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

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

[00:00:23] Drew:
And I'm Drew.

[00:00:24] Kristin:
And we're a couple.

[00:00:25] Drew:
Playing Dwarf Fortress.

[00:00:26] Kristin:
That's right.

[00:00:27] Drew:
I'm playing Adventure Mode.

[00:00:28] Kristin:
You're playing Adventure Mode, and I've been playing Fortress Mode.

[00:00:32] Kristin:
Fortress Mode?

[00:00:35] Kristin:
Yeah, this episode's kind of a hello and a goodbye because we're going to take our break for the summer after this one.

[00:00:42] Drew:
Yep, so the

[00:00:45] Drew:
Not entirely sure how long...

[00:00:47] Kristin:
Two months, depending on how the beginning of July is looking for us, we might come back then.

[00:00:53] Drew:
Yeah, we'll see when Adventure Mode drops officially, and that might bring us back a little bit sooner. Yeah.

[00:00:59] Kristin:
Or I think waiting for that might also bring us back, never. So it's not dependent on that.

[00:01:08] Drew:
But it's that time of year, everybody, I feel like, is starting to dial down a little bit for summer as it sets in. Travel, we've got a couple of different travel things planned.

[00:01:16] Kristin:
Yeah, some trips and the horses, I do more horse stuff in the summer.

[00:01:20] Drew:
And also a lot of different games are coming out, and it's time to play some different ones.

[00:01:23] Kristin:
Yeah, there's a lot of fun stuff coming, and you guys don't want to hear us talk about another season of Diablo when that starts, although I have to admit, I don't feel very motivated about a new season of Diablo.

[00:01:35] Drew:
I think it's always just this time of year you get a little unmotivated towards games because it's just so nice out.

[00:01:43] Kristin:
It is very nice out. I don't know, I've been playing Stardew a little bit. I've been playing 14 a little bit.

[00:01:48] Kristin:
I want to try something new, like...

[00:01:51] Kristin:
The itch to play some new game, but then I browse Steam and I'm like, I don't want to play any of these games, so I have yet to figure it out.

[00:01:59] Drew:
What is the, uh, what is the base-building game that you've been playing?

[00:02:03] Kristin:
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[00:02:04] Kristin:
The Mind Over Magic.

[00:02:06] Drew:
Mind Over Magic.

[00:02:06] Kristin:
Yeah, that's a Klei game.

[00:02:10] Kristin:
I haven't really talked about it very much here, but I have played quite a bit. It's um...

[00:02:14] Kristin:
Kind of.

[00:02:15] Kristin:
Oxygen Not Included-like in that

[00:02:17] Kristin:
You're building vertically, but it's also utterly not like Oxygen Not Included, and you summon meeples,

[00:02:24] Kristin:
Which is...

[00:02:27] Drew:
Yeah, it's um, well, what's the premise of it?

[00:02:29] Kristin:
You are building a magic school, and you must fight off the darkness that is constantly encroaching.

[00:02:36] Drew:
I think there is a genre of games, unfortunately, I can't remember what the sort of Ur game for it is in the same way Dwarf Fortress is the Ur game for base building.

[00:02:47] Drew:
That is that concept where you're kind of building rooms upon rooms and building your way upwards and kind of to the right, I guess you could say.
[interjection] Kristin: Um

[00:02:58] Drew:
And that's become pretty popular. I think they're decently popular on mobile as well because I think Fallout, to bring it back to Fallout.
[interjection] Kristin: I think.

[00:03:04] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:03:05] Drew:
Has a mobile game that's like that.

[00:03:08] Drew:
Except there you're digging down, right? You're building your little...
Yeah, you can dig down as well in this one. I haven't done it yet at all. There have been multiple balance edits to that, so I think this is definitely an early access game.

[00:03:29] Drew:
And their art style is always very fun.

[00:03:32] Drew:
Um...

[00:03:33] Drew:
I was trying to think, because...

[00:03:34] Drew:
The game I keep coming back to for kind of the origin of it is XCOM, where in XCOM you have your base building side, XCOM Enemy Unknown, the first one.
[interjection] Kristin: Sorry.

[00:03:44] Kristin:
Mhm.

[00:03:45] Drew:
You have your base building side where you're like digging out areas and then putting labs in, that sort of thing. It's kind of similar.
[interjection] Kristin: That's crazy!

[00:03:52] Kristin:
Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:52] Drew:
Yeah.

[00:03:54] Kristin:
I don't even have a great comparison for it, but it's really fun, and the style of it is really cool, like the wonkiness of the building is very...

[00:04:03] Kristin:
magical feeling, so.

[00:04:04] Drew:
I've been playing Kenshi a little bit. What's that?
[interjection] Kristin: What's up?
[interjection] Drew: So that's the one Roland from Dwarf Fortress Roundtable mentioned it,
[interjection] Kristin: Mm-hmm.
[interjection] Drew: and other people have mentioned it before as well. That one is where you kind of play a post-apocalyptic RPG character in a really fully realized 3D world.

[00:04:27] Kristin:
Interesting.

[00:04:27] Drew:
It's an interesting game. It's not super my thing just because I don't love the post-apocalyptic setting that much,

[00:04:35] Drew:
but it's really fun because you can do very, very detailed things like basically become a cook.

[00:04:42] Drew:
and just make your money cooking and going out and gathering ingredients and all that sort of thing.
[interjection] Kristin: Just make your.
[interjection] Kristin: agreements.

[00:04:47] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:04:47] Drew:
So I've been playing that, and it makes my computer cry a little bit every time I boot it up.

[00:04:52] Kristin:
Your computer sounds like a jet engine.

[00:04:55] Kristin:
I keep trying to convince him to upgrade because now that I've got a tower,

[00:05:00] Drew:
that's utterly silent.

