Line #19 YMMV/DwarfFortress


1	* AccidentalAesop: In the past, there were attempts to make an internal economy system for dwarves - including getting stipends, having to pay for rent and food, legendary and noble dwarves having privileges nobody else had, and it was overall an extremely impractical and unfun system to deal with, that was covered in exploits and bugs. The solution? Throw the entire thing in a ditch; and make it so there's no internal economy and every dwarf's needs are met to keep them happy. ''Dwarf Fortress'' made an accidental CapitalismIsBad aesop.
2	* AccidentalInnuendo:
3	** The random name generation can cause these on occasion. One example being a settlement named "Virgincrack". Bonus points if the group that rules it is called along the lines of "The Fellowship of Balls".
4	** The word "hungry" is shortened as "hung" in adventure mode. It's a perfectly good way to shorten the word, but can be humorous if one knows the word's other meanings.
5	* AnticlimaxBoss:
6	** Forgotten beasts and titans made of fluid tend to be this, since they fall apart at the slightest touch. If they have some additional ability such as deadly dust, they could be {{Glass Cannon}}s, but ones that rely on their body strength alone are just fragile.
7	** In earlier versions, werebeasts tend to change into their weak, naked humanoid form at the worst possible time (they're only beasts in the full moon), often the very instant after their arrival gets announced. This is no longer the case as of 0.40, where werebeasts are ''vicious'' and will arrive very early in the full moon to make sure you contend with their whole rampage. They'll still turn into a naked humanoid and run away in the middle of battle if it lasts long enough of course.
8	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Especially with the Steam version, as Dabu, Águeda Macias and Simon Swerwer (of Stonesense fame) collaborated to provide something that'd fit this particular game's atmosphere. All very good, but some tracks deserve special mention:
9	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6FXeupOp04 The original Fortress Theme]] shouldn't be forgotten, as a lingering tune that manages to never get old no matter how long you play, and to always feel fitting to the highs and lows of any fortress as you go. Not bad at all, for something Toady just recorded in his house to give the game a song.
10	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekq3TDPznGI The Menu theme]] is a remix of the classic intro with the original menu and Fortress songs, one after the other to put together a nostalgia-inducing track. It packs a ''lot'' more emotion than one'd expect.
11	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp07rRgDQCw Strike the Earth!]] Perfect for the beginning of an adventure, especially if that adventure is trying to pull a thriving fortress out of the land itself.
12	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmfvMtX6Jt0 Hill Dwarf]] has the coziest of vibes, while sounding almost like a track from ''Videogame/{{Rimworld}}''.
13	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeSB08LN8lE Forgotten Beast]] takes an unusual route for what's technically a boss theme: Rather than the immediate intensity and franticness one'd expect, it sounds more like what'd play when someone was retelling the Forgotten Beast's attack as a campfire story, complete with intense climax.
14	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QlfghSkMV4 Vile Force of Darkness]], which plays whenever a siege begins. It's a downbeat yet intense track that lets you know that war has come to your fortress at last, and that a bloody time awaits your population.
15	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKv-liYc4qU Koganusan]] (Dwarfish for Blog/{{Boatmurdered}}), technically the game's Game Over theme as it plays once your fortress finally dies. Apt name, and apt track that plays out yet another bloody end to yet another once-glorious fortress; now yet another ruin in history's wake, leaving yet another tale for you to tell.
16	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Df3_k9PGM Drink & Industry]], more specifically "Ilun Kinem!". A festive song with oddly bittersweet lyrics that portray the dwarven way of life: Live well and drink well, because death awaits at every corner and not even the high mountains themselves can stand against it. It plays exclusively when one of your taverns has a party, which is always a nice occasion. For extra awesome points, the opening section ("The Lost Sibling, Minkot") is a partial reprise of "Forgotten Beast" listed above.
17	* BetterAsALetsPlay: This is one of the most complex video games in existence (the only games that arguably beat it are so complex as to remain [[VideoGame/Aurora4X incredibly niche]]) and thus has an extremely steep learning curve. But at the same time, its simulation depth and unmatched VideoGameCrueltyPotential often generate the most badass and/or ridiculous video game stories you've ever heard. Because of this, watching let's plays and reading forum posts about this game may be way more entertaining than actually going through the trouble of learning how to play it yourself.
18	* BrokenBase:
19	** Using the original ASCII art vs using a tileset. Downplayed as it's mostly just friendly teasing, but there is a minority of players who actually are elitist about it.
