Okol Anam: There Will Be Blood [Let's Play Dwarf Fortress!]

14th of Slate, 152

I remember the days when my people worried little about conflict.

We had spent almost 80 years without major conflict, our last being with the goblins from the Menace of Fliers. That peace was shattered after King Unib Elisdomas was eaten whole by the Flaxen Rawness, a dwarf that once went by the name Bembul Stafflands. We had thought his return a sign of victory, right before dark magic empowering his body sent him into a feeding frenzy on our former king.

Our new queen, Urvan Squeezeirons, feels we have grown too fat on peace, although I suspect her motive may have more to do with her lineage from the former dwarven colonies of the Godly Guild. With power now in her hands, she has decided that her ancestors formers lands rightfully belong in dwarven hands.

She is unconcerned that the ones who removed the Guild in the first place--the goblins of the Terrors of Cleaning--remain nearby. Their leader Vucar Skullsurns continues to rule the Terrors with a hairy, demonic fist. With their attention currently turned to the humans of Tundraterrors, myself and six other dwarves have been ordered to establish a colony on the edge of their territory.

I don't relish the task. I have been given to the new year to get my affairs in order.



1st of Granite, 153

Our caravan, the Spiteful Game, says goodbye to our home of Oilholes, and begin what is expected to be a two week trek into dangerous territory.




We have chosen an area that believe stands a good chance of containing iron. None of my comrades are fighters, but will will eventually need and army to hold back the Terrors of Cleaning once they discover we're here. And there is no better material to achieve that than steel.

Well, almost no better material. But I learned long ago to keep my eyes on the footsteps in front of me.



18th of Granite, 153






We arrive, and park our tired mule near a small hill. The flt terrain here will make spotting visitors both friendly and hostile easy. Our preliminary tests suggest the soil is thin, but we do not require much. Stone is much more of our element after all.

Perhaps I should introduce myself and my crew.




Brickroad and myself go far back. When we were kids, we had fun playing games, pretending we were the leaders of a secret club called the Organization. While I went to study commerce, Brickroad fell back on what she was good at: mining.




I don't know TheSL well, but Brickroad recommended her when I said I could use more than one dwarf to help dig us a new home. I'm told she and Brickroad became friends due to their shared hatred for bats. She seems friendly enough.




I was surprised when Sky Render accepted my invitation to join our crew. She always seemed so busy, but I could use a jack-of-all-trades like her. Sky Render claims to be proficient in Carpentry, Masonry, Mechanics and Building Design, although certainly is an expert in none. That is fine with me; until Mountainhomes can send us some new workers she is exactly what I need, when I need it.




Unlike the rest of the dwarves, Mogri asked *me* to join the caravan. She said she finds the whole idea of adventure exciting, although I warn her that I want her properity to not be adventure, but to keep plump helmets growing. We've brought some food and drink, but it won't last forever.




Alixsar is a bit of a grump, but he has two qualities I required. The first is that he is a pretty decent cook and brewer. The second is that he was willing to join our little merry suicide mission. It was literally only last month that he accepted! We're lucky to have him.




And finally, our medic, Dawnswalker. He is just out of dwarven medical school, and told me that he expects our future hole in the ground to be good hands on training experience. He is uncertain if he wants to be a medic forever, but is hoping if things go well he can open a school.

Oh, and last but not least...




Me.

As Brickroad and TheSL start grabbing their copper picks, I take the time to roll out my plans:




We'll dig a path large enough for visiting caravans deep into this hill. A high priority will be creating a drawbridge to keep unwanted visitors out, and this will give us some room to put barracks and traps down if we need to.

At the end of the hallway we'll have stairs down into our fortress. I've told TheSL to dig a room out to the east to hold a temporary dormitory for us all. Once we have proper lodgings, we'll turn it into a small office for me to use when caravans arrive, as well as a place to store trade goods.

I'm hoping this is all sand, at least on the first level. Once we dig deeper we can hopefully dig space for a farm so Mogri can start planting.




Immediately below, we'll have the bulk of our craftdwarves, woodworkers, masons, jewelers, and more will gather. Below that...