[00:05:01] Kristin:
Utterly silent, fairly cool. I mean, I don't feel the heat from it, unlike with the laptop.

[00:05:06] Kristin:
So now I'm always cold while I'm playing games because I don't have this super hot laptop warming my fingers.

[00:05:13] Drew:
Oh, weird thing.

[00:05:16] Drew:
Um...

[00:05:17] Drew:
Yeah, so I've been playing that, I've been playing... I'm starting to get back into Age of Wonders again.

[00:05:23] Kristin:
Oh.

[00:05:23] Drew:
Which was...

[00:05:24] Kristin:
Yeah, you were, you were like, when it came out, you were like, and now you're getting back into it.

[00:05:30] Drew:
Yeah, well, no, I really enjoyed it, and it's just that the campaigns were actually fairly short, so I think I got through the campaign and the first two DLCs that were out at the time I was playing.
[interjection] Kristin: I think I...

[00:05:43] Drew:
I think I got through those in like

[00:05:45] Drew:
a weekend and a couple of days.

[00:05:47] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:05:47] Drew:
Now, admittedly, I was playing that almost constantly for a while there.
[interjection] Kristin: for a little while there.

[00:05:52] Drew:
But, uh, yeah, it's fun. Um, and so some more DLCs I think are coming out and all that sort of thing. So.

[00:05:58] Drew:
Yeah, we're just moving along.

[00:05:59] Kristin:
I want you to get back into Stellaris and your various DLC that you haven't tried because I enjoy hearing about your Stellaris adventures.

[00:06:07] Drew:
Yeah, Stellaris, the problem with Stellaris is, again, when I sit down to play that, then I'm like, well, there goes my week.

[00:06:14] Drew:
It's a little bit of the same problem with Dwarf Fortress, that sometimes you just sit down and in playing adventure mode, you know, you've seen me just sort of lose a night to it.
[interjection] Kristin: Mhm.

[00:06:23] Kristin:
Yeah, you uh, we were like, "Alright, we're going to parallel play Dwarf Fortress for an hour," and like two and a half hours later, I was like, "Uh, it's time to go to bed."

[00:06:33] Drew:
I'm like, "Wait, no, I can, I can, I can finish off this quest line."

[00:06:36] Kristin:
Yeah, so do we have any Dwarf Fortress news, or do you want to tell us about your adventures?

[00:06:41] Drew:
Alright, well, let's do some Dwarf Fortress news. It seems like things are pretty quiet from the brothers.
[interjection] Kristin: Mm-hmm.
[interjection] Drew: I think they're working on getting Adventure Mode up to snuff to call it a full release.

[00:06:52] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:06:52] Drew:
And then also, I know they're spending some time on the magic system, so that's coming along for the book.

[00:06:57] Kristin:
Yes. I'm excited about that.

[00:07:01] Drew:
It's been promised for a while, we'll just have to see.

[00:07:03] Kristin:
People just have to see. I know. Being excited is maybe optimistic of me.

[00:07:08] Drew:
Um, but then, uh, from our Discord server, we have Mike of DFHack fame and Rurik, um, both of whom have been making videos and putting them out. They've got a couple of different interesting projects going on, so if you're on the Discord, or if you want to join, hop on and take a look at those videos.

[00:07:26] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:07:26] Drew:
Soon.

[00:07:27] Kristin:
Very cool.

[00:07:28] Drew:
Was there any other interesting Dwarf Fortress news you'd seen on the Reddits or anything?

[00:07:32] Kristin:
No, it's been oddly quiet.

[00:07:35] Drew:
Well, I think everybody's either playing Adventure Mode or waiting for Adventure Mode to become a full-fledged release.

[00:07:40] Kristin:
Or they're off working on...

[00:07:42] Kristin:
Making Adventure Mode work.

[00:07:44] Drew:
There is that too.

[00:07:46] Drew:
Uh, so yeah, um, let's see, I...

[00:07:50] Drew:
Decided to take the plunge and try adventure mode with mods turned on.

[00:07:56] Drew:
And so I turned on some of the mods I've talked about before, specifically...

[00:08:02] Drew:
Abe's

[00:08:03] Drew:
Decapodians.

[00:08:05] Drew:
And then also, um, Magical Beast, Mythical Beast, something like that. Yeah, I need to get that one.

[00:08:10] Kristin:
I forget the name. I need to get that one because it seems really cool.

[00:08:12] Drew:
Yeah, it has a lot of really great creatures. Yeah.

[00:08:15] Drew:
You know, I really like the fact that there are the

[00:08:18] Drew:
Centaurs that you can...
[interjection] Kristin: Uh-huh.

[00:08:20] Drew:
Encounter.

[00:08:22] Drew:
Um...

[00:08:23] Drew:
And so I decided that I would be a Decapodian.

[00:08:27] Kristin:
Mm-hmm

[00:08:28] Drew:
It was kind of a hard choice because

[00:08:31] Drew:
I had the option of Ave and Decapod and Dwarf and Elf, but also the option of several different kinds of Demons. Demons? Yeah, Figurekindles, Demons, the Fist of Igdel.
[interjection] Kristin: Figurines?

[00:08:45] Drew:
The option of being a Moltling.

[00:08:47] Drew:
A muskox man? A red squirrel man?

[00:08:50] Drew:
Or a wren man.

[00:08:51] Kristin:
You

[00:08:52] Drew:
So I enjoyed those options.

[00:08:55] Drew:
But I decided that I did want to try the Decapodian, so I became a Decapod.

[00:09:00] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:09:01] Drew:
At which point, then...
[00:09:03] Drew:
I had to select the next round of options.

[00:09:05] Kristin:
All right.