20	** Players that find {{Fan Nickname}}s fun and those who don't have been a straight example at times.
21	** Kobolds. Part of the community sees them as [[CutenessProximity adorable]] [[TheWoobie Woobies]], and the other part sees them as [[GoddamnedBats lowly thieves]] to be slain as soon as possible. (Although again, this usually escalates to [[VitriolicBestBuds entirely silly proportions]].)
22	** And you should see what happened with the tweaks to stone drop rate (where Legendary miners would once create a boulder from every square 100% of the time). The [[FlameWar !!debates!!]] are practically legendary.
23	** The modding community is quite split over the giant modpack known as [=MasterworkDF=], with some unaffiliated modders outright quitting due to lack of attention since [[SpotlightStealingSquad Masterwork usually had all the attention]], not to mention the criticism the pack itself gets such as occasional bugginess, ScheduleSlip and a complete lack of a unifying theme (essentially being Kitchen Sink modding where everything is thrown in). The fact the head of the project completely disappeared for an entire year due to a depressive crisis didn't help in the least. Outside the assigned board, and especially outside [=Bay12=], Masterwork is a sure topic to start a [[FlameWar !!Conversation!!]].
24	** The announcement that the game would be released on Steam created two distinct camps. First were those who couldn't be happier since being on Steam gives the game a larger audience, and Toady will receive more revenue to keep the game rolling forward. Others felt it was a terrible idea - being free gives the game an excuse to be in its current shape, but putting a price tag on a game that [[PerpetualBeta has no planned date for even a beta release]], could [[ObviousBeta full of bugs that sometimes don't get fixed for years]] and is overall just [[NintendoHard extremely difficult]] could result in the Steam release being flooded by negative reviews by players who aren't as forgiving as the current players are. When the game finally released on Steam though, it ended up being a smash hit and garnered extremely positive reviews.
25	* CrazyIsCool: A trait that is actively encouraged in players. Given that "Losing is Fun", there's no reason not to come up with the most ''completely nucking futs'' solution to every problem, in hopes that your lunacy at least yields a memorable story to share on the [=Bay12=] forums (said solution actually working is just a bonus). After all, getting people to recognize your dorfiness is about as close as you get to actually winning.
26	* CrossesTheLineTwice: Arguably the entire point of the game. No matter what, your fortress ''[[EndlessGame is]]'' [[EndlessGame eventually going to die]], so you might as well make sure that the fortress and everyone in it dies in as hysterically violent, absurd, and over-the-top a manner as you can possibly contrive.
27	* DemonicSpiders:
28	** Literally with giant cave spiders, as they are of the bear-sized, venomous, web-spitting kind. They can trap dwarves with their webbing, paralyze them with venom, and go for the head for a straight kill. They never run out of web, either. If you ever see a zombie giant cave spider, RUN. RUN AND NEVER LOOK BACK. Their only redeeming grace is that, should you go through the dangerous task of capturing one, they are among the most profitable creatures in the game, generating tons of high-value silk without ever stopping.
29	** Wolves, especially in adventure mode, where they can ambush a hapless low-level traveler and kill them in a matter of moments, provided they're surrounded.
30	** Elephants have been toned down greatly from the days of Blog/{{Boatmurdered}}, but [[LightIsNotGood unicorns]] have since gained a reputation as psychotic serial killers who brutally murder dwarves at random.
31	** Pond grabbers are the new carp. Not excessively hostile, but if you fight them they are '''terrifying'''.
32	** In previous versions there were the elephants, then the carp (even Toady One thought he made them too strong). Now it's giant badgers.
33	** You also occasionally run into randomly-generated enemies that are made of solid stone or even metal, and are as hard to kill as that would imply. To make things even worse, if the RandomNumberGod hates you, they can also have a dust attack that is, in its most deadly form, an InstantDeathRadius with about the same range as your archers.
34	** Also in previous versions, a Forgotten Beast made of poison mist. Then, a forgotten beast made of any intangible material could ''only'' be killed by being encased in obsidian or ice. However, forgotten beasts made of such material are now laughably easy to kill; one punch will tear off limbs.
35	** Although they're not strictly enemies, they deserve mention here: The evil biomes occasionally have clouds of ash or mist that wash across the map, and, just like a forgotten beast, poison your dwarves with a random syndrome. A few minutes after the new version was released there already were reports of particularly nasty clouds [[TotalPartyKill wiping out entire embarks]] before they had a chance to dig in. The worst of these will ''zombify your dwarves instantly and turn them against you''. Your best bet in evil biomes is to seal yourself off from the outside world and never look back.
