Adventurer mode

xTATTEREDx · +FINE+ · *SUPERIOR* · ≡EXCEPTIONAL≡ · ☼MASTERWORK☼

v50.12 · v0.47.05

This article is about the current version of DF.
Note that some content may still need to be updated.

This is a detailed reference guide for Adventurer Mode. For a beginner tutorial, see the Adventure mode quick start.

See Adventure mode quick reference to quickly look up key commands.

In Adventurer mode (also called "Adventure mode" or simply "Adventure") you create a single adventurer, be they dwarf, human, elf, goblin, or one of the varieties of animal people, who start out somewhere in one of your generated worlds. You can learn about what ails the world, and go on quests to end those troubles (or get brutally murdered trying), and you can venture into the wilderness to find caves, shrines, lairs, abandoned towers, and other towns and settlements. You can even visit your previously abandoned/retired fortresses and take all the precious items you yourself once created. Unlike fortress mode, Adventurer mode is a sort of advanced open world RPG version of Rogue or Nethack taking place in the same procedurally-generated worlds used for fortress mode. Whereas in fortress mode, you are in charge of a large group of people in real-time, restricted to a small parcel of land, in adventurer mode you control a single character (or the party leader in 47.01) in a turn-based manner, roaming the entire world freely.

World selection

You can play adventure mode in any world that has a civilization with the ADVENTURE_TIER token (which are elves, dwarves, humans, and goblins, as well as animal people^v0.42.01). Humans inhabit cities, towns, and the occasional above-ground fortress. Elves inhabit forest retreats. Dwarves are spread between "deep sites" which sometimes do not contain a direct connection to the surface, fortresses which are built into the surface and almost always connect to the underground, and "hill dwarves" which inhabit a loose collection of mounds built into hillsides. Goblins typically live in dark fortresses. Lastly, animal people can live with any civilization, in virtually any location. Human cities and towns, and dwarven fortresses are currently the only sites with shops and other places to officially buy goods, not including taverns (which can also exist in elven sites, but only sell rooms and drinks). If you have previously built a fort in the world that you select, your adventurer will be able to go visit it. If you have selected to "retire" the fortress rather than abandon it, you will likely be able to encounter all the inhabitants from fortress mode - however, they will likely not have the same level of activity as they would in a bustling fortress-mode fort.

Character creation

Main article: Adventurer mode character creation

Race and civilization

In most standard games, playable races are dwarves, elves, and humans - all three races can complete the same quests.

Dwarves can start with steel weapon and enter martial trance when fighting multiple foes at once. They wear "small"-sized clothing which means that they're unable to wear human clothes and armor.

Elves have higher natural speed and a notably better sense of smell, but start with very weak wooden weapons and have a more limited list of weapon skills during character creation. Like dwarves, they wear small-sized clothing.

Humans begin with bronze, copper, or iron weapons. They also start with the widest variety of weapon skills. Humans are larger than the other main races, meaning armor from other civilizations is too small to be worn.

Intelligent Wilderness Creatures are playable wild animals. Most wilderness creatures are animal people. They will not start with armor, or be able to wear armor sized for the more common races. They come in various sizes, shapes and abilities, and as such, a short description cannot be given.

You can also play as Outsider. They can begin at any site and are strangers to all. Only humans can currently be outsiders in vanilla by default. Playing as an outsider has many initial limitations. They possess no pre-existing relationships or knowledge of various events and wildlife. When selecting skills for outsiders during creation, many more skills may be available than would otherwise be available if they were part of a civilization.

Status

Determines the number of starting skill, attribute points, and equipment points which do not change based on race:

Peasant: 15 attribute, 35 skill, 55 equipment
Hero: 35 attribute, 95 skill, 255 equipment
Demigod: 105 attribute, 161 skill, 1255 equipment

The number of skill points is less significant than the number of attribute points because the time it takes to go from Peasant to Demigod in skill terms is much less than what it would take to go from Peasant to Demigod in attribute terms.

Starting attributes

See this page for more info about adventurer mode starting attributes, or this page for full info about attributes

A creature has numerous attributes which affect its performance at various tasks, split into physical factors associated with the body, and mental factors associated with the soul.

Body

Strength: Improves melee attack damage, damage resistance and encumbrance limits. Increases leg strength to movement velocity, but increased muscle layer mass reduces speed.
Agility: Improves movement speed, attack velocity and potential attack rate. All combat skills, especially defensive ones, rely on it.
Toughness: Reduces physical damage inflicted on you. Also relates to defensive combat skills.
Endurance: Reduces the rate at which the adventurer becomes exhausted. Exhaustion progressively penalizes physical skills and rate of movement to the point of immobility and unconsciousness.
Recuperation: Increases the rate of wound healing.
Disease Resistance: Reduces risk of contracting syndromes (including infection) and the negative effects when active (including alcohol-induced.)

Soul

Some of these are demonstrably useful for adventure-mode-applicable skills, but the effects of the attributes aren't clearly understood. For ideas on how they may be applied, see a list of skills organized by attributes..

