Tutorial:Powerplay Guide

This is a intermediate guide for Adventurer Mode. For a beginner's tutorial see the Adventure Mode Quickstart Guide.

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

Updated to DF 43.05. Work in progress!

This guide focuses on powerplay, that is, building the most powerful combat-oriented character and achieving goals that can be undoubtedly considered "winning the game of Dwarf Fortress". Yet, fun is prioritised so glitch/bug abuse to get an advantage will not be used. For the most part, it is tailored towards players with some adventure mode experience, as there will be no explanation of basic gameplay elements, such as Fast [T]ravelling, [R]emoving an item, [W]earing an armour or [S]tanding up. Also, it is assumed that readers are familiar with the Fortress mode to the point of being able to make at least Steel weapons/armor, as there will be no explanation on this part either.

However, this does not mean, that less experienced players will not benefit from this guide. All the combat mechanics, decisions and picks will be explained most thoroughly without missing any of the steps. As long as one is familiar with hotkeys, he/she is all set for reading this. And don't forget about spoilers!

Generating the world

Example of the well-balanced world for an adventure game

Use the following settings:

• World Size: Smaller
• History: Short
• Number of Civilizations: High
• Max. Number of Sites: High
• Number of Beasts: Medium (Default)
• Natural Savagery: Medium (Default)

While, technically, every world is suitable for adventure mode, any player looking for a decent game should start in a world, that has at least the following features:

• A tower
• 2 or 3 Dark fortresses
• A vault

Optional features:

• A desert
• An island no more than 2 blocks away from mainland
• A maze

You can check whether your world has a certain feature by starting the said world in Legends mode.

• "Smaller" world size drastically reduces updating times, shortens the distance you will have to travel on foot and makes it more likely to explore more of the world. Don't get confused - even at this degree the generated world is much bigger than you would think, and is more than enough for a lengthy game while still preserving the features from bigger worlds.
  
• "Short" history setting will make the world 125 years old. This is done to ensure, that goblin settlements (a.k.a Dark Pits) are not too abundant. It also prevents a lot of takeover wars, so it is less likely to end up with dead civilization(s) or human towns populated by elves (or what's more likely, goblins).
  
• "High" number of civilizations provides increased chances of Towers and Dark Fortresses appearing. Same applies to the "High" Number of Sites, only that it also influences the amount of creature lairs and encampments in the wild.

Number of beasts determines how many megabeasts will roam the world. It is affected by the world size (e.g. Smaller), so it is left at default value. Same applies to Natural Savagery and Mineral occurence.

IMPORTANT: After creating the desirable world, start a Dwarf Fortress mode game (preferably, at the 2-tiles-away island mentioned above) and play until you create the following masterwork or artifact weapons: Axe(steel/adam), Spear(steel,adam), War Hammer (silver/platinum). Optionally, capture a Forgotten Beast and have the weapons coated with its flesh-eating seizure-inducing paralyzing dust. Optionally, produce a masterwork Nether Cap shield, a couple of masterwork stacks of steel bolts and a suit of adamantine armor. Retire the fort afterwards.

You will return to your fort later on in the adventure mode game to reclaim the weapons for your character's use.

Character Creation

The character creation follows the same order as it appears in game: Race/Civ/Status ->Starting Attributes/Skills->Background->Appearance -> Mental attributes.

Race and Civilization

Human or Dwarf - there is a little difference besides the armour and clothing size, pick whatever you want. Some may argue, that dwarves have an advantage due to being able to wear better armour, made in player fortress. However, as I have realized (and you will realize too): later on masterwork armour is just as useful as standard quality. More on this will be explained in "Armour" section. As for the dwarven "Battle Trance" - this guide emphasizes on NOT finding yourself alone and surrounded most of the time, so it is negligible. Human will be used for this guide.

Status

• Peasant: 15 attribute, 35 skill
• Hero: 35 attribute, 95 skill
• Demigod: 105 attribute, 161 skill

Peasant, Hero and Demigod look completely different, with demigod seemingly holding the most advantage. However, all three are mortal, and all three are capable of becoming unstoppable. The key difference is in starting stats/skills (with demigod beginning with most, Peasant with least) and stats cap (maximum attainable value).

Simply put, the higher the starting stat (e.g Strength), the higher it can be increased over the course of the game. Hence, demigods can have the highest stats in the end by simply having more to start with. Yet, even Peasant adventurer is capable of killing a Demon or Dragon in the endgame, so at the end of the day, all the status does is determine how easy and how fast your starting game will be.

"Hero" is suitable for most players. Pick Demigod for easier early game. For the purposes of this guide, "Peasant" will be used to demonstrate, that these instructions are applicable to every single status.

Starting Attributes and Skills

Body Attributes

All these stats distributions will leave no points wasted.

Peasant:

• High Strength (20)
• High Agility (20)
• Very Low Recuperation (1)
• Very Low Disease Resistance (1)
• Very Low Creativity (1)
• Very Low Musicality (1)
• Very Low Empathy (1)
• Everything else: Average (5)

Hero:

• High Strength (20)
• Superior Agility (--)
• Very Low Recuperation (1)
• Very Low Disease Resistance (1)
• Very Low Creativity (1)
• Very Low Musicality (1)
• Very Low Empathy (1)
• Everything else: Average (5)

Demigod:

• High Strength (20)
• Superior Agility (--)
• Superior Memory (--)
• High Intuition (20)
• Very Low Recuperation (1)
• Very Low Disease Resistance (1)
• Very Low Creativity (1)
• Very Low Musicality (1)
• Very Low Empathy (1)
• Everything else: Average (5)

Since your character is combat-based, attributes such as Creativity, Empathy and Musicality are absolutely useless, and must be kept low. As for recuperation and disease resistance, they only kick in when you're hurt, and if there is something that I stress in this guide it is "DON'T get hit". This renders those stats useless. Agility and Strength are the MOST important as they affect move speed of the character, and that really matters. Memory is convenient addition, as it lets you memorize the areas you've been to and keep those areas free from fog of war. However, leave it at average unless playing as a demigod.

The concept of pain was revised in 43.05, with thresholds significantly buffed for most creatures. Now a high willpower/toughness can, and will prevent your adventurer(and enemy alike) from passing out due to broken toe. Investing starting points in those stats is still a waste, however, as they are leveled relatively quickly, and do not need to be "Superior" or "Superhuman" to be effective. Endurance can be increased easily by sprinting or swimming. And while it matters at first, later on your character will have unlimited stamina, so don't put anything above average here. With average Social Awareness you can recruit two companions, increasing your fighting skills and kill list will let you recruit more later. Seeing as it is very tedious to manage 3 and above companions (you have to give out orders one by one), this attribute is better left at average (more on Social Awareness will be explained in "Companions" section).

Finally, Intuition lets you see more detailed information on which part of your body the enemy is targeting. It is quickly leveled through any means of close combat, and hence, should be kept on average unless you play as demigod.

Starting skills

All the distributions below have 1 to 4 leftover points. This is nothing to worry about, as skills can be easily improved and have no cap.

