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[Splint]

Who is bob?

He's your best friend obviously.
-

While I'm against the mode simply because it seems like such an odd thing to make, I think I'll pitch in on that challenge. I wanna see how long a hermit will last with Mr. Military driving his brain. Even make updates! Should be a simple little thing and who knows, maybe I'll warm up to it.

[Paulus Fahlstrom]

Year 56, Spring, Journal of Ustuth Lorshorast

This is the first year beginning I have been able to mark in the journal since three years ago now. I'm afraid whatever detail I can provide will have to be sufficient for a description of the last three years. I will explain soon enough why.

Late winter and spring of 53 I spent, as I said previously, improving my situation indoors. The pitch braziers helped dramatically and I found that I could even use some of the plants that I found inedible. Bladeweed is a tough and fibrous plant but it makes very good wicker that I've been able to weave. I had picked so much of the plant, assuming I could boil it and eat it. Erroneously as it turns out. Tastes terrible, gives you a stomach ache when eaten. But woven and dried it is exceptionally strong and tough. I was able to weave some useful items from it as an example and when I need to harvest plants again will know what to do with it.

Hide root I've found to be tough and inedible and otherwise useless. I hear it makes a passable dye, when cut, dried, cooked into a paste and then diluted with water. I don't see much point though, honestly. I have decided I need to be more spiritually connected, and this may help with my communion with nature, but I've set up a pair of shrines. One to Tathur the Meditative Insight. I've decided he is my muse, my god of writing. The other, is to Alod Sculptdriven, hermit got of the sun. Since, you know, photosynthesis and all that. Food is good, what can I say. I have dedicated the altars and even offered the hide roots at them and now go every season to pray. They haven't spoken to me yet, but since I made them up that would be even more disturbing.

I'm not crazy after all.

We've, I mean Bob and I, of course, expanded the workshops to include all potential resources, and have extended below the water table by way of the harder shale layers near the ocean to excavate both a large storage room and another less utilized workshop area.

I found some sort of platinum or white-gold talisman in the bushes the other day. It seemed to be calling to me. Funny thing. I've tossed it in the storage area for the mean time. Speaking of rubbish, I've finally cleared away the regrets I didn't recognize on the surface by dumping them in my garbage area. For some reason I thought they were all tools, heh, inside joke, but it didn't seem right to put them in my designated tool area.

Speaking of letting dead things lie, it appeared another swamp troll moved in where the first one had been. What is it with that place that attracts them? He didn't want to leave so I decided to try a Nature shrine to perhaps lure it to my side and become friends. I managed to build a shrine nearly on top of it, but every time I tried to persuade it to join it would chase me away.

I built a second one further away, but still close and tried again to no avail. By communing with nature I felt more or less at peace with it ((2300 or so, thanks to all the sheep, cows and dogs I had)) but still it would not be tempted and even charged me once and knocked down my shrine.

Well, by hook or crook they say. I girded my loins, figuratively, since I still only had my clothes, axe and buckler and sallied forth against my windmills. Or trolls. You know.

The battle was totally going my way, thanks to my superior skill, until it managed to get a super effective grip on my right leg. I heard something break and at the same time something in me snapped as well. I came to some time later, still not sure how long and the troll was lying decapitated next to me. My hip hurt and leg wasn't functioning properly. It appears the beast managed to break my hip.

I yelled and yelled for Bob but the slacker wasn't responding so I had to drag myself back to bed. But I wasn't about to let the troll go to waste so I kept yelling until Bob finally responded, covered head to toe in rockdust and I made him take care of the troll now.

Thank goodness for that troll. Better than fried chicken.

With me all busted up everything was up to Bob. And let me tell you, that guy is super slow. I caught him muttering under his breath once but all I could make out was "You are an idiot." Ingrate. I'd say I shouldn't have invited him but to be fair, he did save my life.

There I was, bedridden, broken hip, hungry and thirsty. First he tried to bring me water, but we didn't have a bucket. By the time he got around to making a bucket we didn't have any water. The fall freeze had already hit. So instead of looking for water he starts to diagnose my injury and poke and prod me to see how bad it was.

