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[catenate]

For my first fort in a while, I’m keeping meticulous notes, grouped by
month from the beginning of the fortress, in the forms of diaries and
ledgers with only a little characterization.  These are not proper,
coherent stories, and are not summarized and digested as such,
but stories do of course emerge from the entries.

I currently capture these perspectives: expedition (leader), military
commander (captain), bookkeeper (ledger), a dwarf migrant (vampire),
and others (diary).  I keep lists of (artifacts), fortress migrants
and their talents and fate (cast), what I brought on (embark), and
interpretations of (engravings).  The key to the fort, which started
with a (shelter), is its (layout), which is guided by translations of
(fragments) of an ancient dwarven mountainhome-building guide
(or possibly a travel brochure).

These might be of interest to someone who wants to follow along more
closely (than a story with demands of plot and pacing) as someone
plans, lays out, and maintains a fortress.  The fortress layout might
also be interesting: I’m trying to create a network of highly compact
and efficient burrows, each isolated from each other by mines and
drawbridges, where each burrow controls which others it trusts from
those to which it connects.  I haven’t really seen this style: people
tend to build big sprawling floor plans (with a broad central staircase
used past the first delve) that makes it difficult (for me) to contain
the loss of part of the fort (clowns once used a central staircase to
depopulate my fort in about 5 minutes--it only took so long because
most of them spent their time partying in a meeting hall).

This more or less represents the burrow connections I’m going for
(using Talryth's tileset).



I store the files in this github repository, including a recent save of the region,
if you want to take a look.

https://github.com/catenate/dfort/tree/master/forts/Earthenunited

I currently update several times a week, as I find time for vanilla DF 0.34.11.
I do intend to try this style again with the new release, whenever it comes out.
I expect that I will have to alter the outer walls to handle jumpers and climbers,
at least.

(order) is obsolete, since I use the diaries instead, and (notes) unused.

[The Master]

Sounds promising! Definitely watching where this goes!

[catenate]

Burrow addresses in the mine-bridge-chamber style,
an essay by a human scholar of dwarven archaeology:

"Dwarves speak of location relative to gates, entry points, the first
space where an area was entered, which provide passage back to the
place they were before.  For a fortress, the first gate is the place
near where the wagon stopped, where they first struck the earth.
For a level of the fortress, the level gate is the location of the
first stairway down or up to the level, or the entry point first
carved from outside.  In avuzsazirmafol, they further name their
burrows by the ore of the vein that leads to a frame/chamber/burrow,
since to dwarves every mineral, and especially metals, have strong and
distinct feel, appearances, smells, and tastes, and sound when struck.
If there are more than one vein of the same economic stone, or if the
level is completely composed of it (eg, marble by caverns) then they
distinguish them by relative direction to or from the mountainhome,
and left or right from the path towards the mountainhome.

So an address inside the fortress is composed of the level of the
fortress down from the first gate, the name of the vein that leads to
the frame/chamber/burrow, and (if necessary) a direction to
distinguish it from another, similar vein.  Since the human overseer
doesn’t have the same sense of direction, he uses north as “home”,
towards the mountainhome; south as “away”; west as “left” and
east as “right” from that axis.  For long passages through many veins,
replace as many directions as possible with a list of the veins in series.

For example, in this picture of the 4th level of Earthenunited, the
address of the barracks along the upper hematite vein is “4 hematite-
home” (4 hem^), or 4 Hematite North, as we would say.  Proceeding
clockwise: The future frame to the upper right will have the address
“4 galena-right” (4 gal>), or 4 Galena Northeast.  The artifact chamber
is just “4” (4), since it is hard by the gate with no vein between.
The future frame to the lower right will be “4 microcline” (4 mic).
The frame below and slightly left is “4 hematite-away” (4 hemv).
The hospital’s address is “4 copper” (4 cop).  The chamber between
them, part of a burrow that starts upstairs, does not have an address
on this level, since it is not accessible.  Clockwise, the future frames
to the upper left will be “4 galena-left left” (4 gal< <) and “4 galena-
left home” (4 gal< ^ in note-shorthand.)

To get from the lower-right future frame to the upper-left leftmost
future frame, the directions would be “microcline galena-left left”
(mic gal< <).  To get up to the outside farm would be “microcline
galena hematite-home 3” (mic gal hem^ 3), to find and use the stairs
to the third level past the hematite vein."