Peasant:

• Adequate Swimmer (7)
• Competent dodger (8)
• Novice reader (6)

Hero:

• Competent Swimmer (8)
• Expert dodger (13)
• Novice reader (6)

Demigod:

• Skilled Swimmer (9)
• Master dodger (17)
• Novice reader (6)

Dodge skill is a must take at character creation, as it is one of the skills that cannot be leveled without putting yourself in a harm's way. Same goes for Swimming. Any weapon skills are trainable in absolute safety, as will be described in section "Improving your skills". Reading, on the other hand, cannot be improved during regular play, and is only available for learning at starting skill selection screen, and must be taken in order to read books, containing the secrets of Life and Death. Novice level reading skill allows you to read anything, there is no point in increasing it further.

Background and Gender

It is advised to start as a hearth-person, since your character will begin inside of the human fortress, close to weapons and armor stockpiles. Gender and deity worshiped are insignificant beyond aesthetics and roleplay. Of course, when building a killing machine of a character you'd most likely want him to worship a deity of war (or similar).

Appearance

Visual facial features (e.g long hair, lobed ears, etc.) bear little significance, and are there just for show. The constitution is what really matters - your character might be described as "tall", "having a broad body" or "corpulent/fat/having great sacks of lard" (common when starting as a peasant). Fat does not slow down, and will be burnt away as your character does anything that involves sweating (sprinting or fighting to name a few). Broad body allows wielding of 2-handed weapons in one hand.

However, avoid "tall" or "having a broad body" traits. In my experience, adventurers with these tend to get hit more often than ones with an average build, and two-handed weapons are slow to ever use anyway. Press "r" or "f" to re-roll your character's appearance until it becomes to your liking.

Values and Personality

In DF2016, adventure mode now have implemented a complex personality system akin to that of fortress mode. All those perks and traits that you've seen in Fortress mode (e.g. "He is prone to anger") are now present. This means your character will now have desires that need satisfying besides eating or sleeping. Just as fortress mode units do, adventurers will now want think abstractly, need to socialize, desire to pray to deity, e.t.c , all according to their (fully customizable) values and emotions (represented in green and teal respectively at character creation screen).

Values

Emotions

Though it is not necessary no satisfy the aforementioned needs, meeting most of them applies the "Focused" status. According to my tests, focused character will hit the target more often and dodge with increased effectiveness, so it is definitely worth the effort.

Moreover, your character will have his own dream listed, based on the values you have specified. It is unknown at the moment what benefit fulfilling the dream will provide. Dreams can be easily changed (rerolled) by simply pressing full customization "f" key, then immediately pressing it again.

Your warlike adventurer naturally values (+++) power, martial prowess, skill, cunning, truth, independence, stoicism, self-control, craftsmanship, competition, perseverance and knowledge. At the same time, he despises (---) nature, romance and peace while being indifferent (N/A) to everything else. He dreams of ruling the world (or becoming a legendary warrior).

On the emotional plane, he never falls in love or lust, hates easily though not prone to anger, never gives in to feeling of sadness or anxiety, impervious to stress, has calm demeanor, strives for perfection, likes fighting, cruel, relentless, private to the point of paranoia and fears nothing.

The above values and emotions will provide your character with the following mindset:

As seen in the above image, your warmongering adventurer will have strong desire for crafting, training, practicing, learning, and an insatiable thirst for battle, while barely requiring anything else. This is where the advantage of picking the values and emotions according to the instructions above start to show up: fighting anything will simultaneously satisfy four major needs (training,earning,battling,practicing)while crafting can be easily fulfilled by knapping (making sharp rock). More on satisfying the needs and getting the "Focused" status will be explained in the "Needs and Focus" section.

Take into account, that you will not be able to EVER see this description (except list of needs) again during the regular gameplay. It is only available during character creation stage, so it is in your interests to make a screenshot and save it.

Finalizing the character

Values and personality screen is the last obstacle, that separates you from starting the game. Press Enter to begin the adventure.

Early Game

If you have followed all the instructions so far, you character will begin inside the human fortress. His/her starting items will depend on civilization you've chosen, however, all adventurers start with:

• A large copper dagger
• A copper spear
• A waterskin with 3 units of water
• A backpack
• 5 units of random foodstuffs

Immediate actions

The moment you spawn in the world, the following must be carried out immediately: [R]emove your starting waterskin and [D]rop it. I cannot stress this enough - it is absolutely, astonishingly useless, being able to fit only 3 units of water when your character needs to drink every 2-3 hours. Next, look around for soldiers of the fortress and recruit one of them as a companion. Afterwards, search around the fortress and pick up the following items:

• Any 2 bags (chuck out anything that might have been inside)
• Full set of armor (Helm, mail shirt, breastplate, gauntlets, greaves, high boots, shield/buckler. These can be of any material for the time being.
• An axe and a warhammer. These can be of any material or 2-handed for the time being. If there are training versions of axe or spear, take those as well.
• A pike and a whip/scourge (optionally, if there are any available)
• 5-10 copper or silver bolts

Some fortresses might be under-stocked and lack some items from this list. In this case, fast travel to another fort and search again.

Berry bags are common in human villages

After you got your gear together, equip the armor and a spear (without shield). Travel to the nearest river and fill (I) one of your empty bags with water. This will result in a container with 100 water units - more than enough for a long journey, even though you will be amazed how fast it will disappear.

To follow up, go in the nearby village and search in the peasants' houses for fisher/prickle berry/strawberry bags. All human civs start with fisher berries, so a village is guaranteed to have some. Usually, these bags contain multiple stacks of 20 to 100 berries. As soon as you've found one, drop your starting [5]stack food and pick the largest stack of berries. [P]ut it inside of your second bag.

Your inventory should look similar to what is shown on the image below:

All set, with a lucky find!

Now you are armored and armed, alongside a companion with plenty of food and drink. While still quite far from being combat-worthy, your character is now ready for initial combat training.

Training

At this stage, you are going to train your character's offensive and defensive skills. Even though they can be trained in any order, I suggest that you learn how to defend yourself first. However, it is completely up to you, and whatever training "facilities" you might have. When training, ask your companion to wait nearby at a distance he/she will not notice you fighting. This way, you will have a backup handy if something comes your way.

NOTE: Instructions that follow include a lot of tedious button presses. To make your training experience more comfortable, it is advised that you install the amazing key shortcut tool "AutoHotkey", available free of charge. It is a wonderful utility, that will make a lengthy combination into a matter of a single key press, which counts when typing Aa*gzua repeated 30 times, for example. Quickstart guide for AutoHotkey (along with an example script) can be found under "Tools" section. I personally do not consider this cheating in any way - it is a simple timesaver. By sticking to "hardcore style" button mashing you are not raising the challenge - you're introducing a handicap.

Defensive training

Defensive skill tree is comprised of Dodging and Shield user. These two are crucial to survival, they protect better than any armor, as both completely nullify ANY incoming damage, while armor does not. Armor user skill simply reduces speed penalty associated with wearing armor and is considered quasi-defensive.

