#armok

[fanelectricboogieloo]

so Armok being goblin coded led to another thought of what if?

[dinrelsanddragons]

@reginalucem YOU ASKED FOR IT.

As a dragon blessed with the ability to take any human-like form he wished, Armok was typically Rhoam's first choice as a scout when traveling. He was able to quickly change guises based on what manner of folk were likely in the former king's path, a convenience that hardly needed stated.

Yet he returned with an interesting report this day. As Rhoam made to return to Lookout Landing, Armok informed the former king of a man in... curious garb. Wealthy garb that did not befit any who existed in this time save for Rhoam himself– as the king's traditional robe and crown had traveled through time with him. Armok reported a man in a long blue robe with gold trimmings, and white boots and gloves with similar effects.

It did not feel to Rhoam as a trap, but he felt it wisest to send someone more knowledgeable with magic; Gateni might have an idea of how such a curiosity could exist, with further inspection and perhaps a conversation. And... it couldn't hurt to send Raven as well. For good measure, and Gateni's protection; it wouldn't do to send her alone to what could very well be an... adversary.

So the fire mage and the king's best walked down the southerly road in the direction of the Great Plateau together. Armok had sighted this individual by its great gates leading downward, after all.

[dwarffortresstournamentblog]

Welcome to the Dwarf Fortress Gladiator Tournament Blog!

What is the Dwarf Fortress Gladiator Tournament?

The DFGT is a semi-annual community event run by fans of Dwarf Fortress in which contestants fight to the death in a single-elimination tournament run by volunteers. Entrants offer up unique characters, backstories and fanart, and are rewarded in turn with the privilege of watching their chosen fighters ascend towards glory - or die trying. 2024 marks the ninth Tournament, and the first to be covered on Tumblr.

What's this blog about?

This blog exists to promote and post results for the upcoming Tournament IX, and to celebrate the stories of fighters from years past. Stay tuned for more!

What is Dwarf Fortress?

Slaves to Armok: God of Blood, Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress is a PC game by Tarn and Zach Adams which has been in continuous development for nearly twenty years. Its titular Fortress mode simulates geology, erosion, world history, warring empires, realistic wildlife, and more - down to the hopes and dreams of individual dwarves. Dwarf Fortress has been entered in a MOMA exhibit and earned countless accolades for its feats of procedural generation. It is for sale on Steam and available free at bay12games.com.

What is the Arena?

Just as Dwarf Fortress spares no detail in its worlds, so too does its Arena show no mercy in its simulation. Blood, bone, muscle and sinew are all simulated and tracked, and the material of a given weapon or armor can mean the difference between life or death.

Can I enter a Gladiator into the Tournament?

Submissions open on June 23rd on the official forums at bay12games.com. A link will be provided here at that time.

The Dwarf Fortress Gladiator Tournament accepts entrants of all races, from Dwarves and Humans to oddly-specific animal races like Peach-Faced Lovebird Men. Smaller fighters are allotted more points in character creation to even the scales against bigger, stronger races, making every match a potential David-and-Goliath upset waiting to happen.

Any number of applicants may submit a gladiator. Typically, 62 fighters are chosen at random to fill the initial 64-fighter bracket, with the final two slots filled by the winner of a Battle Royale - one for lightweights, one for heavyweights. No matter what, if you submit a gladiator before the deadline, you will get to see them fight!

What can I do to support the Tournament?

Subscribe! Post! Reblog! Spread the word! Annoy your coworkers! We're all just here to have fun.

[koopytron]

I started a new fort in Dwarf Fortress the other day and most of my dwarves were not very good candidates for military (most of them looked down on violence). But since I made the population cap at 30, I had force a few dorfs to cast aside their pacifist ways to protect their home.

I like to build vertical forts, so I had a massive staircase leading from the surface to my main hall.

I spotted a giant dingo on the surface, and so I decided to use it for combat training. I alerted the squad to pick up their gear and head up to murder this doggo.

One dwarf, nicknamed Guppy, had a line in her bio that said she was prone to being clumsy and possessed poor spatial sense. Probably the worst candidate for the military in hindsight.

