Moved from my attempt at fishing for advice:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=60551.0As far as being newbie goes, I probably couldn't build a pump stack to save my life, but I'll be damned if I'm passing up this much Fun.
A solid third of all the legends of an entire world, revolve around this travesty. One I aim to end.
Gethushul - The Past Realm
In a time before time, Lural Crossedstretched the Nightmares of Troubling began wandering the Underworld.
Year 1
Dwarf Ral Paddlecactus became the queen of The Tome of Churches, enthroned within the Mountainhome Tradedtaught.
Goblin Bax Doombristle the Profane Light of Droplets becomes the assumed warlord of The Terrible Ghoul horde of goblins.
A sub-scourge of Bax, The Romantic Wraith, constructs the Dark Fortress Menacehand. Its peaks are fortified with great towers of despair, terror, and flavors thereof.
Lural escapes Hell.
Year 4
Lural settles in Menacehand, and creates the position of Master within The Romantic Wraith through force of argument. The tyrant siezes the position immediatly, and would plague the dwarven nation for the next thousand years.
Year 46
The fell influence of Lural begins to posess the minds of my fellow dwarves, and the first to turn Duergar is Alath Raspfortress. In the hundreds of wars that followed, the Dwarves must pit themselves not only against the Goblins, but their own fallen kin.
Year 373
Lural himself takes to the field after the might of The Tome of Churches begin to fell his dreadful scourge. The first allied dwarf to gaze upon his terrible visage was Ilral Chanceinked. That was also the last thing he would ever see.
1032
Melbil Crevicecloisters becomes our most current king, guided by the divine power of the Hydra Cacame Yellsfly the Knight of Raunch. I pray we do not become the same monsters we loathe in our pursuit to end this eternal slaughter. Armok must be laughing indeed.
1047
After a millenia of the tyrant's opression, we see the dawn of our final war.
We fight The Dented Conflict, for the fate of The Land of Subtleties
It begins with The Siege of Wringing, where our Dwarven commander Shorast Oarpattern leads The Tome of Churches against The Romantic Wraith and the Duergar Damsto Cursedrain.
Slaying 5 of the betrayers cost us 16 brothers. Amung them, Shorast Oarpattern, shot and killed by Duergar arrow. I refuse to call theese monsters Dwarves. Damsto, and Luran, yet live.
1048
The Assaults of Denting
Zon Treatydance rallies a party of 69 Dwarves, as The Tome of Churches strikes The Romantic Wraith hard in vengeance for the loss of Shorast. Righteous fury sees the tides of war shifting. 13 brothers are lost to the Duergar Damsto, but they pay with 8 of their own.
Our new commander survives to regroup, a veteran from the siege. His ability to adapt, and surpass the kill ratio of Shorast is a promising hint of what greatness has yet to come. I pray to Armok this trend continues, they should be paying a hundredfold for even one of our brothers!
1051
Zon conscripts none other than myself and my six friends from the mountainhome Tradedtaught, invoking the Ancient law of Arms in the name of our Ancestor Ral, and by the rule of Melbil.
He promises we will be the first of many, he promises us the right to appoint our own Noble Houses once our wealth proves our worth to The Tome of Churches.
He promises many things, but greatest of all, my destiny!
So the game kept wanting to crash and spoil my ambition. Oh well. Successively had to size it down to max embark -4 rows on all sides but top.
We have embarkment! Despite my earlier fears, the game is running remarkably smooth and fast, despite the massive amount of creatures and stuff happening on-screen.
---
Graniteblaze, The Firey Standards, has a wealth of land sprawling all around Menacehand. The four towers of legend stand, looking north from left to right; Torment, Despair, Terror, and Fright.
We have mountains to either side, beneath our feet, and a bowl before us where the towers stand. Torment fills a valley that would have otherwise been a secondary path into the bowl from the north; but we came from the south! Torment is the tallest of them all, a six story structure, and even at this distance we can see the monstrous form of Lural atop it. Prisoners of The Terrible Ghoul are being paraded and sorted into the towers, even after these three years there are plenty of survivors.
But what disturbs me most, are all the children.
I find myself, almost enchanted by their friendliness. The chain look comfortable, even Lural seems inviting.
To shake off Lural's corruption, we hit the tankard, and hit the dirt. We need to dig in before they change their minds about us. We need to be prepared before they notice any more of Zon's conscripts migrating in.
We excavate a hall for frontline defence, and set to building sturdy doors of stone, and comfy beds of willow. Good thing we brought a baker's dozen of logs, because the only sprinkling of trees is on the other side of their towers.
---
Lural ... A great scaley armadillo twisted into humanoid form, it has a bloated body, beware its fire! He is very skinny. A thousand years of attempts to take him down have failed. How will we, NOT?