finding stories in Dwarf Fortress

[@wesleyfilms]

So far, all my stories end with "and then everyone died, the end."

[@TehCakeIzALie1]

In fairness, every story ends that way if it goes on for long enough. Unless necromancers are involved. Invest in necromancy today!

[@chaotickreg7024]

Dang, that's the ending I had planned for my life.

[@Arthur-Morgan42069]

Good ol Dwarf Fortress

[@mrs7195]

Just as real life.

[@BeardedBooper]

@@chaotickreg7024 Welp. Guess you'll have to live forever now.

[@ArcLightShock37]

One of my dwarves had a tree fall on her. She completely lost the use of her right arm and left leg. She was out of the hospital and hobbling around on a crutch almost instantly and doing what work she could with just her left hand while walking around with a crutch. Her mood? "Annoyed at having suffered a minor injury." I nicknamed her Edward Elric and made her the baroness once the fortress got big enough to have nobility. That sort of attitude and work ethic deserves reward.

[@Anthropomorph0]

My first good story happened today. For the fist time a large monster attacked my fort, an armed giantesse. She sprinted for the gate as i gathered my military in panic but one of the soldiers, a novice speardwarf, was outside gathering wood and she caught up with him by the gate. He must have been full of both adrenalin and booze though because before the giantesse could make a move he had stabbed her in the hand. Then after dodging he stabbed her again in the foot, with the spear getting stuck. He recovered his weapon and stabbed her again in the chest and again with the weapon getting lodged in the chest before swiftly recovering it a second time. After that she apparently tried to lift him by the teeth with her toes but he managed to stay upright and stabbed her for the last time in the head and she swiftly bled out. The novice speardwarf, previously with only a kea kill to his name, had dispatched of the giant creature and did so without taking as much as a bruise. A bit shaken but far from panicking he resumed gathering wood from the felled willows by the brook and the fortress went back to it's everyday life.

[@rhnirsilva652]

he just found a strange tree

[@Pok-qq9lt]

I love spears xD

[@da-p6814]

sounds like its time to appoint a new champion

[@roetemeteor]

So new goal for you. Giants, Ogres, and the like can be caught in cages, and they can be tamed, because they can learn. Some of you out there reading this instantly hear "Ogre and Giant military beasts, yeah yeah yeah." Hold on there, milk drinkers, because we aren't full on D O R F yet. The end goal here is to get a Female AND Male ogre or giant. When they HOO-HOO, and they absolutely will to the dismay of any dwarves walking nearby or underneath them, they have children. Children that are not labeled as beasts but as citizens *BECAUSE THEY ARE ABLE TO LEARN.* _OGRE FORTRESS._ (Do note, optimally, you'll get a chance for this. Giants lack innate proficiency for weapons, so they must be trained once born like any dwarf. They also, having no culture or any sort of concept of it, means they do NOT wear clothing. This isn't an issue for mommy or daddy, but your Giant or Ogre siblings are not going to be able to fit into any clothing you can produce, much less wear one. )

[@Anthropomorph0]

@@roetemeteor That sound amazing and amazingly dumb. I love it! Still learning the basics but I'll set it as a goal for the future. ^^

[@RavenMinis]

I will always remember the first time I really figured out how to make squads/ the military work. That was the plan I set out with for the fortress, this was around 5 years ago now. I learned that the best military would require constant training, so I built them a golden barracks with a waterfall. They became super elite, and I eventually gave each of those 5 dwarfs command of their own squads. One squad became the Subterranean Assault Squad (S.A.S.) and was stationed in the first cavern layer. Eventually a forgotten beast arrived. It's been so long and I remember that it was made from quivering jelly, and to beware its deadly mist. I sent the S.A.S. to fight it, and the captain ran in front (from the original squad) and killed the beast with one thrust of her silver spear. The beast erupted into a pink acidic mist.... she spent the rest of her days in a hospital bed, without any arms or legs, or skin... then I had to learn how hospitals worked...

[@Oddbolt]

I've started making custom commissioned statues based on eventful moments in my current fort. The most recent one was a giant flying plains titan with web shooting abilities flew over my fort, and I was certain we were doomed. One of my brave (or stupid) hunters, Kulet, fired a single copper bolt at it from the staircase into my military training grounds. The beast swooped down and landed on him, covering him in web and severing his head from his body. Before the beast could turn to attack the rest of my people a spearsdwarf who had been conveniently training right next to the staircase jammed his spear directly in the titans skull, killing it instantly. After the dust settled I noticed one of the bolts my hunter shot was lying locked on the ground next to his body, so I made a display stand, assigned the lone bolt and placed it next to his coffin and slab in a tomb dedicated to the brave (stupid) hero, Kulet. I commissioned a statue of him shooting the titan named 'The Sacrificial Copper Bolt' and put it right in the center of my tavern, so no dwarf will forget his sacrifice that potentially saved all of their lives that day.

[@raphaelcardoso7927]

how do you customize statues? mine are just random xD

[@MirrorHall_Clay]

@@raphaelcardoso7927 when you order a statue to be made, before it's an active order (shows a clipboard with a checkmark on it) you can click the magnifying glass to specify the material and/or image, you can create a custom image with that

[@snickle1980]

i too am a statue maker who makes statues for events. The goblin is crying . the dog is laughing with doren.