[00:09:06] Drew:
And it was quite enjoyable to realize that under the gender option were all the various subspecies of Decapodians.

[00:09:15] Kristin:
Oh, interesting.

[00:09:16] Drew:
So we had male and female of lobster, shrimp.

[00:09:20] Kristin:
Mhm.

[00:09:21] Drew:
Um, crab.

[00:09:23] Drew:
And hermit crab.

[00:09:24] Kristin:
Aww.

[00:09:25] Drew:
So I, of course, went with hermit crab because I love hermit crabs.
[interjection] Kristin: Because it's cute.

[00:09:29] Kristin:
I think you were tempted by a shrimp, too.

[00:09:31] Drew:
I was extremely tempted by shrimp, but they're, um...

[00:09:34] Drew:
They're like

[00:09:35] Drew:
Resilience is not as good as.
[interjection] Kristin: It's not as bad.

[00:09:37] Kristin:
I think that we were both tempted by the portrait.

[00:09:40] Drew:
Yeah.

[00:09:41] Kristin:
It was very cute, or their sprite, yeah.

[00:09:42] Drew:
Yeah, they're very cute little things.

[00:09:45] Drew:
Um

[00:09:46] Drew:
So, I...

[00:09:48] Drew:
Decided also to give him some pets

[00:09:51] Kristin:
Mm-hmm.

[00:09:51] Drew:
So to make him more survivable, obviously I maxed out his toughness, strength, all that sort of thing, and made him a marksman.

[00:10:00] Drew:
Crab.

[00:10:02] Drew:
I forget what the actual title is for the Marks ones.

[00:10:06] Drew:
But, uh...

[00:10:07] Drew:
I also gave him a

[00:10:10] Drew:
War giant turtle.

[00:10:11] Kristin:
Nice.

[interjection] Kristin: In

[interjection] Kristin: You

[00:10:24] Drew:
Um...

[00:10:33] Drew:
Worms that I didn't take a picture of. I didn't take a picture of their names, but

[interjection] Kristin: I don't know.
[00:10:37] Drew:

[interjection] Drew: Dead whales and stuff down at the bottom of the ocean. Gross.

[00:10:48] Drew:
I was curious to see if they could actually move around or not on land, and yep, they just trailed along, happy as can be.
[interjection] Kristin: Uh-huh.

[00:10:55] Kristin:
That's so weird.

[00:10:58] Drew:
And then I decided that he would be a little lonely without someone to talk to, so I made him a traveling companion.

[00:11:04] Kristin:
Mm-hmm.

[00:11:04] Drew:
And for that.

[00:11:06] Drew:
I gave in and made a flying squirrel man.

[00:11:09] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:11:10] Drew:
Who cannot actually fly.

[00:11:12] Kristin:
Can he jump from tree to tree dramatically?

[00:11:15] Drew:
Yes, he's very, he has very high dex. Good.

[00:11:18] Drew:
And his name is Salor.

[00:11:21] Drew:
So Salor, a flying squirrel man sword master. I just decided I was ready to kind of get started. I just gave him all of his points into swords.
[interjection] Kristin: Ooh.
[interjection] Drew:

[00:11:32] Drew:
Um, and he grew up in an elvish society.

[00:11:36] Kristin:
Oh.

[00:11:37] Kristin:
Interesting.

[00:11:37] Drew:
Yep, he's also a talented animal caretaker.

[00:11:40] Kristin:
That's good.

[00:11:41] Drew:
So I gave him...

[00:11:42] Kristin:
Care for all the worms.

[00:11:44] Drew:
Close. I gave him a, uh...

[00:11:47] Drew:
Giant war bear as a pet.

[00:11:49] Kristin:
Ooh, yeah, that sounds useful.

[00:11:51] Drew:
Yeah, so that has been a pretty effective combination, having two giant war creatures.

[00:11:59] Drew:
Wow.

[00:11:59] Kristin:
Well, I mean, we've seen from Kaiju Number Eight that having a

[00:12:03] Kristin:
Unexplained war tiger is always to your benefit.

[00:12:07] Drew:
Yeah, do you want to talk about that one for a second?
[00:12:09] Kristin:
I mean, I think I just said all of it, but we've been watching an anime called Kaiju Number Eight. It's quite popular. I mean, it's getting a simultaneous dub release, and it's fun.

[00:12:18] Drew:
Yeah, I'll put a link to it. It's pretty fun. It's...

[00:12:23] Drew:
got a good combination of

[00:12:25] Drew:
weirdness and then seriousness.

[00:12:27] Drew:
But one of the weird things is that the elite kaiju task force isn't killing people; they're killing kaiju.

[00:12:35] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:12:35] Drew:
Their leader has a

[00:12:38] Drew:
mortal

[00:12:39] Drew:
tiger.

[00:12:40] Drew:
who just sort of pads around, and nobody remarks on it.

[00:12:43] Kristin:
No, we don't talk about the tiger.

[00:12:45] Drew:
And it's just really weird because she's just like going through this, you know, war zone, and this tiger is padding along after her. And we're all just going to be like, oh, we're not going to talk about the tiger.

[00:12:55] Kristin:
About the tiger. Just don't mention the tiger. So you have a giant war bear that you don't talk about.

[00:13:00] Drew:
Exactly.

[00:13:01] Kristin:
And a war turtle.

[00:13:02] Drew:
The flying squirrel man doesn't talk about the bear; he just hangs around with them.
[interjection] Kristin: Yeah.

[00:13:07] Kristin:
Yeah, and no one mentions it ever.

[00:13:08] Drew:
Yeah, it's not a bear man.

[00:13:11] Drew:
Right? He doesn't have a bear man as a pet. I didn't see it.