Analytical Ability: Useful for Tracker, Knapping and Student.
Focus: Affects Archer, Ambusher, Observer.
Willpower: Affects Fighter, Crutch Walker and Swimmer. Willpower helps resist the negative effects of status ailments such as Pain, Stunned, Unconscious, and all states of exhaustion and food/drink/sleep deprivation.
Creativity: This influences quality of poems, songs, and dances and crafts.
Intuition: Helps with Observer, which aids in spotting concealed enemies, ambushes, and identifying attacks from opponents.
Linguistic Ability: Affects any speaking and writing ability, improves the ability to communicate thoughts and feelings to listeners/readers.
Spatial Sense: Important. Affects combat skills, Ambusher, Crutch Walker, Swimmer, Observer, Knapping.
Musicality: Influences the adventurer's ability to perform music and song well.
Kinesthetic Sense: Affects most combat skills, walking with crutches, swimming and dancing.
Empathy: Affects social skills such as Persuader, Flatterer, Judge of Intent, and other Social skills that may not be applied in adventurer mode.
Social Awareness: Increases the number of followers you can have at a given fame level.

There are also Patience and Memory attributes that have no known effect in Adventurer Mode.

Starting skills

See this page for more info about adventurer mode starting skills, or this and this pages for full info about skills.

Not all races have the same sets of skills available at character creation time, but keep in mind that almost all starting skills, as well as ones not available at character creation, can be improved through use in-game (except for skills that require you to already have some experience to improve further, such as swimming or reading).

This section will specifically address starting skills as they relate to adventure mode. For a full description of combat skills see Combat skill.

Weapon

Includes Axeman, Bowman, Crossbowman, Hammerman, Knife user, Lasher, Maceman, Pikeman, Spearman and Swordsman.

Each skill enables character to use appropriate weapon more effectively.

Note that different races have different names for their weapon skills: Axegoblin, Axedwarf etc. These names are defined in the creature raws, as can be seen in the dwarf raws, but Crossbowman is an exception - dwarves call this skill Marksdwarf, although bow skill is referred to as Bowdwarf, as you'd expect. Elite Axe and Hammerdwarves are referred to as Lords.

Since version 0.47, weapons may be chosen on the embark screen before starting an adventure. Before that version weapon you get on start was depending of skills you selected.

General combat

Includes Fighter and Archer.

These skills impove effectiveness of melee (Fighter) or ranged (Archer) combat regardless of weapon used. Fighter skill also improves unarmed combat, Archer also improves throwing.

Defence skills

Including Shield user, Armor user and Dodger, these skills improve character's ability to defend, using shield, armor or dodging. Starting out with good ability in one (especially Shield User or Armor User) if not all is strongly advised.

Unarmed combat and improvised weapons

Including Wrestler, Striker, Kicker, Biter, Thrower and Miscellaneous object user.

While some of them come in handy at times, they can generally be raised fairly easily in-game, especially Wrestler and Thrower.

Movement and awareness

Includes Observer, Swimmer, Ambusher, Climber, Tracker and Crutch-walker.

Observer is hard to train and adding some points here is advisable. Swimmer is almost impossible to train without at least Novice level, and Adequate level is advised because Adequate swimmers do not drown while stunned.

Other

Includes Knapper, Bone carver, Writer, Carpenter, Persuader, Judge of intent, Flatterer, Musician, Speaker, Poet, Singer, Dancer, Stringed instrumentalist, Wind Instrumentalist, Percussionist, Keyboardist, Reader, Butcher and Wordsmith.

A Novice level of Reading is required in order to become a Necromancer.

Gameplay

Main article: Adventurer mode gameplay

Common UI concepts

About key symbols

This wiki uses symbols that look like t or t to indicate what keys or interface buttons are used for an operation. Note that keys are case sensitive and to save space, Shift+t is shown as T. So t means "press the 't' key without the shift key" and T means "hold down shift and press the 't' key". Lowercase and uppercase keys will often perform different functions, so it is important to use the correct key. Sequences of keys will be in separate boxes, so abC means "press 'a', then press 'b', then hold shift and press 'c'"; while bT means "press 'b', then hold shift and press 'T'. A plus sign '+' between the boxes means to press them all together, so Shift+Enter means to hold shift and press 'Enter'. Other separators, such as ',' or '-', might be used but mean the same as no separator: to press the keys in sequence.

Keybindings can be seen and changed on the Keybindings tab in the Settings menu.

Menu navigation and selection

Esc or right mouse	Go back to the previous screen/menu
Mouse wheel	Scroll menu one line
Shift+mouse wheel	Scroll menu one page
Left mouse	Select menu option

Esc or right mouse will almost always return to the previous screen until you get to the top level of the UI, at which point Esc will display the options menu.

Moving around

You can move around using 8 2 4 6 7 9 1 3 or ↑ ↓ ← →. Use Shift+< or Shift+5 (num lock off) to ascend up the stairs and Shift+> or Ctrl+5 (num lock off) to descend.

