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[Korenn]

Due to the previous instalment of this story dying a premature fps death ( http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=96158.0 ), I'm restarting this story on a new world.

The story will be the same but the cast and RNG will be different.

===
Exile

The judge's hammer smacked the solid granite desk surface with a loud bang. "Order, order!", the judge shouted.

The clamoring dwarves settled down to a mere background muttering. "Testimonials have been heard, we now proceed to sentencing." The judge looked at the dwarf in chains in the defendents bench. "The evidence was overwhelming. Kadol Rallebes, you are hearby found guilty of heresy, sabotage and disruption of mining operations. The sentence shall be exile from the mountains." The dwarves in the audience gasped.

The convicted dwarf frowned. "Exile? But where shall I go?".
The judge shrugged. "Anywhere, as long as it is not on a mountain. You are prohibited from opening a minesite, and this will be checked regularly by your case worker, where ever it is that you end up."
Kadol stood up from his bench. "Am I to go alone?". The judge sneered at him, "If you can find others willing to join you away from the mountain, you're free to ask them along". Laughs and hoots arose from the audience. The judge called for order again.

"Sentence is to be executed at dawn tomorrow. Out of respect for your family, you will be given a wagon and a choice of supplies to help you on your way. Now get out of my sight."


Two hours later

Three dwarves were huddled around a small table covered in maps and lit by only two candles.
 "You're sure this area is clear?"
 "Absolutely. It used to be an old elven settlement, but they abandoned it centuries ago. Now it's just miles and miles of uninhabited, densely packed forest."
The third dwarf made a disgusted face. "Trees. Who would have thought we'd end up living among them!"
The first dwarf smiled. "Well As, you always did want to try your hand at growing some of those surface crops."
As harrumphed. "As an experiment, yes, but not to live on!"
The second dwarf shrugged. "You can still back out now As. The same holds for you, Edzul. It is my burden to bear, and nobody else will be forced into doing this."
Both As and Edzul shook their heads. "Kadol, we were in this when you started, and we'll be there until the end." "Damn right, we'll show these uppity nobles that they can't defeat us this easily!"
"My deepest thanks, that means a lot." Kadol looked back at the map. It showed a forested area on a peninsula, far from the Mountainhome. "The supply list is sorted. So, what's this place called?"
Edzul frowned. "The elves had some fancy name for it, but these days the humans just call it 'Gloomhill'. Superstitious lot, I wouldn't put much store in the name."

"Gloomhill. Fantastic."


===============================

We're embarking yet again in a terrifying, thick forest, 7x7 embark, flat terrain, aquifer, near salt water

access to all civs, goblins are hostile.

The dwarves will be running a surface fort - no digging. Unless we actually succeed and it becomes boring. If building the defences is too hard without digging, I'll allow channeling dirt. I might also condone digging a well.

No digging means no underground farm, so getting food production up will be that much harder. If the fortress does well, we might do some stone smuggling to the humans and/or elves from covert mines, but it'll have to be carefully hidden from any visiting dwarves.

This will be hard, probably harder than I can manage

We're embarking with the following:
* three woodcutters (Edzul among them)
* two carpenters
* a grower/ herbalist (As)
* and a peasant (Kadol the Exile, the nominal leader)

+ a breeding pair of sheep
+ a breeding pair of goats
+ a breeding pair of chickens
+ a breeding pair of ducks
+ a breeding pair of geese
(+ whatever the pack animals will be)

- 2 copper axes, we'll need to make the third
- 80 assorted drinks
- no seeds or plants (no point, they're all underground)
- 44 barrels of cheap meat and fish (1 pick each) and 13 barrels of milk
- 3 bags of sand (for the bags)
- an iron anvil.
- 25 copper bars
- 40 granite boulders. This will be our treasure. Most likely we'll use them all up on mechanisms.

Our group, the Brave Wooden Palisade, sets out to colonise the area known as:

Vumsharinen Fotthor Egur
Gloomhill, the Forest of Sorrows

(The forest is actually called the forest of sorrows by the world gen \o/)

cheery!

[Korenn]

Skeletal Horror

Kadol's Journal --

Nobles may dawdle over their precious few adamantium items, but friends and loyalty are still the greatest treasures of all.

When the bailiffs heard 6 others were leaving with me, there was a big panic. Though the nobles couldn't stop anyone from going, they scrambled to make it an official expedition so they could name another the leader and save face. Unfortunately, the restrictions on me still hold for the group, unless the rest abandon my cause. Kib is now officially the expedition leader, but he still defers to me. On the plus side, that means I will have to deal less with noble dignitaries, and merchants can visit our post without seeming to support a rebel cause. Though if they will actually visit this stone-forsaken place, I am doubtful.

The trek was long, but the dwarves were happy that it was boring. We were driving a wagon filled with valuable goods and didn't want to have to defend it. As our trek took them from the mountains into the green forests, the mood was good. It became less so when after a couple of weeks the forest turned into swamp, and a week later into large swathes of dead trees.

Then, one day a week after we left the swamps, Edzul called a halt in the middle of the day. There were dead trees and fetid pools of water as far as the eye could see. Cheerfully, Edzul said: "Well, we're here!" The rest of us looked around and muttered. I couldn't quite believe it. "Are you sure about that, Edzul?" "Yep, I'm pretty sure this is the dead center of what the humans call Gloomhill." I looked around again. "Dead is a good way of putting it. Well, if you're positive, then I guess this is what we'll be calling home for the forseeable future. Let's get organised!" And with that, the dwarves each set to the predetermined tasks.

===

The forest is dead. certainly gloomy. You can see the dead trees above, but after this they all disappeared - I seem to have hit a button somewhere . But since they don't grow back, it'll reflect reality soon enough. this being dead terrain, we'll have skeletal creepers around soon. So setting up initial defenses fast is key.

The packanimals are a breeding pair of muskoxen. Awesome, but very hard to feed here with only little live grass. we'll need large pastures.
the terrain is all flat around us, except for a small hill to the southwest.

we start off with setting up the wood furnace, a forge and a carpenter's shop. We set up a stockpile for seeds and plants and set our biologist to gathering plants from the few nearby live shrubs. The woodcutters are set to chopping down the nearby trees. Kadol will smelt the axe for our third woodcutter with the first log.
we set a massive pasture around the start area and hope the livestock can keep itself alive. I'm wondering if irrigation will allow live grass to grow over dead grass areas.

On the 6th of granite, the first critter arrives - a skeletal giant jaguar. yikes. No wall whatsoever is up yet. If this thing gets near the wagon, we're done for. it's in the east and heading west.
We rush to set up a wall facing the direction of the jaguar. It gets pretty close (about one and a half screens away), but then turns south. We quickly set up a short wall between the two pools near us, then designate the area above as a pasture to move the animals out of range. We should be okay as long as we can keep the thing from pathing near us.


10th of granite - the jaguar is now really close to our south east. Then it moves up right outside our wall, but can't see us.
This is probably the end


crap. on the 12th, a sheep wandered too far north and got into line of sight. The jaguar charged in and scattered the camp, then ran after the ram. What is it with monsters and going after rams? It runs off quite a long distance before getting chomped to pieces. Maybe we're lucky and it drew off the monster? No dwarven casualty yet.

