[00:00:00] Kristin:
This podcast is of the highest quality. 

[00:00:19] Kristin:
Hello and welcome to A Strange Mood, the Couples' Dwarf Fortress Podcast. I'm Kristin. 

[00:00:23] Kristin:
And I'm Drew, and we are a couple. 

[00:00:25] Drew:
Yes, we are. 

[00:00:27] Kristin:
Playing Dwarf Fortress. 
[interjection] Drew: I stepped on your line.

[00:00:29] Kristin:
That's okay. Well, it's fine. We'll leave it. 

[00:00:32] Drew:
Okay. 

[00:00:34] Kristin:
Get off my line, uh, hey Drew. 

[00:00:37] Kristin:
I'm feeling inspired to start crafting again. 

[00:00:39] Drew:
Oh, well that's good. 
[interjection] Kristin: What?

[00:00:40] Kristin:
Yeah, so I've started collecting some materials, so like you can see I have some sequins. 

[00:00:45] Drew:
Mm-hmm. 

[00:00:45] Kristin:
And some ribbons. 


[00:00:47] Kristin:
And some glue. 


[00:00:48] Kristin:
And these are the bones of our neighbor. 

[00:00:50] Drew:
Wait, what? 


[00:00:53] Kristin:
But I still need some emeralds. Do we have any emeralds? 

[00:00:56] Drew:
We do not have any emeralds. 

[00:00:59] Kristin:
Guess I'm going to have to. 

[00:01:00] Drew:
Kill you too. 

[00:01:01] Drew:
You've been taken by a fell moon. 

[00:01:03] Kristin:
Oh, I'm in a foul mood. Yes. Uh, no, I'm not going to kill him, and I have not murdered any of our neighbors. 

[00:01:09] Kristin:
But we are going to talk about spooky things, and that was scary, right? 

[00:01:12] Drew:
That was indeed scary. 

[00:01:13] Kristin:
You were scared for your life. 

[00:01:14] Drew:
I'm always scared for my life with you, Kristin. 

[00:01:17] Kristin:
Hmm. 

[00:01:18] Drew:
No. Oh. 


[00:01:20] Kristin:
All right, well, I'm just. 

[00:01:21] Drew:
I'm just trying to yes in. 

[00:01:22] Kristin:
Oh, I see. Yes, I'm very scary. 

[00:01:25] Kristin:
Ah, what news do we have?
[00:01:28] Drew:
The main news is that Steven from our Discord has put out the third episode of Learned Hands. 

[00:01:35] Kristin:
Yay! 

[00:01:36] Drew:
So go check that out on YouTube. 

[00:01:38] Drew:
And that's pretty much the roundup there. 

[00:01:39] Kristin:
Alright, well, that was a quick roundup. It was a roundup of one thing. 

[00:01:43] Drew:
Exactly. 

[00:01:44] Kristin:
Well. 

[00:01:45] Kristin:
Why don't you tell us a little bit of how things are going at your fort, Drew? 

[00:01:48] Drew:
So, at... 

[00:01:50] Drew:
For Kudgel, things are going actually pretty well. I've had a lot of different stuff happening, so I think the various events will probably get spread over a couple of episodes. 

[00:01:59] Kristin:
Have fun! 

[00:01:59] Drew:
And especially since we've also want to talk about the spooky forts that were happening at bay 12 games. Yes, and 

[00:02:04] Kristin:
Yes, and some of our listeners told us some spooky stories from their forts. 

[00:02:08] Drew:
So, but first with Ford Kudgel. At Ford Kudgel, we've become a county. 

[00:02:13] Kristin:
Oh, congratulations! 

[00:02:15] Drew:
Yep, so my Baroness has become a Countess, and then she became weirdly obsessed with traction benches. 

[00:02:21] Kristin:
That's okay. That's a really weird thing to be obsessed with. 

[00:02:25] Drew:
It's a little bit of an odd kink, and made worse by the fact that she is working as one of our doctors. 

[00:02:32] Kristin:
Well maybe she's just making her patients really admire the traction benches and not like 

[00:02:38] Kristin:
unnecessarily using them or something. 

[00:02:41] Drew:
Is that really that much better? 

[00:02:42] Kristin:
I don't know, you're screaming in agony and your appendix needs to be taken out and the doctor's like, look at this scalpel. 

[00:02:47] Drew:
Look at this, look at this wonderful bench we've built in order to perform surgery on. Isn't it wonderful? Admire it!

[00:02:54] Kristin:
I admire it.

[00:02:55] Drew:
She's also become attached to a steel warhammer and has become a Highmaster Hammer Dwarf.

[00:03:00] Kristin:
Wow, she's quite the formidable lady.

[00:03:03] Drew:
She really is.

[00:03:05] Drew:
The mood for our metalsmith, Vukar Glaze Courage, you'll remember from last time, who got the fancy statue of a snailman because she likes snail men for their slimy trails.
[interjection] Kristin: Yes.

[00:03:18] Kristin:
I still want you to make us a snail man.

[00:03:21] Kristin:
Emote for our discord.

[00:03:22] Drew:
I really should do that.

[00:03:24] Drew:
Oh.

[00:03:25] Drew:
She has improved her mood from "I want to kill everyone" to "I think this place sucks."

[00:03:34] Kristin:
That's better!

[00:03:35] Drew:
Yes, I find that sort of level of change at work is often a good thing.

[00:03:44] Drew:
She feels better because of a superior item. I'm assuming the wonderful golden statue.

[00:03:50] Kristin:
Mm-hmm.

[00:03:50] Drew:
A fantastic bedroom and improving her skills at pacification.

[00:03:54] Kristin:
She's pacifying herself.

[00:03:56] Drew:
Something like that.

[00:03:58] Drew:
She's also become friends with Kumail the Shearer, who gifted her giant cave spider silk gloves that she loves.

[00:04:06] Kristin:
That's nice.

[00:04:07] Kristin:
I'm assuming it came from a giant cave spider and not their giant gloves.

[00:04:12] Drew:
I think you understand context, Kristin.

[00:04:14] Kristin:
I think I do too, but it's a funny thought that they're just these giant silk gloves.
Well, sometimes people make one of the gloves as an artifact. I've always found that to be a little odd. 
[interjection] Kristin: It's always fun.

[00:04:25] Kristin:
That is pretty funny. 

[00:04:26] Drew:
That might be a giant cave silk glove. 

[00:04:28] Kristin:
It could be. It's like a stocking, like a Christmas stocking. 

[00:04:31] Drew:
That is so awkward. 

[00:04:32] Kristin:
The Giants, okay, moving on. 

[00:04:34] Drew:
We've also had a large number of artifacts created. Oh, wow. The two that I'll talk about here are Riddled Loves, a citrine crown made from alder and copper. 

[00:04:45] Drew:
on which Leecott Sprinklepage's Ascension to King is depicted. 

[00:04:50] Kristin:
Sprinkle page. 

[00:04:51] Drew:
Sprinkle Peach. 

[00:04:53] Drew:
and Slapwinnowed, the Sword of Meshes, which is an iron bracelet. 

[00:04:58] Kristin:
Huh. It's not a sword. 
[interjection] Drew: What do you call it?
[interjection] Kristin: It is not a sword. 

[interjection] Kristin: Thanks for the break.

