Dwarf Fortress IV: The Inspiring Tale of Shorast the Miner

A recurring source of fun in my fortresses, I've come to notice, usually has something to do with the well. Whether it's the lack, misplacement or misuse of, it somehow always relates to the fortress' final fate.

Not so with Machinekindled, I decided. We would build an unprecedented project, this time. First, we would divert the river, as we always did, but then we would build a lever-controlled floodgate to be able to manually stem the flow of water into the fortress. Second, we would build a vertical shaft down which the water would plummet into a reservoir many levels beneath. When the reservoir was full, we would stop the flow of water with the floodgate, and all would be good. Third and final, the well would be many levels above the reservoir, in case it did flood, to allow the dwarves enough time to gtfo.

In the end, the project worked beautifully, and I owe most of that to Shorast, the most dedicated little miner in all of Machinekindled. You see, while we were building the vertical shaft, we had to dig down, obviously, but since I wanted to finish the project quickly I would dig out several levels at once.

What this did was cause a cave-in. As Shorast diligently struck away at the earth beneath his feet, the floor suddenly collapsed and he fell. He landed gracelessly and managed to break both his legs. Another dwarf, this one studying to be a doctor, dragged Shorast away from the mining operation, stuck him in bed, and began to clean his wounds, bring him food and water as he lay bedridden, and suture his wounds.

The project continued without Shorast, but slower. He wasn't the only miner, but definitely one of the best, and one of the problems with my project was that while we were busy building this shaft, there weren't any farms or irrigation being built and the other dwarves were slowly starving.

Shorast would have none of it. The moment he had splints attached to each leg, he was right back up on his feet, pick in hand, charging back to work. No hesitation, no complaints, no ability to bend his knees until the splints come off.

Well, thanks to him, we got the project done in time, and it worked perfectly. The farms were up and running soon after that, and Machinekindled thrived like I'd never seen a fortress thrive before. To commemorate his efforts, I built a special lavish tomb for Shorast so that he'd be remembered in the ages to come.

Unfortunately, the tomb lies empty since goblins came and murdered everyone.

Dwarf Fortress III: The Ironic Fate Of Stafftufts

So it turns out that when winter comes, rivers freeze, and dwarves can't get any water to drink.

Such was what happened with Stafftufts. The residents there were doing fine, farming and hunting regularly, drinking water and enjoying their lives. Then the river froze. But it froze solid.

With all the nearby ponds equally frozen, no one was able to get at the rich, life-giving water beneath. They started dying of thirst. Worse yet, the fishermen could no longer fish, and our crops weren't enough for everyone to last.

Well, not everyone lasted. Most died of thirst, several more died of hunger near the end, and those that survived were struck with melancholia. Well, not all of them. Enough survived in a hale mental state to embark on a project that would save the fortress (or so I thought): divert the river with an underground passage to a well.

The project started out remarkably well. The tunnel diverting the river was dug and the well built over it. Unfortunately, we'd built the tunnel too shallow; there was barely a sheet of water beneath and the well's bucket just hit the ground and came up with mud.

Fine, I thought. We can fix this.

In theory, certainly, we could have fixed it. But we didn't. We made things much, much worse.

We built a hole that went down several layers into a reservoir and then built a well on top of that. The idea was that the water would flow down, fill the reservoir and be enough for the dwarves to enjoy. It worked for a little bit. What I had underestimated was the water's pressure.

The well sat there, peaceful, as one or two dwarves had a drink. Then water suddenly shot out and began to fill the dining area. The dwarves panicked, running to-and-fro, some trying to erect walls to contain the water but finding the current too strong to work in. The less bright ones ran to their rooms to wait for the disaster to pass, but it didn't. The water didn't leak through the doors, but it filled the corridors, trapping them in there.

In the end, there was just no stopping the flow. And so it was that in trying to save themselves from dying of thirst, the dwarves of Stafftufts drowned.

