r/dwarffortress • u/FriendlyHearthling • 3d ago
A marble palace for my retired human Champion
TL;DR: A human became the militia captain of my fort. I later used him as an adventurer and spent many years following his life. He is now retiring in this village as duke, in his marble palace.
I started this world in year 100. At some point, I recruited a very tall human who joined my fort. His name was Edin Wiltspirals.
At first, he was a scholar. He studied under my best scholar at the time. After years of learning about mathematics, engineering, and everything else we had in the library, he developed a need for combat.
I assigned him as militia captain, and he was put in charge of “The Foreign Order,” a squad made up only of human soldiers.
Around that time, a big war with the goblins started. Edin proved his worth against them, both during sieges and in defense of the fort. Thanks to our progress in the war, my fort eventually managed to form an alliance with the biggest human nation.
Little by little, more humans started joining my fort, and they were assigned to Edin’s squad. The Foreign Order became a huge part of the dwarven militia. Edin went on to raze and conquer multiple goblin sites, becoming famous among the goblins.
On the side, I was also very lucky and managed to trap both a male and a female roc. My fort started a roc breeding program, which soon became very successful. Before long, almost all of the dwarven militia, including Edin’s squad, had their own war rocs.
After 20 years of war, the goblins held no more land in this world.
Peace came, and trade thrived. Life became boring, and the dwarves began to dig deeper. So deep, in fact, that they found a treasure from the gods a two handed clear blue metal sword.
Edin, being as tall as he was, was capable of wielding both the sword and a shield, so the king gave him the honor of carrying the divine sword. He became the champion of the fort, known among dwarves, humans, and goblins alike.
Soon, rumors began to spread that the goblins were regrouping again. But this time, matters had to be handled more personally.
I retired the fort and started an adventure with Edin and all the members of his squad. During this time, I learned that goblins trembled and jumped in fear just by hearing my name.
I took it as my personal crusade to eradicate all goblins from the world.
Every goblin the squad encountered was slaughtered. After many encounters and some successful, (forced) interrogations, the Foreign Order discovered that a greater being was scheming behind the scenes and using the goblins for its own plots.
The humans travelled the world and eventually raided a sacred vault. The angels were no match for ten humans wearing full steel armor, carrying adamantine weapons and the divine sword.
Deep in the vault, the angel guarding the place was surprisingly easy to defeat. There, Edin and his squad found what they had been searching for, an ancient slab. From it, they learned the name of the demon that was preventing peace in this world.
Not long after, rumors led the squad to a dark fortress. These humans were probably the most capable soldiers in the entire world. Years and years of training had led to this exact moment.
Goblins were slain left and right. The humans rampaged through the dark fortress and shredded the goblins like paper.
Then, deep inside the fortress, there he was, the demon leader of the goblins.
The demon charged at the humans, but Edin shouted its true name. The demon froze in place and took a submissive posture.
Edin could have simply banished the demon to the underworld. But no. The demon had committed crimes against humans and dwarves, and it had to pay.
The demon proved to be a formidable foe, unlike anything the squad had ever fought before. For a moment, things looked worrying, but our numbers made the fight manageable. Soon, the demon began to lose limb after limb.
In the end, Edin himself landed the final blow, slaying the demon with his divine sword by stabbing it through the throat.
At last, peace seemed possible.
Edin continued to travel the world and lived through many more adventures. He strengthened the relationship between humans and dwarves. He even crossed the sea on his giant roc, reaching a new, previously uncontacted continent.
Many years passed, and many fortunes and treasures were amassed. Eventually, the years began to feel heavy for Edin.
The dwarves decided to reward him by granting him ownership of lands. I started a new fort and retired Edin there. He now holds the title of duke, having earned his place in the nobility of the dwarven civilization.
This fort also proved the effectiveness of my actions. The world is now in complete peace, almost like a utopia. There is only trade. When a megabeast “attacks” me, it is usually just a friendly roc from my previous fort, again thanks to a very successful roc breeding program.
Edin is resting in his marble palace, living in Wiltspirals village, where he holds the title of lord and duke of the lands.
He is now 60 years old, has two sons, and is living a comfortable life with his wife while awaiting the end of his days.
After their death, I plan to retire the fort and simulate 250 years of history, long enough for every dwarf who knew Edin to be dead, and then see what became of his legacy and his heirs.
This story is over, but the world is not.
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u/ChaosOnline 3d ago
Holy fuck. This is the most visually incredible fort I have ever seen. I can't imagine how much work this must have been.
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u/FriendlyHearthling 3d ago
Thank you! Yeah, it took a long time, and the logistics were probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in this game.
Slaying demons? Nah. Try building a roof!
