Let's Play Dwarf Fortress: Syndrome Conundrum

[The_root_of_all_evil]

But maybe I'm overreacting. I'm sure they'll be just fine!

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*cough* *cough* Just needs some fresh blood coating and it'll be fine. Did you want me to bring you a drink Stinthad?

as long as you wash the soldiers somehow

I'm sorry? You want to WASH away MY fresh BLOOD, from MY WEDDING DRESS?

I think that's Disrespecting a Superior Officer...C'mere!

 

[sharpshot]

But maybe I'm overreacting. I'm sure they'll be just fine!

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*cough* *cough* Just needs some fresh blood coating and it'll be fine. Did you want me to bring you a drink Stinthad?

as long as you wash the soldiers somehow

I'm sorry? You want to WASH away MY fresh BLOOD, from MY WEDDING DRESS?

I think that's Disrespecting a Superior Officer...C'mere!

Don't worry, at this point I'm sure you've become some sort of blood magnet and bathing will only attract the blood washed off the others onto you.

 

[Silent_Thunder]

Wow I actually did something important to the story, oh well, now that I'm a semi above-exta character, I will probably die a slow painful death soon. I'm actually quite suprised that with all the FBs you've had to deal with, none have brought The Rot with them. I swear every 3rd beast brings it into my fortress. My SoP is now just to wall off any areas the beasts bled in. And If the dwarves trapped inside dont have their skin slogh off like a Chernobyl employee, then I can unwall the area.

 

[Irridium]

Perhaps this gas will just make them all insane.

Oh boy, that would be quite the episode...

 

[Chal]

I hope that the gas is some horrible nerve-rotting syndrome that spreads through blood contact, if only for the sheer fortress-crumbling entertainment value.

Love, Chal's ghost.

 

[Engarde]

Oh boy, doom gas! Stinhad will be the only one to live, since she is tied up and not going to be moving for awhile.....and then the Fun begins.

 

[vallorn]

Super Happy FunTime Gas! yay! at least since Vallorn's injured she/he (cant remember *Durp*) never breathed it in!

 

[Internet Kraken]

My experience indicates that this is totally a survivable incident, as long as you wash the soldiers somehow and cordon off the original battlezone, and have a system that doesn't make the washing site into an infection vector.

The problem with blocking off the original battlezone is that the fight somehow ended up taking place right below the surface where a dwarf enters the deep roads. To block it off would cut off the entire fort from everything underground. Evne if this was possible though I probably wouldn't do it, as I don't believe any extract from the beast splattered on the ground. Only those who breathed in the gas are infected, and they can't spread it. I think.

Of course this could all result in nothing. Syndromes are fun like that. You don't know if they're harmless or if they can bring down a civilization.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Chapter 68: From the journal of Stinthad Kekimtobul

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9th Opal, 1055, Mid-Winter

Well, the military seems fine. It's been a few days and they haven't started hacking up blood yet, or something equally horrifying. So the beast probably wasn't carrying a disease!...or it could have a delayed response. But things seem okay for now. I suggested that the military wash off in the swimming chamber to be safe, but Commander Root refused to do so as it would clean off her blood armor. Hopefully she'll be more reasonable once the forge masters produce some steel armor.

13th Opal, 1055, Mid-Winter

There's been reports of a lone goblin wandering through the wasteland. He seems to be all that remains of the ambush squad that had assaulted Reveredtour a few months ago. His allies have either fled or died, so I'm not sure why he remains. I figure since he isn't doing anything wrong there is no reason to go kill him. I mean, maybe he is trying to work up the courage to come offer peace. That would be nice! Sadly, Goden has sent the military out anyways because she thinks the goblin is just trying to attack some civilians that wander to far from the fort. She always assumes the worst out of the goblins. I'm sure they've stolen from us, killed us, attempted to kidnap children, and have been working to bring down our society...but maybe they changed their mind?

17th Opal, 1055, Mid-Winter

I really need to stop being so trusting. Before the soldiers left I ordered that one of them approach the goblin with a friendly offer of peace. I figured it was worth trying. If he did try to attack, he would no doubt flee as soon as he saw an entire army coming after him. Or so I thought.

Brave Musashi was selected to be the diplomat.

She made a friendly gesture to the goblin, stretching out her hand and offering peace. The goblin just let out a war cry and charged forward without even hearing what Musashi had to say! So of course the army then leapt out of cover to help Musashi, but unfortunately Musashi's fighting skills were not very developed.

She died in the short time it took for the military to reach the goblin. Now that the whole army was closing in on the goblin, you'd think he would've died horribly.

Instead he cut off one of the soldier's arms and ran off into the distance cackling like a maniac. So we're down a soldier and another one has lost a hand. I should probably order some steel gauntlets to be made next, since we seem to have a problem with soldiers losing their hands. Plus steel gauntlets are stylish and shiny!

25th Opal, 1055, Mid-Winter

The masons have completed building a protective barrier on the beach.

