Let's Play Dwarf Fortress: Syndrome Conundrum

[Internet Kraken]

Chapter 34: From the journal of Stinthad Kekimtobul

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25th Granite, 1053, Early Spring

Okay, so apparently we've got some new migrants.

A lot of them.

Like, 16. Well, I guess you can never have to many masons.

1st Slate, 1053, Mid-Spring

Every day this place just gets increasingly odd. I was trying to figure out a way to get Lorbam to stop partying (yes, he really did organize a party, I didn't imagine that), when one of the woodcarpetners approached me from behind.

Zontherleth: "Um, excuse me. You're Stinthad Kekimtobul, right? The expedition leader?"
Stinthad: "Huh? Oh yeah, that's me. Normally I'd be eager to chat, but I'm actually kind of busy right now trying to deal with Lorbam."
Zontherleth: "Who?"
Stinthad: "The earth golem shuffling back and forth near the entrance. I think he's trying to dance."
Zontherleth: "Oh yeah! Some of the other dwarves are just watching that thing now, but not us woodcarpenters! We're always working, no matter what and-"
Stinthad: "Look, do you need something?"
Zontherleth: "Well, yes. You see, we woodcarpenters are a hard working bunch. Our job is generally a thankless task, due to most dwarves preference of stone over wood, but we don't let that discourage us. But we feel that our dedication to Reveredtour is not properly appreciated at the moment. To be honest, our working conditions are less than satisfactory."
Stinthad: "Poor working conditions? What are you talking abou- OH GOD WHAT'S THAT THING ON YOUR LEG?!?!"
Zontherleth: "Yeah, that's one of the problems."

Spoiler: Crundle Info

Kraken's notes: Crundles exist only to annoy you, nothing more. Despite their description, crundles are never dangerous. The reason for this is that even a fully grown crundle is only one sixth the size of a dwarf. Being attacked by a crundle is a mild inconvenience at worst. Civilians will run from them, but even if forced to fight they will crush the pathetic crundles. Any military can wipe the floor with them. The most damage a single crundle can do to your fort is clog up a cage trap meant for something dangerous.

What makes crundles annoying is that they travel in huge swarms. This means that you have to deal with waves and waves of crundles, as they also have a high population number. Wiping them all out is difficult, as often one will wander away from the main group only to resurface later and disrupt more work. Crundles may not be powerful, but they excel at annoying the player.

Stinthad: "It's trying to tear off your leg!"
Zontherleth: "Yeah, well it's not very good at it. These things keep jumping on us when we go to get logs from the caverns. They're really annoying."
Stinthad: "It's going to kill you!"
Zontherleth: "It's barely larger than a cat."

At this point the tiny abomination, frustrated with it's repeated failure to harm Zontherleth, began clawing at her back instead. This was met with even less success, as she merely kicked it across the room into a wall. Somehow this didn't even phase the little devil, as it went right back to trying to eat her.

Stinthad: "So, it really doesn't bother you?"
Zontherleth: "No, it does. It's hard to work with anything stomping on your feet, no matter how small. We tried killing them ourselves, but we can't seem to hurt them. Can you send someone with real weapons to deal with them?"
Stinthad: "Er, sure. I'll just call the Immortal Rags and those things will be out of your hair soon enough."

Satisfied with my answer, Zontherleth turned to leave. The little zombie followed her, attempting to cling to her body. She kicked it again, which still didn't seem to do any harm. I guess civilians lack the proper skills to punch zombies out of existence like Alath, no matter how small they may be.

Where the heck are the Immortal Rags anyways?

Oh god I forgot that they were still locked in there.

4th Slate, 1053, Mid-Spring

So I let the Immortal Rags out of the swimming room, and told them they needed to go kill some monsters down in the caverns. Despite being locked in there for a bit longer than I originally planned, they didn't seem to upset.

