Dwarft Fortress V: The Ageless Realms, Part IV

4th Hematite, 1051, Early Summer: In Memoriam

Let us take this moment to remember two of this fortress' finest dwarves, Mariko Thalallogem and Roxy Kelingul. The two of them had made the long journey here with the rest of us, knowing just as well as anyone that there would be dangers awaiting us all, but did not shy away. They showed strength and passion in everything they did and they will not soon be forgotten.

In their honor, tombs have been erected with statues. We will continue to improve the quality of their final resting place as time allows, for it would be a disservice to their memory if we put our survival aside.

(Statues not pictured)

The loss of Roxy was a staggering blow. It was a wake-up call that made us realize just how desperate our situation was. In our attempts at finding a food and water source, we were forced to cut corners where safety was concerned, and she was the first to pay the price.

While her demise was sudden, she went down fighting, bruising and bludgeoning the Troglodyte that atacked her to the point where it had to run away. Her wounds were too severe, however, and she didn't quite make it.

Let us take a moment to remember her:

Around her tomb are statues of dwarves and Lizardmen.

The loss or Mariko hurt just as much, but she too went down fighting. In fact, it was in defense of Roxy that she bravely sacrificed her life, running to her rescue without hesitation. Had the odds been in her favor, she might still be with us today, but alas, the Troglodytes were many and she was but one.

Her courage is exemplary and she will go down in legend. However, we will not remember her for her end, but for her life. She was a stoneworker, proud and content, and the proof of her work can be seen in the quality of the stone doors that protect the fortress from the deadly caverns below. She was in the midst of smoothing stone to further improve our lot when fate came calling, and none of us doubt that the fortress is worse off for having lost her.

Goodbye, Mariko. There will be none to replace you in our stout little alcohol-drenched hearts.

Adorning her tomb are statues of the Tummy of Gatis, deity of hospitality.

And as one season in the fortress passes, a new one inevitably starts. With the loss of two of our best dwarves, the work has piled up, and survival does not wait. To avoid depression, I made good use of the Giant Olm and butchered it for food. We moved the stores of food inside, where it should be safe, and we're slowly moving the workshops below as well. Soon, we'll build a well and hopefully catch enough fish to survive next winter.

Farms will have to wait for now. We are few enough dwarves that our supplies are now in abundance. A small comfort, but then, we must take what we can.

Dwarft Fortress V: The Ageless Realms, Part III

15th Slate, 1051, Mid-Spring: Good News!

Things are starting to look hopeful! Construction of the fortress is coming along steadily, no one's died or drowned yet, and best of all, the river has thawed! It's mid-spring and all the snow has melted, which means fishing after all!


I'm already hatching plans to create a drainage system that connects to the lower pools to ensure they never dry up: during the winter, while the river was frozen, we can build water-tunnels with floodgates. Meanwhile, down below, we can build channels and make the higher-pools flow into the lower-pools and place water-wheels all throughout, generating power! And when the higher-pools start running low on water, we just open the floodgates in the spring and summer to replenish them!

Okay, I might be getting a bit ahead of myself here. We should first concentrate on finding viable food sources and building some sort of industry. Here's what the fortress looks like now, only two or three levels above the underground caverns:


Not much to look at, sure, but it's coming along! The farms are down below in the caverns themselves since that's the only place where the soil is soft enough for crops.

25th Slate, 1051, Mid-Spring: Then It Gets Fun

Work in the fortress was coming along nicely. While digging out the fortress proper, I had requested that beds be built for when the rooms were ready, and since Mariko had been idle I asked her to build some doors. When the rooms were finished, each had a bed and its own door for privacy! Unfortunately, no one bothered closing them before Troglogdytes attacked.

The Troglodytes came out of nowhere (well, presumably from the underground caverns) and the first thing they did was to drag Roxy from her bed and rip her apart in a violent, gory mess! I quickly drafted Mariko into a squad and ordered her to take down the Troglodyte, and she lunged after it brutally, beating the shit out of it with her fists. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough and the Troglodyte managed to strike her down too!

Meanwhile, a Giant Olm wandered its way in looking for a meal. In desperation, I closed and sealed the door that leads to the lower caverns, drafted everyone else into a cohesive squad, and had them all charge the Giant Olm.


The five of us smashed the Giant Olm to pieces with our bare hands in a matter of seconds, and it was over. Time to pick up the pieces...

We'll need to start building a tomb for our fallen dwarves, but also rethink our survival strategy. Without access to those caves, we're without farms, though with the river presently thawed, we can probably manage an aqueduct system of some sort... Hopefully, we can get one up and running before next winter.

