In the cavernous, dark corridors of Smokehalls, there is a motto now entrenched in the hearts of every hardy Dwarf present. A timeless, silent chant. A collective thought that emboldens the spirit and drives the war machine on with determined fury:
"From the scorching desert, the legions of the dead march relentlessly to our walls. The wandering horrors of the deep raise their foul maws and hope to plunge us into darkness. The endless green-skinned hordes invade from the North. Yet though these collective fiends may paint our lands red with the blood of our loved ones and crash upon our hold like so many great waves...there is one eternal, unbreakable truth.
Smokehalls endures."
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I'm going to be doing a mega-update once my RL workload diminishes somewhat. I'll start by breaking the bad news: Every named Dwarf is dead
Cogdiss was assassinated by Goblin spies in a daring attack on the fortress entrance, Kubuk was violently murdered by a Llama skeleton that killed so many Dwarves it got about 3 separate names and a fancy title before finally being put down. I shall detail both significant events in the proper post.
Additionally, multiple FBs have been fought off. This includes a rather remarkable one that appeared to be bugged in some way. It was a giant, beakless Wren...but it also had a shell like a snail and "a thirst for blood". Weirdly, it was excreting "N/A FB Extract", suggesting it got messed up in generation somehow. Still, it was such a weird creature I'm thinking of actually drawing a pic of it
The EX-COMB project is starting to kick into high gear. It's hard to summarise at present, but it involves:
1. Very deep trenches.
2. An entirely new, underground entrance to the fortress designed for maximum Zombie annihilation.
3. Magma. Though this is something of a long-term project
4. A military with hearts of steel (and more literal swords of steel too).
I've played the fort for a few years since the last update, but essentially it's been in a limbo of sorts due to the sheer number of invaders, so it's only really architecture that has changed. I have built a large arena to dispose of the significant number of Goblin prisoners that were building up, complete with an "escape route" that drops Goblins into a cavernous void about half the depth of the mountain when the little gits run over pressure plates! This has proved so effective that I'm thinking of trialling it as an actual defence mechanism at the entrance.
Zombie concentration has decreased markedly, I blame this on a Necromancer getting a pickaxe through the guts after clumsily triggering one of my first ever traps. I'm sure they'll be back with a vengeance soon though.
So yes...Smokehalls endures. And there are many stories to tell. Hopefully I'll get a break in my work schedule and be able to regale you with them soon, I have many screenies saved up