Emmistêm-- "Eastportals", Gateway of the EastI've always wanted to try a AAR / playthrough of Dwarf Fortress and I'm having quite the time so far. Writing makes this game so much more immersive than it already is, and it's practically built as a story-generator. This fort is inspired by Kruggsmash's Monsterkiller and is something I've wanted to do for a long time. That is, a sprawling cavern fortress with all sorts of walkways, natural architecture, and pure dwarven engineering. Minecarts galore, huge underground cathedrals, the like. The plan is something like each cavern being a "district" of the fortress, eventually with the monarch at the very bottom in his own underground fortress.
Now, of course, this being DF, things may go a bit awry along the way. In fact, hopefully they do, since that makes for the greatest fun
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Sidenote, I've been playing Wildermyth a lot lately (awesome game, check it out) and the writing style is simply beautiful, and it's something I'm going to try to channel a bit for this fortress, since the beautiful hybrid-ancient-tale-poetry of it all melds well with Dwarf Fortress.Without further ado:
PROLOGUE(music)A mote of snow drifts across the wayward dwarf's back, moving and unstaying. Like the final thoughts of winter come, the breeze is ever-steadying. Bokbuzong, "The Absolute World", this place is called. An infant land of myth wrung from trials wrought. It is here that a party of 7 sets out across the wilderness, much like many have before in this primal land of exploration. On a mission from the king himself, with such urgency as if to please him.
For 500 years the writers have spun tales of this domain, but I'll spare you the details: a land of struggle and triumph like those you're likely acquainted with. From the wayward and hap-scatter hamlets of the south, the locus of human existence; the barren mountains and mires of the north, from which elves and dwarves secluded live in. The world is largely two distinct continents: the south a land of chaos and turmoil, as a singular dwarven civilization and a few scattered human realms exist in a constant war against darkness; the ever-long march of the dead slowly spreading like plague across the land. If not for the undead cattle and the animated remains of the miller's wife, those unlucky to have been born so far from the frozen north also must contend with the constant prattlings of the little green gremlins all races love so much, with their floppy ears, baby-catching-sacks, and troll-studded raiding parties.
In the north it is quite the opposite: almost 200 years of peace since the last conflict with the goblins. Largely a continent devoid of human civilization, and to the untrained eye a serene and un-tamed one as well. Elves lay hidden in their forest retreats, dwarves sleep soundly under the cloud-piercing mountains, while goblins mind their own on a few isolated peninsulas. Sure there is the occasional raid and such from the dark creatures, but no collective goblin war party had laid siege to another race on this continent for almost 2 centuries; to the contrary it seemed they were too interested in internal squabbles to be able to form an effective host.(That and, quite embarrassingly enough, the two largest battles the scholars have recorded to date had been the northern goblins failing to invade the northern elves.) This is not to say this northward expanse of pines and evergreens was completely free of danger. In fact, the north came with its own perils. A land of savage, untamed wilds, the dwarves here have had to fight nature itself over the centuries to survive. Beasts, once innumerable since the dawn of time have roamed the north. Now their numbers have been thinned by sword and blade, craft of civilized creatures, but their threat is ever-present nonetheless. It is here in this land our party of 7 travels. For almost a month now they have braved the mires and taigas, travelled across the elven heartland and cut around an entire mountain range, its silvered peaks cutting the sky like many others in this studded landscape.
Dwarves of Akëstbembul, translated as the "Dominant Mechanisms" in their stone-incensed language. It was currently the second largest civilized nation in the world (besides the goblin realms of course, 'civilized' being the key here). Sprawled across the northern continent, The Dominant Mechanisms have been a hardy force of the North since before most civilized beings can remember. Full of vibrant legends as alive as the fecund land itself, tales are sung across the world of the brave Dwarves of the North. Since leading the defense at the beginning of the coalition Undead Wars 2 centuries 'ere, to the famous last stand defense of the mountainhomes by the second king, Goden Wallpraised, the "Wall of Granite", who heroically died in a rage while dueling a hydra after it had already rampaged throughout the monarch's fortress, killing all of his children, leading to the Second Dynasty of Akëstbembul, the Dominant Mechanisms had been quite the instrumental force of lore and legend across the wild loam of the Absolute World. Their current bookish king has ordered them to travel far from the charted ranges and heathlands of the dwarven-stock, to set an outpost far in the east. Emmistêm, or Eastportals, it is to be called, a waypoint from which weary travelers can stop on their way onwards to the other side of the burgeoning continent: a stepping-point for the further expansion by the dwarven realm.
But the expedition leader had other plans; a waypoint he would found, sure, but it was unlike a dwarf to simply be satisfied with yet another damp hole under a mountain. Riches of the earth would be plundered, liberated from their ever-sleep of silt and gravel. From this isolated river valley halfway across the world, would raise a settlement to rival that of any other before it: an economic center of commerce that would make even his majesty the King jealous.
Emmistêm! Strike the earth for the plunder of its bounty before the harsh winter of the North can touch our unprotected heads! A new chapter of dwarven history emerges from the struggles and triumphs of the past.
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Topic: Emmistêm-- "Eastportals", Gateway of the East (Read 2054 times)