Internet legends last a day

In regards to the “Jade Raymond” new internet legend. This is my reaction:

What’s the point here beside a “I hate people” argument? Because this isn’t the internet. This is the world.

I don’t know what happens in the US but if we get over here a pretty woman doing politics then you CAN BE SURE that the image will always come first, that you’ll have plenty of (admittedly questionable) humor and satire about it. It happens the same with writers, actors, journalists, dancers, bankers, whatever.

This isn’t even the byproduct of male-chauvinist society. Women drool after soccer players. Not always because they play well soccer. Women drool after actors. Not always because they act well.

This isn’t the “game industry”, this is everywhere. And I don’t get the outrage. Aren’t movies promoted because there’s Leonardo DiCaprio or George Clooney in it?

Now we sue webcomics because the humor doesn’t correspond to an idea of personal taste?

One wonders what could have happened if instead of Assassin’s Creed she was the producer of The Witcher and agreed to appear in a digitalized form as one of the hookers.

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Orwell 2007: books that need to burn

Apparently there are still some who think certain books deserve to go in the fire.

This isn’t a case of worried parents about their innocent, grown but still children seeing nipples in The Witcher. It’s instead about another amusing variety: feminists.

I had opened a thread on westeros forum to ask about other worthy fantasy epics missing from my list and someone brought up John Norman’s “Chronicles of Gor” series. If length is a factor this one would be at the top. TWENTY-SEVEN books of about 400-500 pages each! Written by the same author in the span of forty years. I guess dedication is out of doubt here.

The description on the wikipedia was also intriguing:

a series of twenty six novels that combine philosophy, erotica and science fiction.

And,

Gor is an intricately detailed world in terms of flora, fauna, and customs. John Norman — the pen-name of Dr. John Lange, a professor of Philosophy and a classical scholar — often delights in ethnography, populating his planet with the equivalents of Roman, Greek, Native American, Viking, and other cultures.

Most of the novels in the series are action adventures, with many of the military engagements borrowing liberally from historic ones, such as the trireme battles of ancient Greece and the castle sieges of medieval Europe. Ar, a Rome-like city in which several of the novels are set, maintains a “margin of desolation” similar to that of Mesopotamia’s Gu-Edin.

So I went looking if they were available in a purchasable form, meaning some cheap omnibus editions, and found one that was supposed to be published just these days.

Since the description is weird (one to three months to get a copy? For a book released just now?) I tried to search the Dark Horse site to find out if the book was really out and when/if the following were planned. And found no references. At all.

Weird.

So I did another simple Google search and discovered some fun facts. The first is that a shop listed the book as “in stock”, but the publisher wasn’t Dark Horse, but Diamond. For those who don’t know Diamond is the retail distributor for Dark Horse comics, so this is weird too. The second fact is that I found bloggers who were also puzzled by the disappearance of the omnibus from Dark Horse catalog. Because it was there. There’s even a Google link to the site that now points nowhere.

One of these blogs gave a first hint:

Apparently a comic book publisher named Dark Horse Comics is planning on publishing a Gor Omnibus, a single book containing the first three novels of the Gor series. For some reason this made the feminist comic book geeks livid! They were all typing away at their little keyboards, trying to organize a boycott of Dark Horse in an effort to prevent publication. And what I found amazing was they didn’t see it as censorship.

And apparently it worked, as one of these activists confirms, quoting a response mail from Dark Horse:

We have not completely cancelled the publication of the Gor Omnibus–but it has been suspended for the time being. Please do check back to the website for any updates.

Some sites give the book as already out and maybe Dark Horse tried to publish it “anonymously” to avoid too many troubles, but it’s only my wild guess.

Some other blogs explain at least the reasons:

As a puerile fantasy novel series that promotes rigid gender roles, idealises the emotional and sexual slavery of women, and demonises women who assert control over their own sexuality, it’s much less entertaining.

The Gor series, by John Norman, dropped off the reprint lists some years back. Being anti-censorship, I was much enheartened by the natural demise of this despicable work.

Now comics publisher Dark Horse is reprinting them in omnibus form, possibly because they have seen the pot of gold at the foot of the misogyny rainbow, or possibly because our culture just isn’t replete enough with fictional examples of women who really – honestly! – want to be raped.

They have a point and their criticism is right and probably deserved… but censorship? That’s never excused. Especially in a work of fiction where you CAN roleplay with absurdity. Where you CAN explore what would be forbidden otherwise.

Because in this case my impression is that those feminists who feel offended by the books are those who are blurring fiction with reality more than the author of those books.

Weird that they think to be feminists, because it’s when you are discriminated that you should truly learn tolerance. And by identifying a danger in a silly fantasy series you actually give it more power than it ever had. You are pouring life back into an enemy that would have no reason to exist today. You should be entertained or smile at the naivete of these books, instead they are given a relevance that they shouldn’t have and probably never had.

How can you fight for equality of men and women when you don’t miss any occasion to mark and exasperate that parting line?

This is also another demonstration of the real, counterproductive result of censorship: you publicize and diffuse what you wanted to hide. I wouldn’t have written about the series if nothing had happened, maybe some will now become curious and buy the books.

And maybe they are even fun to read. Not politically correct, but still fun.

The covers are wonderful. Or maybe they are distasteful too?

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See George Martin’s world come to life

Usually fantasy art destroys the sense of wonder you get from a book. You imagine scenes in your head and when you see them portrayed you are always deluded by the result.

This is a rare exception. I’ve read the news from Most Popular fantasy blog, Martin is at work to make a sourcebook/encyclopedia on “A Song of Ice and Fire” and there will be 13 illustrations by Ted Nasmith to give life to some key locations in the books. One artist I’ve never heard about but obviously talented.

You can see eight of these masterpieces on the artist’s website, by clicking on one of the small images at the top, then clicking the image appearing for a full-size version.

This *does* justice to Martin’s work. It is as powerful as you can imagine, and actually adds to it. These illustrations wouldn’t be out of place inside the books themselves, they would complement them perfectly. As opposed to WoT’s sourcebook, where the illustrations would kill every attempt at keeping things cool in your mind. Awe-killers. Too often no art is much better to something mediocre.

