Glossary

List of terms used on this wiki.

A

 * A time before time (ATBT): the time before history begins. Creatures will be listed as born ATBT in Legends Mode, but Legends Viewer will show birth days with a minus (-) sign before the dates. Rough equivalent to Terran BC.
 * After Creation (AC): The time after ATBT. Rough equivalent to Terran AD.

C

 * Chosen necromancercat: a necromancer given for their direct use an immortality slab
 * Chosen necromancer line: a necromancer taught either directly taught by a chosen necromancer, by someone directly taught by a chosen necromancer, by someone taught by that creature etc.
 * Continuity
 * Curse

D

 * Dark fortress: the goblin equivalent of a dwarf fortress; not really similar to dwarven fortress, read the wiki link for more.
 * Death spiral: A chain of events in which the murderer of a creature is struck down by another creature, which in turn is murdered and so on. Not to be confused with tantrum spiral.
 * Defilement
 * Deitycat: a creature that cannot be interacted with, but that can interact with the world (so far only in World Generation) through various means: releasing an immortality slab, giving out curses or inspiring creatures to write works in their names.
 * DFHackDFHack on DFW: A program that usually comes with LNP or can be manually installed (and had to in previous versions of Dwarf Fortress) that allows a player to do what they otherwise couldn't through commands.
 * Dwarf Fortress Wiki (sometimes shortened to DF Wiki): The first and (mostly) official wiki that has general notions on Dwarf Fortress. See also dfsup, a template to quick-link to an article on DF Wiki.
 * Dynasty

E

 * Enemy
 * Evil biome

F

 * Forum: A group of people that often become a community; for our purposes, see the official game's forum Bay 12 Forums.
 * Fun: Short for "Losing is fun". A personal philosophy of the game developer, as well as some parts of the player base. Others may wish to avoid "fun" as much as possible (and it may also be arguably the entire purpose of the game). In short, "fun" events as defined by this philosophy are those that have the power to and often times do destroy a fort.

H

 * Holy City: a religious group's headquarters.

I

 * Immortality slabcat: a slab that contains the secrets of life and death and that automatically, without recourse and usually without cure transforms any creature able to read into a necromancer; usually given by Gods to followers they want to receive this gift.
 * Internet forum: See forum.

L

 * Legends Mode: A "read-only" form of Dwarf Fortress. Instead of playing the game, Legends Mode allows you to see the history of a generated world in its many facets.
 * Legends Browser: A third-party program, usually coming bundled with LNP, that proclaims to act as a wiki version of Legends Mode; diffeent from Legends Viewer is that it runs in a web browser.
 * Some testing by User:Lurker Z revealed that there is minor, if any differences in information processing and display to LV: the RAM consumption is roughly the same and the information (and formatting) doesn't differ. What breaks one usually breaks the other, though an user is encouraged to verify this if they have a corrupted or unresponsive XML that has only been tested on one of the viewers. Ultimately, the differences are mostly aesthetic and of user preference.
 * Legends Viewer: A third-party program, usually coming bundled with LNP, that proclaims to act as a wiki version of Legends Mode.
 * LNP: Acronym for Lazy Newb Pack, now PeridexisErrant's DF Starter Pack, a pack that enhances the Dwarf Fortress playing experience.
 * The Long Night: A total conversion mod for Dwarf Fortress set in the future of Terra. Popularized by Kruggsmash in the 2020s.

M

 * Mod: Short for "modification", used in the context of the game, the action of modifying certain files of the game (as permitted and even encouraged by the developer) to change characteristics of gameplay, characters etc. Note that while DFHack isn't a mod tool per se, it has options that may act as a mod.

N

 * Necromancer

R

 * Raised/raising: If out of context or in the body of a category, this refers to undead raised by necromancers (or more rarely, by an evil environment.
 * Reddit: A forum-type community. For our interests, see r/DwarfFortress.

S

 * Semi-civilized: a creature usually belonging to a monster race that settles in a place, but continues to rampage; not to be confused with night creature.
 * Shot: a creature may be shot. The action is often a synonym for struck down, and is often associated with bow weapons.
 * Slain/Slayed: See discussion on differences between the two forms.
 * Struck down: Killed, murdered, slayed.

T

 * Tantrum spiral: An event started by the negative thoughts of some dwarves who provoke negative thoughts to other dwarves (by antagonizing them, attacking them or killing their loved ones or simply dying) which spreads through the fortress, sometimes resulting in its destruction. Not to be confused with death spiral.

U

 * Underworld spirecat: A spire that connected the above world to that which lies under the magma lake. Raised in a time before time by a demon. Usually, a goblin civilization will build its capital there and the demon will become its Master. Fun may escape.

V

 * Void creature: not to be confused with night creatures, they are those created after a time before time; the most known use of the term is for void dwarves. They are easily found in Legends Viewer by the lack of mention of parents, while creatures born to other creatures in a save with purged historical figures will have unknown mother and unknown father specified.

W

 * Wiki: A software which allows an unique type of sorting and accessing information.
 * Wikilink: See Help:Links.
 * Wikipedia: ...look to the right.
 * World generation: the period before the game can be played or interacted with.

X

 * XML: A type of file that can be exported from Legends Mode which can be used for various reasons, including importing into Legends Viewer for viewing information in different views than what LM allows.