[00:13:13] Kristin:
I didn't say "bear man."

[00:13:14] Drew:
He has a bear as a pet.

[00:13:15] Kristin:
I understand.

[00:13:16] Drew:
And he's a flying squirrel.

[00:13:18] Kristin:
So.

[00:13:19] Drew:
Who's your food? Who's your pet? Who's your tax accountant?

[00:13:22] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:13:22] Drew:
We have reasons for these distinctions, but not good ones.

[00:13:26] Drew:
So yes, he is tough, agile, strong, extravagant, values loyalty, and is thoughtless, as you might expect from a squirrel.

[00:13:33] Kristin:
Mm-hmm.

[00:13:34] Drew:
Oh.

[00:13:35] Drew:
I'm not going to try to tell you the name of my Decapodian Hermit Crabman.

[00:13:41] Drew:
Just because it's a whole lot of reticulated syllables, and I'm not going to try.

[00:13:46] Kristin:
No, that's fine. I won't make you.

[00:13:49] Drew:
So, we got started.

[00:13:51] Drew:
And the first thing we did is we walked out of the living area that it started me in.

[00:13:56] Kristin:
Mhm.

[00:13:57] Drew:
Incidentally, it was in the Coastal Lanterns, which is the name of the civilization.
[interjection] Kristin: Yeah.

[00:14:01] Drew:
I think it's a nice name.

[00:14:02] Kristin:
That is a nice name.

[00:14:03] Drew:
I was tempted by the Dwarven civilization, the Star of Metal, which I think is also pretty cool.

[00:14:07] Kristin:
Which I think is also pretty... Yeah, that's so good for dwarves.

[00:14:10] Drew:
But since he was a Decapod, we were going to start with Decapods.

[00:14:14] Kristin:
Mhm.

[00:14:14] Drew:
We walked out, and the first thing we saw was a hermit crab farmer.

[00:14:20] Kristin:
You

[00:14:21] Drew:
who was tending his flock of regular turtles, as well as giant lungfish.

[00:14:29] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:14:30] Kristin:
The giant lungfish look goopy, kind of.

[00:14:33] Drew:
They do. It's kind of weird that they're just wandering over the land, but when I clicked on them, it said they were eating, so they seemed happy.
[interjection] Kristin: Better.

[00:14:40] Kristin:
I guess we're all right.

[00:14:41] Drew:
And, uh, we had the, uh,

[00:14:44] Drew:
one of the Ruther's as well, wandering around.
[interjection] Kristin: Oh
[interjection] Drew: Nice. So.
[00:14:48] Drew:
Um...

[00:14:49] Drew:
Well, we decided to go interrogate that farmer to see what's going on in town.

[00:14:53] Kristin:
Like you do.

[00:14:54] Drew:
And he mentioned that a, um...

[00:14:57] Drew:
Bronze.

[00:14:59] Drew:
Crossbow was missing.

[00:15:02] Drew:
And it was believed to have been taken by a lobster named Forest Mountain.

[00:15:08] Kristin:
Mm-hmm.

[00:15:08] Drew:
First name unpronounceable.

[00:15:10] Kristin:
Yes.

[00:15:11] Drew:
Forest Mountain had taken it to a city, um...

[00:15:16] Drew:
To the north.

[00:15:17] Kristin:
Very cool.

[00:15:18] Drew:
So...

[00:15:19] Drew:
I decided to visit that city.

[00:15:22] Kristin:
I guess.

[00:15:23] Drew:
And had fun.

[00:15:24] Kristin:
In this...

[00:15:24] Drew:
Traveling along the way, I got to that city, and I really have to say,

[00:15:29] Drew:
With the adventure mode, just how pretty the overworld map is. I mean, look at that as a town.
[interjection] Kristin: Yeah.

[00:15:35] Kristin:
That's so much more orderly than anything I would ever build as a town.

[00:15:39] Drew:
I know, right?

[00:15:40] Drew:
I'll put a little picture of that on...

[00:15:42] Kristin:
Yeah, we can get a real screenshot of it, maybe.

[00:15:45] Drew:
But the fun part about that as well is that it meant I got to wander around the town on my way to the manor.

[00:15:54] Kristin:
Mm-hmm.

[00:15:55] Drew:
And this town apparently is focused very heavily on clothing,

[00:15:59] Drew:
Which maybe makes sense for a Decapodian town, because as we've said before,

[00:16:03] Drew:
They have ten little, ten little shoes.
[interjection] Kristin: For one of us.

[00:16:11] Drew:
By the way, I forget how many shoes did they actually have? It's not ten. Do they have eight and then two arms, or six and then two arms and two feeding? I can't remember.

[00:16:21] Kristin:
I can't remember, but it was a lot of shoes.

[00:16:24] Drew:
They have a lot of shoes and they have a lot of tailors.

[00:16:26] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:16:28] Drew:
Um...

[00:16:29] Kristin:
Okay.

[00:16:30] Drew:
So yeah, the actual layout of the town itself is not necessarily the best, whatever random algorithm they're using for that.
[interjection] Kristin: Right.

[00:16:37] Drew:
Because when you actually get in there, all of the different buildings are like connected in a line.

[00:16:43] Kristin:
Ew.

[00:16:44] Drew:
So like, they'll have a door to the previous building and a door to the next building, but not an out to the main road door.

[00:16:52] Kristin:
Don't worry. Yeah, that's funny.

[00:16:53] Drew:
So if you want to go and buy from the third tailor on the street, you have to walk through the other previous two.

[00:16:59] Kristin:
Well, it's like how you build your dwarf apartments.

[00:17:01] Drew:
Fair enough.

[00:17:01] Kristin:
You have to walk through everybody else's apartment to get to your own.
[interjection] Drew: Right? They're everybody else's.