36	*** Particularly evil biomes have the ability to resurrect anything that is dead, which can easily fall into this trope both on their own, and as a result of the fact that ''nothing'' dies in an evil biome. The moment you kill something, it gets right back up. The moment you chop off a limb, it gets possessed and tries to choke you. The only certain way to kill them is, of course, by either slashing them to bits or mangling them into a fine paste -- that is, if your combatants don't shit themselves in terror instead of fighting. Worse still, undead from necromancers' towers can carry ''armour and weapons''. Fortunately, they are now vulnerable to magma.
37	*** The "husks" produced by the aforementioned clouds are themselves this trope -- even more so than the endless rising body parts. Not only are they insanely strong and near-impossible to kill, they tend to be covered in the dust that zombified them... which means that almost anything that touches it [[TheVirus will become a husk itself]].
38	** Giant mosquitoes in the initial 2012 release deserve a mention here, as, even though they're no match for a trained dwarf individually, every time they show up they bring a hundred ''friends'' with them, and, even if you simply lock yourself underground to avoid them, they'll [[InterfaceScrew lag your game to high hell due to sheer numbers]]. Luckily, this was because of a bug that was fixed within a few days.
39	** Giant sponges in the 0.34 version. They're not supposed to move, so you can't drive them away from your fort, but ''somehow'' they can charge at your dwarves and easily crush them by pushing them around (they're huge, so even a push can crush bones), and are immune to normal weaponry due to lack of body parts and blood. Also, they can spawn in rivers and lakes, too. Normal sponges are like this, but without the killer strength and they can spawn anywhere that has water (giant sponges only live in savage areas). In 0.40, they have been nerfed due to the addition of pulping damage. Sponge tissue is soft and easily destroyed by blunt trauma. They can still hurt your dwarves in the process due to sheer size though.
40	** Giant keas, in fortress mode. Normal keas (they're small green/grey parrots) fly in groups and steal items, which is annoying but generally not deadly. Giant keas not only do that, but are far bigger than your dwarves, also fly in groups, and tend to kill your civilian dwarves if they meet them.
41	** In the 0.40 version, [[OurWerebeastsAreDifferent werecreatures]] can easily wipe out a budding fortress. This is in contrast to 0.34, where they were laughably weak[[note]]due to turning into naked, unarmed humans at the worst possible time, sometimes ''as soon as they arrived''[[/note]]. And if your fort survives the werebeast onslaught, [[TheVirus you're likely to have a whole hive of them inside your fort by the next full moon]]. To make things worse, they can kill dwarves silently. [[http://s23.postimg.org/j93vzrd3f/weremammoth.png Stealth weremammoths]] are why you should fear the night.
42	** Villains quickly became very painful to deal with once they were added in February 2020. The highest members will often never even enter your fortress, instead sending spies through your tavern or even corrupting your dwarves for their plans. They will very frequently make your dwarves try to steal your artifacts, forcing you to imprison them, but often times once you release corrupted dwarves, they will immediately attempt to steal the artifact again! Artifact-seeker guests aren't the worst they can do, since they can also corrupt your dwarves and make them stage a coup and basically start a loyalty cascade! The worst part is that, since they were introduced without all the plotting mechanics in place, you simply couldn't strike back at them beyond your fort other than clumsily hacking away at individual settlements using Legends mode as a guide, like you were hunting flies with a shotgun, so you couldn't cut the problem at the root. As of December 2023, this remains so, though Toady has stated that anything ''they'' can do (which includes assassinations and kidnappings), you ''will'' be able to do once you have a Dungeon Master and the mechanics have been implemented post-Adventure Mode update.
43	** Forgotten Beasts and Titans with fire breath or fireball attacks are not as big as a pain in the ass as poisonous or deadly dust-spewing megabeasts, as fire attacks can be blocked in full by simple shields, but they are still absolutely annoying to deal with, as they can cause massive wildfires that will prevent your melee squads from approaching AND tank your FPS to a crawl.
44	* FanNickname:
45	** "Dorfs" for dwarves, "Dorf Fort", "Urist [=McX=]" for any given dwarf, "Cutebolds" for kobolds.
46	** "Hidden Fun Stuff" is ''officially'' a nickname for anything Toady wants to talk about in dev logs without spoiling it, but the fanbase near-exclusively uses it to refer to [[spoiler:gateways to the Underworld]].
