u/TheGarbageGamer

Usually have pretty poor luck in getting the Dwarves to reproduce (and also managing to keep the children alive and happy). But also I usually don't pay too much attention to the children that get born in the fort so they always get lost in the shuffle. Though for this fort, every time I hear/get the notification a new baby's been born, I immediately go and title the babies as a Fortborn. When they reach adulthood like Dobar and Reg have, I can instantly visually tell that they were born in Asobenam.

It's now gonna be a thing I do in every single one of my forts going forward. Amusingly, my Duke's actually had four children in the fort (2 sons and 2 daughters). I'm very interested in seeing whether or not his children will actually inherit his title when he inevitably dies. I assume that's what'll actually happen, but I've never actually managed to have a noble bloodline arise in any of my forts before.

There'll be a lot more of the Fortborns becoming adults in the next few years, so might actually get some Fortborn2's...

I don't know which Dwarf impressed me more.

Mebzuth, who somehow managed to crawl that far a distance with his ribs literally puncturing his heart.
Or Alath, the tantruming Dwarf that did the damage with a single punch unarmed.

After those 70 years of the last bridge, I actually forgot what poverty in DF felt like. Zero trade goods, fort's constantly on the brink of dehydration/starvation, and a little less than half the entire fort is pissed off. It's also a savage map so I've actually finally seen a few of the prehistoric critters. But 90% of the wildlife have been the damned swarms of Keas as always.

Also I actually for once had to parley with the Goblins and handed them over one of our artifacts, a native gold crown. (That crown will be reason number #1 for the massive war that will inevitably be waged against The Odorous Hell.) As the cherry on top, a Bronze Colossus showed up right after and slaughtered half the fort's livestock before it wandered into the fort itself and stepped into a cage trap.

Will most likely let him back out whenever the Goblins return.

After staring at a bridge for two months, actually wanted to try a bit of a more normal fort. I'll definitely eventually add more levels to this fort, but the intention is to try and keep everything on one single layer. Convenience, efficiency, and game performance be damned, we're using the entire mountain range.

Tonight, while I could still load into the fort, if I unpaused it, the game would just instantly crash no matter what I tried. Thought about figuring out how to go back to the old version before today's update, but then I decided to just accept this being the game's way of saying it's this fort's time. I have actually had the "new fort itch" for a while now, but I couldn't bring myself to end my second oldest fort. Once I burned through the rest of my supply of adamantine, I definitely intended on invading the circus but alas... wasn't meant to be.

At the very least, we did get that Skunk Demon that kept trespassing on the bridge before the end. So the fort did get at least a bit of a climax.

Wanted to see how it'd look, so I stitched 5 screenshots of the fort into one.

For 7 years since I started wars with the other Goblin civilizations of the two continents our bridge connects, this Skunk has been terrorizing the surroundings of the fort. Usually arriving with a handful of Goblins, he sought to try and invade the fort but would immediately turn tail and run the moment he was spotted or found himself in conflict.

Some years he wouldn't even dare step on Rigoth's Bridge, and instead would swim through the littered depths of The Seas of Memories.

\"There are sure a lot of goblin bits down here...\"

But his visit in the Summer of 267 ended up going a lot differently for the cursed skunk. He had the misfortune of timing his visit right as the yearly 7 human caravans began crossing Rigoth's Bridge to make their rounds in Ritankivish. His handful of Goblins were killed by the humans' crossbows. He tried to flee the bridge, but this only got him in range of the human soldiers, and Phlegmgland for the very first time on the bridge suffered an attack.

https://preview.redd.it/t63art2qvwgh1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ebe9fd20218387fa66d5b904ff4a1d08fd43e0f6

His way to the eastward continent cut off, he could only try his luck westward. And there at long last did the Dwarves of Ritankivish finally truly meet the Goblin Lord face to face.

https://preview.redd.it/0c438rirvwgh1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a0c4c99a2e1194c1666604b9acefd780e230089

He squirmed his way past, dodging the attacks of the Dwarves. But beyond the obsidian gate that towered over the bridge, more Dwarven soldiers were marching their way down the bridge from Ritankivish. Desperate for a way out, Phlegmgland stormed the obsidian gate and fled up one of its towers. But the only thing it led to was up. And that was the skunk's fatal mistake. For when it climbed back down, the Dwarves were there ready.

https://preview.redd.it/mwv1j7xsvwgh1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aae9f7d4c1078b86d2d559e287f6ab93a2f74e56

https://preview.redd.it/88wlzz3vvwgh1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b9b786a2ce9b423fdeba0f987828404488713be2

Yet it still did not fight. It only wished to escape. But with each passing moment and more legendary Dwarven artifact weapons were being plunged into the wretched thing's hide. The Dwarves had no intention of avenging the hundreds of Goblins the Skunk had killed, they only sought to remove this wretched Skunk from their glorious bridge.

https://preview.redd.it/6kg4njhwvwgh1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=33cd76e8a369b98585dbb031d4b32a67782149fe

The grisly fight was brought to a close with the Skunk being decapitated by an Axe Lord by the name of Urvad Stonestakes. An already acclaimed Dwarf having won endless glory in helping slay the zombie horde created in the fort a decade prior, Urvad was immediately granted the title of Skunk Slayer once the dust had settled.

https://preview.redd.it/8iu7y5cxvwgh1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2161d5c987e652842624d02d1e1ec173222da01f

https://preview.redd.it/lwno2jyxvwgh1.png?width=2337&format=png&auto=webp&s=f152eace6111aacbd20fe1916c4aaed47646858e

And thus, the reign and time of Phlegmgland the Spurting Mucus in the world of The Universes of Dawning has come to an end.