The jaguar hangs around the corpse a bit then wanders off north. Which is about when the group of zombie snailmen show up. joy!
zombie snailmen... zombies are slow, snails are slow, so these should be crawling at the speed of continental drift? Why do I have a feeling that won't be the case.


I notice that the ram has wounded the jaguar a bit. Or perhaps it wounded itself shaking about an entire ram in its mouth.


two days later, the jaguar storms into the camp again, this time from the west. it chases out more of the livestock and kills a duck and a chicken. the chicken stormed out so fast that it got quite a ways out of camp again. we rush to set up some walls to the south and west.

Rock be praised! at the beginning of Slate, the undead moved away. We lost three livestock to the jaguar, greatly setting back our plans for breeding. We still have a breeding pair of goats, muskoxen and geese. If we're really lucky, the ram knocked up the ewe before it got torn apart, but time will have to tell.

It seems the only reason we survived the jaguar was because we brought so many livestock. Target rich environment, and it went after the animals first.

===

Kadol's Journal --

Our initial palisade is completed. It's as rough as unrefined coal, but it should keep things like that horrible dead cat out of our camp. That thing was monstrous. Thankfully it only went after some of the livestock and then got bored (can such things even get bored?) before it could maul one of us to death. But we won't be this lucky next time.


We saw a group of normal looking monkeys from the top of our palisade to the south, perhaps we should set out some traps to catch such animals and replenish our livestock. As hasn't managed to find a single edible plant so far, which does not bode well for our food supplies. I will start on churning our milk barrels into cheese. If worse comes to worse, we'll have to start drinking water out of these horrible pools.


===

You can see on the fort overview that some of the southern wall blocks are actually metal - I was in such a rush that I didn't notice I was building copper. Now that the monsters are gone, we'll tear those down and replace them with wood. The empty spot isn't actually empty, it contains a dead tree. The entranceway will be set with some traps and eventually fortifications to shoot down incoming enemies.

the lack of edible plants is worrying, As will have to venture further out from the camp to find something which will provide seeds.

===

Kadol's Journal --

Today As brought back a single twig with some small yellow berries on it. He proclaimed that they were edible, and we could plant the seeds. They look horrible, and it's not much, but it's a start.

===

after the group of bonobo's left, a similar group appeared, but then undead. nasty buggers that walk in groups. I think I'll hurry along the production of those traps.

They only mill around the edges of the map, as does the next pack of zombie snailmen and a zombie giant jaguar. Summer arrives, and the main shelter building is coming along nicely. It's currently only connected to the outside of the fort, so that it's easier to bring in lumber during construction. Once it's done, we'll wall up the outside and put in an inner door. The ground floor will be the dining room, with food storage on the second floor. The third floor will be a dormitory. The roof may become a lookout, or get a nice roof.


Plant collection is going okay now, it seems As has found the knack of extracting the live plants from among the dead. Some drinks are brewed, and the seeds are planted in the northern end of the compound. We also set up a nestbox for the goose and a hive for honeybees. I hope there are live honeybees here, how do you tell if an insect is undead?


===

Kadol's Journal --

Two dwarves wandered into camp today. They had no food, no drink and looked as if they hadn't slept for weeks. With a shock I recognised Astesh, our metalsmith from back home. He had promised he'd follow us when we set out, but I had expected quite a different entry! The other dwarf he brought is called Urdim, an ex-military marksdwarf who was equally fed up with the nobles as the rest of us.

He tells a sad tale, they set out with four but one died from disease in the swamp, and the other was mauled by a skeletal creature only 3 days north of here. Astesh assured me that our friends back in the Mountainhome are still working on finding more dwarves that are willing to break away from the nobles.

Urdim will have to help set up the basic necessities for the moment, but as soon as we have the resources to spare, he'll start on setting up our military defences. I'm sure we'll need them.

===

A zombie honey badger appeared and was intent on invading the fort. Thankfully it was caught in the cage traps that were just installed. Now, what to do with an undead badger?


The weapons for the traps are complete - 6 copper serrated blades made by Astesh and 6 wooden menacing spikes. We set one of each up in 6 weapon traps after the cage traps near our entrance. This should protect us from skeletal menaces wandering into our camp. But it won't stop any group of monsters that really wants to get in. We will also need to start training the military, as soon as we can spare the dwarfpower.

A live giant jaguar appeared. if I had a military, I'd hunt it down. that's some valuable meat / leather and bones! Which reminds me that we don't have anything to offer the trade caravan that should show up, and it's already autumn. Our farms are slowly churning out some plants now, maybe I can sell some of the more expensive booze.

[Korenn]

Trade

In preparation of trading next season, we build the depot just outside the fort but partially walled off. It should keep most critters out of line of sight of the trade caravan.


===




Kadol's Journal --

The livestock breeding is working. In a couple of weeks time, a new goat and a new muskox were born. Keeping the muskoxes fed will require a lot of pasture ground. In order to safeguard more terrain, we're extending the fort walls west.


This new area of safely walled of ground will give our livestock much more room to graze, and gives us the space to start constructing some more buildings.

===

As just sits on his ass while crops need harvesting... I have to let other dwarves do it One of the dwarves in the next immigrant wave will be assigned grower duty, since As obviously isn't interested.

The extension is done. We now remove the internal wall and use the wood to start construction of a storage barn on the north end.

===


Kadol's Journal --

A second group of dwarves just entered the camp. Five dwarves who unlike Asteth and Urdim, were in good shape. They encountered no problems getting here, but did look worried from all the dead terrain. They were led by Morul Kolison, known to most as 'Doc'. He's a tailor by profession, but so nimble with the needle and thread that he's saved many a limb when mineshafts collapsed.

He brings with him four dwarves, a friend and three people who were wronged by the mountainhome nobles. They count among them an engineer, a fisherdwarf, a crafter and a weaver. They are all welcome, although we may have to find other things for them to do.

They also bring some animals with them, among them a female duckling! That's great news for the livestock program.

There is news from the Mountainhomes. There has been unrest in the city and the mines, people shouting defiance at the king's reign. It is met with disturbing violence. Apparently our efforts have not gone in vain. As long as we survive out here, it will show the rest of the dwarves that the nobles' way is not the only way.

The final bit of news they bring may be the best! They left the mountainhomes at the same time as a trade caravan heading our way. Though they were travelling a lot slower and are visting some outposts along the way, the caravan should reach us in a couple of months.

We will be extending the fort grounds north for more living space to accomodate our new friends.

I'm asking As to gather specifically for rope reed shrubs. With ropereed and dye we should be able to get some more trade goods ready for the caravan. There aren't many to be found though, which means he will have to venture dangerously far away from camp.


===

The crafter is also a very experienced thresher, so we'll set him up as a farmer / plant processor to help out As while he's in the field.


Another giant skeletal jaguar is coming up to the fort from the north west. Since we're logging and building in that direction, we'll have to keep the dwarves between the walls for the moment. I have a burrow set up over the whole fort for just this situation. It appears to be moving slowly south-east. If it keeps moving in the same direction, it'll pass by our fortress to the south, which is fine as we're completely walled in now.