You can also fast travel. Press T to enter fast travel mode and d to exit it. Entering Fast Travel mode will allow you to move large distances in a single keypress. Of course, the same amount of time will go by and you can also be interrupted (ambushed) while moving in fast travel mode.

Status and information

l	Look around
Space	Advance/Clear Messages
a	View Announcements
z	Status

Looking around

If you're not sure what a tile is, the look command will tell you. In addition to being useful for identifying tiles and creatures, you can also view creatures' equipment and what items are sitting on the ground in a given tile. If in doubt, try the look command.

Move the cursor to the tile you want to look at using direction keys and Shift+direction. It's possible to look up and down z-levels (assuming you have line of sight) using the < and > keys. This, for example, allows you to find out if any flying creatures are above you. Hit Esc to exit look mode and go back to movement mode.

Messages

The game makes frequent use of messages on the screen to tell you what is going on. If there are a lot of these you may need to use Space to display the rest of the messages that won't fit on the screen. You can always go back and view old messages by pressing a.

Status screen

This screen shows your skills, attributes, wounded body parts, health (along with more detailed descriptions of your wounds), lets you view your description, and change your nickname if you want.

Saving the game

Hit the Esc key at any time and select Save Game to save your game. You can then come back to it later by using the Continue Playing option in the main menu.

Searching and manipulating

u	Interact with building, furniture, or mechanism
L	Search the nearby area very carefully

The u key can be used to do stuff like pull levers in an abandoned fort. It is also used to lower and raise the bucket when standing right next to a well, so you can get water to refill your waterskin with.

L will perform a thorough search of the area that you're standing in, possibly revealing some small creatures.

Managing equipment

i	Show Inventory
d	Drop an item
g	Get (pickup) an item off the ground
p	Put an item into a container
r	Remove an item you are wearing or from a container
w	Wear an item
I	Interact with an object in an advanced way. (unstick a weapon, refill waterskin etc.)
q	Sheath your weapons and shield. (Frees your hands for tasks such as climbing or grabbing)

Press i to display a list of what you are currently carrying. Press - + * / to scroll thru the list. This list will show you if items are being worn, held in hands, stuck on your body, or are inside a container. Detailed information about an object can be viewed by pressing the key associated with the item.

You can drop items out of your inventory, as well as get items on the ground on the same tile that you are standing on. If there is more than one item a menu will be listed. Press - + * / to scroll the list if the list is too long to fit on the screen. Note that getting something makes your adventurer pick something up with his or her hands. This often means that you have to use q to sheathe whatever you have in your hands before you pick something up. If you do not have a backpack or some other way of storing the object, your adventurer will not pick the item up.

Items can be placed into containers with p and removed with r.

Items can be worn using w and removed using r (the same command used for removing from containers).

There is no command for wielding items such as weapons in specific hands. Instead, they are automatically equipped when you either get them from the ground or remove them from your backpack - provided the hand that would wield them is free.

The q key lets you strap your weapons to your back. This is useful because you can't climb or wrestle with your hands while holding weapons or other objects.

Time and weather

You can see current date (D), temperature (P) and time and weather (W). At night you won't be able to see nearly as well, and you will be more vulnerable to ambush, so it is better to find a shelter before night.

Sleep

Z	Sleep

Eventually, your character will become drowsy, and this will get worse until you get sufficient sleep.

As of 0.47.01, bogeymen are now restricted to certain evil regions, but you still can be ambushed by wildlife if you are sleeping not in a safe location (castle, building, abandoned lair).

Eat and drink

e	Eat or drink something

To find water, you must find a river, stream, or well in a town and fill your waterskin (or any container) from it, or drink from it directly.

Combat

8 2 4 6 7 9 1 3	Attack adjacent hostile creature
↑ ↓ ← →	Attack adjacent hostile creature
A	Attack an adjacent creature.
f	Fire a projectile
t	Throw an item
C	Open combat preferences interface

Hostile creatures can be attacked using a non-aimed attack by simply advancing towards your enemy using the arrow keys. Any creature can be attacked by standing next to it and pressing A. Attacking a friendly or unconscious creature (which includes wild animals for elves) will further require a confirmation, given using alt+y.

After selecting (and maybe confirming) which creature you want to attack, a will allow you to make an aimed attack. You must first select the body part that you want to attack. Look at the difficulty rating for various possible attacks. Impossible attacks will be nearly impossible to land and Easier attacks will be very easy to land. The difficulty rating for an attack does not change depending on your weapon skill. Based on player experiences, a Grand Master weapon user can almost always land a "Tricky" strike, while a Novice generally cannot. Attacks on various locations will also have limits on how "squarely" they can land (due to being out of reach, for example). Square and very square attacks will deal more damage.^[Verify] Attacks which "can't land squarely" are generally still effective.