Storage space. We'll keep goods such as cloth, gems, leather, metal bars, etc. here. I've also pencilled in a space to the south for a hospital. Where this exactly goes is likely going to depend on how easy water is to find, but it's as good a place as any for now.

Below that...




More storage space! I plan to store more of our wood and stone here.




Our next floor will be for our temples. I am also planning this floor to contain some space for offices and private dining rooms.




Plans for a grand dining hall lie below our temple area, with sufficient space to store food and booze. We'll put our kitchens and stills here in easy reach of all those plump helmets Mogri is sure to make.




Next we have our living area. I suspect morale will be a constant worry, so I've ensured that each dwarf recieves a sizable space to call their own. Included in this are seven larger rooms for myself and our caravan. I've also outlines two larger rooms for future needs.




Our penultimate floor will be our tomb. The thinner recesses--and by the grace of Stettad I hope we don't need them all--will be for the general populace. The larger chambers will be for those who died exceptional deaths.




Our final floor will hold both a refuse pile, and space for jail cells. I believe keeping our citizens in doors will be crucial, and am mulling plans to efficently dispose of ny corpses. For now, corpses will go outside.




Beyond our home we'll dig for riches in order to fuel our colony. We'll initially start by digging 10 "floors" down. Hopefully if there is some sort of flux stone we can use to make steel, we'll find it. Our first order of business once we've sufficently dug out enough space above will be finding water; all of the pools around here are stagnant, and Dawnswalker says that makes them unsafe to drink.




I order Sky Render to fell some trees while Mogri and Dawnswalker start hauling our caravan's load. I grab a pickaxe myself to help Brickroad and TheSL: we must work quickly.

28th Granite, 153

Oh gods. They never warned me of this.




I order our goods and animals brought into our new tunnel. Whatever--or whosever--blood this is, I want as little of it as possible falling on us and the livestock. My instincts to stay underground as much as possible will surely prove correct.




Brickroad and TheSL mostly ignore it as their focus is in digging us out a new home. Dawnswalker doesn't have their excuse to avoid the weather however. Of all of us dwarves, it's our medic who's most bothered by blood. Great.



8th of Slate, 153




After over a week of human blood falling on our heads, it breaks. The whole area outside our home, along with a good deal of our supplies, is covered in the stuff. Gross. Well at least that's over.



9th of Slate, 153

The blood rain has come back. Dawnswalker looks like he is on the verge of tears.




On the bright side, we've discovered Hematite! We'll be able to use this to create iron. Hopefully we'll discover some sort of flux stone so we can turn this into steel.



14th of Slate, 153

Well good news bad news.

It's still raining.

But it's... water! Not blood!




Mogri starts planting our first farm of plump helmets. I've ordered our miners to make enough room for several plots, as well as some space for future nest boxes. If we can get some fungus growing down here, I might dig a space for our animals to graze in.



1st of Felsite

The human blood rain is back. *sigh*



1st of Hematite




As summer begins, we've managed to move all our supplies inside, as well as a decent supply of wood. I've asked Sky Render to make both beds and wheelbarrows for now, our next priorty being getting a working drawbridge up.

We have more than enough space to farm; I will worry about a pasture when we have more animals to worry about.




Brickroad and the SL have also cleared our some workspaces, as well as the areas beneath for storage. I set a wood and stone stockpile below, with plans to expand them in the future.

So ends the spring.



It is still raining blood.

FINALLY.

I.

HAVE COME BACK.

TO THE TALKING TIME LET'S PLAY FORUMS!

Welcome to my Dwarf Fortress LP! For those of you who are unfamiliar with Dwarf Fortress, it's a game that's been in development for years by two guys. It's hard to truly encapsulate the game in a description, but "dwarven colony simulator" is probably as good as you are going to be able to do.

Dwarf Fortress is two things:

1) Free to play
2) Mind boggingly obtuse

The game itself does not have a tutorial, although you can find a pretty decent one here: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Quickstart_guide

This is also the SECOND Dwarf Fortress LP on TT! You can read the first, by LaularuKyrumo here: http://www.talking-time.net/showthread.php?p=1698648
and here: http://www.talking-time.net/showthread.php?t=15970


As you may have noticed, Dwarf Fortress uses the most advanced of computer graphics: Code Page 437 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437). There are various graphical packs you can purchase, but I'm too much of a purist. I'll try and explain screenshots that may not make a whole lot of sense. For example, this one:




1) This is our initial caravan. The symbols with the big smiles are our dwarves. Their colour corresponds to their dominant job (i.e. what they're best at).

