10 Astounding Tales Which Exemplify Dwarf Fortress' Insanity

2. Boatmurdered - The Firepower Of A Fully Armed And Operational Dwarf Fortress

Widely considered the quintessential Dwarf Fortress tale, Boatmurdered was one of the Let's Plays passed about Something Awful as players took it in turn to manage a colony of alcoholic stunties for one in-game year at a time. Beginning with psychotic elephants, thieving mandrills, the long drawn out story was one of survival, conquest, and occasional supervillainy, before coming to a bloody end in a haze of fire, miasma and insanity. While a small fraction of the events which took place in Boatmurdered could easily make up this entire list, there is one thing which everyone remembers about the Let's Play: Project F*** The World. Beginning with StarkRavingMad's run on the fortress, one too many attacks by pachyderms determined to murder everyone inside drove him over the edge. Tapping into a magma flow some way behind the mountain they had built their fortress into, workers began channelling it towards an isolated section towards the north of the fortress, ready to be unleashed whenever needed. Yes, dwarves armed with nothing more advanced than a pickaxe built a bloody great volcano cannon. Given this was Dwarf Fortress however, it appeared to be the only sane move and proved to be surprisingly effective. Everything from a Bronze Colossus to Goblin Armies and legendary named elephants were washed away in a tide of scorching fire, turning the area around Boadmurdered into Mordor lite. While the initial plan to "kill all those f***ing elephants" proved to be an ultimate success, it also backfired horribly before the end. Along with accidentally murdering a trade caravan of the one faction the dwarves were on good terms with, constant used of the medieval weapon of mass destruction caused part of the fortress to come alight. The final few chapters of the Let's Play concluded with dwarves going mad from the smoke and fighting one another, throwing themselves into the fire, and the last sane warrior of their number departing the place to seek his death. May their tortured souls rest in peace.