[00:05:04] Drew:
All craftsmanship is of the highest quality. It is encrusted with rectangular microcline cabochons and radiant cut fire opals and encircled with bands of regular microcline cabochons. This object is adorned with hanging rings of green devourer leather and cobaltite. 

[00:05:22] Drew:
On the item is an image of two octahedral octahedra in iron. I always love saying octahedral octahedra. 

[00:05:29] Drew:
Um 

[00:05:30] Drew:
And on the item is an image of Domas Smythdon, the dwarf in Microclang. Domas Smythdon is making a plaintive gesture. The artwork relates to the drowning of the dwarf 
[interjection] Kristin: Browning.
[interjection] Drew: Domas Smythdon in Ford Cudgel in the mid-spring of 137. 

[00:05:44] Kristin:
Oh, that's depressing. Wait, didn't you already have? 
[interjection] Drew: Did you?
[interjection] Kristin: I'll come back to it. All right.

[00:05:49] Drew:
On the item is an image of Licat Sprinklepage, the dwarf, and dwarves in a microclimate. Licat Sprinklepage is surrounded by the dwarves. The artwork relates to the ascension of the dwarf, Licat Sprinklepage, to the position of king of the ceilings of combat in 87. So yes, they just keep making more and more artwork about Licat Sprinklepage becoming king of the ceilings of combat.

[00:06:09] Kristin:
Yes, but also him drowning?

[00:06:13] Drew:
No, that was a different dwarf that was drowning. And it's also a different dwarf than was drowning in the statue I talked about.

[00:06:18] Kristin:
Okay, that's what I was gonna ask. Is this another statue about the same drowning or a bracelet about a different drowning?

[00:06:25] Drew:
It is a bracelet about a different drowning.

[00:06:28] Kristin:
How many dwarves have died?

[00:06:30] Drew:
Bye.

[00:06:30] Kristin:
Of drowning.

[00:06:31] Drew:
Apparently more than I realized.

[00:06:33] Kristin:
Maybe it's not from your fort, maybe it's like a drowning from history.

[00:06:38] Drew:
No, it says in Ford Kutchel.

[00:06:39] Kristin:
Nope, I guess a lot of your dwarves have drowned.

[00:06:43] Drew:
Apparently, or at the very least, the few that have drowned, it was very monumental.

[00:06:48] Kristin:
It made an impression, I guess.

[00:06:49] Drew:
Yes, so I think it being etched onto a bracelet is a little less depressing than it actually being like a fountain?

[00:06:58] Drew:
Fountain?

[00:06:59] Kristin:
Mhm.

[00:07:00] Drew:
Although again, as I've said, I would really find it funny to make a fountain of a dwarf drowning.

[00:07:06] Kristin:
You could just make, oh wait, I don't know how to make a fountain in Dwarf Fortress. Nevermind.

[00:07:09] Drew:
Yeah.

[00:07:11] Kristin:
The end.
[00:07:11] Drew:
Yeah, I don't... 

[00:07:13] Kristin:
Yeah, I don't think you can. I was sitting there thinking, maybe I mean, you can put a bunch of statues around a pump. 

[00:07:19] Drew:
Exactly, and just have agility. Call it a fountain. 

[00:07:22] Drew:
Or put the statue at the bottom of a little dig and fill it with water. 

[00:07:27] Kristin:
There you go. 

[00:07:28] Drew:
Something like that. 

[00:07:30] Drew:
Um... 

[00:07:31] Drew:
We have also had a large number of Forgotten Beasts, of which I will talk about four here, but maybe I should save those for a little bit later and instead ask you what's going on with your fort. 

[00:07:45] Kristin:
Well, it's been quite a couple of weeks at my fort. We also became a county. 

[00:07:50] Kristin:
And I was feeling pretty good about us, but then I was also feeling like we have created more wealth than was reflected in the number, because it was saying like 19,000. 

[00:08:01] Kristin:
And it should be saying like 100,000. And then I went and looked to see like maybe our manager, I guess it's the bookkeeper maybe, needed to be doing better at that stuff. And I realized that she didn't have an office. 

[00:08:15] Drew:
Fair enough. 

[00:08:16] Kristin:
So I made her a very nice office and our wealth absolutely shot up because I guess she finally was able to sit and... 

[00:08:24] Kristin:
Count the things in our fort. 

[00:08:26] Kristin:
We had this conversation that the bookkeeper doesn't need paper. 

[00:08:30] Drew:
I was going to say, did she have enough paper to write this all down on? 

[00:08:34] Kristin:
Well, they don't use paper apparently. We looked, or I looked bookkeepers up and they don't, they don't use paper. 

[00:08:40] Drew:
So they keep it all in their mind then. 

[00:08:41] Kristin:
Um, maybe. Or like carve it into stone would be my guess. 

[00:08:45] Drew:
Yes, so they carve it into their rooms because they do need hands in order to do the work.

[00:08:51] Kristin:
Yeah, so they need hands, but it's not written.

[00:08:55] Drew:
On paper.

[00:08:56] Kristin:
On paper.

[00:08:57] Kristin:
I don't know. They have a good mind for numbers or they do carpet on slates or something.

[00:09:01] Drew:
Yeah.

[00:09:02] Drew:
I mean, if it was all in their head, then it wouldn't matter that their hands were broken.

[00:09:06] Kristin:
Right, and it shouldn't matter that she doesn't have an office.

[00:09:08] Drew:
Yeah, so.

[00:09:10] Kristin:
Anyway, now she has an office, and we're up in the six digits, so.

[00:09:13] Drew:
Excellent.

[00:09:14] Kristin:
That's more appropriate.

[00:09:15] Kristin:
But then all of this ended up getting overshadowed by an attack by elves.

[00:09:21] Kristin:
And as you recall, I kind of scoffed at the last couple of alpha attacks.

[00:09:26] Drew:
Mm-hmm.

[00:09:27] Kristin:
Uh, I regret that now.

[00:09:29] Kristin:
Um, they killed like 40 dwarves.

[00:09:32] Kristin:
We killed about the same number of elves. Like, we did win. They didn't come into the fort. I think one elf made it inside and was killed in short order, but.

[00:09:42] Kristin:
Yeah, I'd spent a lot of time digging graves and making coffins.

[00:09:47] Kristin:
We did get everyone buried.

[00:09:49] Kristin:
Um, but we also went from five very unhappy dwarves to 55 very unhappy dwarves. My squads were almost completely wiped out. I think we had like six dwarves left out of the 30.

[00:10:03] Drew:
Did you at least give good new jobs to the veterans?

[00:10:07] Kristin:
Uh, no, I did make them keep training. Except for the ones who are injured and they are recovering.

[00:10:12] Drew:
Back to work, you dwarves.

[00:10:14] Kristin:
Yeah, I didn't think about that. I probably should have let them rest, but I figured they could train the new people.

[00:10:21] Drew:
Something like that.

[00:10:22] Kristin:
I hope so. And then...

[00:10:24] Kristin:
We didn't lose any nobility, so this was mostly the squad and the outdoor workers and peasants and things.

[00:10:30] Kristin:
Uh, so we might recover.

[00:10:34] Kristin:
I then went and made two new squads of just stressed and unhappy dwarves, and immediately the 55 went down to like 45.

[00:10:46] Kristin:
So...

[00:10:47] Kristin:
We might, we might turn some dwarf frowns upside down, but...

