u/Immortal-D

Bit of a read this one, so get comfy first.

The WereHyena Saga continues, much to my chagrin. I successfully burrowed 6 of the 9 survivors. My Mayor (ex-military) decided that standing around in the dining hall waiting for 'attend meeting' took precedence over my very clear burrow order. Her and one other Dwarf refused containment, so I put them back in a squad and send them to Raze a nearby Tower.

I was not paying attention to this mission, and was surprised when they returned just over a day later, still in Beast form. That Tower had a population of 10, so they tussled a bit and called it a day. Ok lesson learned, the next Tower had a population of at least 200 and the squad would not travel during their transformation. Upon their return this time, the mission report was like fifty pages long, and the Mayor now had a kill count of over 100. Mind you; she has no equipment, no shirt, and is barely wearing pants (her turban is fine though).

The Dwarven caravan left unhappy due to no diplomacy, and literally all my projects are on hold while I micromanage this situation, in part due to another troublesome survivor. One WereHyena refused to leave his makeshift hospital because his "wounds" needed cleaning. Even deleting the hospital zone could not make him leave his bed.

So I had to construct a Well at the edge of the ocean, watching my doctors retrieve water, barf into the bucket due to sun sickness, then walk all the way back and apply a single 'cleaning'. I'm hoping one more full moon cycle will be enough and I can quarantine this Dwarf with the rest.

I sent the Mayor and random Dwarf to a Demonic Pit this time. She wracked up another 10 kills and returned home. They are currently en route to another Pit from the same Civilization, but this time with a population of at least 2,000. I am now at war with 3 different Civs, including a Dark Pit with multiple species of Intelligent Monsters/Experiments and a Demon Overlord. None of them knew I existed before now.

We're 5 years in and I am so far behind schedule it's not even funny. My lone squad of 10 is still wearing select leather armor (though they have a masterful steel weapon at least), my surface walls are 1 block height, I have no alternative path for invaders, and the main entrance has a handful of cage traps & menacing spikes around the border. When the invaders start digging, they need only travel about 4 tiles down to reach my farming area because I have not fortified the layers above me yet.

When the final civilian WereHyena dains to leave his bed, I can permanently lock their enclosure and refocus my attention. The Fort needs to speed run weapons production and upgrading amenities (I have like 6 table/chair in my dining hall and 10 mugs serving a population of over 50). The next few years are gonna be rough.

Follow up from this post - Nine of the eleven were confirmed cursed. Victim number 10 made a full recovery without assistance, while number 11 required sutures and bracing of his left ribs. The latter has been retired from military service and given informal Noble position.

Both Dwarves immediately sped towards the pantry to enjoy a well deserved goose egg sammich & mug of tequila, and are now back to work. I'm hoping I can accommodate my new Hyena monsters before they become insane from isolation, but at least the Fortress is safe for now.

Summer of year 2 and I get absolutely owned by this monster. I had just opened the gates for traders - the Werehyena must have been trailing them. The first haulers spot it at the edge of the map and scatter towards the coastline. Lycanthropes of all species are impossibly fast, like blink and you'll miss it. By the time I get the announcement, a handful of Dwarves are cornered on the beach.

My legendary Leather Crafter was the first of many who helped saved this Fortress. The Hyena dropped him almost immediately, and then spent a full ingame day tearing him to pieces because he refused to die. That gave me enough time to make the hard decision. I sent in my military which I had assembled less than a month ago. Half of them didn't even have weapons forged yet (I was making them all steel weapons, I thought I had more time).

Had I not sent my brave recruits, there was a real chance the beast defeated the handful of caravan guards (there was like 3 at most, I'm not even up to wagons yet) and rampaged inside the Fortress proper (again, Werebeasts possess comic book levels of super speed. It easily would have run inside before I could raise the bridge).

Even if I had sufficient soap and doctors to save these brave Dwarves, I would not risk them mending and leaving before I could lock them in (I still have a Fortress to manage here, I can't afford to spend an entire month watching 11 different rooms in case someone starts walking again). Thus, nearly a third of my bedrooms have become a hospital zone. In a month's time I will know which are prisons and which are tombs.

In my last Fortress, I embarked at most hostile Desert, and 90% of the population worshiped the God of Water, Drowning, and something else. The string of Artifacts was also far more than coincidental in name. Now in my Beach Fortress we have an evil weather called 'Profane Gloom' - naturally my first Artifact is 'GloomVise'.

I complete the border of my surface castle/bunker, a striking monument against the hostile landscape. Not a moment later I am presented with 'The Accident of Blotting'. And just now my first Temple petition comes from the 'The Order of Vomit', following an eagle corpse in the central junction being low priority.

I know they do this on purpose, I just can't prove it.

I'm ready for a new round of horrors. The Dwarves scooped up a variety of fruits & veggies the moment we landed, so we have ample booze. Our geese (gooses? ... geeses) are laying eggs, and the boars have already produced a litter of future bacons.

The Evil Weather takes the form of a cloud that spawns on the ocean surface, so as long as we aren't on the beach proper at the wrong time, that's a non-issue. The stranded citizen in the second picture made it inside btw. Our only entrance is now locked and bricked shut; hopefully we'll have at least a couple years before the Necromancers start kitting out their zombies with a Pick.

Thus the Dwarves turn inward, coverting their hole in the sand into a proper home. We already have 2x2 bedrooms with furniture for everyone, and an all-purpose temple overlapping the kitchen. Strike the sand!