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[Argonnek]

As seen in other community fortresses such as Blockedlance, goblins do indeed have trade caravans. Just slaughter the poor sods when they arrive. Then again, Blockedlance was in 40d. Just wait a while and see what happens, is my advice. You might even try to put it into the story. Ludoc charging a peaceful caravan and bringing down the wrath of the gobbo hordes.

[Xvareon]

Come to think of it, aren't the Goblins sort of like your trade partners no matter what?  I mean, look at all this valuable Goblinite and bones they bring you every year!  And it's already packed neat and tidy on a two-legged bin that practically hauls itself to your stockpiles.

Works for me.  I'll just wait for them to show up then have Ludoc go postal behind closed doors, dump the bodies down the nearest garbage chute to feed the nameless horrors in the caverns... ..no wait, that would leave me with no exotic Goblin bones.  Baron would throw a tantrum.

[Stronghammer]

lol goblin bins

[Xvareon]

Hey guys... I realize I've been a real F$#@ing jerk for procrastinating on this DF story so damn much, so I decided ima try and get back into it pretty soon -- though I forget where everything is pretty much so I'll need to get my bearings on it first.  Gonna think my entries through a bit more too 'cause some of the stuff I put up is either cliche or makes absolutely no sense sometimes.  I'm also gonna need to redesign large parts of the fort (especially the joke of a defense system in front though I'm probably keeping that gate, Dorfette would have my balls if I tore that down).

Wanted to ask if you guys could link me some good third-party programs for stuff like healing Dwarves, creating enemies and such, as all I have right now is Dwarf Therapist which is good but I need something else and I have no idea what works best or what does everything I need it to do, etc.  I'd appreciate it if you guys can help with that angle -- oh yeah, I'm running on Windows XP.

I'm going on vacation to Tennessee next Thursday so I won't be around for at least 4 days then, so I'll try and squeeze as much as I can think of in here until then.  Writer's block really is a bitch but I'm gonna run with these new, interesting migrants we got last wave; this should be a really interesting set of updates if I can pull it off.  I gripe about the high migration rate though, it makes things seem not so special because I want people to bond to existing Dwarves before more come in and turn everything upside down.

[Xvareon]

The Journal of Nine

25th Galena, 258, Late Summer

The only thing that seems to stay put in this place are the walls, floors and stairs; there's been so much hauling work to do, back and forth from the top levels and down the stairs of the western wing, that the entire place sometimes resembles a colony of ants.  This project is nothing if not ambitious... when they told me what their vision of the place in about 10 years was like, I was shocked.  They want to build a grand, multi-tiered interior structure.... some kind of plaza, or atrium, a straight long walk down from the gate.  The surprising thing is that work on it already seems to have begun; if only for a massive, smooth hollow sphere where the main paths through the top levels branch off.  The width of the halls is enormous -- I can only imagine what it's going to look like once all this junk rock is removed and the walls and floors can be properly smoothed.  This whole subterranean living business might actually have its merits...

I've compiled a set of initial observations and opinions about the advantages of living underground, as opposed to surface life...  Back up top we focused more on practicality and standardization, in the traditional method of individual structures with walls, a roof and a floor.  The closest we ever came to living underground was building some homes partially buried to conserve heat during the winter months.  You don't need to do any of that with subterranean housing; weather and temperature are almost non-factors when you're protected by a shell of solid rock.  Subterranean cities seem to be like a single, massive structure, with all it's rooms and facilities connected together by a labyrinth of tunnels.  It also completely negates the need to build an extensive city wall - although a well-manned front gate is still required for trading, migration and goblinite other economical purposes.

I see a lot of potential here... and not just in all this unique culture and architecture, but in the people.  Very few people back home had any real ambition or dreams of achieving something greater than simply living day by day.  Their butcher concerns himself not with mundane meats, but in crafting exotic trophies and macabre trinkets that any normal Dwarf would simply look at and say 'disgusting'.  Where they see 'disgusting', I see 'innovation' -- In all of these individuals.  I have finally discovered a group of people ready to try something new, to challenge tradition and the old ways and strive forward in the name of !!science!! progress.  This is a chance I cannot pass up; I will force-march the Dwarven civilization through the fires of rebirth and teach them how to truly live!!  Blessed is Greatfather Armok, for he has re-kindled the flames of passion within his servants.  I plan to personally take on the major architecture jobs of this... Fortress, that is a very apt name... especially their designs for the top levels.  I will learn as much as possible about this place in the next few months, so that I can start shaping this Fortress in my glorious image for all future generations to remember.