[@paavola8758]

My current fortress has a cavern layer tavern that’s open to everyone, meant to attract monster slayers etc. I think I got the idea from you! Anyway, I had walled of my area of the cavern and felt relatively safe. I made a small trap ”gauntlet” before the door that connected to rest of the cavern area to my area so I could safely harvest metal armour and weapons from cavern dwellers. My metal industry was struggling and I had accidentally upset my allied dwarven civilization by crushing their trade caravan with my fortress entrance drawbridge during a giant attack, making getting steel difficult. Anyway, all was good but then a forgotten beast appeared, one of those fire starter bastards. I quickly lock it out. But it almost burns everything outside my area of the cavern and some of my straggling dwarves also. I decide to open the door to my area and let it run the gauntlet. I didn’t remember that FGs don’t trigger traps… The FG runs through the gauntlet and proceeds into the cavern tavern, slaughtering and burning everything inside, it’s pandemonium. I lock the doors to tavern and say a quick prayer to all the 10+ unfortunate souls inside the tavern. Then the FG just stops. It has seemingly lost it’s vision in all the chaos. I hatch a plan to carve arrow slits into the smoothed tavern walls and create a shooting gallery to fell the beast, thinking I’ll probably be safe doing this if the beast is blind. As my stonecarving dwarves get to work, the beast stirs and finds a ramp within the tavern that I forgot about and scales the tavern walls, and of course I also forgot about there being no roof to the place. So the beast attacks my stonecarvers. My legendary mason/stonecarver faces the thing head on, and mind you in all the combat before this the FG had only managed to sustain one hit, so I was worried my one dwarf stone industry was doomed. But then my dwarf goes full Van Damme on the beast and swiftly decapitates it with a single kick to the neck. It’s over in seconds, crisis averted 😂

[@solaralva]

your videos really helped me search for my own adventures and stories, instead of just reading what happened to the dwarves (eventhough that can also be very entertaining) i am currently on a mission to produce the worlds most traumatized baby (she grew up on the arm of my militia commander, her father lost both hands and his nose in a fight against a minotaur while he bit the monster to death, her mother is also high priestress of a death cult)

[@MrLekorrigan]

On your way to create a dwarf wednesday Adams

[@Olothur]

Oh, my fighing couple of militiadwarves recently took their child in raid into the battle of 120 deaths. I noticed a child returning from raid with his obsidian toy axe among my warriors and was surprised and troubled. I didn't know dwarves take "bring a child to work day" this seriously.

[@suzukiegi5699]

How did the experiment turn out? Curious minds needs to know.

[@urielsalvador2618]

cool story I wish stuff like this happened in my game

[@user-od9cu7ix5s]

bins please

[@L_Withers]

Really enjoying your videos, you come up with some fun ideas for your fortresses and your presentation in that quiet, calm voice of everyone dying in a lava pit or whatever... Just priceless!

[@tefnutofhoney2832]

My stories mostly come from mod experimentation. Fun fact, if you make blind cave ogres capable of forming a civilization like the goblins, they WILL become the only peoples on the map, and will kill all the megabeasts At least a few versions ago

[@johnnygonelli5169]

What's the name of the mod Ogres are cool

[@tefnutofhoney2832]

@@johnnygonelli5169 oh that mods looooong unusable, and was never publicly released iirc.

[@snickle1980]

Tell us about other mods we cant use. I'm fascinated. 😁 No, but on a serious note, anything which alters the constant encroachment of the dark towers would be amazing. Necros keep taking over my worlds. @@tefnutofhoney2832

[@BlindiRL]

I just got to say that I love this video

[@burnin8able]

I haven't played a whole lot of DF, and have only the one fort currently, but my favorite story so far is from the first actual goblin offensive mounted against my fort. 6 goblins in full platemail with crossbows attacked my fort from the north, and so I sent my two squads out to fight them. My crossbowdwarf squad decided to engage first, and given that they had no armor, and refused to take the bolts that I had provided them, they basically charged unarmed and were slaughtered as a result. then, before my squad of six axedwarfs with full steel equipment could arrive, the goblins just started shooting puppies on the surface instead of heading down and attacking the mostly unarmed populace. the puppies were swiftly avenged once my troops attacked properly. truly goblins are monsters with no redeeming qualities.

[@viindy3766]

Eye opening video, came from rimworld and figured out how to keep a basic fort up for awhile, makes me want to start losing so I can have fun

[@ImprezoweSwiry]

very nice, I'm gonna start naming first 7 dwarfs. I usually give them titles after they done something worthy of a dwarf ("Goblin Nightmare" after singlehandedly killing whole squad of them, for example) so I can remember who did what I wish we could add some notes to the dwarfs :D

[@o_sch]

I sometimes name them with the dwarvish word that describes them. Like a metalsmith I will name 'Kel' meaning metal.

[@sicksock435446]

I remember the first time I embarked next to an ocean tile. My plan was to build an aboveground fortress made of glass on the beach using the abundance of surface sand, wood as fuel and selling glass crafts. The fort nearly died early on by a were-buffalo who infected several dwarves but we pulled through. As I began the creation as my great glass fortress my brother inquired about my game and I regaled him with the story of my fort. Immediately he started laughing. I didn't understand why until he told me why he found my fortress so funny. I was building an enormous city out of glass. Green glass to be specific. An enormous green glass city populated by... dwarves. He related my fortress to the Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz. I never played that fortress again.

[@snickle1980]

=( but thats so badass! you could have paved a yellow brick road made of gold. You could have captured a man of tin, a lion and a human and gathered your party before venturing forth! You could have literally gone to see the wizard...and kill him. All these options, and you ran away? You should go make and make the emerald city.

[@dtupper]

Thank you Hoodie. I've been playing Dwarf Fortress for nearly 15 years, since right after the Z-level update. I remember reading Boatmurdered as it happened on SA. Your stories brought me back to those. I find it difficult to explain why I keep coming back to DF and how I continue enjoying it but the tips you give here are excellent and wise.

[@snickle1980]

MOD CHALLENGE! Dig a hole in your back yard, and recreate your latest fort build...do so within ten days, or get banned...from KZbin. Do i care if you have a back yard? No.