True to the last skeletal jaguar, it changes direction at the last moment and turns north - good thing I kept all dwarves indoors (well, in-walls anyway). We might be in trouble if the jaguar decides to path into our fortress, if our traps don't get him. There's nowhere to run this time, so we'd have to fight.


On inspection it has the same wounds, but I don't think it's the same jaguar - so I guess all skeletal creatures have this. Yep, gibbon has the same. Doh. I guess the last one never got injured.

The jaguar heads straight for the fortress entrance. I have no idea if they have trapavoid as skeletons, so I'm mobilizing Urdim and drafting the woodcutters into his squad. Immediately one of them heads into the barracks to sleep -_-. Thankfully, it wasn't necessary as the jaguar was caught in the first cage trap. hurrah! We now have a zombie badger and skeleton jaguar. We'll have one creepy zoo in the end. Unfortunately there's no way to know if the jaguar was the same as the one that killed our three livestock as those kills aren't tracked, but it's unlikely.

The bigger the area our walls protect, the bigger the chance that the random animals will try to path into it. So I expect many more creatures to wander into our traps. I hope some of them will be live animals which we can slaughter for food.

As has harvested 6 rope reed bushes so far, not a single usable reed yet.

In a surprising turn of events, our fisherdwarf is actually catching things. That's more than I expected. He's caught 3 turtles so far, and we're storing the shells like precious gems (actually, better, since at this point precious gems would just be lying about without a stockpile).

===


Kadol's Journal --

The trade caravan arrived on the horizon this morning. And surprisingly, a well-dressed dwarf was walking a good way away from the caravan, but also clearly heading our way. From the way she's frowning at everything, it's clear she's a dignitary. I rush to organise our camp so that we have our tradable goods ready when they arrive. As I meet the dwarves at the fort entrance, the traders look cheerful to see us, but the dignitary only frowned at me and walked right past into the camp. I had half a mind to have her thrown out, but I know that would just worsen the situation.


She found Kib, who was working on the barn walls, and demanded a meeting in private. Kib knows what we need, so I had him use my desk in the dining room. After a while of us looking over the traders' goods outside, we heard Kib shouting from inside the dining room. Kib is usually a very even-tempered person, so I was wondering what could possibly be going on.

As Kib told it to me later, the dignitary wasn't pleased in the slightest that she'd found us still alive in the forest. The King had expected that we'd perish or run off within a month. He certainly hadn't expected a sturdy fort wall and twice as many dwarves as had originally set out from the Mountainhome. She had produced documents signed by the king that said that any outpost that survived here with help of supplies from the Mountainhome, would be required to pay tribute. Tribute! We had to build this entire site by hand, and those damn nobles want us to pay them for the loan of a cart! To rub in the wound, the first tribute amount, to be sent back with the next caravan, is 2000 Urists worth of goods! Our entire trade value amount this time is hardly half of that.

Kib in return demanded that if we were to pay tribute, the Mountainhome had to keep supplying us. The dignitary had only sniffed at the list of supply requests we had, and said she would see what she could do when she got back. Which sounds to me like she'll throw the list out as soon as she gets away. To be certain we would get at least some of the items, I also gave a copy of the list to the head merchant.

The dignitary threatened us that a failure to meet the tribute amount would result in military intervention. We can only barely defend our camp from the undead monsters around, never mind standing up to the royal guard. We'll have to see what we can do to meet this tribute demand, but I have no idea how we'll be able to meet it and pay for the goods we need at the same time.

Kib offered to show the dignitary around the fort to show her how hard it was to survive out here, but she wasn't interested, packed her stuff and headed back out again, not even waiting on the caravan which wasn't even done unpacking their wares yet.

It looks like we're now officially an outpost of the Mountainhomes, even if we don't care for it.

===

(the tribute will be given as extra profit to the traders - gifts would fit the story better, but bringing the King here would not!)

I wonder if the caravan will be interested in trading caged undead animals. We move all of our uncarried battle axes, the two undead animals, lots of our most valuable booze and a barrel of cheese over to the trade depot. Hopefully this will be valuable enough to buy us some supplies. Food is a concern, so cheaper food traded for cheese could be good. Other than that we want lots of metal, some leather and cloth. And any sand bags we can get our hands on, there doesn't appear to be any sand on the map.

We ask the liaison for
* large amounts of iron, pig iron, steel, bronze, copper and tin
* small amounts of all other metals
* some short swords (so we can melt them down)
* some picks (ditto)
* some of the more expensive leathers
* some cloth
* lots of tower cap logs (eventually, we'll need to import loads of wood since our map will grow hardly any back)
* a breeding pair of pigs, a ram, and as many alpaca as they will bring
* milk
* lots of sand
* some coal

Kadol, who is the broker, is eating cheese right out of the cheese barrel set out for trade in the trade depot, while the traders look on. I guess he's showing it's good to eat? right after that he goes on a break. I'm beginning to think he doesn't care.

Finally, Kadol can be bothered to trade.
120 for the giant jaguar cage, 45 for the honey badger. Not a kings ransom, but it'll do. 40 for a superior quality chair that Kib made. The axes are more interesting - 204 for each finely crafted one, and we have 4 of those. the jaguar cage weighs 500 urists. That'll be hard to free up on the caravan, with the value we have to trade with.

we can trade a barrel with 7 cheese for 40 fish + lobster. great!

only three bars of metal: zinc, billon, black bronze, we take them all.
They have bronze hives for 50, which I think can be melted down.
They have a yak and a water buffalo, we trade for both. We can butcher them for a lot of meat, bones and leather. They way tons, so there's now plenty of room on the caravan.
Three bolts of cloth and two bins with cheap leather.

First trade accepted for a 50% profit
We spend the remaining trade items on buying up meltable items - three tin cages and two bronze hives.

Our carpenter refuses to build new cages, so I have to rush and mark the traded cages for melting, or they'll be used in the traps. (they might still be, no idea) It's key to get our food inside fast now, before it spoils.

Our first trade seems to be a moderate success!

It was around this time I looked at the civ screen ... no elves or humans? like... wtf? They were there on the embark screen. There's also a 'P' next to the goblins, but their export / import is set to 'Terror' and 'Vengeance', so I guess that still means sieges. If not this will be one boring fort. If it does turn out to be completely peaceful on the outside, we'll have to tunnel down and start making a racket below. No elves or humans means no easy way of getting more seeds. hardcore!

Only now winter arrives, a month after the trade caravan has left! Winter in this hot place doesn't change anything.

As finds two rope reed! we process them and prepare to plant the seeds. We're setting up cloth industry - a farm field for rope reed, one for blade weed, and the industries to make cloth, dye it and weave it into cloth products. We'll need it to meet that tribute requirement.

We've lost 2 turtle shells to vermin already. We should have brought a cat (or asked for one from the liaison). Hopefully one of the next migrant waves will have a cat among them.

Oh crap - while being busy with industry and building, two undead gibbons got between the weaponsmith and the fort entrance. I try to draft him into a new squad with orders to move around the fort, and try to bust an opening in the back - I'll set Urdim and his squad there to wait. But the gibbons are so fast, Astesh probably won't survive

It comes down to a fight soon after. First hit, Astesh punches a foot off the monkey! The second monkey thankfully heads towards our fort entrance and should be stopped by the traps.


