Dwarf Fortress developer considers the possibility of an Elf Fortress

Dwarf Fortress co-creator and programmer Tarn Adams has made fleeting, whimsical allusion to the possibility of an Elf Fortress game in a new interview – a fleeting, whimsical allusion I will now pounce on and make an enormous deal of, because my goodness, man, you can’t just say “Elf Fortress” and walk off whistling into the sunset.

The topic arose during a discussion of why fantasy dwarves are a “fortuitous” archetype for a maddeningly system-driven game like Dwarf Fortress, in which half the fun is enjoying the tunnel vision of characters who will cheerfully neglect their duties and doom their brethren because, for example, they’re obsessed with crafting a mug that menaces with spikes of bituminous coal and alpaca wool. According to Adams, this is relatably “human”, though he muddies things intriguingly by dropping a reference to androids, and allows to weave stories around technical eccentricities and outright bugs, which can be read as instances of “dwarfy” fixation and excess. Elves? They don’t work the same way.

All this comes from a Parchment Gamer interview at this year’s Game Developer Conference, in which the Bay 12 co-founder reflects a little on the game’s long development. “Dwarves turned out to be fortuitous, because they’re sort of like – I don’t know why it pops into my head – replicants from Blade Runner,” Adams said. “More human than human. That’s a dwarf.”

Fantasy dwarves are “more human than human” because “they’re allowed to embody bigger emotions,” Adams went on. “They’re allowed to make bigger mistakes. They’re allowed to be stubborn. They’re allowed to do anything.” There’s a kind of catharsis at work here, he said. “There’s everything about it, from drunkenness to a very noble hubris. It’s all there. Dwarves allow us to experience these different parts of ourselves that, in humanity, you might be more judgmental of.”

By contrast, “if you were playing an elf fortress, all of these stories would hit different,” Adams said. “The antics they get up to, especially when it’s a bit buggy or just being weird – I don’t think elves would hit the same way. It’d be like ‘What’s going on with them?’ Whereas with dwarves, you’re like ‘Nah, I know what’s going on.'” The “devotion” of the dwarves supports the game’s historically bloody-minded AI, he added, which has bred many internet legends of dwarves obstinately going about their duties while the fortress is being overrun.

“What are these AI agents but driven by the top need that has to be checked off right now? “Adams said later in the chat. “It feels right, even when it goes wrong, that they have that sense of devotion. It doesn’t work for anything else quite the same way.”

While I obviously defer to Adams’s experience as the co-creator of by far the most elaborate manifestation of fantasy dwarfdom in video games, I can readily imagine a fortress or colony sim involving elves. I can imagine this partly because elves already exist in Dwarf Fortress. Players have even managed to create Elf Fortresses in-game – admittedly, “culturally dwarvish” ones – by cultivating an influx of poets, allowing all the original dwarf residents to die off, and appointing an elf as baron.

I can also imagine an Elf Fortress games because elves are themselves a set of well-entrenched literary archetypes and psychological metaphors. There’s the Warhammer High Elf/Rivendell portrayal of elves as a declining, noble caste of immortals, rendered passive and complacent by their technological advantages and gifts of foresight – condescending in their benevolence toward the mortals. There’s the contrasting depiction of elves as seductive, murderous bluebloods found in Terry Pratchett’s Lords And Ladies. There are the tree settlements and fey naturalism of wood elves in various stories. There’s the association of elves with forbidden scholarship, demon flirtations, and so on.

Plenty of material. Building a game of Dwarf Fortressy depth around the persona and associations of an elf would be a hard labour – likely, it would take the Adams brothers another few decades. I wouldn’t wish that on them. But given the magnitude of their accomplishment with Dwarf Fortress, I’d be fascinated to see them try.