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Voting closed: May 25, 2020, 03:39:38 am

[DwarvenLord]

Yeah, I noticed the discrepancy too.
TBH, I didn't even try to choose Ryukan- I ordered a wall built to see the subject of DwarvenLord's rage and he was the one who did it. In fact, I had re-built the walls way earlier because people in the corridor were constantly getting "Interrupted by a miner" even when she wasn't transformed, so I roleplayed like the wall wasn't there.

[StrikaAmaru]

Yeah, I noticed the discrepancy too.

TBH, I didn't even try to choose Ryukan- I ordered a wall built to see the subject of DwarvenLord's rage and he was the one who did it. In fact, I had re-built the walls way earlier because people in the corridor were constantly getting "Interrupted by a miner" even when she wasn't transformed, so I roleplayed like the wall wasn't there.

Gameplay and story segregation * nods sagely *. It's not like my dwarfette isn't in the tavern getting (even more) drunk, while I'm role-playing her as poring over fortress records, in the overseer's office. Which doesn't physically exist.

[StrikaAmaru]

Preparations Part 1

The year 180 begins with a goblin invasion. I don’t usually put much faith in omens - arguably a heresy - but at this point I am beset by doubts. It was just too soon… Anyway, my doubts are not enough to distract me from my duties. As my first act in office, I call the alarms, and restrict access to the outside. Then while stragglers scramble towards the safety of the fort, I make my way to the overseer’s office, to take charge of this fort.


With access to the filed paperwork, I can make some long-term planning. Though not too long-term; it’s been explained to me before that making plans for after one’s term is a fool’s errand; even if the next overseer has the best intentions, grandiose plans tend to get left by the wayside. That’s not counting that most ‘next overseers’ have their own plans to carry out.

The first thing I check is the emergency burrow; it seems to be fine. It now includes the farming area, which I’ve been told wasn’t included the last time alarms have been called. Seems the esteemed DwarvenLord has fixed that.

Our ‘defense tower’ is a straight-up menace; I already knew that in previous invasions, goblins have climbed the outside of the tower, and entered restricted areas in this manner; what I didn’t know is that trolls have also been involved, and have broken all doors except the lowest one; I count 6 broken doors, across 5 levels. The remaining door is locked tightly, after I ensure nobody is currently loitering in the pilfered rooms.

The second thing I check is the list of general orders. In my days in the capital, a former overseer has ranted at me at length about what amazing bouts of stupidity can be found in a fort’s general orders. In here, I’m happy to say, there is very little I felt the need to change; I have merely:

• Stopped all dwarves from harvesting - only farmers are now allowed to do so. This will greatly increase yields, as plants will be collected by people who actually know what they’re doing.
• Disabled automatic looming of thread, and collection of webs. The first is dangerous, the latter is a constant annoyance, for both the overseer and the poor weaver who must forward a report every time webs run out.
• Allowed all items to be accessible. Automatic forbids are for dwarves who don’t obey burrow designations, and the current population of SmithSoldier has far too much discipline and pride for such bouts of foolishness.

 
A dwarf I don’t know has just entered my office, to say the siege was broken. Well that was a flash in the pan. The goblins must have been only passing through, on their way to another place… probably one where they don’t die this often, I’m going to guess.

I’d like to stress for external readers that yes, it is still the first day of granite. Seems my mistrust of omens is justified after all.

---------

In the save for 179, the farm wasn’t included in the burrow, which caused me a bit of grief for the few months I played. Now it is, so obviously DwarvenLord did the deed.

Btw, my dwarfette has clearly spent most of the past 2 seasons drinking, eating and being merry - she mostly knows bards and entertainers, and has all sorts of bad thoughts about not working.
--------------------

[StrikaAmaru]

Preparations, part 2

Going back to the audit of the fort. The drink situation was shaky before; I have learned as much while getting my celebratory cup of beer. But now we have reached a breathtaking zero drinks. This is undwarvenly, and will be resolved. Right now. The audit can wait a bit.


While I’m there, I also take advantage of the kitchen’s proximity to put in some orders for lavish meals. We can spare the food, and we could all use a little something special in our lives…

Can I just say the kitchen arrangement is bizarre? There is one kitchen, one still, one butchery with no tannery in sight, one farmer’s workshop, and two giant food stockpiles with no discernible difference between them:

 
For now, I order the construction of a tannery next to the butcher’s. I’ll sort that out later, properly; for the moment, I will only ensure there is food and drink.

On the same level as the food stockpiles, I find an atom-smasher. I investigate it, and it’s… odd. For a start, it’s much larger than I have seen; it is entirely possible to build an atom smasher in a single tile, so it does baffle me that this one uses a whopping 56. Then, the contents discarded inside make no sense; yes, there are some scattered skeletons and torn clothing, but in their vast majority, the contents are logs. The same logs that have been so painstakingly cut down from the surrounding woods, and which have resulted in two dead dwarves. Surely there must have been a clerical error, at some point?