[00:10:51] Kristin:
I don't know, I...

[00:10:53] Kristin:
I don't know if I'm going to stick with glazed cradles much after that. I was playing again this morning and...

[00:10:59] Kristin:
We're still having a lot of artifacts, and I'm making sure that the new squad is fully armed and armored because I imagine...

[00:11:06] Kristin:
The fact that I neglected their armor didn't help with the whole elf ambush.

[00:11:14] Drew:
That's right, you sent them out all in leather armor, right?

[00:11:18] Kristin:
Yeah, so I regret not taking better care of my squadron. They're dead now.

[00:11:27] Drew:
Do you know if that wiped out the elves' ability to make war, or are they going to be sending more waves after you?

[00:11:35] Kristin:
That's something I should check.

[00:11:36] Kristin:
Because if they send another wave, we're not going to be prepared.

[00:11:40] Drew:
Yeah.

[00:11:41] Kristin:
Yeah, in the middle of that, some migrants arrived. So we had started this at like 196 and dropped down into the 160s, and now we're back into the 180s because of the migrants.

[00:11:54] Drew:
Did you get the...
[00:11:55] Drew:
They've come despite the danger, no, they just arrived. 
[interjection] Drew: No.

[00:11:59] Drew:
The game just likes you better. 

[00:12:01] Kristin:
I think maybe so, but that was the first really. 

[00:12:05] Kristin:
That was the first loss of dwarven life that we've had, so that might have been a one-off as far as these migrants were concerned, but... 

[00:12:12] Kristin:
I guess maybe on the upside they're able to just fill the jobs in the bedrooms. 

[00:12:18] Kristin:
Laughed by the dwarves who died? 

[00:12:21] Kristin:
Uh-huh. 

[00:12:22] Kristin:
Yeah? 

[00:12:23] Kristin:
What do you mean? Why are you making fun of me? 

[00:12:25] Drew:
I was just saying fill the jobs in the bedroom. 

[00:12:27] Kristin:
Oh, no, I said, and, and, and. 

[00:12:31] Kristin:
Uh, yeah, so that's where we're at. 

[00:12:37] Kristin:
Yeah, uh... 

[00:12:39] Kristin:
But we've still had some artifacts created. I actually have three that I can talk about, because... 

[00:12:46] Kristin:
We had Waldlord the Gloved Magics, which was a native gold crown. 

[00:12:57] Kristin:
It is encrusted with rectangular limonite cabochons and encircled with bands of cotton square cut brown jaspers and table cut clear zircons. 

[00:13:05] Kristin:
This object is adorned with hanging rings of native gold and menaces with spikes of garnierite, brass, milk quartz, and ground jasper. 

[00:13:13] Kristin:
On the item is an image of an avocado tree in milk quartz. 

[00:13:17] Drew:
I forget, was the avocado tree my cultural symbol or your cultural symbol? 

[00:13:22] Kristin:
I don't know my cultural symbols, so it could have been yours. 

[00:13:25] Drew:
Yeah. 

[00:13:26] Kristin:
That, surprisingly, for being a gold crown, is only worth 2,000 Dwarf Bucks.

[00:13:32] Drew:
It's because it's the native gold, and so native gold is the gold that hasn't been refined into actual gold bars.
[interjection] Kristin: And so
[interjection] Drew: It's the gold mixed in with gold and stone.

[00:13:42] Kristin:
I didn't know that, I just smelted the native gold ore and...

[00:13:45] Drew:
Right.

[00:13:47] Drew:
And native gold ore becomes gold.

[00:13:49] Kristin:
So maybe he didn't grab the gold bars, he just grabbed some ore.

[00:13:52] Kristin:
Oh, see now I learned something new.

[00:13:58] Kristin:
We also had the flighty blankets.

[00:14:02] Kristin:
A borax earring.

[00:14:04] Kristin:
Yeah, it is encrusted with rectangular borax cabochons decorated with cotton and tunnel tube.

[00:14:09] Kristin:
And encircled with bands of rectangular borax cabochons, sheep leather, leather, and sheep wool.

[00:14:15] Kristin:
This object menaces with spikes of brown jasper.

[00:14:18] Kristin:
On the item is an image of Ishtan Renownclasp, the dwarf and dwarves in brass.

[00:14:24] Kristin:
Ishtan Renown Clasp is surrounded by the dwarfs. The artwork relates to the ascension of the dwarf Ishtan Renown Clasp.

[00:14:31] Kristin:
To the position of King of the Fountain of Pain in 89.

[00:14:34] Kristin:
All in the image is an item of...

[00:14:37] Kristin:
On the item is an image of dwarves in jaguar leather.

[00:14:41] Kristin:
The dwarves are traveling.

[00:14:43] Kristin:
The artwork relates to the foundation of glaze cradled by the Dwarf Virgins in the Fountain of Paint in the early spring of 139.

[00:14:50] Kristin:
That's worth 7,000 Dwarf Bucks, but...

[00:14:52] Kristin:
That's a lot of imagery for one earring.

[00:14:55] Drew:
That is a lot of imagery for a single earring. Yeah.
I also find it interesting, and I mean, again, maybe the, uh, maybe the gods of Armach need to, uh... 

Um 

change the weighting a little bit that we do seem to be getting a lot of artifacts about the kings and queens and yeah the heads instead of other events 

Yeah, I mean it'd be like if all the art that we made was about like 

Biden taking office. 

which sounds like really boring art. 

It does 

Finally, we have The Searing Morality of Knights, a horse bone amulet made by a child. 

Oh, you put the children to work. 

No, he put himself to work. 

Uh-huh 

Children don't do chores in my forts. 

Is that what you're going to tell OSHA when they show up? 

Yes 

He volunteered! 

I'm sure they'll be much more bothered by that than the pile of corpses outside. 

the many piles of elf corpses. 

That the children play make-believe in. 

Yeah. 

It is encrusted with cushion-cut garnierite cabochons decorated with horse bone and encircled with bands of iron. 

This object is adorned with hanging rings of pipe opal and menaces with spikes of pipe opal, bituminous coal, and pigtail. 

On the item is an image of dwarves in pigtail. The dwarves are laboring. The artwork relates to the foundation of glazed cradles by the Dwarf Virgins of the Fountain of Pain in the early spring of 139. 

worth 15,000 Dwarf Bucks, so good job, kid. 

Wow. 

Yeah.
Where did it get the value from? Because horse bone isn't that valuable. I guess the pipeable, I don't know what the hell pipeable is.

[00:16:34] Kristin:
Well, maybe he was really skilled with his pigtail image making.

[00:16:39] Drew:
I guess, but you'd think the other people would be super skilled with their various makings as well. So anyway.

[00:16:47] Kristin:
Yes.

[00:16:47] Kristin:
So, mostly we've had death and artifacts.

[00:16:51] Kristin:
I spent a little bit of time looking into what goes into a custom embark.

[00:16:56] Drew:
Mm-hmm.

[00:16:57] Kristin:
But we'll talk about that a little bit later. Why don't you tell us a spooky story first?

[00:17:02] Drew:
Alright, so spooky stories. Let's start with some listener spookies.

[00:17:07] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:17:08] Drew:
So these are stories written in by members of our discord.

[00:17:14] Drew:
The first comes from Rurik, who I think used to be known as Gash.