Dwarf Fortress II: The Drowning Olympics of Thornlashed

Thornlashed started out like a decent fortress. Stockpiles were made, jewels were found, workshops were built, bedrooms assigned... things were going great! My dwarves all had their jobs and were ecstatic about the state of things. The surrounding animals were benign, there was plenty of water for fishing, and the caravans from afar brought strange and wonderful goods to trade with.

There was just one weird problem: the dwarves kept drinking at a river that would consistently kill them.

At first, it wasn't really a problem. They would go to drink and then be interrupted by a fish. Eventually, though, it got to the point where the fish would actually kill some of these dwarves. "Okay, fine," I say, "Come drink from this pool instead. This pool that contains no murderous fish."

One dwarf does, but I guess he decides he doesn't like the taste and tells all the other dwarves just how much it sucks. They go to the river in crowds, now.

Using some risky mining operations, I manage to build an underground river in the fortress. I tell them to drink from that, but only the fisherdwarves listen, and then only for fishing. This river is starting to be a problem. Not only are dwarves getting killed by Carp and Sea Lampreys, their dead bodies are falling into the river and filling it with blood. The dwarves down river get traumatized by the sight, naturally... but they keep drinking the blood, traumatizing water. Now unhealthy and traumatized, their mental health starts to go. A few go raving mad, running around the fortress babbling while others lock themselves in the workshops below, creating strange, esoteric jewelry worthy of any Lovecraftian lore.

I need to build a well. A well inside the fortress will solve all my problems.

I start diverting the underground river while I order my metalsmith to build the chains necessary for the well. "We need some coal for the metalsmith workshop!" he tells me. Right, okay, so I look around for a suitable location for my Wood Burner Furnace to make some coal. While I'm doing this, my metalsmith runs off to the river for a drink. He never returns.

This is where things start to really unravel. Immigrants arrive by the dozens, and at this point I don't have any architecture dwarves still alive. My only hope is my miner, digging away at the underground river, whom I can't seem to find at the mom--
Bim, miner, has cancelled drink: interrupted by Carp.
Bim, miner, has been struck down.
Fuckdamnit!

So now I'm stuck with an over-crowded fortress filled with insane dwarves who are literally running around muttering to themselves, with no way to save them from the river of doom. It's only a matter of time before the remainder starve to death.

One of the many engravings found on the walls of the now-abandoned Thornlashed.

Dwarf Fortress Adventures, I

Dwarf Fortress is a freeware game by Bay 12 Games. I kept hearing about it from various sources and was really curious to try it because each time, the stories I heard were amazing. The only things that kept me from trying it were that A) the learning curve is apparently extremely steep and B) I don't need another thing to suck up what little free time I have left.

So naturally, I tried it. You can find it here.

They are not wrong about the learning curve. My very, very first experience with Dwarf Fortress was basically just staring at the interface and occasionally pressing keys to see what would happen. It wasn't until my second game that things started happening, but at that point I'd read several wiki pages explaining the basics.

Here's a recap of that second game:

Our wagon came to a halt by a river and my seven dwarf settlers were ready for adventure.

"Okay, Craelin," I said to Craelin, a female dwarf who was occasionally immodest and handled stress poorly, "unload the wagon."

She didn't so much unload it as smash it apart, leaving its contents laying in the grass where swarms of flies and stray horses could get at it.

"Um, right. Okay. Thod," I said, turning my attention now to Thod, a dwarf who disliked immodesty and needed alcohol to get through a working day, "go to the riverside and, uh... smooth some stones?" (I had to limit their actions to what I could get them to do. It didn't need to make sense, shut up.)

Thod happily obliged, lauching himself at the nearby stones and smoothing them vigorously. Meanwhile, I still had six idle dwarves just waiting around. After fighting with the interface some more, I figured out how to get them to start cutting wood. "Great! Craelin, you other guys, start chopping down all those trees. Take the lumber and make a stockpile right over there."

The industrious little dwarves happily set themselves to it, chopping down trees, making piles of lumber and smiling all the while. Yes, I thought, these dwarves have a good future ahead of them.

Then I happened to notice an awful lot of blood running downstream from where I had sent Thod.

System message: Thod has drowned.

Goddamn it.