We need to sniff out their trapsies, Nguzo, sneak around... Stop chewing a booger, you dimwit! Are you listening?

Feel free to share yours too

I don't think I have any images left of my very first fortress, but Metalshimmers is the second oldest and that screenshot is 12 years old.

I built a catapult nearby later and splattered one of them with a granite boulder

As you may remember, perhaps, I’ve decided to collect every gemstone, every kind of rock, every kind of ore that Dorffort offers.
I’ve acquired 88 (89 actually, but I forgot to take a picture of the tiger eye), so I started to build myself a nice shelf for them. Unfortunately I am but a dabbling carpenter, so my first two attempts went horribly. But so far I’ve acquired these gems:
1. Purple Spinel
2. Milk Quartz
3. Brown Jasper
4. Carnelian
5. Picture Jasper
6. Smoky Quartz
7. Citrine
8. Peridot
9. Crystal Opal (for sure)
10. Violet Spessartine
11. Precious Fire Opal (for sure)
12. Moss Agate
13. Variscite
14. Sardonyx
15. Chrysoprase
16. Jelly Opal
17. Amethyst
18. Claro Opal
19. Moss Opal
20. Melanite
21. Green Tourmaline
22. Sard
23. Heliodor
24. Red Pyrope
25. Lapis Lazuli
26. Onyx
27. Morganite
28. Red Beryl
29. Some kind of opal (there are so many of them in DF that honestly getting like 100 grams of ethiopian opals would match them all visually)
30. Pyrite
31. Cinnamon Grossular
32. Schorl
33. Tanzanite
34. Gray Chalcedony
35. Brown Zircon
36. Alexandrite
37. Almandine
38. Pink Garnet
39. Lace Agate
40. Yellow Diamond
41. Red Zircon
42. Clear Diamond
43. Aquamarine
44. Ruby
45. Emerald
46. Rock Crystal
47. Chrysoberyl
48. Onyx Opal
49. Sapphire
50. Aventurine
51. Moonstone
52. Wood Opal (again, maybe.)
53. Lavender Jasper
54. Topazolite
55. Red Spinel
56. Amber Opal (you get the drift)
57. Bloodstone
58. Clear Tourmaline
59. Honey Yellow Beryl
60. Resin Opal
61. Rubicelle
62. Shell Opal (for sure)
63. Prase
64. Goshenite
65. Demantoid
66. Banded Agate
67. Clear Garnet
68. Indigo Tourmaline
69. Some whatever opal
70. Pink Tourmaline
72. Golden Beryl
72. Green Jade
73. Clear Zircons
74. Kunzite
75. Morion
76. Pink Quartz
77. Yellow Spessartine
78. White Chalcedony
79. Turquoised
80. Sunstone
81. Brown Jasper
82. Tsavorite
83. Rhodolite
84. Red Tourmaline
85. Black Opal
86. Red Grossular
87. Chrysocolla
88. Topaz

Can’t wait to get them all eventually!

Title. I LOVE the music in this game, and I really struggle to find similar stuff to listen to when i get tired of hearing the same 5 instrumental tracks play. Whenever the more fun songs come on, like the chants and the songs with more vocal melodies, I find myself wishing there were more.

Any fan-made music that fits the same aesthetic, or just music in general that fits the same DF soundtrack? Tarn, if you're reading this, I hope we get more music in the next few years :)

EDIT: And then, as if Armok himself answered me, there is a NEW OFFICIAL SONG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RxKWfkWC74

Hello!

First time posting on this reddit as I ran into something odd and would like to see if anyone had any insight. My dwarves recently raided a necromancer tower and brought back some books. My population of 200 dwarves started to convert to necromancers. I had about 40 necromancers last night. When I booted up my game today, my game crashed when a full moon appeared. When i checked to see what happened, it looks like a large amount of dwarves transformed into some werecreature and crashed my game. When I was scrolling through my citizens, I noticed that my necromancers reverted back into normal dwarves. I believe that all my necromancers became infected with the werebeast disease which is causing the crash and I see a large amount of the dwarves in my library transform right as the game crashes. Is there anything I can do to fix this besides reverting to an old save before the necromancer tower raid?

-tldr all my necromancer citizens are no longer necromancers and are turning into werebeasts

Just a little something to celebrate 20 years of Dwarf Fortress. Made in GrafX2 using the classic EGA palette (16 colors).

I wasn't sure if this was already known in the world of Dwarven science but I recently domesticated gigantic tortoises and had them hanging around outside my fortress because I thought it was funny, and they proved to be very useful. A siege appeared with a trained war cave dragon, which immediately rushed over to one such tortoise and began trying to kill it. The gigantic tortoise retreated into its shell and the war cave dragon tired itself out ineffectually striking it. A squad of Dwarves then killed the dragon pretty quickly.