[00:17:18] Kristin:
Yes, we used to call him Gash.

[00:17:20] Kristin:
He's our moderator.

[00:17:21] Drew:
Yes.

[00:17:22] Kristin:
Congratulations.

[00:17:24] Drew:
So Rurik told of a mother and two children.

[00:17:28] Drew:
The children, he discovered when he was investigating why they were dead, were slain by copper picks.

[00:17:35] Kristin:
Oh!

[00:17:36] Kristin:
That's ominous.

[00:17:37] Drew:
When he searched their familial relations, he discovered that the killer was not the legendary gem setter, but in fact the ghost of their mother.

[00:17:46] Drew:
So she had died and Rose found a stray pick somewhere and used it to start killing her family.

[00:17:52] Kristin:
Wow, that's dark.

[00:17:53] Drew:
Dark.

[00:17:56] Drew:
The next comes from Stephen of Learned Hands fame.

[00:18:01] Drew:
A ghost story. A chinchilla devil was released from an obsidian spire, slaughtering about 20 dwarves and creating several ghosts before he could take care of them all and put them in the ground.

[00:18:12] Drew:
One ghost was hanging around a particular temple.

[00:18:15] Drew:
In life, this dwarf had two lovers who both happened to worship the same deity. On more than one occasion, she was found haunting both of them at the same time as they tried to worship at their temple. They went there, looking for answers to their pain, and got the ghost of their dead lover, whom they had shared, instead.

[00:18:31] Kristin:
Oh.

[00:18:32] Kristin:
Spooky and naughty and naughty.

[00:18:37] Drew:
Um, we have a story from Jonathan of Dwarf Fortress Roundtable fame.

[00:18:43] Kristin:
Hooray!

[00:18:44] Drew:
He had a demon named.

[00:18:47] Drew:
Saba greater growls of the crystal daubs swordsman's show up at his fortress. He came and took out the final aware lemur.

[00:18:58] Drew:
Of the bloodline that had destroyed Jonathan's last fort, which if you listen to a fortress roundtable you can hear all about.
[interjection] Kristin: For more information, visit www.DwarfFortress.com.

[00:19:06] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:19:06] Drew:
But that demon then stalked off into the wilderness.

[00:19:10] Kristin:
Ooh.

[00:19:11] Kristin:
Kill more, presumably.

[00:19:13] Drew:
Always more.

[00:19:14] Kristin:
Yes.

[00:19:15] Drew:
But at least he killed a wary lemur, so he helped out. He did.

[00:19:20] Drew:
The demon showed up at the end? I don't know.

[00:19:23] Kristin:
Yeah, I don't know.

[00:19:25] Kristin:
No, I was going to be like, the demon is Batman. No, there's no.

[00:19:29] Drew:
No. You can't make it. You can't make it.

[00:19:29] Kristin:
You can't make a demon good.

[00:19:31] Drew:
Yep.

[00:19:32] Drew:
Um

[00:19:34] Drew:
And our last listener, Spooky, came from Rurik again.
[interjection] Kristin: Okay.

[00:19:40] Drew:
Uh-huh.

[00:19:41] Drew:
So usually the job type "attend meeting" appears in pairs. Somebody is giving the meeting and someone is receiving the meeting.

[00:19:51] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:19:52] Drew:
Generally, somebody in charge, a mayor or baron, and another dwarf. Well, one time, he noticed that when viewing the list of units, one of the children had a 10 meeting, but no other name in the list did. I thought this was odd, so I zoomed in to follow and see where they went, and what I found was the child standing in the far corner of a banquet hall, standing next to a ghost.

[00:20:11] Kristin:
Yee!

[00:20:12] Drew:
So he was having a Hamlet-esque meeting, I suspect, where he's being challenged by the ghost of his forefathers to avenge them.
[interjection] Kristin: I love when they do that.

[00:20:19] Kristin:
Perhaps.

[00:20:21] Drew:
So.

[00:20:21] Kristin:
I don't know, children hanging out with ghosts is always creepy.

[00:20:24] Drew:
Yes.

[00:20:24] Kristin:
And so is ghost children. I had a ghost baby.

[00:20:27] Kristin:
During the elf attack.
[interjection] Drew: Um

[00:20:30] Kristin:
It didn't last very long. All that it managed to do in...

[00:20:35] Kristin:
The time that it was haunting our fort was hang out with its mother who then died.

[00:20:42] Drew:
Did she die of terror or death?

[00:20:44] Kristin:
No, she died of elf.

[00:20:47] Drew:
I found it funny when I looked at those different types of ghosts that we talked about in the last episode.

[00:20:52] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:20:52] Drew:
That there was actually one that can cause people to die of terror. That's hilarious.


[00:20:59] Kristin:
No, this one, um, it didn't get to haunt people. There was much more real-life threats at the time, but it got laid to rest quite quickly because it was slain by an elf, the child, and we got all of our dead buried. Nice.

[00:21:14] Drew:
Um, should I talk about my forgotten beasts that have shown up?

[00:21:18] Kristin:
Yes, that's kind of spooky-ish.

[00:21:21] Drew:
Yes, so we've had perhaps the most spooky was Nicor the Dead.

[00:21:26] Drew:
A flaming quadruped with long antennae and a bloated body.

[00:21:30] Drew:
He never actually attacked the fort, but he appeared in the Great Magma Sea and was seen by several dwarves.

[00:21:37] Drew:
It likes to present itself boldly, even if it would offend the average sense of modesty.

[00:21:41] Kristin:
Huh.

[00:21:42] Drew:
Interestingly.

[00:21:44] Drew:
NICOR

[00:21:45] Drew:
is also the name of one of the main death gods in my world.

[00:21:50] Drew:
Nicor the Ashen.

[00:21:52] Drew:
And so when I went and looked through Legends mode, I couldn't actually find where Nicor the dead appeared.

[00:21:58] Kristin:
Mhm.

[00:21:59] Drew:
So, I'm wondering if he's some sort of Avatar or Nicor, like...

[00:22:03] Drew:
manifesting himself.

[00:22:05] Kristin:
Ooh. Yeah. To wonder.

[00:22:05] Drew:
to wander around a little bit.

[00:22:07] Drew:
How do you like that?

[00:22:08] Kristin:
That's interesting.

[00:22:09] Drew:
Um, we next had a giant cyclops.

[00:22:13] Drew:
named Islas Scarlet Day, the Keys of Running.

[00:22:17] Drew:
Show up who was flimsy and had a natural ability with music.

[00:22:22] Drew:
She was also associated with.

[00:22:25] Drew:
Light, Lightning, Longevity, Minerals, Strength, and Thunder.

[00:22:30] Kristin:
Mmm.

[00:22:31] Drew:
She had killed over 40 elves in the past, which is why she had such an interesting name.
[interjection] Kristin: What?
[interjection] Kristin: Yeah.

[00:22:38] Kristin:
Oh yeah.

[00:22:39] Drew:
Again, despite being flimsy.

[00:22:42] Drew:
But...

[00:22:42] Kristin:
Well, elves, you know.

[00:22:43] Drew:
On the other hand.

[00:22:47] Drew:
You shouldn't speak too badly of him.

[00:22:47] Kristin:
I shouldn't have known, yeah.

[00:22:49] Drew:
Um.