Stonesense Version [http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/4968/wallsense.png]

If the wall has been built properly then it will keep animals and invaders from wandering below the fort and terrifying the populace. So if we do have to go into lockdown again, it shouldn't completely disrupt all work as the enemy really won't be able to reach us. Of course a wall still needs to be built on the opposite side. Hopefully that will be finished before the next inevitable conflict arrives.

27th Opal, 1055, Mid-Winter

Amost collapsed today, and he didn't get back up. After intentionally depriving himself of food and water for weeks due to his insanity, his body simply couldn't support itself anymore. It's such a depressing sight when dwarves let themselves waste away like this...hopefully it won't happen again. I was worried little Woots not being able to handle losing her family, but she seems to have worked through it. Mainly because Goden was surprisingly kind and caring to her.

1st Obsidian, 1055, Late Winter

Well according to my calendar it's obsidian now. If I didn't have one with me I'd have no idea what the date was. Night and day lose all meaning when you're confined to a cave deep underground. Only 21 more days to go though. Anyways, this month has had a terrible start.

The mason Monkey Head fell into the moat and drowned. As one might expect, his death was a direct result of a disregard for proper safety regulations, and common sense in general. See I was trying to improve the design of our moat so that it would be easier to drown goblins with it. One suggestion from an anonymous dwarf seemed like a really good idea;

A shame there is that wall upon either side of the bridge, else you could build a chamber above it to drop water upon incoming entities to flood them off the bridge and into the moat... or a creature drop. Not sure the flooding effect would work too well however, may be more trouble than it is worth at the moment. Alas depending on a single lever-pull for that length of bridge doesn't seem to be faring very well. Really a pity some dwarf decided to walk out onto the bridge during this whole affair.

I would recommend something like this:

Spoiler

Apparently some kind of gatehouse is needed, with a door upon either side, so you can better lock your dwarves inside (when needed) so they can't wander out to the bridge. IMO if you want to drop things to their death from the bridge, it needs to have its length extended. One way to do that, without expanding the size of the moat, is to twist the bridge itself from a straight line across to a pattern that forces entrants to walk suspended over the moat for a greater period of time.

However in order to build this some of the old retracting bridges that were put up to fill the moat had to be removed. I figured this would be a simple task. However, I once again overestimated the competence of our masons. There were two bridges that had to be removed. Both could be deconstructed safely from land. However, Monkey Head decided to stand on one of the bridges and remove the other. A foolish decision as it would prevent another dwarf from removing the other bridge until he was finished. Or at least that's what you'd expect, but some lazy idiot came along and began to remove the bridge anyways! They ignored safety regulations in favor of getting their work done as soon as possible. As a result, the bridge suddenly collapsed while Monkey Head was standing on it.

What a pointless death. Poor Monkey Head didn't deserve to die like that. Goden is pretty angry, and wants to know who caused this to happen. Unsurprisingly none of the masons are willing to admit to committing dwarfslaughter. I don't really care if someone gets punished for this though. I just hope it motivates the masons to be more careful in the future.

However, I think I know who did cause this.

Just a hunch.

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[The_root_of_all_evil]

I suggested that the military wash off in the swimming chamber to be safe, but Commander Root refused to do so as it would clean off her blood armor. Hopefully she'll be more reasonable once the forge masters produce some steel armor.

I'd suggest appealing to her stomach first. If she's built of the same cloth as me.

Or possibly mariticide.

 

[aTolyK]

oh cool i died.
...
hey, can my brother (NikitaK) be dwarfed? he wants siege engineer/operator

SUGGESTION: Try siege engines. help a lot

 

[Engarde]

I am still waiting for Root to say, fall in the moat and turn it all red. Almost worth doing for style points of having a bloodmoat. Teach Root grandmaster swimming, get bloodmoat? Heheh....

 

[sheic99]

I just finished reading the LP up to this point, and it was a fun read. Could I possibly be dwarfed at some point?

 

[Trolldor]

Could I be dwarfed? I'd like to be a soldier.

This is a brilliant LP, by the way. One of the best written pieces of comedy in a long time.

 

[Internet Kraken]

oh cool i died.
...
hey, can my brother (NikitaK) be dwarfed? he wants siege engineer/operator

SUGGESTION: Try siege engines. help a lot

Sure, I can add him to the list. Though for some reason we haven't gotten migrants in a while. I may have changed something with migration earlier and forgotten about it. I'll look into that when I get home.

As for siege engines, I prefer not to use them but I definetly see how they can be useful. I was actually planning on setting some up in one area of the map, however the invading forces disrupted this plan.

 

[aTolyK]

They're very effective when locked in, kinda what we need here...

 

[snip snip 4ever]

Is there any chance I could be dwarfed? if so can I be Sir Snip. preferably a soldier. =)

 

[Internet Kraken]

Chapter 69: From the journal of Stinthad Kekimtobul

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5th Obsidian, 1055, Late Winter

It seems that we have a problem regarding the burial of the dead.

