Soooo.... as I'm eagerly waiting for the next version to do my huge projects, I've decided to settle with something simpler for the time being, I present you all, Guildgifts.
Notes: For some realism, I decided to make digging undergroud a bit more imaginarially difficult. Supports will be needed every few tiles, and only the essentially necessary will be built underground.
<suddenly gets short and bearded>
It was a long journey. We've just arrived in the very heart of the Brutal Jungles. As an exchange for amnesty of our war crimes, our gracious king gave us the order of building an outpost right in the middle of the Zombie Woods. This place is certanly nearer to hell than our magma forges at mountainhome. There are flies everywhere, the tress are mostly dead and the soil smells of rot. The air is stale, and an eeire feeling of dread accompained us ever since we set foot on this cursed land.
We were doing well, about to cross the stream of folded delights when our oxen suddenly went bezerk. We tried to keep them tied to the wagon, but they were leading us to a deep portion of the river, so we had no choice but to untie them. The oxen ran away, and our wagon hit the ground with a loud noise. We saw some few birds flying off the treeline, and the sound echoed through the cursed woods.
We were stranded.
Hoisttome, our carpenter, suggested we should settle on that spot. We were very close to the intended site, the caravans would probably find us nevertheless. Thus we began unloading the wagon.
Atir Lanternwig seemed unhappy with the location though. As he dug a growing chamber for plump helmets, he found out the soil here is made mostly of moist red sand and unstalbe chert. We wouldn't be able to dig deeper so easily without risking cave-ins. Thus we would need to settle above the ground for most purposes.
Just as we started building the walls, our war dogs got nervous, barking and sniffing around. To our surprise, an enormous sturgeon was crawling in the muddy ground, it had wounds and seemed to bleed, but it was rather fierce, trying to bite our dogs.
"So the stories about this place are true. There are undead here"
A shiver went down my spine, that would be the first of many undead aberrations to chase us. We'd need to protect ourselves. Fast.
Quickly I handed everybody tools, we'd wall out a simple fortress above ground, make a bridge and a dry moat to prevent whatever monsters that lurked in this place from reaching us.
Just as we finished constructing the walls, Hoisttome let out a scream from the floor above, she looked in terror as hordes of undead carp had emerged from the nearby stream, and were stalking our fort.
As we finished the walls, work began on a collective bedroom for resting. Beds were made, and a roof of chert shingles was constructed. We had -hopefully- a safe place to rest for the night...
So here we lie, too many undead carp to count lurking outside the nearby forest. Our wood supplies are running short and quarrying the soil is dangerous. What we have left to do?
Picty pic to see I really mean about the carps.
(a trade depot was also constructed, although I'm still in spring)