47	** "Cotton Candy" for [[spoiler:adamantine]], "Clowns" for [[spoiler:demons]], and "The circus" or [[spoiler:"Hell"]] for [[spoiler:the Underworld]].
48	** "Party People" for [[spoiler:ghosts, due to a [[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=70423.0 rather infamous]] incident]].
49	** "Goblinite" or "Goblin Christmas" for the vast bounty of iron weapons and armor a goblin siege would bring, once your forces had killed them.
50	** "Zombie Spirals" for a common occurrence when the player embarks in an evil biome that raises everything as undead. The more that get killed, the more undead there are to fight, until your dwarves are completely overwhelmed.
51	* {{Fanon}}: In the first ''Slaves to Armok: God of Blood'' game, Armok is the [[TheMaker creator]] and [[DestroyerDeity destroyer]] [[TopGod deity]] of the game, giving an in-lore explanation for this game's procedural creation of the world, and save deletion. In ''Dwarf Fortress'', he is actually completely absent from the game's setting. He is never listed among existing gods in Legends Mode, no worship of him is shown to exist inside of the in-game worlds, and Tarn Adams had no plans to implement him, saying the game's [[ColonCancer cumbersome]] full name was mostly "[[RuleOfFun for kicks]]". However, this doesn't prevent the players from treating him as being present in their worlds (generally as the TopGod above the others, creating them and the world), referencing him in stories, making their dwarves swearing to Armok, or building obsidian cathedral dedicated to him (often with {{Human Sacrifice}}s), because of the conspicuous "''[[InNameOnly Slaves to Armok: God of Blood]]''" contained in the full game title. One of the most widespread interpretations says that Armok is actually the in-game representation of [[PlayerCharacter the player]], in which case [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential the sobriquet of "God of Blood" is well-earned]].
52	* FanonDiscontinuity: There are several iconic elements that have been patched out of the game, which the fanbase chooses to ignore and still treat as expected. Booze used to be MadeOfExplodium, for example, which caused [[HilarityEnsues hilarity to ensue]] when a ‼dwarf‼ decided that this [[ManOnFire weird orange stuff they'd been ignoring]] is making them awfully thirsty. Nowadays the booze just boils away, but nobody talks about that because it's less ‼fun‼- albeit that having your precious alcohol stocks evaporate is still plenty [[DeadlyEuphemism fun]] in its own right.
53	* GameBreaker: Despite its attention to detail, ''Dwarf Fortress'' is not the most balanced game.
54	** Arrows and thrown objects were this in earlier versions. Before projectile velocity calculations were fixed, elven arrows (made of wood) could pierce through ''steel'' plate armour with little effort. Throwing, while also nerfed, is still extremely strong, and it's not out of the ordinary to be able to kill an enemy by throwing things like silt, pebbles or ''vomit'' at them.
55	** Ballistas in some versions. There have been reports of people holding off huge raids with just one ballista, and people going on rampages in Adventure Mode with just a ballista bolt. In other versions, they become a ScrappyWeapon with the ballista bolts just glancing off leather and being more useful as unwieldy shanks than as projectiles. Generally, the materials update crippled their effectiveness.
56	** Whips (blunt) and scourges (edged) have an extremely tiny area of impact and 5 times the attack force of other weapons. Compared to other weapon attacks, a successful hit by one of these will focus all the weapon's power (and weight) into a single point on the target rather than a wide area. This will nearly always instantly crush (whip) or sever (scourge) a body part, making them the best melee weapons in the game by far. The only thing holding them back is dwarves can't craft either of these items in fortress mode, forcing you to rely on (typically low quality) items brought in human caravans.
57	** Flails are [[FanNickname popularly known as lightsabers or hypersonic hammers]]. Like whips, they have a combination of a small impact area and high velocity.
58	** Weapon traps are considered to be game breakers by some due to the massive amount of damage they deal. Likewise for cage traps, which unfailingly captures anything that isn't immune to traps, even megabeasts (and if you put a Giant Cave Spider web on it, it catches ''anything'').
59	*** Spiked wooden balls, a particular type of trap, were an economical game breaker as they possessed an unusually high item value, which combined by how easy they are to mass-produce, allowed you to buy off entire caravans with nothing but a few dozens of them. The Steam release finally {{nerf}}ed their value to be on par with that of common wooden crafts.
