About ten months ago I posted a journal saying that after watching a bunch of streams of it prior to its steam release, I'd picked up Dwarf Fortress in all its shiny non-ascii textured, newly mouse-supported glory. I posted a couple of times after that babbling about how I was enjoying it over the first month or so since its release, but since then I haven't said much about it.

Does that mean I've stopped playing? Does that mean I enjoyed it for a little bit but haven't touched it much since?

Well, I did go through a few spells of playing other things when different games came out or I wasn't around my PC for periods of time. Buuut... * glances at steam * I may have played about 470hours of DF at this point, and a good hundred or so of those hours in the past month, basically any time I'm not writing or on my exercise bike, lmao.

I just wanna say again that, if you like what could broadly be called "colony sim" games and you don't mind taking some time to learn its intricacies and weirdnesses, oh my gosh this is such a fun game. :3 Case in point...

I've been playing in the same world for about fifty eight in-game years now, and for the last fifteen or so in-game years have been running the same fort, Steelwreath.

My current dwarven civilisation, the Strifeful Banners, began as a single fort of two-hundred dwarves tucked away in a frozen mountain area to the very, very far south of the world they inhabit. The surrounding area was so cold and harsh that they remained isolated and tucked away in that single fortress without trying to expand at all, and as a result remained cut off from other dwarven civilisations, developing into a strange thing for a dwarven culture, a virtually monotheistic society following Etur, Goddess of Wealth.

One hundred years of dwarven history passed with that single fortress and its dwarves worshipping Etur in their lonely mountain home, before finally the Goddess (or perhaps someone speaking in her voice? Armok, God of Blood perchance?) inspired seven dwarves to venture forth and establish a new home, Frostseized. Long enough had the Strifeful Banners been a small footnote in the world's history, tucked away in their frozen wasteland home. Now they had a mission. To strive forward and make a new home, and to grow it powerful enough that more dwarves could leave it and establish another fortress, and another, and another.

Fifty eight years later, Steelwreath stands as the seventh fortress of the Strifeful Banners. Though the lands are still a frozen wasteland, the dwarves have already pushed far enough north to breach the constant snow that left many of their early dwarves enraged at its ceaseless storms (seriously so many of my early dwarves ended up permanently angry due to exposure to the snow). There, with the King of the civilisation in residence, they have begun a new phase of expansion. Conquest. The goblin civilisation "The Doom of Papers" which had raided the Fortresses of the Strifeful Banners and sought to steal its precious artefacts right from the start has now begun to know fear itself as Steelwreath's steel wreathed (get it? :P) soldiers claim former dark goblin pits in the name of our own civilisation.

And clearly, it's not only the warring goblins under their demon overlord that have come to fear us. In past forts, the Strifeful Banners' militaries had fought off Cyclops', Giants and even a Desert Titan in the form of a giant serpent (indeed the Duke of Steelwreath, nicknamed "Serpentstrike" in his military days. received that honour after killing the Desert Titan in Kingrevered, the fortress established to celebrate the crowning of the new King after the passing of his mother the Queen from old age. But in Steelwreath, the dwarves' legend has spread to all corners of the earth, and the skies. Bringing not one, but TWO dragons to its walls (I had not encountered a single dragon in my first 400 hours of the game, then TWO attacked this single fortress!)

Thabost Nelasibmat Limullimar (Thabost Flickerspark, the Golden Wealth) was surely a test from Etur herself, given her title and golden scales. She burned the duchess of Frostseized, the first fort of the Strifeful Banners' expansion, alive with dragonfire while the duchess was visiting the King to pay her respects. To this day years later, her burning corpse lies in the frozen tundra, ever ablaze, utterly untouchable. Yet Flickerspark fell to Steelwreath's military might, her death ushering in the Age of Legends. Her skull adorns a pedestal in the King's future tomb, and her bones were used in the construction of an artefact dragonbone door, which now adorns Etur's temple.

When the second dragon, Bestra Nesimtul Cobim came just a couple of years later, he too felled a visiting noble, the veteran warrior known as "The Calamity of Irus" for felling a forgotten beast who bore that name. When "Bestra Parchedwarmth, the Bejewelled" met his own end beneath a silvered warhammer though, there was no doubt that Etur's challenges were not meant as condemnation of her worshippers actions, but rather as challenges to be overcome. The tale of the Strifeful Banners continues as they seek to share Etur's message with the entire world.

Wealth of gold and steel is all well and good, but true wealth comes from a valiant heart, with passion burning hotter than dragonfire. If the Dwarves of the Strifeful Banner can escape their frozen prison and outlive eternal dragons that have slain hundreds of foes before them from across dwarven, human, elven and goblin civilisations, any realm, any individual creature can become a legend beyond dragonkind if they possess the drive to do so.


Fuck, I love this game. :D