[@bob77576]

My most recent fort ended up being a nursery where 90 precent of my migrants were children for the first 5 waves or so. Made doing anything quite difficult and defence became extremely difficult

[@PumpkanTheBuilder]

i had a single dwarven child fend off a monstrous cyclops for a good 30 seconds irl which doesn't sound like a lot but for a lone dwarven child is incredibly impressive. the little bastard put up a good fight and lived till my guard showed up, im proud.

[@ultimateexergon]

Reminds me of a dwarven child I had recently which killed a forgotten beast by kicking it to death

[@kimamato5196]

@@ultimateexergon Dwarven children are made from crazy stuff. My militia commander's 4 year old daughter was caught outside during a goblin siege, and ripped a goblin's throat out on her way back to the fortress, though she got shot in the neck for her trouble and died of being unable to breathe. Not a single goblin escaped that day.

[@mendozakoby]

For me, it's often the non-dwarves that stand out as there are far less of them. I regularly try to accept long term residents until they become citizens, then draft them into a sort of "foreign legion" and follow their exploits ever since I had a gorlak hammerman monster slayer live in my fort, run solo into an approaching goblin horde in defence of his adoptive homeland, die, and get resurrected as an intelligent undead by my necromancer Capt of the guard. Needless to say I had him elevated into a duke

[@grassypond]

On the note of making notes; I have spend countless hours in Adventure Mode, not only to go monster hunting, but also to collect as many names and rumors as possible to go find in Legends Mode later. Legends feels like reading through an endless phonebook when you don't know where to start looking, so it felt like I was a true historian making breakthoughs whenever I make crazy connections.

[@Shmandalf]

I think Embark with a plan is particularly important. It gives you something to work towards and is really satisfying to see progress on. I recently started one involving a roc-worshipping group of dwarves, who were building a giant microcline tower called The Pillar of Talons to house her should she ever grace them with her presence. It adds a lot of flavor to your fort and gives you challenges to overcome.

[@alik8399]

READING is a really big part. I started slowly because someone recommended it and now i know that my Legendary engraver has one hand missing and the other mangled. (Besides that he has a tragic but also wholesome history/ he lost his wife which led him to want to help people and has a grown kid etc.) And something happend in 255 that left most of my dwarves traumatised.

[@oathkeeperofoblivion972]

Hey! It was...Kruggsmash's scorchfountain that got me into dwarf fortress. I'd always enjoyed playing DF, even if I never got very far. The steam version has made things so much easier, I feel like I can better navigate the game with the UI changes, and I hope to have stories of my own soon, be they about my current ambition: taming cave dragons, or a more spontaneous thing, like how I repelled an invasion or forgotten beast in a cool way. Or even how my fortress fell in a spectacular blaze of glory

[@snickle1980]

something awful s stories brought me here. long ago

[@saint-xiv2649]

my funny little story is because I slacked on making a proper military, only have the commander equiped and trained due to a lack of fuel to make steel. a minotaur came, and I sent out the commander to hopefully kill him, but they ended up fighting until both of them passed out from wounds and exhaustion. I then made 9 other peasants in a squad and sent them to kill the unconcious minotaur, which was several in game days of them beating it with their bare hands, passing out from exhaustion, and getting back up to continue the beating, all while the minotaur was lying there, alive but unconsious.

[@UrkkiTheMan]

Best argument video for DW to actually having a UI that encourages and enables following these stories with open and paper

[@nonobots]

Thank you for the great videos. Sharing loads of wisdom with this one! I've been playing as long as you have and still it was inspiring. The point about allowing for some chaos and having a plan as a conversation with the game I needed to hear.

[@TLGGorilla]

I think why a lot of people coming on to Dwarf Fortress (including myself when I was still deciding to buy the game) is that some of the stories of people's forts border more on fan fiction than in game mechanics. And with all the people that didn't want to learn the ascii graphics, we just took their full word for all of it. There is definitely a bit of legwork on the player's end to make connections and apply events on to a larger narrative. There may have just been a bit of a false expectation from people just jumping into premium for the first time.

[@BobrLovr]

this needs to be the top comment

[@Sworddeath727]

An interesting note in my game at the same moment as watching this I put a second bronze colossus in a pit i want to use to kill goblins using the volunteer colossi. I had no idea if they would fight or not (they don't), also since i finished the pit no goblin invasion has come in a while...

[@blueriv]

While your tips may seem relatively obvious, to a man as oblivious as myself they will no doubt be an absolute godsend, that is, whenever my dwarves decide to survive longer then half an hour

[@markmongan]

My expedition leader/milita captain was down "safley" fishing one day when my first forgotten beast ever came up from the depths. He had his gear on him and soloed it with his silver hammer right there on the staircase! All that training paid off!

[@FourEyedBird]

bins are the enemy, that is the proper stockpile management

[@Cheese_Cretin]

I really apprichate this video, DF is a game I love the idea of, and am currently getting into. Curently making my second fortress around a volcano, gonna do cool stuff with lava (If I don't burn all of my dwarfs to a crisp first that is). My (first) exdeption leader was killed by a giant mantis one of our dogs were killed aswell, and a child was mauled by a giant crow. incredible. Had a child dwarf named Reg in my last fortress who went tow to tow with a giant cave spider! After Reg fell down a small ditch, the spider found him and starting attacking him, Reg felt very unsatisfied while fighting, but fended it off all by himself! (He was 8 and unarmed...) The wounded spider proceeded to crawl up the central stairwell of my fort, and murder 5 adult dwarfs. Reg is one crazy bastard.