This didn't end well for the little zombies, who were hopelessly weak compared to even civilians. Let alone a group of bloodthirsty soldiers. Also according to the bestiary, these things are called crundles. They actually look kind of cute! I'd keep one as a pet if they weren't zombies. Though on second thought, Ingiz would probably just eat it.

9th Slate, 1053, Mid-Spring

I was inspecting various stockpiles today, when I made an interesting discovery; at some point, we managed to catch four cave krakens.

Given the number of dwarves that have been killed by these beasts, most dwarves here aren't fond of them. But now that I think about it, these cave krakens could actually be useful. The bestiary says that cave krakens are actually relatively easy to tame compared to other cavern dwellers. And since the hippo traps haven't shown any progress, perhaps they could serve as a substitute. A moat filled with vicious squids? It's perfect! I should have thought of this before.

11th Slate, 1053, Mid-Spring

Goden began shouting in joy, proclaiming her greatness and superior skill. Goden bragging isn't in any way abnormal, though she's normally not so enthusiastic about it. So I decided to see why she was so excited.

Stinthad: "Goden, what are you so happy about?"
Goden: "Ah, it's you. You see, I've truly begun to master the art of engraving. I have created an image that even the uncultured residents of this fort can appreciate."

Stinthad: "Really? Wow, let me see!"

She then stepped aside, giving me full view of the engraving she had just made. I was shocked by what I saw.

Stinthad: "You...you actually made an engraving of me? And it's not supposed to be insulting? None of the dwarves are trying to stab me? Wow, this is incredible! I never expected this!"
Goden: "Huh? Oh, that one. Well, I figured that was the least I could do, considering you've kept that traitorous snake trapped in the hospital for weeks."
Stinthad: "Traitorous snake?"
Goden: "Nevermind. However, I was actually talking about the engraving next to that one."

Of course.

12th Slate, 1053, Mid-Spring

Wow, there's a lot of yelling coming up from below. Not the typical screams of distress caused by rampaging beasts, I mean shouts of anger. It seems like two dwarves are arguing over something. From the sound of things, one of them was that mason making an artifact.

Elikstukos: "You! You're a cook, right?"
Raluknish: "What, me?"
Elikstukos: "THERE'S NO ONE ELSE HERE YOU FUCK HEAD! WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I'M TALKING TO?"
Raluknish: "Oh god, um yes I'm a cook. Why?"
Elikstukos: "And as a cook, one of your secondary duties is plant processing, correct?"
Raluknish: "Uh, yes it is."
Elikstukos: "So tell me, what does this picture look like?"
Raluknish: "Er, I think it's a picture of some...waves?"
Elikstukos: "WAVES? FUCKING WAVES? ARE YOU DENSE? IT'S CLOTH! C-L-O-T-H! NOW EXPLAIN TO ME HOW YOU FUCKING IDIOTS DON'T HAVE A SINGLE PIECE OF THIS IN YOUR SHITTY LITTLE FORT!"
Raluknish: "Well, that's simple. We, um, I..."
Elikstukos: "DO YOU EVEN FUCKING KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT?"
Raluknish: "Of course I do! You, um, use...plump helmets?"
Elikstukos: "FUCKING PLUMP HELMETS!?!?!"

This...this does not sound good.

12th Slate, 1053, Mid-Spring

Oh god no this is bad. Uh, I better got get Momuz. Let's see, he's...

Sleeping in the hospital?!? Why?!? He's not hurt!

Wait, that's odd. The shouting stopped. What happened?

13th Slate, 1053, Mid-Spring

It appears that Elikstukos, in her blind rage, actually managed to trigger a cage trap and trapped herself inside it. Now she's basically harmless, as the worst she can do now is shout at you when you walk by. Though even that came to an end when Momuz tied her hands and shoved a sock in her mouth. Goden wants to execute her, claiming that she is now a permanent invalid due to our failure to appease the "gods". I don't believe her! I'm sure in a few weeks Elikstukos will calm down, and then we can put this ugly incident behind us.