To attack with a ranged weapon press the f key with a ranged weapon (bow, crossbow, etc.) equipped on one hand and select the square where you want to attack. Similarly use the t key to throw any random object in the same manner. Just like looking, you can use throwing to view and hit enemies multiple Z-levels away from you. It is not possible to aim for specific body parts with ranged or thrown attacks.

If you get wounded during combat, there's not much that you can do except perhaps run before you get more wounded. Be aware that movement speed while stunned, nauseous or winded is reduced, and might leave you open to fatal blows.

At any time during gameplay (except in fast travel mode), you can press C to open the Combat Preferences menu. There are three different preferences you can set: Attack, Dodge and Charge Defense.

Talking

You can talk with people. To begin a conversation or performance, press k. Unless someone else has already started a conversation with you (see below if someone has), you will get a cyan X that can be positioned over people you want to talk to with the normal directional keys. Use - and + to select who you want to talk to. Aside from individuals, you can also Shout out to everybody, which will have you talking with everyone in earshot, or you can talk to your deity, or you can even Begin Performance which includes such things as reciting poetry, telling stories or dancing, and is very important if you want to be a bard.

After starting conversation you can trade, take quests, ask location of someone or something, ask listener to join you, etc.

Note that you can press Esc to not choose anything. The conversation is still ongoing, you have to explicitly say goodbye to end it. Pressing Esc is useful if you need to double-check something before talking.

Companions

c	View companion interface

Companions are the guys who follow you around after you've asked them to join you and they've accepted. Your character will have a limit on the maximum number of companions, that is based on your reputation level and the Social Awareness attribute. Note that people with no military skills are unlikely to agree to join you, and people with military skills higher than yours will also be unlikely to join you. However, average soldiers will gladly join you "if you lead [them] to glory and death".

You can use the c key to open up a list showing your companions and their relative position to you. This can be useful if one of them runs off somewhere and you want to find them. You can select specific companions who are in visual range in order to view them. This is the same as viewing them with look.

You can give or take equipment with a companion by choosing to talk to them and selecting Exchange, give or take personal items. It is important to note that they prefer to store exchanged items in a personal container rather than to equip said items. You must convince your companions to trade away any containers (pouches, quivers, backpacks, etc.) as well as the equipment that you are attempting to replace. Once you have given your companions almost no choice in the matter, they will equip the new items and a message like The Swordsman reorganizes his possessions. will be displayed.

Your companions will continue to follow you and fight hostile creatures around you until they die (if you asked them to join you on an adventure) or get you to the proper location (if you asked them to guide you some place). If you want to get rid of your companions at any time, the safe way is to talk to each one of them, ask them about their journey with you, and then cancel the agreement.

If your companions are too far away from you when you enter fast travel, they will become an asterisk on the map where you started fast travel from. This asterisk may try to join up with you during travel.

In v0.42, you can have companions join you as performers after you convince them of your skills. This can be used to recruit people you normally couldn't recruit, such as civilians and stronger soldiers.

Personal finance

In human towns (not hamlets or castles), you can find shops; in elven Trading-trees you can find markets; and at depots in dwarven fortresses you can encounter brokers. Once you're inside of a shop and right next to any of the NPCs, you can use k to Trade with them. Use Enter to select which items to trade, left/right arrow keys to switch between the list of shop items and your items, and up/down arrow keys to scroll through the lists. Once done, press t to trade. After trading, you will find the stuff you gave on the floor at your feet, and the stuff you got in your inventory.

You may also pick up the item before buying it, but you should never walk out of a shop carrying an unbought item, as that is theft. It is punishable by death if you are caught, and exile if you are not. On any occasion when you have stolen goods from a store (indicated by dollar signs on either side of the item in your inventory), the game requires you to exit the site and move a considerable distance before allowing you to quick travel. If the item name is not surrounded by dollar signs, it is never considered stealing, even in situations where it would be in real life.

Coins can and will encumber your adventurer, eventually reducing your speed. To reduce that effect, you can try to exchange your copper and silver coins for gold ones, as well as sell all of your loot directly for gold coins.

Coins from one civilization are nearly worthless in other civilizations. You can take your excess coinage and use it to purchase large gems at a trinket shop. Large gems make good investments because they are 1) light, 2) variably priced, and 3) equally valuable between different civilizations.

Quest log

Q	Open quest log
Esc	Exit quest log
e p a s r b	Access various lists
m	Switch between the world map and additional info
z	Center cursor on location of selected list item, if known
c	Center cursor on your location
l	Toggle the visibility of the line between you and some other point on the map.
f	Filter the list
+ - * /	Navigate the list

The quest log contains everything you know about the world, such as various events going on, people you know, and various sites. The m key will alternate between a world map that you can navigate, and information on whatever item is highlighted in the list to the right.