60	** Economically, stoneware pottery. Fire clay can be gathered indefinitely and stockpiled near a magma kiln, the latter being set to perpetually churn out crafts and large pots. Considering that stoneware can hold liquid without being glazed, you will never have problems with booze again. The value of stoneware crafts is comparable to obsidian, but are much easier to mass-produce; a few years of constant production will give incredible purchasing power.
61	** In adventure mode, sneak and find a tile where rocks can be picked up that is as close as you can get to the enemy's vision cone. Then start throwing the rocks until they die (or pass out, at which point you can walk up and slit their throat), without ever being seen. A higher Ambusher skill makes this better, of course. One often imagines the enemy [[Videogame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim repeatedly dismissing the rocks as their imagination]].
62	** In older versions, the so-called "[[FanNickname Danger Room]]" method of military training: Make a small room full of low-quality menacing spike traps. Fill those traps with practice spears and attach them to a lever or repeater. Then station a squad of dorfs in the room and watch their dodging, blocking, armor using, shield using, and weapon skills go up at a ridiculous rate. As a bonus, if any of them actually manage to get hurt, it gives your doctors practice, too! Later versions have significantly increased the injury potential of poorly-aimed practice spears while also increasing the skill-gain done from sparring with other dwarves, so [[{{Nerf}} this is no longer the game-breaking training method it once was]].
63	** Currently, Elephant Men (and, to a lesser extent, Rhinoceros men) are this in adventurer mode, due to their sheer size and weight relative to speed; basically, imagine the old Elephants and all the damage they could inflict, now imagine if they could use weapons. The only thing keeping them relatively balanced is the armor system making it so they're almost always wearing default, non-protective clothing rather than armor. Still, an average strength Elephant Man is still large enough to fight enemies simply by ''running at them and slamming into them head on'', and their punches and kicks are strong enough to send any average-sized creature flying (provided they hit squarely), and, with some luck, turning them into [[FastballSpecial a man-sized projectile against anyone unlucky enough to be in the flight path of the unfortunate victim]]. To say nothing of simply walking up to someone, grabbing them by the head and throwing them.
64	* GoddamnedBats:
65	** '''Bogeymen.''' The only thing stopping them from being DemonicSpiders is that a decently skilled/strong character can usually manage to kill them; they're still absolute bastards, though, since '''[[FragileSpeedster you can almost never fucking hit them.]]''' Which is why, of course, every single person in the world tells you not to travel alone at night. In older versions they would show up basically anywhere in the world if you're outside at night, making them extremely common (and by far the first thing player learn to disable when they learn how advanced worldgen parameters work), but now they only show up in evil biomes, making them far less problematic.
66	** Most thieving creatures, such as rhesus macaques, raccoons, but especially the flying ones such as kea and buzzards, because they have far more mobility and are therefore harder to kill.
67	** Magma crabs, only if you embark on a volcano though. They live in magma and are very resistant to bolts, and fire liquid basalt that will maim or even kill your dwarves. They will attack anything at every single possible occasion. They have MoreDakka. They spend years in the magma sea or volcano and will probably never leave. It's not very difficult to protect yourself against them, though.
68	** Quite a few of the cavern creatures, such as crundles, or creeping eyes, but most especially hungry heads. Small, flying, come to your map as a flock, tend to get stuck in corners and scare and harass dwarves like nobody's business.
69	** Kobolds, that is; if you don't consider them as [[TheWoobie Woobies]]. Steal stuff, generally annoying, sometimes deadly, draw attention from more important tasks? Check all of these.
70	* GoodBadBugs: These are the kinds of bugs that make DF the game it is.
71	** Magma sea vanishing? Oops, it's all being [[spoiler:sucked down by a hole into '''HELL''']].
72	** Thirsty? Oh hey, I'm on the beach! Oh, I can't drink salt water? No problem! When you fall into water, your clothing and external organs get wet with an item called a "water covering". It's never salty.
73	** Due to a few of the particulars of combat and skill training, along with an overpowered bite attack, [[LegendaryCarp carp]] in previous versions had the ability to very quickly tear your people to shreds.
74	** A good bit of the popularity of the game -- aside from the whole ridiculously-detailed fortress-building thing -- is due to various bugs, perhaps "misfeatures", that produce unintentionally hilarious results: for example, dwarves not recognizing that they are on fire before attempting to [[TooDumbToLive drink from the extremely flammable booze stocks]]. The developer's constantly updated progress log is a good source for these stories.
75	** Spit coming out frozen is a recent one. The adventurer Toady was using ''hit'' it aside as a result.
