Let's play a game.

[Okor]

In a World


That we have to share with this thing



And this thing


But worst of all

Each other.

Welcome to

Greetings, good Omniversians. Today, we venture into madness, plump helmets, and socks. Today, we strike the earth, and dig far, far too deep. For those of you unfamiliar with Dwarf Fortress, it's a 2D simulation game where you either manage a fortress of Dwarves, or a lone adventurer. Dwarves have personalities, hopes, dreams, can love and be loved, and can, of course, be brutally maimed and horrendously murdered. Fail, and your fortress will spiral into madness and death. Succeed, and your fortress will spiral into madness and death tomorrow. Goblins, vampires, necromancers, eldritch abominations, dragons, and Elves all conspire to bring an end to your fortress, seeking to pry open your stout walls and feast on the drunken dwarves within. It's our job to stop that from happening.

For a start, let's have a look at the average stout Dwarf.

We have his age (The yellow text, the first of his kind indicates that he's one of the starting Dwarves, created during world generation), his physical appearance, his attributes (Green and red text, as we can see, making him a warrior would be a terrible idea), his likes (If he's particularly useful, we might consider getting him some items made of those materials), and his mental attributes (Green and red text again), and his cultural beliefs (grey), and finally, his personality. Every single Dwarf has this much information about them, and fortresses can quite quickly hit over 150 population. Your Dwarves must be cared for, as unhappy Dwarves lead to tantrums, which leads to damaged furniture, which leads to murder, which leads to a spiral of mayhem and destruction that ends when there's nothing left but a single Dwarf gnawing the bones of his childhood friend in what was once the grand hall.

With that in mind, where do we begin?

+Plenty of metal.
+Flux stone means we can make steel if we have iron.
+Good aligned creatures are quite valuable, making hunting/trapping quite profitable.
+Clay means pottery, which is quite useful.
+Lots of dirt means lots of farming.
+Sand leads to glass, which is a cheap and easy way of making miscellaneous objects (Such as giant sawblades), with enough fuel.
+Fresh water means that our Dwarves don't need alcohol to survive. Not that they want to drink water, of course.
+/-According to the topographical map, there's a chasm leading to the river. While it may be initially difficult, it may help with our defenses.
-Unicorns.
-Not many trees, or any other vegetation for that matter. It may be difficult to get wooden objects.
-Unicorns.
-Close enough to a Necromancer's tower to be slightly worrisome.
-Dear Armok, the unicorns!



+Glorious metal.
+Dirt, clay, and sand.
+Flux stone!
+/- Giant animals roam this place. We can hunt them, tame them, or be eaten by them.
+/- Goblins are within raiding range. We can expect the occasional attack, and some sweet, sweet free loot. Or death. Either one.
-Not much vegetation.
-The stream here is salt water, but it can be used for water power if we get it set up.


+Some metal.
+Dirt, clay, flux, and sand.
+Plenty of fresh water.
+More than enough wood to get what we need done.
+/- A little hilly.
+/- Giant animals.
+/- Goblins.
-Only two kinds of metal present. There's a chance we'll be without weapons-grade materials, and will have to import it in.

Everyone will, of course, have a Dwarf named after them.

[Tearen Wover]

I vote for option 3.

I have no idea how the game is played, but I feel good about it.

[Makoto Yuki]

Heh, I was just about to vote for 3 too, before Phh beat me to it.

I think it's the most well rounded one.

[Victor Wolfe]

Option 1 seems to have the highest risk but best stuff, I would play it safe though and go for option 3

[Okor]

Option Three it is then.


Here we have our Noble Dwarves. Salt of the earth folk, come to this hellhole for a better life.

Now, we're presented with some choices on how to assign our Dwarves. Each Dwarf starts with 10 possible ranks in skills, with a max of rank 5 at the start. Each rank costs us some starting points, with 5 points giving them 1 rank, 6 bumping them up to second rank, and so on (Reaching rank two would cost us 11 points). Since the creation process is a little too extensive to run down in this format, I'll present us with a few options.

Basic
One Miner/Mason, one Miner/Mechanic (Mining resources, carving out living quarters, and exploring the caverns are what our miners do best. Masons and mechanics will use the waste products of mining to improve the fortress)
One Lumberdwarf/Carpenter (We do need to make beds, after all. Afterwards, making wooden cages will keep him busy)
One Farmer (Plump Helmets are a staple of the Dwarven Diet, being used in cooking, brewing, or just being eaten)
One Cook/Brewer (Dwarves without booze are a disaster waiting to happen)
One jack of all trades smith (With our relatively few starting Dwarves, we can't specialize with experienced smiths for everything. One that can do everything decently will have to do)
One Engraver (Keeps everyone happy with engravings, keeps the place looking nice. Also, will be Guu)

STRIKE THE EARTH
Three miners (DIG DEEP! DIG GREEDY!)
One Mason (For Building)
One Weapon/Armoursmith (For outfitting new arrivals to deal with the horrors of the underdark)
One normal smith (For crafting trade goods)
One farmer/brewer (So we don't die of starvation)
Any skills we require will be assigned to a lazy bum at rank 0 (Dabbling), so that it can actually get done.

