"You have been struck down." - Dwarf Fortress Adventure stories

[mostly_harmless]

This would be my next quest in Echoentrances.

A fight down in the catacombs. Urgh.

Ah well, there was an entrance to the lower level at the keep ...

And so we start carefully exploring the catacombs ...

Here the upper level of the catacombs:

... and after some careful looking around stumble over some pieces of equipment scattered around and a dwarven corpse!
...
Not one, but several corpses!

Next door reveals a deep pit with lots of treasure and loot. However we stay very alert for possible hostiles.

And here they are ... well a single dwarf at first glance! (arrows show the chamber of corpses and the pit of loot)


Tough little bugger:


And there are more!
The next dwarf endures even more pain until he finally dies.

As we hack our way through the catacombs, we marvel at the sheer endless loot scattered around.
However, the fighting has taken its toll already on my party with at least two dead? And some wounded.
Eventually I lose touch with my companions and while trying to find them, are confronted with at least three outlaws!!!

A very hairy situation!

Shit ...

... there goes the left arm! With the whip! Nooooooo!

I fight a retreating battle while my left arm's stump is spraying blood.
Trying very hard not to faint!

The bleeding eventually stops, as I run back through the catacombs, trying to reach safety before passing out!
On my dash through all those rooms full of loot, I grab randomly into a bag and retrieve a "goat hoof figurine of emperor penguins"!! I will keep this as a lucky charm, if I make it out of here.

[NobleHelium]

If you make it out alive I think it's time to retire for real.

[mostly_harmless]

I make it back to the main hall of the keep, drag myself into the next shop, beg for a place to sleep, eat, drink and finally rest!

Waking up in the middle of the night, I eat and drink my last rations and contemplate my situation:


I earned a title for my kills, which is kind of nice.
However, I lost my complete left arm.
And I have lost my trusted iron whip down in the catacombs.
I have an iron shield and a silver slicing knife.

Here my belongings:


Still a taste of anaconda on my tongue!!!

As for the souvenirs:
The obsidian rock from the north-eastern cape
The shark skull from my crossing of the Harmless Strait
The anaconda skull reminding me of the dangers of exploring
The two large lapis lazulis as worldwide convertible valuables
The goat hoof figurine of emperor penguins, the only loot from the catacomb fights, where I lost my left arm!
The goblin bone earring, I took of the goblin vampire.

Now what?!

[NobleHelium]

So coins have weight, and buying gems lets you convert coins into something that weighs less?

[mostly_harmless]

Is there any consequences to taking companions (I know there isn't to taking treasure)? Does time in Adventure mode basically stand still, so the guards and soldiers you're taking away aren't needed anyways? If you retire and let time run will taking away all of the troops make anything bad happen to the kingdom?

As far as I understand it now, the wider history kind of stops after world generation is finished and you start playing. So (currently, this will change with future versions, I am sure) you will not witness any war going on while you are active or semi retired. This is probably also, while my civilisation doe not have a new law-giver (i.e. king). Inheritance and stuff will apparently come with the next release. As far as the guards are concerned, they are not needed by the lord or the civilisation. You can just grab them and let them die. There is the potential, that you de-populate complete civilisations by recruiting all its inhabitants eventually and let them to death. However, the cloning bug, which cost me two adventurers apparently also was observed with keep guards. So there might be an endless supply of the same guard, if the bug occurs.
I have not observed that. In fact I have difficulties finding companions in hamlets I have recruited from with other adventurers.

Remind me how you knew what hamlets to go name. Does the map come pre-filled in? So are there no more hamlets to the south or west, just wilderness?

The world generation process will create the hamlets (up to the point where you tell it to stop, i.e. young world, less hamlets). These hamlets all come with a name.
That name can be revealed by talking to people of other hamlets and town. They will tell you something like Hamlet A was founded by that Gang of Civ B in y55. It is a days travel to the south.
Once you hear that, the hamlets name and position will be included in your known site list. So in theory you could name all the hamlets by just staying put in one hamlet (city) and talk to a lot of people. However, in this particular case, the hamlet density is so thick, that is is not clear from the minimap, what hamlet is where, i.e. multiple hamlets sharing the same minimap tile. So I set out to visit them all, and write their names at the proper location in the map.
I just like my maps.