 
On the surface, the dump area which fills the pit is set to active; I presume this was the cause, and that logs which should have gone to the smithy have reached the atom smasher. Well that at least is easily fixed; I disable the dumping area, and I am very tempted to decommission the entire contraption. It can be rebuilt, in a much more compact and secure manner.

To close the matter of the farming level, I have two more notes.

Firstly, there is a corpse pile sitting outside. This may not be a pressing issue in SmithSoldier, but it still makes me uneasy; I know of too many verified cases of necromancers raising every corpse they can see, to ever condone an external corpse stockpile.


Secondly, the animals do not have their own pasture, and keep meandering around the fort. The same farming level would be the correct place to keep them, but I’m unsure where to place it; trees above make digging a dangerous prospect, because it's too easy to accidentally punch a hole in the roof. There seems to be only one area with two layers of dirt - on level 142, next to the tavern and the “Temple of Armok” that has been sitting unfinished for years before I even got here. See last entry about the note on overseers not completing the masterpieces of their predecessors…


The lower area seems suitable for one or even two pastures; currently, the area is unused, with only a few iron bars scattered in what seems like a defunct stockpile, and some bins filled with rough gems.

What else is there to say? Ah yes. The logs chute towards the smithy:


A rather clever design, which I think will see some use soon-ish. Dwarves are already hauling logs from the surface; I see no reason to let them continue.

And one more defense project that has amounted to very little:


I understand that invaders would have been funneled into the central area, while marksdwarves would sit on the edges and shoot them at leisure. I cannot see any way in which this design would have worked as intended. I intend to do nothing with it, and wall off the lower area so no entry will be possible, even to flying enemies, or worse, titans.

But our defense situation is a different topic, which I will cover separately. Right now, I still have the audit to perform.

I find the manager orders; I have no qualms on the charcoal, steel, and armor orders, but why would anyone make 60 wooden buckets?


Buckets are not consumables, as you doubtlessly know; unless they were intended for sale, there is no point for any fort to craft 60 buckets. And I retain some doubts about the tunics too; is this really the greatest priority for us? I cancel the order for buckets, and let everything else as-is. For now.

2nd Granite.

Snatcher! Protect the children! He was later identified as Amxu Uksossetu, or StealHoods. No really, that is his name.


The bastard has bypassed all our traps, and even after being spotted, is still rushing for the fort. The military has been alerted; or at least the ones who have not been stolen from us. But the matter resolves itself quickly and nicely; before the Oily Tests can even approach Amxu, he foolishly enters the barracks. There he is promptly dogpiled by all military dwarves on-duty. The kill goes to Zultan GearMazes, who bashed the goblin with his crossbow so hard that the creature’s chest exploded into gore, but it was certainly a group effort.


Apropos of nothing: here is another thing I want to explain, as it likely makes no sense to someone outside of SmithSoldier - the situation and ‘sealing’ of DwarvenLord, which I mentioned happening last year. The poor dwarf was already sealed in the accessibility sense - he had no way to physically get out of the room, nor could anyone else enter his room. But as he was overseer, dwarves had carved out a fortification in the walls of his prison, through which he could speak clearly. The sealing I have mentioned involved walling over this fortification, thus denying an already-imprisoned dwarf access to nothing else except simple dwarven company. It is cruel and unnecessary, and I had higher expectations of us as dwarves. We are not goblins.

----------

I may be role-playing DwarvenLord’s imprisonment with maximum compassion, but the guy, and the wall sealing him, will remain in place for a good long time. Even discounting all the interruption spam, and that his ‘boss’ has plans, there’s also the whole “dwarves teleport through fortifications” bug.

 

[StrikaAmaru]

Album
 
Preparations, Part 3: crafting, and dwarves

The smithy, wood handling, and crafting area occupies the entirety of level 133, 12 levels below the surface. It was carved out in a combined layer of mudstone and granite, which has led to the discovery of multiple veins of metal.


The smithy is powered entirely by charcoal, which leaves me with contradictory feelings: on one hand, we are dismissing the blood of Armok; there isn’t a single magma forge in this entire fort (or, for that matter, any exposed magma). But on the other hand, this requires the obliteration of the surrounding forest, which personally appeals to me; I have always found nature unsettling, even when I appreciate its beauty.
In the end, the smithy will remain where it is; I may move some things around, but I won’t rebuild it completely; I cannot justify such a move to myself.

For a more detailed breakdown, I’ll begin with this wood chute, which serves as the input to the entire industry:


It is currently empty, as all logs have been used already. This also explains why dwarves are carrying logs by hand from the surface. Clearly, a new massive log dumping session is needed; I apologize in advance to my fellow citizens for forcing them to endure the outdoors.