• Any attack except breath/webs/dust attacks can be dodged. On a successful dodge all damage is nullified.
• Any attack except dust/webs/wrestling grabs can be blocked. On a successful block all damage is nullified.

A punch from a bronze colossus that can turn any armored human into paste is rendered completely harmless when blocked or dodged. Considering that around middle stages of the game you will encounter enemies much more fearsome than colossus makes Dodging and Shield User invaluable.

Method:

• 1.Find a small animal
• 2.Grab it
• 3.Let it attack you
• 4.Train

Explanation:

Make sure you have a weapon and a shield drawn. Prepare by placing your weapon in a backpack, then remove the said backpack and drop it somewhere you can remember. This will free you of unnecessary load. Begin by finding a small animal - cavies make a good choice, so do ducks, peacocks, turkeys, etc. Catch up to the said animal and grab it with your free hand. Now, simply spam the "Wait 10 ticks" button [.] and you will gain dodging/armor user/shield user experience as an animal you're holding attacks you. To gain shield user experience faster, manually block the incoming attacks with the shield.

If the animal you were holding passes out from exhaustion, simply wait, then repeat the above routine. Repeat until Legendary in all three skills.

Be aware, though, that even though your "animal training companion" is small, even a cat or a duck possess enough force to scratch the teeth out or stun with a well placed bite to the head, right through the helmet! Make sure your character is not tired prior to training.

• AUTOHOTKEY: Using 1::Send, . script will let you hold down [1] to continuously wait, instead of spamming the [.] dot button
• AUTOHOTKEY: Using 2::Send, Aca script will make you instantly block an attack with your shield the moment you press [2]. Combined with [.], you can spam these two keys one after another to level Shield User very quickly.

Offensive training

Every skill that directly that harms the enemy is a part of Offensive skill tree. This includes: any weapon mastery, Improvised weapons skill (misc. object user), wrestling and throwing. Majority of your targets will be dispatched with weapon strikes, some with unarmed strikes and wrestling and in certain cases, by having a heavy/sharp object flung at them. Hence, your character must learn to handle 3 weapon types (at least), punching/kicking, wrestling and throwing. Optionally, misc. object user is recommended, as this skill determines the hit rate (and damage) when bashing with the shield.

By this time, you should have the gear as instructed earlier in "Immediate Actions" section. Make no mistake, ensure you have all the necessary equipment!

Method:

• 1.Find a horse
• 2.Knock it unconscious
• 3.Blind it
• 4.Wait for it to regain consciousness
• 5.Train until Legendary

Explanation:

Fast travel map with pastures highlighted

• Similar to the defensive training, you will have to find an "animal training companion" first. Any human village has special "Pasture" areas around it. They are distinctively marked as green squares on the fast travel map. Roam around these until you find some with cattle present. Horses make one of the best animals to train your weapon skills on, as they are common around pastures and can take a lot of damage. Sometimes, there will be llamas or cows present - those suffice as well.

• As you have found a pasture spot with animals, memorize its location on the fast travel map. Remove your backpack and drop it there - it will be your training location for quite some time.

Next, take out the axe or a spear you have. Enter the [S]neaking mode and approach a horse. Use [A]ttacking menu and look for an Easy/Solid strike on legs/tail of the horse. You might have to approach it from multiple sides to find one. As soon as you have found an opening, stab the horse in the leg. If your strike connects, the horse will now have reduced movespeed, allowing to easily pursue it and stab another leg to bring horse to the ground.

Sometimes even wooden weapons are dangerous

• From now on, you have to disable the horse, so it cannot move or attack (when enraged). Enraged horse will make a quick work of inexperienced adventurer, often biting or wrestling(!) the unfortunate to death by breaking all the bones. Hence, proceed to bashing both of its eyes with the shaft (or flat of the axe), then punch the teeth out. Finally,chop off all hooves. Wait around until horse regains consciousness if it passed out. Use [S]neak mode to confirm, that the it has been blinded - if the usual cone of vision is not shown, it has. Blind animal cannot see you (obviously), and it does run away from what it cannot see. Also, it stops the horse from attacking you when enraged, but ONLY when you are not standing on the same tile as the enraged horse.

• After all of the above has been done, you will have a blind, immobile but resilient live training dummy to practice weapon skills on. Target its lower body to reduce the chance of lung damage and suffocation. Wooden weapons are perfect, as they do little to no harm. If you have no training weapons, use less lethal attacks, such as "Slap flat" for axe or "Shaft bash" for spear.

In the same manner, target the hooves to level punching and kicking without risk of killing the horse prematurely, as all punches and kicks will glance off. Wrestling is skilled by grabbing/releasing or pinching, and unlike other combat skills, your training dummy doesn't have to be conscious! So you can as well practice your chokeholds and locks on a knocked-out horse.

• Warhammer training is a bit tricky, as there are no training versions, and the weapon itself has only one attack (bash), which is deadly. A solution is to repeatedly bash the eye or mouth of your training dummy - doing so will provide experience without killing you "training companion", and it works with all other weapons too. Sometimes, your character might accidentally hit the horse's head when targeting the eye due to lack of skill. If the outcome is lethal, simply make another horse into the training dummy and repeat. Horses do respawn at pastures when you wait, sleep or leave the area in fast travel. This means, if you accidentally happened to kill all the animals, simply leave and return for a new batch.

Throwing experience doesn't require a training dummy and can be gained by throwing dirt or small stones. It's an essential skill that MUST be at legendary. Find a square that has "Small Rock" available in the [G]et menu, then use AutoHotkey to pick up stones and [T]hrow them instantly:

• AUTOHOTKEY: Use (w/o quotes) "3::Send, g<letter of stone pickup>" to pick the stone up. Your inventory must be completely empty of other throwables and you must not be wearing a backpack.
• AUTOHOTKEY: Use (w/o quotes) "4::Send,t<letter of stone in your inventory>{Up}{Enter}" to throw the stone north.
• AUTOHOTKEY: Use (w/o quotes) "5::Send, Aaba" to repeatedly attack lower body with whatever you have equipped in your right hand

Crucial concepts

• Recovery Time - the amount of time a character is effectively shut down after any combat action (striking, shooting, wrestling, throwing, blocking, dodging). Needless to say, it leaves you completely at the mercy of the opponent, and must be minimized at all costs. Ranged weapons (bows, crossbows) have HUGE recovery time after firing, so avoid like plague. Any and all entities capable of attacking have recovery time associated, indicated by "Recovering from attacking X' when targeted.

• Quick wait - the [,] key. Waits for one tick, as opposed to normal wait [.], that takes 10 ticks. Allows you to better manage the timings of battle against fast opponents.

• Enrage - sometimes a combatant might become enraged after getting hit (indicated by flashing red exclamation mark). This is equivalent to the berserking in fort mode, but not permanent. Any enraged creature will have its strength, pain threshold and resolve boosted, which removes any fear/shock status and sends it into relentless melee. You might find, that weaker foes who flee at the first signs of combat can be transformed into killing machines by Enrage, so avoid Enraged enemies if possible until they calm down.