Mainly that we've run out of room for coffins, so bodies have simply been put in a pile near the front gate, just like we used to do a few years ago. This brings back memories. Bad, painful, depressing memories. I'd have additional burial platforms built above the hospital to house more coffins, however we need to focus all our efforts on completing Reveredtour's defensive walls. It's not pleasant having those corpses just lying there, but other than being uncomfortable they can't do any harm.

8th Obsidian, 1055, Late Winter

The two bridges had been removed, thankfully with no one else drowning in the process. I ordered the rest of the bridges lowered as well as there is no need to keep them raised right now. Now we simply need to remove parts of the wall and start building the new bridges. Now even though we are in a crisis, I still feel the need to maintain our forts aesthetic design. It will help to keep morale up! So we're going to need many tunnel tube logs to build these new bridges. The safe area of the crypt has been depleted of tunnel tubes, but the rest of the crypt has plenty of them! Thing should be fi-

Silent Thunder: "Um, Stinthad? Sorry to bother you, but I have a report regarding your orders to construct new bridges."
Stinthad: "What a coincidence! I was just writing about that! Everything's fine, I presume?"
Silent Thunder: "...not exactly. It seems that we forgot you had floors built on those walls to hold statues. When we removed the walls, the floors came crashing down on top of us. It created quite a mess."

Stinthad: "Oh god how I could I forget about that!!!!"
Silent Thunder: "Please don't blame yourself, it was our error. And to answer your question some dwarves were injured by falling debris. I don't think any wounds were serious though.
Stinthad: "You should get Rowan to check them just in case."
Silent Thunder: "Yes, about Dr.Rowan. He was quite drunk and just happened to be walking by at the time the collapse took place. I'm afraid he tumbled into the moat."

Stinthad: "Oh no...but he's fine right? I told the mechanics to train the war animals to rescue drowning dwarves after the last death."
Silent Thunder: "Well Ebekem the alligator did swim up to him...unfortunately it just watched him slowly drown to death, not sure what to do."

Why can't anything ever work out right? I still had so much left to learn from Rowan...now he's gone. Wait, I just realized; who's going to take care of the patients? I'm trapped in jail, but even if I wasn't I can't tend to them alone! We need another doctor, but nobody else is any medical skills in the fort! I need to pick a novice and teach them what little I know...but who?

I wonder if Silent Thunder is interested in a promotion.

12th Obsidian, 1055, Late Winter

You know things have been relatively calm lately in regards to wildlife. After that forgotten beast attack I haven't heard any news about enemies or dangerous animals. Seems like we might finally have things under control!

Goden: "Stinthad, quick! I need clearance to initiate a full lock down!"
Stinthad: "What? Why?!?"

Stinthad: "...you're kidding."
Goden: "I'm afraid not."
Stinthad: "Okay, you go deal with that, I'm just going to bang my head against the wall in frustration."
Goden: "Right."

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

14th Obsidian, 1055, Late Winter

Okay, got to calm down. Freaking out never helps. We've been preparing for this. We should be fine. Goden ordered lockdown, everyone got inside safely, and the bridge is closed. The goblins can't hurt us...probably. Now let's see how many goblins there are anyways. I mean, if it's a small amount we might be able to handle them!

What the fuck.

17th Obsidian, 1055, Late Winter

Why are there so many goblins out there?!? It's ridiculous, this report must be inaccurate! There's no way the goblins would send that many soldiers to take out our little fort!

Well regardless, things are just getting worse with each update I recieve. It seems that someone was outside when lockdown was initiated. I have no idea what he was doing out there but there wasn't anything we could've done to save him. Also it seems that the goblins have moved on to taking potshots at the animals dwelling in the moat. Poor things don't have a chance to survive.

20th Obsidian, 1055, Late Winter

The goblin squads seem to have formed together into one massive blob. I imagine it's quite a terrifying sight to behold, but at the very least they seem to have set up camp near the outskirts of Reveredtour rather than closer to the fort. They may be scouting out the location right now trying to plan an attack though. If they do find a way in, we're screwed. There would be no hope left. The goblin horde is larger than the entire population of Reveredtour, not even counting their beak dog mounts. The sole advantage we have over them is some superior steel equipment, but that won't be enough to keep them back. All I can do is build more walls and hope for the best.

28th Obsidian, 1055, Late Winter

YES!!!! FREEDOM!!!!

Finally I am no longer trapped in that disgusting cavern! Now I can once again see all the things I love about Reveredtour! Oh how I've missed it so! I think first I'll go frolicking through what remains of the forest with Lorbam and Ingiz! Then, we can go take a walk on the beach looking for shells! And then-

...oh yeah.

Fuck these goblins.

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[Fr]anc[is]

RUN AWAY! whoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoop

Do you have crossbowmen to take pot shots at them or something? Can you dig underneath them and somehow collapse them into a pit?

 

[(name here)]

I think he's pretty much stuck hiding indoors until they go away. I count three elite bowmen, which I have been afraid to face ever since that time when a human one went all Parthian on some high-quality iron armored champions and left a pile of corpses.

There's no question they can slaughter any crossbow dwarves he might have through fortifications.