This dumping destination is connected by a 1-tile wide tunnel to the larger wood and smithing area:


Traffic around it can certainly be improved with minimal effort. And another thing that I will do is to carve out niches for carpenter’s workshops, forges, glass-works, and pottery. I confess, my motivation in this is a bit sinister: dwarves who suffer a mood which can’t be completed will go mad, and it’s best to lock them away to wither and die, rather than endanger the whole fort.

Crafting has been left a bit haphazard. Masonry and stonecrafting is set east of the smithy, again in unsealed workshops:


I presume the rightmost room is a dining hall of sorts; I can’t tell for sure, because I haven’t even reached halls (or temples, or meeting areas, or…). Even so, it seems either unfinished or abandoned; the chairs were placed down, but few tables accompany it, and it lacks any chests or decorations.

Gems, by contrast to all other things so far, have received a truly royal treatment:


Those 5-tile pillars are built from gold. Both stockpiles have no bins allowed, letting gems be exposed for all to admire. It’s one of those things which I won’t interfere with; yes, it is a traffic nightmare, but sometimes it’s worth it.

Though all these cut gems give me ideas - could we perhaps build some gem windows around, to improve the place a bit? I know I would derive a bit of joy from a red opal or three…

And before I forget: at the left of this sketch, you’ll see two workshops tucked in a stone room; those are an ashery, and a soap maker’s workshop. I intend to move them to the wood working area, where ash is made in the first place. Lard for soap will still need a long haul but at least ash and lye will be near.

This is all the crafting we have, from what I can tell; what’s left now are the terrible defense situation, and an overview of the fort’s population as a whole.

… Speaking of defense is going to be painful. Let’s go over my fellow citizens first:

SmithSoldier is home to 68 dwarves, 5 of which are children. In addition, there are 15 goblins, and 18 humans, of which 6 have petitioned for full citizenship, and were granted such. Of the goblins, none so far have asked us for citizenship; I try to not be unduly biased against them… but if I am fair, I already am. Still, as long as none will break the law, I will treat them as my own.

The six humans are nothing special; the most skilled among them is a farmer; her name is Stozu, and she’s a professional musician and skilled grower. I intend to leave her as a full-time musician for the tavern; we have four growers of higher skill than her.

More relevant to my plans, the fort boasts 17 miners, myself included. But some have been drafted in the military, which is unusual; I thought it well-known that there are only so many tools a dwarf can carry, and that putting a pick and a weapon in the hands of the same dwarf will lead to all manner of confusion. I will see that military dwarves no longer have mining duties assigned, and that miners do not have any military duties. There are 4 legendary miners, who will definitely be removed from any military. The same for our three woodcutters, and any hunters we might decide to invest; currently we have none.

Rimtar TaperBasement, ‘friend’ to DwarvenLord, is the fort’s only, and legendary, carpenter. I certainly hope he enjoys hauling, since we don’t really have that much need for woodcrafts.

Our stone-crafting abilities are heavily sub-par: we number only two masons worthy of the name: Zulban GorgeStatic is an adept engraver and mason, while Limul is skilled in both fighting and masonry. Fath Oartick is a legendary engraver and proud member of our marksdwarf squad, The Oily Tests, where he likely will remain there, as he is an accomplished crossbow dwarf, and we do not have enough of them.

Stonecrafting is even worse than masonry; in here, at least, we have Iteb Chantedworks, who’s a legendary miner and talented stone crafter.

I find, with this occasion, that DwarvenLord is a proficient engraver; this moves me to order his room smoothed out. It is a very small favor to a fellow overseer, but, again, until I learn more of the situation I will not interfere.

We have 4 doctors, of which only Mebzuth BreedStandard is in any way accomplished; she will be named chief medical dwarf, even as I try to not dwell upon her second name.

Smithing is where this fort truly shines; we have legendary dwarves in armoring, weaponsmithing, and metal-crafting. Throw in a blacksmith, and we’d have a full set. Regrettably, they’re currently hampered by the complete lack of steel, and it’s not because there wasn’t any made: like any self-respecting professional, they work fast, and have finished the stockpiles.

We also have a high-master glassmaker, and a legendary gem-cutter; and that’s about it with the skilled dwarves. Any other skills you can think of, we are lacking in.

[StrikaAmaru]

Preparations part 4 (and last!)

Rooms and nobles are going to get handled in a single batch, for reasons obvious to anyone familiar with dwarven culture. But dwarven culture isn’t being represented very well in our fort: nobles, both elected and inherited, lack any rooms. And I doubt it’s a lack of time or space, seeing as the citizenry has a great number of rooms available, most of which are even engraved.


Meanwhile, the mayor has neither office or dining room, while the bookkeeper lacks his office.


And it's not like the rooms themselves don't exist; here they are, neatly defined and unassigned to anyone who might use them:



The fort’s only decent office (and lever room) has been assigned to the mayor, Edem MirrorTatoo. Another potentially significant dwarf that I never met, and another name going to my private list of noteworthy people.