Well, okay. Astesh proceeded to beat the crap out of the gibbon, and now has a kill. I'm having him walk around the other way towards the fort entrance, just in case the second doesn't appear in the traps. Which it later doesn't, it heads back north and off the map.

After we get everyone safely inside and the undead have been spotted to leave the area, the all-clear is given and dwarves are allowed back outside. Astesh is unhappy from being drafted so he could be ordered to move safely. I'll have to see about giving him a nice bedroom with rubberwood items, which he likes.

Not a week later, and this happens:
Astesh caught outside, again, by a skeletal gorrilla. there's no way he will beat this one that easily. and even if he does get away, he'll be downright depressed if I draft him to move safely. Derp!

[Keeshi]

Very good story. I love your style of posting it. Keep going!

[Korenn]

Very good story. I love your style of posting it. Keep going!

Thanks! there's much more story to add

[Korenn]

Migration

The table bounced as the king knocked over the wine jug. "Why didn't the guards contain this?", he shouted. The seneschal winced as the jug shattered on the ground. "My liege, there were less than fifty guards in the shaft and the crowd was over two thousand large. There was nothing they could do." "Then you should have sent in more guards! They *destroyed* the equipment!" "Yes my liege, I was the one who brought the report." The king scowled at the seneschal, who bowed low and repeated again what had already been said. "By the time the reinforcements arrived on the scene, the crowd was already dispersing, and the equipment was beyond salvation."

The king stood up from the table and started pacing up and down the dining room, stepping over the spreading puddle of wine. "I want the family responsible for this found and tried. These acts of sabotage cannot be tolerated." The seneschal frowned. "As of this moment we don't know who is responsible for these riots, or even if it is one of the noble families. Perhaps the exile..." The king waved away the last statement. "Ofcourse it is one of the noble families. One of those plotting nobles who seeks to gain from disrupting the production of these shafts. This is the third blatant act of sabotage this year. It is a pattern. And where there's a pattern, there's a scheming noble!" The seneschal made an attempt to say something, but the king cut him off. "Enough of this. You have your orders, now find them!"
With a last bow, the seneschal backed out of the room.

Kadol's Journal --

Today marks a black day in the history of our fort. Astesh, our friend, has died. We saw him get savaged by a skeletal gorilla from the top of our palisade. He was caught outside the fort and cut off from the entrance by the skeletal monster. He tried to run, but the monster was much too fast. Astesh, you will be remembered.



I've ordered a small memorial service to be held, and we'll bury him under the smithy that was just being constructed.
Astesh was our most skilled metal worker and the loss of his knowledge is felt. Zasit has some skill in shaping metal for the many tools he uses in processing plants, but he is too busy with the farms to also take up metallurgy. Everyone is doing vital work in getting our community up and running, so I will have to do the smithing myself. Thankfully not much of such work is required, but I can't hope to match Astesh' skill in creating weaponry.

===

Astesh did actually manage to run fast enough for quite a while, but then his stupid pathing caused him to suddenly turn around and walk straight into the gorilla. When he got close enough again to get scared he turned around, but by then it was too late. I tried reloading and seeing if drafting would improve the pathing, but that just made him charge straight into the gorilla with his bare hands.

In order to reduce the chances of dwarves getting cut off from the entrance in the future, we'll set up drawbridges in the wall that we can open to let people in from other entrances than just the main one to the east.

Burying dwarves is the only time I'll make an exception for digging, but it will be in soil only. We have no pick yet, so Kadol will have to make one first.
Astesh wasn't friends with anyone yet. He was on the first migrant wave and was kept far too busy to socialize. Thankfully that means no tantrum spirals yet. In contrast, the original seven are all friends. Though this makes sense story-wise, it'll be bad if one of them dies.

The storage barn is coming along nicely. it was started in the northwestern corner of the fort, but with the recent extensions is now right in the middle. The bottom floor will contain animal remains we want to store as well as storage items such as barrels, bins and bags. The level above that is a large furniture storage. Above that will be other assorted stockpiles. Attached to the sides of the storage barn will be two offices, one on each side, with a small bedroom above. In the nooks formed by the barn and the storage offices, workshops will be placed. The east side contains a leatherworks and leather storage, the west side will become the new smithy. The east office will be assigned to Kadol, the west to the head smith.


Apparently, As is a girl. it must be the beard, I hadn't noticed before

Having to organise so much work just to meet the tribute is bad, but at least it means the Mountainhomes are required to allow merchant caravans to come here, or they would have no way of collecting their payoffs.

===

Kadol was perched on the northern palisade wall, with Kib sitting next to him. They were looking at the cloud of dust that was rising from the horizon north along the path. Kadol would have been worried if Edzul hadn't come into camp this morning with news of a large new group of dwarves heading towards the fort.
Kib looked thoughtful. "That's an awful lot of extra mouths to feed, Kadol." "I know," said Kadol, "but every hand that can help is a hand closer to survival." Kadol looked at Kib. "All those people will need a roof above their heads and a bed to sleep in. I think you'd better start planning with Sigun on how to manage that." They climbed down the inner wall and Kib looked up at it. "And I also think we might have to improve the defenses here. Any of those skeletal creepers could get over this wall in a second." There was no reply so Kib looked back.
Kadol was already walking away, deep in thought about managing all the newcomers.



Three hours later

The crowd of dwarves was making a racket in the courtyard. With nowhere to stay, they dropped their stuff where they stood, looking around at the palisade and meagre buildings. From his vantage point in the dining room door, Kadol could see they were glad they'd found an active community yet disappointed that this was all there was.

Construction was already underway behind him. The first order of business would be to finish the main hall. The planned third floor had never been finished because there had been no point with their small numbers. But it would not be enough room for everyone. Kib had drawn up crude plans to extend the western wall a large distance and to construct a row of simple housing. Every dwarf would get their own lodgings, which was far more luxury than they'd had so far. But it would require so many more wooden building materials that a new gate was needed to bring in all the logs, on the west side of the new walls. And this one would be outfitted with a drawbridge. Kib had already found a capable carpenter among the new dwarves, and some people to press-gang into his squad of builders.


Urdim pushed through the crowd towards him, followed by a short stocky dwarf with many braids in his hair and beard. "Kadol, I'd like you to meet Stodir, my old army commanding officer." Kadol extended a hand in greeting which Stodir took enthusiastically. "Welcome to Gloomhill, Stodir." "Thanks, many thanks. I have to say, the name sounded pretty ominous, but this isn't all that bad. Bit of color on the place and it would be okay." Stodir looked around with a grin on his face. Urdim looked a lot more serious. "Stodir is a hell of a soldier, Kadol. You'd do good to give him command of the militia instead of my bumbling around." Kadol frowned. "But this was your operation Urdim, won't you be sad to let it go?" "Somewhat, yeah, but I think I can convince Stodir to make me his second in command in charge of the ranged dwarves, and it'll be an honor working under him again." Stodir laughed and slapped Urdim on the back. "Don't make me blush son! Sure I'll put you in command of the marksdwarf battalion!". "Batallion?" Kadol asked querulously, "How many dwarves do you expect?". Stodir winked at him. "The way the nobles are running things, it wouldn't surprise me if half the population of the Mountainhome will join us here!" He laughed and dragged Urdim towards the gate, gesturing wildly around the area. Kadol wasn't sure about the ambitions that Stodir had, but it seemed obvious they'd found a capable military dwarf.