Attack modes and when to use them

Quick, Heavy, Wild, Precise, Charge and Multi-attack.

Attack modes

• Quick attack - use all the time, as it greatly reduces recovery time. Strength gain of your adventurer will minimize the damage losses to the meaningless minimum in no time.

• Using the "multi-attack" [z] option in striking menu lets you strike on the move, hitting enemy while simultaneously evading his attack, or even an attack from another combatant. After selecting the attack type, enter the [A]ttack menu again, then Dodge away from the target. This technique is invaluable when fighting a crowd or a dangerous/prone to charge opponent. Always use vs. wrestlers. Press the quick wait [,] button to perform actions instead of regular wait to minimize recovery time. "Flutter like butterfly, sting like a megabeast".

• Heavy attack, Wild Attack, Charge attack - Never use on their own. This means NEVER. Both heavy and wild have ridiculous recovery times and dubious benefits, and charging is best performed by moving into your opponent while having your [C]ombat preference set to "Always Charge". However, Heavy attack has a use when combined with the next attack type: the Precise attack.

• Precise attack - at first glance, it might seem to belong in the above category of "never use". After all, the legendary weapon skill results in one-hit kill most of the times. That is until you come upon huge, extremely well armored, thick-skinned and legendary dodger enemies (and you will). Those adversaries will dodge well above 80% of your attacks, and those that land will either glance off, or cut skin/fat at best. This is where precise attack comes into play, and will win otherwise hopeless battle. It has the same enormous recovery time, so before striking make sure enemy is preoccupied with something else (attacking your companion for example). Then deliver Heavy Precise stab to the head with your best spear.

On Charging

Charge attack, when successful, will result in prone and stunned opponent, failed charge will stun the attacker instead.

Needless to say, charging can, and will be a game changer. Mastering it is crucial. Execute by first changing the [C]ombat preference to "Always charge", then moving into your opponent (do NOT use "charge attack mode from [A]tack menu!). After knocking down the enemy, deliver a quick blow to the vitals or hit the legs to keep it down. Don't forget to change [C]ombat preference back to "Never charge" after a fight.

Size matters! Charging an elephant is as bad of an idea as it is in real life. Charge targets of your own size and, preferably, lower strength. If you were following the guide so far, your adventurer will have no problem trampling every human/dwarf sized enemy in the world.

• Charge liberally vs: bandits, wolves, goblin raiders and elves.
• Charge carefully: enemies of your race marked as being "Tall" or "Muscular" (e.g. "Muscular bandit).
• Never charge: ANY undead, creatures of the night and anything larger than yourself. If it has "giant" in its name, it probably is.

Finalizing the training

Repeat the process until legendary in all necessary skills (Dodging, Shield user, Armor user, Axe, Spear, Warhammer, Wrestling, Striking, Kicking, Throwing). Additionally, you will end up with legendary Fighter skill as well as greatly increased strength, agility, endurance and focus.

At this point, you have the gear, body and skills to shift the battle scales heavily in your favor. Now, it is time to venture onward and leave a mark in the world!

Crucial concepts:

Weapons

In brief: your core weapons of choice must invariably be Spear, Axe and Warhammer.

Weapons you must have

Any adventurer worth his dwarfbuck MUST master Spear, Axe and Warhammer. All creatures in the game can be killed by at least one of these weapons.

Spear

• Best vs: Wild animals, organic megabeasts, organic humanoids
• Worst vs: inorganic enemies

High armor and tissue penetration values, fast speed, widespread availability. Stab attacks are lethal to any organic enemy: be it goblin or a dragon, a pieced brain is a sure death. It is a weapon of choice of the beasthunter and demonslayer alike, a first weapon of choice for fighting huge organic enemies (except blobs). Against humanoids, it is capable of piercing breastplates and chipping bones, which leads to unconsciousness due to pain (that is an instant death sentence). Stabs against armor or enemy made out of superior material (e.g. copper spear vs steel) glance off harmlessly most of the time, so material is crucial to the performance of the spear. It also tends to get stuck in the body of the target quite often.

However, spear is ineffective against targets with little or no vital organs (i.e. blobs, sponges) and is useless against inorganic enemies (i.e. made out of stone, metal, glass), as those have no organs whatsoever. For those situations, use the next weapon on the list, the axe.

Axe

• Best vs: Wild animals, humanoids, night creatures, undead, inorganic enemies.
• Worst vs: Large animals, Megabeasts or enemies of comparable size.

A truly universal weapon, axe is amazingly effective against most foes, organic or not. The ultimate strength of the "hack" attack comes in ability to incapacitate and kill targets immune to pain or organ damage, lop off limbs and even cleave entire bodies asunder. A swift hack to the feet will bring down kobold and bronze colossus alike, creating an opening for a strike to the head. The best weapons against zombies, axe also has a "slap flat" blunt crushing attack to finish a grounded zombie off without switching to the warhammer. As with the spear, material axe is made out of is crucial to its performance.

Otherwise, effectiveness of the axe diminishes as the target's size increases. Against large animals (such as rhino or elephant) hacking only cuts fat/skin/muscle without doing the lethal damage. Limbs of huge enemies are much thicker, and hence are much harder to chop off, often requiring 10 or more strikes. Against armored or clothed gigantic targets (i.e demons) axe is worthless. Use the spear should you encounter these.

Warhammer

• Best vs: Humanoids and armored targets.
• Worst vs: Inorganic large creatures.

Unanimously considered the deadliest weapon against humanoids, warhammer became even more viable choice with introduction of body parts pulping (crushing) (and bleeding from pulping). Your adversary might wear a full artifact adamantine armor set, and it will not save him from having bones broken right through it by the "bash" attack. Warhammer ignores any and all armor foes might wear. Additionally, the pulping damage stacks, so with some patience, it is possible to maul even the megabeasts (organic) to death. Warhammer is also the easiest weapon to make, with copper being one of the best materials for its production due to its density.

Unfortunately, hammer suffers from the same problem as battle axe - reduced combat yields against large targets. Also, attacks will glance off inorganic enemies made out of high-grade materials (e.g. steel colossus).

Optional weapons

Pike

• Best vs: Wild animals, organic megabeasts, humanoids.
• Worst vs: Inorganic enemies

Basically, a buffed spear on steroids. pike has even greater penetration value, meaning it pierces armour and thick tissues like paper. Undoubtedly the best weapon against large animals (elephant, rhino, hippo) and a good pick against organic megabeasts. However, as any 2handed weapon it is slower than spear, meaning your enemy might sneak in an attack before you do, which limits its use for predominantly hunting big game.

The biggest drawback of the pike is its inability to be manufactured by dwarves in fortress mode. This limits your selection to whatever you can find in the world. Though, with enough luck you might be able to come across masterwork iron pike, however, this is as good as it can get - steel (and better) pikes are nonexistent in vanilla game.