But enough about her, back to the dingo. I see my squad starting to fight the thing. Most of the dwarves were doing a good job dodging, and eventually the beast is put down, with only a few bites and minor injuries to the group. I pan back over to my fort and see blood on the stairs as I work my way down the z-levels.

What the hell?

Guppy had somehow tripped on the stairs, fallen down a few flights and broke her leg. There was blood everywhere and she was getting quite upset over the whole ordeal. I had to pause the game and laugh for a bit (don't worry, the doctor fixed her up)

Clumsiness was not just flavor text after all!

I like to believe she would have been able to improve her skills and become a legendary axedwarf if a werepanda didn't pummel her to death the following season.

[ds9shameblog]

Sisko/Bashir and Tuvok/Neelix for @armok for @trek-rarepair-swap.

 I felt like I had a better idea for one, and then for the other, and then I ended up drawing both, the latter while weeping at my postage stamp-sized kitchen.

[autisticandroids]

for the trek ask meme: 6, 12, 23, 25, 35!

6. Character you feel a show could have done without?

uhhhhhhh hm. i’m taking it to mean main. looking at my least favorites across tng/ds9/voy.... jadzia needed to exist for ezri’s sake and for ben’s sake, even if i Screm Every Day about how bad she is. she’s necessary, she just needs to be rewritten. 

there is, actually, an interesting way to rewrite riker. i used to be in the “delete riker” camp and i deleted him in my rewrite of tng (which i need to get back to, fuck), but i realized later that he could be narratively useful, if used well. you see, they brought in pulaski to be the mccoy to data’s spock, a rival for him. 

however, with data’s polite and friendly manner, it was much easier to see that pulaski’s actions toward him were born of simple prejudice (as indeed mccoy’s were, but that is often ignored because spock bites back), and they quickly developed her out of it. in fact, her quick change of heart about data is one of the reasons i like her so much. she thought data was nonsentient, she was shown she was wrong, and then she changed her mind. it’s a part of her clear-eyed,   evidence based mentality. but i digress.

data doesn’t need a mccoy style rival, (although imo, neither did spock. let’s call it a quark style rival instead, quark and odo are actually rivals with a current of respect underneath, not a colleague being racist to another colleague and the second one snarking back), what data needs is an ethical rival. tng is all about moral conundrums, and data has one of the most consistent philosophies among the crew. riker, however, also has a consistent philosophy, though it’s rarely explicitly stated: while data’s philosophy is a universalized utilitarian consequentialism, where no sentient life matters more than any other and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, riker tends to protect his own, first and foremost, whether that’s those he loves, members of the crew, or members of the federation. if riker could be rewritten to be both less awful and in a different narrative role (data’s ethical rival instead of protagonist), he would have a good reason to be on tng. i would love to see constant conflict between data and riker.

that leaves neelix, who doesn’t really contribute to anything, and is awful, esp about kes. bye bye neelix.

12. Top 3 NOTPs?

uhhhhhhhhh jadzia/worf, neelix/kes, garak/ziyal. 

23. Favorite tropes?

Holodeck Bullshit (tm), time travel funtimes, the entire spock character archetype, every bit of weird alien sex bullshit, Member Of The Main Cast Has To Be A Spy For An Episode, uhhhhhhhhh The Kid Episode For Spock-Types (the offspring, the begotten, drone), i could go on.......

25. Favorite villain(s)?

uhhhhhh fuck my ass but like the entire ds9 rogues gallery. don’t make me choose between dukat, whose existence is a work of literary genius and who is one of the best written characters on the show (in fact one of the best written villains i’ve ever seen), weyoun, who is My Guilty Pleasure, and winn, who i find to be a genuinely moving and tragic character.