[00:22:50] Drew:
She was taken down in four hits by our squad, including being killed by English mine grasps, a peasant who became a proficient dodger.

[00:23:01] Drew:
He was vengeful and never forgets, and when thinking, his body becomes very still.

[00:23:10] Drew:
He loves goats for their eating habits.
[interjection] Kristin: What happens?
[interjection] Drew: and prefers to eat gray parrots.

[00:23:15] Drew:
And he has two pet dogs.

[00:23:17] Kristin:
That's weird.

[00:23:18] Drew:
Liking to eat grey parrots.

[00:23:20] Kristin:
Yeah, I didn't know about that.

[00:23:21] Drew:
It's a little bit like liking to eat dolphin.

[00:23:24] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:23:24] Drew:
What you want to hear.

[00:23:25] Kristin:
They're way too smart to eat.

[00:23:26] Drew:
Yeah, you want to hear them beg for their lives first? Like why?

[00:23:28] Kristin:
First, like why?

[00:23:30] Drew:
Why the preference?

[00:23:31] Kristin:
Ooh.

[00:23:32] Drew:
Yeah, so one assumes that he dodged around and struck the killing blow against Isla Scarlet Day. Good.

[00:23:41] Drew:
We had melee fragments, an enormous three-eyed crab, associated with caverns, water, and misery.

[00:23:48] Drew:
Ugh.

[00:23:54] Drew:
It's-

[00:23:54] Kristin:
We're associated with.
[00:23:56] Drew:
If you dig through the information... 

[00:24:00] Kristin:
Mm-hmm. 

[00:24:00] Drew:
You can find their spheres. 

[00:24:02] Kristin:
Ah, I did not know that. 

[00:24:05] Drew:
He had large mandibles and is ravenous. 

[00:24:09] Kristin:
You. 

[00:24:09] Drew:
Its gray slate exoskeleton is wrinkled. Beware its webs. 

[00:24:14] Drew:
Oh. 

[00:24:15] Drew:
P.A. 

[00:24:17] Drew:
What time am I doing? 

[00:24:19] Kristin:
Did he make it into your fort? 

[00:24:21] Drew:
He did make it into my fort, but we managed to close up the doors and prevent him from getting any higher than the first bottom level. 

[00:24:30] Kristin:
Oh, that's good. 

[00:24:30] Drew:
So he didn't actually kill anyone. 

[00:24:32] Kristin:
Yeah. 

[00:24:33] Drew:
Um 

[00:24:34] Drew:
Interestingly, this reminded me 

[00:24:36] Drew:
that I don't actually know what the word ravenous means exactly, and I had to go look it up. 

[00:24:41] Kristin:
Mhm. 

[00:24:42] Drew:
And it doesn't really have a good meaning. 

[00:24:45] Kristin:
Oh. 

[00:24:45] Drew:
It just means hungry, essentially. Not even slather. 

[00:24:49] Kristin:
I think that when you asked me the question, I said it means "nom nom nom nom." 

[00:24:54] Drew:
Nom nom, exactly, that's exactly right. 
[interjection] Kristin: No!

[00:24:57] Drew:
Ah, then we had Wereima, the Hollow Lake, associated with water, caverns, and disease. A towering scaly shrimp with thin wings of stretched skin and is ravenous. Its rose-taupe scales are large and overlapping. Beware its noxious secretions. 

[00:25:16] Kristin:
Interesting. 

[00:25:17] Drew:
And that one actually fought. 

[00:25:20] Drew:
Melee fragment shores as she was 

[00:25:22] Drew:
Trapped by our door. 

[00:25:24] Kristin:
Oh, nice. 

[00:25:25] Drew:
And so.
[00:25:26] Drew:
She killed the crab. So we had a shrimp killing a crab. 

[00:25:31] Drew:
Which doesn't seem like the way that fight should go. 

[00:25:33] Kristin:
No, what happened to the shrimp after that? 

[00:25:35] Drew:
After that, the shrimp just kind of wandered off. It was pretty injured, and I think it wandered off, killed a bunch of troglodytes, and then kind of fled from the map. 

[00:25:44] Kristin:
Fair enough. 

[00:25:45] Drew:
So. 

[00:25:46] Drew:
That was an interesting little story. 

[00:25:48] Kristin:
Yeah. 

[00:25:49] Drew:
What about you? What sort of forgotten beasts or do we already do yours? No, we haven't done mine. What about you? 
[interjection] Kristin: No, we haven't done that.
[interjection] Drew: What sort of forgotten beasts have you encountered? 

[00:25:56] Kristin:
I do not have nearly as much detail on my beasts because they all just wandered on and off the map. 

[00:26:02] Kristin:
And also I was dealing with the siege. 

[00:26:06] Kristin:
So we had Leni Konibo, an enormous blob composed of vomit. 

[00:26:12] Kristin:
It has three stubby tails and a gaunt appearance. Beware, its deadly dust. 

[00:26:17] Kristin:
A vomit blob? Have you had a vomit blob beast? 
[interjection] Drew: Have you had a v...
[interjection] Kristin: No! 

[00:26:20] Drew:
No, I've had a snow blob beast, but I think you've had multiple vomit blobs. 

[00:26:25] Kristin:
I think I have. I'm trying to remember if they leave vomit around. Yeah, trails. 

[00:26:29] Drew:
Yeah. Trails. 

[00:26:31] Kristin:
We had Arak, a great humanoid composed of basalt. It has large mandibles and appears to be emaciated. Beware its deadly spittle. 

[00:26:40] Drew:
In what way is it humanoid if it has large mandibles? 

[00:26:42] Kristin:
I don't know, maybe just... 

[00:26:44] Kristin:
walks on two legs and has arms. Fair enough.
[00:26:48] Kristin:
Finally, we had Tab-Mik. 

[00:26:49] Kristin:
A gigantic feathered pig. 

[00:26:52] Kristin:
It has three long hanging tails and it undulates rhythmically. 

[00:26:57] Kristin:
Its cerulean feathers are downy, beware its poisonous bite! 

[00:27:00] Kristin:
Yeah, that one sounds kind of cool and it did fight some elk birds. 

[00:27:06] Kristin:
In the caverns. 

[00:27:08] Drew:
Did it do a decent job? 

[00:27:09] Kristin:
It murdered the elk birds, but that wasn't my problem because it was in the walled-off part of the cavern. 

[00:27:15] Drew:
One new thing from the Dwarf Fortress team that they've talked about is they're going to start working a little bit on 

[00:27:23] Drew:
making 

[00:27:24] Drew:
the forgotten beast images more procedurally generated so they match up with their description. 

[00:27:30] Kristin:
Yeah, that'd be great, because you frequently are like, oh, I want to see an undulating pig. 

[00:27:34] Kristin:
A blue pig, and it's, you know, just a sort of black hydra-looking thing. 
[interjection] Drew: Exactly.

[00:27:39] Drew:
My understanding is that the black hydra-looking map ones will be pretty far in the future, but the... 

[00:27:47] Drew:
Images that show up in their little character sheet will start to move more towards looking 

[00:27:52] Kristin:
Ah, okay, cool. 

[00:27:54] Drew:
So, that would be cool. 
[interjection] Kristin: So.

[00:27:55] Kristin:
Yeah. 

[00:27:56] Kristin:
That'd be really fun to see. 