If you happen to be born under a particularly lucky star, a moody dwarf can sometimes produce an artifact pike from whatever metals you might have in the fort, including adamantine. But if that is the case, what are you doing here? Get to those lottery tickets numbers pronto!

Whip and Scourge

• Best vs: Everything
• Worst vs: Nothing

Whip and Scourge are examples of one of the many bugs of Dwarf fortress. Basically, these act as blunt weapons, but have penetration values that of a lightsaber, being able to slice through any armor or thickness of flesh. A copper whip can chip a bone through steel, adamantine, demon skin and dragon scale. Altogether. It is also effective against inorganic enemies, chipping their body material and accumulating the damage that will eventually bring down anything.

In the preamble to this guide I have mentioned not abusing glitches, and this is one of them. Do not use these weapons if you are looking for a reasonable challenge. Though it can be argued, that whips are somewhat less effective against enemies immune to pain.

ABSOLUTE BEST

This is a list of the best weapons you can possibly have to give you something to aspire to. While some are impractically difficult to acquire, it is possible to manufacture them in fortress mode with creative resource management.

• AXE: Artifact quality adamantine battle axe, coated with paralyzing FB dust.
• SPEAR: Artifact quality adamantine spear, coated with paralyzing FB dust.
• WARHAMMER: Artifact quality platinum warhammer, coated with necrosis inducing FB dust.

Weapons to avoid

• Mace - warhammer is better in almost every aspect
• Sword - Lower penetration value than spear, less limb-hacking potential than axe and astonishingly useless slap attack, more fit to squishing mosquitoes.
• Most of 2h weapons - these are slower, and rod you of opportunity to use shield (which is huge). Broad body adventurers can use 2handed in just one hand, but in my experience, they also tend to get hit more often.
• Ranged weapons - Some weapons are simply least effective, some are plain bad, but none are actually as dangerous to their user as bow and crossbow get. After taking a shot (which, by the way, cannot be aimed at a particular body part), your character will be stuck in place for about 20-40 ticks, unable to move, fight or in fact, unable to do anything. Maybe it was implemented to simulate reloading, but in any case, it leaves you vulnerable, very vulnerable. To add insult to injury, ammunition is dreadfully heavy, with as much as 10 bolts enough to slow down "high" strength character. And 10 is rarely enough to bring anything substantial down. If you want a ranged attack, throw bolts/arrows instead.

Sheathing

The q key lets you strap your weapons to your back.

This is useful because you can't climb or wrestle with your hands unless your hands are free.

People will also be less likely to be scared of you on first sight if you don't appear to be ready to attack.

Time and Weather

D	Date
P	Temperature
W	Weather/Time

The game has a day/night cycle with time passing as various actions take place.

When using quick travel mode, the top line of the screen will indicate the position of the sun in the sky with a yellow "☼"; further to the right of the screen is earlier in the day and further to the left is later in the day.

In local travel mode you'll have to use the W command to learn the position of the sun, when you're in a place where the sun is visible.

At night you won't be able to see nearly as well and you will be more vulnerable to ambush.

The game also has weather and temperature. The most common weather you'll experience is rain. Rain is shown as blue moving dots on the local travel screen and will unsurprisingly cause everything outside to become wet. Temperature is important because if it happens to drop below freezing while you're swimming through water, you'll instantly die from being encased in the ice.

Therefore you might want to keep an eye on the temperature while swimming, especially if it's getting cold.

Also, unlike fortress mode, rivers/other bodies of water can be liquid during the day, and freeze at night. The cycles of freezing can also be erratic from day to day.

Freezing weather can also freeze liquids in your inventory solid, making them undrinkable. If your water freezes and you are thirsty, make a campfire and Interact with your waterskin to heat it over the fire and melt the ice.

Sleep

Z

Sleep

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

Sleep does not necessarily have to coincide with night, but if you're traveling alone when night comes you'll be in danger of being attacked by Bogeymen. To avoid this while traveling solo you need to make it to shelter before nightfall and sleep the night away inside a building or abandoned lair. Enter a building, use k to talk to a human, and ask for permission to stay the night. Next press Z to sleep, d to sleep until dawn, then Enter to confirm. (NOTE: If you stay the night in a castle, you have to sleep in the keep which houses the lord/lady of the castle. Sleeping inside the castle but outside the keep still leaves you vulnerable to attack.) Sleeping on an ocean beach also prevents bogeymen from attacking. (If you'd rather not deal with bogeymen, you can disable them by generating a world using advanced world generation and setting "Number of Night creatures" to 0)

Though sleeping inside can be safe, it's also limiting: any quest site you want to go to has to be within a daytime's round-trip time of a safe habitation, and you have to make your way to there by hopping from one habitation to the next, sleeping at each along the way. A way to avoid this is to travel with companions. If you have any companions with you then Bogeymen won't attack you. You'll still have to sleep at night, though, both to avoid sleep deprivation and because there's no visibility at night. You can still be ambushed at night by wildlife, but that's much less likely than being ambushed by Bogeymen when traveling alone. If you find yourself alone at night with nowhere safe to sleep, the safest bet is to keep traveling until dawn, even if that means running around in circles. You will eventually feel unwell from sleep deprivation, but this can take a considerable amount of time. You can make up for lost sleep once you've found your way to safety.

Note that sleeping in lairs, shrines, and labyrinths makes you safe from ambush, assuming that you or someone else has killed whatever was living there. If you have sufficient shrines/lairs/etc between you and your goal and they are either uninhabited or inhabited by things you are capable of killing then you can travel from lair to lair using each lair as a safe lodging. This is much safer than sleeping out in the open, day or night, even with companions.

If no other options are available, completely surrounding yourself with campfires will keep night marauders at bay as they cannot pass through the fires; the fires will go out after several hours and enable you to move on (you may also be able to jump over the fires). The bogeymen or other enemies may be outside your line of sight, which will prevent you from firing arrows or throwing things at them. In this case, you will have to stand up and lie down s repeatedly until the enemies wander into your range, the fires go out and the enemies can path to you, or dawn breaks.

It should be noted that, as of DF2014, climbing trees and sleeping on them will prevent Bogeyman attacks, as well. This is especially useful if you prefer to play solo, and do not wish to have an army of followers in your employ. This is also useful if you prefer to engage enemies at your own pace (such as via stealth), rather than having your entire follower party immediately charge at anything that is hostile to you. Be wary though, as bogeymen may still be able to reach you by climbing.

Food 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 from it, or drink from it directly. Water that may be covering you or your items will not be able to satisfy your thirst.

Note that drinking vampire blood will turn you into a vampire instantly.

Make sure to eat or drink regularly even if you're not hungry or thirsty, as you can only eat or drink thrice at a time: after that you'll need to rest, or wait until you can consume another meal. If you find yourself in need of both food and hydration, make sure to take care of the most urgent problem first, as if you are moderately hungry but severely dehydrated and eat three times, you may die before you have another chance to drink.

If the temperature is low enough you might have trouble finding liquid water. Snow and ice can be heated into water by first making a campfire with g and then performing an advanced interaction with I on the ice or snow in your inventory to heat it. Advanced interactions with your waterskin can also be used to gather water from water sources, or snow from the ground.