[00:17:05] Drew:
Exactly. That's just the way it goes.

[00:17:08] Kristin:
I give my dwarves their own doors.

[00:17:12] Drew:
You're a very good person. I am.

[00:17:16] Drew:
To be fair, I don't build it so much now that they have to walk through other people's. They just have to walk down through other people's apartments.

[00:17:24] Kristin:
That's still, that's still going through.

[00:17:27] Drew:
Uh, so then, uh, I went to the manor, um, and, uh, tried to find where this, uh, person was because I was told that they would be in the manor.
[interjection] Kristin: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:37] Drew:
Of...

[00:17:39] Drew:
I failed a little bit in that I initially went through the... I started walking along the barricades.
[interjection] Kristin: Mhm.

[00:17:45] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:17:47] Drew:
Is that not really the barricades? What's the word I'm looking for here?

[00:17:54] Kristin:
Oh, I'm coming up with turrets and that's not right.

[00:17:57] Drew:
Turrets is probably close enough, but you know, the walls and turrets.

[00:18:01] Drew:
And so I got there and I got about halfway, um, you know, two-thirds of the way through a loop before I realized that there was not going to be a way.

[00:18:11] Drew:
So then I turned around and went back and, uh,

[00:18:14] Drew:
kept moving around until I actually managed to find the manor proper.

[00:18:19] Drew:
Well, I went in and encountered really quite the surprise.

[00:18:24] Drew:
But I'll talk about that surprise in a second.

[00:18:26] Drew:
What's been going on with your fort?

[00:18:27] Kristin:
Well, I started a new fort.

[00:18:30] Kristin:
The other one was ticking along pretty well and I was just ready for a change. So I found the one volcano in my world and have started a new fort.

[00:18:39] Drew:
Hmm.

[00:18:39] Kristin:
Ooh. New outposts. Outposts. Outposts?

[00:18:42] Drew:
Outposts?

[00:18:44] Kristin:
So I don't know what's happening. Anyway, so we're still an outpost, only seven dwarfs, because it's very hilly and remote.

[00:18:54] Kristin:
And we don't have any water.

[00:18:58] Kristin:
Um, so there's going to be some challenges, like...

[00:19:01] Kristin:
Um, there's no smooth, non-hilly route up to our fort, so that's something I'm gonna have to figure out. I had some elven merchants show up.

[00:19:11] Kristin:
But they only had like pack horses or whatever. And so they were able to come up to the door, but...

[00:19:18] Drew:
Is it an island?

[00:19:20] Kristin:
No!

[00:19:21] Drew:
Volcano? No.

[00:19:21] Kristin:
No, it's in the middle of the continent. It's actually really strange because it's just like suddenly a volcano.
[interjection] Drew: Okay. It's actually...

[00:19:27] Kristin:
But we've got our magma forges set up and you had to help me with that because again I was like how many Z levels and I don't know but um got that going.

[00:19:36] Kristin:
We have a lot of gems, like, um...

[00:19:37] Kristin:
I did not appreciate just how much of a leg up in terms of resources.

[00:19:43] Kristin:
A volcano is because there's so many gems, there's obsidian, you have ore right there.

[00:19:48] Drew:
And you can do your magma forges and magma smelters without having to piss off the elves.
[interjection] Kristin: In the smelter.
[interjection] Kristin: Yeah.
[interjection] Drew: They are very good starts.

[00:19:56] Kristin:
Yeah, definitely, other than the whole hard to access.

[00:20:00] Drew:
Yeah, and mountainous.

[00:20:02] Kristin:
Yeah, my question is, though, that, like with the...

[00:20:06] Kristin:
The water. Am I going to run into problems? Because we don't have any source of fresh water yet until I'm assuming we get down to the caves.

[00:20:15] Drew:
I don't think so, because as long as they've got, um, as long as they've got, uh, alcohol, they're happy.

[00:20:21] Kristin:
For all their happiness. Yeah, what about their animals?

[00:20:25] Drew:
I don't know.

[00:20:27] Drew:
How the animals get regarded with water, but I don't think that salt... They don't need water? Yeah, maybe they do, but I don't think salt water counts against it.

[00:20:37] Kristin:
Okay, and they're outside. There's rain.
So I did something that was either maybe very stupid or exactly how Dwarf Fortress works, and I was like, "Oh, it's raining."

[00:20:47] Kristin:
I'll take a pic.

[00:20:48] Kristin:
Will that fill with water?

[00:20:51] Drew:
Um...

[00:20:52] Drew:
Bye.

[00:20:53] Drew:
Not sure. I don't think so because I think that's a mod, actually, that like, um, Rurik has fought with to get working as well.

[00:20:59] Kristin:
To get rainwater to collect.

[00:21:01] Drew:
Yeah.

[00:21:02] Kristin:
Yeah, I built this pit, and it was raining, and I was like, "Nothing's happening," and I was like, "Well, I could have them fill the pit, but I don't have anywhere to fill it from."

[00:21:10] Kristin:
So...

[00:21:12] Kristin:
We don't, and we don't urgently need it. Like, I guess they can't bathe right now, but...

[00:21:19] Drew:
When rain hits a tile labeled as a murky pool, it will begin to fill up with 1/7th water, and if that does not evaporate, the water will grow deeper until the pool is full. Murky pools do not overflow from rain, and this extra water can be drained off and stored or used. While not much help, it can really help maps without unlimited water supplies such as a river or brook.

[00:21:42] Kristin:
No, we don't have a murky pool. It's just a dry hole.
[interjection] Drew: Yeah.

[00:21:46] Drew:
Yeah, so I think you needed to have, yeah, you have to find a murky pool first, and then it will fill up with the rain.
[interjection] Kristin: You need it.

