The Hamlet of Tyranny
(325 votes)Originally from /tg/, a 4chan.org gaming board. Actual author unknown.
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I was visiting a friend of mine earlier today. So it happens neckbeards flock around neckbeards, and he was currently deep into a game of Dwarf Fortress. As I stepped into his room he motions me to quickly check out his monitor.
On it was the largest demon invasion I’ve ever seen. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before you hear the end of the story, you will have to hear the beginning as relayed to me by my friend.
Having started as your standard DF, the Hamlet of Tyranny was uneventful by /tg/ standards. Sure there would be caravans and immigrants and occasional (though unusually rare) seiges, but there was a dark and DEADLY secret buried beneath the hills. And his name was Ashmalice.
Ashmalice was a fire demon of legendary status. Not only had he existed in the prehistory of the fort, but he had over 550 kills – which included 2 entire tribes of goblins, a handful of elves, and a terrifying amount of dwarves… one of whom was the king of the mountain-homes.
Fast forwarding to the present time, major construction was underway of the fort. Many many immigrants had arrived over the years and times were good for the dwarves. Having many legendary carvers and warriors my friend grew lax in his defenses. And his dwarves paid the price when a miner unearthed a glowing pit deep below the dungeons carved into the mountain.
Within an hour my friend’s fortress was besieged by a nearly unending horde of demonic horrors. Ill equipped to deal with the threat immediately, the population of the Hamlet began dropping exponentially. Not even a panicked redirection of the river into the lower levels was enough to staunch the influx of demons, only enough to slow them long enough for the major walkways to be collapsed to buy some precious time.
Luckilly (and cleverly) my friend had built his fortress in such a way that if any large section had collapsed, then all escape routes would lead out into the wilderness and on a path far from the fortress and defendable by collapsing the ceiling via lever to flood seawater into the tunnel. Though no dwarf was alive on that side of the map, or able to reach it to pull the lever, my friend had bought the dwarves much needed time, though when Ashmalice made himself known all seemed futile. Even moreso when Stuvok lost his mind with rage.
Stuvok was one of the founding 7. He was an ex-miner turned blacksmith of legendary status. He was a monster of a dwarf that all dwarves aspired to be. And he had just lost his wife Doken (another of the starting 7) to the demon Ashmalice. His sorrow was felt by the surviving clan as he tore through them one by one unopposed. Only when he ran into his workshop and was locked in did his rage abate.
Morale was rock bottom. Several dwarves commit suicide in this dark hour. And of the handfull who remained of this once great fortress, few were willing to do anything at all, except the only other remaining dwarf of the founders: the engraver Sil. In the months that followed, the floors were carved with graven images of his follow brethren. All hope seemed lost. But this was not the end for the Hamlet. Not just yet…
In his grief and mourning, Stuvok opened his heart to the spirits of the dead. And one day they came to him in spirit. In his posessed mood he plotted and planned and (ironically) with the materials available to him, crafted an artifact clearly in homage to his wife: Endless Death of Tears – a sword with an image of a dwarf holding a piece of glass – glass that his wife used daily in her trade.
My friend had been content to just flood the map with lava and end the game after such losses. But upon seeing this artifact his neckbeard overtook him and he knew that Doken, the dwarves, the king, must all be avenged! And thankfully for me, he decided to continue. Fast forwarding again to the present (the time at which I had come in to see him play) my friend had safely excavated what he could of the fortress and moved all activity to a small corner of the interior. When all levers were erected, dwarves armed, and preparations complete, he unpaused the game for me.
A few dwarves made suicide runs to the bottom of the dungeons and collapsed them – which in turn lowered the debris above into a sinkhole that breached a large hole for the demons to pour from back into the fort. A few more dwarves valiantly fired into the oncomming tide of hate, but they were nothing but fodder that bought precious moments for the true plan to kick in. A masterfully placed lever that had yet been unpulled brought down the entire mountain through the legendary dining hall ceiling; crushing almost half of the intruding horde.