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

Combat is the fine art of using physical force to cause injury and death, and it is particularly fun in Dwarf Fortress.

Melee Attacks

Hostile creatures can be attacked using a non-aimed attack by simply advancing towards your enemy using the arrow keys. Doing a non-aimed attack will also have a chance of freeing up any stuck weapon, though you are more likely to accomplish this by moving away from the enemy, or complexly interacting with the weapon.

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 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.

Attacks aimed at the head are the most effective; a single attack to the cranium with a weapon will usually put an end to the fight. Aimed attacks are especially useful for dismembering opponents. Opponents who are missing a foot will fall over, thereby greatly lowering their speed, and giving you an immediate edge in the fight. Cutting off both hands also highly recommended for obvious reasons. After all, a field full of armless, one-legged enemies can be a big experience booster for your companions.

Aimed attacks are also especially helpful when fighting giant beasts. Some enemies like giant desert scorpions have lots of redundant body parts, and random attacks waste valuable time on low priority areas while the scorpion is busy injecting venom into the whole party. Lastly, aimed attacks allow you to grab trophies that are not available via butchering. For example, a minotaur's horns can be cut off during a fight, but since its a humanoid, most adventurers will refuse to butcher its corpse after the fight. However, in Dwarf Fortress 2014, all butcherable corpses are able to be butchered, as long as the corpse isn't too mangled.

There are several options below the hitting menu. Quick attacks are faster than regular attacks but weaker. Heavy attacks are slower but attack harder. Wild attacks are faster and hit harder but are inaccurate. Precise attacks are very slow but are much more likely to hit. Multi-attacks allow you to attack several times in a row at a great cost to the effectiveness of any one of the chosen attacks.

Ranged Attacks

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. Note that you need to have some sort of ammo, corresponding to the type of ranged weapon you are using (for example, bows use arrows, crossbows use bolts). Otherwise, a message stating "You have nothing left to fire." is displayed in brown. Similarly use the t key to throw any random object in the same manner. Random objects appear to make a random attack if they happen to have more than one possible type.^[Verify] For example, if you throw a sword it may hit with a blunt impact, a stabbing impact, or a slicing impact. Throwing crossbow bolts with sufficient throwing skill and strength seems to have an effect similar to firing them, although less powerful. On the plus side, you will never lose ammo if you throw it.

It is not possible to aim for specific body parts with ranged or thrown attacks.

Throwing is generally a good skill to have for any adventurer, as it allows you to slow down fleeing foes, both on the ground and in the air without the need of equipping a (cross)bow. Just like looking, you can use throwing to view and hit enemies multiple Z levels away from you. If you're lucky, you can simply land a hit that causes the flying enemy to give in to pain, and then let gravity do the rest of the work. Even if the fall doesn't kill them, they will most likely be stunned long enough for you to run up and slaughter them.

Wrestling and Unarmed Attacks

Main article: Wrestling

Wrestling (grappling) can be performed by selecting an enemy via A followed by b to wrestle. You can wrestle any enemy. Wrestling works somewhat like a targeted attack. Once you grab a creature by some body part, you may be able to make another wrestling attempt that will allow you to perform a throw or takedown.

For a detailed list of moves such as takedowns, throws, choke holds, etc., see Wrestling.

It's also possible to punch, kick, and bite. These are not in the wrestling menu but are performed like normal targeted attacks with A.

Weapons

Weapons are basically divided into axe, sword, spear, pike, mace, whip, bow and hammer, with various versions of these taking up the gray area.

Wounds

If you get wounded during combat, there's not much that you can do except perhaps run before you get more wounded. Your wounds will heal over time, so just travel around or sleep in a safe place. Some wounds however may never heal, leaving you permanently crippled. Obtaining a crutch may help with this. Or if you are not already a vampire, then you can get bitten by a werebeast during full moon, which will heal all injuries once per month.

If you have some bolts or arrows stuck in your body, they can be removed by using the complex interaction menu I. Select the stuck bolt or arrow from the list and then pull it out with a You'll probably start bleeding after you pull it out, but the bleeding is rarely anything to worry about.

Combat Preferences

At any time during gameplay (Except 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. These have a few different preferences each:

• attack
  • According to Opponent - The default setting. When set to this, charging happens more or less frequently, depending on the difference in size between you and the opponent. Bigger opponents get charged less, smaller more often. Can be very risky, since a random charge against a huge opponent is likely to get you knocked down and stunned. In the same vein, charging when close to obstacles or other environmental hazards is very dangerous, potentially fatal, if the enemy dodges you.
  • Strike - This setting ensures that you never charge an opponent, but rather just swing your weapon at them. This carries less risk than the above, but you're never going to knock anyone down without hitting their legs or spine. Very preferable against large opponents.
  • Charge - When set to this, you ALWAYS charge. When faced with numerous small enemies (Bogeymen in particular), this can be extremely useful, but remember to switch back when facing something bigger. Charging a large dragon is almost a certain death sentence.
  • Close Combat - With this setting, all your auto-attacks are grapples. Generally not very useful, since the random nature of it tends to prevent you from actually doing any damage with it, but if you continually auto-attack a harmless creature with it your wrestling-skill will be legendary in no time.

• dodge
  • Move Around - This means you can jump away from attacks, physically moving in a random direction. While this lets you dodge attacks more often, it can also result in you jumping into a wall or down a lake. If you're fighting in really tight spaces, or areas with large pits, you might want to switch to the other option.
  • Stand Ground - As can be expected, you stand your ground. No jumping around, which is useful in the above situation, but risky in the open. If you have room for jumping around, go with Move Around, but otherwise this could be a good idea.

• charge Defense
  • According to Opponent - Again, the default setting. You're more likely to stand still against small enemies charging, but will probably prefer moving away from larger ones. Somewhat risky, in that even a somewhat small enemy can stun you by charging.
  • Dodge Away - With this, you'll dodge away from charging enemies, if you can. It's not a sure bet, but it's very much worth it against enemies who like to charge. This is probably the most preferable mode, since you're not losing a whole lot by dodging a small foe charging, but dodging an angry night beast can save you from a world of pain.
  • Stand Ground - If you're certain of your physical superiority to the opponent, you can safely choose this. Standing your ground like a real man/woman might feel hardcore, but getting knocked down in a fight can be extremely dangerous. It probably has some use against bogeymen though, since they're quite small. If you really are much bigger than the enemy, you'll end up knocking THEM down. Most of the time though, charges heavily favor the attacker, so dodging away is probably preferable.

Using Combat Preferences properly can actually save your hide, so it's worth fiddling with. Just don't forget that you've fiddled with them, since a misplaced charge or dodge could end up killing you.

Talking

Talking to someone in Adventurer mode.

k	Talk to somebody

Now that you know how to kill people, you may also want to know how to talk to and otherwise interact with them in a less violent manner. While this is less entertaining, it can sometimes be useful.

To begin a conversation, 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.

