A talk for an "unconference" on magick in NYC, this is a talk about writing story generation code for xml files exported from the game Dwarf Fortress.

1. Mining Someone Else’s
Magic World
by Lynn Cherny (@arnicas)

2. Mining Someone Else’s
Magic World
or, “How I Spent Way
Too Much Time But Still
Failed to Finish This for
#NaNoGenMo But You
Get to Hear About it
Anyway Because I Think
It’s Funny”
by Lynn Cherny (@arnicas)

8. “Learn to Play the
Most Complex
Video Game Ever
Made”
248 pages of “getting started.”

13. “Dwarf Fortress is a game featuring…distinct, randomly-generated
worlds (complete with terrain, wildlife and
legends), gruesome combat mechanics and ubiquitous
alcohol dependency.”

14. “Dwarf Fortress is a game featuring…distinct, randomly-generated
worlds (complete with terrain, wildlife and
legends), gruesome combat mechanics and ubiquitous
alcohol dependency.”

15. Bug Fixes (We’d Rather Weren’t Fixed)
“Stopped fort dwarves from throwing their clothes off into
a pile after being visited by adventurer.”

16. Bug Fixes (We’d Rather Weren’t Fixed)
“Stopped fort dwarves from throwing their clothes off into
a pile after being visited by adventurer.”
“Stopped fort animals from getting
clothing after being visited by
adventurer.”
“Stopped animals with kills from
getting trinkets from corpses.”
“Stopped animals from growing
attached to and bestowing names
on items in their possession.”

17. “I cleaned up some crashes today. One of them
involved a night creature that had wandered
into a shop and killed the owner... the creature
then somehow got assigned as the owner. The
crash happened when the night creature tried
to come up with things to say to
potential shoppers, since it didn't have
a civilization as a frame of reference.
I fixed that part, but I still have no idea
why it thought it should change
professions in the first place...”

18. This game is so complicated even the author doesn’t
really know why things happen.

19. This game is so complicated even the author doesn’t
really know why things happen.
And ABSOLUTELY: None of the players knows what’s going on.

21. “I think Dwarf Fortress generates such complexity and
depth of information, that the task of the storyteller is to
simply sift through and find the narrative.”
-Tim Denee

22. Region-1-blahblahblah-legends.xml

23. Extracting Stories from XML
1. Create xml in game, export it (“legends” mode)
2. Load into python and parse
3. Make some charts - what’s in this?
4. Tie together the id’s of people to events
5. Turn some fields into human-readable text: e.g., skills, events
6. Build a context free grammar to tie snippets of english together
7. Add a list mechanism to add relatives and victims to the stack of
historical figures to “describe”

25. The data…

26. The data…

30. Nako Bentcurse, who was a female GOBLIN, always
hoped to rule the world. Nako Bentcurse got married. In
the year 50, Nako Bentcurse was killed in the dark pits
called Wraithblockade by Oce Gravecaverns The Sable
Twilight. She lived for 227 years.

31. Nako Bentcurse, who was a female GOBLIN, always
hoped to rule the world. Nako Bentcurse got married. In
the year 50, Nako Bentcurse was killed in the dark pits
called Wraithblockade by Oce Gravecaverns The Sable
Twilight. She lived for 227 years.
Iddim Candlemerges, who was a male HUMAN BABY,
always hoped to become a legendary warrior. In the year
102, he was killed in a town called Goosebalded by
Vispol Amusepants. He lived for 0 years.

32. Here's the life of Nepe Coloredgarlics The
Ponderous Escort Of Spiders, who was a female
HUMAN. Nepe Coloredgarlics The Ponderous
Escort Of Spiders was kind of crap at dissecting
fish, kind of crap at doing useful things with fish,
kind of crap at fishing. She lived for 59 years.
In the year 61, she was abducted in a hamlet
called Soundedstop by Ngebzo Taperedevil.
Nepe Coloredgarlics The Ponderous Escort Of
Spiders took up another role, possibly to do
something with fishing in a dark fortress called
Anguishsteal. In the year 65, she hooked up with
Zega Chasmspike, a male HUMAN. In the year
85, she foully murdered Ecod Scrapedcleared in
a dark fortress called Anguishsteal. She foully
murdered Snamoz Stolenwax in a dark fortress
called Anguishsteal. In the year 99, Nepe
Coloredgarlics The Ponderous Escort Of Spiders
foully murdered Necalo Creatureacted in a dark
fortress called Anguishsteal. … She started a
new career, possibly to do something with
fishing. She was foully murdered in a dark
fortress called Anguishsteal by Ngebzo
Baldcruelty, maybe because of her deficiencies
at dissecting fish.
Really Terrible Things Are
Happening in
A Dark Fortress
Called Anguishsteal