[@BillyLemonZest]

Great advice. Awesome videos. Always look forward to the next one

[@decado7]

Love your story telling man, keep making videos, they're extremely entertaining. I find so many Let's Plays or what not of the game just some random person talking at length about what they're doing, the game on pause for 8 out of 10 minutes. It's just so dull. I love these shorter, to the point, narrative driven videos - they're so refreshing. Keep it up

[@MesieurOjete]

I personally find more engaging when before starting a game i get to know my civ in legends mode, in my last fort I started a small world with only 5 years and I got to know all 4 dwarven civs, one was attacked by a hidra and got a settlement destroyed, other was killing goblings very succesfully, but I ended picking one who lost their queen in an attack led by a fire demon on a human settlement they were allied with. I'm trying to turn the tide on the war while keeping a happy fort, and the game keeps providing interesting stories meanwhile.

[@edwardgrin8556]

Two stages of playing Dwarf Fortress: - I have no idea what to do but it's fun! - I have idea what to do and NOW we gonna fun!

[@LookUsArts]

I was thinking many times about naming my dwarfs with names of friends and family members to make more personal but you are the first KZbinr who suggested this. I might give this a shot now😅

[@Graknorke]

to be more specific with the recklessness thing, as someone who's been playing since ~2011, one of the things that really improved my enjoyment of the game was trying to meet sieges with military force (where I'm not super outmatched obviously) instead of turtling up all the time. yeah some militia dwarves will die but they actually tend to do a lot better than I expected and also it's a driver of stuff happening

[@aojroxos4990]

This has to be one of the best tutorials related to the game, great job!

[@AtocStowwe]

My first mountainhome was named "Abbeydaubs" in english, forget the dwarven; I think I lost the save. This was when I was still learning the game, so I embarked on a valley. The walls of the valley were *just* at the edge of the map, so building into the mountain required that I budget the extra space on the lower levels of the mountain and make smaller builds up top, like bedrooms. I'd say that it's a great idea to try and impose terrain challenges on yourself if you fancy yourself a good builder. Restriction breeds innovation, and there's plenty of stupid-but-fun ways to build a fortress. Also, if you find it hard to keep all your rooms scaled similarly, mine out rooms with a grid, and then modify the grid into more unique structures. I personally mine out 8x8 squares with 1 tile gaps between on all sides.

[@AristophMarloque]

To anybody who claims they haven't found any stories in their forts, I say you simply haven't looked for them. Take the simple things and flesh them out. You could have a dwarf go into a strange mood, request something you don't have access to, and decide the reasonable course of action is to simply wall him in and lock the door until he dies. Those are the simple facts of what happened in the game, after all. Nothing special there, right? Well, what if he was a craftsdwarf who had been struggling to find the passion for his craft? He'd been pumping out pointless bone rings and figurines for years, mindlessly droning away in his shop just to fill up a few bins to be traded away to the next caravan so that the fort could get a couple extra barrels of rum that they don't even need. It was depressing, and he didn't know how much longer he could go on like that. Until one day a caravan arrived, and as he was hauling his bin-fulls of bone crafts to the trade depot he spied a beautiful figurine made out of a material he had never seen before! This was it! Inspiration! He begged the caravan leader for pieces of this strange "shell", but alas they only had the products and none of the raw material. On a tip from the caravan guard, he began asking the fisherdwarves and hunters if they had found any so-called "mussels" or "turtles", but to no avail. For the first time in years, the passion for his craft was back, his vision was clear, and he knew exactly what he wanted to create...but he hadn't the means to make it! Stricken by this unfortunate circumstance, and cursing the gods for their cruel games, he locked himself in his workshop. In the depth of his depression, he had lost the will to eat or even sleep. All he could do was mutter over and over again "I must have shells! I must have shells!" It was clearly too much for him to handle. His friends did everything they could, scouring the land and any new sources of water in the hopes that even a single one of these mythical "shells" might be found to save their dwarven brother from his plight. But the gods, they were not kind in those days. And after weeks of fruitless search, all had resigned themselves to the fact that the only relief their brother could find would be in the embrace of the mountain. His closest friend, working in the stoneworks right next door for years, had taken it upon himself to carve the most magnificent coffin. A masterwork if there ever was one. His finest creation, as a final gift for his dearest friend. When the muttering finally stopped, everyone knew that the worst had come to pass. He was interred in a tomb far larger than a single coffin required, and every inch from floor to ceiling was engraved with love and grief. Months later, that same caravan leader returned. He inquired about the craftsdwarf he had met the last time, excited to inform him that he had brought many mussels and turtles with which to explore his craft again. After the grim news was given, the fort unanimously agreed to purchase the lot of them on the spot. Over the next several weeks, dozens of creations with the beautiful shells were made and ceremoniously placed around the tomb of their fallen brother. The stoneworker even tried his own hand at shellcraft, and while it was certainly no masterpiece to rival the coffin, he was sure his friend would love it anyway. NOTE: This story happened in one of my first forts over a decade ago and I still remember it like it happened yesterday. Not because it was a particularly noteworthy in-game event (I'm sure most of us have lost count of the number of failed strange moods we've had), but because I looked for it and I asked a few simple questions. We never had shells in that fort, so where would he have learned about them? Why would he be so upset that he literally chose to starve to death? What would the other dwarves think of the situation? You'll be amazed at the depth of the stories you can find when you start looking.

[@BobrLovr]

which proves that all this story telling is just fan fiction. It's not actually in the game

[@NotSolutha]

Something I started doing was retiring my forts and starting new ones in the same world. It's a bit much how many migrants you get from your previous forts but it's very cool to see them again.

[@camzxlegendary9649]

Hey, just want to let you know I appreciate you! You share so many stories with us and you care so much that you are telling us how we can find them in our own game. Thank you!