Not in this case, those paintings would make some gorgeous covers for the books themselves. Why we never get cover art this good?

I’d make a school

There’s an interview with Lum and Dave Rickey at F13 and I wanted to answer the last question.


So, presume you had an infinite amount of time, an infinite amount of talent and an infinite amount of money. What do you make?

I’d make a school. I’d make an environment that is half production, half school.

So that, instead of stealing talent from other companies and feed this incestuous behavior, you grow talent and have that talent go feed yours and others companies. So that you build and refine talent instead of just hiring those who got their experience somewhere else.

You can have a school that doesn’t train abstract, but that teaches the basics and then the practice. You could have those students working and practicing with real games developed (and pay them for this work), and in the case what they make is good and they demonstrate talent, you hire them directly into the company.

And one day they’ll lead something or even be teachers themselves.

And with ‘school’ I don’t intend a MMO school. I intend something that will open to every activity. Game designers, writers, artists, animators, programmers, musicians, actors and so on. If one day you have a game and then want to make a TV series about it, you open a new production for it. Publishing games, animation, books, whatever. From a side you open the school, from the other a new production.

And with ‘school’ I also intend a place where you can go live. Like those colleges you have there in the US. But where also grown-ups are accepted. Apartments, cinemas, bars, dancing halls.

I’d actually make a town. With the school in the middle.

Maybe put it at the bottom of the ocean, and call it “Rapture”.

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Return of the Crimson Guard + Malazan map collection

Steven Erikson shares the Malazan world with his friend and co-writer Ian Cameron Esslemont (ICE for short).

So if you want to read the complete story about that world things are slightly more complicate than with Erikson own storylines.

We have this scheme that works for the first seven novels:

Genabeckis Continent & campaign as main arc: books 1 & 3
Seven Cities subcontinent & rebellion as main arc: books 2, 4, & 6
Lether Continent and Tiste Edur: books 5 & 7

Book 1, 2 and 5 are ideal starting points, as they present each a new block. While book 6 is the first truly not standalone and leading right to the seventh. It’s also with the sixth and seventh that most plots come together.

Chronologically the first would be book 5. Then book 1. Book 2 and 3 are simultaneous, and 4, 6 and 7 one after the other.

What we know about the remaining three books:

“Toll the Hounds” : It should be already complete or near completion and it should be out by August 08, with a contemporary publication in UK and US for the first time. It goes back to Genabackis (so the continent of book 1 and 3), and is supposed to have a huge climax at the end.

“Dust of Dreams” + “The Crippled God” : The last two books will read as one gigantic novel to give the series an epilogue. Erikson also confirmed that both books will take place in a new continent that was never used in his books.


This is about the “core” about the Malazan saga. Then there are spin-offs and complements. For future projects Erikson already said he could write a sort of prelude book “to explore the pasts of some of the Ascendents (such as Anomander Rake) before they became the powerful figures we see them as in The Malazan Book of the Fallen”.

Then we have three “Bauchelain and Korbal Broach” novellas that shouldn’t present continuity problems and that you can buy bundled here for $40. Not cheap but cheaper than their cumulative cost. Three more novellas are planned, like a second series to this book.

And finally Esslemont. His first so-so book “Night of Knives” is already out. Is better read before “The Bonehunters” (Malazan’s 6th book) and chronologically sits before book 1.

His next book “Return of the Crimson Guard” was instead announced in a “normal” edition for 11 August 2008, along with “Toll the Hounds”. But you may get it around January if you are willingly to spend $150 for a super-deluxe early ed.

Some complained that “Night of Knives” felt more like a novella than a fully realized novel like Erikson’s books. For RotCG Erikson confirmed that the book counts 280k words, making it bigger than Deadhouse Gates for comparison (expect about 800 pages).

The book is probably better read after “The Bonehunters”. And we have already a “review” (from westeros forums):
“One of the in-circle guys at Malazan who read the book felt it was more readable than Erikson’s prose.”

UPDATE – Still from westeros:
I got some information about the PS special edition as well.

It’s due to be released in March. It’s 266,000 words.

The covers will be done by the superb Edward Miller. Cover and synopsis should be up by Christmas.


Here’s the summary.

Steven Erikson – Malazan Book of the Fallen

1. Gardens of the Moon
2. Deadhouse Gates
3. Memories of Ice
4. House of Chains
5. Midnight Tides
6. The Bonehunters
7. Reaper’s Gale
8. Toll the Hounds
– August 2008
9. Dust of Dreams – 2009
10. The Crippled God – 2010

Steven Erikson – Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novellas

1. Blood Follows
2. The Healthy Dead
3. The Lees of Laughter’s End

Ian Cameron Esslemont

– Night of Knives
– Return of the Crimson Guard
– August 2008


To conclude, some maps I collected. Still missing some.

Malaz City
Malaz Island
Genabackis (original GotM)
Genabackis (corrected MoI version)
NW Genabackis (detail, from House of Chains)
Quon Tali + Malaz island
Central Malazan Empire (Quon Tali + Falari Isles)
Korel – Land of Fist (From Stonewielder)
Seven Cities
Seven Cities (variant)
Chain of Dogs – 1st half (Seven Cities east)
Chain of Dogs – 2nd half (Seven Cities west)
Lether
Kolanse (From The Crippled God, western part of Lether)

Most current mock-up of world map and position of continents (shapes are not correct, positions and relative dimensions should mostly be).

I-will-not-be-used!

I’m currently 250 pages into Robert Jordan’s “The Great Hunt” and liking it so much more than “The Eye of the World”.

I also have the almost tangible feel that I’m reading something unique. You can re-read a book, but you can read and ‘live’ a story only once. The first time through is unrepeatable and precious on its own. I also know that the series has its peak with the fourth book (The Shadow Rising) and goes strong at least till the sixth. So I know that if I’m loving the second book there’s much more entertainment for me to have. I was reluctant to read Jordan because he has many haters, and those haters also have a point.