35. A minor character you wish had become a main character?

uhhhhhhhhhhhhh

well, my tng rewrite features alyssa ogawa as a main character and like, bev crusher’s child-figure the way other characters are picard’s and like, Dark TNG: Please. i’m a big alyssa ogawa should be a major character stan.

guinan, of course. like dark tng give us a long ass arc about guinan’s backstory culminating in a two parter about the borg, and maybe she gets to lean on picard and/or ro laren for support and help processing her experiences with them. like, what the fuck. give us guinan’s breakdown over the loss of her home which she still hasn’t really processed hundreds of years later. what the Fuck.

KEIKO O’BrIEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! nuff said.

and lastly, dark voyager do something interesting with seska. specifically, make her not remember being a cardassian, but also start having flashbacks of being a cardassian and like, give me seska’s identity crisis. her realization. her inability to reconcile being bajoran in her mind with actually being a sleeper agent who hasn’t woken up yet. you robbed me of iliana ghemor, g i v e   m e   s e s k a. not necessarily as a main but like. as a major character.

[fanelectricboogieloo]

Sitting here realizing kitfox depicted armok like a goblin which is a nice callback to the first game... which had no dwarves and just goblins, humans, tree gecko people, and shadow demons, flesh balls, kobolds, and dragons... and trees. I then went and try to recreate the description in df using adventure mode and landed on a shaven hair carmine bearded goblin with ash gray skin.

G.O.B.lins

[dinrelsanddragons]

What aspect of the Triforce do you most embody?

(Answering with the royal guard squad, Age of Calamity/100 years pre-Breath of the Wild verse.)

"Power," Armok answered. "I'm a dragon. I've got some stopping force to me in my true form, and if I were to pick up a claymore in this form, I'd probably hit harder than Bryn or Vair. I'm creative, but mostly for pranks and silly things. I'm no tactician, and I've never needed courage. It's not much good when you're rarely afraid of anything."

Bryn thought a moment. "Power," came the eventual response. "I wield a claymore, so I'd better be strong. But maybe Courage for a number two." She grinned and relaxed her posture, recalling a fond memory. "It certainly took courage to go after my wife the way I did... she was, and still is, such a bombshell beauty, that I might've been a little hesitant about her rejecting me. But when I handed her some Molduga parts, including some guts, she was a bit... lost for words?" She laughed a bit. "Might've been because it was gross and covered in blood."

Erdan blinked at the construct, but answered regardless. "Courage." His eyes drifted down and sideways. "Nearly my entire span of years has been marked by fear for my life. My home village being razed when I was young... and when I realized I wasn't a woman, while that was initially exciting to learn who I truly was, it also meant certain old-fashioned people wanted me gone from their social circles... or just dead. And Bryn touched on this– pursuing love is an entirely different beast from fighting monsters; my challenge was greater because I did not know if my husband would accept me the way I am. I am most fortunate that he did– and still does."

"I don't really know." Gateni put a hand to her chin thoughtfully. "I have all the power that a pyromancer wields. I have displayed certain sorts of courage throughout my life, both in love and in my career, but... I think wisdom may be it. Without that, my fire would be easily misdirected. Without that, many innocents whom I have protected would not have been saved. Yes, wisdom," she reaffirmed, "because power without a steady and righteous hand is far too often misused for evil– and courage without the right mind behind it is simply recklessness that can lead to an early demise."

"Wisdom or courage," Hubert shrugged, casual as ever in his response. "Mah family's been keepers a' lore fer a long time, an' that's wisdom in a way, ain't it? Wisdom o' the ages. Er, but Ah guess courage too since we tend that spring. Me personally, though, Ah guess that's courage, cause it takes courage to be best friends with a dragon growin' up," he chuckled at the thought of Zehka, "even if he is mah family's guardian, the silliest beast you'd ever meet, an' all that. An' really... Ah was a weird kid too. Fer a noble, wantin' ta go out and play with sticks and mud and bugs ain't normal in the slightest. So a' course it was hard ta make friends... but Ah had Zehka, the coolest friend ever, so screw 'em."

Isaac brushed his beard with his fingers for a moment. "I suppose courage? I was afraid when my mother sent me off to become a knight. It was a punishment for all my deeds until then, as a consummate prankster, and not the most benign sort." A shudder ran down his spine. "I was right to be afraid. My instructors were harsh and strict. I needed it, however. Someone had to knock sense into me the hard way, or I would have become the town drunkard, or worse."