I broke, ahem, sorry, the Troll freakin' broke my hip! Stop trying to move it! Go dig a shaft in the soil by the workshops, the soil was damp there. Then build a well and get me some freakin' water!

Took him darn near forever. I swear I was about to die of dehydration and starvation when he finally managed to make it with the bucket of water.

It was silty.

But boy did the troll taste great!

Fed us for a good long while. Little greenish by the end, but no harm done.

So with me being laid up very little got done. Bob wasn't big on berries and nuts. He preferred fish so during the next summer until the freeze he spent ungodly amounts of time fishing and not much else useful. Though, to be fair he did make some good progress on the other workshops and even came up with some ideas for the talisman that had been found. He thought it might be magical, but insisted I use it, since he wasn't up to snuff on that sort of thing. He doesn't pray either or commune with nature.

So there he was fishin' in fall when all of a sudden I hear panicked lowing from my cow. Bob, of course, goes to check it out and there, in bright day was a full squad of elves. Shooting our poor cow dead like it was some kind of terrifying beast. They spot Bob and gave chase but fortunately for him he's quick. He almost made it back to the house. Almost.

Then he took an arrow to the groin just as he was in the final stretch. He comes flopping through the door, panicked, doubled over holding his nads and with a wild look on his face. I sit up panicked and the only thing we can think of is to lock the door. All that is between us and those murdering ambushing elves is a measly door, and one wicked ass trap. Thank you very much. I made sure to set it up to keep the trolls out of my house while I sleep. Last thing I want to to be woken by one of those things.

Anyways, I swear I heard the elves laughing as they slaughtered our remaining dog, and sheep. A second group joined them and was taking potshot at a badly wounded sheep on the beach from right next to the house and all I could do was lie there, feeling helpless. Bastard hippie limp-wristed treehugging shrubhumping elves! Now why would they do that?

It was a week before we felt the coast was clear enough to venture outside to recover the corpses of our animals. One sheep did survive. Barely. Apparently it could hardly move but no arrows had pierced it's main torso, the elves were just shooting out it's legs. Bob wound up shearing it to see how bad the damage was, and to get some yarn to help patch up my hip. Actually we used troll fur thread for my sutures, and wool cloth for bandages. Pretty effective if I say so myself. Already my hip was feeling better, only fractured, not broken. I was still bed-ridden of course until it could heal fully.

Bob had done some exploratory mining, setting up excavations sites to find some metal ore. Real tools would be a nice change. I spend half my time making new ones out of wood, or stone.

It was only a few months after the elven fiasco that we were besieged by a human patrol. Blast them, I told them I needed isolation to test my hypothesis. They spotted Bob briefly, but didn't give chase and we locked the door. Bob had increased security somewhat because of the elves and there were now three traps in front of the door instead of just one. I'm not sure it would have been sufficient had all fifteen of them tried to force entry. But all they did was sit and observe. We couldn't go outside.

Bob had continued his mining and set up workshops for some metalworks, and such, but without fuel it was pointless, even when he did find a good vein of galena and sphalerite. Oh, and a giant cavern. We didn't dare enter it yet, not without better protection. We heard things moving in the perpetual darkness and the smell of damp and rotting.

It was finally last summer that my hip finally felt good enough to move again. Man it was good to get out of bed. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, if you know what I mean. I went again to pray at my house altars and, of course, communed with nature (-2700 thanks to the elves). I don't think Mother nature is too happy with me, and with all my animals gone now I don't know if I have the heart to try that again when the elves could sneak in here at any time and kill them all again.

I need to fortify the entrance better somehow. I've got some plans but they will take me time. And I could really use some metal tools.