The Wheel of Time surely isn’t an overly original and interesting series, and as a writer Jordan has flaws. But at the same time there aren’t many *stories* like this one, told like this one. It’s charming, it flows. I come from reading Glen Cook’s Black Company that surely is a more interesting book, more trenchant. I like more the dark fantasy of Glen Cook, but Jordan has that charm of the flowing story. It’s so much more readable and immersive. It isn’t unpredictable, but you are caught into it nonetheless, if you let it catch you. Not original, but it’s as if Jordan is using the same notes to make an incredibly charming melody. It’s a melody you think you already heard many times, but never so charming and accomplished.

It’s incredibly accessible, fluid. That’s his talent, and bait for critics. You don’t read Jordan if you want a new, surprising, unconventional kind of fantasy, or if you want something clever. But you read Jordan if you want to read a “story” that feels like the archetypal story. Something ageless.

So while my interests and preferences don’t correspond to Jordan, the book is still capturing me more than books that I would rate above his.

This second book is superior to the first, as I said. Not as Tolkien-esque, better structured, moving at a faster pace and building on top of the first book. While the first was an “escape”, this one is a “quest” (hunt). I also have the impression that Jordan isn’t just writing the same book twice, but that the plot was structured before the first book was written, and that this second book is telling another part of the story. The story has more breadth, better pacing, till now.

Some ideas at the basis of the series aren’t anything mindblowing, but they are always archetypal.

“I-will-not-be-used!”

This feels a bit like Shinji’s “I will not flee” (Evangelion) mantra. Both characters are a bit too much whiny and overdramatic for my taste but behind Rand there’s a concept that is interesting on its own.

Contrary to LotR where the power is in a object (the ring), in WoT the power is in Rand himself. So he cannot simply dump the burden on someone else, nor escape because he is his own trap.

“With great power, comes great responsibility.”

Nor he is part of the super-hero mantra. It’s not about abandoning one’s sense of responsibility so that others will do the task. It’s not about not caring. He simply doesn’t have an easy way out because the only way to avoid the worst (for himself and others) is to do something. He knows he has a power that will destroy him and those around him if he DOESN’T do something. So he HAS to do.

But what to do?

He is clueless. He has no idea about what is going on but at the same time he has the mantra of the title. He won’t let others manipulate him for their own interests. He will not harm to favor others.

The trap is that he knows he doesn’t want to be used, but doesn’t know how they’ll try to use him. How they’ll trick him. He know he can’t outsmart them. He could do everything and the contrary but that would be an even surer way toward the disaster. He can’t act randomly. He knows he has a very little hope to avoid the disaster. So it’s not a toss of a coin. It’s something extremely delicate, something he has to be careful with.

The only ones who know more than him and who can help him, he cannot fully trust. The Aes Sedai are his help, but also those who want to use him and the closest menace. He also knows where the “evil” is, so he knows where NOT to go. That’s the only certainty.

And all this leads to an interesting situation. There’s good and evil. The evil side is not shade-of-gray, but truly evil as the archetype demands. On the other side (the light) there are different factions who claim to be on the right side and be the voice of that side, and, ironically, the templars are the worst of the bunch. Everyone acts in the name of the light, but where this light truly is, is undetermined. Or maybe a matter of choosing the less worse.

Feels a bit like the political situation in modern times. We all share an universal concept of “evil”. But when it comes to find the right thing to do there are thousands of voices overlapping, and no convincing alternatives.

Anyway, this leads in the books to an interesting scenarios: he has good and evil both whispering things at his ear. Tugging on his sleeve.

But the “evil” is the only one to always tell the truth.

P.S. – SPOILER
In fact in the first book “evil” coincides with “stupid”. As it’s the Dark One himself to suggest Rand how he can be defeated.

Dark One- “Nooo, you won’t use the ‘eye of the world’ against me *wink-wink, nudge-nudge* Nooo!”

New books at my door

I got my monthly shipment of books:

– “The Name of the Wind” Patrick Rothfuss (660 pag.)
– “The Blade Itself” Joe Abercrombie (515 pag.)
– “Gardens of the Moon” Steven Erikson (700 pag.)
– “Deadhouse Gates” Steven Erikson (935 pag.)
– “Memories of Ice” Steven Erikson (1180 pag.)

This time all ordered from Amazon.co.uk because I wanted the UK version (all paperbacks).

“The Name of the Wind” is a MASSIVE edition. It’s one of the hugest books I’ve ever seen and truly impressive. I’m sure the UK edition is far superior than the US one, and the cover is pretty. “The Blade Itself” is a physically smaller book but finely crafted too. Both are from “Gollancz” and I’m going to stick with those editions because they are really wonderful. I like this publisher, it shows some tangible love for the books.

Speaking of what’s inside, instead, both are debuts and Most Recommended along with Scott Lynch. Those kinds of book you can blindly buy and be sure they will be great. If you look around you can read plenty of comments and reviews on blogs and forums, hot stuff. Both are trilogies. Rothfuss’s series should be already complete but we’ll have a new book every year, with the first out not long ago, while Abercrombie is already at the third book that should be out in March.

Just for a vague idea: “The Name of the Wind” should be an epic/adult version of Harry Potter, but where the comparison doesn’t make it justice. “The Blade Itself” instead is a character-driven epic, playing with the classic “party” stereotype to then turn it upside down. Gore and humor part of the recipe.