The "c's" are hens, which I've brought along for a source of eggs and potentially emergency rations. The "d's" are dogs, which will be on lookout duty. The grey "M" is a mule, who will likely be slaughtered when I get chance. There is also a Yak Cow in that mess (likely covered up by another symbol) who is also likely to be slaughtered because we've got to save the frames.

2) Those brown "O"'s are tree trunks. They'll be our main source of wood.

3) Those black "O"'s in a brown highlight are also trees, but trees I've ordered to be cut down. While we could ask any dwarf to go crazy with the tree cutting, we don't want dwarves running tooo far from our base. You never know when something dangerous will appear.

4) Those green triangles aren't trees; they're ramps. They indicate that a dwarf (or any other creature) can use that square to get to the next level above. The next level above is just a short hill, and as you can only see one "Z" level at a time it's currently blacked out.

5) As you may have guessed, that's water. Not a lot of water, just a stagnant pool of the stuff. As per 4) above, the blue triangles indicates ramps or slopes that move at least one level down towards the pool of water.


As I said, this won't be a tutorial, but feel free to ask questions if anything puzzles you. You're also more than welcome to offer suggestions! I consider myself a relative novice at Dwarf Fortressing, so I'm hoping we'll all have fun.


Can I be a dwarf?

Yes you can! Simply write in this thread that you and/or your friend wants to be a dwarf. Feel free to give any ambitions (i.e. want to be a soldier, gemcutter, engraver, etc.) and I'll do my best to accomodate.

I'll also take suggestions for nicknames! (The initial ones were simply a list of the LPers on this forum with the most views).

As a note: I've capped the number of dwarves who can live at this fortress at 100. That should be plenty without turning my laptop here into mush.


Any other questions?

Ask in the thread! LET'S LP!


Current "To be Dwarfed" Roster:

Galadrome (military leader?)
aturtledoesbite (armorsmith?)
LancerECNM
LaularuKyrumo
Solitayre

I want to be a dwarf! A craftsman of some kind, please.

I'm not sure how I feel about this...

Oh yeah, there we go.


But seriously, I'm happy to be planting some plump helmets for you all. I find DF LPs to be very dense reading, but I will do my best to keep up!

Aside from Dwarf descriptions (which, lets be honest, you'll only read if the dwarf is yours. Maybe.) I'm going to try and keep the amount of text down.

If there is anything (Mogri or otherwise) thinks would be helpful, please let me know!

- Eddie

Dwarfs!

Would like to be a dwarf Kylie?

Maybe two dwarves?

I...
what?

no, no. I just managed to become two people. I'm barely technically one Dwarf!

The upcoming migrant wave gave us three new adult dwarves, and three children*. Because Children take a while to grow to adults (their ages are 6, 3 and 1 years old) I'm going to give them names of once active TT's as they are unlikely to do much of anything in this LP.

- Eddie

*congrats Mightblue and Gerad, you two have clearly been busy!

Dwarf Fortress is one of my favourite games! Hella hella slick rick.

I'm all in, I'd like to be a dwarf! I'd prefer a Swordsdwarf. In such dark lands, protection can't be neglected. I'm also going to call being the captain of the militia. Because I always make myself a dwarf when I play and always make him the captain of the militia.

EDIT: Make sure I'm a male so I don't get pregnant. Not good to give birth during an emergency.

A dorf!

What jobs of dorfs are there?

I can make you You can be whatever you want! Even dwarf president!*

- Eddie

*Dwarven civilization is a monarchy, not a republic

Let's go for a forgedorf then! Make good armor!

This is true of me in real life as well.

I have no idea what this game is, and it kind of hurts my eyes just looking at screenshots so I have no idea how someone could play it, but I'm flattered that you put me in anyway! Thanks!

I didn't say WATER I said ALE! What kind of dwarves are we?!