[quote='sunrise089' pid='306887' dateline='1351882734']
I find the combat mechanics often hilarious, especially throwing. The Wiki had a log to the effect of

You throw water.
The elephant has been struck down.

This is the spearman-beats-tank equivalent, really. Hilarious things can happen, but they are unlikely. I could have tried to clobber my enemy to death my own severed left arm as a weapon. Also you could die of an infection that spreads from a cut open toe, months after the wound was inflicted.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

So coins have weight, and buying gems lets you convert coins into something that weighs less?

Coins have some weight, yes. Especially stacks of dozens of copper coins can be felt (to some degree). The other problem is, that stacking is not implemented yet. So if you loot gold coins off three different people, you end up with three stacks of gold coins. That can very quickly clutter your whole inventory (pure cosmetics really). Also note how the coins all say Goleanthath coins. Goleanthath is the other name of The Slippery Confederation. Meaning, should I ever go to another civilisation/kingdom, my currency will be almost worthless.

Gems on the other hand, weigh almost nothing and can be exchanged for local currency easily.
To get rid of all the stacks, you can buy a valuable item (or more) from a merchant, spending all your money and then just re-buy it from him (it is the same price, no loss). That should return you your money in neater stacks or more gold coins instead of hundreds of copper coins.

But then again, money is pretty much meaningless. You can use it to buy food, but you can find food in the wilderness easily (especially in the next release, when trees actually yield fruit). And you could in theory buy weapons and armor for money, as I have done in the past with one or two adventurers. But you can as well just grab the gear from deceased companions and enemies.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

Harmless has made up his mind.

Wandering the streets of Echoentrances at night, I sell my iron shield and buy a new iron whip.
I also fill my waterskin at the well and buy some interesting looking cave creature hearts as rations.
Have to wait until dawn and until the guards at the keep wake up before I can convince Kad Lateunite, the Macewoman, to join me.

And then we are off.

[mostly_harmless]

What I have decided is to go back to exploring the world. For that I need to hone my outdoor skills.
So the plan is to travel along the beach all the way back to the Harmless Strait. All the while trying to hunt down crabs and stuff, getting up my fighting skills.
Unfortunately Kad backed off at the very first river fording, so I am all alone, which means having to find a safe place to sleep for the night.
For now I hope to make it all the way to Villagetouched.

...

I hunt down a lot of crabs and even sneak up and outrun barn owls, ospreys and albatrosses. All get slaughtered and provide meat. I even spot another anaconda which I kill, collecting a punched out tooth as a souvenir.

...

Then at the very north western area of that land, I start to spot these fellows:


Urgh. They tend to flee just like other animals, but put up more of a fight when faced down.
They are not butcherable. Too human looking, well parts of them at least!

...

Then I see this thing lying at the beach:


...

[mostly_harmless]

So, how dangerous can a Giant Crab be?
Well, pretty dangerous!
It charges at me all the time, knocking me to the ground.
Then the thing got me in its pincer and I cannot get myself freed. It does heavy damage to my right leg, but eventually I manage to hack my way through the pincer.

We both scramble away from each other. The monster tries to get away! I am reduced to throw stones at it for now, not in a condition to engage in close combat again!
And I have to use A LOT of stones! Trying to crawl after the Giant Crab, preventing her from fleeing to the sea, instead chasing her inland.
My injured right leg is preventing me from standing up. And I am weakened a lot by the bloodloss.
The stones don't really seem to cut it. But I am reluctant to throw my silver knife, in fear I might lose it completely.
by pure coincidence, I notice in my inventory, that I have a crab left second leg lodged between my teeth from a much earlier sparring with a crab.
I throw this after the Giant Crab and get awarded one of these rare hilarious moments ...

Naturally, I keep the lucky crab left second leg, with a kill assigned to it!!!

Now lets try to get to a hamlet to rest!

[mostly_harmless]

I have to cross a large river mouth, swimming with just one arm and a useless right leg!
I manage, only to be faced with an anaconda upon dragging myself ashore again!
But I don't plan to die to such a lowly beast now, after I all endured!



I finally make it to the hamlet of Villagetouched!
Lets get some rest and review the situation tomorrow!

mh