Of the two meagre offices, none is immediately usable - one is in DwarvenLord’s room, and the other is shared with a dining room on the crafting level; I presume this is a mistake, and that it was initially planned as a dining room. Well it’s an office now, the dining room was decommissioned, and the office was assigned to our bookkeeper/broker Mosus CatchBasements.


Of all the room bondoogles which I have found here, I think this one bothers me the most. The bookkeeper, unlike other dwarves I can name, needs and uses his office; I don’t understand why previous overseers have not taken care of this.

The dining room next door has also been decommissioned, and converted to a private dining room for our mayor. It occurs to me I can also switch the offices for mayor and bookkeeper; this will vex the mayor, though, until his quarters can be brought up to standards. But after having no rooms whatsoever, I presume he will not be overly unhappy.

This leaves us with an unoccupied throne room, which I will keep for later. It’s located on level 110, and is very obviously a part of an unfinished complex:


The mayor’s rooms are nowhere near done, I should mention; there is still a need for furniture. And while pondering the placement of said furniture, a few details become apparent to me: the rooms are very slightly askew. The office is a 6x6 chamber, which means it has no ‘proper’ center, and the chair will always be off to the side. The dining room is 6x7, for some reason, and has no doors directly to the walkway. I give orders to alter both rooms to a 7x7 format:


The last room I handle is DwarvenLord’s. I have already left order for it to be smoothed; he hasn’t begun to do so, because he is still resting. I decommission the meagre office that was defined from his chair, and I create a bedroom for him alone. I nearly deconstruct the table and chair, too - since nobody ever brings food to the poor dwarf, they seem insulting. But I decide against it at the last moment; there are uses for tables and chairs which don’t involve a meal.

The same room was also marked as a hospital; that can no longer serve any purpose, and has also been decommissioned. We do have a hospital nearby; it’s surprisingly well-equipped, but security is non-existent, and there are neither tables, nor traction benches. Something else I should handle:


This neatly segues on to the areas and locations in the fort. We have 5 temples, one tavern - the Laborious Tummy, and one farmer’s guildhall - the Glacial Fins, which I am quite sure has only ever existed on paper.


For reasons unknown, the record doesn’t have a clear statement as to where exactly each location is; however, I am acquainted with the disgrace we call temples:


In order: the Chapel of Wisps, the Cavernous Church, the Church of Intricacies, and the Church of Persuading. The last two are built on dirt, and all of them are mis-shapen, unfurnished small rooms. I briefly wonder if any gods intend to curse us for this affront.

I have no idea where I could find the Sanctum of Owls, the Laborious Tummy, or the Glacial Fins. I have always presumed the Laborious Tummy was this golden beauty:


But it’s not marked as a meeting area; either the records are incomplete, or someone, at some point, has decided the meeting area should be removed. I’d also assume the Sanctum of Owls was the engraved room in the center-top… but I’m still convinced the guild-hall has never existed.

It does pain me, but I will appoint the guild-hall in the dirt-floored room in the top-right. They are a farmer’s guild; I hope none will come scream at me.

Sure enough, the description of the guildhall changes: 36 coins for 36 tiles; even farmers don’t prize dirt that much, I guess.


It is now the 11th of Granite. The mayor has ended the ban on exporting crowns, and immediately asks for a crown to be made. I intend to fulfill the order; there’s plenty of shells, bones, hooves and antlers which can be carved into crafts. I idly wonder if this is the material you enjoy, Edem... but I do not care enough to check.

I will take a short break, to eat and drink. Then I will tackle the enormous problem of the fort: defense. Until now, we were shielded with traps, bridges, and dwarven might. But we have also been lucky; there were no challenges we could not overcome. This is not guaranteed to last, and as time passes, it will become inevitable that we’ll be faced with enemies that cannot be handled by these three. It’s all fun and games until a Forgotten Beast made of diamond punches through the cavern doors.

[StrikaAmaru]

Album

Spring Part 1 - Granite

With a full belly and a drink in hand, I set out to tackle both stocks and security. The majority of the fort will be set to dumping logs from the surface; the bridges for the dumping zone were lowered and every item within 21 blocks of it has been marked for dumping. I keep an eye out for any other dump zones that I might have missed, but there don’t seem to be any.

Exempt from this duty will be the miners, the wood-burners and the furnace operators. The choice needs little explanation; wood-burners and furnace operators will keep making raw materials for the smiths, and miners will be kept busy with digging all manner of rooms and passages. There’s no shortage of modifications that I want to bring to this place, and the mayor’s rooms are only the first among them. Next, I am looking at extending the wood room:


The walls were shaved off one or two layers of stone, bringing it up to 22x22. The left side will have all the carpenter’s shops in it, and a willow-only stockpile for all the furniture that isn’t beds. The right side is where the new wood-burning furnaces are going to be built. Lastly the 1-wide corridor to the terminus of the dump-zone is getting extended to 3-wide, to improve traffic.