[@NationalDevin]

I have three smaller stories, though they escalate further as I grew to play the game more and more. One of my first forts was named Dirt Barrel, and I had picked a hilly region to start in. It was a forest biome and I wanted trees, and I didn't know what an Aquifer did in the game, back before they split them into light and heavy, and I had assumed it would be a few layers down. My map was flat except for a J shaped hill, so I carved the entry way into the tip of the J curve and got to work. I dug out the floor level for crafting, brewing and cooking, and dug up and set my dwarves up with rooms, plus spares for when we got migrants. I dug down a level and made a storage floor, and then dug down further to figure out a tomb b/c one of my dwarves had died by drowning in a 3/7 puddle of water from the recent rains, as well as a couple dehydration deaths because It was my first game. I dug a separate staircase around that area that would allow my dwarves to go down into the depths from their living quarters and found the aquifer only 2 dirt levels down from my fort and immediately saw that I'd be restricted to wooden goods. The fort went well and grew. The world was small and the elf issue was solved early on in the island's history, leaving us and the Goblins with minor human settlements dotting around, but our dwarven civ was still dense and we would sell our barrels and crafts. Then I discovered bridge gates. Not because I built one for defense, but because I had traded for a steel door, thinking locking the goblins out with steel would work. And to my credit, it DID work, until the singular troll rolled up. We only had starting gear, and only my woodcutter was trained in axeplay. And had it only been the troll who got in after ripping the hinges off the wall, he could have dealt with it, but he couldn't deal with the 38 or so goblins rushing in around them. I had another fort that was really successful. This one was a cliff fort that I dug up and around a cliff that had a river and waterfall overdoing the top. So the cliff fort had a lip for the water to rush down, but after going down two layers you would quickly find that the stone fell back about 40ft and left an unoccupied space for me to use. So I dug two entrances. I dug out a main entrance on the east side of the river on the mountain peak. Nothing too fancy, just a large square shack with a curved back and a bridge gate for defense. On that initial fort I dug out the usual stuff. A living quarter in a section of the mountain that was smaller but higher than the main landing, that went down a spiral ramp case that passed the giant craft room and a handful of storage areas, then we breached into the air pocket under the mouth of the waterfall. I created a bridge down there, just behind the water that was falling and it gave off mist that would improve the dwarves attitude at the cost of someone getting knocked off every so often, though it was incredibly rare when that happened. That fort went well for a long time, but the bridge is what did me in the long haul. So the waterfall bridge wasn't a gate, it retracts, and had a lever on each side of the walkway so nobody risked getting stuck or locked out, but two things happened with it. I had a few close calls with Goblins rushing in before the main gate lever was pulled, but my dwarves had been trained at this point and could clean up most folks that got in with minimal effort with sure numbers and skill, even if the gear wasn't fully stacked yet. But one invasion I had the goblins charge in, and it was my 2nd or 3rd one since I started the expansion into the western riverside fort, and at this point I hadn't seen anything climb yet, but I noticed that somehow one or two goblins were getting in somehow, but I chalked it up to being distracted at that time and not noticing a survivor getting spared and deeper into the fort. But eventually a full on skirmish broke out and I was shocked and looked and 13 goblins, 7 of which were fighting still, had broken into my fort and cut down a large number of civilians, and then I saw one, a goblin mid-climb down the mountainface. I pulled the lever and the bridge retracted, but if they could climb down without falling they would have the mouths to enter from, instead of accidentally falling onto the bridge. Then the other event happened. We had just opened the caverns and while I was digging out and expanding the entry point into that level, being an innocent hillside child until this point, wasn't aware that there wasn't even a cool down on forgotten beasts, they can literally already be in a cavern when you open it. Well, while I was expanding the mouth of that cave, I should have been securing it with a gate because an Amber Giant Rhinosaurace with fire breath and "Shotgun" webbing appeared. We had no defenses as it set to work chasing down dwarves, running them over directly and trampling them, catching the dodgy ones in web and then breathing fire on them. It made it's way through the whole expanded new fort that was significantly better designed for it's purpose, and chasing my dwarves all the way back into the entry way. Eventually we walled it inside of the old fort, leaving a handful of survivors in their own rooms where I locked them down to keep them hidden, and a pocket of survivors that now lived in the old fort. Eventually however, this section of the fort had a goblin group break into it, and I had to send all of my dwarves into a storage room. See, where we were dealing with issues with the goblins, the Rhino patrolled the main corridor that went to the east entrance, but also lead up towards the new living quarters where the survivors would be stuck, with the occasional dwarf trying to make a food run, only to be caught and melted during the attempt, leading to the other dwarves preferring starvation instead of a firey death. The Eastern dwarves however had been corralled in the food storage room, without any weapons, and eventually they chose one of their number to make a run to the waterfall bridge, open it back up, and then open up the wall, hoping our enemies would fight against one another, and at the best give us time to go into the heart of the new fort while the Rhino bleeds out after killing the goblins. At worse, it would kill all of us after or before killing the goblins. It was def the latter as he engaged the goblins, cut them down, then chased us back down as we fled into the main fort. While others did make it most of the way, the only ones that survived the final burst of flame was a mother, her child, and two dwarves that were collapsed from hunger in their rooms before the mother died from injuries related to stray arrows fired at the beast by the goblins. The baby wondered the halls, found one of the two survivors before they died and was the last one in the fort. I don't have time for the 3rd story but if this comment gets attention I'll come back later

[@darrby.7790]

With my most recent embark, my fortress devolved into a similar thing to the mountain home video. One dwarf made a really cool stick and a bunch of humans continuously tried to sneak in and steal it, shouting you’ll rue the day as they died, once found. My dwarven militia held strong and we did not in fact rue the day 🤣

[@johnpawlak7350]

Started playing with the Steam release. My current fort has unintentionally turned into a mint for platinum coins. I'm 3 years in and my fortress wealth is already 108k. I'm not sure if that's a lot but it sure seems like it. I managed to make 4 squads and set them to constantly train but didn't equip them with weapons by accident, so my whole army are elite wrestlers. The wealth of my fortress attracted an ettin and I got to witness the hilarious scene of 40 dwarfs bursting out of the ground to wrestle a 2 headed giant to death. 10/10.