17th Slate, 1053, Mid-Spring

While I was tending to patients today I noticed that Atir was no longer in the hospital. Apparently he broke the bonds holding him to the bed and went back to work. Honestly I think he should still be resting, as he has more wounds I haven't treated yet. I still haven't decided if I should amputate his arm or not to prevent infection, but now it's not even an option. Oh well, I guess if he's fit to work he can't be in to bad shape.

Also one of the dwarves said that if I come near Atir with a scalpel again he's going to shove his pickaxe into my skull. I'll just keep away from him for now.

24th Slate, 1053, Mid-Spring

It seems like the second floor of the food stockpile is starting to fill up. We'll have to put in an additional floor pretty soon, otherwise we won't be able to hold more delicious food.

I mean it would be a shame to let such excellent meals go to waste!

__________________________________________________

 

[Double A]

Hehehe, dwarf trap.

Also, I'd suggest building barrels, but considering you live between an ocean and a desert, I guess there really aren't that many trees.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Also, I'd suggest building barrels, but considering you live between an ocean and a desert, I guess there really aren't that many trees.

Actually I have tons of trees, despite the biome suggesting there would be none. You can always use the caverns if you have no surface trees though, so long as you can face the dangers associated with it. Though I'm probably lacking barrels at the moment, mainly due to the crundle invasion bringing all wood related jobs to a complete stand still.

 

[Aidinthel]

Isn't it the sheriff's job to brutalize take care of rogue dwarfs? Where was Goden in all this?

 

[scotth266]

>Raw Mussel Roast

Wait, how... Did they grind the mussels up? No. I'm not going to think about that. There are far worse cooking abominations [http://www.idrink.com/v.html?id=34993].

 

[Internet Kraken]

Isn't it the sheriff's job to brutalize take care of rogue dwarfs? Where was Goden in all this?

Engraving some walls in the unfinished moat. I actually did order her to go kill the dwarf, but the thing about inactive military dwarves is that they don't pickup equipment they need off duty. So once you put them on duty, they will waste time picking up new equipment. Goden went to fetch a backpack, and by the time she got it the rogue dwarf was already caught in a cage.

The better question really is where the military was during all this. Despite what I said in the post, the Immortal Rags did not clear out the crundles easily. Rather, they were down there for weeks trying to catch them all. So when the dwarf went insane, most of them were still in the caverns. Or sleeping in the hospital for some reason. Seriously, the dormitories are right below the hospital. No excuse for that.

As for the second squad, they were all drinking, eating, or sleeping. In other words, being useless. I'm used to my military acting like this though. The military in my last fort did the exact same thing, only the enemy in question was a forgotten beast so it was far worse.

There are far worse cooking abominations [http://www.idrink.com/v.html?id=34993].

I feel somewhat ill after imagining what that tastes like.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I feel like I should provide an explanation for exactly how a trap triggers, given that there might be some confusion over it. A trap triggers whenever a creature walks over a trap. However, members of the civilization that created the trap (dwarves) along with allies (elves, humans, etc.) will not trigger the trap either. Also creatures with the [TRAPAVOID] tag will not trigger traps. So you might be wondering how the berserk dwarf was caught in the cage. When a dwarf goes berserk, it is no longer considered a part of you civilization and effectively becomes an enemy unit. This means that it can no longer pass over trap without triggering them, hence why the mason was caught in the cage.

However, all of this can be negated under special circumstances. When a creature is stunned, it can no longer avoid traps. This is true for any creature, even your own dwarves. So if a dwarf is stunned on top of a cage, it will be caught in it. Also, any creature that gets caught in a spider web (usually from the infamous Giant Cave Spider) will no longer avoid traps. The only way a creature can be truly trap immune is if it has the [NOSTUN], [NOWEB], and [TRAPAVOID] tags. Otherwise, you can build elaborate device to stun/web creatures and trap them.