[00:27:59] Drew:
Um... 

[00:27:59] Kristin:
But we've been- 

[00:28:00] Kristin:
quite lucky with our forgotten beast encounters in that. 

[00:28:04] Kristin:
They just, they seem to spawn on that level that I have walled. 

[00:28:09] Drew:
Yeah, I kind of feel like we do need that bug fixed that, uh... 

[00:28:13] Drew:
Forgotten beasts can't break down doors or walls.
[00:28:18] Drew:
Because that does... kind of. 

[00:28:19] Kristin:
It reduces their terror. 


[00:28:22] Kristin:
a little 


[00:28:28] Drew:
doing a good job with your military and keeping everything up. 
[interjection] Kristin: Thank you.

[00:28:31] Kristin:
Yeah. 

[00:28:31] Drew:
So. 

[00:28:32] Drew:
On the other hand, we're all in Dwarf Fortress just to kind of enjoy the ride, so we don't need pressure. 
[interjection] Kristin: Yes.




[00:28:46] Drew:
I... 

[00:28:47] Drew:
went through and found what I think is the most interesting dish from this last round of play. 

[00:28:54] Drew:
And that is Subterranean Sizzle Snuggle Surprise. 

[00:29:00] Drew:
Hold on to your helms, ye underground gourmets. Venture beneath the surface with the Subterranean Sizzle Snuggle Surprise. Crafted with the tender embrace of minced cave fish, each bite promises a silky swim through the mysterious aquatic realms. But wait, what's that? A mischievous splash of strawberry wine, bringing forth memories of summer festivals and moonlit dances. And if that weren't enough, we've stirred in the audacious tease of pig cheese, creamy and bold, the true heartthrob of the dwarven diet. Served on a bed of crispy stone bread, this dish isn't just a feast for the stomach, but also a playful jest for those with a keen palate and an even keener wit. A true testament to dwarven daringness in the kitchen. 

[00:29:44] Kristin:
That's delightful. That sounds like something that would be on the menu at one of the higher-end restaurants of a Dwarf Fortress-themed amusement park. 

[00:29:51] Drew:
Exactly. 

[00:29:53] Drew:
Subterranean Sizzle Snuggle Surprise 

[00:29:55] Kristin:
Yeah, like you take the cave ride where you see magma and 

[00:30:00] Kristin:
summer 

[00:30:01] Kristin:
Elk, birds, and the various mosses, and a forgotten beast in the distance, and then you come back and you eat that. 

[00:30:07] Drew:
I wonder a little bit what crispy stone bread is, but I just assume it's the usual Pratchett-esque dwarf-y bread where they talk about you can last a month on it because you just stare at it because it's impossible to eat. 
[interjection] Kristin: I just assumed it.

[00:30:21] Kristin:
Yeah. 

[00:30:23] Kristin:
Sounds... tooth-breaking. 

[00:30:26] Kristin:
Delicious! 

[00:30:28] Drew:
Is that the only thing I'm able to say? 

[00:30:30] Kristin:
I can talk about the embark thing. 

[00:30:32] Drew:
Oh yeah. 

[00:30:32] Kristin:
I did not look at my menu. 

[00:30:34] Drew:
So, tell me about Embarks. 

[00:30:36] Kristin:
Well, I looked up, uh, specifically, like, thematic-type specialized embarks. 

[00:30:42] Kristin:
But where I ended up going was down a rabbit hole of the many different embark types that people do not [00:30:51] Kristin:
But where I ended up going was not to like. 

[00:30:54] Kristin:
Types of embark like, "Oh, we're going to have a scholarly fort," or anything like that, but where how it works generally and where people are spending their points. 

[00:31:02] Drew:
I know. 

[00:31:02] Kristin:
And it turns out people care a lot about the skills that their dwarves have. 

[00:31:06] Drew:
I can see that, because it's hard for some of the skills to figure out a way to get them started, I think, right? 

[00:31:11] Kristin:
Right. Yeah, so like medicine, for example, can be hard to get the training, so people will make sure to have a dwarf with that kind of medicine. 

[00:31:22] Kristin:
So frequently people are going for carpentry, 

[00:31:26] Kristin:
and masonry and mining, that's obvious, but mining, to me, it seems like they're gonna learn that. 
[interjection] Drew: Yeah.

[00:31:34] Kristin:
People want mechanics?

[00:31:36] Kristin:
And weaponsmithing makes sense to me. I don't know about mechanics though, like.

[00:31:41] Drew:
Yeah, I think maybe it improves the value of...

[00:31:46] Drew:
things just like if you make an expert or masterpiece mechanism, I think it improves 
[interjection] Kristin: I think it would.
[interjection] Drew: the value of the item it's part of, but I could be wrong about that.

[00:31:54] Kristin:
Yeah, maybe one thing though that I found really interesting is that people really look at those first seven dwarves and their skills and think about who they want to be, presumably mayor, even though you don't have that much control over it. So you're looking at their social skills and they will think about who they're going to nominate to be 

[00:32:11] Kristin:
Ah, royalty.

[00:32:13] Drew:
Yeah.

[00:32:13] Kristin:
Later.

[00:32:14] Kristin:
Which had never occurred to me that maybe one of those founders should be that person instead of just going, "oh, I don't know," and picking.
[interjection] Drew: We're rolling.

[00:32:21] Kristin:
or picking someone that you've encountered a lot at your fort and then 

[00:32:26] Kristin:
I, some of this is coming from the Bay 12 forums, like, man.

[00:32:30] Kristin:
People are really articulate and have very thoughtful answers to these questions, but one person talks about how 

[00:32:38] Kristin:
Dwarves form relationships almost a little bit through proximity, but it's also through interest. So like people meet at work 

[00:32:46] Kristin:
So they'll kind of look at those early dwarves and migrants and assign people that they think would make like a little power couple to 

[00:32:55] Kristin:
similar jobs so that they'll pass and meet and stuff and maybe become friends or fall in love.

[00:33:00] Drew:
That's adorable. Yeah. 


[00:33:02] Kristin:
So it's interesting to me that people are spending so much thought, putting so much thought into the dwarves themselves rather than like, "Oh, I want to take this and this and this animal and that" and making sure you get the resources that you want.

[00:33:15] Drew:
Mm-hmm.

[00:33:16] Kristin:
And then a lot of people are, um...

[00:33:18] Kristin:
Giving themselves more points so that you can just take whatever you want. You don't have to deal with it kind of like in No Man's Sky. You can turn on creative mode and everything is free and you can build anything.

[00:33:30] Kristin:
Which is kind of fun, so yeah. Have you done a lot of custom embarking?

[00:33:35] Drew:
Not in this version, um, in previous versions I played around with it a bit because it's kind of useful again for those rare skills.

[00:33:44] Drew:
Medical especially.

[00:33:46] Drew:
Where you can have one person who's good at it and then set up a guild hall and then they'll teach others, yeah, as time goes on. 
[interjection] Kristin: Teach others.

[00:33:55] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:33:56] Drew:
Because having no one with a doctor skill in older versions was kind of a bummer because you wouldn't really get that many people walking into the fort with that.

[00:34:06] Kristin:
With it, yeah, and I've been finding that my early migrant waves tend to have more skilled dwarves and then...

[00:34:12] Kristin:
The most recent ones are just full of peasants.

[00:34:15] Kristin:
So.