[@lumbermac5998]

This is literally the only video I was looking for. Thank you.

[@pascaldesjardins9835]

My starting minning dwarf got hurt by water flowing out of a wall. She was the first one in the hospital and ive gave her the count. She couldn't graps things from one hand like before so i gave her no job. She then started to talk all day to everyone, became broker and mayor. because everyone loved her, and now is a count. Because i gave her attention, she became important for me and made stories. Its about giving importance to dwarfs

[@clownofwar]

my first embark onto a volcano was pretty interessting i had the *Plan* the make a lava moat and make a awsome fortress of fire but instead i fumbled with how levers worked and made the mistake of giving up on levies and just made a hole to the outside world which flooded everything outside with lava, and made it impossible for any traders and farming to be done since i did not know how cavern farming worked at the time. So we all starved inside our mountain Tomb at this point serounded by a ocean of lava.

[@TheGreatAndMightyGoBo]

I love your vids man, and as more time goes on i love these story generators type games so much

[@josegc9802]

Great video, nice to have a bit different from the usual and thanks for the tips!

[@ilari90]

Also name your first children, look what they like to play and find them a job they are good at and watch them grow. Make them a manager or militia captain so it's more meaningful when the tides come.

[@CATASTEROID934]

I remember something bizarre happening many years ago- on the edge of a river valley cliff I had a smith making platinum statues and during the process of making one he was disturbed by some birds and left a "platinum" there that I realise was in the form of a solid glob like rendered fat and similar materials are, I could melt it down but I didn't see any other immediate use for it and it has never happened again despite my attempts to direct the entire fortress towards making additional platinum globs.

[@dadoogie]

The best dwarf fortress tutorial video ever made.

[@surasc4169]

thanks for the naming tip. ill probably will name them one two three four five six and seven. embark plan? just protect the seven.

[@chaotickreg7024]

This is a good plan. Make them all well trained fighters just in case something gets to them.

[@Isvoor]

Name scholars. When you retire a fort and start a new one in the same world, those scholars of your old fort can come visit. I had this happen with a dwarf from the same civ, but I imagine you could have dwarves from a different civilization come too.

[@oscatMeow]

Had a cyclops wander into my map, i had my army on staggered training at this stage, so as they equipped themselves the cyclops made its way to the moat. The first person to fight it was a dwarven child. It bit the cyclops on the leg, but the cyclops picked up the child by the arm and punched it so hard in the eye that its head exploded and broke the spine, instantly killing it. The second dwarf to fight it was a fisher-dwarf, who literally just got tossed into the moat instantly and drowned. Once my army arrived they went for the legs until it fell over and a legendary axe-dwarf with a steel battleaxe hacked the cyclops head 10 individual times until it finally died. By far the toughest cyclops i have fought, as usually they go down quite easily

[@ThortheGodly]

This story comes from a while back in classic mode. I had dug a many-layered fort into the foot of a mountain that rested in a valley with a river running through it. My dwarves were always thirsty because they were dumb, so I dug out an aqueduct layer so I could install wells all through it to keep my dwarves from dehydrating out of sheer stupidity. Things were going well, and we only lost 3 diggers when we opened up the wall to fill the channels. Then...HE came. We had fought off no less than 5 Hill Titans by that point, and my soldier-dwarves were all well trained and well armed, but that didn't matter this time. A giant spider with a single eye and a pair of membranous wings emerged from the wilderness to prey on us. His name has been lost to time, as has the name of the fortress, but the legend of his coming will never pass from our memories. The Spider-Titan killed no less than 7 dwarves as it sped along through the halls, my warriors waylaid by the webs it cast all over. At last my hammerdwarves closed the distance, and dealt a mighty blow to the fiend, crippling one of its legs...but still it lived. The monster fled from us down a well into the aqueduct layer, and there it stayed. I had not built any way to get down there, so my dwarves were stupidly trying to chase it down the well it had gone into. Four died before I called off the chase, and let life return to its normal state, but the Spider-Titan's hunger was not to be forgotten. It began to prey on the soldierdwarves as they trained around the well in their barracks, pulling one down to drown and devour them while their comrades helplessly but bravely struggled to follow it. The aqueducts had become its lair, and the wells of the fortress its feeding grounds. Then a big necromancer's army came, broke the gates and the walls with abonimations, and we all died, and that damned spider was STILL sitting down there cozy as ever with plenty of dead dwarves to eat. And it was at that point I realized that losing IS fun. I love this game.

[@Elkcrown]

Great video that easily explains how to find the fun in this game. My first proper fortress was focused on the "figure out how to survive" aspect of things, but I managed to get some fun moments out of it. 250 year history. Looking at the options of which civs i could originate from, the one that really took my interest was a humble, 15 population dwarven home. It was in the middle of hostile goblin country surrounded by dark pits. I took it upon myself to see this as a tale of trying to find a new, better home. It made me care a lot more about the fortress knowing that back home there were less than 10 people left there, hoping we can settle down and prosper. Unfortunately, During my early game, a human necromancer kept trying to siege me. After a few years of prosperity and being self sufficient in my bunker though, he stopped trying to siege me. I presumed he got killed somewhere offscreen, but when I sent my squad to go conquer the tower I found out that one of my dwarves had beheaded him! The bastard had just given up on our turtle-fortress and wasn't expecting a squad of highly trained dwarves to come for him out of late revenge. Another funny one was when I opened the caves, an elkbird got into my fortress. It was entirely harmless as elkbirds are, but for some reason this thing just didn't know how to get out back into the caves, so I eventually managed to trap it in a room to capture it and tame it. It's now a beloved pet of my fortress because it was too dumb to get out. However, one of my favourite things about that fortress, is that despite having 200 dwarves and being prosperous... on the map we're still marked as a monastery with no population. I guess they looked at that giant brick in the landscape and went "yeah no one lives there".