In other news a gigantic water dragon spotted our house and came to invade. Or just explore, and ran afoul the traps. Dragon steaks for dinner tonight! And we have dragon scales now. And some sort of soul... stone. For lack of a better term. Not sure what to do with it. It went down in storage and I saw the amulet again, and realized I could think of a use for it! It would teach me magic. I considered dabbling in Necromancy, I've seen a few texts back when I was younger and more rebellious. You know, high school. Kids will read anything then. It would serve the elves right to have my pets raised from the dead to fight and kill them. But it just didn't seem like me. I'm not a combat wizard either. Just don't have it in me.

So I took the other route, Conjurer. Not just for party tricks. Though, I spent months trying to recall everything I had read on that topic as well. I'm proficient but still haven't managed to summon so much as a sock. (Apparently megabeast souls cannot be used for that, more's the pity. A super-powered version of a normal summon would have been cool.)

So there you have it. Five years in a nutshell, though for more than half I was bedridden, so I'm not sure they count. There are things I still want to try out, like that sundial I built. The more I stare at it the slower time goes, and vice versa.

I'll try to come up with better arguments to prove my thesis but unfortunately I'm still low-functioning in terms of Maslow's hierarchy and am working on stability so I have more time for reflection.

((A few questions in terms of function, keep in mind this is my first go at Masterwork:

1. How on earth do I use the Megabeast soul from the water dragon?
2. How do I get oil to make tough leather armor? To upgrade to studded, to upgrade to scale?
3. I will try conjuration with a normal soul and am poised to try. Is there anything I need to know other than that it is a reaction? How do I get poison container without having venomous creatures?
))

[Imeka]

"Do you know what day it is?" asked Etur, the Hermit. "It's the first day of spring I think" answered his friend Bob. "Yes, yes it is. And it's the 5 year anniversary of me coming to this place." Despite his excitement he was silent for a while, then "Time sure went by fast." Bob looked up from the work he was doing "So you have been here five years already, what happened in the time before I joined you?" Etur took a sip from his mead "The first year was hard and I suffered from hallucinations several times. I didn't have much food with me and it ran out while I was working on making some clothes and tools, digging my home, building the first basic workshops and burying the things that I thought to have caused the hallucinations. I was pretty hungry when I began to desperatly gather some plants. Luckily the surrounding was rich in berries and as soon as I had eaten and brewed some, I tilled a spot of earth and planted the seeds."

He paused for a moment and took another sip "I had some trouble with rhesus maquces, they stole my waterskin and backpack besides some other not so important things. I was glad I stored my bow and arrows savely inside shortly before. The other wildlife didn't bother me much, until one day I spotted some ogres in the distance.  I was afraid of them, so I started to construct the wall.  Work progressed slowly until you came at the end of the second year, I think it was obsidian?" The hermit looked at his tireless companion, who answered. "Yes, I remember helping you with the last part of the wall and the drawbridge. And then you sent me to dig for ores below our home while you started with the roof. Oh, and around that time you began keeping bees and silkmoths and also build a well inside of our walls."

The hermit chuckled. "I don't know if the bees were a good or bad idea. The mead certainly tastes great, but the little buggers keep stinging our pets and they cause a lot of work. But we have a good store of wax, honey and royal jelly now, I haven't harvested them in quite some time. The silkmoths did produce way less than the bees and also grew much slower, as much as I fancy having silk clothes, we did get more wool cloth from our single sheep than silk from the silk moths. And to be honest, the rope reed farm was the most productive for getting cloth. But back to our past, as I recall you very quickly found cassiterite and sphalerite. Pleased that we had access to metals, I had you then help me with the roof."

Bob, who never ate, drank or slept, had finished his job and joined the hermit in the dining room for a well deserved break. "Even working together, it took us until the summer of the third year to build the roof. We were just finished with it, when two kobold thiefs got chased away by our dogs in Galena. That scared you so much that you quickly cut some last trees and then closed the bridge and sealed us in. Or was it because of the talisman you found just a few days later?" The hermit went into the kitchen and helped himself to a royal jelly and seed crossaint "Both, that talisman was worth about ten times as much as everything else we had and kobolds are always a bad sign. Except for the bow that I had not shot once since arriving here we had no weapons or armor as you very well know. That awkward moment I realised that neither tin nor zinc are metals you can make a fire save anvil from."