[00:21:52] Kristin:
You can maybe keep an eye out for one.

[00:21:55] Kristin:
Oh, and the other challenge that I have with it being so mountainous is that I...

[00:22:01] Kristin:
Didn't think about pastures being on one z-level, so I set a zone, and it was only on a z-level with like one tile, apparently, and so I was like, "Why are the animals not moving? There's nothing to eat there," and then I was like,

[00:22:16] Kristin:
"Oh." So I had to make a couple of pastures and distribute them.

[00:22:21] Drew:
Yeah, there are some inconsistencies in how zone designation works that need to get worked on at some point. Here we are.

[00:22:31] Kristin:
Yeah, but I got all of my DwarfHack stuff, auto everything checked, so it takes care of stuff for me. For that, uh, what else am I doing? I'm...

[00:22:42] Kristin:
With only the seven dwarves and no migrants after a few months now, it's a little challenging.

[00:22:50] Kristin:
Only one guy is particularly unhappy, and I think that's partly because he had to go outside a lot, and he was really mad about it. So he yelled at the expedition leader, and I think he's feeling a little better. But I'm getting their bedrooms built, and I need to build them a temple.

[00:23:09] Kristin:
And probably a tavern, so those will be my next two steps.

[00:23:12] Drew:
Good plan.

[00:23:13] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:23:13] Drew:
So did you say that, uh, with the Latvians, did you trade with them or? So they brought their stuff. So you've probably started to build your reputation as a decent place to stop.

[00:23:25] Kristin:
Yeah, I hope so.

[00:23:27] Kristin:
And like,

[00:23:28] Kristin:
I forgot to set my... I don't have a manager yet, so I hadn't... I'm not doing work orders, so I just made some drinks, and then I forgot that like,

[00:23:37] Kristin:
I remembered, but I was able to buy a lot of Dwarven wine from the merchants, so, alright, yeah.
[interjection] Drew: Fair enough.

[00:23:49] Kristin:
And we had a bunch of uncut...

[00:23:52] Kristin:
Man, I cannot talk today. We had a bunch of uncut gems that worked as money.

[00:23:58] Drew:
Yeah, so I think maybe just you'll start to get more migrants as you trade finished goods, I think.

[00:24:04] Kristin:
Yeah, so I need to start working on that, and that should be able to happen once we get the bedrooms finished.
[00:24:10] Drew:
Mm-hmm.

[00:24:12] Kristin:
Things are looking up at Archewell. I don't love that name.

[00:24:14] Drew:
Yeah, it's not great.

[00:24:15] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:24:16] Kristin:
Anything with "oil" in it, maybe it's just kind of...

[00:24:19] Kristin:
So why don't you tell us more about your adventure?

[00:24:22] Drew:
So my, uh, intrepid heroes had arrived at Netsplash, the Decapodian town, looking for the Lobster Forest Mountain.
[interjection] Kristin: The deck.

[00:24:31] Drew:
Rumored to be there.

[00:24:33] Drew:
Um, this incidentally is in the Velvety Seas region.
[interjection] Kristin: Yes.

[00:24:38] Kristin:
That's nice. Go the DC.

[00:24:40] Drew:
And when we got inside the manor where Forest Mountain was rumored to be...

[00:24:48] Drew:
We discovered that...

[00:24:49] Drew:
One, she was queen of this town.
[interjection] Kristin: I love this.

[00:24:53] Kristin:
Oh dear.

[00:24:55] Drew:
And two, that she was holding court with seven other lobsters.

[00:25:02] Kristin:
And lobsters are the nobility. Yeah.

[00:25:05] Drew:
Uh, six sand crabs, who are frequently sort of the soldiery.

[00:25:11] Kristin:
Mm-hmm.

[00:25:12] Drew:
Two regular crabs, another hermit crab, and

[00:25:16] Drew:
12 shrimp who I guess are just sort of the commoners who are hanging around.

[00:25:22] Drew:
Um...

[00:25:23] Drew:
And yeah, so.

[00:25:25] Drew:
That was awkward as I kicked down the door and said, "I'm here to chew bubblegum and beat up Forest Mountain, and I'm all out of gum."

[00:25:35] Drew:
And everyone just sort of record-scratched and looked over at me.

[00:25:40] Kristin:
Is this chucklefuck?

[00:25:42] Drew:
Huh?

[00:25:42] Drew:
So, I, so, I, um.

[00:25:47] Drew:
I started trying to negotiate with the Queen, who rapidly became impatient with me.

[00:25:52] Kristin:
Oh, that's fair.

[00:25:54] Drew:
Because I was asking her, like, "Tell me where this bronze..."

[00:26:01] Drew:
Bow, not bow, what am I trying to say?

[00:26:03] Kristin:
Hmm.

[00:26:03] Drew:
Where this bronze crossbow is.

[00:26:06] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:26:07] Drew:
And she was like, "I'm not going to talk to you about that."

[00:26:11] Drew:
And I'm like,

[00:26:12] Drew:
"I would like it back, please."

[00:26:14] Kristin:
Please.

[00:26:18] Drew:
And so once she started getting angry at me, she then told the, um,

[00:26:22] Drew:
The, uh, sand crabs to eject me.

[00:26:27] Drew:
Which I ignored because it apparently doesn't do anything.

[00:26:37] Drew:
But no one was really happy with it.

[00:26:39] Drew:
So, I decided, you know what?

[00:26:42] Drew:
I've had enough of this. I have a giant...

[00:26:45] Drew:
War turtle and a giant war bear.

[00:26:47] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:26:48] Drew:
So I decided to attack.

[00:26:50] Kristin:
Did you do a massacre?