None shall forget what we will accomplish here.  I will inscribe our legacy on the very fabric of history itself.

[Xvareon]

23rd Limestone, 258, Early Autumn

"It's a cock-up," Garth spat. "all this damned moving arounds got the whole fort froze over.  We're diggin' out new rooms by the hour but we still ain't got enough space to put all our goods.  Our furniture stockpile is choked with rock!"  The others at the table simply nodded sadly and sighed as Garth ranted.  They were in the new dining room that had recently been excavated, it was a decent-sized hall with plenty of space for tables and chairs, but symmetry was still out of the question as most of that space was still occupied by large piles of junk stone that had yet to be moved.  And yet, the walls and some of the unoccupied floor area had been properly smoothed out and cleaned, and a few statues of dubious mention were set against the walls -- one notable bore a curious carving of what looked to be Ludoc in full armor, surrounded by a cloud of flies.  Garth paused and took a long pull from his mug of Shorna's newest 'Cave wheat beer', a new plant she had somehow managed to scrounge up -- probably when they had tapped the cavern layer a little while back.  Deler was first to speak up. "It's about what I expected, though... when you try to move the entire section of the Fortress you've been using a good long walk away, you're bound to get jammed up at some point."
"True, but we're still getting it done." Dorfette cut in. "We managed to put those Mason's and Craftsdwarves workshops on the tenth and seventeenth floors to good use; at first, we were just making random bits of furniture, but Anna and that new-blood Nine managed to whip up a bunch of these otherwise-slackers around the place to do some real work." She grinned as she recalled the scene. "It was... interesting.  One of them was doing pretty good making a simple coffer, was in the process of chipping away a few of the last rough spots when he somehow misjudged the angle of his chisel and literally broke the entire lid in half -- and that wasn't even the best part.  We tried putting him on blocks after that, but in a stroke of genius he managed to make a series of engravings on said blocks -- war kittens menacing with spikes, an entire ocean of magma, giant spiders with blades attached to their limbs and Dwarves and Goblins eating together at a table laden with roast Elf seemed to be his favorites."
"Hidden talent, eh?" Baron said with a smile. "Sounds like he knows the drill to me.  Best way to make peace with someone is to keep good solid meat between them and you -- the minute the first thing they see when they look in your general direction isn't a leg of lamb -- or elf -- you're screwed."
"We're not trying to make peace with them, we're trying to make pieces out of them." Branded remarked with a grim face. "Why make peace anyway?  If we just kill them all and get it over with there will be no one else across from us at that table.  Who's eating who then, hmm?"
"More for us," Baron nodded with a grin. "It was just a thought.  We might keep the Goblins -- or Elves -- as breeding stock for later."
Deler cleared her throat. "We're getting afield here, everyone.  So rather than dump it all into the nearest atom smasher -- admittedly over fourteen floors down from here -- you're drilling everyone you can lay your hands on in basic masonry and stonecrafting.  Is this going to work? I mean, these are amateurs we're talking about; what makes you think they can do this quicker than the garbage dump route?"
Dorfette shrugged. "Walking distances are shorter.  I think the real problem here is too much hauling work -- everyone has been walking across the entire Fortress just to deliver a single bolt of cloth or stack of plump helmets, because that's more important than the rock for the most part.  If we have more people focusing on the rock I think this will go quite a bit faster."
Garth finished his drink, plunked the empty mug down on the table and sighed. "Long as it gets it out of me way, lass.  m' tired of tripping over a bloody rock every ten feet."
Dorfette smiled and gave him a sly wink. "Don't worry, old man.  I'll do my best to avoid any more accidents of the tripping variety."
Deler let out an exasperated sigh. "We could just dump it all in the magma, you know.  Dig a hole straight down, chuck it in and watch the fireworks..."
"We could," she admitted. "but it'd be a terrible waste of stone.  Better we put it to use training more masons and stonecrafters for the future; besides, it makes a ridiculous amount of tradeable goods.  You wouldn't believe what we got from the Humans just for a bin full of carved stone jewelry that wouldn't even fit them."
"If you say so," Baron shrugged. "you're the expert on this stone business.  I'll stick to what I know how to cook."

[Xvareon]

...Really? nothing? wow, I must have been gone longer than I thought. Oh well. After I get off the high of using my giant monkey to convert entire villages of Humans to worship me (Black & White), I'll probably come back to this. If you clamor for updates, however, I suppose I will have to oblige wink wink nudge nudge.