Bob grimaced. "So it was back to mining for me in search of copper. While you were playing around with that talisman." Etur protested "That was no playing around, that was research. The magic of the talisman could have been very helpful to us. Alas, I didn't know that conjurations would take offerings we couldn't provide. I briefly considered to go hunting, but I wasn't sure if I could take on the raptors that were outside that time. Or the giant coyotes that followed. Sometimes I'm envious of the druids who just go and tame those beasts." "Ah, so thats why you build a nature shrine in our courtyard under the roof, where it is completly ineffective." "Oh, shut up, Bob. Everyone can make mistakes. And you can imagine what would have happend if I dared to venture outside of our walls to build it there. Since shortly after, in Galena of the fourth year, a squad of humans, 15 blademan, one maceman and one ironclad horse, appeared, mistaking me for a warlock and besieging us. Do I look anything like a warlock to you? Where are all the ghouls and skeletons that would follow me if I was a warlock? But no, those humans were set in their minds and didn't listen to me."

Bob tried his best to calm Etur down, else he would rant for hours. "No, you are not a warlock and those humans were stupid for believing it. Anyway, in the following months I dug deeper and deeper, through layers of stone that had no ores, just gems, while the siege outside continued. It was winter when you called me to tell me of your idea how we can kill the humans or other folk who bother us." The hermit smiled. "Its rather ingenious, isn't it? A narrow path of traps leading over a deep pit, so that they either get injured by the traps or dodge and break some bones when they fall, while I stand behind the fortifications and shoot arrow after arrow at them."

Bob sighed. "Only that we are woking on it for over a year now and still do not have it finished. You were so intent on working on it that we didn't notice when the humans left, somewhere in summer it must have been. But that gave us the opportunity to savely dig a second entrance to the trap corridor. And then we sealed it immidiately until we are ready." Etur interrupted. "Speaking of ready, you finally found malachite in autumn and we made a copper anvil, and look, I have made a full set of bronze armor, now I can go out and fight." Bob rolled his eyes, he reckoned the old man would rather finish the traps and fight from relative safety than go out and seek trouble.




((Here is the save after 5 years for you to look around, since I forgot to take screenshots: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=9400
I played at normal speed, no need for savescumming so far. That will probably change once I stop being a turtling coward...

Oil can be pressed from several plants with the screw press or made from tallow at the workshop (alchemy), poison can be produced from certain plants at the workshop (poison).))

[Splint]

Okay, so two years in, with the slower time, getting stuff done is much more manageable than at normal speed (to me anyway.) I will say I needed to cheat on very rare occasion and that was to deal with some forest spiders, as thier prone to rage+web shooting setting would have killed my hermit no matter what I did otherwise (at peace or not, a pissed off spider's going oto kill everything it can see from what I can tell.) May want to attach something in the GUI to disable super aggressive (that is, animals added by the mod, not vanilla hyper aggressive like badgers,) wildlife or remove thier rage issues. Otherwise anywhere forest spiders can occur (and possibly other hyper aggressive things,) will be locked out to hermit mode simply because it quite literally is too dangerous to be in their vicinity.

Bob is incredibly useful, and greatly eases some of the strain on the poor hermit in accomplishing things. There is a small problem with past regret burial, in that if they aren't seen disappearing, they won't be buried because they're still "only missing," and without an actual corpse to discover... Yeah. Bit of an issue. I have the caskets handy, all set for burials, but those pesky regrets man.

The hand pump is a wonderful little workshop as well. Damned thing's been a life saver.

EDIT: After losing a bunch of progress to a siege, I give up with my current one and I'll try again elsewhere. I don't feel like redigging and rebuilding a bunch of crap. I'll savescum without hesitation if nothing important was built or dug or whatever, but if I lose work on building project? Pff. Screw that, I'm not redesignating that crap.

