12.2: The Founding of TowerEnded
Due to its skills and Our needs, the dwarven farmer Muthkat BridgeBow is offered a position in The Massive Axe for the purpose of establishing the new Dwarven Fort of TowerEnded.
Should it choose to accept, it will be granted the positions of Bookkeeper and Manager.
The Crown awaits a response no later than Felsite 1st, 1101. Failure to respond will be regarded as agreement.
By order of Her Majesty Queen Etur WireFierce, goblin queen of the Cudgel of Time, so shall it be.
It was all an act, of course; this fort had been cooked up between itself and three others since 1072, ever since dwarves from the Craft of Conjunctions have reclaimed their ancestral mountainhome of ScarredGlazes from goblins. It gave all dwarves hope, knowing that a conquered mountainhome can go from 13,000 goblins to zero in a single decade.
Then, the project was presented to the clueless goblin ‘Queen’, who cheerily accepted it as a means of securing dwarven good-will for herself. To be fair, re-killing old Pestrat really would create some good-will, but for the group who did so, not for the king or queen; let alone for some green fool on a blood-soaked throne. Little Etur still thought in goblin terms, where all praise goes to the leader regardless of who does the work. Muthkat could work with that.
Meanwhile, dwarven interests were being served threefold: by establishing a dwarven outpost far from the control of the increasingly-goblinized court, by training dwarves in both martial arts and the old unmarred dwarven culture, and not lastly by ending one of their old enemies. It had been six hundred years since Pestrat PerplexedBrain had conquered RelievedPoke and slain all within; but did the undead really think retiring off into a tower and dedicating his unlife to writing books is enough to be forgiven? Or forgotten?
All had progressed according to dwarven plans, barring delays from goblin incompetence: the four conspirators had taken care to be ‘selected by the crown’, gathered in the hillock of OilDeath, and now, just days away from the beginning of Hematite, they and three more were finally leaving towards their chosen fortress. If only they could have started in winter, when temperatures were pleasant for travel… but no, it had to be at the start of summer.
Quietly cursing all the wheeling-and-dealing that delayed them, Muthkat climbed into the back of the wagon, and settled for two weeks of travel.
In her lavish office in EctoTomes, Queen Etur pondered on her spies’ reports; they had claimed full success in their tasks, of course. Even better, the spies set to spy on those spies concurred.
(This might also have been a sign of them colluding against her, but you can’t function if you’re paranoid about every single thing. Etur had to draw the line somewhere, and she was quite confident drawing it here).
It was inevitable that those who lost power would desperately seek to regain it. So when grassroots conspiracies sprung in taverns, temples and guild halls, aiming to topple her rule, she didn’t even raise an eyebrow. She only sought to bend them to her goals. TowerEnded was only one of these projects: yet another group of fools who were shouting the ancient cry: “why are you in charge, when it should be me”? Oh, they claimed to reinstate the old glory days of their ancestors, but their long-dead ancestors are not in charge, are they? It was always one of the living, one of them, who would come to rule.
She could have easily slain them, but what’s the point of that? No, much better they be turned against other threats; there was hardly a shortage of them, after all. So, she had opened her treasury, and granted them what they sought so fervently: a fortress to serve as their power base. But with it, a task. They, and others like them, would foolishly throw themselves against the Chosen of Death until either they perished, the Chosen was broken, or they had weakened each other enough to be wiped out by an external force. Three possible outcomes, each with its gains and losses.
She was aiming for the first, with a dash of third. Then she could swoop in with her own troops, raze the weakened Tower, and ‘avenge the fallen heroes of TowerEnded’.
The second outcome was arguably the worst: it would leave a group of well-trained and politically-empowered separatist dwarves, who may very well kill her and take the throne among the adulatory cries of their kin.
And the last… well, the last was complicated. She could not be that external force: it would have sparked discontent if any of her forces would go to raze SavageSculpted before all in TowerEnded were dead -- even the dullest and least politically-involved peasants would have correctly spotted the kill-steal underway, and her reputation would drop precipitously. So that was straight out, barring some amazing windfall.
Her other choice would be to conspire with her secret allies from the Disloyalty of Soot, convincing them to siege the weakened Tower. This in turn would put undue benefits in the hands of their civilization, and may in turn embolden them to break their current arrangement. It would be quite an inconvenience, if they’d attack her in truth, not merely the pre-established attacks that she provided intel for. She could not suppress a smile at this; she usually couldn’t, when she recalled how she obtained her throne. Poor Osta, so obsessed with personal strength, and so dismissive of all things subtle. No wonder he ruled for barely a year.
But, back to the matter at hand, her first sabotage of TowerEnded had already been done: the delay in leaving had already hopelessly compromised the well-calculated optimal path for new fortress establishment. Her would-be enemies were focused on returning to their old ways, not to take advantage of any new unexpected situations; typical dwarves, in this aspect. So far, so good.
The fort’s long term project stated a limit of 120 citizens; she would then take care to send only the least-skilled and intelligent, plus the occasional uncomfortable dissident. She’d also have to slip in some well-trained individuals to avoid raising suspicions, and she couldn’t stop other skilled dwarves joining of their own free will. But she had confidence in her ability to leave TowerEnded just weak enough to serve her interests.
OOC:
Etur is listed in Legends as both queen of dwarves and member of the Disloyalty of Soot, a goblin civilization. I’m guessing that’s because the Disloyalty of Soot have conquered the location she was in, but I choose to roleplay it as a secret alliance. The DoS get intel, easy fights, and loot. Etur gets a potential enemy held under truce, and a force of killers who remove problematic groups and individuals without being traced to her. And all this for the price of looted hamlets, kidnapped children, and dead citizens. Etur couldn’t have found a cheaper deal.
I’m starting to develop a bit of respect for Etur; she’s very young as far as goblins go (born in 1009), but despite this, she’s been involved in 94 battles. She got her throne in late 1058, after the previous goblin king of dwarves died defending the ancestral mountainhome of ElderCraft from the Disloyalty of Soot. She has exactly one living relative: a great-grandfather who’s a Prophet. Aside from him, all her ancestors are dead, and so is her only husband.
The RNG has been particularly kind to me in this embark: the group name, The Massive Axe, was picked by the RNG; initially I wanted to use something related to killing undead, but once I saw what the game offered I changed my mind. Then two miners have the best names a miner can have: our expedition leader is Kivish MineCaught, and the fort’s dedicated miner is Zasit ConfinedCopper. ‘Course, the RNG then ‘compensated’ by handing me two other guys with ‘paddled’ in the name (Udib ChuckedPaddled, our third miner and mason, and Ezum WrungPaddled, carpenter and stonecrafter).
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Topic: The World Of Bones - Succession World - Ended (Read 35360 times)