Some quotes:

“The debut novel from Patrick Rothfuss — the first installment of an epic fantasy trilogy entitled the ‘Kingkiller Chronicle’ — not only lives up to its extraordinary pre-press hype (DAW president Elizabeth Wollheim called it “the most brilliant first fantasy novel I have read in over 30 years as an editor”), it surpasses it. When fantasy fans begin reading THE NAME OF THE WIND, they should be fully prepared to lose all contact with the outside world while immersed in this highly original and mesmerizing tale of magic, love, and adventure.”
-Strange Horizons

“Folks, this is the real thing. Though it’s considerably darker than the HARRY POTTER series, this is also a bildungsroman — the story of the childhood, education, and training of a boy who grew up to be a legendary hero. Not a word of the nearly-700-page book is wasted. Rothfuss does not pad. He’s the great new fantasy writer we’ve been waiting for, and this is an astonishing book. I don’t recommend it for pre-teens, mostly because it moves at an adult-fiction pace and has some truly disturbing events. But he does not describe gore (though the action is intense) and while there is some sexual tension, nothing is shown that would shock a teenager. If you’re a reader of fantasy or simply someone who appreciates a truly epic-scale work of fiction, don’t go through this summer without having read it. At the very least it will keep you busy till the last HARRY POTTER comes out. But I warn you — after THE NAME OF THE WIND, the HARRY POTTER novel might seem a little thin and — dare I say it? — childish. You have been warned.”
-Orson Scott Card

“The Blade Itself easily equals anything released in epic fantasy in the past few years, and just may rise to the top … This book is about characters first, and Abercrombie skillfully portrays them with near-perfect internal and external dialogue set at an ideal pace … he stops just short of spitting in the face of genre and set my heart racing through some the best written fight scenes of any genre. This one is not just for fans of epic fantasy.”
Neth Space

“Abercrombie kicks off his series masterfully with a heroic fantasy without conventional heroes. Its clearly the characters that take center stage here. Their dialogue is full of cynicism and wit, their lives full of intrigue, battles and magic.”
Romantic Times

“The Blade Itself is simultaneously an homage to fantasy of old, a satirical riff on cliches common within the genre, and a contemporary revision.”
Fantasy Book Critic

The fascination with this Noir fantasy is the key cast members. The foursome is not epic heroes, but instead they are flawed to the point that the story line at times feels like an amusing satire of the Tolkien lite imitations. Not for everyone, THE BLADE ITSELF is carried by its deep characters, who tote more negatives than positives and may prove to cause the beginning of the end; these incredibly flawed souls make for a fresh and outstanding fantasy.”
Harriet Klausner

If you want those books try to get them in the UK editions. I can’t stress enough how good they are. Really worlds apart.

Erikson instead goes without presentation. I decided to drop the US version for the UK one but I was betrayed by new editions. I got the first two books in the new edition and new cover, while the third in the old one.

Now not only I’ll need to repurchase that third book in the new version so that I have a homogeneous collection, but I also want “Gardens of the Moon” in the old cover, because I really like it. And I liked more the overall layout of the older version.

Following the new covers of the new editions (of books three and five, as book two and four have old covers even in the new ed):

.

I like to mock Nick Yee

I was reading Tobold through RSS:

They observed that many players in a MMORPG go through the same stages in the same order: Entry, Practice, Mastery, Burnout, Recovery.

You know I just talk of fantasy books these days. Well, I’ve noticed that also fantasy books readers go through the same stages in the same order: Prologue, Chapter 1 … Epilogue.

Amazing, ain’t it?

Some also get bored before the end and don’t finish it. Some may try again a few years later.

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Dwarf Fortress Starting Guide

This is a guide designed to be as quick and effective as possible.

Dwarf Fortress is a sandbox game simulating a randomly generated world in every detail, from geography to populations and myths. It offers four modes of play, but the one explained will be the first. You will lead an expedition of dwarfs and build their fortress along the years, starting from setting farms and bedrooms, up to the military aspect to deal with sieges of epic proportions. In short it’s a city-building kind of game blended with The Sims and Dungeon Keeper. There’s a bit of everything, but in the beginning you’ll just try to make your dwarfs survive the first winter while you start to dig your wannabe Ironforge.

Yes, it’s an ASCII game, but it’s more easily playable than how it appears.
1- You don’t need to memorize commands as everything is accessible through on-screen menus.
2- The ASCII is a graphical representation. It just needs time to get used, and then it will be as readable as any graphical game.

(click to read the rest)

To begin with you “Create New World” from the start menu. No world will be the same as it’s all generated, so your world, and then fortress, will be like that little snowflake. Something unique and unrepeatable. That’s part of the charm. The creation is automatic, so you just press [Enter] and then either stare or go browse the wiki while you wait. It will take some minutes, depending on your hardware processing power. Once it’s done you’ll see a line at the bottom of the screen asking you to press [Enter] to continue or [p] to export an ASCII map (it will be in the main folder). If you want the map of your full world do it now because you may not be able to get it later.

There’s a new feature to transform that ASCII map into something more graphical. I mention this because if you don’t extract it now, you won’t be able to do it later. So if you want to see your generated world as a weirdly colored fractal you select “Start Playing” from the start menu and then “Legends”. Then press [d] for a detailed map, and make sure you have some space on the HD because it can take about 50Mb alone.

Then go back and select “Dwarf Fortress” so that the journey can begin. Next you have to select where in the world your settlement will arise (or be carved). It’s probably THE most important choice because the difficulty of the survival will depend greatly on the location. You’ll see three graphical windows working like three zoom levels. The rightmost is a very abstract representation of the whole world. With arrow keys you move around (if you have the detailed .bmp map created before you should be able to easily recognize the location on the “region” window), with [Tab] you cycle through various information screens. To pick a location I’d suggest the source of a stream. Three resources will be useful: water, trees and a mountain face to dig. The mountain less so, as with the game’s new version you can just dig downward. So you can ideally build an underground fortress in a plain. Try to pick a temperate climate so that the winter won’t be terrible, a decent amount of trees and vegetation, and calm surroundings if you don’t want to suffer a painful death, like stomped by phantom elephant. With function keys (when displayed in the bottom right) you can cycle through biomes. The small box you see in the “Local” window will become your explorable area. You can read on screen the keys to press to move and expand that box. The bigger it is, the bigger will be the area where you’ll manage your dwarfs. So go around searching a good location with the necessary resources (trees and water, mostly). The biomes give you informations on the different types of environment. Remember that at this moment your dwarf expedition will appear at the center of the selection box, and not in the selected biome, so it can happen that you are visualizing a biome with plenty of trees and vegetation, and then discover while in the game that your dwarfs have appeared on top of a mountain with the trees at the bottom level, almost inaccessible. So choose the location carefully and then [e]mbark.