There are various kinds of lists you can check on the quest log:

Events — A list of events that are happening or have happened. Formatting of the list is (type)/(description). You can center on the location of the event if you know this. This list is the closest you'll get to some formal quest system.
People — A list of people you know. At the start of the game, this list will contain people in your site.
Sites — A list of various sites around the world.
Groups — A list of groups you know of and your relation to them. Note that you have to press e when you're on the events list in order to reach this list, requiring you to press e at most twice.
Agreements - Your various agreements; this includes tasks given to you by your lord, and why people are traveling with you and the history of your agreements.
Regions — A list of regions. The additional information will list the biomes a region possesses.
Bestiary — A list of creatures, their characteristics, and where you could find them.

Create

x	Perform action (butcher, create item...)

Adventurers can perform limited crafting, (also known as "reactions"). To access the crafting menu, press x. You can sharpen rocks, assemble stone axes, carve bones, make wooden furniture, buther, compose songs or dances or write books and scrolls.

Natural abilities (spitting, breathing fire, etc.) and acquired powers (such as raising undead) are also used via this menu.

Site management

b	Found a site and build

Adventurers can chop down trees for resources, and build their own personal sites to claim as their own - neither of these actions can currently be performed on existing sites like towns. Building currently needs wooden logs, acquired by chopping down trees. With a non-wooden axe in hand, hitting g while next to a tree allows you to chop it down.

FAQ

How do I cut down a tree?

To cut down a tree in adventure mode you must be outside of a previously existent site (adventure mode sites not included). Then walk up to the tree and press "g", select the "fell tree" option. ^v0.43.01

How do I find an entrance to the underworld?

Method 1: Most caves lead directly into the first cavern layer. Although it may be possible to learn of some trouble which originates from a cave^[Verify], your best bet is to ask people about the surroundings, and hope that they mention a cave at some point. If they don't, travel to another site a fair bit away from where you are and ask someone else.

Method 2: Dwarf fortresses are connected to the tunnel system, which usually connects to the caverns.

Method 3: You can start a fortress mode game, dig to the first cavern layer, retire or abandon the fortress, and then return with your adventurer.

The three cavern layers are connected to each other in various places, although they are rather spread out and extremely difficult to find with an adventurer. Additionally, a certain spoiler can be found which leads to another spoiler, deep underground.

I keep getting maimed! How can I fight without getting seriously hurt?

The best defense is a good offense. If you let your enemies attack you, you're (unsurprisingly) likely to get hurt eventually.

Try to avoid fighting difficult enemies until you get some armor. Don't fight enemies at all unless you're sure you can beat them. If you're unsure, you're probably going to get hurt.
Increase your speed! The most immediate way to do this is to raise your walking pace to Jog. Until your endurance is high enough, this may be exhausting, but active dodging and blocking will recover energy.
If you have good speed, try to fight enemies one-by-one – keep dodging away and only attack when you're within range of just one enemy. Maneuvering around charging opponents can cause them to collide with each other and become prone and/or stunned. Above all, don't let yourself get flanked by an enemy, much less surrounded.
If you have a slashing weapon, try to chop body parts off of your enemy – it makes them stop fighting for a turn, allowing you to keep attacking them without being attacked in exchange. Chopping off limbs will also weaken your enemies – taking their arms can prevent them from using weapons, taking their legs can make them slow and knock them down. Chopping off their heads will instantly kill them, but it may take a few (or, with larger enemies such as trolls, it may take more than fifteen) slashes before the head is severed.
Remember that it's better to let your enemy come to you than to go to your enemy. You have to either move or attack. If you move, you can't attack, so if you move within range to attack your enemy, you allow them to have the first strike (unless you're much faster than them). On the other hand, if you let them move within range of you, then you get to have the first strike. If your enemy is out of striking range, consider throwing a knife, rock, or other object to do some damage before they can retaliate. However, keep in mind that throwing takes time, and if the enemy is too close you may give them the first and possibly even second strike before you can retaliate. If you're fast enough, then you can simply step back after getting in that first hit, and they'll have to spend their turn approaching you again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Follow the advice under Combat Preferences.

How can I obtain armor as quickly as possible?

The best way would be to rummage through mead halls, keeps, and fortresses, or whatever other strongholds your race makes use of. Not all places will be stocked with equipment, but usually they have something.
- There are also underground locations, such as the dungeons underneath keeps, or the catacombs under temples, that contain plenty of equipment. These underground places are liable to be populated with unfriendly creatures, so beware.
You can also take along companions and have them killed, or just plainly murder people and take their stuff.
You can earn some money by exchanging some loot with the local populace for coins, and then buy equipment off of soldiers you might meet in towns. Use the exchange personal item option, as only shopkeepers accept the straight trade option. Remember that coins only have nominal value in the civilization they've been minted in, but gems are equally valuable anywhere. You can also trade your own crafts or clothing in exchange for the armor the soldiers are wearing.
Warehouses in human towns tend to have items in them, including weaponry, food, Items of high value, and alongside those is armor. Though a cheeky way to get equipment, it works if you want to have a fast adventure.
If you don't mind taking extra time, you can also start a "temporary" fortress, make as much armor as you could and then abandon/retire to return there as an adventurer later.
- Although this may take a while, with this method your adventurer may obtain quite precious, powerful and nearly unobtainable otherwise items like a full set of ☼Adamantium armor☼.
- You can also make some other items quite important to an adventurer, such as ☼weapons☼ or a huge amount of lightweight trade goods, like platinum rings encrusted with diamonds. This may provide an even better alternative to coins than just simple cut gems, depending on the skills of your character.
- If you choose to abandon the "fortress" instead of retiring, remember to put your precious preserved goods in some heavy bin or an inaccessible place, as items tend to scatter all over the "fortress" if they have a walkable path from an edge of the map (see Abandon).