On the plus side, I think we can butcher that Olm for food!

Dwarft Fortress V: The Ageless Realms, Part II

3rd Granite, 1051, Early Spring: A Hole Of Hope

Working faster than I've seen any dwarf work in a long time, Kevin managed to find an underground cavern! In doing so, however, he nearly fell into a pool of water since he emerged from the ceiling. With a bit of precaution, I asked him to instead dig down the center of a stone column and make a little doorway at the bottom.

The cavern is full of water, thankfully, which means we won't die of dehydration. The water being as low as it is means there is little danger of water pressure causing any kind of flood, too. The question remains whether or not there's anything to catch in these pools, but at least now Emily can stop pretending to hunt marmots and actually get to fishing.

The cavern floor is muddy, which is ideal for undergound farming! I'm going to get the rest of the crew on that right away.

And last but certainly not least, the walls are peppered with gems of every size and colour! This will make for excellent trading materials once with cut them, and give our jeweler something to do.

22nd Granite, 1051, Early Spring: Good News, Bad News

We keep coming across all sorts of fancy jewels and minerals as we dig: emeralds, diamonds and even gold! Bex, our resident jeweler, is hard at work cutting them into something we can sell once we get a trade depot going.

(Look at all these gem clusters!)

Meanwhile, Eric, our doctor, is trying his hand at farming, planting crops in the muddy cavern floors to provide some sort of sustenance: Plump Helmets for eating and Sweet Pods for brewing some sort of alcoholic beverage.

Kevin is hard at work digging out the rooms that will make up the fort (bedrooms and a dining hall to start with) and the water in these caves has proven drinkable. My aim will be to have no reason for any dwarf to step outside, unless I manage to get a hunter that actually bothers to hunt.

All is not pleasant, however, as most of our workshops had to be built outside and a snow storm just hit. On top of that, the water in the caves, while able to keep us from dying of dehydration, appears to contain no fish whatsoever. Emily, who had been excited to go fishing with Roxy, has been let down and finds herself again with nothing to do.

I think I might make her a soldier. We've only encountered bats so far, but I get the feeling something more might be lurking down here...

Dwarft Fortress V: The Ageless Realms, Part I

The Dwarf Fortress philosophy ensures that you never get too frustrated with the untimely and inevitable demise of your fortress, but it also has the unfortunate side-effect of desensitizing you. You no longer worry about their feeble little lives when they start starving to death because you've had them all building a doomsday device instead of farming, or when the lower levels get flooded and drown all the patients in the hospital, etc. What's more, with their esoteric dwarvish names, remembering who's who becomes taxing and you soon lose track of which Urist you admire and which you're trying to kill.

Henceforth, this new fortress is featuring friends and co-workers. The doomed dwarves setting out on this expedition are: Kevin, myself, Eric, Mariko, Roxy, Emily and Bex. If you want to join this suicidal expedition, let me know and I'll see to it that you're part of the migrant groups that arrive.

Granted we survive that long, of course.

So the first thing I did was generate a new world.

Behold, the Ageless Realms:

(You can click on all these images to see a bigger version)

A vast and beautiful land, as you can see. I asked Eric for advice as to where we should settle and he proposed the mountains of the eastern range. I scoured around for a suitable location and eventually decided on this:

This location had, ostensibly, everything we needed: thickly forested hills, protective mountain slopes, and a life-giving brook around which we could build our defenses. The brook, according to local lore, was called Nightmarestruck.

Not at all ominous.

After exhausting all our supplies, we arrive at the location and strike the earth!

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Day 1: We're Already Fucked

So, it turns out this vast and beautiful mountain range is also a desolate, snow-covered wasteland. Looking around, we have trouble finding the so-called Nightmarestruck brook when it suddenly becomes apparent that we're standing on it. Not only is the river frozen solid, it's also covered in snow so as to be hidden. The only current proof of its existence is the erosion in the rocks that surround it.

Well, that's great. It's Spring and the river is a block of ice. Unless it thaws in the Summer, we are completely without water from this river. There's only one thing to do: dig down, dig deep, and dig fast. With any kind of luck we'll find some underground caverns where magma keeps the water nice and liquid.

With a bit more luck it won't be filled with monsters that want to kill us.

First things first: I set Kevin to mining straight down while Eric fells some trees. Acquiring logs isn't going to improve our situation, but it's good to keep the others occupied and not thinking about certain doom. I notice there's a few hoary marmots slinking around, so I set Emily to hunt them (or try to, at least). She's our resident Fisherdwarf, but since there's no real way to fish right now, she might as well learn to catch land-dwellers.

At the very least, I don't have to worry about my dwarves being killed by killer carp this time.