 

[Double A]

So if you somehow captured a GCS, tamed it, put it behind a fortification room which looked into your entrance hall lined with cage traps, and then a kobold came by, got past everyone, stole something from the fort, and got spotted on its way out, you could capture it in a cage trap after the GCS stunned it.

Sounds like the metal industry.

 

[Internet Kraken]

So if you somehow captured a GCS, tamed it, put it behind a fortification room which looked into your entrance hall lined with cage traps, and then a kobold came by, got past everyone, stole something from the fort, and got spotted on its way out, you could capture it in a cage trap after the GCS stunned it.

Sounds like the metal industry.

Yep. You can use this catch even more absurd creatures though, like forgotten beasts. I think Toady making them susceptible to webs was an oversight, as I can't imagine he wanted us catching forgotten beasts in cages.

 

[repeating integers]

So if you somehow captured a GCS, tamed it, put it behind a fortification room which looked into your entrance hall lined with cage traps, and then a kobold came by, got past everyone, stole something from the fort, and got spotted on its way out, you could capture it in a cage trap after the GCS stunned it.

Sounds like the metal industry.

Yep. You can use this catch even more absurd creatures though, like forgotten beasts. I think Toady making them susceptible to webs was an oversight, as I can't imagine he wanted us catching forgotten beasts in cages.

Forgotten beasts? Are those the beasts I've heard about which come out of Hell and slaughter everything if you dig too deep?

A tame one of those... wow.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Forgotten beasts? Are those the beasts I've heard about which come out of Hell and slaughter everything if you dig too deep?

A tame one of those... wow.

You're probably thinking of "Clowns", and no those are different from Forgotten Beasts [http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Forgotten_Beasts]. Catching one is still absurd though. Though becuase they are hardcoded into the game, you can't edit their raws. Which means that even if you get one in a cage, it can't be tamed.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Crud, I dunno if I'm going to put an update out today. I'm going out the eat at some point tonight, and my little brother really wants me to play with him. So that doesn't give me much times to work asides from late at night, and who knows if I'll feel like writing then. If I do put out an update, it won't be until much later.

 

[Double A]

It's fine, dude, it's Christmas. No one's making you update anyway.

So if you somehow captured a GCS, tamed it, put it behind a fortification room which looked into your entrance hall lined with cage traps, and then a kobold came by, got past everyone, stole something from the fort, and got spotted on its way out, you could capture it in a cage trap after the GCS stunned it.

Sounds like the metal industry.

Yep. You can use this catch even more absurd creatures though, like forgotten beasts. I think Toady making them susceptible to webs was an oversight, as I can't imagine he wanted us catching forgotten beasts in cages.

Shh, don't question the logic of the Toady One!

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I have a hypothetical question.

Let's say there's this dwarf called Irridium that hypothetically decided to tunnel through a hypothetical mountain and forgot the hypothetical supports because his hypothetical leader was too busy doing the hypothetical inventory and the hypothetical mountain fell on him. Hypothetically.

Given his hypothetical body is now lying in the hypothetical wilderness under half a hypothetical mountain, what's the best hypothetical thing to do with his hypothetical body?

 

[Internet Kraken]

Shh, don't question the logic of the Toady One!

On the subject of Toady's "logic", one of the most confusing things about Dwarf Fortress are some his decisions in the raws. He gives some creatures really weird attributes, even when they are pointless/make no sense. For example, many of his creatures have various petvalues despite not being tameable. He also gives many creatures the ability to swim despite not having any reason to be able to.

 

[Double A]

Shh, don't question the logic of the Toady One!

On the subject of Toady's "logic", one of the most confusing things about Dwarf Fortress are some his decisions in the raws. He gives some creatures really weird attributes, even when they are pointless/make no sense. For example, many of his creatures have various petvalues despite not being tameable. He also gives many creatures the ability to swim despite not having any reason to be able to.

Maybe the swimming is for the arena, and the pet values... I guess they're necessary to make the game not crash.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Shh, don't question the logic of the Toady One!