You can now start the game with a default expedition, or organizing things yourself. I suggest the latter so that you have a better idea of what you’ll have available. So Press [Space]. With [Tab] you cycle between two modes: dawrfs and inventory. In the dwarf screen the up/down keys will cycle through the seven dwarfs, while left/right keys move to the other column (that will scroll). Here you can basically buy skills. You can’t have everything as you only have 200 points to “spend” on both skills and inventory (lower right). It’s also not an ultimate choice as every dwarf can learn any job at any time, he just won’t be skilled at it. A good idea can be about having a miner/mason/engraver/mechanic, a carpenter/woodcutter/building designer and an ambusher/axedwarf that will become your hunter. With the remaining four dwarfs you can decide how to split jobs, trying to get at least these: fisherman, grower, cooker, brewer, herbalist and butcher. You’ll learn how to make optimal builds and I think it should stay outside the scope of a guide as it’s a freeform choice depending on your style of play and preference. As I said it’s less important than you think as you can tweak jobs anytime while playing. So once you have some basic professions, you are set.


Part 2

The other screen is the inventory. On the left you see what you already have in the inventory (by default). I wouldn’t change much. I use to bring two dogs and cats. Dogs will be your first soldiers against some early threats, while cats generally keep your dwarfs happy. Bringing two, you’ll get one of either sex and you’ll soon start to see kittens. To add other items to your inventory press [n]ew. Get at least two axes if you are following my build, as one will be needed by the woodcutter and the other by the hunter. The ranger should be able to go hunting even bare hands (wrestling skill). Anyway, it’s up to you to experiment. The bigger risk is to have your ranger killed if there are some mean animals in the wilderness, so spend a few more points on his skill and make sure you have the corresponding weapon in your inventory for him to use. Once you think to be ready, press [e]mbark (and wait the loading).

After an introductory screen you should see a tripartite window. Press [Space] to pause the game (you should see “PAUSED” in the upper left). On the left you have the top down view with your smiling dwarfs, along with their wagon. The middle is the default menu, and on the right the map of the whole area, with a cursor marking your current location. With [Tab] you juggle those screens, so press it a few times to figure out what you have available. Arrow keys move the local view around, this is what you’ll use to pan the screen. If you lose your dwarfs press [F1] to center on screen again.

This new version introduces the z-axis so you have multiple planes to explore. It’s important you get used to their representation so that you don’t get confused. To move one level toward the sky press [shift+<], to move down toward the ground [shift+>]. What you need to know is that when you see small dots it means that you are looking at the representation of a lower level. If instead the gap between two planes is more than one level you see “sky”.

I’ll give you an example:

On the bottom left you can see a zone of grass with my smiling dwarfs and their wagon. All around, in the other zone, you see green dots and small blocks of green. The line separating these two zones is made by an arrow pointing down. As I said the small dots represent a lower level. So this means that if you go down one level you should be able to visualize that other part.

Let’s go *down*, one level. By pressing [Shift+>]:

Here we are. The previous zone with the dwarfs is now in black with some gray dots and “%”. It represent underground terrain. We went down one level, so it makes sense that we are looking at the ground below where the dwarfs were, while on the rest of the screen we now see green characters, representing grass and trees (clubs and spades).

This means that the dwarfs were located in a upper level, like a small plateau. Till you see those arrows following the border, it means that the slope is walkable. So your dwarfs can move smoothly between these two levels without building ramps or stairways (in fact you can see a bluish smiling face in the middle of the second image, it’s my fisherman already on his way for that small pond to his left). You’ll also notice that the level where the dwarfs were, has only green/gray dots, so no trees. It means that if we want to cut down some trees our woodworker will have to move to that lower zone where there are plenty of trees.

Try experimenting a bit, moving up and down and trying to get familiar with the way the game visualizes things.

So now you should be able to pan the view around (arrow keys), go up down z-levels [shift+<], [shift+>], zoom back to origin [F1], and how to pause/unpause [Space]. These are all the commands you need to memorize, the rest will be shown on the default menu. Now we’ll see how to figure out what those weird ASCII characters represent. With [k] you “look around” (as you see in the menu). Pressing that key will activate an “X” yellow cursor. You move it around with arrow keys. Whatever will be under the cursor will be listed on the right panel. If one square has more than one object stacked, you’ll see it listed one under the other. This is the quickest way to figure out what’s what. For example see the first image, under the white smiley face there’s a gray “H”. If you move the cursor over it, you’ll see on the right panel that the “H” letter represents a “tamed stray horse”, with grass under it (obviously).

To exit EVERY screen, you press [Space]. Keep it in mind. It’s also the key pausing/unpausing the game, so pay attention.

The other important command after [k] to look what’s under the cursor is [v]iew units. Pressing [v] you also activate a similar yellow cursor, with the difference that it won’t show what’s under it, but the infos about the nearest unit. Usually everything that is “alive”. So pets, dwarfs, wild animals, monsters and so on. It’s not important to understand all the infos for now.

Now let’s present some basic concepts. In this game you don’t drive the dwarfs around. They are kind of autonomous and you don’t have to (you cannot) micromanage them. This makes sense because now you have seven dwarfs to manage, but as you access later phases in the game you can have huge fortresses with hundreds of dwarfs moving like ants. What you CAN do is set a list of jobs. The dwarfs will then complete these jobs depending on their own priority and skills. When you’ll dig your fortress you’ll tell them exactly where to dig, where to position doors and so on. They eat, sleep, drink, organize parties, make babies and rest all on their own. As long there are enough resources. If there’s booze, they drink booze, if there’s not booze, they drink water, and if they don’t have water, they die of thirst if you don’t have a river or a well near them. So your duty is to keep them happy and healthy. They’ll need beds to sleep, tables and chairs to eat. And obviously they need food and drinks.