How do I increase my skills and attributes?

Here are some techniques for raising your skills – very rapidly in some cases. Most of these skill-raising techniques involve repeatedly entering the same keystrokes. To assist with this you can use a macro to make entering the same sequence of keystrokes over and over again much easier. Increasing skills increases associated attributes, which may in turn benefit other skills. For example, sharpening rocks using x will increase Knapping, which will increase a number of attributes that help with combat skills. See Skills and Associated Attributes for a mostly complete list.

Fighting and Wrestling — A good way to raise your Fighting and Wrestling skills and related attributes is to go find a small, relatively harmless animal and wrestle with it repeatedly. You can wrestle hitting b for the wrestling option after selecting the creature to fight. Continually grabbing and releasing a creature is sufficient to raise your skill, and you can do it indefinitely with the same animal as it won't be injured (unless you auto-wrestle it). Wrestling will increase Kinesthetic Sense, Spatial Sense, and to a lesser extent, Endurance. You may also somewhat increase Dodging and Shield User this way as the creature takes swipes at you.
It's possible to change your Combat preferences for attacking and dodging to Close Combat and Stand Ground, respectively, allowing you to simply walk into the helpless critter to wrestle it. (Standing your ground prevents you from moving to dodge attacks, so your wrestling can continue almost uninterrupted.) You will, however, perform occasional throws and take-downs as long as the creature remains standing, which may result in their eventual bleeding to death. Strangulation is also a repeated concern, as it will render the victim unconscious, thus making you have to wait until it regains consciousness before you can continue auto-wrestling it (though you may still raise your Wrestler and Fighter skills by 10 points for every time you release a limb - though this must be done manually and must be repeatedly confirmed, once the creature is rendered unconscious). Another concern with auto-wrestling some animals is that you will perform joint locks, and break hips, knees, and ankles in the process, which can cause the creature to bleed to death. If you can wrangle a creature incapable of blood-loss and strangulation in a high-FPS area (such as a crab on a frozen beach), you can easily raise all associated skills and attributes to Legendary and Superhuman in the course of a few minutes.
Shield User, Armor User, and Dodging - In addition to wrestling the creature, you can also sit back and let it attack you to raise your defensive skills. If you have metal armor, then a small animal like a gopher can't do any real damage to you when it hits. Also, to place emphasis more heavily on shield blocking, you can change your attack Combat preference to Stand Ground. Stay occupied (tell the enemy a story about one of your fortresses or mumble a "poem" written with Dabbling skills) for a nice time skip. The wrestling-a-crab-on-a-frozen-beach method also works fantastically for this.
Weapon Skills and Fighting — Once your defensive skills are getting up there and your agility is high enough, you might want to try fighting bogeymen to increase your weapon skill. Just make sure to fight them one at a time while running away. If you don't know what a bogeyman is yet then you are probably not ready to try this. Also, doing difficult targeted shots will gain more experience and keep the training dummy alive longer.
Throwing and Archery — Throwing rocks with t will raise your Throwing and Archery skills. Throwing objects at creatures, while not terribly effective, can still be a quite handy skill. Although throwing is a way to raise Archery without wasting ammunition, there is a non-wasteful method that additionally increases bow/crossbow skills.
The most efficient way to level via throwing is to forgo using a macro and separate training into two phases: getting and throwing. First, find a tile with an indefinite amount of throwable objects (e.g., snow, rocks, mud, etc.). Then, sequentially mash g and whatever key the rocks are assigned to until both your forearms explode. Rest. Then, sequentially mash t, followed by some consistent key assigned to your rocks, then Enter, until you've emptied your inventory. Rest. Rinse and repeat. (You may wish to empty your inventory beforehand such that the rocks are assigned to a key close to t, allowing you to keep one hand on Enter and another on t.)
Marksman, Bowman, and Archery — Raising the bow and crossbow weapon-specific skills is best done by shooting at a wall or cliff with no floor directly beneath it. If bolts or arrows hit a wall that has floor/ground on the same z-level, then the ammunition will be destroyed. However, ammunition that falls at least one z-level after hitting a wall will remain intact. So, simply find something like a hill inside a castle, stand on it, then shoot at a wall which is on the same z-level you are. The arrows will hit the wall and fall one z-level to the ground, remaining intact. You can then get the arrows and fire them at the wall again from the hill, ad infinitum. You can also stand next to a wall that's two or more z-levels high, aiming at the wall one z-level up by hitting < after hitting f. Whatever method you employ, the key is that the arrow needs to fall at least one z-level after hitting a wall to remain intact. Using a macro will speed this up greatly.
An alternative and much easier way to train any ranged attack is to simply shoot one or more z-levels straight above into the air, by using f than < , any ammunition used seems incapable of causing harm to the one launching it and lands undamaged under their feet for easy retrieval, however this may be considered a bug and/or exploit.
Ambushing and Swimming — An efficient way to raise Ambushing is to sneak over large stretches of land. Ideally, this would be done in a biome containing sparse vegetation and few threatening creatures to blunder into and reduce FPS (e.g., a frozen beach). Sneaking on fast travel will not raise Ambushing.
Although less efficient for raising only Ambushing, it's also possible to sneak and swim at the same time, thus combining their training. Just make sure you start with at least Novice in swimming, or you'll find swimming practically impossible to train. Swimming can very quickly improve your Strength, Agility, and Endurance. Additionally, if you can safely drown and then recover (e.g., by moving under a bridge and then back before suffocating), this will raise both Toughness and Endurance at a ridiculous pace— a single step spent drowning will raise both attributes by a fifth of a point apiece.
Observer — You can't really power-level this skill as it is slow and difficult to train, which is why you're advised to sink some points into it during character creation. However, one way to train it appears to be sleeping or walking around in the wilderness, allowing yourself to be repeatedly ambushed. This is, however, inherently dangerous. Running away from these encounters would probably be faster than slaying your assailants, if not generally safer for your character (but not for your companions, hoh boy).
Successfully detecting traps found in tombs and catacombs (performed automatically) will also raise Observer. However, without decent skill to begin with, you'll be torn to pieces by the many traps you'll fail to see. Otherwise, once you've found one or more traps, it's possible to grind experience by sleeping/waiting an hour, thus resetting the traps. Rinse and repeat.
As of version 0.40.23, one seems to acquire skill in Observer from regular combat, as it's used to tell what weapon an enemy is using to attack you.
Spatial and Kinesthetic Sense - While sharpening rocks with x will improve your Knapping skill, it more importantly increases your Spatial Sense and Kinesthetic Sense attributes, which affect a number of other skills. Knapping can be combined with throwing via a macro to keep your inventory from filling up.
Other Stats - Other useful stats like Strength, Agility, and Toughness will increase significantly as the fighting and defense skills increase, so you don't need to do anything other than what you'd normally be doing to increase these.