[00:26:51] Drew:
I did do a massacre, but in the course of killing everyone in the room, including the queen and the various lobsters.

[00:26:57] Kristin:
Upstairs.

[00:26:58] Drew:
Additional

[00:27:00] Drew:
Armed sand crabs came in and basically murdered us.

[00:27:05] Kristin:
Okay, I was gonna say, are you the king now? But no, that's the end of your second adventure. Third adventure? Third adventure.
[interjection] Drew: Yes.

[00:27:11] Drew:
The third adventure.

[00:27:12] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:27:12] Drew:
So I reloaded, tried to negotiate a couple more times.

[00:27:16] Drew:
And, uh, got nowhere.

[00:27:18] Drew:
So I proceeded to inspect the, sort of, all the miscellaneous items because the manor had a bunch of nice display pedestals with items on them.
[interjection] Kristin: Manor head

[00:27:28] Kristin:
So maybe just take something else in there.

[00:27:30] Drew:
Uh, I was tempted, but I could not find the thing that I was looking for.

[00:27:34] Kristin:
Hmm.

[00:27:35] Drew:
So, I decided that I would.

[00:27:38] Drew:
Call that one a no-go and go find my next adventure.

[00:27:45] Kristin:
I think maybe when I try adventure mode I will be a bard because it's the bards constantly coming in and divulging locations to one another.

[00:27:53] Drew:
Uh huh.

[00:27:53] Kristin:
So, it'll be like Baldur's Gate.

[00:27:55] Drew:
That'd be fun.

[00:27:55] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:27:56] Drew:
Go around and.

[00:27:58] Drew:
Just cause trouble.

[00:27:59] Kristin:
I'll be a bunny bard.

[00:28:00] Drew:
Just spread rumors.

[00:28:02] Drew:
Um, because I did go around and try spreading rumors to the other lobsters there that, um, the queen was a monstrous threat.

[00:28:10] Drew:
But they all just sort of blew me off.

[00:28:15] Kristin:
Why is it so funny?

[00:28:16] Drew:
Oh.

[00:28:17] Kristin:
But there you go.

[00:28:19] Kristin:
You're very puffed up and they're just like, okay.

[00:28:21] Drew:
Yeah.

[00:28:22] Drew:
Um, yes, one of the lobsters was the high executioner and he repeatedly said, "Is this an attack? What's going on?" Because I think I had my weapons out when I kicked down the door.

[00:28:34] Drew:
Um, so I guess maybe I should have tried sheathing my weapon and taking it away from me.

[00:28:37] Kristin:
Yeah, maybe you could have opened the door normally instead of kicking it down.

[00:28:41] Drew:
But it was weird in this town as well, because there were several shrimp who had been murdered. Just...

[00:28:47] Drew:
Around.

[00:28:48] Kristin:
Oh.

[00:28:48] Drew:
And they were talking about it. And I'm like, what's going on?

[00:28:51] Kristin:
Yeah, well, maybe you can work on that.

[00:28:54] Drew:
Yes, well, they said it was caused by an unknown monstrous entity.

[00:29:03] Drew:
You would think.

[00:29:04] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:29:04] Drew:
So, I tend to blame the queen.

[00:29:06] Kristin:
Oof-er.

[00:29:09] Drew:
So then I decided to leave that town and received a different quest.

[00:29:14] Kristin:
Mm-hmm.

[00:29:15] Drew:
Uh, so I started moving over towards there, found something weird.

[00:29:20] Drew:
In this sort of snow-covered landscape.

[00:29:23] Drew:
Investigated.

[00:29:25] Drew:
Um, it was quite interesting.

[00:29:29] Drew:
In that I found bodies all over the place.

[00:29:32] Kristin:
Oh dear.

[00:29:33] Drew:
And as I investigated, I eventually discovered.

[00:29:38] Drew:
A Bronze Colossus.

[00:29:39] Kristin:
Uh-oh.

[00:29:40] Drew:
That would not let us run away, and it chased after us and added all of our bodies to the
[interjection] Kristin: Awww.
[interjection] Drew: Pile of dead creatures.

[00:29:48] Kristin:
Yeah, well, okay, so that was the end of your weird adventure.
[interjection] Drew: Yeah.

[00:29:52] Drew:
So I will load that back up and try something else.

[00:29:55] Kristin:
Do not go over there.

[00:29:56] Drew:
But after I just got absolutely stomped by the Bronze Colossus, I was like, I'm, I'm, I'm good for the moment.

[00:30:04] Kristin:
You need to level up and maybe kill a not-bronze colossus.

[00:30:08] Drew:
Yeah, exactly. Like we just jumped from basically trying to kill.

[00:30:13] Drew:
You know.

[00:30:13] Kristin:
Lobsters.

[00:30:13] Drew:
Squirrels and lobsters to a Bronze Colossus that you can't kill with an entire fort.

[00:30:19] Kristin:
Yeah, that was maybe a little ambitious of you.
[00:30:22] Drew:
Well, I mean, I didn't start the fight with that one. I just showed up, it saw me, and started attacking.

[00:30:28] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:30:29] Drew:
So those have been the adventures of my character.

[00:30:34] Kristin:
Yes.

[00:30:35] Kristin:
I'm definitely going to give it a try.

[00:30:38] Drew:
Um...

[00:30:39] Drew:
The only real problem I ran into with it...

[00:30:43] Drew:
One is those...

[00:30:45] Drew:
Rooms all being connected.
[interjection] Kristin: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:48] Drew:
The other is that, um, the other is that it is kind of slow to move around.

[00:30:55] Drew:
Tick by tick.

[00:30:56] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:30:57] Drew:
Um, you can...

