone off the mountainside and into their new home.

While this was happening, the second miner was digging into the soft red clay, clearing a room perfect for mushroom farming, right near the mine entrance. He then set about cutting a channel from under the nearest lake to flow out into the valley of the dwarfs. By this time plant harvesters had returned with many mountain strawberries, and so a strawberry farm was planted between the fresh water channel and the mushroom farms, under the sun. The dwarfs brought the animals into the valley and penned them up. So far they had no luck producing eggs, but the milk and cheese were a boon.

With the beginnings of a farming system set up, it was important to turn inward. As all dwarfs know, stone is good for just about everything except making beds. Too hard. So the carpenter was put to work crafting seven beds. He could have gotten away with fewer shared beds, but Meng tries not to skimp where comfort and luxury are concerned. After beds, barrels are the next top priority. Mushrooms and strawberries both produce dwarf alcohol, and this had to be stored in barrels. In fact, most everything is stored in barrels or bags. Or bags in barrels. Or bins. Or bags in barrels in bins. I’m confused.

Besides barrels, dwarfs need comfort while they eat and drink. This means a dining hall, and Meng planned to have the grandest dining hall of all. A table and chair for every dwarf was his motto during the election, and he put his carpenter to work to make that dream come true. As the carpenter toiled, the farmers farmed, and the brewer sat around getting drunk. The miners bit into the hard rock of the mountain to carve out a vast pillared dining hall, surrounded by private bedrooms for each dwarf. At one end of the dining room was the long entry hall. At the other end were stairs. These stairs would one day lead downwards to ever greater glory, but for now, they were merely symbolic of what future seasons would bring.

By this time an elf caravan showed up wanting to trade at the new trade depot constructed in a hollowed out cavern open to the outside, and right next to the kennels, bee hives, and nesting boxes. Apparently elves do not like dwarfish woodcrafts, and were so insulted by the injuries done to their precious trees when we showed off our brand new oaken screw press, that they left without a word. This was not good, as they held many interesting things for the dwarves to covet. They better not get haughty! But now was not the time for conflict, and so our worthless broker had no chance to give away our goods for a song. He couldn’t even tell what our stuff was worth, much less the foolish elven goods. No worries, karma would see that he never brokered another trade, but we are getting ahead of the story.

Summer was coming to an end, and a few immigrants showed up, bringing the colony to a respectful 12. The farms and brewery were buzzing with activity, unlike the beehives, as the dwarfs prepared for winter. A cold hand of doom gripped each of them as they thought of the long cold winter, but Meng looked with pride on his stocks. He had food and booze enough to ride out the longest winter, if little else. A few more workshops sprang up, including a masonry. This masonry was the pride of the fledgling community and the stone mason began cranking out stone doors to keep out the drafts. Doors, chairs and tables were his forte, while the carpenter mastered the art of crafting barrels and bins.

As the first snows fell, a plant gatherer was struck by a fey mood. He rushed to the masonry and took over the shop, kicking out the mason, and working on some secretive project. Meng thought no more about it, excited to see what this young dwarf might come up with. He instead spent his winter cajoling the brewer to make more brew and the carpenter to keep the community supplied in barrels. Where do all the barrels go? It was touch and go for awhile, but winter had to end eventually.

Suddenly a scream echoed down the halls. The young dwarf Ing had lost it. He spent all winter fretting over the right piece of stone to carve, and never found the one he was looking for. The perfectionist in him would let no other stone suffice, and so the poor dwarf eventually went insane. Even as the first birds flew overhead to mark the coming of spring, Ing went berserk and turned on his fellows. So began a month of chasing, stalking, slaying, and fleeing into the mountains that eventually ended with three dead dwarfs at the hand of insane Ing. Checking the logs, it turns out Ing died of thirst after slaying 3 dwarfs, 2 donkeys, and a yak. What a maniac.

Stasisgem was down to 8 dwarfs, but Meng comforted himself by knowing that the survivors were tough as nails. One more thing of note happened while the berserk Ing was out fighting through his troubles. Another quiet dwarf was struck by a fey mood and took over a crafting building. Thankfully He did not go mad, but instead created the Stasigem dwarfs first legendary item: an Iron boot named Dancefortress. What a boot!

Stasisgem recovered over the long spring and summer. Check out the next episode, where the Stasisgem dwarfs decide it is time to delve deeper.

A note on mods
I am using the Lazy Newb Pack for my modded games. I don’t change any fundamental rules (or cheat, in other wods) but stick to graphical mods. I am using Ironhand graphics pack for the game, and the awesome isometric views are taken using Stonesense, and incredible piece of software that allows you to watch your dwarf fortress in 3d. In addition, I have recently started using Dwarf Therapist, arguably a cheat, but it is the most efficient way to handle dwarf professions I have found. In fact, the program is almost a necessity, since it is so hard to do using the game interface.

Read Full Post »