Dear Fluffems,

I have heard that down in Okol Anam, it rains human blood. I was skeptical of the abilities of those poor fools that set out to claim those lands, but if they have already raised an army to slay so many humans in battle, it must be a blessed journey. I have few useful skills, but I feel that I must see this history writ myself.

Goodbye you insufferable cat,
Lancer

I wanna be a dorf

Ones that are smart enough to not waste perfectly good booze washing infected cuts!

- Eddie

That is some wonderful and adorable pixel art on B5.

I await your artistic masterpiece's eventual ruin by aquifer with bated breath.

also looking forward to this in general... once I had the equipment and the time to resume the LP, I thought I'd continue waiting, because I wanted the new emotional system to be unbroken, as well as sieges and other sources of Fun that had been bugged and/or nerfed. Then I forgot all about DF, whoops~

I'll keep an eye on this thread and use it as data for deciding whether DF is sufficiently unbugged for play. (Though I'm also freaking hyped for magic and artefacts, oh boy!)

I picked a site without an aquifer so I'd be pretty shocked if I found one! I've also dug several floors beneath it. There will of course be artifacts, but no magic as that hasn't been implemented yet.

Glad you agreed to sign up as a dwarf LaularuKyrumo*!

- Eddie

*may not have actually volunteered

May I be some manner of dwarf wizard?

If by "Wizard" you mean "corpse hauler" then yes.

Honestly surprised you didn't want to be a bard but no take backs!

- Eddie

6th Hematite, 153

The blood turns to water again, and I hope it lasts long enough to wash all of the human blood away. I don't want to give the wrong impressions to visitors.

Sky Render has started work on a drawbridge meant to keep intruders out. So far aside from some echidnas nothing too threatening has come near, but until we can build and equip a military...



13th Hematite, 153

The weather clears, and Sky Render announces that she's finished the drawbridge!

A drink is in order! I've just got my lips around the dwarven rum tap (note in margins: craft mugs) when Sky Render sheepishly looks at me.

"Hey Boss, I'm proud of the work I did on that bridge and all, but why did you want the bridge to retract into the ground rather than to make a temporary barrier?"

I spit-take some rum into Sky Render's face as I rush over to my fortress designs.




While the word "drawbridge" is there in clear charcoal, I had neglected to indicate how it should raise.

I can't make eye contact with Sky Render--least of which because he hasn't cleaned up the rum now on her face--as I mutter in embarrassment for her to deconstruct the bridge and fix it properly so it raises to the north.

"Please keep this under your beard," I whisper to her.

"The rum?"

"THE BRIDGE!"

"What about the rum?"



22nd Hematite, 153

The human blood begins to rain again, matching my mood over the whole bridge fiasco. At least the error was caught before a horde of goblins came for us. I heard rumours before I left of a former dwarven colony named Fogwall that had missed their error. It's said it eventually resulted in the colony being overrun with vampries, althought that sounds ridiculous.



7th Malachite, 153




Normal-ish rain, Sky Render gets the NEW bridge finished and linked to the lever (again). I test it to ensure it works properly and go back for some more rum to hopefully forget the whole ordeal.



12th Malachite, 153

Guess what's back? I wonder if I caught some of the blood in barrels if there'd be any buyers. Maybe that Fogwell place.



15th Malachite, 153

Migrants! Six of them!




A married couple, Mightyblue and Gerad, arrive with three of their kids aged 6, 3 and 1. I'm happy to see more dwarves, but I wonder what they were thinking bringing kids so young.




Mightyblue has a forced smile on her face as I great her.

"Lousy weather! Is the rain always so thick and... blood?" she says.

"Sometimes it's... thin? Blood?" I lie back.

Mightyblue mentions she's learning how to shoot. I mentally mark her down for future military service. She mentions she's otherwise okay at Gelding. That... is a bit of a narrow skill set.

I nod and tell her I'll see about getting her a crossbow.




Gerad is a burly dwarf. He gruffly addresses me.

"Need a cook?"

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt, but are you good at anything else?"

"... could you use a crafter?"

"Sure, we need some nest boxes for the hens and..."