While this is being done, I look at the military. By law and tradition, dwarves which have been captured are marked as ‘travelling’, (as opposed to the more accurate 'captured', 'lost', or 'horribly tortured by literal devil worshipers'), and cannot be removed from their squads. But everyone else can. Thus, I am able to keep to the word of law, while entirely subverting its spirit.

Before I even begin sorting out the military, I issue two new uniforms, with all-steel armor; one for crossbow-dwarves, the other for melee. Unlike my predecessors, I let melee dwarves pick their weapon of choice; but crossbow-dwarves are forced to pick crossbows - the last thing I want is for some fool to collect a bow then never let it go, motivating that “I like bows!” and completely ignoring that s/he can’t even fire the damn thing.


The Towers of Wind have 3 missing dwarves, and their commander is a legendary spear-dwarfette named Zon. Zon was replaced with one Nomal Athelabir, who is prone to tantrums, and is not expected to fight in any capacity. Apropos of nothing, Nomal’s second name translates to RingedRomanced, which makes no sense; I suspect she likes the old tongue, but not enough to learn its grammar.


The SlammerLords have 2 missing dwarves; their new ‘captain’ is Cerol SyrupLabored, a fisherdwarf prone to melancholy. Incidentally, this squad used to contain our mayor who is a decent doctor, a legendary miner, and a legendary armorer; neither of them will be returning to duty.


The Oily Tests have no missing people; they do have an utter lack of squadmates, though. Please excuse the temporary markings on top of dwarves’ names; I need to keep track of their capabilities somehow.


Ninth in the list is a human, hence the large H obscuring her name. She is completely unarmored, having only her original clothes. That’s our fault; we have never made any large pieces of armor; the only ones we crafted were normal, dwarf-sized ones, and our human citizens have been left by the wayside. Another embarrassment to us, and insult to them, which I will correct.

The fate of this squad, I’m afraid, is to be disbanded. It was equipped with iron armor, and it is less of a hassle to start over with a steel-based one than it is to change everybody’s equipment. Not to mention there are no penalties for this act, since their squad leader is likely dead, and cannot be angered by being demoted.

The Ocre Youths have now been created, a steel-armored crossbow squad under the leadership of an accomplished marksdwarf who is also a legendary engraver.


With the squad complete, I no longer need my temporary notes. This is the unaltered list of dwarves. Except for Fath, and Jamas the human woman, nobody has any crossbow skill. I deem it extremely important to make a shooting gallery for the Ochre Youths, so they can gather up some skills.


A new melee squad, calling itself The Future Girders, has been formed around a former member of The Towers of Wind. It has accumulated the survivors of both The Towers of Wind, and The Slammer Lords (I will forever regret the loss of this squad’s name from the annals of dwarven history). There are three humans in this squad, one of whom is good with a pike; if we can secure one for him, it would be wonderful.

I’ll keep an eye on the fifth dwarf, Minkot; he was noted to be deliberately cruel on more than one occasion, and if the dwarf truly is a sadist, I’d like to keep him pointed at the enemy, and away from his fellow dwarves.



Two more things to be done for the military: I increase the number of bolts available for The Ochre Youths to 500; this will leave each marksdwarf with 50 bolts, the maximum capacity of a quiver. I also notice there are very few bolts left, and that most of them have been reserved for hunters (of which, again, we have none). I disable reserved bolts for hunters, and make a note for one of the less skilled weaponsmiths to start making some.


And lastly, I disable all foods and all activity for the two unfortunate squads. Then I remove them from active duty, sadly forever.


The first month of spring has nearly ended, and no caravan from the pointy-ears has arrived. Seems this fort doesn’t trade with elves; no great loss. While waiting for new migrants, I look over the military requisitions, and note that almost all dwarves have claimed some form of armor; most of it is from the iron stock, but it won’t be that long until we have steel. Maybe half a year? So I go back into the military and change equipment constraints to only use armor.

--------
The reason I'm forcing dwarves to wear only armor is more legacy, and may not apply anymore. In short, some pieces of 'normal' clothing prevent armor from being worn; there is a hidden value for each piece of clothing and each body part, and if the value of the clothing exceeds the cap for the body part, then the dorf won't pick any more clothes. In previous versions, including 0.44.x, this meant that a dorf could wear either high boots, or socks and shoes, but not high boots and socks.

And the reason I only force it on those with full equipment is to keep them from going naked. Because they will, and then the unhappy thoughts start piling on.

[StrikaAmaru]

Album: same as for the previous post; link

Spring part 2 - Slate & Felsite

1st of Slate.