There are two screens that let you track what the hell is going on. The first is [j]ob. You press [j] and you’ll see a list of dwarfs with what their are currently doing. Plus a list of jobs in the queue, waiting for a free or proficient dwarf, if you already set them. With the arrow keys you move through the list and with [c] you zoom to that dwarf. This helps to not lose your dwarfs around the place. You don’t know where the fisherman went? then you go in the [j]ob menu, select it and [c] zoom to it to see where he is. As always you exit this screen by pressing [Space].

The other screen is [u]nit. You press [u] and get a list of all your dwarfs (first) and then everything that is alive in the whole zone. There will be probably animals listed as well. So, as above, you can locate them by selecting one and then zoom to it by pressing [c]. This screen also list your dwarfs current action. So you can see at a glance what they are all doing. If some of them have no job, are sleeping, eating or resting.

Summary: [k] and [v] to look around. [j] and [u] to have a list of jobs.

Now, in order for your dwarfs to be able to do anything, you need to activate their jobs. For example if you want to cut trees, you need a dwarf with the “wood cutting” skill enabled. If you picked your skills correctly before embarking, you should have already a dwarf who can cut trees, already enabled. To be sure (and learn how to activate/disable jobs) let’s look into it. Press [u] for a list of units. You should see listed at least a dwarf in yellow. Select it (arrow keys), then zoom [c]. Now, in the right panel, you can toggle between four detailed screens that can be switched with the corresponding key. [g]en, [i]nv, [p]ref, [w]nd. Try to toggle between them. The first is general infos, like name, sex, job, skills. Then you have the inventory, preferences and health status (with locations). Go in the [p]ref tab, then press [l]labor. Here’s the list of possible jobs. If some of the jobs active in this screen correspond to one task in the job queue, then the dwarf will take the job and complete it.

Before you start doing anything you need to understand one UI quirk. In some cases you move through lists with arrow keys, in some cases you need to use [-] and [+] on the keypad, with [/] and [*] to scroll a full page.

In this case of the labor list, if you use arrow keys you’ll move the local cursor, not the jobs. So you may end up selecting a different dwarf. Instead to browse the job list you use [+] and [-]. With [Enter] to enable/disable them. If you want to *force* a dwarf to do one job only and make sure he doesn’t waste time doing something else, you can disable all other jobs. In this case, if the dwarf isn’t sleeping, eating, drinking, resting, dying or participating to a meeting or party (being all spontaneous action you can’t normally interrupt), he should go complete the job. Once you are used to this system you already have full control over your dwarfs. There isn’t much more to learn. You know how to set up your dwarfs, what is left is learn how to set up the jobs themselves.


Part 3

There are essentially three ways to set up jobs:
1- [d]esignations of areas (to mine, cut trees, gather herbs and more)
2- [b]uilding menu
3- Inside workshops

Always remember that [Space] is always the key to cancel an action or exit a submenu.

Let’s start from the first. A good first action is to start cutting trees to produce logs, that we’ll then use to craft other things. In the meantime, though, if you unpause the game you may see your fisherdwarfs already going to the nearest pond or river to catch fishes. Fishing doesn’t need to be set up as a job manually, if a dwarf has the “fishing” skill active (you can check if it is: [u]nit menu, [c] to zoom, [p]ref -> [l]abor, and page down to the fishing skill) then he will go fishing if he isn’t busy with something else. But let’s go back to our woodworker. You should have already one in your party, usually in yellow and ready to go. If you want to check if this skill is active on the dwarf, you follow the instruction I wrote above. The only other thing you need to know is if there’s an axe available. If you didn’t manually remove it from your inventory while organizing the expedition, then there should be one or two in your wagon. You could also check the [i]nventory of the dwarf, to see if he’s already carrying one. If there are no axes at all you are in trouble because you’ll need to fabricate or trade for one, and at this point it isn’t an easy task if you are starting to learn the game.

So we assume that one axe exists. In any case we are going to set up the job and then troubleshoot if the job doesn’t seem getting done. Next task is to find trees, obviously. This could be tricky because of a bad starting location. I’ve asked the programmer of the game to make some changes that will help getting through this part, but till those changes aren’t implemented either you find some trees around, or it’s better if you press [Esc], abandon the fortress and try to pick a different location, maybe a plain with a river in the middle and the biome confirming there are lots of trees. You need trees. Try to look around, go up and down levels to check if trees are lower in a still accessible area (it’s accessible if you see arrows pointing up or down on the border of the zone).

Once you find a zone with trees, reasonably close to where your dwarfs are idling, then we can start setting up the job (I suggest doing everything while the game is still paused). This is done from [d]esignations menu. After you pressed [d], you press “chop down [t]rees”. You should see that line highlighted in white and a familiar “X” yellow cursor on the local view. You move the cursor around with arrow keys as always. To select trees to cut you’ll select an area as large as you want, and all the trees inside that area will be flagged. To do this you use the [Enter] key. You press it once to select the point of origin of a rectangle, then move the cursor somewhere else on the map and press [Enter] again. There. All trees inbetween those two points should be now highlighted. If nothing is highlighted, either you failed the selection, or you are drawing the rectangle on a zone with no trees.

Assuming you designated some trees, you may notice that the job doesn’t appear on the [j]ob menu. But if you unpause the game for a short while, you should see your woodworker/carpenter moving to the trees, and on the [j]ob list a “Fell Tree” next to the dwarf name. If this isn’t happening then you either lack an axe, or made a wrong selection, or have no dwarf with the “wood cutting” skill enabled.

All designations work in a similar way, so if you have a miner and a cliff face near, you can [d]ig a tunnel in the same way you selected trees to cut. If you already unpaused the game you should see your woodcutter dwarf on duty, he goes near to one flagged tree, makes it blink and then transforms it into a log (underscore symbol), leaving it in the place where the tree was, then moving to the next one. After a while you should have all these logs scattered around the wilderness and it’s not easy to keep track of your resources without some organization. The next step is to set a stockpile so that all the logs will be put there instead of laying around randomly. So, to the stock[p]ile menu (press [p]). There are various kinds of stockpiles, some basic types but you can also create custom types to organize things exactly as you want. This will become important later on because you don’t want your dwarfs to pass all the time hauling stuff for long distance, so you should always plan things so that item types sit close to where they are needed and not at the opposite side of the map.