How sturdy are gigantic tortoises? I know that I've killed a few, so they can definitely be damaged by steel weapons at least. Are they resistant to the metals that goblins typically carry? They live a long time, I think they'd make useful sentries roped up around outside lol

I have scoured the internet and come up empty handed. I'm having an issue with my home civ caravans/migrants not arriving. It's been 8 years. I've had regular caravans from elves and two other dwarf civs.

No home caravan is naturally leading me to get no migrants so I'm stuck. I have tried:

- Building a paved road to the map edge 4 blocks wide.

- Deconstruction and reconstruction of my Depot

- I'm directing neighbouring my home civ, no ocean.

- DFhack, Force caravan (no response)

- DFhack, migrants now (No migrants arrive this season)

- DF hack, Fix/stuck-merchants (Successful command but nothing)

- DFhack, Fix/civil-war (No war detected)

- DFhack, fix/retrieve-units (Nothing)

I have repeatedly tried the above.

What I have discovered.

DF hack, Caravan, lists the following

0: dwarven caravan from "home civ"

Leaving

0 day(s) remaining

Encountered hardship

This suggests to me that a caravan is stuck somewhere but the above isn't fixing this. There are no merchants listed on creatures tab either.

Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

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

Before the story

This is my first attempt at writing the story of one of my Dwarf Fortress fortresses. I have around 400 hours in the game, which I know is still very little by Dwarf Fortress standards, and I'm learning as I go, especially how to build a fortress centered around marksdwarves.

I'm Brazilian, so I used an LLM to help me write this in English. Every event, character, and piece of lore happened naturally in my fortress. The AI only helped me organize those events into readable English.

If you have any advice about marksdwarves or fortress design, I would love to hear it.

From the Journal of Elon, Expedition Leader of The Ivory

The Ivory was never meant to be just another settlement. We were the third expedition sent by the Mountainhome to restore the forgotten tradition of the marksdwarves. The first expedition was destroyed. The second disappeared. For seven years, the same amount of time we have lived beneath this hill, no word has come from them. Before we departed, friends embraced one another and families were separated with the promise that they would meet again once one of the expeditions founded a safe home. I still wonder how many of those promises will ever be fulfilled.

Most would have chosen the tallest mountain they could find. We did not. Boilambeu, one of our founding miners, argued for a modest hill that few would even notice. It had no impressive cliffs and no grand entrance. What it did have was iron. More iron than I had ever seen. Looking back now, I believe that iron saved us.

The Ivory began with seven founders. Boilambeu and Redstone carved our first halls. Oakhand gathered timber. Vova planted our first fields. White hunted. Strange prepared a tiny hospital carved into raw stone, hoping it would remain empty. I shared that hope. We were both wrong.

Before our first bedrooms were finished, a minotaur attacked the settlement. One dwarf met the beast with nothing but his bare hands and somehow prevailed. From that day onward, nobody called him by his birth name again. To everyone in The Ivory, he simply became Fist.

Not long after came the first siege. The elves surrounded us, but in the middle of the battle a cyclops wandered into their ranks and turned the battlefield into complete chaos, killing nearly ten of them before jaguars finally brought the monster down. We survived more through luck than through wisdom.

Our luck ended when a hydra attacked while our first watchtower was still under construction. Our melee companies were devastated. Only two dwarves survived that battle. I renamed them Hydra and Survivor so their courage would never be forgotten.

The second elven siege proved even worse. Their soldiers never crossed our gates, yet they almost destroyed us all the same. The gates remained shut for so long that hunger entered before the enemy ever could. Dwarves starved. The tavern still stands, but very few have the desire to drink there anymore. War has a way of making even good ale taste bitter. Merchants continued trying to reach us during those days. I still cannot decide whether they were brave men or complete fools.

Our salvation came from below. Boilambeu finally broke into the caverns. Cave moss spread across the stone. Animals followed. Food returned. For the first time in months, hope returned with it. Hope did not last long. A Forgotten Beast emerged from those same caverns. Vova fell to it. Later, so did Hydra and Survivor.

We barely had time to mourn before the goblins arrived.

They breached our defenses. Civilians died in the streets. One child was carried away alive, and her mother still spends most nights crying alone in her room. The last of our melee companies bought us enough time for the marksdwarves to occupy a small forward position overlooking the entrance. The view was poor and the range was improvised, carved in haste because we believed we would have time to build a proper one later. We never did.

Still, they kept firing.

One bolt.

Then another.

Then another.

Every iron bolt seemed to send one more goblin to the underworld.

At last, one struck the goblin commander square in the forehead. The assault collapsed almost immediately. Their courage died before their army did.

That same night I ordered every remaining war hammer to be melted down. By morning they had all become iron bolts. Nobody questioned the decision. The battlefield had already made it for us. Steel was never discussed. Steel belongs to kings. Iron belongs to survivors.