Idyllic Farming
Two miners (To make sure we have enough space for everything)
One Mason
One Lumberdwarf/Carpenter
One Farmer
One Brewer/Cook
One Butcher/Tanner/Leatherworker
We will be taking along several Turkeys for eggs and meat, as well as several cows and bulls to get a herd going. Again, we'll give some basic skills to any unoccupied workers to ensure the fort is well defended.

[Tearen Wover]

I'm gonna say Basic.

I might have gone for farming, but with all the giant monsters in the area, I think having herds of delicious, slow moving animals will not behoove success.

The deep mining outfit just doesn't seem to fit well with the resources we have.

[Makoto Yuki]

I'm not sure if the mining is going to be all that productive, seeing as there aren't that many types of metal to begin with.

I don't trust the goblins and giant animals to leave the animals alone if that's what the entire focus of the fort is on.

Basic gets my vote.

[Okor]

Our stock of supplies. Plenty of plump helmet and pig tail seeds to keep us clothed and well-fed,as well as some dogs to keep watch and provide delicious puppies. The reason for taking so many different varieties of food is to get an extra barrel with every different kind that comes along, which can be quite handy.

I've decided to stop sacrificing picture quality to make them fit on the forum, please view the image if you would like to witness it in all of its glory.

And here we have our noble Dwarves.

Nealaphh is our miner/mason, Makoto is our miner/mechanic, Guu is our Engraver (I had some spare points lying around, so I made her a half-decent doctor. Accidents do happen, after all), Okor is our Farmer/Animal trainer (Again, there were some points left over, and war dogs are a cheap and effective way of keeping our people protected from thieves. They will, however, turn into a furry slush when confronted with actual combatants), Tartaros is the Brewer/Cook, Sivo is our Smith, and Doomguy is the noble and blessed vanquisher of the arboreal ones. Long may his axe draw their sap!

There's but one thing left to do before we head out into the world. We need a name for our fortress, and a name for our merry band.
Here we have the fortress name generator. The way it works is you have (Adjective) (Adjective) (Compound word)-(Word)(Word) the (Word) of (Word), using as many, or as little of the options as you would like. It is entirely possible to have a Fortress called Beer, or one called Brutal Angry Killer-MurderSmash the Fist of Smashing.


And here we have the group name generator, which is pretty much the same thing.


Give me a name, and we can get this show on the road.

[spoiler]

:ohno:[/spoiler]

[Tartaros]

You know what we call it... the one and only... Doomed BoatMurdered, the Death of Dwarves. Or, y'know... Beer. That's always good.

Wait... cats? Oh... ohohohoho no... nononono... NO. OH GOD PLEASE NO.

[Tearen Wover]

Very Boned NotSmile

[Okor]

How about...

[Tearen Wover]

Whatevs. Let's get this pain train a-rollin'!

[Okor]

And with this inspiring name, we take our first, drunken steps into the world.

[Okor]

And here we are. Seven dwarves, a wagon, cats, dogs, and (thank RNGesus for this) a breeding pair of Yaks. To begin with, Doomguy has sighted his ancient enemy.



Trees.

While Doomguy goes to end his foes in a spray of splinters and sap, the miners begin the task of tunneling.


And this area shall become our first plot of farmland, provided we didn't somehow hit stone by then. The remainder of fortress design will be dependent on when we hit that sweet, sweet, stone.

[Okor]

For those of you interested about the wildlife, good news.



Only most of it is dangerous.

[spoiler]Without a nervous system, the only thing it can feel is anger. :ohno:[/spoiler]

[Okor]

:frogsiren: :frogsiren:

Flux, and iron ore. We have steel people. Remember to praise Armok for his graciousness.

In other news, a tribe of Dingo People are wandering around on the other side of the river. The Developers are going to be adding in more detailed interactions in the next edition, but currently they're little more than a nuisance and weapons practice.

[Tearen Wover]

Let's just hope they stay away from any dwarf babies.

[Sarah Kerrigan]

how dangerous are the dingo people? Does it look like we need to get to weapons forging?
(Do not know how to play, by the way. Tried playing DF once, and after blankly staring at a screen for 5 minutes promptly gave up)

[Tartaros]

Dingo People aren't that dangerous, zombies and goblins are probably a bit more deadly. As for weapons, some simple weapons couldn't be too bad.

[Okor]

Will attempt to post tommorrow, I've been otherwise occupied. My deepest apologies.