Thoughts on hermit mode: Savage areas that support forest spiders are a no-go, as are places with thieving animals such as languars and keas. The former is too great a threat (they see the hemit's pets, go apeshit, kill hermit and pets.)

Certain workshops are honestly wonderful (Hand pump, bone shop,) While others feel a little.... Well, pointless for the most part. I understand they're necessary so all the bases are covered but still. I didn't really use the wood or leather shops much, if at all. The Clothing shop is handy, but the initial misery is not from lack of clothes, it's seeing all the other 'hermits' die. As they all have the same general personality traits they essentially all become friends in a few seconds.

Problems I ran into are more probably game limitations than anything or need some careful management. But I dunno.

1. Sieges. I can understand why people want to fight them, but you're virtually guaranteed to be attacked once you find the talisman. By 14+ people, far more than you can feasibly face with a single proficient fighter. So unless you keep invasions off, you'd have to basically play it like a normal fort with one guy instead of hundreds and prepare for attack and ignore playing with anything else. The talisman is basically a death sentence unless you kept invaders off or neglected everything else in favor of preparing for attackers.

Summation: Don't play with invaders on until you're damn sure you can fight them with whatever your hermit has (demons, zombies, traps, spells, bombs, whatever.) Because they'll come in force within a few months of that talisman being found.

2. Bob. He's useful, but the fact he can't (or more, won't because he can't become a soldier,) defend himself greatly detracts from his overall usefulness. The fact he can be hurt at all physically makes it even worse, so a concession to have bob to fight back/help deal with irritating animals when necessary may be needed with him.

3. Necromancy. Not very useful. Not if you want vermin control or pets, and certainly not useful if bob is present, as they'll want to kill your pets and bob more than kill the assholes camped outside. Adding insult to injury is if you lack a black monolith (such as say, due to an inability to safely access materials or not thinking the zombies would act like pets and follow your hermit around,) you need to send your hermit out to possibly be killed to get the zombies near a threat.

Now, I haven't gotten to try the other ones since you only get one talisman, but that's just my thoughts on necromancy for the hermit:useless useful thing. if you intend to go with it, be prepared to go it alone completely (no pets ever) unless bob can become a necromancer too. Otherwise it may be best to replace this with something else or do away with it.

4. Druidism: I can see its use, but it's utility is... less than great, at least early on when you don't have somewhere to store everything. You become "too disconnected from nature" if you do anything silly like defend your home, pets, and belongings from hostile/stupid animals. This one is more a grain of salt situation, because I kept getting harassed by thieving animals and forest spiders and as such was forced to kill them (thus, ruining any hope of messing with nature.)

5. Past Regrets: They need a window of arrival so to speak. I couldn't bury any that weren't seen dying/disappearing despite having the itemcorpses handy, because it was an item, not a body.

In all, I'll be honest I'm being a debbie downer here, but here's my thoughts on Hermit Mode barring the above.

I warmed up to it!

I honestly felt this was a wasted bit of effort on your part Meph, but now that I've played it, I actually find it kinda nice, save the problems above. But turn off invaders (so you can have fun with building your little home, and then to give yourself time to prepare a trap hall or some other means of dealing with intruders,) and avoid places with large [PRONE_TO_RAGE] or [CURIOUS_BEAST_ITEM] animals and it can actually be kinda... Relaxing actually.

[Paulus Fahlstrom]

Year 61, Journal of Ustuth

Finally! Success. After years of practicing conjuration I have finally been successful. My first experiments to lure beings out of the ether were failures, though I did manage to coax a few nahashi through the rift. One of them was attacked and killed by a giant cave bat. The other one has proven very effective at ridding this place of vermin. Particularly the rats that infest my halls. But today I have successfully conjured a true companion. An orthi, to my side. And promptly trained it in combat. I now have an intelligent beast to go with me into the dangerous underworld. 