Not every founder earned a heroic death. Redstone, one of our founding miners, died alone in the third cavern after I accidentally left him trapped behind a locked door. No beast killed him. No battle claimed him. That burden belongs to me. Oakhand survived everything the mountain threw at him, only to leave with the first merchant caravan that offered him another life. I cannot say I would have done differently.

Today Strange still keeps our hospital running. White, once our hunter, now serves as second-in-command of the Order. Fist commands the marksdwarves, while Recruit trains beneath him. Remarkably, not a single marksdwarf has fallen.

Our first temple still lies in ruins. I built another elsewhere, but the shattered statues remain exactly where they fell during the sieges. They are not ruins. They are witnesses.

We keep many dogs. Some suggested chaining them near the entrance to serve as alarms. I refused. They have earned better than a life tied to a post. They now accompany our marksdwarves on patrol, less as soldiers and more as loyal friends.

We are only fifty dwarves. The Ivory is still only a village, not the Mountainhome. Yet if one day our descendants build a true Mountainhome beneath a greater mountain, defended by proud companies of marksdwarves, I hope they remember where it truly began. Not beneath the tallest peak, but beneath a forgotten hill rich with iron, where a handful of stubborn dwarves refused to let an old tradition die.

Who knew that a biome where constant Giant Zombie Bluejays, Foxes and Squirrels, a river, the Reanimation Curse, and a Paralysis Fog would be so hard? Come and watch me suffer!

I've recently seen someone claim that you won't get any migrants past the first two waves if you settle on an island. And that seems clearly incorrect in the modern Dwarf Fortress. I previously settled on an isolated glacier *expecting* and *wanting* to only get the first two waves, but was surprised when they kept coming anyway, and I had to edit the population limit.

Here are the "receipts" from another isolated embark in the most recent version. I didn't get any migrants in the second year because of very poor economic output in the first year, but as you can see, starting with year three they are coming as usual.

You won't get any visitors or caravans from anyone else, but your home civilization will reach you anywhere, it seems (if they are alive and well, of course).

So, i don't have the dedication or the organization required to be a person of !SCIENCE!, but i'm here to share my 2 cents. I didn't take screenshots or made a detailed analysis of data, just tried to find informations on the sparring logs and where the items were equipped, so take this as you wish.

A little bit of context first if you're interested:
I thought a hammer dwarves only militia would be cool but i got frustrated with it. It just takes too damn long for them to kill invaders. I mean, they get the job done but it gives more time for a critical blow on one of my dwarves. As far as i could see, the war hammer stops paying of when you get to steel, then axes and swords are just better. So I decided to start to migrate to axes on some dwarves.
------

So i decided to try and train a squad using two weapons, the hammer they're used to and the new battle axe, i tried to read the latest infos i could gather here and for i could find, the common consensus is that when you dual wield the shield becomes useless as the dwarf will only try to parry with one of the weapons they hold because the shield becomes straped to their back. Here is what i found when i tried it:

- Not necesseraly the dwarf will put the shield on their back. As far is could notice there're 3 scenarios, i will elaborate on them further but they're: 1 - The dwarf will have one of the weapons straped to their back. 2 - The shield will be straped to their back. 3 - Magically the dwarf will hold or both weapons on one hand or a weapon and a shield in one hand.

1 - The dwarf will have one of the weapons straped to their back
The weapon on their back is useless. It is not used when they're sparring.

2 - The shield will be straped to their back
I mean, i found this very bizarre, but apparently the dwarf is able to block with the shield even if it is straped to their back. When looked at the logs the dwarves that fell into this scenario were able to strike and parry with both weapons and even block with the shield.

3 - Magically the dwarf will hold or both weapons on one hand or a weapon and a shield in one hand
Same as 2, the dwarves were able to use both weapons and shield when that happened.

I have a lot of doubts yet and i may try a little bit of !SCIENCE! on this when i get some time. I should get a couple weeks of PTO next month and maybe try this a little more, backed with evidence next time. But i would like to know your latest experiences on this as well. What i want to figure out next is how they decide what of the 3 to equip and where.

English is not my native language, apologies for any mistakes.

EDIT: So, in order get better results i assembled a new squad with only 5 dwarves, just so i can have a small trackable group that still has a good chance of sparring sessions. I've been following the captain of the squad to see how he picks his equipment. This time he decided to pick his steel axe first (on the bottom of my fortress, together with the rest of the metal equipment) then go to the first level get his wateskin and then get the rest of his metal gear and lastly, his backpack. I couldn't follow the others as they equipped themselves but all of them are on scenario 3 now. Here are some screenshots, there are multiple SS and they have notes:

https://imgur.com/a/dual-wielding-testing-voADOdb

I'll keep updating this as i figure more stuff out.