One of our ‘lesser’ weaponsmiths, Kubuk RazorChampions, has been possessed by unknown forces. He was already an accomplished weaponsmith before (ooc: level 10), so the only thing this means is that if he ever wishes to become legendary, he’ll need to take it the slow way. There’s also a minor problem, more for me than for him: I had ordered all forges dismantled in preparation for moving them in enclosed spaces; I now need to build one, very quickly.


Almost simultaneously, some migrants arrive from the east. Their arrival pushes the number of dwarves in the fort to 85.


11th of Slate. Our possessed weaponsmith has claimed the newly-built forge.


While he gathers materials, I order the smoothing of carpenter's pods and the neighboring forge pods. Two engravers jump to it; our own Fath OarTick, and a migrant named Sibrek, who is barely even adequate, and who is immediately removed from stone detailing. Instead, I enable it on a fellow miner, Sikod CanyonTrust who was already an expert, and should be a much better backup engraver.

Next, I turn to the stonecrafting area, or lack thereof.


All workshops have been marked for deconstruction. Likewise, the line of chairs and 2 wooden tables. I intend to expand the left-side area into a larger stone-crafting area, while the two rooms to the right will be merged into a large library. Believe me, it seems a vast space, but a library will eat it all up.

What vexes me most about this is the stairwell going downwards. This level was a connection between two independent stairwells - one going up all the way to the soil layers, and one going down until the cavern. The transition will need to be moved on a lower lever. I would have it removed entirely, but that won’t end well - the bottom is not only in insecured cavern territory, but also above water. It’s much simpler to create the same dog-leg passage at a lower level.

A human joins our fortress in full, and hints he'd like to be drafted in the military. I'll keep your desires in mind:


16th of Slate

While the crafting area is redone, I hastily inaugurate The Library of Letters. My motive is entirely one of self-preservation: dwarves are repeatedly complaining to me that if they don’t get to indulge in a bit of abstract thinking, they’re going to go mad. Oh they phrase it differently, sometimes more politely, sometimes less, but the idea is the same. We NEED a library. And we need more temples, as well.


I may be too late, even. The mood of dwarves is slowly but certainly dropping. We now have 9 unhappy citizens, and 5 who are very unhappy. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time until… unfortunate incidents… will begin to occur.


17th of Slate. Kubuk has begun a mysterious construction. In a medium of pig iron, I don’t have high hopes; could you not have picked steel? Or failing that, silver?


19th of Slate. Unfortunate events are happening!


Two citizens have snapped: the human Gib RevereGems, a high master musician, and a dwarf named Morul; a trader but an unskilled one, who was relegated to hauling and was noted to have anger issues.

22nd. The violence has mostly stopped, but not without consequences: Morul is dead, and so is a military dwarf, one Kib, from The Ochre Youths. In response, another recruit, Ingish, has gone into shock. Poor Ingish really has a bad day - she has sunk into depression, has suffered a broken arm, and has fallen in the pit before the entrance.


If she snaps out of depression, I will deconstruct a wall keeping the pit sealed from the outside. I will keep an eye on her, periodically. If not, she will die there.

(OOC: I missed taking a screenshot of the Great Doctoring, where some 8 individuals were piled into the hospital. Most of them have ambled there on their own, instead of ignoring their wounds if they were still mobile. This made me happy in real life, because that was the cause of many wounded dwarfs dying a needless death from infection. You can still see its aftermath, however.
)
With all this, it seems I should up the priority of all the corpse handling, which I intended to do after the fort is sealed. The first step is to set up a corpse stockpile near the common graves. My intention was for this to hold only dwarven and human corpses, but unfortunately, corpse stockpiles don’t have such specifications.


Next to this area, a refuse stockpile will be excavated, and a much smaller atom smasher next to it; I’d like to go for a 3-tile design. The new refuse stockpile is strategically placed next to the basement to the Temple of Armok, and reasonably close to the pasture (you can see a bit of it in the lower-right). Come to think of it, I’m sure I can create a room for poultry around here somewhere…, yeah, I foresee some butchering in the near-future.


Amid all this planning, the weaponsmith’s strange mood has completed: a war hammer. Once again, I deeply regret that he picked pig iron and not silver. I’d even dream of platinum, but we have none.


7th of Felsite. Some troupe I’ve never heard of wish to reside in Smith Soldier. I’ll give them a shot, and see how they compare to my beloved Heliotrope Lark.


The dumping from the surface is approaching its end. Or, more accurately, the new batch of dumping is approaching its end. The original designation, of 21 tiles around the chute, has been completed around the end of granite; then I marked everything in the former garbage pit and all the wood until the western edge of our claimed territory. As soon as the last logs are sent down the chute, the haulers will be repurposed for stone hauling and dumping; the newly-dug areas should be clear before the stockpiles are laid down.

End of Felsite. Summer approaches, and I’ve been pulled this way and that. The past two weeks, ish, have seen a fair amount of activity, and I’ll do my best to summarize them, even if exact dates have been lost. I mean really, it all happened within a two-week period; do you really need to know the exact day?