Whenever you want to advance the conversation, you have to press k again and choose the ongoing conversation you wish to continue. You will also see ongoing conversations from people who have started a conversation with you. If you want to talk to someone else during this time, simply Start a new conversation.

• Greet listener — Has you offering a greeting to someone, when you're initiating the conversation.
• Bypass greeting (new menu) — Skips the greeting, taking you straight to the normal conversation menus.
• Reply to greeting — If you aren't the one who started the conversation, this option will let you reply to someone's greeting. They will then talk about some trouble.
• Refuse conversation — Causes you to explicitly refuse to talk to someone who started a conversation with you. Unknown if this has a different effect from simply not doing anything.^[Verify]
• Reply to greeting (impersonation) — Like Reply to greeting, except you're impersonating a deity.
• Nevermind — This has you back out of having a conversation.

When you start talking to someone, you are presented with a wide array of things to talk about. (If the person you are talking to started the conversation and told you about some trouble, you'll first get a menu related to that trouble. Just press --Enter to Change the subject (new menu) and get to this first menu.) Your choices are as follows:

Return to current topic (new menu)	You'll see this option only if you chose to change the subject in another menu. This will, predictably, take you back to that subject.
Bring up specific incident or rumor (new menu)	Allows you to spread rumors or summarize conflicts you've been a part of. The next step of the conversation will bring up a menu of choices that allow you to ask for directions to places or state your opinion on the incident/rumor.
Ask to become a hearthperson	Only appears when talking to a leader who you aren't under the command of. Allows to become one the leader's guards.
Invite listener to become a hearthperson	Only appears when you are a leader. Allows to become one the leader's guards.
Request duty or advice pertaining to service as a hearthperson	Only appears when talking to a leader who are under the command of. You will receive some task to accomplish for the group, if there is anything that needs doing.
Bring up the journey together	Only appears when talking to a companion. The next step of the conversation will allow you to cancel the agreement you made with that person, if you so choose.
Inquire about any troubles	Asks the listener what things in the world are bothering them and their people.
Ask for directions (new menu)	Allows you to ask for the location of a specific creature or site. People aren't guaranteed to know, and may instead direct you to someone who does.
Ask about the local ruler	As you might imagine, this gets you some information on who controls this particular area.
Trade	Allows you to trade with a merchant. Note that you have to be right next to them for this to work.
Exchange, give, or take personal items	Like Trade, only that it works with non-merchants.
Ask favor, place request, make demand or issue order (new menu)	Takes to a menu of various request you can make, including asking the listener to yield, stay put, or pay homage to your group. The options available depends on who you're talking to.
Ask listener to join you (new menu)	This is how you get companions. You can either ask them to join you on an adventure, or to lead you to some location.
Claim this site for yourself (group naming menu)	This option allows you to stake a claim on the site you are in.
Ask for permission to stay a day	Allows you to sleep in the listener's building for the night.
Ask about the structure you are in	Tells you about whatever structure you are standing in, if you are standing in one.
Ask about this site's neighbors and trade partners	Lets you learn what sites this site is neighboring and/or trading with.
Ask about the surrounding area	Choosing this will tell you about some location nearby, and why it's significant.
Comment on weather	Small talk about the weather. Really.
Comment on natural surroundings	Same as the weather, only about the nature around you.
Accuse listener of being a night creature	If chosen against a night creature, such as a vampire, it will expose them. Normal individuals will just think you're losing it.
Inquire about listener's profession	Learn what it is the listener does. Useful for lords and ladies and anyone else whose profession isn't listed next to them.
Ask about listener's family	Discover what family the listener has, as expected.
Brag about your past violent acts	Causes you to brag about whatever last violent act you did. Doesn't seem to have an effect, or at least severely less impactful than summarizing the conflict.[Verify]
Say goodbye	Ends the conversation.

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 fame/reputation level and the Social Awareness attribute. With average social awareness and the maximum level of fame, the limit is 19 companions.

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. An evil and arguably inefficient way to get equipment is to intentionally get your companions killed and then take their stuff. If you are trying to help your companions, 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.

If they survive long enough/are trained well enough then companions are capable of leveling stats and skills. Thus they are susceptible to gaining a title or having a job title change as well.

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. If you keep losing your companions while traveling through rivers, try going to a spot where the river becomes a "minor river" (shown by a single dark blue line). Brooks are obviously also safe to cross.

Personal Finance

Trading (barter)

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. You can also either ask for or offer currency as part of the process. Once done, press t to trade. The shopkeeper won't get angry if you're not offering enough in trade, so you can start offering just a few items, keep trying again with a little more until the trade is accepted. Once the trade is accepted all of the items you offered will be on the floor underneath you.

After trading, you will find the stuff you gave on the floor at your feet, and the stuff you got in your inventory.

Theft

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 excommunication 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. This may make a getaway more difficult if your adventurer is not already faster than anyone else. This only applies to goods in stores; killing townsfolk and taking their personal things, including those of the shopkeep still only requires exiting the site. The moment you are out of sight, you will be able to warp out as usual. Theft and murder remain within entities; even depopulating one country and stealing all its things will not generate ill response in another country.

In some cases, the shop will be abandoned. This will be made clear by the presence of unbought items and the lack of any merchants in the area. You will not be considered a thief by the relevant entity for taking stuff from an abandoned shop.

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.

Managing coins

You will find that coins from one civilization are nearly worthless in other civilizations. This will typically result in adventurers carrying around lots of now useless coins. 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. Remember, merchants will always try to pay you in higher denomination currency first but will resort to lower value coins if they run out of anything higher. First, check the merchant's chest to see how much of each type of coins they have.

Coin values are as follows:

• Copper Coin = 1☼
• Silver Coin = 5☼
• Gold Coin = 15☼

To receive the maximum amount of gold coins from that merchant, make sure the amount "they owe you" during the trade is equal to (total amount of gold coins the shop has)*15☼ . If you are selling loot, simply make sure you only trade this worth of goods, and move on to other merchants for the rest. If you wish to exchange copper and silver coins for gold, buy random goods from the merchant until their price is around this value and then sell back all of the goods for their original value but in gold.

Alternatively, 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.

A few goods are strictly superior to all forms of coinage as a store of value, most notably giant cave spider silk items. A suitably sneaky (or powerful) adventurer can murder a few dwarves or goblins for such items for trade and sale for human goods. Giant cave spider silk is a non-renewable resource in a given world - please harvest responsibly.

Where to get items to sell

The best place to get items to sell is at bandit camps, after you've slaughtered all the bandits. You can loot the clothes and equipment off of the corpses of the bandits (and off your fallen companions, too), plus at the very center of camp there'll be a few scattered weapons and a few bags/chests containing various goods.

The next best way to get items to sell is to kill a creature, butcher their corpse (see below for how), and pick up the edible bits. Butchered bits from the corpses of people (dwarves, elves, humans, etc.) can sometimes be found in monster lairs and these seem to be just as desired by shopkeepers as the products you gain from your own butchering.

