Underground (Dwarven) Playthrough Viability

[voidendling]

I was thinking about the possibility of doing a playthrough as a dwarf who is largely limited to the underground. To start, a steady supply of pickaxes and wood would be necessary, and underground farming may be the only way of getting food. I imagine that it would be in the dwarf's best interest to find ruins and excavate them from below. As for looking the part, I am a really big fan of Aillun's Goblin ears (and friends). And when water wheels come out, it would be awesome to use underground rivers as a source of mechanical power. So which things would be absolutely necessary in a playthrough like this? How might one get started? It's been a fun thing to think about logistically while playing.

[Michael Gates]

You can do underground halls, living spaces, forges, and farms without trouble. (Hint for the forge: build in a mountainside! Stick out a windmill somewhere up by the peak!) I suspect you would not be able to get enough fuel to sustain things purely from coal; I usually keep about 100x200 blocks of space for my wolf-and-charcoal plantation, and I just don't see excavating that. Also, long range travel would be silly.

[ifoz]

Temporal stability would be your worst enemy, but in rare cases, you can find areas where even deep underground is totally stable.
I had an idea for a playthrough like this too, but play with Better Ruins and try to get interconnected caves by fiddling with world gen. It would be like a sort of spelunking/scavenging focused game.

[voidendling]

18 hours ago, ifoz said:

interconnected caves

Oh yes, a sweet spot with world gen would be hard to find, but bouncing between ruins and stumbling upon large veins of ore would be a spectacular life for a dwarf! With underground farming and animal breeding, I imagine one would be able to make a respectable underground kingdom!

[Feycat]

You could download the mycoculture mod and use that for farming

[ifoz]

29 minutes ago, voidendling said:

Oh yes, a sweet spot with world gen would be hard to find, but bouncing between ruins and stumbling upon large veins of ore would be a spectacular life for a dwarf! With underground farming and animal breeding, I imagine one would be able to make a respectable underground kingdom!

I feel like it'd be really fun to base yourself in some ruin that you'd slowly fill with collected treasures and items before you were able to get a pickaxe and finally start terraforming and making your own tunnels.

[Lollard]

Build and farm underground all you want, but you need to travel long distances to prospect and find ores. Very hard to do that by tunneling underground.

[Maelstrom]

On 6/7/2025 at 1:07 AM, ifoz said:

interconnected caves

Menzoberranzan here we come!

[V1ncent]

An one-body dwarf fortress, very interesting!

It is quite possible if one can farm and plant trees underground, with some mods' help. Something like modify the worldgen to ensure some soil spawn underground is necessary. Or we can mitigate by some minimum exploration above ground (fro tree and soil at least) maybe.

 

 

[Travis Johnson1]

I have done an earlier an earlier run doing this scenario. I found a great mountain area with lots of caves. The caves had dirt and trees in and around the entrance that I could collect. You can plant trees in deeper cave but I tended to plant them at surface entrances where there were caves or deep openings to start. Once you have the ability to large scale mine, and have lanterns, then trees become easier to grow completely underground. You are going to have to go topside to get your seeds for growing food. I restricted myself to 1 day on the surface a month. You can chase, capture, or lure animals into your caves to farm them. 

I also tried a mixed run where I was trying to be more authentic to some Dwarf fiction by finding a very large mountain range with deep open areas in and around them. That is where I farmed and herded. I built great defensive walls and towers to defend my kingdom by connecting the different accessible areas, like in traditional medieval fashion. I would punch out and build platforms in strategic spots to build catapults and ballista. I used old Warhammer Fantasy art and its like for inspiration.

 

[voidendling]

On 6/10/2025 at 12:38 PM, Travis Johnson1 said:

I have done an earlier an earlier run doing this scenario. I found a great mountain area with lots of caves. The caves had dirt and trees in and around the entrance that I could collect. You can plant trees in deeper cave but I tended to plant them at surface entrances where there were caves or deep openings to start. Once you have the ability to large scale mine, and have lanterns, then trees become easier to grow completely underground. You are going to have to go topside to get your seeds for growing food. I restricted myself to 1 day on the surface a month. You can chase, capture, or lure animals into your caves to farm them. 

I also tried a mixed run where I was trying to be more authentic to some Dwarf fiction by finding a very large mountain range with deep open areas in and around them. That is where I farmed and herded. I built great defensive walls and towers to defend my kingdom by connecting the different accessible areas, like in traditional medieval fashion. I would punch out and build platforms in strategic spots to build catapults and ballista. I used old Warhammer Fantasy art and its like for inspiration.

 

wonderful addition. i knew that some terrainean exploration would be necessary, but your idea of limiting it to one day once a month is really good. it would make the player plan far ahead to make that day as productive as possible. wow, this is starting to sound so fun. thanks for replying!