[00:31:00] Drew:
have this problem that I've seen people talk about on Reddit, that because of all of the conversations, you need to go through and, um,

[00:31:08] Drew:
scroll down and click next and everything for those conversations, even if you didn't like...
[interjection] Kristin: for this country.
[interjection] Drew: request to start them.

[00:31:15] Drew:
Um, the main way I found to avoid that is you can click on something, you can click on a tile you can see, and then say, "Continue to this tile."

[00:31:25] Drew:
And it will...

[00:31:27] Drew:
do all the action to get you to that tile.

[00:31:29] Kristin:
Mhm.

[00:31:30] Drew:
And then give you the whole list of everything that's been said during the process, and you can scroll through it. But it becomes a little bit of a pain when you're walking through busy areas.

[00:31:39] Kristin:
Yeah, I can see that.

[00:31:40] Drew:
So.

[00:31:41] Drew:
Overall, I'm very happy with Adventure Mode.

[00:31:42] Kristin:
Yeah.

[00:31:43] Kristin:
I'm sure the modders will come up with...

[00:31:46] Drew:
Solutions for...

[00:31:46] Kristin:
for everything, yeah.

[00:31:48] Drew:
But also, since it's in beta, I think that the developers probably have some plans to finish taking care of things.

[00:31:54] Kristin:
Definitely.

[00:31:56] Drew:
Um...

[00:31:57] Drew:
The other nice thing is, from the DFHack point of view, Dwarf Fortress Legends still works in adventure mode.

[00:32:02] Kristin:
Great. Oh, that's fun.

[00:32:04] Drew:
I used that and picked up some information that I'll put together for future discussions of that adventure world.

[00:32:12] Kristin:
So did you go and see yourself in the list of the Bronze Colossus's kills?

[00:32:18] Drew:
No, I should have done that. Yeah. But since I, I guess since I reloaded after... Oh yeah, you don't have any more.

[00:32:27] Drew:
Huh.

[00:32:27] Kristin:
Go see the record of your own death. Exactly.

[00:32:30] Drew:
Anyway.

[00:32:31] Drew:
So.

[00:32:31] Drew:
Have you come up with any grand plans for your fort, other than it being a volcano fort?

[00:32:36] Kristin:
No, uh, I need to think about that.

[00:32:39] Drew:
You can definitely do a lot of work with metal with a Volcano Forge.

[00:32:42] Kristin:
Yeah, I think maybe I want to do some encrusting of things and selling them and becoming rich. Rich in that way, yeah.

[00:32:51] Drew:
Yep, try to actually get to being a metropolis or whatever, the mountain home.
[interjection] Kristin: Yeah.

[00:32:57] Drew:
Processes.

[00:32:58] Kristin:
I don't know if I'll go that far, but definitely want to work on becoming a major city. I think that my other fort before I left had gotten elevated again.

[00:33:10] Kristin:
Baron or Duchy, I don't know, whichever one it wasn't yet, so.

[00:33:14] Kristin:
I think.

[00:33:15] Drew:
Duchy. A duke is higher than a baron.

[00:33:17] Kristin:
Well, I don't remember. There had maybe been a count, and then a baron.
OK.

[00:33:21] Kristin:
And then a count.

[00:33:23] Drew:
Yeah, I can't remember. Wait, yeah, we've had this conversation. Yeah, I think it does go BCD.

[00:33:31] Drew:
Yeah.

[00:33:31] Kristin:
Um

[00:33:32] Kristin:
At any rate, I retired that fort and might go check in on them at some point. It was thriving, so yeah.

[00:33:38] Drew:
Yeah, I need to go back to some of my older forts because, in the older versions of Dwarf Fortress, I felt like it didn't do a wholly great job of managing that.
[interjection] Kristin: So.
[interjection] Drew: I would frequently come back to find it.

[00:33:51] Drew:
Doing a lot of sort of weird one-tile stuff.

[00:33:54] Kristin:
There was a lot where the furniture had been removed but was still sitting where it was, so it wasn't.

[00:34:02] Kristin:
Placed, I don't, yeah, it was strange, but.
[interjection] Drew: It was strange.

[00:34:04] Kristin:
I'll go check it out at some point, bye.

[00:34:06] Kristin:
For the meantime, just enjoy some magma.

[interjection] Kristin: Bye.

[00:34:09] Kristin:
Well, I've been having such a hard time finding magma in my last couple of forts that it's sort of a luxury.

[00:34:14] Drew:
Or is it lava since it's above ground?

[00:34:18] Kristin:
Mmm, indeed.

[00:34:21] Drew:
Right?
[interjection] Kristin: Yeah.
[interjection] Drew: We've had this conversation before, and I forget which one's which.

[00:34:25] Kristin:
But when I'm down inside, it doesn't matter.

[00:34:28] Drew:
If it's open to the air, it's lava, and if it's down below, it's magma.

[00:34:30] Kristin:
Yeah, I'm gonna call it magma.

[00:34:33] Kristin:
Anyway, so I think that'll do it for us for this time.

[00:34:38] Drew:
Yeah, I think so. We've got a couple of plans for things in the future, but we want to take some time and get those

[00:34:45] Drew:
Scheduled, work through people's schedules.

[00:34:46] Kristin:
Yeah, we might have a couple of special episodes that drop at points while we're on break.

[00:34:54] Kristin:
So, um, until next time.

[00:34:57] Kristin:
You can join our Discord.

[00:34:59] Kristin:
You can go visit our website, strangemoodpodcast.com. You can email us at strangemoodpodcast@gmail.com.

[00:35:07] Kristin:
You can find us where podcasts are.

[00:35:09] Drew:
Where all the exciting podcasts live.

[00:35:12] Kristin:
Mhm, that's true.

[00:35:13] Drew:
And until next time.

[00:35:14] Drew:
Just keep digging!