[00:34:16] Drew:
I again wonder if that's a weighting change that happened in this version.
[interjection] Kristin: in the sun.

[00:34:21] Kristin:
I mean, it is good to get the skilled people early on.

[00:34:24] Kristin:
Then the peasants later.

[00:34:26] Drew:
Yeah, it makes sense a little bit like when you're

[00:34:29] Drew:
When you're in a new place, you're probably attracting more skilled people who want to go out there and make a name for themselves.

[00:34:34] Kristin:
Yeah, that could be.

[00:34:35] Drew:
Um.

[00:34:36] Drew:
Whereas you just get the rabble after a while.

[00:34:39] Kristin:
The one that interests me a little bit was seeing how many people really emphasize medicine because I tend to just go for a gelder or a dissector. If I don't have someone with the skills, I just sort of put them in there and learn on the job.

[00:34:56] Drew:
So when your gelder is the doctor and it's time to amputate a leg, he's like, well.

[00:35:02] Drew:
I've worked with something kind of like this before.

[00:35:04] Kristin:
I've worked in the vicinity.

[00:35:07] Kristin:
But they do gain some skill over time. I have not looked to see where my current doctor, that I think he might have been a counselor, where his skill level has gotten to.

[00:35:22] Drew:
Makes sense. I mean, in the end, it's the reason why barbers were surgeons, 'cause...

[00:35:28] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:35:28] Kristin:
You got that?

[00:35:29] Drew:
You got the knives.

[00:35:31] Kristin:
Well, and maybe an animal dissector makes more sense for a surgeon, you know?

[00:35:36] Kristin:
They've been in there.

[00:35:37] Drew:
They're familiar with it.

[00:35:38] Kristin:
They know how to take it apart.

[00:35:40] Drew:
Familiar with the idea?

[00:35:42] Drew:
They're maybe a little iffy on keeping them alive during the process.

[00:35:45] Kristin:
They would, but they won't be squeamish about it.

[00:35:49] Kristin:
So anyway, that was very interesting and made me reconsider my idea of, well, we're going to take specific resources and made me think that maybe for my next fort, then I'm going to try to play more carefully and our thing will be just more role play generally. So really knowing who I'm taking along and then.

[00:35:58] Kristin:
That way I can recognize the migrants and I do like the idea of gradually increasing my population cap so I'm not surprised by migrants and I can take my time and learn about everyone.

[00:36:09] Kristin:
Yeah, you said you were going to start out with a relatively low cap. I mean, you need enough to do some of the mining and get all that stuff going.
[interjection] Kristin: I'm going to get

[00:36:25] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:36:26] Drew:
Um

[00:36:27] Drew:
Can you cast your mind back to when you first started playing Dwarf Fortress?

[00:36:31] Kristin:
Mm-hmm.

[00:36:33] Drew:
Tell me, how do you feel about setting up hospitals now versus then?

[00:36:38] Kristin:
Well, I know what to put in them.

[00:36:41] Kristin:
Now.

[00:36:42] Kristin:
Bye.

[00:36:43] Kristin:
I don't, and I set them up earlier.

[00:36:47] Kristin:
But I don't like do it first thing still.

[00:36:50] Drew:
Would you agree with me that I still feel like hospitals are one of the most complicated things to get going right in Dwarf Fortress and fit all the things between?

[00:36:59] Kristin:
It's because of the soap and the plaster and then the special skills, I would say.

[00:37:06] Drew:
Yeah.

[00:37:06] Kristin:
Um, because it's hard to have what you need for the plaster almost more than the soap.

[00:37:14] Kristin:
Alright.

[00:37:14] Drew:
It's relatively easy to find because you can always use fruit oils in a pinch for the soaps.

[00:37:20] Kristin:
I've never done that, but I just make sure that the first time we butcher anything, I'm waiting to turn off cooking for the tallow.

[00:37:29] Drew:
It's, I think it's the only real zone where you have to do all of that assigning of different skilled dwarves and then also five or six different pieces of furniture and five or six different items.

[00:37:37] Kristin:
Yeah, and the traction bench takes a couple of steps.

[00:37:41] Kristin:
And then you need crutches and splints and things as well. And you need water, so you need the well going. Yeah, and you need buckets.

[00:37:46] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:37:47] Drew:
I just remember talking with you at the start of it because you asked me, do I need a hospital?
[interjection] Kristin: You wouldn't have to.

[00:37:52] Drew:
You can probably go without it for a while.

[00:37:54] Kristin:
You actually can. Yeah, exactly.

[00:37:58] Kristin:
I am not saying it's good.

[00:38:01] Kristin:
Especially because they'll drag themselves around and stuff if they don't get help, which is kind of sad.

[00:38:07] Drew:
Yeah, if they don't have their crutch for their splinted leg or lost the ability to stand.

[00:38:13] Kristin:
Yeah, so I wouldn't feel bad about it, especially now that I know how to take better care of dwarves.

[00:38:21] Drew:
And I think that's a thing for new people playing Dwarf Fortress to watch out for is if you have had attacks and it seems like your dwarves have gotten really slow and are just kind of...

[00:38:30] Drew:
not really moving around and getting jobs done.

[00:38:32] Kristin:
Mm-hmm.

[00:38:33] Drew:
You might need to check and make sure that they're not, like, lossy villagers staying and dragging themselves around, because you don't see a real difference in that.

[00:38:39] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:38:40] Kristin:
You know, I think that maybe the most challenging one, at least in theory, would have to be the diagnostician.

because presumably a bone doctor can practice and get better at setting bones, and a surgeon hopefully gets better the more they cut people open and do stuff.

But diagnosing, like...

I could diagnose you with, I don't know, a squelchy arm right now.

Exactly.

Yeah, I don't know. I think it seems like they just get better the more times they do it without any real...

skill

Yeah.

But yeah, and finding a good diagnostician in the dwarves is frequently challenging, actually.

Yeah, so maybe the next little project that I set myself will be learning more about the dwarf medical system.

So anyway, my whole specialized embark.

Super important part of Dwarf Fortress that doesn't really get a whole lot of emphasis

Yeah, I think that's true.

Maybe not emphasis, but noticed by new players initially.

Yeah, and I don't think that the tutorial in any way encourages you to put a dwarf who's good at something to doing the job that they're good at.

yeah you know i don't i can't remember if the tutorial had a um assign a dwarf to a particular

Like workshop. Yeah.

Um

For labor detail even. It might have had the labor detail.
[interjection] It's the end of it.

Yeah, it might have had labor detail but the assigning to a workshop I think probably can't happen because you just wouldn't have that many dwarves in the course of the tutorial.
Okay, so the first thing I always do for custom embarks is I try to make sure that I have breeding pairs. There's no point in bringing animals along if you don't have breeding pairs. They'll be mismatched. 

Yeah, I've still just been doing random embarks, whatever the game gives me, so it'll be interesting for me to start custom and see how the point spending works. 

It's detailed, as everything in Dwarf Fortress is. 

Right, so I will definitely need someone to tell me what I should do. 

So anyway, do you want to tell us another spooky story before we end this episode? Maybe a spooky story or two? 

Yes, I would like to tell you about the start of Spooky Fort Number 4, The Overlook. 

by Delfonso 

Delfonzo has been running the Spooky Forts for the past couple of years through the Bay12Game forums. You should go check them out because they are really fun threads and I can't do them justice without literally sitting down and probably reading for four hours out loud. So instead, I'll give you some summaries. 