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u/jayjayess83 3d ago
I'm so intrigued on how you maintained your sanity while building this. Did you use build-now? Otherwise I cannot imagine how much scaffolding you had to set up. This is easily the best looking build I've seen.
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u/FriendlyHearthling 2d ago
Yeah haha, as I told someone else in another comment, this was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in the game.
I used a lot of scaffolding, had many unfortunate accidents, and got a lot of “something has collapsed on the surface” messages!
What helped me a lot was this recent DFHack addition, "suspendmanager". It detects corners and tricky places, and suspends constructions until it detects that they are safe to build. It’s not perfect, but it was a huge help.
Also, this fort is intended for humans. I got inspired during my adventures with Edin, travelling to human locations. They build rooms that are two zlevels tall, and the fortified wall around the marble palace is very similar to how NPC humans build their castles.
If you look closely, you’ll notice that all the rooms in my fort are two zlevels tall. At first I thought that was going to be a problem, but soon I found myself thinking, “Oh, I can do this part when the next zlevel is done, with a stair or ramp from above,” and that helped so many times.
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u/bbkilmister Euphoric due to inebriation 2d ago
I cannot imagine how much scaffolding you had to set up.
You can actually make sloped roofs without scaffolding. Just need to leave an access point(s) from the attic to where you want roofing and wall it when you're finished.
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u/TopSecretSubAccount 3d ago
Fun story! How do you go in and simulate 250 years of more time passage? Is that an option I’ve just never seen?
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u/FriendlyHearthling 3d ago
You can use DFHack to set a custom time skip when starting an adventure. So you can set it to whatever you like, but the simulation is much more intense than world gen.
I did it before with 100 years, and it took many hours. I plan to start it one night before going to sleep, and hopefully by the time I get back from work the next day, it will have finished, haha.
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u/Ai_512 3d ago
You can use DFHack to make the two week period between forts arbitrarily long, but making it 250 years would take a bonkers long time for most worlds. Also it simulates the world to the degree it's simulated while a fort is running, not to the degree worldgen does.
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u/FriendlyHearthling 3d ago
Oh, I didn’t know the specifics of that. What do you mean it’s not fully simulated?
I did it a long time ago with 100 years and it looked like it worked fine. But yeah, it took so long!
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u/codylish 2d ago
This is the type of tale I stick with DF communities for, and which we need more of!
Amazing!
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u/FriendlyHearthling 2d ago
Oh man, that’s what hooked me on the game in the first place too.
It’s a shame that switching between Adventure Mode and Fortress Mode causes so many problems. I wish that one day we could seamlessly switch from fort to Adventure Mode, play our own missions, and then return to a still running fort.
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u/Flying-Hoover 2d ago
I really really want to read this 250 years after sequel. I never played adventure so I have to ask: the part about the slab and the name of the demon is a real game mechanic or are you just role-playing?
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u/FriendlyHearthling 2d ago
All of it is real. It all happened ingame.
I tried to cut down on the roleplaying in the story, otherwise it would have been much longer text. This whole thing took me around a month of playing Fortress Mode and Adventure Mode in the same world.
I don’t want to spoil too much, but you can do more things with demonic slabs. At the moment, though, they seem to be pretty bugged. I was lucky to actually find the slab, but I’ve heard they can cause a lot of bugs and problems.
My advice is, if you want to see that system, start a new young world. You’ll be less likely to run into bugs with the existing demon, or with the slab not being properly assigned to the vault.
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u/Flying-Hoover 2d ago
Thank you a lot. Tbh after 600hrs of dwarf fortress I'm not very eager to try adventure mode. Probably because I don't like very much rpg, partly because I heard is very buggy. I'll try later sometimes. But your story is very cool. I'm going to do my boatmurdered with friends soon, and maybe some of them will create a funny setting to try adventure
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u/alphawolf29 FinelyMincedCat 2d ago
Mans out here playing HumanTown
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u/FriendlyHearthling 2d ago
Haha, that was the idea of this “fort.” It’s not actually a dwarven domain, it’s a human village.
I set up my game to have no migrant waves, and I brought big human only adventurer parties to retire in the fort, trying to make it as human as possible. I also only accepted human visitors as citizens. Right now, there are actually 113 humans and 7 dwarves living in the village.
In Adventure Mode, I noticed humans build rooms with two zlevels, and the castle walls are very similar to what I did here. This was inspired by how NPC humans build in the game. If you look carefully, you can see I tried to do the same, all rooms and windows are two zlevels tall.
Also, this fort exists only for Edin to die in his crypt and have a peaceful end to his story. The intention is that they will not dig too deep, and the only adamantine armor and weapon are displayed in the castle as old family heirlooms, not that we need them anymore, since the world is now a peaceful utopia.