"Wisdom." Leonard didn't hesitate. "I am the sword and shield of the law, and the law was forged in the wisdom of many years of experience. Only with faith and confidence in the law and those who adjudicate it– that is, with faith and confidence in my king– can I fight and serve my purpose. Without wisdom and law, society itself would fall apart. I fight to keep that from happening." (Mun's note: It's courage. Leonard isn't the most reliable narrator. He's not really wise. But he has courage, enough that he wanted to push back against petty thieves and monsters that nipped at the heels of his farming village when he was younger– and it was courage that kept him from running away from his post when it proved challenging.)

"Courage." Thorn's voice was blunt and concise. "I'm not scared of things like bokoblins. I'm scared of the monsters that call themselves people." (Mun's note: Thorn won't speak further due to backstory issues, so here's me. He's been backstabbed in a highly traumatic way, such that staying in society and continuing to serve his post was a frightening decision to make. But he didn't want to be a deserter like his father– and no, he doesn't realize what good reasons his father had to abruptly leave. Regardless, knowing that people can be just as evil as the beasts that threaten Hyrule, he still chooses to exist among them. Initially it was because he felt like he had no choice. Later on, though, he starts falling for a certain Gerudo...)

Brushing his mustache, Raven thought a bit before he answered. "Courage, most like; it runs in the family. Sometimes loyalty to a sovereign, even one like King Rhoam, can be a frightening prospect. To confide and trust in him, or not? I asked myself this question when my son brought home the legendary blade of evil's bane. But the future hurtles towards us at a steady pace whether we try to flee from it– thus, it is best to face it head-on when possible. Whatever my son's logic, he has not led Hyrule astray yet."

Sandalio quirked an eyebrow. Polishing his halberd and inspecting it for scratches as he was– as he so obsessed over doing– the question felt as a distraction. But it remained in his mind. His answer came after a long silence as he turned over the weapon in his hands, gaze remaining fixed on it. "Wisdom and power have their uses, yes. What use is wisdom if you haven't the courage to face difficulty? What good is power if you fear to use it? Courage, however, does not always call for wisdom or power, and is sometimes more meaningful without them. Digression aside... it's because the lack of wisdom and rampant clawing for power in the family I was to serve made me question my choices and consider a new path in life. Without courage, I wouldn't have stayed the course until King Rhoam offered me this post. The rest is history."

Taunch put a finger to his chin, thinking hard. "I... believe I strike a balance. All three elements have had considerable meaning in my life. As a half-dragon, I possess undeniable power. My parents raised me to think and be gentle– to act with wisdom. And without courage, I would not have felt able to enter Hylian society and win my way to where I am now. I cannot rightly choose an aspect when all three mean so much to me." He shrugged. "Even if forced to choose, I do not think I could."

"My sister," Vair started, "probably would go on about the Bhelthirs being guardians of the spring of power and how the power to accomplish your goals defines us and our entire bloodline. I don't know about that reasoning, but I'd choose power anyways. My king needs his sword to be sharp and his shield not to waver. That's power. Us, the royal guardsmen, are guided by the wisdom of he and the royal family. That's all. Courage? Courage is important; it started me on this path. But as I am now? I an defined by power."

"Like Vair and Hubert, my family's bloodline, and how we are each tied to a spring of the goddess, lends a certain aspect of the triforce's elements to me," Wynne spoke. "Wisdom, without a doubt. Without the capabilities of the mind, wisdom chief among them, we are as animals. It is wisdom that keep people from beasthood. The Mulrennans know this keenly, and each generation is taught to venerate the keepers of that aspect– Nayru, and the wisdom spring's attendant, Naydra." (Mun's note: Her personal backstory also factors in, though she won't draw attention to it. Her father is an example of what not to do– he's a flighty idiot who romances any suitably comely woman, ignoring the fact that he is married with two legitimate children (and many illegitimate children). Wynne learned from his mistakes, an act which is a form of wisdom.)