The crowd started to spread out towards their assigned jobs, most of them to do with setting up their sleeping arrangements. Two dwarves walked behind As and Zasit in the direction of the farm plots. The crop yield would have to increase dramatically to feed everyone. A lone dwarf was left standing in the middle of the courtyard, who looked at Kadol. "Say, where's the smithy?"

===

19 new dwarves on the 22nd of slate. We were only with 13, this makes it 32. They bring a barn full of animals with them.
the run down:

a veteran soldier / metalcrafter
an armorer / waxworker
a carpenter / woodcutter
a woodcutter
a farmer
a high master bonecarver
a thresher
a spinner
a high master butcher (thought I'm not sure if there's any point to that) / bone carver / competent fighter - scary woman!
a potash maker
a potter (not named harry)
a glassmaker
two millers
a beekeeper
a gemcutter
two masons and a stonecrafter - they must have been desperate to come here!

the woodcutter brought a silver battle axe. purty! Though he ditched it at the map edge.

animals:

duck (female)
pig (male)
piglet (female)
goat kid (male)
mule foal
reindeer calf (male)
bull calf

cavy pup (pet) x2

we now have a breeding pair of pigs. we may slaughter all the muskoxes if we run out of room; pigs take up less space.

Some of the guys have significant military skills. 1 expert fighter, 5 competent and one novice. One of the competent fighters is the armorer, we need him to outfit our future troops. The others can join the militia, which will only be training part of the time, leaving time for them to perform other jobs.

The armorer will have to pick up the other blacksmithing skills, he'll have to do all the smithing on his own for a while. He's a highmaster waxworker, which makes total sense: one of the way to make casts is by creating a wax copy, then melting the wax from an exterior to make a mold.

The veteran, Stodir, becomes the new militia commander. Sorting out the jobs to my satisfaction takes ages. Even with Dwarf Therapist.

Some of the dwarves have suturing experience, but our current doctor is better at it, and the one dwarf that is a novice in diagnosis isn't interesting enought to remove 'Doc' as our chief medical dwarf. Three dwarves that have no interesting skills are set to help out the construction crew.

The cloth weaving task I had on repeat stops when it runs out of thread in a humorous way.

It'll be a while before we have that much thread! To get the dyes milled but avoid getting bags of flour I have to set a burrow on the cloth industry section and assign the only miller we have to it. It works, but requires me remembering that he's assigned there, or he'll starve / die of thirst. I'll have to build a small shack in the area with a bed, food and drink just in case.

We get a mood! Our bonecarver Ezum (high master) gets a strange mood. Assuming it'll be a bone mood, we'll need some usable bone. Our militia just bravely killed a honey badger (non-undead, beaten to a pulp by the scary butcher woman), that should give us the bones we need.


Yep, pictures of skeletons. Well, at least that should be easily solved. If butchering the badger fails for some reason, we'll butcher one of the livestock instead. Monom is too busy being bad ass to do the actual butchering. what gives? I have a bored stoneworker do it instead. The badger is butchered, but it's not enough bone, Ezum needs more. I order the yak bull butchered as well. if he needs more after that, the water buffalo is next.

Yak wasn't enough, water buffalo next!

===

Kadol's Journal --

Elves! Two elves carrying pack animals wandered into our fort today, curious about what we were doing here. They have some things to trade, we'll be happy to take their food and the spare horse they're bringing, in exchange for some of Doc's newly created robes.


I talked to them a bit which wasn't easy because I don't speak elven and they only speak halting mountain tongue. They didn't want to say anything about the history of this place, but they seemed to be glad that someone was trying to set up a community here. That it had been a very bad and evil place for long enough. It looks like they'll be back next year, which will be great for business.

===

Surprise! an elven caravan, even though the local civ screen says there are none. Phew, I was afraid the overland game might become boring with only the dwarven caravan. I guess that means the local civ screen doesn't show civs until you've actually met them. How realistic! There are some undead on the map, but they're thankfully out of the way so the caravan should get here unmolested. We weren't really expecting an elven caravan at this point, so we don't have the trade goods ready to go. We rush the order of a bunch of robes by Doc, but no idea if it'll be there in time.

They bring 6 animals, among them a giant leopard and a lion. We really want those, but this way we won't be able to afford them (I'm not cheating to get them). I might as well put the armorer to use and have him bash out some bronze breastplates, that should sell for quite a bit.

The water buffalo bones completed Ezum's demands and he's begun his construction.

Slaughtering those animals has also brought us to 87 meat. Neat! Here you can see him hard at work in his workshop.


Ezum creates an artefact hood. That's awesome, as hoods are the only protection for the face. It's worth 4.5k urists, but more importantly, gives us a legendary bone carver.


Trading was a success!
We got some booze, barrels, fisher berries (we were still missing the seeds for those) and sand bags
And most importantly we got all the animals.
* Giant Jaguar
* Lion
* Bilou (expensive!), a type of gibbon
* Warthog
* Yak
* Horse
The most expensive one was a Bilou (some kind of monkey?). We can set the Giant jaguar and lion to guarding the entrance. We'll slaughter the horse now, and the yak and warthog later.

Right when I was going to finish off this session, a new message popped up:


More mouths to feed!

[Person]

Higher butchery skill let's the butcher work faster. This is good because it'll be less likely for the animal to rot during the job if it's already dead, and it'll waste a lot less time. Unfortunately this clutters things faster too.

[peskyninja]

Wait.
You just sold animals in a cage?
How?
Every time I try they kill the hauler.

[peskyninja]

Korenn what's you FPS with a 7x7 embark?

[Korenn]

Higher butchery skill let's the butcher work faster. This is good because it'll be less likely for the animal to rot during the job if it's already dead, and it'll waste a lot less time. Unfortunately this clutters things faster too.

but unfortunately a high butcher skill does not help with being faster at taking a break, then eating, then sleeping, then drinking, then taking *another* break, then deciding to bugger off and pick some strawberries.

Wait.
You just sold animals in a cage?
How?
Every time I try they kill the hauler.

If an animal is caught in a cage trap, the cage becomes an item just like the ones from the merchants. so I get a 'gorilla cage' for the skeletal gorilla. I can mark that cage for trade and the dwarves will move it into the depot just fine. After you build the cage though, it becomes a cage furniture with a monster in it. At that point you can't move it to the depot anymore, and I think deconstructing the cage just released the animal?

Korenn what's you FPS with a 7x7 embark?

I'm currently around 30-40 fps with 50 dwarves and a pretty big compound. The amount varies a lot depending on how many dwarves are walking outside. I wouldn't have picked such a large embark with a normal fort, but since I wasn't going to do a lot of digging, the complexity of the fort remains pretty low.
I use the traffic designations a lot to help the pathfinder.