76	** Pinching (yes, ''pinching'') was ludicrously overpowered in previous versions. Pinching someone in the neck while they're sleeping could ''sever their head and send it flying across the room''.
77	** And of course, the nicely illustrative, 'Got rid of world gen crash during succession after death of prolific long-standing position holders with inbred descendants.'
78	** A bug in the way cooking ingredients used to work, which enabled a cook to produce solid meals out of nothing but booze; this has since been fixed.
79	** Due to a rather peculiar glitch that has since been fixed, ordering the construction of metal goblets would turn even the most valuable bars into iron mugs. Some reported that iron bars turned into gold, as something of an alchemical counterbalance.
80	** You can throw things without having usable arms. Or legs for that matter. Apparently your character spits them out.
81	** For the first few 2010 versions, it was possible for creatures, including your dwarves, to ''[[ImMelting melt]]'' if caught in the rain in a warm area. This leads to one of the most ridiculous exploits ever in adventurer mode: by going in and out of fire to melt all the fat in your body (but avoiding bleeding to death in the process) [[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=54174.0 you become effectively fireproof.]]
82	** Speaking of which, the Adventure mode also has several conditions where your controlled character suddenly shifts to some other creature. Overlaps with {{Game Breaking Bug}}s depending on luck and personal preference as you may get something stupid like a kobold or something horrendously awesome and nigh-unkillable like a bronze colossus.
83	** More in adventure mode: the effects of walking with a crutch (speed becomes dependent on crutch-walking skill, which grows as you move) only cease when you drop a crutch, ''not'' when you put it in a container or throw it. This lets adventurers missing legs regain mobility without losing use of a limb in the process and sell back crutches they're already "done" with.
84	** Water will freeze in cold environments, the resulting ice can be mined out like stone, it will melt if it gets too warm - all logical and expected. But constructions built out of ice will ''never melt''. You can build a magma aqueduct out of ice if you so desire.
85	** Normally, necromancers and other unnatural types make people around them increasingly suspicious with their agelessness until they're run out of town. So, from the devlog: "In bug news, the zombies in a necromancer's tower became suspicious after the necromancer failed to age, and he fled into the hills."
86	** [[http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_2011.html#2011-08-17 More necromancy hilarity]], as we see the very silly results when certain abilities are not tied to specific body parts:
87	--->'''Toady:''' Then I talked to one of [the resurrected severed limbs], and it told me that it was peasant. It was flattered but had no need of my services. I imagine its little fingers were shaped into the form of a mouth and they flapped back and forth while it spoke with a high-pitched voice. I guess there's still work to do.
88	** Dwarfs ordered to remain inside (40d) or in a burrow (2010 and newer) will exhibit a few bugs. A [[MadArtist moody]] dwarf will ignore this order when deciding on what workshop to take, and will bring items to said workshop even if it's outdoors/out of the burrow. One still-standing glitch causes a moody dwarf to forget whether or not he brought items to a workshop that's outside of the area he's supposed to be in. Cue the creation of [[https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Planepacked Planepacked]], which took over a year for all the materials that ended up being used to be gathered and contained '''''73 images of itself'''''.
89	** A bug that briefly appeared in at least one version caused a sort of Goblin Civil War. Somehow, goblins were divided on whether or not they were loyal to non-goblin leaders of goblin civilizations. This caused Goblin ambushes and sieges to immediately start killing each other as soon as they arrived on the map.
90	** In one version of Adventure mode, sleeping on the beach may result in you being ambushed... by fish that immediately drown as soon as the battle starts.
91	** BodySurf: Before 34.11, it was possible to suddenly shift from controlling an adventurer to an underground creature (even [[spoiler:a demon]]), then to bodyswap to some other animal every time you go to sleep... and they still can talk. Humans [[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=75246.msg1889160#msg1889160 are okay with a talking elephant]].
92
93	-->"[[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=75246.msg1888981#msg1888981 I'll bet you didn't know cave crocodiles have high musicality.]]"
94	** When a caravan appears and you have a hospital zone designated, your dwarves will sometimes pour out of the fortress en masse, steal all the cloth the merchants are carrying, and take it to the hospital to use as bandages.
95	** Historical figures can survive having their [[OffWithHisHead necks ripped off]] in world-gen, only to [[PuffOfLogic instantly die]] once they show up during actual play.
96	** The delivery of magma to your fort in bags carried by traders tends to lead to your depot exploding, but it's hard to argue with any trade good so dwarfy.