As cool as the divine metal slab we got from a random invading giant is, it was actually the random book we got from a trade that resulted in the rise of 11 new Necromancers in the world of The Universes of Dawning. The caged but still squirming undead hand of the giant Susus Ozstratab is the only remaining proof of the 500 zombie army one of the Necromancers created directly underneath the fort by resurrecting the entire corpse pit.

As of 266, all 11 Necromancers have perished. The final Necromancer went stark raving mad and wandered the exterior and interior of the fort for years until the fateful day arrived that she was outside right when a Goblin army arrived. The Necromancers may be gone, but the 7 Putrid Zombie Dwarf squad of The Emancipated Dead they helped create still stand guard on the bridge to this day.

I murdered pretty much every other grazing animal I had to try and stem the tide, but I could do nothing to stop the rhinos from dropping like flies. The pasture's regrown since then and a decade later the population's back up to like 40 healthy adult rhinos.

Removed my library from the ground floor of the fort and used the space to expand and redesign the tavern. From a dinky little dagger to art of this fort's strongest dwarf and longest living citizen of Ritankivish, Logem Castlescribed the Plaited Purity of Aging. Even included the legendary artifact adamantine spear and shield he's equipped with.

99 years old, and he still leads The Lakes of Metal as their militia captain. Logem's been a part of the fort all the way back since year 202. Notably, over the decades Logem grew a deep disdain for battle, yet I still send him out to fight the hordes of goblins. Which is fine as he also became impervious to stress.

My dwarves actually have also made an artifact adamantine coffin. It goes without saying that coffin will be Logem's once he finally dies of old age.

This is actually the second time I've seen him over there skulking about on the other continent. For whatever reason, this time he decided to take a brief swim in the ocean before scuttling off the map after one of his few Goblins fell into a cage trap. A shame, as I really want him to make the trek over the bridge to the fort so my Dwarves can fight him.

With such a kill count and the fact that he has recorded kills that happened after the end of this world's generation (I stopped it at 200), I looked him up in legends mode and yeah... this fellow is apparently just eating his own Goblins in an unending civil war taking place at his own dark pits.

I guess he finally got bored of goblins.

None of my 11 Necromancers were very happy Dwarves after learning the secrets of life and death. Just because you technically don't need to drink or eat anymore, doesn't mean you should give it up altogether. The other 10 Necromancers at least met various violent ends. Ushat outlived them but eventually the crippling need for alcohol got to her.

Also 90% of her friends in the fort are dead but I'm sure it was the lack of alcohol.

The coins and large gems are actually only a drop in the bucket of the fort's total wealth, but I really like how it looks...

I'm not even completely satisfied with how it turned out and even so it's immediately one of the coolest things I've ever made in Dwarf Fortress. Just kept looking at the coastline and kept thinking "that kinda resembles a mouth." Then I remembered we did actually kill a dragon a few decades ago and that was that.

Originally it was fully made of serpentine blocks I got from siege trolls, but then I changed it into engraved green glass (this is the engraving mod I use). Kinda liked the serpentine better but all that glass is already engraved so I'm sticking with it. Also dumped some more lava into the ocean for foundations for a couple of new towers I want to build.

I was supposed to retire this fort the moment I finished the bridge itself (almost 50 years ago at this point)...

"You want 60 bars of adamantine? For the FLOOR?"

By far the best main floor of a fort I've ever done. Both functionally as well as visually.

Tonight, I got my lava pumps working like how I'd like them after my initial test of them. No overflowing into the ocean. The lava lands squarely in the middle of the bridge, the iron drawbridges up block the lava from flowing through the fortifications on the sides of the bridge. The lava just simply flows neatly down the bridge...

...Scorching literal years of engravings into nothing. I've even been engraving only a chunk of the bridge per year so new events are usually engraved. I guess that side of the bridge just isn't gonna be engraved...

Decided to test my bridge's lava pumps. For the almost 50 years of this bridge's existence, these damned goblins and their trolls were driving me insane by vandalizing my bridge with completely pointless stairways up through the bottom of the bridge (when they could just walk onto it).

So naturally, my thought was to just fill that entire area over there on the other continent (where the old fort used to be) with lava. It was a pretty good idea I thought, but this meant the goblin rams immediately just targeted the walls holding the lava instead of the fortifications that line the sides of my bridge (also completely pointless).

Ram busted the wall, and out came the lava setting the eastern continent ablaze. Then I think a tree fell on the surface and busted a floor I built to cover one of the old fort's stairways which still lead into the mines which are also still connected to the new fort. So now the lava is also flooding into the underground.

...Think I'll channel out ground next to the walls holding the lava and use the ocean as a moat to keep them from ramming the wall. Otherwise, I guess I'll just have to trap the hell out of those areas specifically for the rams.

I'd love to keep this save cause it's funny but no way I'm waiting for all that lava to drain. (And also simultaneously deal with a 150 Goblin invasion that's currently ransacking their way into the underground of the fort.)

Also I completely underestimated the pressure at which the lava was going to have when pumped so I ruined a lot of ocean with obsidian when it overflowed the bridge...

It was perfect. I was literally looking at my Dwarves collecting the body parts right as the Necromancer raised 30 zombies within like two seconds. Biggest "OH SHIT" moment I've experienced in DF so far. I didn't even notice the living Goblin that was in the tree that spooked the Necromancer until it was all over.

We managed to get through it though. Quite a few Dwarves died during the struggle, but one of the wounded soldiers that was still nearby was downright heroic and put in a lot of work in killing the zombie horde. Don't know how Mistem's even alive with a completely rotted spine, but I guess that's just DF for you.

Also had one of the largest brawls I've ever seen in any of my forts happen tonight. 20 dead Dwarves and like 80 injured ones. 245 has been a fucked up year for Rigoth's Bridge.