Another good early source of income can be bags left in houses and shops, which usually contain plants and food. No one will complain, and the plants inside can be sold at about 2☼ each plus the value of the bag.

At the bottom of the list comes Looking carefully and selling any small creatures you might find. However, shops will not accept live creatures unless they are in cages. Some rocks, piles of sand, and other things found on the ground nearly everywhere can also be sold for 1☼ each.

You can also try filling your backpack from river - it can hold up to 100 units of water which is worth 100☼ total. After your sell it, water will drop to the floor as a pool, and backpack can be refilled instantly and for free from there. In fact, you can infinitely fill any container from any pool/pile of any liquid/powder, so if you happen to find some precious substance like sunshine or dwarven sugar, money won't be a problem for you anymore. This is of course an exploit, liable to be fixed at any time. It may be useful in a pinch, but don't rely on it.

Another devious method is to go outside the shop, grab handfuls of mud and throw it into your backpack, then sell them for 1☼ each. The merchants will gladly buy your rare and valuable mud despite the unlimited free mud just outside their shop.

Quest Log

Q	Open quest log
Esc	Exit quest log
e p 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.
• 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.

Crafting

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

Adventurers can perform limited crafting, (also known as "reactions"). To access the crafting menu, press x.

• Knapping allows an adventurer to sharpen a rock. Knapping only works on stones on the ground or in your hands. Choose the create option and then select "Make sharp stone". You will be prompted to choose a rock to sharpen ("tool stone"), and then the rock that is to be the hammerstone. The tool stone will be replaced in your hand by a sharp version.

• Butchering acts similarly to Fortress Mode's Butchery by converting a corpse into edible products, bones, and skin. A corpse must be on the ground or in your hand. With a sharp object (such as a dagger or knapped stone or even a bolt/arrow) in your hand or on the same tile of the corpse, select the butcher option, and then you can select the corpse and the sharp tool to butcher with. The corpse will be replaced by its butchering returns.

• Spitting gives you spit, which can be aimed at someone in much the same way as any projectile. To get this, choose natural ability and then spit in the reactions menu.

You may also gain acquired abilities when you become a creature of the night, such as a necromancer.

Sites

More information on each type of site can be found in the site's specific article.

Civilization

Civilizations are organized groups of creatures (generally of the same race) which build sites such as towns.

Human Sites

Towns + * # ☼

Humans live in towns comprised of buildings and often a paved road. Human towns are highly modular, and are usually near some source of water, either the coast or a river.

Towns appear on the fast travel map (when outside a site) as ■ or ■ symbols which are small collections of buildings. When you are near a human site, large yellow blocks indicate where various houses and shops are found (though not all houses and shops can be found in these blocks; sometimes you'll find a house or two out in a site's fields). You usually have to follow the roads in a yellow block on the fast travel map.

Towns usually have lots of interesting structures which are described fully in the town article.

Hamlets æ Æ = ≡

Most of the time, the majority of a human civilization's population will live in small hamlets, which tend to be sprawled out along coastlines and through river valleys. Like other sites, they can be invaded, and you'll sometimes find them captured by other civilizations, necromancers, or criminal syndicates. Human adventurers usually spawn in hamlets.

Note that hamlets are similar in structure to towns, only they have mead halls instead of keeps, and don't have any defensive walls.

Dwarven Sites

Dwarf Fortresses Ω

These are the randomly generated equivalent of the sites you build in dwarf fortress mode. Fortresses are described in detail in the own article. Their main function for adventurers is that they have a central, spiraling ramp that connects the underground and above-ground worlds, particularly in that they connect the subterranean tunnel networks to the rest of the dwarf civilization. They are located at the edges of mountain ranges.

Player-made fortresses are considered dwarf fortresses by the game, in addition to the randomly-generated ones.

Mountain Halls Ω

Mountain halls are the sites of the "deep dwarves," located far beneath the mountains. They can be accessed via down-stairs found in underground tunnels, and are comprised of a couple of levels that contain bedrooms and large halls filled with smelters or forges.

Hillocks Ω

Hillocks are the dwarf equivalent to human hamlets. They consist of a few circular mounds filled with dwarf citizens. There doesn't seem to be any settlement pattern for them; they are equally likely to be found in any land biome.

Elven Sites

Forest Retreats î ¶

Elves live in forest retreats located, unsurprisingly, in forest biomes. They are essentially clusters of huge trees with elves standing in and around them.

Goblin Sites

Dark Fortresses π π π

These are the main goblin sites. Some dark fortresses may contain a certain spoiler.

Dark Pits º

These are the goblin equivalent of hamlets and hillocks. Dark Pits are essentially canyons lined with wooden guard towers. They tend to be built in huge clusters around the dark fortresses, such that large chunks of the map may be covered with them.

Kobold Sites

Caves •

Caves are sometimes home to kobold groups. They are mounds filled with narrow tunnels leading to the caverns and usually contain piles of random loot resulting from kobold thieving incursions.

Night Creature Sites

Necromancer's Towers I

Necromancer's Towers are built by necromancers who have at least 50 followers; younger necromancers may take over towns or camps instead. Usually you can find books written by the necromancer, some of which contain the secret to life and death. Towers require abundant human populations (low savagery, large tracts of neutral land) and a high number of secrets to be generated in world generation, as necromancers cannot be elf or goblin.

Lairs

Lairs are the homes of night trolls. Lairs are mounds or holes in the ground with doors or hatch covers. Most night troll lairs are inhabited by a single creature, but sometimes you'll encounter entire families of five or even ten.

Megabeast Sites

Minotaur's Labyrinths #

A Labyrinth is an intricate network of tunnels often filled with the bodies of previous adventurers slain in worldgen by its resident minotaur. As you explore the labyrinth, you will hear the minotaur taunting you.

Shrine Å

Shrines are huge stone structures surrounded by pillars that are the homes of bronze colossi and titans. Several of them can be found on a single site, making its exploration particularly hazardous. Demons have also been reported to inhabit them.

FAQ

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 dwarf 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.
• If you have good speed, try to fight enemies one-by-one — keep moving backwards and only attack when you're within range of just one enemy.
• 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 one space away from you, use that as an opportunity to throw a knife or a rock at them; worst case, they will get a bruise or a cut; best case, they will start the melee severely crippled. 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 loot their corpses for 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. Remember that coins only have nominal value in the civilization they've been minted, but gems are equally valuable anywhere.

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. 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. Sneaking on the fast travel screen may work as well.^[Verify] 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).

  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 40_23 one seem to aquire Observer skill from regular combat.

• 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 being bitten by 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 or above. 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, if you lose both legs then your character is going to be severely limited just 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 or 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.
• 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 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.
• 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 werebeast 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 abnormalcy 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.
• 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.
• Also, some werebeasts are truly gigantic — weremammoth has a size of 9000000, on par with demons.
• To become a werebeast, make one bite you. It has to be in the 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\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 health point limit 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.

See Also

• Adventure Mode Quick Reference
• Adventure Mode Quickstart Guide

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 ones 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)}

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