As planned, the demons made a bee-line through the side hallways through rows of blade traps. Demons were chewed up by the blades, but still they came. And so did “He.” Ashmalice not only avoided the fatal cave-in, passed the slicing blades, and bypassed the numerous flooding-trap chambers, but he and a squad of equally lucky frog demons carved and scorched their way into the final defensive line. Among their victims was Stuvok; unable to avenge his beloved. And the last handfull of dwarves were quickly reduced to 2 – Sil the engraver and the legendary captain of the guard, Daneken.
As respected and powerful as Stuvok had been, Daneken was that and more. He was a god among his clan, and had once in his long career single-handedly repelled a goblin siege led by a cyclops, and had helped wrestle a dragon to death. And now armed with his dead friend’s artifact sword, he was seeing red. Daneken had been stationed at the edge of a chasm (my friend’s map had a pit AND chasm that had been unearthed, but it was amazingly only filled with tiny spiders that were easilly dispatched in the early years of the fort). A single bridge had been built to span the chasm, and would have been later expanded as housing. But that plan was no longer. And this was it. This was the end of the dwarves of the Hamlet of Tyranny. But they would not go quietly.
As the demons approached Daneken threw himself at them in a rage. Ashmalice blasted him with demonic flames, but Daneken was imbued with the collective rage of his people and carved through the frog retainers with little signs of stopping. Ashmalice, however, had seen the death of a king and was not impressed with the antics of a lowly dwarf and sent him hurtling back onto the bridge – coincidentally knocking Sil over the edge. With his flesh scorching and his blood boiling, Denekan crawled to his feet just in time to see Ashmalice hover over him. With but a single push the fortress would be claimed by demons. But to my friend’s and my own utter jaw-dropping amazement, it was the dwarves who claimed him.
Daneken, in a testament to his dwarfdom, slashed off one of Ashmalice’s arm/wings and plunged Endless Death of Tears into his evil heart. Such was the force of the blow that the demon was hurled backwards off of the bridge and sent spiraling down into the unending darkness; spouting curses the entire way.
With his clan and his king avenged, Daneken himself tumbled from the bridge. But… one dwarf remained?
Awestruck by what had just happend, I urged my friend to quickly find the survivor! The menus opened, the tabs clicked, and we see that name. Sil. Sil? But he fell into the chasm! What was going on? With the battle essentially over and the remaining demons blocked from furthur intrusion by an unchecked flood of river water, we peer into the chasm. Several Z-levels down, on a tiny 2-square ledge, lay Sil – broken and bleeding, but alive.
With no way to save him, and with his entire clan residing in the afterlife, we debated how this should end. Should we just abandon the fort outright? Should we try and kill him somehow? What? In the end, however, we decided to let him create one more carving – one last testament to dwarfkind. This decision did not come lightly, as after such an epic climax, anything less would seem an insult. After all, maybe he would draw a picture of a plump helmet or something equally random. But still we left him to his work.
What did he draw? Moments before he bled to death? Alone on a cliff? The last gesture of the dwarves of The Hamlet of Tyranny?
A picture of a demon and some dwarves. The demon was in a fetal position. The dwarves were laughing.
(325 votes)23 Responses to “The Hamlet of Tyranny”
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Apoz says: August 20, 2010 at 8:23 am
Holy shit.
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Someguy says: August 21, 2010 at 4:43 pm
That…That was beautiful.That was incredible.
IT’S A SHAME THAT THE GAME MAKES NO SENSE TO ME THOUGH
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nunya says: September 8, 2010 at 11:40 pm
I’ve read this story seven times over the last three days.
I’ve wept more intensely with each reading.
This is the highest art imaginable.
Fuck you Ebert.
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SomeDouche says: September 12, 2010 at 7:40 am
@Someguy
I HAVE NO IMAGINATION AND REFUSE TO LOOK UP THE NUMEROUS HOW-TO-GET-STARTED ARTICLES AROUND THE INTERNET
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wow says: October 8, 2010 at 3:46 pm
No game is actually like this, right? … Right?!
I will have to check this out :D -
jamie says: October 9, 2010 at 3:55 am
Beautiful story.
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Gianni says: October 11, 2010 at 4:45 pm
So many split infinitives
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NinjaNun says: October 12, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Tears stream from my eyes. If only I was a fraction of the dwarf Sil was. A true hero.