"I'M YOUR DWARF!" he bellows, and he runs off to our Craftsdwarves workstation.




"Has he, uh, ever worked with stone?" I ask a stunned Mightyblue.

She shrugs before introducing me to her three kids. I'm not thrilled at the prospect of feeding her brood for a decade before I can put them to work, but I suppose "willing to move to a place that rains human blood" means my pool of potential migrants is low.




The lone dwarf left is a spunky girl who introduces herself as Kylie.

"How old are you?" I ask suspiciously.

"Fifteen!" she beams.

I raise an eyebrow.

"Fifteen next year," she says into her shoes.

I pause.

"Good enough! Grab some of that lumber and get it downstairs!" I order.

She salutes and runs off, splashing through blood puddles.



13th Galena, 153

We've had our first casualty.




A Yak Cow found starved to death. This might have been preventable had I allowed the animal to sit in the bloody rain, but he was destined for the slaughterhouse anyway.

The mule we brought with us is looking thin as well; I wouldn't be sad if it died as well but I'm worried about it attractive predators.


1st of Limestone, 153

With another three months done, our fortress is beginning to really take shape.




Sky Render has not only finished the bridge, but created a trading post as well. The nest boxes I asked Gerad to make have also finished and been put into place. It's only a matter of time before our hens start using them.

The crafts that Gerad has been making have been... interesting. In between the random scepters and rings he's made, he chose the make a basalt figurines of a clownfish, Stettad (our diety of jewels and wealht) and of the late dwrf Zulban Playfulceiling... after he was reanimated by the necromancer Uzin Carryperplex.

Maybe I should tell him to stick with fish and gods.




Our crafting area has pretty much been dug out, although currently quite bare. I have plans to fill most of those spots, with room to spare.




The two floors where we'll initially store crafting materials have both been dug out as well. I need to think about how I divvy all the space up for materials.




Finally, we're still missing beds and doors, but we've got individual rooms at least. We'll have room for more than a dozen of the next dwarves who come to live with us.

Brickroad came up to me the other day and asked me why I have the biggest room. I laughed at such a ridiculous question.

It's time for a semi-regular...

HOW DOES DWARF WORK?

As I said before, this is not an LP that can hope to cover all the bases to make it a proper tutorial, but I realized that aside from some vague mentions, I didn't explain how the game plays!

Without going into deep detail, you don't order dwarves directly in this game. What you do instead is you ask that tasks be done, and manage your dwarves such that you permit some dwarves (but not others) to do those tasks. Dwarves will then choose, based off of everything that needs doing, what exactly to do.

Allow me to borrow a dwarf from a different playthrough to help illustrate. Let's look at Thikut Solontenshed, Macedwarf:




All dwarves have skills that they basically gain (and increase) through doing. Thikut here was drafted into Osiramost (this dwarven fortress) and has been training for the day when he can properly crush the skulls of his enemies.

Some of the skills are pretty self-explanatory, the others... don't worry bout them. Skills are ranked as follows:

Dabbling -> Novice -> Adequate -> Competent -> Skilled -> Proficient -> Talented -> Adept -> Expert -> Professional -> Accomplished -> Great -> Master -> High Master -> Grand Master -> Legendary

You don't need to have any "ranks" in a skill to try and use said skill, but higher ranks produce better results. In some cases it will be hitting properly with a weapon, speeding up how much a task takes, or producing very exceptional pieces of work that are worth more.

Thikut here has been training as a Macedwarf, and has what amounts to basic proficiency in those skills. He's also a decent carpenter, and a very good dyer. As carpentry is useful for making everyday objects like beds, chests and wood bolts and dying is only good for boosting the value of cloth, he gets far less use out of the latter. The rest are generally social skills that have a small effect when interacting with other dwarves.

You may also notice the "crutch-walking" skill; creatures in this game can lose individual body parts. In Thikut's case, he lost use of his foot after getting into a fight, so he uses crutches to walk around.

So that helps tell you what a dwarf is good at. Let's see what he is allowed to do:




This is the basic list of jobs. Most of these categories have sub-categories. Farming/Related, as an example, includes not just farming, but skills like butchery, wood burning and brewing. Each can be turned on or off individually.