97	** In versions .40 and .42, wandering bandits and armies can be composed of nothing but domesticated animals. Such groups can even invade and take over civilized sites in world gen, ''Literature/AnimalFarm''-style.
98	** Early versions of .42 had a bug which caused ''horses'' of all creatures (and only horses) to spawn in ludicrously huge numbers, often up to 3600 per site. It got to the point where what was identified in-game as a goblin settlement would in reality consist of one goblin and thousands upon thousands of horses. Several people even found the game would let them control a horse in Adventurer mode.
99	** A particularly infamous bug that Toady One often brings up in interviews involved reports that cats were mysteriously dropping dead in taverns for no discernible reason. After investigating, he found the reason: the cats wandered into taverns and stepped into spilled alcohol on the floor. The cats would lick their paws clean and drink the alcohol in the process, except the little liquid in the paws would be treated as an ''entire barrel'' of alcohol, causing the cats to instantly die of alcohol poisoning.
100	** Version .47 introduced villains that may send spies as disguised visitors to infiltrate a player's fort, if not infiltrate it themselves. Problem is, [[FlockofWolves infiltrators frequently outnumber legitimate visitors]], at times by a factor of 2 to 1.
101	* ItsHardSoItSucks: The game has a very high barrier to entry that new players compare to flying a passenger jet with no training or experience. Newcomers are advised to ditch the mentality that losing is a bad thing ("Losing is fun!"), but many still are reluctant to try for more than five minutes. There is a good reason there are ''many'' mods that exist to help new players ease into the game, though sometimes even these only help so much.
102	* ItWasHisSled: Some things, such as [[spoiler:the underworld]] and [[spoiler:ghosts]], are treated as spoilers and either tagged as such or referred to exclusively with {{Fan Nickname}}s. Despite this, it's pretty hard to ''not'' know about these things, mainly because if you're a beginner, it's extremely hard to play ''Dwarf Fortress'' at all without having the wiki open at all times for reference, and it's easy to stumble across these spoilers on the wiki.
103	* TheInverseLawOfFandomLevity: ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' is a game featuring mutilations, child kidnapping and discussions about farming mermaids for their bones. Fandom frequently use terms such as "happy fun surprise" for their assassination of [[UpperClassTwit annoying nobles]] and "circus" for "[[spoiler:{{Hell}}]]."
104	* JerksAreWorseThanVillains: Elves, despite being the dwarves' potential allies, are more despised by the fanbase than the always-evil goblins due to being insufferably smug, insulting the dwarves at every opportunity, and imposing annoying tree-cutting limits.
105	* MemeticBadass: Toady himself. When you look at what he created, it's not all that surprising.
106	** Any fortress will create a few of these if it survives long enough, but some are truly exceptional, such as the backpack-wielding dwarf of LetsPlay/{{Headshoots}}, or the dwarves of [[http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Bronzemurder Bronzemurder]].
107	** Captain Ironblood who never bathes (and is thus literally covered in blood, mud and vomit at all times) and can kill titans and dragons on his own. He eventually took up siege weaponry use as a hobby.
108	** Cacame Awemedinade, [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Immortal Onslaught]], Elf King of the Dwarves. According to the (partially player-invented) story, he joined the Dwarven military after his wife was killed and eaten by other Elves, just so that he could kill more elves. He proved to hate elves so much, that he was made the Dwarven King.
109	* MemeticTroll: Kea. They are hard to hit and tend to steal ''everything'' they can; their ability to steal items many times their size and/or weight is particularly well known, with anvils being a common specific item mentioned (because you can't make an anvil without another anvil, and FinaglesLaw ensures they will take the only one you have). Some people have even reported Kea stealing both the crossbows ''and'' the arrows ''intended for hunting them''. It's surprisingly a TruthInTelevision, as they are this in real life -- they are known for their intelligence and seemingly intentional trolling of humans.[[note]] Kea have been recorded to do the following: They can break into cars, have been seen killing sheep at random ([[FreudianExcuse although this is believe to stem from humans altering their habitat]]), they steal most small items they can find and even keep people awake at night by making noise on rooftops, usually by rolling a small object around for no particular reason[[/note]]
110	* QuicksandBox: Until the Steam release in 2022, the game had ''no'' tutorial. Some aspects of the game have complex and undocumented requirements. The wiki -- or failing that, a geology textbook -- helps out a good deal with both points. [[TrialAndErrorGameplay Or practice repeatedly making new fortresses and abandoning them when things go wrong]] -- which they will (losing is fun!) -- until you start to get the hang of making a working fortress, or at least one that's not so dysfunctional.