Anyway. The future refuse pile has been dug out, and so has the future atom smasher. You have already seen the end results, since the sketch with the order hasn’t been properly documented so I included the finished product. Also, the pasture was completed, and all grazing animals (plus a few dogs and pigs) have been assigned to it.


The proposed poultry room (I believe it’s called a coop? I have no experience in farming)  will likely be off to the side, and an enclosed pod of butcher and tanner workshops will also be constructed… somewhere around here. To be frank, they’re very far down my list of priorities.

The depressed soldier with the broken arm, Ingish, has snapped out of her state and then climbed out of the pit. Yes, with a broken arm. She is currently getting a drink; she remains very unhappy, which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

I have been borderline assaulted with requests for citizenship. Individual requests primarily, but also a troupe named The Cremated Twig. I have to give it to them, at least they have a funny name. At the end of the month, this has put us at 9 human citizens (one of whom is the perpetually depressed Gib RevereGems) and we have acquired our first goblin citizen! Dostngosp TalonDevil is a 27-year old adept musician, who despite the extremely badass name, has no military skill whatsoever. (ooc: he’s level 7).

I should also keep in mind that the mayor has made a demand for a crown, and I have zero workshops for crafts available right now. Thankfully, I still have time.

I made, then corrected, a small mistake regarding the planned spaces for enclosed workshops: they have all been moved 1 tile up to the north. The new design looks approximately like this:


This lets us have 6 pods, while the previous design had 5 pods, and an awkward, unusable 2-tile space at the bottom. You can also see the new stockpile for willow wood, and the old but expanded stockpile for burning wood - this last one has all surface woods, except willow, feather tree, kapok and candlenut; to my recollection these are the lightest woods in existence, thus they’re best kept for crafting. The mushroom trees aren’t notably light; in fact, they compare  with above-ground trees; but they’re colorful, so I keep them separate by choice.

[DwarvenLord]

You really missed out on an opportunity with that artifact- You could of forbid all materials other than steel- If it was a sharp weapon, then it's excellent- if it's blunt, it's not as good but it's not bad. You could've done the other way around too. But what happened happened, so just keep that in mind for the next time. Still, good job on the rest of the fort! It's nice to finally get our workshops organized and have a working hospital.

[LeftHandofGod]

Well, it's nice to have someone competent handling things before I take over and screw things up seven ways to hell. lol

[StrikaAmaru]

You really missed out on an opportunity with that artifact- You could of forbid all materials other than steel- If it was a sharp weapon, then it's excellent- if it's blunt, it's not as good but it's not bad. You could've done the other way around too. But what happened happened, so just keep that in mind for the next time. Still, good job on the rest of the fort! It's nice to finally get our workshops organized and have a working hospital.

That's something I almost never do, tbh. Also, I'm pretty sure there wasn't a single bar of steel available at that time. Could have still used silver, though.

Incidentally, your dwarf? Hasn't smoothed a single tile. She's conscious, has engraving as her only job, and for some reason she's perfectly fine, with a stress level of -8k; she's the sixth happiest dorf in the fort right now. But she's not actually doing the one job assigned to her.

And she's listed as being 217 years old, an estimated 57 years past her best-by date. Are you sure the were-chameleon thingy was her first curse?

Well, it's nice to have someone competent handling things before I take over and screw things up seven ways to hell. lol

I always said: things have to be good before you can fuck them up XD

[Quantum Drop]

Well, it's nice to have someone competent handling things before I take over and screw things up seven ways to hell. lol

Someone competent's in charge? That settles it, then: pigs are flying, the HFS are skating to work, and I just became a Mandrill's uncle![/joke]

Incidentally, your dwarf? Hasn't smoothed a single tile. She's conscious, has engraving as her only job, and for some reason she's perfectly fine, with a stress level of -8k; she's the sixth happiest dorf in the fort right now. But she's not actually doing the one job assigned to her.

And she's listed as being 217 years old, an estimated 57 years past her best-by date. Are you sure the were-chameleon thingy was her first curse?

I'll admit I'm surprised at DL's happiness levels IG - would've expected the relative isolation to be taking more of a toll on her.

Great job on the fort so far, and excellent writing!

EDIT: Removed a brainfart.

[DwarvenLord]

And she's listed as being 217 years old, an estimated 57 years past her best-by date. Are you sure the were-chameleon thingy was her first curse?

Well the incident was quite a while after she came to the fort, and there were no instances of blood-sucking or revivifying as far as I can tell. But who knows, maybe she's really resilient.

[StrikaAmaru]

Before I post the Hematite update, these are the latest thoughts of DwarvenLord the dwarfette, as of mid-summer.