[Korenn]

Attack

The tension in the crowd had been steadily building for the last fifteen minutes. The guard-captain could smell trouble in the air, could almost touch it. In 53 years as a guard he had never seen a group of dwarves look at him this foul, not even criminals he brought to the hammerer. Things were still stable right now, but anything could set off an inferno.
The clerks in the guild office looked scared, the ones he could see behind the second floor windows. They'd been holed up in there for over an hour now, afraid to open their doors, even when half the dwarves out there were miners. Four of his guardsmen were standing in front of the doors to the office, cut off from the rest of his line. He knew they were good men, unlikely to crack under pressure. It was a miracle he had been able to keep things as quiet as they were. The crowd was unruly, shouting at the office clerks behind their windows, grumbling at the line of guards blocking off access to the rest of the administration buildings. Shouting, but not throwing. That was the key thing, as the guard captain considered it.
He had talked to some of the guards who had been at shaft four when the riot started. Things had been rowdy but peaceful until a guardsman forcefully stopped a dwarf from pushing past him, which got something thrown at his head, and it all spiralled from there. The royal guards had no prior experience with unruly crowds, but they were learning fast.

The captain turned around at the sound of marching feet coming down the street behind him. Another squad of guardsmen hurried up from the direction of the palace. Commander Tobulam ran at the head, sweat streaming from his face. As he neared the line of guardsmen, the captain saluted. "Sir, as you can see things are currently stable." The commander nodded and looked at the crowd with a pained expression. "Yes, good work. I have orders from the palace. The crowd is to be dispersed immediately, and any ringleaders to be taken into custody." The captain blinked. "Disperse them? How are we to do that?". The commander winced. "By any means necessary." Some of the guards nearby gasped. "Sir, with all due respect, these are miners that are not being paid. They have nothing to lose. We have a whole lot to lose. And most importantly, there's several thousand of them and not even a hundred guards in our line." The commander nodded, then shrugged. "Nevertheless, those are our orders. I want this area clear of people within half an hour, do you hear me? They're not soldiers, but you are. Act like it." With that, the commander turned around and high-tailed it back to the administration buildings.
The guard-captain had a sinking feeling in his stomach as he relayed the orders down the line. Each guard-sergeant was to start moving the crowd away from the mining office and towards the lower residential areas at his signal. No weapons to be raised, just a moving wall of shields. As he gave the signal, he prepared for war.
To his bafflement and lifting spirits, it was working. The gentle but firm push of a line of square shields was moving people along. The dwarves in the crowd were still angry, but not quite sure what to do against this move. The guard line had moved almost 10 urists when he heard a 'dink' off to his left. Then another from his right. He saw a guard collapse to the ground and was about to order his line to stand their ground to let the crowd cool off, when something heavy hit him square on the temple and everything turned black.

Away from the noise, guard-commander Tobulam was in his office carefully writing his resignation on official palace paper. His office lit up red as the glow of more and more fires flooded in from the city behind him.

Kadol's Journal --

Another group of dwarves arrived from the mountainhome today. I don't know a single one of them, but I take that as a good thing. Our cause is still alive, even when we are no longer in the capital to further it.
They tell us of a horrible riot in shaft number four. Miners who hadn't been paid in weeks but were ordered to return to their jobs finally reached breaking point and decided that they were owed. All the mining machinery in shaft four was destroyed beyond hope of repair, any valuable parts broken off and removed. Two dwarves died and a guardsman was seriously injured. Shaft four hadn't been producing significant ores for a while now, but the guild had to close it completely after the violence ended.
If only we had been there, we might have been able to channel that frustration into a more fruitful direction. Our new Gloomhill residents tell us of more groups like ours springing up around the city and this time the royal guards are not moving in. These dwarves are still hopeful that the crown will see how things must change, but I know them better than that. The nobles cannot see what is right in front of their eyes. But they will have to learn or risk losing everything. Either way, the people will triumph in the end.

===

halfway through summer, more migrants!

10 dwarves

tanner / leatherworker
gem cutter
gem setter
novice diagnoser
butcher / blacksmith
wood worker
crossbow making
miller / surgeon
a miller
a child

two of the migrants have some fighting experience, they will join the militia (the bowyer and the diagnoser).

The third floor and roof of the main hall are finally completed. We move the beds that were still down in the dining room upstairs, and add more furniture to the dining room.


During construction of the extended wall, two skeletal gibbons and a zombie gibbon start harassing us, one after the other. The militia can get rid of them easily enough, but it takes them a long time to get there each time. As soon as the new gate is done, the response time should be cut in half.


Just about when the last piece of wall is set to be constructed, a skeletal giant jaguar shows up. This one is still too dangerous for us to face, so everyone is ordered within the compound walls until it either leaves or runs into our traps. due to dwarf stupidity and ignoring of burrows, some dwarves wander outside and draw the attention of the monster. We'll have to send in the militia, even though they're not yet ready for a monster like this. We'll likely have injuries, or worse. one of the morons, Inod, is in the militia so he will be right on top of the monster. Probably bad.



Inod runs out of the gates, and the skeletal jaguar stops chasing the carpenter and goes after the new target. They meet just outside the trade depot, and Inod starts swinging away with his fists (he has no weapon!). The jaguar bites Inod in his right foot, and Inod dodges away before it can get worse. They circle around each other once and then the rest of the squad has arrived and all pile on top of the moving skeleton. Urdim had the clarity of mind to bring an axe, and does a good amount of damage right away.


The jaguar is chopped to bits before it can do more damage. Inod's foot is hurt, but it shouldn't be too bad. time to set up that hospital area in part of the new dormitory.
For some reason killing undead doesn't count as a kill for whatever dwarf killed/destroyed it.


After the new drawbridge has been installed, we pull down the old west wall, opening up a much larger area for our compound.


A side effect of this is felt almost immediately, as a group of skeletal gorilla's tries to path straight through our walled area. Thankfully the first is caught in the cage traps soon after we notice them. The dwarves are confined to the fort burrow again, although that doesn't seem to actually stop them.
The other two skeletal gorillas just sort of hang out at the trade depot, just in front of the traps. Very annoying. The honey badger and jaguar in the shot there are stonesense bugs - they were caught in those traps and sold ages ago.


While this is going on, a human caravan arrives from the west side of the map. They can path through the new entrance safely, but if the gorillas return to the trade depot, we'll have to deal with them. Though they do have guards, so that should be okay.



We close the drawbridge behind the humans, to stop undead from pathing in while we're focusing on trade. While we were scrambling to get some trade goods ready, another of the gorillas wandered into a cage trap, while the last one charged after a militia recruit that was walking where he shouldn't be. The gorilla was blown to bits by the weapon traps.

While moving the trade goods out to the trade depot, an ambush of goblins shows up! We're in no condition to fight them, so we'll leave this to the caravan guards. While we still can, we set up some extra cage traps in our entrance-way. hopefully our traps will suffice to keep us safe. We'll also try pasturing our jaguar and lion in the entranceway pasture, that currently only holds a dog. That should supply some extra targets for goblins to get mobbed by.