On the subject of Toady's "logic", one of the most confusing things about Dwarf Fortress are some his decisions in the raws. He gives some creatures really weird attributes, even when they are pointless/make no sense. For example, many of his creatures have various petvalues despite not being tameable. He also gives many creatures the ability to swim despite not having any reason to be able to.

Maybe the swimming is for the arena, and the pet values... I guess they're necessary to make the game not crash.

Tons of creatures don't have pet values and they don't cause the game to crash.

 

[(name here)]

I have a hypothetical question.

Let's say there's this dwarf called Irridium that hypothetically decided to tunnel through a hypothetical mountain and forgot the hypothetical supports because his hypothetical leader was too busy doing the hypothetical inventory and the hypothetical mountain fell on him. Hypothetically.

Given his hypothetical body is now lying in the hypothetical wilderness under half a hypothetical mountain, what's the best hypothetical thing to do with his hypothetical body?

BURN IT.

 

[Double A]

Shh, don't question the logic of the Toady One!

On the subject of Toady's "logic", one of the most confusing things about Dwarf Fortress are some his decisions in the raws. He gives some creatures really weird attributes, even when they are pointless/make no sense. For example, many of his creatures have various petvalues despite not being tameable. He also gives many creatures the ability to swim despite not having any reason to be able to.

Maybe the swimming is for the arena, and the pet values... I guess they're necessary to make the game not crash.

Tons of creatures don't have pet values and they don't cause the game to crash.

Then I have no idea why he did it.

Maybe he was bored.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Chapter 35: From the journal of Stinthad Kekimtobul

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26th Slate, 1053, Mid-Spring

Oh dear, I decided to examine the swimming chamber to ensure that it was working properly. I was worried about something like a monarch butterfly jamming one of the mechanisms. You can never be too careful! Anyways, I didn't find any vermin, but rather a room straight out of a nightmare!

It's covered in blood! I don't mean light splatters either, I mean every inch of the walls covered in a horrifying variety of fluids. It looks like someone herded a zoo into there and then blew all the animals up! I asked Momuz what the heck happened, and he just said that blood washed off their gear and stained the room.

How are they so filthy that they had layers and layers of blood on their armor? How did nobody ever notice this? And why doesn't the water clean up the blood rather than spread it everywhere?

You know what, I think I'm better off just not asking.

3rd Felsite, 1053, Late Spring

I think I should request an official therapist to migrate to Reveredtour. Or look into studying psychology myself. The reason being is that there are a number of dwarves here that are, well, not exactly right in the head. I don't mean the obvious cases like the crazy mason either. Take for example little Avuz Dodokidos;

Sure, he might seem like a normal kid. He's actually pretty friendly and nice to talk to. But then one day he came running up to me, carrying a piece of messy paper in his hand.

Avuz: "Stinthad! Stinthad! I made a picture!"
Stinthad: "You mean you drew something?"
Avuz: "Yep! I saw Goden making those funny pictures on the walls, so I tried doing it. Then she said she would "split my head like a melon" if I touched the walls again. I don't know what that means, but she sounded angry so I left her alone and drew on a piece of paper instead!"
Stinthad: "That's great! Let me see it!"

Stinthad: "Uh..."
Avuz: "Isn't it great?"
Stinthad: "Um, yeah, it's...lovely. What exactly is it though?"
Avuz: "It's a picture of that mean Thob playing with my favorite animal!"
Stinthad: "You, um, don't like Thob?"

Avuz: "I hate her! She's mean, and ugly, and she smells like old fish! And even though I hate eating those gross oysters, she keeps getting more of them! I want her to go away!"
Stinthad: "That's not exactly nice..."
Avuz: "Can I get Ingiz to eat her?"
Stinthad: "Oh god no!"
Avuz: "You're no fun!"

See, I don't think it's healthy for a child to want to kill another dwarf. Or to draw pictures of...well I'm not sure what the hell that thing is.