111	* ScrappyMechanic:
112	** The economy in 40d. There's a widely recommended option to turn it off, and several other options to turn it down if you do permit it (none of which allow you to convert a stack of coins from a blindingly spammy list of one-coin objects.) [=DF2010=] just scrapped the whole thing until Toady can make something that isn't horrendously broken.
113	** Force transfer mechanics in post-0.42 versions, because ''everyone'' is MadeOfPlasticine due to them and armor doesn't help anyone. It's quite a blasted annoyance when you lose your adventurer or champion dwarf because a lucky shot to the fingers that glanced off their Steel Left Gauntlet somehow still imparted enough force to twist their wrist/elbow/shoulder into a gordian knot, tearing muscles, tendons, ligaments and nerves and collapsing the victim into a helpless heap of pain with no chance to prevent it.
114	** Bogeymen appear to be this, as many players expressed relief when Toady revealed they would only appear in evil biomes from 0.47 onward. Their tendency to literally tear apart early-game adventurers who travelled alone was considered especially frustrating, since in some cases, you may not have been able to recruit anyone in nearby towns, yet your goals were too far to reach before nightfall.
115	** Stress is commonly considered to be incredibly broken, as it builds up quickly, often affect the dwarf for their entire life, and the mechanics intended to lower it don't do nearly enough to help. The fact that some stress-causing elements are incredibly minor, sometimes plain unavoidable, and often bizarre (such as seeing the aftermath of a battle despite the game having a DeathWorld - you'd expect Dwarves would be used to seeing that stuff) doesn't help.
116	** On the Steam release, the button to cancel the current order given to selected military squad(s) and make them return to their assigned schedule [[CapsLockNumLockMissilesLock is right next to, and look extremely similar to,]] the button to outright ''disband'' them, frustrating many players.
117	* SequelDifficultyDrop: The first ''Slaves to Armok'' game was almost entirely unplayable. ''Dwarf Fortress'', while still NintendoHard, is actually playable with a little effort.
118	* SequelDisplacement: ''Slaves to Armok Chapter 1''? [[http://www.bay12games.com/armok/download.html What]]?
119	* ThatOneAttack:
120	** Some forgotten beast attacks are known to be particularly dangerous.
121	*** Webs can and will lay waste of any melee unit you send against the beast. Indeed, this causes the beast to send a cone of webs at its foes. The attack is unblockable, and ensnares any creature stuck in it, completely preventing them from moving for a few moments; those stuck in a web cannot dodge ''or'' properly block incoming attacks. This gives the Forgotten Beast an ample time to stroll in and give your helpless dwarf an unblockable blow to the head for a OneHitKill. The only non-megabeast enemy to wield such an attack is the Giant Cave Spider, and that attack alone earns it a place among DemonicSpiders.
122	*** Deadly dust sprays a cloud of poisonous dust around the beast, which not only can be pretty nasty on its terms, as some Forgotten Beast syndromes effectively cause YouAreAlreadyDead situations, but on top of that, the cloud flings all dwarves around, sending them pinballing into a wall or a pit. Keeping melee contact with this kind of beast is very dangerous, and since the cloud is rather wide, not even your ranged dwarves are safe.
123	*** Fire breathing is about as dangerous as webs. While you ''can'' block a fire breath, it doesn't matter if it sets your surroundings on fire anyway, consuming the dwarf in the process. And if the fire hits a patch of grass/cave moss, expect the whole z-level to be consumed in flames.
124	** At a fortress-wide level, fireballs and fire breath depending on what lies outside your fort. Since there is no actual way to order your dwarves to extinguish a blaze, once even ''one'' creature capable of doing either spits some fire ''once'', you'll be forced to harvest as much wood as possible before it's all gone, isolate your flammable valuables from the area and put up with a seasons-long slowdown of the game while it processes the ridiculous forest fire raging on the surface. It was even worse when dwarves were incapable of recognizing flames as dangerous, even on their own person.
125	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: Not the game itself, which, despite all of the horrors that can happen to fortress and adventurer alike, has a fairly standard tone for a medieval fantasy game (even the literal legions of hell can be overcome if you're prepared enough). However, the game's notoriously steep difficulty curve ends up having the same kind of effect on many players, leading to the "losing is fun" mentality; if you're going to fail anyway, you might as well go all out.

Context YMMV / DwarfFortress