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[Stakudomer]

Journal of Stakud Fathod, expedition leader of The Gilded Pick, founder of Atisstinthad
1st Granite, 301

We've finally arrived! After months of searching and hard travel, we've reached the slopes of the Obscure Fingers and finally found the perfect spot to build a new settlement! There's lots of metal ore and gems exposed to the surface, so the rock should be especially rich here. There's a brook nearby that winds through a nice little microcline canyon, and plenty of trees we can cut down to annoy the elves. Cerol says she thinks the ground bulges a little to the north, so we think there also may be a magma deposit too. With that for a heat source and all the white sand up there, I may finally get to practice my glassmaking again!

There's also some lighter rock past the brook that might be limestone. Steel maces for everyone! Once we get the glass furnace and the forges running I'll have to remember to put a window in my office, and make some glass statues, and a weapons stand for all my stee




“What in the name of Doren do you think you're doing?” Erith held the journal away from her with one hand, and blocked Stakud's frantic attempts to retrieve it with the other. “You said this morning that we were gonna stay here, and now it's past Noon and all you've done is...is scribble! When are we gonna start digging?”

Stakud sighed and let his arms fall to his sides. “We want to make Staketheater into a great dwarven city someday! You don't want it to be stuck with a crummy entrance hall, do you? We need planning, and sketches, and lines on blue paper... It all takes time!”

“So does growing the crops that go into your beer,” she spat. “We need to start digging now, or didn't you notice how light the barrels have gotten?” Stakud just stood there, his lips moving but no words coming out. Erith snorted and began to pace, her booted feet sending stones skittering across the ground. “Why are we calling it 'Staketheater', anyway? You've watched too many performances of Berath the Vampire Stabber, I think.”

It was a poor insult, but it seemed to snap him out of it. “We're an outpost of the Crypt of Conjuring! I'm just trying to uphold some thematic consistency in naming; we may be trying to get as far as possible from our rulers, but that doesn't mean we can't have culture.”

“Hey, why aren't we doing anything?” One of the expedition's two miners approached, twirling his pick with impatience.

“Tholtig! This jerk wants to draw pictures instead of digging!”

“I just want to plan out our first steps before we do anything...”

This was too much for Tholtig. Half a day in their new home, and the two of them were already back to bickering over the shape of the tunnels he would have to dig. He gave the pick another twirl and pointed it at Stakud. “Look. We're low on food, the booze is almost gone, and we need shelter. Once we have some beds built and some crops grown, then we can go out and make your fancy dining rooms somewhere. Or did you think we were going to stay in our first dirthole forever?”

“Um...no.”

“So can we dig now?”

“Yes?”

“Where?”

“Here?”

“Good.”



**************


I had been looking for a good site with sand and magma for awhile, and when I finally found one, I decided to write a story about it. Unfortunately, after hours of poring through the legends screen and writing down all the starting seven's personality traits, the fear of screwing it all up grew so strong that I couldn't do anything. I eventually got tired of not being able to at least play the game, so I started over.

I knew I had to write about it when I ended up with a dwarf named Stakud who liked white sand. The fact that he's a rebellious dreamer just made it even better. I made him a glassmaker and put him in charge.

Starting map is available here. It's no Nist Akath, but I think I'm still enough of a newbie that it shouldn't matter much. Updates are whenever I get around to them, and suggestions are welcome but I reserve the right to do something completely stupid instead. Also, this is just a story; I'm not doing a community or succession fortress, though if anyone really wanted to, I suppose you could adopt a dwarf and I'll try to keep an eye on it. That's like a community fortress, but without all the distractingly anachronistic names.

I've never done this before and I don't know if anything interesting will happen, but I'll still try to make it entertaining! 

[Stakudomer]

9th Slate, Year 301

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The dwarves of Staketheater worked hard during the next month, carving out a modest home for themselves. Tholtig and Cerol attacked the rocky hill near which they had stopped their wagon, and under Stakud's guidance they dug a narrow, U-shaped corridor leading to a single set of stairs. They struck microcline below, and had to tunnel a good distance before they found enough sand to grow crops in.