I have all but abandoned the surface. After a series of sieges by the humans I was relishing a much needed break from the stale air of the halls, but on exploring my once tranquil surface I found it overrun with warbeasts, undoubtedly of elven training. No one else would dare send war-trained wolves, unicorns and deer (?) of all things to harrass and assault me. One of the wolves tore open my chest a little and I had to spend a few seasons resting and recovering again. Fortunately the animals do not know how to open doors and even the elves and humans are extremely wary of my trapped and locked entrance. (A single locked door appears to be sufficient to keep them out.)

Perhaps I should build a secondary retreat in the caves, in case my house itself is overrun. I have trapped the entrance to the caves heavily as protection from below as well as a secondary string of protection from those above. I have already caught two giant cave bats and have begun taming them. Apparently they are a carnivorous species of bat, and both Bob and I have been attacked on more than one occasion by wild ones. I have managed to bring down one of those recently and by using it's soul energy have finally managed to lure the orthi to this side of the rift.

I shall experiment with more of this in the future. One of the captured bats has been rather intractible in his training and is constantly reverting to feral again. I set up a nature shrine in the caves but I fear Nature is no longer my ally here. (-36K)

If the bats do not pan out then their soul energy will provide the source I need for further summonings.

I still have the crystallized soul of the water dragon that I do not know how to utilize. Few records that I can recall deal with such things, due to their rarity, and none provide specifics. Just that they may be used to gain power, or potentially by warlocks to resurrect fallen mostrocities. I dream of using it to summon a massive Orthi to be my guardian, but I fear such dreams are folly.

My interest in geology has expanded, and I have found several sections of some kind of ruin, compressed brick. But I have found nothing of interest. Perhaps by exploring the caves I can find more. Though I fear the snake-people I have seen to the north. They are undoubtedly venomous.

I finally, after years of trying different things have managed to craft a fire-safe anvil out of melted down goblin equipment. They were foolish enough to try and break in. But the rusty iron forge sits cold and lifeless. I have no good metals to forge, just lead, zinc and a little silver. The gems I have found hold likewise little to interest me. Perhaps if I could set up a trade depot and exchange these items for tools and books. Perhaps by creating a library of knowledge of sorts I could fulfill my original mission. Surely the accumulation of knowledge would qualify as a reasonable act.

As such I shall continue my studies and obtain as much skill and information as I can. Who knows, perhaps the snakemen are friendly? Communication with them might be possible.

I suppose time will tell.

((General impressions: I like it. The constant sieges and ambushes do necessitate the first few years be spent on defense and the use of the sundial would be invaluable in that regard. I have not used it myself except to test it.

Sieges are impossible to break in current form. One person against a full group of armored and armed humans, warhorses and wardogs is still insanity. Perhaps not forever, but right now it's just ridiculous. I would quickly die.

Injury recovery is possible, but not easy. A good balance I feel. Bob is invaluable in this regard and my Bob is nearly a legendary diagnoser already. Sigh. Lots of time spent in bed nearly starving or dehydrated. The trolls haven't helped but have provided nice flavor in terms of difficulty.

Druidic path is, I suppose, possible. But too many things want to kill you off, so defending with animals would likely be impractical unless they are the giant variety, and maybe not even then. Obviously I haven't gotten off on the right foot here with Nature.

Conjuration functions, and a hefty use of cage traps will help assure constant supply of souls. Everything else can be acquired easily enough. Except perhaps large gems. I've only managed nahash and orthi so far but am working on the others. I do like being able to customize things for the individual and the extra injury recovery potential is great.

In general, nicely balanced. Having access to others tech might make it more interesting. ))

Save here:
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=9449

Year 9

Remaining questions:
How do I use megabeast soul?
I've been trying to get him to use military gear always. Replace clothing is on, uniformed while inactive is on. Suggestions?
Do I need skill in mining or archaeology to find stuff in compressed brick? Or is it specific minerals to find chest or fossil?
How can I recover from -36K Nature affinity? Stop harvesting plants and cutting trees? Do summons count for/against you?
Where can I find a description of the demons to conjure? What use are they? (ie. the Rat thing...)