I only now connected something about her age: she's older than the world. This is an original-issue dwarfette. (Still doesn't explain why she hasn't died of old age circa year 123, though)

There is no explanation for the "watched a performance" and "retched on miasma" thoughts - both should have happened in the spring, and I'm very sure none did. There's also no explanation for the complete lack of unhappy thoughts about her being buck-naked for years, by this point.

I'm also genuinely puzzled by her not smoothing out her room; I'm pretty sure that would only happen if she's not technically part of this fort anymore, in a process similar to what happens in a loyalty cascade. And it might have been exactly that - caused by her one and only kill, a human named Kofi Feedgarlic/Lapaimec, in 177. Looking in the dead units list, s/he's listed as a "werechameleon child".

... That's it, isn't it? She has changed allegiances; that neatly explains why fort dwarves kept being "interrupted by a miner", why her thoughts and emotions are all fucky, and why she's not obeying orders.

[StrikaAmaru]

New day, new season, new album, new post.

Summer - Hematite (and a bit of Malachite)

With most of the digging and building complete, the first priority for this year is to begin some actual crafting.

Our only legendary carpenter has been asked to make 3 workshops; the top one will be linked to the willow stockpile, and do bins on repeat, until either we run out of wood, or the workshop gets cluttered, or I finally remember to turn the command off. This won’t be done quickly, the dwarf is sleeping right now.

Our two barely-decent masons have been removed from all jobs except masonry, and also architecture since I still need them to build workshops. They’re adept and skilled, respectively (levels 7 and 4), and they’ll be cutting blocks till at least one of them makes grand-master. Then they can make some important stuff.

Some crafting workshops were made besides the mason’s workshops; they are intended for stone crafts, as you may have imagined, and we have the pick of two talented stonecrafters (level 6); they get the same deal as the masons: make stone crafts, until you get good. For this purpose, they’ll be supplied with some of the less impressive stones - which at this point means mudstone.


The bone-crafting will be done elsewhere; for the long term, I haven’t decided where yet. But for the short term, it will be done in the terribly unsafe cavern layer. And it will be done by the most unhappy dwarves in the fort. I am hoping the crafting, and subsequent increase in skills, will help their mood. Oh, and I’ve walled up the doors into the cave, to decrease the danger.


For the smithing area, I’ve decided to construct 4 forges, 1 kiln and 1 glass maker's workshop; just in case. We also have 4 wood burning furnaces; I briefly wondered if that’s too little, given how ravenous the smithy is, but wood gets burnt fast, so they should keep up. There's a different potential problem too - that furnaces will eat through neighboring logs at a faster rate than haulers can replenish.


16th Hematite. A human caravan has arrived. They’re having quite the time navigating between all the trees; perhaps a lower-priority project can be to secure a direct entry point for the caravan? Plans for the winter…

17th. The mayor bans the export of crowns; I take this to mean that his crown has been made by one of the angry, angry people in the cavern.

20th. In the spirit of last-minute changes, I decide to make a work-around to the mayor’s doubtlessly recurring bans on selling crowns: I remove them from the trading stockpile, and make them a separate, distant, stockpile; for instance, in the barracks, where they certainly won’t bother anyone.


And while I’m looking at that stockpile, I also restrict its contents to crafts, and forbid artifact goods from it. The day I sell an artifact will be a sad day indeed…


23rd. It seemed to be working, dammit! It seemed to be working. Until it didn’t.


Zultan GearMazes throws a tantrum and destroys her workshop. This senseless act of violence shocks Ingish, the recruit who broke her arm this spring, and a doctor who was the worst of them all. Perhaps worse, Zultan then leaves the cavern and runs into the fort. GearMazes… why is this name familiar? Ah. She’s the one who killed the goblin thief in the spring. How the mighty fall - she was meant to be a hero, and now she’s on the cusp of becoming a villain.

24th. Zultan has reached the tavern, and punched a caravan guard - a human crossbowman. I immediately remove Zultan from her military position; if she’s going to get herself killed while getting SmithSoldier in trouble, she should at least be unarmed and unarmored while at it. But she immediately calms down and returns to the cavern, to resume crafting. Strange is the mind of an angry dwarf.

28th. A hammerdwarf I have never heard from has risen. I check the name with the list of our 5 lost dwarves but s/he doesn’t match:


3rd of Malachite. Finally we trade! I purchase 2 platinum bars, and some human clothes; not that many, because their full title was made unreadable by space constraints:


I presume it makes sense to humans, but not to me. I end up buying several chaussees, only because they’re the items whose name I can read. Likewise, a few gloves.

The animals on display don’t interest me; neither do barrels and bags, although the absence of any lye on sale reminds me to order some ash made as well. I do purchase the cheaper leather, wool cloth, and silk, and every piece of thread I can find. That should be everything, I believe?


No wait! We have a library now, and it’s got nothing but air. Let’s see what books the humans have:










Some have been bought in duplicate. I also throw in a few of the cheaper quivers, and then I think we’re really done.