This morning I found the mangled body of a fellow dwarf in the hills outside of the capital, surrounded by elephant tracks. I didn't think he'd be complaining, so I emptied out his pockets.
I knew it was going to be a lucky day for me this morning, before the guards found me sleeping in the back of the warehouse and kicked me out. Not only was this guy loaded, but he had a piece of paper directing him to take charge of one of the colonies, some place named "Boatsmurdered". Whoever named that must have had a wierd sense of humor.
Well, I figured the place had never seen the guy's face, so I took the paper (and the money, of course) and started following the directions on the piece of paper.
I finally found the place. The directions lead me through a hidden passage that looked strangely like an escape tunnel. It wasn't till I got inside and tried to find out who was in charge that I found out why. It seems that this place is under siege by a combined force of goblins and Elephants, and the last ruler dug the tunnel to escape. It sounded like a good idea to me, but when I tried to open the door to the escape tunnel the whole thing collapsed. Guess I'm in for the duration.
Everything's in chaos here, no one can go outside because of the elephants and goblins. The dwarves kept acting like I should know what to do, so I told them to dig some fortifications we could shoot outside from. The other dwarves informed me, to my surprise, that the goblins had bows too. It was a frightening concept and made me long for the escape tunnel. But I had already noticed the other dwarves skeptical looks at me so I ordered them to do it anyway and said it would all work out.
“Dwarf Fortress - Boatmurdered [1]”
Elephants. Mandrills. Goblins. Lava. Lots of lava. Burned forests. And all too common psychotic dwarves trying to carve a life out of a mountain of madness.
Welcome to Dwarf Fortress [2], a simulation game so rich with details, that it can simulate “a dwarven executioner, with broken arms unable to use his hammer, delivering punishments by biting his victims and tearing off their limbs, keeping one in his mouth for years.” Wow!
Boatmurdered is the story of a game of Dwarf Fortress, passed from player to player as they each had a chance of running a Dwarvish colony in the mountains.
It did not end well.
[1] http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-