[Meph]

Year 56, Spring, Journal of Ustuth Lorshorast

This is the first year beginning I have been able to mark in the journal since three years ago now. I'm afraid whatever detail I can provide will have to be sufficient for a description of the last three years. I will explain soon enough why.

Late winter and spring of 53 I spent, as I said previously, improving my situation indoors. The pitch braziers helped dramatically and I found that I could even use some of the plants that I found inedible. Bladeweed is a tough and fibrous plant but it makes very good wicker that I've been able to weave. I had picked so much of the plant, assuming I could boil it and eat it. Erroneously as it turns out. Tastes terrible, gives you a stomach ache when eaten. But woven and dried it is exceptionally strong and tough. I was able to weave some useful items from it as an example and when I need to harvest plants again will know what to do with it.

Hide root I've found to be tough and inedible and otherwise useless. I hear it makes a passable dye, when cut, dried, cooked into a paste and then diluted with water. I don't see much point though, honestly. I have decided I need to be more spiritually connected, and this may help with my communion with nature, but I've set up a pair of shrines. One to Tathur the Meditative Insight. I've decided he is my muse, my god of writing. The other, is to Alod Sculptdriven, hermit got of the sun. Since, you know, photosynthesis and all that. Food is good, what can I say. I have dedicated the altars and even offered the hide roots at them and now go every season to pray. They haven't spoken to me yet, but since I made them up that would be even more disturbing.

I'm not crazy after all.

We've, I mean Bob and I, of course, expanded the workshops to include all potential resources, and have extended below the water table by way of the harder shale layers near the ocean to excavate both a large storage room and another less utilized workshop area.

I found some sort of platinum or white-gold talisman in the bushes the other day. It seemed to be calling to me. Funny thing. I've tossed it in the storage area for the mean time. Speaking of rubbish, I've finally cleared away the regrets I didn't recognize on the surface by dumping them in my garbage area. For some reason I thought they were all tools, heh, inside joke, but it didn't seem right to put them in my designated tool area.

Speaking of letting dead things lie, it appeared another swamp troll moved in where the first one had been. What is it with that place that attracts them? He didn't want to leave so I decided to try a Nature shrine to perhaps lure it to my side and become friends. I managed to build a shrine nearly on top of it, but every time I tried to persuade it to join it would chase me away.

I built a second one further away, but still close and tried again to no avail. By communing with nature I felt more or less at peace with it ((2300 or so, thanks to all the sheep, cows and dogs I had)) but still it would not be tempted and even charged me once and knocked down my shrine.

Well, by hook or crook they say. I girded my loins, figuratively, since I still only had my clothes, axe and buckler and sallied forth against my windmills. Or trolls. You know.

The battle was totally going my way, thanks to my superior skill, until it managed to get a super effective grip on my right leg. I heard something break and at the same time something in me snapped as well. I came to some time later, still not sure how long and the troll was lying decapitated next to me. My hip hurt and leg wasn't functioning properly. It appears the beast managed to break

But boy did the troll taste great!

Fed us for a good long while. Little greenish by the end, but no harm done.

So with me being laid up very little got done. Bob wasn't big on berries and nuts. He preferred fish so during the next summer until the freeze he spent ungodly amounts of time fishing and not much else useful. Though, to be fair he did make some good progress on the other workshops and even came up with some ideas for the talisman that had been found. He thought it might be magical, but insisted I use it, since he wasn't up to snuff on that sort of thing. He doesn't pray either or commune with nature.

So there he was fishin' in fall when all of a sudden I hear panicked lowing from my cow. Bob, of course, goes to check it out and there, in bright day was a full squad of elves. Shooting our poor cow dead like it was some kind of terrifying beast. They spot Bob and gave chase but fortunately for him he's quick. He almost made it back to the house. Almost.

Then he took an arrow to the groin just as he was in the final stretch. He comes flopping through the door, panicked, doubled over holding his nads and with a wild look on his face. I sit up panicked and the only thing we can think of is to lock the door. All that is between us and those murdering ambushing elves is a measly door, and one wicked ass trap. Thank you very much. I made sure to set it up to keep the trolls out of my house while I sleep. Last thing I want to to be woken by one of those things.