[@zephyr4254]

Thanks for this! I want to get into this game with a little more whimsy in mind so I don't just get frustrated. You've got a sub, I really like your videos. :) Also, the way you talk reminds me of my younger brother, but older. It's very comforting to me, especially now that I don't see him often.

[@cloud1973]

This video is very good, and very helpful. Thank you for making it.

[@vividrevelation]

I tend to name dwarfs that I see in recent events. Went on a rampage a few times? Named. Was the last survivor of a battle? Named etc etc this has helped engage me into the game. My fortress finally fell. Tried looking at legends mode to find these named dwarfs only to find that I can't find them without scrolling through the start of the site and I honestly can't tell if my naming has changed anything because I can't find these names when. Scrolling through them so I've lost some important dwarves :c will have to just make a new one and not rely on legends mode to allow me to remember these moments

[@bertcules]

Love your videos! I saw some before I started playing and your playstyle has definitely influenced mine. Keep it up

[@dragonheart9400]

Got to say I got inspired with a new dwarf fort from your unicorn ranch but kinda forgot how you were supposed to properly catch unicorns. 12 years later I decided to figure out what was going wrong. When I set all the traps up, I did it! The first thing I got was a dragon! ..I did get the unicorns right after at least but I felt the game made fun of me there

[@coolfish420]

I'm at this point now, you've given me the motivation to check back!

[@219nate]

I have an idea for a future fort, try and fit your whole fort into a vertical rectangle, then channel out the walls so the entire fort is being suspended by a single pillar below the whole thing. Then create a monument of a shrine dedicated to the lever that will bring the whole fort down. Dwarves will spend their lives in the cult worshipping the lever that has the power to kill them all, until one day the pressures of day to day lives will get to a dwarf and he will finally pull the lever... that or a gremlin will simple walk in and pull it but either way it'll make for a funny story.

[@G0ldmoon]

Really Really Great video, I could never get into playing DF but always loved the stories, and peered into the community like a loner noted invited to the birthday party, but its great how you detail this for others.

[@Kyrkby]

Boatmurdered will forever live in my heart.

[@BigDaddyWes]

So far I've had three separate forts in three separate worlds with wildly different world gen settings which ended up having a (spoilers)........ Vampire Mayor. Literally I can't stop this from happening. It almost feels like a bug, but it's pretty fun to have a Mayor locked in a jail cell where citizens have to come down to the dungeons to see him. And technically it makes my fort immortal too.

[@luckyowl9191]

exactly what I wanted, this is great content, tysm

[@Duccy86]

Love the videos, used to play the original version quite a bit and your videos have helped me get back into the game. Love your voice too, it's really soothing

[@jamiehughes5573]

Once had a dwarf go beserk cause he couldn't complete a strange mood, he proceeded to get ripped to shreds by every other dwarf in his immediate area, limbs spreading all over the place.

[@MrFunnyful1]

your videos are awesome hoodie hair, dig deep!

[@davidcooke8005]

Closest I've come to a decent story so far was the baddie that moved into my walled off caverns that I was NOT ready to take on yet. A little while later a second baddie moved into the same cavern. They fought. One killed the other, but was beaten near death and blinded. So I ran my ragtag squad down there and one shotted him, then got the ichor from two legend beasts. But really, the DF story machine is just a million monkeys typing. Eventually you get a story. Mostly it's just random words strung together.

[@ErinsAaron]

Thank you for this helpful and informative video. All great advice for new players and old hands.

[@Andy-lo2cb]

What helps me feel accomplished is setting out with a goal in mind. My current goal is to make a fully functioning hospital, which I find very difficult. At the beginning of the run, the dwarfs lost all the pig tail seeds, and the dwarf traders somehow had no pig tail seeds. A year and a half in the middle of fall, I found 20 pig tail crops growing, and I don't know where they came from. The only thing I have left is making soap. I don't know how to make soap... yet.

[@WillKrause21]

One thing I've been doing is any dwarf that kills a beast or clown I'll give a special title, so I can follow their later exploits. Then the dwarf that killed a Roc, mostly single handedly, decided to steal my artifact earrings. She succeeded, but then was terribly wounded by the other military dwarves chasing her, and somehow is still alive in the fortress, retired, sentence served.

[@jacobthehollow]

I'll never forget when one of my fortresses fell because someone got bitten by a werecamel and kept spreading the disease without me knowing. Everyone was eating in a massive dining hall when half of the population shapeshifted and slaughtered everyone. The only survivors were a small group of the military who eventually starved to death. 10/10.

[@CharinVZain]

So far my only story besides, everyone was miserable and starved to death was when a cyclops invaded my first fort to last beyond 3 years, he ran in, killed a fisher Dwarf, ran into a tree and got critically injured, and then died 7 steps later

[@wildfree1409]

I don't have much yet,but my first encounter with a forgotten beast was kinda funny,I got scared of it and mustered my warriors only for a beast to be killed by a random woodcutter with a single kick

[@Ph4n_t0m]

Excellent advice, thank you!