The biggest one is that Dalfonzo is using the Zombies Ate My Dwarves mod, which adds a bunch of different types of movie monsters into Dwarf Fortress. That's fun. It gives them different attacks and all that sort of thing. 

Yeah. 

The goal is not, however, to make invincible enemies, but instead to spook the dwarves without killing them. 

Okay.
So, the overlook. The story goes that one man let his greed get the best of him. He built his theme parks with profits first and fear second. Safety wasn't a concern. All the corners cut left an avalanche of sawdust and he was buried by it. His home, his grave, the monument to profits gained and bottom lines met. That's the old building up on the hill. That's the overlook.

[00:42:22] Drew:
where a fungal crow peeks out from beneath a tarp on a cart as seven dwarves trudge into the frozen earth of a joyous tundra.

[00:42:31] Drew:
Said Snow, Delphine Snow.

[00:42:34] Kristin:
Hahaha

[00:42:34] Drew:
THE CHRONICLER

[00:42:36] Drew:
Five years since the king under the mountain woke up and was eaten by a shark.

[00:42:41] Drew:
We're sharing beds now, just a few packed into a corner in the mess hall.

[00:42:46] Drew:
The Cinnamon Monster Cloud, well, it's heading straight for the entrance of the fort, but it's probably nothing to worry about.

[00:42:53] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:42:54] Drew:
He then passed on the fort to Selmak.

[00:42:57] Drew:
Selma told of frost spirits that have infested the booze pile. Not much to be said about these little wiggling glowing creatures, mysterious as they are, except their voracious appetite for booze.

[00:43:09] Drew:
Some of the dwarves claim the little spirits have blessed them with unknown effects.

[00:43:14] Drew:
And a new temple space was excavated and dedicated to Gulgan, god of dreams and nightmares.

[00:43:21] Kristin:
Nice name.

[00:43:22] Drew:
The name of the temple is a mouthful.

[00:43:24] Drew:
The mysterious Sanctuary of Murder.

[00:43:26] Drew:
But that's what's trending these days for Selma.

[00:43:29] Kristin:
Hehe.

[00:43:30] Drew:
We're expecting large crowds of visiting visitors. Expecting a good spooking. To that, plans have been drawn up for a large skeletonry.

[00:43:39] Drew:
For making skeleton and skeleton-themed merchandise from animals around the fort.

[00:43:45] Drew:
Summer brought many caravans, and so we traded for a snowman in a cage.

[00:43:50] Drew:
And the Avatar of Tarn, the giant toad, attacked. Spring arrived, and then in a few...

[00:43:57] Drew:
A few moments later, a child was born. The child must be the chosen spook, the firstborn of this area.

[00:44:04] Drew:
He then handed over the axe of leadership to the next fool.

[00:44:08] Kristin:
Nice.

[00:44:09] Drew:
Um, the next ruler was SQL man, SQ man, I don't know.

[00:44:13] Kristin:
Mmm.

[00:44:14] Drew:
A mad doctor, taken by a foul mood, was arrested.

[00:44:17] Drew:
He screamed, "Ha, you simple people! You will never understand that there are no means vile enough to justify the possible outcomes of my actions."

[00:44:25] Kristin:
Huh.

[00:44:26] Drew:
You can arrest me, but should you? Should you deny a dwarf the chance to become a god? Deny him his right to apotheosis. My work may bring a new era to dwarvenkind, an age of the titans, living deities capable of creating life and death.

[00:44:40] Drew:
Said Tekad, the man has lost it and clubbed him into submission.

[00:44:44] Drew:
One of the dwarves walks slowly towards the doctor, raising his baton. The man decided to protect himself with his scalpel, but before he could even raise it, the police baton hit his skull with great strength, knocking him out.

[00:44:55] Drew:
Then this passed to Abolition Brit. He said it was the seventh year. The seventh year of what?

[00:45:02] Drew:
He panicked. There must be a difference in years, different types of years for them. I will just pop down to the library and come to think of it, we don't have one. I will just ask the traders for any books or scrolls, and the green men just looked puzzled at me.

[00:45:15] Drew:
And asked, "What is a book? What is a scroll?" They don't know what a library is. They don't know.

[00:45:21] Drew:
I asked if they had a map. They did, and I gave them a craft for it under the table.

[00:45:25] Drew:
Well, this is certainly nowhere I'm familiar with, but maybe a dwarf here might know the library's location. Some seem to be familiar with the concept after I explained it to them, carefully. Finally, the sequel man lost his mind, screaming, "More masterwork bookcases, we need perfection so I can work." Yes, that's why I'm struggling to write. More shelves, more shelves, only masterworks for the library.

[00:45:47] Drew:
And then he passed on to the next.

[00:45:50] Drew:
which I'll tell you more about another time.

[00:45:53] Kristin:
Very spooky.

[00:45:54] Drew:
Yes.

[00:45:55] Drew:
It's a little bit of nonsense, but surreal. Yeah, yeah, that's the joy of Mad Libs.
[interjection] Kristin: Yeah.

[00:46:00] Kristin:
Uh huh.

[00:46:00] Drew:
I'm not sure it holds together any better when you're actually reading the thing either the list of the reports, but

[00:46:07] Drew:
Succession forts are fun.

[00:46:08] Kristin:
Yeah, definitely.

[00:46:09] Drew:
So.

[00:46:11] Drew:
I think that covers everything I had that I want to talk about with the spooky forts.

[00:46:17] Kristin:
Well, any more news from Mearfort or shall we?

[00:46:20] Kristin:
Call it a week.

[00:46:21] Drew:
I think we can probably call it a week there.

[00:46:24] Kristin:
I think it's been an exciting, exciting, dwarven week at my fort, and it may be time. Last time I said I wasn't gonna say it again, but I think it's time.

[00:46:33] Drew:
It's time to, are you going to abandon it or are you going to retire?

[00:46:36] Kristin:
I will retire it. I think they can recover on their own.

[00:46:40] Drew:
If you get another elven invasion though, you'll have to abandon it.

[00:46:44] Kristin:
Uh, I don't know. We still have 180 dwarves.

[00:46:47] Drew:
I think you can probably throw bodies at it. Yeah.

[00:46:49] Kristin:
Yeah, we could definitely throw bodies at it. I guess I could send my new untrained dwarves off to conquer the elves.

[00:46:55] Kristin:
That might be a fun way to go out. A blaze of glory!

[00:46:58] Drew:
Exactly. Try to wipe them out for their impudence.

[00:47:01] Kristin:
I should make sure that we have armor first though.

[00:47:04] Drew:
That's probably a good first step.
[interjection] Kristin: Alright.
[interjection] Drew: Weapons and armor.

[00:47:07] Kristin:
So in the meantime, you can find us on our website, astrangemoodpodcast.com. You can email us at astrangemoodpodcast@gmail.com.

[00:47:18] Drew:
And join the Discord. The link will be in the show notes.

[00:47:20] Kristin:
Yes, and finally, we have some videos on YouTube at A Strange Mood. Well, until next time, remember...

[00:47:27] Kristin:
Just.

[00:47:27] Drew:
Just keep digging!
[interjection] Kristin: Keep digging.