hillfort home

My main base is in a hollowed-out hill slightly to the west of my spawn. Everyone likes the hill house. (Well, newbie likes it. HGR was like “you made a dwarf fortress!!” which is close enough in my opinion.)

Starting a second playthrough right after the first has been nice because I can arrange everything for maximal convenience. Directly at spawn is a miniature house with piggy bank, merchant, and forest pylon. Magic storage is immediately to the left; hellevator is immediately to the right. The goblin tinkerer lives in an underground house directly below the spawn, with no hellevator access so he doesn’t yeet himself to hell. In between the spawn and the hillfort, there’s a minor tree farm and the underground sky library. (Cloud-and-glass walls, skyplate fixtures, bookshelves of all kinds, high-vaulted reading lounge.)

Meanwhile, over in Infernum, HGR’s base consists of magic storage at his spawn point, and then a high-rise vertical complex of slum housing. Each house is 4x10 with one-tile-wide dirt walls. Originally, they all had wooden tables, chairs, and doors, but then HGR ran out of wood and didn’t feel like farming more, so he started making the tables/chairs/doors out of mushrooms. Also he didn’t firewall his base before hardmode so it’s now completely hallow. He does have amenities though: a shimmer pool right next to his magic storage. He piped it up from underground. It was a whole saga.