I managed to escape, but my limbs are chopped off. Now what?

'Tis but a scratch! Unfortunately, there is only one way to get them back, and that is by becoming a werebeast and surviving until the next full moon. But as long as you have at least one leg and one arm left you can actually do pretty well. First, get a crutch from somewhere, such as a general store, and make sure it's in one of your hands. Once you do that you should be able to stand back up again. (However, if spinal nervous tissue damage is what has disabled your ability to stand, crutches will not help you in that regard.) You will notice that your speed is now much slower than before. Now, go find someplace reasonably safe, and walk back and forth until your Crutch Walking skill gets up to Legendary. You will notice your speed increasing as your skill levels up until your speed is completely back to normal. As a bonus you'll probably see some stat increases as well. You can continue to dodge with a crutch just as well as before. You can wield a sword, shield, and crutch all in one hand, so, even if you are missing an arm, then you're all set. If you are missing both arms but still have both legs then unfortunately you'll be limited to biting, dodging, and wrestling with legs. If you're missing both arms and one leg then your movement will be limited and you'll be limited to biting and wrestling with your one remaining leg. And if all limbs are missing, then you'll be limited to rolling around on the ground biting things, though you might actually be able to do surprisingly well as a Legendary Biter, especially if you powerlevel your strength to the point where you can shake things around by the teeth ripping limbs off, but if you lose both legs, then your character is going to be severely limited due to the poor movement rate, so at that point it's probably best to opt for retirement or a glorious death in battle.

What creatures of night can I become?

You basically have four different choices. Firstly, you can become a necromancer:

That gives you some traits of an undead. Namely, you don't need to eat, sleep or drink, don't tire or age, zombies and mummies don't attack you and your physical stats are permanently fixed. The last one means it's wise to train them beforehand.
You also can raise dead from the x menu. Depending on the flavor of your spell, zombies can be slow, very slow or not slow at all. They will be listed as companions.
Undead minions are extremely useful, but will cause problems if you intend to interact with civilization ever again. They are, however, an easy way to gain manpower for construction.
To become a necromancer, find a necromancer tower and obtain a book or slab containing secrets of life and death from there, then read it. Note that most of the books are useless. In younger worlds necromancers may not have built their towers yet, in which case they'll be hanging at a zombie bandit camp, slab under the arm.