===

The militia squad was nervously hopping from one foot to another while Urdim was perched on the wall. Stodir yelled up at him "And, is it goblins?". Urdim was quiet a while longer and looked at the forest edge. Then he jerked up. "Yeah, I just saw a green skinned creature move between those trees to the north!" The militia babbled excitedly. They seemed excited to go out and show what they had been training for, yet also afraid of facing real danger. Urdim spoke up again. "There's more! I see three, no, four goblins now!" Stodir grunted. "Seems we get to show what we're made of, boys!" Some of the militia flinched, as if to say that what they were made of was mostly muscle that bruised easily. Stodir ordered up formation and was beckoning Urdim to come down and join them. Urdim had just started climbing down when the quiet forest suddenly exploded into noise. Urdim jerked himself back up to the top of the palisade and looked out.
Just beyond the forest edge, metal flashed and sounds of fighting were heard. It seemed the goblins were fighting something, but what? Perhaps it was another caravan? Urdim was about to shout down to one of the human guards hanging back near their pack animals when he saw a white flash high between the tree tops. Then he saw it again, more clearly. Bone.
Urdim hooted. "Gorillas! They found a pack of undead gorillas!"

===

A saving grace! The goblin ambush is distracted by a group of undead gorillas. They're currently pincushioning them with bolts. Hopefully the gorillas can damage them a bit before the goblins head our way. This gives us the time to quickly trade with the caravan and get our stuff over with before we lock down. The back door was already closed, we'll keep it that way.

rotfl - the gorillas pounded the goblin archers to bits. THAT was unexpected The skeletal gorilla in the pack now has a name. Snospdausluk "Pastearth". A pikegoblin died, the others ran. Apparently, the pike goblin was the leader of the ambush.

Trade with the humans goes well, some booze, plants, bars / meltable items and a few animals for the slaughter. I'm afraid to give the dwarves the all-clear until the caravan has left and we can confirm there wasn't a second group. I'm having the militia move our trade goods inside by allowing them access to the trade depot burrow. We have a large amount of wood inside our walls right now from our recent extension, so we can do without outside access for a while.

After the caravan is gone I'll have the depot deconstructed - we have a new one now, inside the walls. With a dump site for finished clothes. Doc is cranking out new clothes - he's a legendary clothier by now. I have to mark them for dumping as soon as they're ready or dwarves run in to start wearing them. I hope the mountainhome will be pleased with a wagonfull of dresses.
I'm having Doc sew in a 'Gloomhill' tag


Doc is so much faster than our weaver can manage that he can hang out in the dining room half the time while new cloth is being made.

===

Asob made his mark in the compound registry and gathered his things to head off to the main hall and find a bed. That made ten dwarves in this group. Kib looked at the registry appreciatively. "Fifty-two of us Kadol. Can you even remember how we started out with just the seven of us over a year ago? It seems like something out of a story." Kadol slapped Kib on the back. "Wake up Kib, we've got rooms to build! Ten more dwarves means ten more required lodgings. Do you have the required wood?" Kib shook his head. "Not inside the compound, we'll have to move more in from outside. And now we know that there are goblins around out there, I'm not looking forward to it."
Kadol sighed. "I'll have a look with Momuz and Stodir at setting up defenses at the drawbridge so we can be safer while opening it. But we're short on stone and metal, so how we're going to make this work, I have no idea." Kadol looked back at the listing of all the dwarves who had joined them in Gloomhill, and touched the cross mark next to Astesh' entry. "At least we can plan for proper lodgings now, Kib." Kib frowned. "What do you mean?" "This group brought word from our friends back at the Mountainhome. The royal guards have stepped up security in the capital and no new migration groups are allowed out for the forseeable future. That means no more people will be joining us for a while."
"Fifty-two should be enough, Kadol." "It had better."

===

Even more migrants arrive! 10 more dwarves brings our total up to 52. This will be the maximum for a while (limit set to 50), while the compound gets set up and organised. More may come later, if it makes sense in the story.
* a high master miller. Great, that will help immensely in processing our die stocks.
* adept mechanic
* another clothier - unneeded, we already have our legendary Doc.
* two dwarves with military skills, an axedwarf that joins Stodir's squad, and a marksdwarf. It's time to set up Urdim's ranged squad.
* a siege operator that is a novice in pretty much every processing job and an adequate wound dresser. Not sure what to make of this one. One of her novice skills is cooking, which is the best cook I've had so far. Sounds like we got ourselves a meal maker!
* four other dwarves with useless skills

We start construction on the first dormitory building, with 10 rooms on the ground floor, and 5 more on the first.



Kadol was still the only brewer, but with the bookkeeping and managing can no longer cope. One of the new dwarves, a peasant, is set to brewing.

A pack of undead gorillas interrupted our (daft) wood gathering dwarves and drove one away from the fort while chasing another towards the fort. Unfortunately, the latter dwarf was caught by the gorillas before our militia could arrive. Sto is being hunted and is not expected to make it back either. She dies a bit later. Two more deaths in Gloomhill, all to gorillas

[RabidAnubis]

A rather strange way to do a fortress!  Destined for failure.

I'm proud of you.

[Korenn]

A rather strange way to do a fortress!  Destined for failure.

I'm proud of you.

Thanks! Whether or not it fails will depend on how well I'll do when the sieges start arriving. The next part will already be crucial.

[Korenn]

Tribute

A shadowy figure called out to the other side of the alley. "Hurry up, the patrol is coming!" On the other side of the damp alley, a shadow detached itself from a doorway and quickly crossed through the light to join the first figure. The figures froze still in the shadows for a moment, then disappeared around a corner together.

Half an hour later, a group of dwarves gathered in what appeared to be the basement of a residence. The door was barred, yet all present kept their hoods up. One spoke up. "Moruloltar and Alathel were arrested this morning." Someone groaned. Another said: "On what grounds? They were as careful as anyone of us." The first dwarf spoke up again. "We don't know. Some of the others may have cracked to the investigators. We're all at risk." Panicked murmer arose in the basement room. "So what are we doing here? They could be coming for us right now!" "We have to leave!" "The city has been closed, where can we go?"
The first dwarf raised a hand and the other dwarves quieted down. "I don't know what will happen in the coming days, but the guards will not be coming for us tonight." "How can you know?" shouted someone. The dwarf made a sweeping gesture. "The new guard commander has set the guards on protecting the food warehouses against rumours of attacks. They're all busy on the others side of the city!" Several of the dwarves cheered. "So that's why it was so quiet on the streets!" "You spread those rumours? Genius!"
A different dwarf with a deep voice spoke up in the back of the room. "He didn't, I did." He pushed to the middle of the room and lowered his hood. There were gasps around the room. "Commander Rallebes!" "It's guard-commander Rallebes!"

Kadol's Journal --

Today I had to make two more deathmarks in the registry for Sto and Ustuth. Our military is becoming more organised, but not good enough to fend off the groups of undead gorilla's. During construction of the new dormitory buildings, these two were north of the compound dragging logs back to the construction site, when the monsters appeared.
We have made great strides towards making this forsaken place a liveable area. I just wish it didn't have to be over the lives of our fellow dwarves.

===

End result of combat with the gorilla packs:

2 dead dwarves, a cheesemaker and miller.
two wounded:
- Monom, our crazy butcher lady has a badly damaged lower arm and is pale
- Melbil has lost his left foot and is Faint

while trying to clean up the mess, I notice that my chosen docter does not like helping others. not a good place to be wounded.

