Dwarf Fortress Diary – Part 1

It is the year 201 on the world of Ramul Thran. Some time in early spring, seven dwarves arrive in a green and pleasant valley, and declare this to be the place for a new dwarf fortress. What will become of these brave little short-arses? Will they find wealth beyond measure? Or will they be overrun by Goblin hordes, their mighty fortress becoming a dusty tomb?

We begin our tale with seven dwarves and a cart full of booze, mushrooms, wood and other assorted bits and bobs that will help these intrepid explorers on their way. First thing they do is dig an entrance into the side of a very large hill, not far from a babbling brook. This will supply the dwarves with fresh water if they ever happen to run out of booze, of which they consume a significant amount. In fact, they all started getting pissed as soon as they arrived…

Directly outside the entrance (to the right) of the fortress.

Anyway, off they go and start digging out the entrance and a large cavern just beyond it, which will be used as our trade depot. They also dig out two rooms: one north of the trade depot which will be the refuse area, and one south of the depot to be used as a ‘finished goods’ stockpile, which can be moved to the trade area with ease and convenience. Next the dwarves dig out a long hallway with two smaller hallways coming off to the north and south. They dig four workshops off the north hallway, with large stockpiles attached, just off the south hallway they build a barracks where the dwarves will sleep communally for now, and next door, a meeting hall.

Now somehow a cat stowed away on board the wagon. I certainly don’t remember requisitioning one for the trip but it’s here nonetheless. We all know that people don’t choose cats, cats choose their owners. So this cat decides to adopt one of the miners and proceeds to follow him around everywhere while he’s trying to dig. This wouldn’t be so bad if the cat didn’t insist on catching rats outside and bringing the little corpses as presents for the dwarf miners. These little rat corpses then start to go bad and create great big stinking clouds of miasma. Naturally, this is made even worse for the miners as they are in caves and tunnels, and they start to become rather unhappy. Fearing some kind of revolt, I finish the refuse stockpile and the rest of the dwarves run around picking dead rats up and carrying them off to the trash. Such a glamorous job.

The entrance, trade depot, refuse room and goods stockpile.

So now the stinking clouds of dead rat odour are now confined to the refuse room and part of the trade depot, as the dwarves have not crafted and installed doors yet so the smell leaks out a bit. So I order my mason dwarf to craft some stone doors, tables and chairs, and my woodworker to make some wooden beds for the barracks. These are promptly installed and then, in the case of the beds, used immediately, seeing as though all the dwarves have had to sleep on is a cold wet stone floor, and they’re feeling a bit tired and cranky.

For some reason, as soon as I opened up the meeting hall, two stray dogs, a puppy and – bizarrely – a donkey all move in. This is where the dwarves come to eat and chat, but they don’t seem to mind all the animals one bit. The thing that baffles me most is just where the hell this donkey came from…

So everything is going slowly but steadily. The dwarves are digging out a new room to be used as food storage, the cat is still chasing rats, the donkey is, well, still in the meeting hall, and the Kobold is sneaking into the trade goods stockpile to steal st… wait! Stop, thief! I quickly deputise two of my dwarves so they will go and deal with the cheeky Kobold, but all they do is run the wrong way into the meeting hall instead, and start panicking and scaring the donkey. Useless bastards. The Kobold helps itself to some nice stone mugs that I was going to have the dwarves sell to elves as merchandise and legs it back into the forest.

Party time! The capital D is the mystery donkey, by the way.

Soon, autumn comes, and with it a load of immigrant dwarves. Obviously lured to my fortress with tales of its splendour, and not at all because they probably had nowhere else to go. So all the new dwarves quickly head to the meeting hall for a meet-and-greet with the original seven – and the donkey. One dwarf suddenly declares party time – not in honour of the new members of the fortress, but one of the tables in the meeting hall.

That’s right. They are so drunk on dwarf wine that they have a party for an inanimate object. It’s going to be a long winter…

Next time: The dwarves try to set up a farm and grow crops before they die of starvation…