Secondly, you can become a vampire:

That gives you most traits of an undead. In addition to the listed above, you don't feel pain, don't breathe and are immune to most syndromes. Your strength, agility and toughness are doubled. They're still fixed forever, so, again, be prepared.
You gain blood vision, in which all creatures with blood not in your field of view will be represented with ☼.
Despite not needing to drink water, you have a hunger for warm blood. To satisfy it, beat someone or something unconscious and eat their blood.
Anyone that witnesses you feeding on blood will turn hostile, unlike in older versions, where companions would only care if you drained someone they cared about.
To become a vampire, defeat one in combat and drink his blood.
In version 0.42.01, it is now possible to be "cursed" by a god into becoming a vampire by desecrating statues/totems/altars dedicated to them. This can be done by pressing u while adjacent to interact with them, and toppling them. ^v0.42.01

Thirdly, you can become a werebeast:

This gives you the (uncontrolled) ability to transform into a powerful half-man, half-beast on a full moon.
There's a fixed list of animals on which the wereform is based, including goat, llama, lizard, horse, monitor, buffalo, moose, tortoise, camel, kangaroo, ape, gecko, bear, hyena, warthog, iguana, skink, shrew, elk, skunk, pig, raccoon, panda, mole, badger, armadillo, mammoth and more.
Most importantly, upon transformation (both ways) all your wounds, including missing limbs, are instantly healed.
You don't show any abnormality outside of beast form. You are still mortal.
When in beast form, everything is hostile to you, you don't need to drink, eat, sleep or breathe, don't feel pain, don't tire and are immune to some syndromes.
One randomly chosen metal is ten times as deadly to you than usual. All other materials deal you half damage.
A werebeast's size is several times their base animal size, but no less than 80000. This means all armor will be too small for you while in beast form. But you can still use a shield. Some werebeasts are truly gigantic — the weremammoth has a size of 9000000, on par with demons.
To become a werebeast, make one bite you – it has to be in its beast form.
In version 0.42.01, it is now possible to be "cursed" by a god into becoming a werebeast by desecrating statues, totems or altars dedicated to them. This can be done by pressing u while adjacent to interact with them, and toppling them.^v0.42.01
You cannot be a werebeast and a vampire at the same time.

And finally, you can become a mist zombie:

This makes you undead. In addition to vampire traits, you can see without eyes and can't die via blood loss or beheading. Note that you don't have the health point limit that raised zombies have.
You become permanently hostile to everyone except other undead.
Your strength and toughness are tripled and fixed. Train beforehand.
Depending on the flavor of zombie virus, your speed may or may not drop to 20% or 60% of its normal value.
To become a mist zombie, find a mist/fog cloud that zombifies creatures and run into it.
You cannot become a vampire or a werebeast if you are already a zombie. The other way, however, is fine.

What does it mean to be cursed?

After suffering a mummy's curse, you will critically fail 20% of all skill checks, so you miss attacks, fail when reciting poetry etc.

Can zombie companions build for me?

Yes, they can build just like any other companion.

I don't like the location I am currently at. How can I fast travel away?^v0.42.01

Retire your hero or party. Be sure not to pick the "starve" option.
Create another hero (pay attention to the list of locations!), and pick the location you want to teleport to as his/her hometown.
Add all people from your previous party to your current adventure mode party, via "Specific person" at the bottom of the race selection menu.
Start playing at your new location.
Dispose of your new hero, or add him to your party.

This can actually be exploited to add more characters to your party if some of them were killed, making this method a good way to replenish the numbers of your meatshields.

A glimpse into the Future

This article or section has been rated D for Dwarf. It may include witty humour, not-so-witty humour, bad humour, in-jokes, pop culture references, and references to the Bay12 forums. Don't believe everything you read, and if you miss some of the references, don't worry. It was inevitable.

Passage from "Shooting ~~for~~ the sky", the giant toad bone bound book by Nefil Blackbone the human necromancer :

... While seemingly absurd, the practice of one's abilities with a ranged weapon can be furthered by directing said weapon towards the sky. After all, during day time the sky has one giant target that might even seem so large that it's impossible to miss, and the night sky has many smaller ones. It has been well documented that hitting the target may not be necessary to achieve improvement in ones skill with said arms, thus it is reasonable to expect every subsequent shot after the first will hit a tad closer to it's intended target, this has further lead me to believe in the possibility of sky exploration, for with this logic at some point the projectile will actually hit it's target and could subsequently be replaced with a test dummy to further resolve survival issues and empty ones guest accommodations in one go. Finally with said preparations accomplished it would be possible to explore whatever is beyond that great blue/black border above. However some skeptical dwarven scholars suggest this to be impossible and rather place their bets on the tried and tested dwarven launch system, while notable human scholars propose using bigger armaments to accomplish the goal.

This is how the great space race between the Elves, Dwarves and Humans began, which would later on lead to massive intergalactic conflicts, space goblin invasions, immortal human emperors, elven space gates, interplanetary clown-storms all under the name of the humble dwarven hammer of war ...

Getting Started

About - Installation - Tutorials - FAQ

Fortress Mode Quickstart Guide - Adventure Mode Quickstart Guide

Fortress Mode Reference - Adventurer Mode Reference ^{(Quick Reference)}

How do I get more help?