For now we need a [w]ood stockpile. And to make one the instructions are similar to designate trees to cut. You move the cursor and draw a rectangle that will be as large as you want the pile to be. After the area is designated, you should see gray “=” symbols delineating the area of the stockpile. Once you are done, press [Space] to exit the stockpile menu. Then [Space] again to unpause the game and observe what happens. The woodcutter himself or some of the other dwarfs with hauling jobs active should start moving logs (those brown “-” signs) to that stockpile.

Now that we have logs we have the material to build something, like chairs, tables, beds, doors. But of course we need a decent place where to put them. If you found a nearby cliff face and your miner is already active there, then you can proceed labyrinth-like, make a square-ish room and call it dining room. Just remember to not dig room too large (5×5, I think?) or the ceiling risks to crumble. But let’s assume instead that you don’t have any decent cliff face nearby to dig. So we dig down.

Pause the game again (to not lose track of things) or leave the woodcutter do his work while you go selecting your miner. He’s usually the smiling face in white or gray (depending on how you split jobs). The important part is to make sure that he has the “mining” job active ([p]ref -> [l]abor as, always) and a pick equipped or free to pick up. To be able to access a lower level you basically need a downward stairway [j] and an upward one [u]. One exactly below the other. So you enter the [d]esignations menu, press [j] for the downward stairway and press [Enter] two times anywhere on the grass nearby. When you move the cursor away or exit the designate menu (pressing [Space] as always) you should see a brownish “>” symbol (the color depends on the type of soil, I think). When you unpause the game the miner should go there and dig the hole/stairway. When done you enter the [d]esignations menu again, press [u] for the upward stairway, move the “X” cursor exactly in the position of the stairway we just built, press [Shift+>] to go down one level and without moving the cursor press [Enter] two times again. Without going back to the surface level, unpause the game and after a while you should see something looking like this (colors again depends on type of soil):

We can now start digging on this level. [d]esignations, press [d] for the “mine” option and then designate an area like a corridor. It should look like this:

Pay attention to select also the border or the miner won’t be able to reach the area you designated. Then, you should see the miner appearing on this level once the game is unpaused, and start digging the corridor:

World is made of cheese, for you to carve. Once you know how to go down, you should also have plenty of space to dig. With some risks that you’ll learn to tackle (like hitting magma or flooding your fortress) and that goes outside the scope of this guide. For now you have some space to make some rooms, and use these rooms to soon outfit as dining rooms and bedrooms.


Part 4

We now have rooms, logs and what is left is to learn how to use those logs to make beds, for example. Intuitively you would go to the “site a [b]uilding” menu, select [b]ed… Only to see a red message saying “needs bed”. Oh yeah, we need a bed, isn’t it why we are trying to make one? No, because before you can “site a building” you have to make it, then you can site it. This is the process of using logs to make a bed and to do it we need the third case I listed above to set a job: the workshop.

To make a bed we need a “Carpenter’s workshop”, and, yes, this can be made through the “site a [b]uilding” menu. So press [b], then either scroll pages or lines (using [/*-+]), or directly press [w]orkshops. You will enter a submenu with all the workshops you can build. Here press [c] for the Carpenter’s one, and what is left to do is just put it somewhere with the cursor where there’s enough space for it (as long you actually have logs available).

Once placed, the workshop needs to be built by a dwarf. Here we learn a new key. [q] to inspect a building (both planned or already completed). This is another important key because it allows you to inspect all objects (including doors, tables, beds and so on) in the same way you use [v] to inspect living units. And in a similar way you move the cursor around and it will recognize the nearest object to it. Try it and move the cursor next to the Carpenter’s workshop you just plotted and in the right window you should see: “Waiting for construction…” and “Needs Carpentry”. The second line is the required job to have it built. So as long you have one of the dwarfs with the “carpentry” skill active (you know how to set it in any case) and the dwarf isn’t idle, you should see the dwarf moving to the log stockpile to take one log, and then to the workshop plot to start working. After a while the building will be complete and the dwarf moving back to his original position.

Reinspect the workshop. If complete you should see no messages on top, and new options at the bottom of the panel on the right. At this point things should start to be intuitive. Press [a] to add a new task. It will give you a list of objects (two pages of them) and here you can select and queue what you want to get built, by scrolling with [+] or [-], or pressing the corresponding shortcut.

This nearly complete the tutorial. You know the three ways to set up jobs (designations, build menu and inside workshops), how to set up the dwarfs themselves (selecting one, then [p]ref -> [l]abor and selecting active jobs) and how to designate stockpiles where to keep every kind of object (to change or customize stockpiles you inspect [q] them as with workshops). The game doesn’t end here, it begins here. But everything else will stack onto what you have already learned. Dwarf Fortress is a game where the fun is experimenting and failing, maybe in spectacular ways. Then try to do better on the next attempt.

This is also the philosophy of the game: losing is fun. It also means that you can’t reload savegames. The only way to do this is manually backup the whole “save” folder because whenever you want to exit the game (by pressing [Esc]) your current state will be saved. You can’t exit without saving.

For more detailed infos on specific aspects, there’s always the wiki.


Part 5

From this point you are on your own. Two other menus that can be useful are the [a]nnouncement one, where the game warns you about some special events, and [z] for a summary screen. For this screen you’ll notice that next to some resources you have a question mark:

This because past 10 stacks your dwarfs cannot track things, so you only see an estimation of the number of items. You’ll need specialized dwarfs to be able to see the details, and this possibility only comes later in the game. On the top row you also see submenus. For example in the “Kitchen” you can flag which type of plants you want to brew (for drinks) or which can be cooked.

Your priority in the game is to survive winter. If there’s a river it may freeze, and so preventing your fishermen to fish. To survive winter you need drinks and foods as consumables, and beds and dining rooms. In your wagon you should have already enough supplies to survive for a while, but it’s time to organize something.