[@darnchacha1632]

Everyone hates on Royalty but for me the biggest way my stories generate are by the stress caused as I build the elaborate palaces and structures I try to make to appeal to my Nobles, trying my hardest to get all the stuff they like and such, making grand over-engineered compounds for some Baron who keeps asking for floodgates made of gold

[@Vanux867]

I've got a little bit of a story with some creative writing from myself. Succeeding a failed goblin-thwarting fortress, Truthmountains was intent on completing that goal with new information. However, something new had come out of their digging to go towards this goal: angels, demons, and the equipment they had dropped. Searing metal armor and weapons. Along the way of tinkering with this new material, the mayor and manager began colluding on how to exploit this newfound metal of insane value and properties... Exploiting the nature of it completely and utterly. The process was slow and torturous, as is aligned with the very metal itself, but not without reward. The reward being replicating itself. Within a year, the two dwarves were utterly miserable and on the verge of breaking down, but had made well over 300 searing metal bars and counting... Now, the unit of legendary military dwarves I had kept training for years with their peers were forged their own full sets of divine metal armor, seeming to emit it's own horrible energy. But siege after siege, raid after raid, only one dwarf had perished. Now, they seek to take down the entire goblin civilization nearby.

[@concretel10n]

My favourite story so far was unexplained madness - after a handful of people succumbed, I banished one, which caused their family to immediately become enraged. Eventually, they also went insane, lost their minds, and died of dehydration. I thought "there's plenty of water and mugs, what a bunch of idiots" Then realised a year later I'd built my well over stagnant water, causing the madness I suspect..

[@jinz0]

cant name dwarves on embark screen??

[@kcazseeley]

On my first play through a dwarven child eviscerating a cyclops while playing make believe without any injuries

[@C0NN0R1212]

I have watched your videos, and it has made me more reckless. I used to savescum at every point to save all the dwarfs I could. Then, one fort I decided to see how things would play out. First, I started digging for some sand, and then one of the settlers that just came recently transformed into a weretortise. I didn't think much of it he died very quickly, so I went about my business. Then, a couple of days later, 3 of my dwarfs turned. I knew at that point I had a problem. One of my wood cutters punched the teeth out of one of the weretortise. And the rest died from the militia. At that point, roughly 13 of my dwarfs were infected in a 50 dwarf fort. I knew the next transformation would be the end. So I let it play to see how it would end. It was a massacre. One dwarf the militia leader, however, managed to get into the room with all the food in it, so I locked the door behind them. They were the sole survivor of the fort. They waited out in the fridge with a couple of cats for things to cool off. I started a new fort in the same world in hopes of saving the sole survivor.

[@SaltyCrabOfficial]

I installed a ton of mods so here is my story: there was a small plump helmet man camp... were most of the ingots we had were gold but nothing else, so we started to make gold thing for the tavern and while that was happening some miners uncovered a great cavern down below... they decided to seal it except a little lake since in the surface there wasn't any water... the tavern was great and the liquor was good enough to attract people, until one day they wanted to make a multiple level well from the surface to the cavern... which resulted in the death of multiple heroes that mined down their feet... ultimately I didn't expect much since those corpses were down down in the water but... those corpses attracted unwanted visitors... while the gold slabs were engraved the cave alligators started to crawl into the fort without anyone noticing... its not necessary to say what happend when they discovered those beast

[@kylestanley7843]

I'll never forget the time I read the combat log for a kea that was stealing my jewels. No one had sharp weapons so they were just crippling the fuck out of it. Broken wings and legs, crawling along the floor in a desperate attempt to escape while two different dwarf civilians grab it by the throat and the toe and fling that fucker into a wall. Had to smith an axe and start a militia just to put the fucking thing out of its misery while it tried to crawl away outside the fortress.

[@jays5571]

You should do more like this.

[@3sbon]

Thanks for making this video

[@Teddy_Ben]

A lot of people think games must entertain them, but the real thing is that you must entertain yourself through the game. Even some AAA games got this logic , GTA for instance, and some even more popular one like minecraft.

[@Crazy_Diamond_75]

Totally. DF is almost more of a toy to play with than a "game" with objectives and win conditions.

[@bigrathole]

great video dude, as are all your vids. I do wonder if the steam version would kill the story telling aspect somewhat, as if the runes of ascii somehow encouraged stories to emerge more. I think there is a maybe a very slight twinge of that, but thankfully not enough to impact the great stuff that's happened in my (and my partners) forts. Your vids have definitely inspired me to go for smaller more focused/goofy attempts rather than just a straight shot for mountainhome.

[@elmarm.5224]

The thing is: if you have for example a shortage in alcohol, you can spin it into drama. The big drought !

[@PeppieStyle]

I am here to engage in commenting to please the algo gods

[@IcoKirov]

I play dwarf fortress... Where am i gonna find 7 friends irl to name my dwarfs after?

[@emilstnt3495]

I think the best one I experienced was short but quite good. Not sure how common this is but one time i was besieged and had sent out my military to deal with it, nothing unusual. One of my humans, however, upon encountering a dwarf, both it and the dwarf immediately dropped their weapons and they both just started biting each other??? including once on the tounge and teeth?????? I'm not sure what advanced battle techniques this human had come up with but it worked and the dwarf was defeated. I was in such disbelief of just what on earth I had just witnessed.

[@mecc2445]

Thank you for this video.

[@TCrag]

Great advice.

[@oonaymanooblabla4812]

Game sure has a lot of stories. I was just sieged and i burrowed everyone but milia behind a bridge, i made the milia stay on the other side of the bridge and waited for the gobs to cross the bridge. What happened? 8 or 10 cats of the 60 ive friggin my fps went out to play with the gobs luring them to random traps. It was just amusement