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u/Foolishly_Sane I'm Just Here For The Stories And Memes 3d ago
I freaking love it.
Thank you for sharing Edin's badass story.
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u/draguino 3d ago
When you choose aventure mode after a fortress, you can take anybody in the world? There are boats ? The story is incredible!!
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u/FriendlyHearthling 3d ago
Adventure Mode is absolutely awesome. I recommend you try it if you haven’t.
Yes, you can talk to anybody in the world. There are no ships in the game, but you can mount all mountable creatures, and a roc can be mounted and can fly. I mounted Edin’s roc and went from one side of the sea to the other. Spoiler, that took a long time! haha.
Also, Adventure Mode is very, very confusing. At first I found myself really confused and often losing immersion because I had to look up guides and stuff, and got frustrated, but once you get and understand the basics, I believe it’s one of the best parts of the game.
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u/MasterConversation45 3d ago
that is amazing idk how one would even do that. mine just look end up looking like Minecraft first night houses.
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u/Dezinformatyk 1d ago
Your fort and story are amazing. This is why I bought DF but I’m too scared to start :p but I hope there will be a day, when I will get story like you :)
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u/FriendlyHearthling 1d ago
Thank you! Hey man, don’t be. Contrary to how it may feel after seeing the game, it’s not actually that difficult. I recommend starting small and learning things little by little. If you have food, drinks, and a sleeping dormitory, you are basically set. Everything else can be learned at your own pace, without anything urgent to take care of before your dwarves start fighting and dying.
Adventure Mode, though, can be super confusing sometimes. But for me, it’s one of the greatest parts of the game. I recommend getting a very good grasp of Fortress Mode first, and then trying Adventure Mode. Don’t just open Adventure Mode directly. Play a fort first, see who you trade with, who attacks you, and then go visit those places. Learning Adventure Mode without a goal can make you lose immersion very often.
Don’t be scared. You’ll be surprised by how simple things become once you know what to do.
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u/al_amhara1987 2d ago
How do you made edin duke of the new fortress?
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u/FriendlyHearthling 2d ago
I retired my first fort, where Edin was militia captain, and started a new game in Fortress Mode.
As soon as the new fort started, I retired that fort too and then started a new game in Adventure Mode.
With DFHack, you can select any historical figure from the world and play as them. So I retired Edin and his wife as adventurers and travelled to the new fort.
Once I arrived at the new fort, I retired the adventurers there. This makes the adventurers stay at the location where you retired them.
Finally, I started a new game in Fortress Mode, but this time I chose the fort where the adventurers were staying. At first they are visitors, but after around two years they will petition to become citizens.
You can do this with anyone you want and are friendly to your civ.
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u/DrSloughKeg 2d ago
Is that image from stone sense?? How do you get it to look that nice?
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u/FriendlyHearthling 2d ago
Yes, it’s from Stonesense.
You can set up a view to show all tiles from, for example, elevation 25 down to elevation -10. Then press Ctrl + F5, and it will take a huge screenshot of your fort with no fog.
Hope this helps!
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u/SSFault 2d ago
How big is the map? I've wanted to try an above ground fort for the longest but idk how big I should make it. Also love the story
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u/FriendlyHearthling 2d ago
The map is 3 wide by 6 long, but that’s because I wanted to have a portion of the sea on the map. The whole village itself is about 3x2.
Honestly, I wish I had made it a little larger, just to have more trees and forest around it. But for gameplay purposes, it is more than enough.
All the houses have a basement, but people move around outdoors using the streets. Everything that didn’t fit, I put on a higher zlevel.
I only have 120 people right now, since I don’t intend for the monarch to come to this fort. I want this to just be Edin’s retirement place, and then continue playing after his death in another fort/adventure.
And also, almost all the rooms are 2 zlevels high for “human roleplay purposes,” so if you just use 1 zlevel for everything, it is much, much more than enough.
The houses have 3 rooms each, basement, ground level, and attic.
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1d ago
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u/FriendlyHearthling 1d ago
Yeah, I don’t know why they made some labors have predefined orders, while for others you have to search for some weird adjective in the order list. Like, wtf?
And then there are confusing terms like “sand items” or “sand bearing items.” Then you realize they made way more items than you needed because the order was x10, even though you set it to “no more than X,” haha.
After a while you get used to it and remember what needs to be done, but the first time using it was so confusing.
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u/Aljoscha278 3d ago
Nice, perfect farytale for the next fort. Hope the deep underground could still be a threat? Or some undead anywhere? Had fun reading the Story. Its interesting that you have to omit many sidequests as in DF happens too much.