As an example, Thikut will be happy to bring food and water to immobile patients/prisoners, but won't roll up his sleeves and play doctor.

We can set labours in various ways, such as through individual workshops.




This is a Jeweler's Workshop, which basically allows dwarves to either cut gems (increasing their value) or encrust items with gems (increasing their value). It requires someone with the Gem Cutting skill, which Thikut does not have selected. If we queue up some gems to be cut, it will signal that any dwarf with the gem cutting skill on that this is something they could do.

Of course, if you permit *every* dwarf to cut gems you'll find it more difficult to create specialists, who are regularly cut spectacular gems. The same is true for all labours; with some exceptions, you (generally) want to have specific dwarves for specific tasks. To encourage this, you also probably want those specific dwarves not doing other tasks, so your high adept gem cutter isn't out chopping down trees.




If a dwarf doesn't have a task to do--such as Kulet here--that means the labours you have active are probably all being filled by other dwarves. It sometimes means they're just figuring out what they could be doing! But large numbers of idle dwarves is usually a sign you should find work for them to do.


DWARF HISTORY: THERE'S A LOT

With a few exceptions, I am not just dropping random names into this LP. One of the cool things about Dwarf Fortress is that most dwarves and other figures have actual histories behind them.

I mentioned that Gerad crafted a figurine of the necromancer Uzin Carryperplex. Dwarf Fortress has a "Legends" feature, that while concoluted to access, give you a peak at the history of all of these figures your dwarves carve into statues/walls/legendary artifacts. Let's see who Uzin Carryperplex was!




We can see here a bit of the early history of the Necromancer. A former dancer, a run-in with the cyclops Ada Fushsialeaped caused her to create the Auburn League, where she likely met and married An Soundsaffron. Checking with An's history, the two would begin worshiping Gogol Necroash, and eventually both become necromancers (after being taught be a dwarf necromancer named Vabok Cloakboats). Vabok's teacher? Uzin.

Uzin may just be the OG necromancer in this world, learning the dark arts through a silver tablet named Fatedashes. Fatedashes was a legendary silver slab, created by Gogol Necroash in the year 21. Gogol is a human god, often depicted as a rotting male human and associated with suicide and death.

After zombifying four dwarves in 31, Uzin turned her sights to... literature?




Guess four undead servants was enough. She would go onto have six kids with her husband, and hasn't done anything of note in over 30 years. Her husband was no literature slouch either, penning such works as "The Human Questioned: My Only Mistake" and it's sequel, "The Humans Might Help." He's got like, six books about a Tower, which I can only assume is either a YA series, or books about Spikescomets, the tower the two call home.

Indeed, most dwarves have some sort of history in the world. The weird exception are our initial seven dwarves; we're all of "unknown parentage." Kylie meanwhile, has parents and siblings (she is the fourth eldest daughter of a couple). Or uh, has a parent.

Her mom, a farmer, was killed by a grizzly bear man named Focusedrings when Kylie was two years old.

Her dad is still alive, living in Earthraked. Her eldest sister is the sheriff of the Wordy Merchants, her second oldest sister is the militia commander of The Glove of Charms.

Perhaps, one day, the future career of young Kylie?

Raining blood and carving idols of old necromancers. I'm pretty sure you're creating the Dwarven equivalent of Yharnam here Eddie.

I, for one, relish the idea of putting Kylie to militia training.

Have her work a screw pump to get her strength up... I'm pretty sure that the Shaft of Enlightenment was fixed, but I don't know about Danger Rooms or Coinstars. (Techniques to rapidly prepare someone for military service. Coinstars are a tactic where dwarves are heavily armored and pelted with small falling objects, Danger Rooms are hallways where heavily armored dwarves are stationed to stand still and be poked with wooden training weapons, and the Shaft of Enlightenment is a bug where dwarves can gain Legendary+85 skill in a wielded weapon by falling onto an upright spear from a given height.)

I tried a danger room once. Had all my dwarves in bronze or better armor, head to toe with cloaks. Crammed em all into a room and had a military dwarf flip a switch to activate wood training spear traps.

Three died.

(We will be avoiding most exploits on this run I imagine.)

- Eddie