===

Doc was overseeing the packaging of his last products when news came in that the caravan was approaching. He tallied up the totals, picked up a package then walked over to Kadol's office and knocked on the door. Kadol looked up from his ledgers and waved him in. "Doc, are those the totals?" "Yep, 48 Gloomhill dresses labelled and packaged. And this." He dropped the package on Kadol's desk. "What's this?" Kadol opened the package and revealed a shiny green dress. "This is the best of our product. I'm personally proud of this one, and I thought you might want to do something special with it."
Kadol closed the packaging and smiled. "I do have an idea, thank you Doc."

===



The dwarven caravan arrives in late autumn, accompanied by another dignitary. The caravan spawns at the bottom and is fine, but the dignitary enters very close to a pack of undead gorillas. I hope he doesn't draw their attention, that'll be the end of him. Thankfully, he slips past.


We quickly rush the last dresses through, then prepare to trade the lot of them. The most expensive dress will be made a personal gift to the king. Suck on that, king! With the rest we first create a tiny trade with a 2000 extra profit for the traders, that will be the tribute. After that we'll try and get as much of the caravan as we can get. There's a possibility we'll get another ambush while this caravan is present, so we'll keep the military on alert.


I can see in the stocks window that they bring 6 alpaca's, a ram and a sow. awesome! we'll have to butcher most of our other livestock after this, and we'll stick to sheep / alpaca / goats / pigs. And we can ditch the pigs.

Trading commencing:
we managed to complete 49 dresses for the caravan.
The best one is worth 1012 urists, masterwork dress made from superior cloth which was dyed emerald.


After tribute and gift of the best dress, the remaining trade value is 18769. Not bad at all, and our industry is only just getting started.
We buy out the entire caravan, which only has a value of 6061. Our order made up all the caravan's cargo, so it's all useful.

The animals were very heavy, now that we have the ones we want we won't be ordering more of those.
~20 bars of metal (some steel, some iron, some pig iron, some random)
4 tower cap logs
8 animals
2 barrels of milk
9 bags of sand
3 bins of luxury leather (jaguar / draltha)

whoops, small error - forgot a page of dresses. we have 6722 worth of dresses left over after buying the whole caravan with a 200% profit for the traders. It'll do
hmmm, what to do with the steel. armor or weapons? only 3 bars of steel and 3 bars of iron available. I'll keep the pig iron around and order some flux stone in another year. Probably weapons, killing quickly is important, and bronze armor should stop most goblin attacks.

we have 8 copper bars, 3 tin bars and the metal cages to make some more. I could make bronze bars from those, but my biggest need right now is mechanisms and copper will do just fine for those.

===

As Kib and Kadol had agreed beforehand, Kib held off meeting the Mountainhome dignitary until after the trades were completed and the tribute delivered. There was a long list of carpentry jobs that needed doing, so it wasn't hard to be busy.

When Kib and the dignitary finally met in the dining hall, it had been several weeks. The plan was to force this dignitary to actually see Gloomhill people living, instead of ignoring it like the last one. Unfortunately, that appeared to have been counter productive.
"Twenty Thousand?! You demand we pay a tribute of twenty thousand urists?". "Yes, those are the king's orders. The tribute value is relative to the populace and production. I see plenty of production around here." "Twenty thousand urists is more than the production value of a fully productional mine shaft!" The dignitary shifted a little bit, visibly uncomfortable in his situation. "These are the orders. Failure to provide the tribute will be met with military intervention." Kib scowled and threw the papers back at the dignitary. "Yeah, yeah, we've heard it all before. Your palace business is over, you are no longer welcome within these walls. Leave Gloomhill immediately and report that we'll meet this ridiculous tribute." The dignitary looked at the setting sun and twitched. "Surely you don't mean to send me out at night? The caravan hasn't even started loading." Kib sneered. "Those are the orders. Now start packing." The dignitary shuffled outside, visibly shaking.

Kadol climbed down the stairs from where he'd been listening. Kib looked up at him. "Are you really sending him out there at night? He won't last an hour." Kadol shook his head. "Stodir will stop him at the gate and offer him a place to stay in the barn for the night. We just want to scare him a bit." Kib chuckled. "A bit? I hope he brought an extra pair of pants." Then he frowned. "Twenty thousand is a lot Kadol. A whole lot."

===

Kib has been extremely busy carving furniture so the dignitary has had to wait to talk to him.
our order:
- many metal bars, with as many iron / steel / pig iron / copper / tin / bronze as we can get
- tower cap logs
- some sand
- some luxury leather
- coal and charcoal
- copper and tin cages (to melt down)
- greaves (to melt down)

next year's tribute: 20000 urists. 2000 was obviously too little, but 20k might be too much. We'll see

Monom is back on her feet, no worse for wear. Melbil is shuffling around with a crutch. One of his hands is now permanently occupied, so I'll reassign him from the melee to the ranged squad so he can at least shoot stuff.

Winter comes.
We set up an archery range for the ranged squad, and finally get around to making their crossbows. Our legendary bonecarver has been churning away at making bolts, we have about a hundred of them for the archers to practice with. It's not going fast, a stack of bone counts as refuse and clutters up the craftsdwarf workshop by the maximum amount.


We've also set up an ashery and soap maker and created a bar of soap for the hospital. We're slowly slaughtering all the uninteresting animals, the tanners can't keep up even with two tanner's workshops.

Plans are made to extend the compound south, where we still have the most room remaining. This extra room will be used for some new projects, like an irrigation experiment, a training arena and some more pasture room.


Our cook Nomal, who started out as a novice is up to Expert by now, churning out tallow and roasts by the dozens. Her kitchen is west of the archery range, next to some large food supply stockpiles for varied meals.


Spring - the wall is done, the old southern wall torn down.


We're starting construction on the second dormitory building and finishing up the second floor of the first. I made the first dormitory color consistent, but it's way too much work, so I'm skipping that for the other buildings.


The fort is now two years old. 50 dwarves are hard at work, and the compound grounds cover about a quarter of the map.


The dignitary doesn't leave until deep into spring (Kib was too busy )

The elven caravan shows up. We've been cranking out dresses in anticipation of meeting the tribute next fall, so there's plenty to trade. Our weaver is a high master by now, so dress value should have shot up. The dyer is still a newbie, unfortunately.


Interestingly, the most valuable item I have is a goose egg roast worth over 2k!


We sell the roast and ditch some of our more low value dresses, in exchange for some animals (including a giraffe) and a bunch of booze and assorted utility wood products that we would otherwise have to make ourselves (buckets / barrels / cages). The elves make a hefty profit, hopefully that will inspire them to bring more stuff next time (although if they do, it'll likely just be mountains and mountains of cloth inferior to what we make ourselves). the booze bumps our supply to over 175 drinks. That helps!


Our most experienced marksdwarf gets depressed every time he gets off training duty since he has no other skills. We set him up with a home-trainer pump. That should get him in shape and out of complaining.

A snatcher appeared! Wait, let me rephrase that: we received another goblin cage. At some point we'll construct an arena and use these gobbo's as target practice.

An ambush! a squad of pikemen appears right outside the gate, spotted by a woodworker that was heading out to fetch some logs. The first hit is a pike that tears an artery in his heart, so I guess that's goodbye to him. Stodir is closeby with his skills and bronze weaponry and armor. Hopefully most of them will walk into the traps, and the rest can be handled by our military (hopefully)