33. You might also want to know about Cika
Ringspikes, who was a male
NIGHTCREATURE . Cika Ringspikes had no
animal friends. He lived for 43 years. Cika
Ringspikes hooked up with Kuppo
Bushelsounds, a female HUMAN. In the year
31, Cika Ringspikes took up another role,
possibly to do something with butchering
animals in a hamlet called Actevened. He
was abducted in a hamlet called Actevened
by Oce Gravecaverns The Sable Twilight. In
the year 50, he took up another role, possibly
to do something with butchering animals in a
hamlet called Actevened. In the year 50, Cika
Ringspikes hooked up with Oce
Gravecaverns The Sable Twilight, a female
NIGHTCREATURE. In the year 51, he was
changed into a MALE NIGHTCREATURE by
Oce Gravecaverns The Sable Twilight. In the
year 62, Cika Ringspikes was struck down in
battle by San Prairieblunt, maybe because of
his deficiencies at butchering animals.

34. The Whisper Of Rain, who was a male BAT , was
outstanding at mechanics, outstanding at operate_pump,
outstanding at siegecraft, outstanding at telling jokes,
outstanding at pacifying others who are upset,
outstanding at lying, outstanding at figuring out what
others intend, ok at throwing a spear, kind of crap at
noticing what's going on, kind of crap at climbing, kind of
crap at tracking. He was born in the year -1 and is still
living. In the year 73, The Whisper Of Rain got married .
In the year 74, he hf does interaction . In the year 84, he
hf does interaction . The Whisper Of Rain hf does
interaction . In the year 100, The Whisper Of Rain got
married . In the year 101, he got married . The Whisper
Of Rain got married . The Whisper Of Rain got married .
In the year 106, he got married . In the year 107, he got
married . In the year 108, he got married . The Whisper
Of Rain got married . He got married .

35. Once upon a time, there lived The Whisper Of Rain, who was a male BAT
deity whose spheres were stars and sky and rainbows and light. The
Whisper Of Rain was only good at boring fighting skills. He was born at the
beginning of time and is still living. In the year 73, The Whisper Of Rain was
worshipped by Dacap Dipspecial, a female HUMAN. The Whisper Of Rain
cast the Curse of the Vampire. He cast the Curse of the Werebeast. In the
year 95, he cast the Curse of the Werebeast. The Whisper Of Rain was
worshipped by Zurko Agedtrench,a female HUMAN ANIMALDISSECTOR .
In the year 101, he was worshipped by Ica Doorbutter,a female HUMAN
ANIMALCARETAKER. The Whisper Of Rain was worshipped by Histek
Spikewires,a male HUMAN BONESETTER. The Whisper Of Rain was
worshipped by Xugot Baldrub, a male HUMAN TANNER. …

36. Fanfiction? Or Translation?
Iddim Frostspatter, who
was a female HUMAN
FARMER, lived in this
world. She was born in
the year 110 and is still
living. Iddim
Frostspatter always
hoped to rule the world.

37. “The game simulates surprisingly realistic geology…, and
somehow generates civilizations, complete with long
histories of murdering the shit out of each other. The
game is in a sort of open alpha at the moment, standing
at an estimated 31% complete; we are forced to assume
that, when finished, the game will fully and perfectly
simulate the Universe, judging by its current progress.
Eventually, it's supposed to generate complete fantasy
worlds and storylines. Basically, it'd be like if your
computer could write The Lord of the Rings or Dragon
Age at the push of a button.”

38. “When you are playing Dwarf Fortress, you are
God, and the world is talking back to you. And
you are a very anal god.”
– Paolo Antonelli, MOMA

39. How do we get their stories out?

42. References
• http://www.cracked.com/funny-6021-dwarf-fortress/
• http://www.wired.com/2010/09/oilfurnace/
• http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/23/5926447/dwarf-fortress-
will-crush-your-cpu-because-creating-history-is-
hard
• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-
of-dwarf-fortress.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

43. • http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=70099
• http://dwarffortresswiki.org/images/e/e6/FlowchartDF.png
• http://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/15t7hs/
this_has_been_my_general_progression_as_a_dwarf/
• http://i.imgur.com/YVMaJ.png
• http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page
• Bugs in release notes: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
• http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Glass_industry
• http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/start-over-and-remember-losing-is-fun-1/
• Missale et horae ad usum Fratrum Minorum. 1301-1400. God creating the
heavens and the Earth.
• http://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/1hl9ea/

44. • Codex Gigas http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-
europe/codex-gigas-devil-s-bible-largest-manuscript-
world-001276
• http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/kitab-al-bulhan-
or-book-of-wonders-late-14thc/
• Universitätsbibliothek Kiel. Nürnberger Schembart-
Buch, f.247. 17th century
• The Creation of the World and the Expulsion from
Paradise Giovanni di Paolo (Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia)
(Italian, Siena 1398–1482 Siena
• Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 42v. Bat

45. Thanks to @badnetworker (David Masad),
Caleb Howe, and Nicolai Krakowiak for
introducing me to stories about Dwarf
Fortress.