5th Felsite, 1053, Late Spring

Okay, this is weird. I heard odd noises coming from the abyss, so I decided to go see what was down there. In retrospect, this was a horrible idea and I should never do something that stupid again. However, I didn't find any strange beast down there. Rather, something even more confusing.

What the heck? Someone is building something down here. I didn't approve this project. I haven't even heard about it. Why would we want to build anything all the way down here anyways?

But then I saw something glitter of in the distance, piercing through the thick fog of the abyss.

It looked like microline, only even shinier. It must be adamantine! Wow, that's so incredibly cool! Shame it's in the abyss though, as it's too dangerous to mine out now. No point in telling the other dwarves about it either. They'd just get excited when there's nothing we can do at the moment. But this is incredible! Even the capital doesn't have access to much adamantine after that terrible cave in. But we can mine out a whole vein!

9th Felsite, 1053, Late Spring

I sent the Immortal Rags back into the swimming room for more training, but one of the soldiers came back and told me there was a noise coming from the flooding chamber beneath them. We unlocked the hatch, only to find that Solon had been trapped beneath it.

Apparently she was just fetching some gems to cut when the hatch suddenly locked and she was caught under it. It's a good thing we found her before the room was flooded. It would have been rather unpleasant to open that weeks later and find a starved corpse lying on the floor.

12th Felsite, 1053, Late Spring

Oh, it's them again. Well, they appear to be bringing trade goods so they must have overlooked our less than friendly treatment of them. Or perhaps they're trying to get us to forget about their disturbing desires.

Wait.

I just realized how long those corpses have been lying at the entrance. It's been years, and I still haven't gotten around to building a graveyard. Because I got so used to seeing those bodies I honestly forgot what they represented.

...I'm going to go cry now.

17th Felsite, 1053, Late Spring

Well, I met with the merchants today. It seems the elves sent a new pair of them rather than the ones that visited us last, for obvious reasons. This made me hopeful that I could actually have a nice trading session, but this was not to be.

Things started out nice enough. The merchants were very kind, and had brought a wide selection of goods for trade. Well, actually most of it was just a ton of cloth. But we needed cloth anyways, so I wasn't in any position to complain. I had the dwarves carry several bins of stone crafts to the trading depot. I aimed to give the elves a large profit so that they would overlook last year's mishap.

However when I made the offer, it went horribly wrong.

Renuna:"You filthy savages! How dare you try to offer us the corpse of a mighty tree!"
Iyathi: "You should be ashamed! I insisted that you dwarves had some value, but evidently I was mistaken!"
Stinthad: "What?!? I don't understand, these are all made out stone! See?"
Renuna: "Pathetic! She still doesn't realize what she has done Goes to show how little these dwarves think of the trees."
Stinthad: "What?"
Iyathi: "The bins, fool."

I hadn't even thought about the bins being made from as an issue.

Stinthad: "Wait, that's what is bothering you?"
Iyathi: "Yes."
Stinthad: "Why? Wait, nevermind. Uh, if you don't want the bins, you can just have the crafts. I don't know how you'll carry them though."
Renuna: "Forget it! We no longer have any desire to trade with you savages."
Stinthad: "But I didn't even know-"
Iyathi: "Enough of this! I can't stand to be around you fools a second longer! We are leaving immediately!"

And then they just left. They wouldn't listen to a single word I said to them. Apparently abandoning an entire trade mission due to a wooden bin is not considered absurd in elven society. I was already in the food stockpile trying to drown my sorrows with booze, when I overheard the elves final insult.

Renuna: "Hey! This bridge is made out of wood!"
Iyathi: "My god you're right. YOU FILTHY DWARVES DISGUST ME!!!"
Momuz: "SOD OFF TREELOVERS!! AND CUT YOUR DAMN HAIR!!"

Why can't we all just get along?

__________________________________________________

Silly me, forgetting that elves get pissy about even the bins being made from wood. Even though they bring wooden bins filled to the brim with cloth.