Rooms:
Once you are digging, you can start planning for rooms. A dining room and bedrooms. Since dwarfs will pretend later on to have private bedrooms, it’s a good idea if you already plan things that way. I think a bedroom needs at least four spaces, where you are going to fit a door, a bed, a coffer and a cabinet (the bed obviously has the priority, just remember to reserve those four spaces). You build these through workshops, then place them physically in the room with the [b]uilding menu. Remember that for all these items you can also set important options, doors included. You can reserve single beds for a specific dwarf, so that he will always go there and consider it his private room. The same will happen for dining rooms, once you placed chairs and tables you can set their options by inspecting them [q].

Drinks:
One important rule: dwarfs don’t drink water, they drink booze. In previous versions of the game the first thing to make was a well for water. With the new version the well is almost an obsolete object and there are simpler ways to quench the thirst of your dwarfs. If they are out of booze, they’ll go to the river directly, but you shouldn’t be out of booze. If you have a zone with trees, you should also have bushes and plants to harvest (designating them like for cutting trees, just through the “gather [p]lants” option). You can use these resources in the “Still” workshop ([b]uilding menu -> [w]orkshops -> scroll to second page). To build the Still itself you’ll need a dwarf with the “brewing” or “plant gathering” job enabled (as it tells you if you inspect the plot). Then in the Still itself you should be able to queue up drinks.

Barrels:
Food rots if not put in a barrel and drinks need a barrel as well. Barrels [v] can be made in the carpenter workshop and you’ll need a lot of them.

Looking into barrels:
With [k] you look around. If you move the cursor on a barrel on a stockpile you’ll see just the barrel listed, but not what it contains. If you want to check if it’s empty or whatever is inside you can just scroll between the lines with [+-], select the barrel and press [Enter].

Hunting:
If you have an hunter the first thing to check is if the “hunting” skill is active ([p]ref >[l]abor), then if he’s set to use the right weapon. So go back to the [p]ref submenu and select [s]oldiering and hunting. Here you set which weapon to use (making sure there’s one of that type available). You can then set a stockpile for the animal corpses that the hunter will deliver. Pay attention that this isn’t a “food” stockpile. You’ll have to set a custom stockpile and then find the corpses sub-option, under “refuse”. If you build a Butchery (workshop) indoor, with a corpse stockpile next to it, you risk that those corpses will rot soon if not processed in the butchery quickly. And if they rot they’ll also produce purplish “miasma” that will spread around, making your dwarfs sick. A good idea is to put a door between that stockpile and the butchery so that the miasma will stay circumscribed, and keep a dwarf with the “butchery” job relatively free so that he can do the job soon enough for those corpses not to rot. Rotted corpses won’t be butchered, so they are wasted. Once an animal is butchered and the meat put in barrels, it should be safe and ready to be eaten. You can also add another process and prepare finer meals in the Kitchen (another workshop).

Farms:
Irrigation shouldn’t be a problem as in previous versions of the game. You’ll likely find an area with clay or sand where you can plot a farm without the need to irrigate it. Indoor and outdoor farms differ because you can plant only specific seeds outside and inside. You can plot one through the [b]uilding menu, then “farm [p]lot”. As you move the cursor pay attention because you don’t have to just place it, but also expand the area with the [umkh] keys. You’ll also need a dwarf with the “farming” skill enabled as always. After the plot is built, you can inspect it [q] and select the type of plant for that plot. You can cycle through the four seasons to set different types of plants, and you’ll need seeds to plant something. Obtaining seeds isn’t complicated. Whenever a plant is brewed or eaten raw, it will produce seeds. So if you are harvesting plants outside you’ll likely have some “wild strawberries” in your stockpiles, bu not their seeds. So you can go to the status menu [z], then “Kitchen” and here you can toggle off for brewery every plant that isn’t the wild strawberry, so that you can then queue a drink in the “Still” and make sure that the plant is used, and the seed produced. Once you have seeds you need to plant them, and then gather what comes out (it will take a while for the plant to grow). The jobs for this are “farming” and “plant gathering”. Pay attention about the type of soil. If you don’t have clay or sand, you’ll likely need irrigation, and I won’t explain it here. And if you do have clay or sand and farming outside pay attention to the location:

This images shows a possible problem, if you put the farm plot in a zone with just clay, then you won’t be able to use any seed on it because nothing can grow there. You need a zone where you see at least grass growing, further away from the mountain.

Init file:
Various options can be set in the /data/init/init.txt file. I just recommend to replace the lower section with the following one. It will help delivering prettier colors and not squint to see those (like the fisherdwarf) that in the original version are set too dark and almost invisible:

[BLACK_R:0]
[BLACK_G:0]
[BLACK_B:0]
[BLUE_R:13]
[BLUE_G:103]
[BLUE_B:196]
[GREEN_R:68]
[GREEN_G:158]
[GREEN_B:53]
[CYAN_R:86]
[CYAN_G:163]
[CYAN_B:205]
[RED_R:151]
[RED_G:26]
[RED_B:26]
[MAGENTA_R:255]
[MAGENTA_G:110]
[MAGENTA_B:187]
[BROWN_R:120]
[BROWN_G:94]
[BROWN_B:47]
[LGRAY_R:185]
[LGRAY_G:192]
[LGRAY_B:162]
[DGRAY_R:88]
[DGRAY_G:83]
[DGRAY_B:86]
[LBLUE_R:145]
[LBLUE_G:202]
[LBLUE_B:255]
[LGREEN_R:131]
[LGREEN_G:212]
[LGREEN_B:82]
[LCYAN_R:176]
[LCYAN_G:223]
[LCYAN_B:215]
[LRED_R:255]
[LRED_G:34]
[LRED_B:34]
[LMAGENTA_R:255]
[LMAGENTA_G:167]
[LMAGENTA_B:246]
[YELLOW_R:255]
[YELLOW_G:218]
[YELLOW_B:90]
[WHITE_R:255]
[WHITE_G:255]
[WHITE_B:255]

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