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Octopor says: October 13, 2010 at 5:07 pm
@Gianni
Fun fact: split infinitives are just fine. I wouldn’t dare change a word of this story just for a throwback to Latin.
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Sir_Cuddles says: October 15, 2010 at 7:37 pm
@Wow: You would be surprised at what happens in this game. I once had a warrior, i forget his name at the moment (i cant believe i did because i promised myself that i wouldnt)… well, he was my commander of the guard and he single handedly took out 7 goblins (near the beginning of the fort) and the rest ran for it as fast as they could. I outright quit because of the depression that came after the next goblin attack where not only did the goblins kill his wife (who was picking plants) but they shot him to death as he charged them. They all had bloody crossbows, all 15 or so of them!!!
and as for demon attacks, one time i broke into the pit and four pages of demons appeared right below. I had no legendary fighters in my fortress at that point.
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cunningallusionment says: October 20, 2010 at 1:19 am
I’ve told this story dozens of times to people as a way to explain how amazing DF is. No one believes that any game could create so epic a story.
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SomeDouche says: October 20, 2010 at 7:04 am
@Gianni, there’s two. Two split infinitives that do nothing to hurt the narrative, and are likely to have been included in the original verbal telling of the story. Go be a grammar nazi someplace else.
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dwarfaddict says: October 20, 2010 at 7:24 am
@wow
Oh I can assure you this can and does happen. Just not in this detail. You have someone who knows how to play DF and a friend who can tell an amazing story. All this does happen he just added some flesh to the story.
\o/ will read again!
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Arrgh says: October 20, 2010 at 7:28 am
Someguy: Rules about splitting infinitives are only for written material, you wouldn’t think it abnormal if someone split their infinitives while speaking. Yes, this is written material here, but it’s a story, as told by the author’s friend, so it’s an exception. In any case, most English grammar rules were made up by two guys who wrote one of the first English grammar books back in the 1600’s. Most of it’s bunch of crap, you prescriptivist. If you really want to show off how intelligent and educated you are, why don’t you learn some actual linguistics instead of just repeating what some old lady with a small pay check told you when you were 10?
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Enekk says: October 20, 2010 at 1:06 pm
@Gianni
Let’s not forget that split infinitives are not grammar mistakes. This might be of interest to you:
chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497 -
sethr says: October 23, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Why split hairs over split infinitives when you can split Demons instead? Split infinitives aren’t very dorfy. Split demons are very dorfy.
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sethr says: October 23, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Oh, and @wow, this does happen. Sometimes. Other times, you pull your wagon up next to a river and your doctor gets eaten by crocodiles before you can blink. Your swords-dwarf dodges straight into the water-and he can’t swim. The rest make a run for safety. Fearing to go back near the crocodiles, they are unable to get to their booze, and all end up offing themselves in a fit of depression. Dwarfs 0, local fauna 7.
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Zak Jones! says: December 2, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Hahaha! Man, I wish cool stuff like this happened to me.. I love this game. :)
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Greyejoy says: December 16, 2010 at 1:44 pm
This is one of the most brilliant stories I’ve read, and inspired me to start really learning how to play Dwarf Fortress. Thank you for the great read!
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Rep says: December 17, 2010 at 2:36 am
This is a story, not a discussion. Yes, you’re all very clever and necessary and correct. Happy now? Good.
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Wisdom Thumbs says: January 17, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Dwarf Fortress pisses awesomeness. This story is a testament to that fact.
As for Daneken… that guy’s got to be the Chuck Norris of Dwarves. Wait, no… he’s better than that. Chuck Norris is old-hat anyway. Daneken is DANEKEN. He needs no comparison to some old bearded actor.
Henceforth, Chuck Norris is the Daneken of mankind.
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cidus says: March 16, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Dude, this is EPIC!
You should go in there in Adventure mode. Maybe you guys could make the world available online somehow so we can download it and go adventure in it?? That would be super awesome.
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atjieworajfirtjghteroapu says: April 10, 2011 at 7:12 pm
HELL YEAH!!!
This was the very piece of literature that started my Dwarf Fortress career.
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