So in my latest game, I found 2 “vorpalize weapon” scrolls on the first two levels, which is really rare. When you read that type of scroll, it adds +1/+1 to your active weapon, and makes it “of X slaying”, which means that it has a special directional “zap” ability that will instakill that type of enemy.

My first vorpalize scroll (which I read without knowing what it was) turned my starter mace into a mace of Jabberwock Slaying (I’ve never seen a Jabberwock). A few rooms later, I amazingly found another vorp scroll which I used on my katana – giving me a +1,+1 Katana of Dragon Slaying at Floor 2 of the dungeon (I’ve never seen a Dragon either – but I know it’s the most powerful enemy in the game).

Fast forward to Floor 16; I encounter an “Ur-Vile”. Only ever seen one once before, and it was the end of that character. Fortunately, I had just picked up my second staff of Polymorph – poof! The Ur-Vile was replaced with a cloud, and the cloud was replaced with a… Dragon.

Out comes the trusty (and heretofore unused) Katana — zap, Dragon dead. “You have reached the level of Hero”.

Fun, unpredictable game.

Wish I could post a screenshot showing my “+2,+3 mace of venus flytrap slaying”.

Tycho of Penny-Arcade recently posted a great tutorial for it if you’ve never played before:
http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/02/09/the-complete-and-utter-newby-tutorial-for-dwarf-fortress-part-1-wtf/

There’s also a great Succession game done by Something Awful of a fortress called Boatmurdered: http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/intro.html

Anyway, I highly recommend it if you’ve never played it and even if you have a long time ago. There are always some new features. And it’s a lot of fun.