Anyways, I swear I heard the elves laughing as they slaughtered our remaining dog, and sheep. A second group joined them and was taking potshot at a badly wounded sheep on the beach from right next to the house and all I could do was lie there, feeling helpless. Bastard hippie limp-wristed treehugging shrubhumping elves! Now why would they do that?

It was a week before we felt the coast was clear enough to venture outside to recover the corpses of our animals. One sheep did survive. Barely. Apparently it could hardly move but no arrows had pierced it's main torso, the elves were just shooting out it's legs. Bob wound up shearing it to see how bad the damage was, and to get some yarn to help patch up my hip. Actually we used troll fur thread for my sutures, and wool cloth for bandages. Pretty effective if I say so myself. Already my hip was feeling better, only fractured, not broken. I was still bed-ridden of course until it could heal fully.

Bob had done some exploratory mining, setting up excavations sites to find some metal ore. Real tools would be a nice change. I spend half my time making new ones out of wood, or stone.

It was only a few months after the elven fiasco that we were besieged by a human patrol. Blast them, I told them I needed isolation to test my hypothesis.

((A few questions in terms of function, keep in mind this is my first go at Masterwork:

1. How on earth do I use the Megabeast soul from the water dragon?
2. How do I get oil to make tough leather armor? To upgrade to studded, to upgrade to scale?
3. I will try conjuration with a normal soul and am poised to try. Is there anything I need to know other than that it is a reaction? How do I get poison container without having venomous creatures?
))

1. Usually its used to maje friendly megabeasts or learn legendary combat skills, but I did not add these functions to the Hermit yet.
2. Oil from plants in the screw press, or from tallow or oil shale in the chemist. I am not 100% sure if I added this to the hermit yet. but normal plant oil should work just fine.
3. normal soul + some reagents, nothing special. Poison can be milked, for example you tame a snake, and say "milk animal" in the farmworkshop. That will give you a bucket of snake venom.

Archeology: Fossils can be found randomly, but more often near collapsed bricks, they simulate a ruin. You can also "excavate rock" in the archeologist, 5 stones give you a 15% chance of a fossil.

military setup: you have to disable mining, hunting and woodcutting... no other way. its a hardcoded bug in vanilla, i cant fix it.

demons: check the pet and/or building section of the succubus manual part.

nature merit: -36k ? good luck. Thats too far gone I think. For specific questions ask IndigoFenix.

I will certainly add more lategame tech.

[Paulus Fahlstrom]

Thanks for the input Meph.

I will ensconce the Megabeast soul as decoration then. 

Regarding Fossils, I have apparently been finding them, I just didn't realize they were considered gems and were in my gem stockpile. I am now the proud owner of a *superior Deep bronze Mace*. With which the Hermit has now killed a Forgotten beast. Was trying to check syndrome effects out but beast had only vile secretions and never hit Hermit.

Second FB was a blob, made of snow. Never even made it to Hermit. Giant bat killed it. Amusingly where it died was over a lake so it showed a tile of water, laced with water, water and water.

Descriptions of conjurable critters helpful. And I've been caging cave creatures copiously, capiche?

I'll test releasing some of the trained giant bats aboveground to see if that improves my Nature standing. Does killing sentient creatures count against Nature? Fishpeople and Snake people for example?

The only other suggestions I have are as follows:
Include the following skills at the base 5 level-
Animal training- Takes forever to level up, makes sense if you enable druidism to include this and it would make the Nature aspect more playable
Gem cutting - Takes a metric ton of gems to level this up to respectable levels. Would be nice, since the conjuration aspect requires large gems, which I have yet to be able to actually create. Some more uses of gems would also be nice. Since statues, arrows and spikes are currently about the only uses outside normal. Perhaps some alchemy reactions.

Difficulty level is nice, for experienced players. Easier embarks would likely be better if you don't want the added challenge of starting with nothing.