Tholtig didn't mind; it was good to be back under the ground after such a long journey, and hauling the supplies in from the wagon gave everyone a chance to work off their frustrations. He had been worried about Erith's uncharacteristic outburst, but she seemed to be quite happy of late. Maybe the blue stone walls were having a calming effect, or maybe it was something else... She and the farmer Shorast seemed to encounter each other in the new storage room a bit more often than was strictly necessary.

Thus it was quite a surprise to find Erith and Sarvesh in a heated argument, Erith pointing a turtle at the woodworker's face and shaking it accusingly.

“Of course I don't know how to clean fish!  I'm an armorsmith! I only learned how to fish because there was nothing else to do on the way here.”  The turtle's head and limbs flailed about with each exclamation. If this argument lasts much longer, Sarvesh thought, that turtle won't be what needs cleaning anymore. “What about you? You spend all your time above and you never learned to clean fish?”

“Well... no. I like to stay away from the water. Doesn't Shorast know how to do it?”

“Shorast? No, he... doesn't like fish. He hasn't said anything, but I think his family was eaten by carp.”

“Oh. I'm... sorry.” They stood in awkward silence, the turtle hanging limply from Erith's hand.

Tholtig shook his head and took the long way around, not wanting to get involved. Let Erith figure out the fish problem on her own; he would have enough grief from Cerol if he didn't start helping her with the workshops.

***********************

20+ views and no comments?   I know nothing really interesting has happened yet, but still... Maybe my writing is rustier than I thought.

Oh, well. Nothing to do about it but keep going and hope something important explodes!

[Imperius]

I think it's nice. Refreshing that you use a tileset. Include a few screenshots and I'd me more interested. Keep up the good work!

[Servu]

I was expecting an another random story fort with the 'storytelling' being shaped like Urist and Urist mine while Urist hauls stuff in a stockpile shaped like the word "generic".

But this is actually pretty well written so far and the characters are interesting and have some personality.

If you have anything even a bit unusual happen and the updates keep coming this might turn out really great.

By the way, do you take dwarf requests?

[Stakudomer]

Sorry for the lack of updates this weekend. I was busy admiring a fine tileset, and succumbed to a strange mood. There may soon be some mysterious construction resulting in a much different appearance to my fortress.

@Imperius: I'll try to remember to include more screenshots; I thought about posting one with the last update, but I really haven't built much yet and what I do have is not designed very well. That should change once I start building the permanent sections of the fortress.

I'm glad you appreciate the use of a tileset. I know a lot of purists swear by the ASCII "graphics", but to me, vanilla DF still looks somewhat like Gutenberg exploded.

@Servu: Thanks! I'd hate to subject anyone to a story about Generictunnels the Boring Fort of Blandness, and I have a few reasons for putting a lot of effort into this story. I want to improve my fiction-writing skills, and this will give me some good practice while (hopefully) also generating some constructive criticism. It's also a good way to get more enjoyment out of DF, because it forces me to use my imagination and really pay attention to all the weirdness going on in my fortress.

As for unusual things happening, I should point out that I've never played the same fortress for more than a few years and I have no experience with things like magma, hydroengineering, the economy, or creating a functional military. I expect to learn all of these fairly soon, and to have much Fun doing so.

I'm not taking dwarf requests because one of the rules I'm following for this fortress is to never defy the random number generator. That means I can't alter names, and changing names seems to be an essential part of the dwarf-giving process.

[Servu]

I'm not taking dwarf requests because one of the rules I'm following for this fortress is to never defy the random number generator.

Hail the great randomizer! Lest thy rule for a thousand years to come!

OK, I'll be watching this fort very carefully since Fun is so likely.

By the way, are you on vanilla DF or are you using mods? Orcs usually generate a hefty amount of drama, though with a very new player (like me) they usually just end forts really fast. There has been a lot of very good stories lately, so don't be suprised if there isn't many posts for a while.

[Stakudomer]

I'm using the Mayday version with the Molten Rocks mod. It makes several stones magma-safe, but it doesn't matter much because the only one I have is bauxite. Orcs would probably be overkill, given my lack of military experience.

An update is forthcoming, but the writing just isn't coming together today. I added a screenshot to the previous one, though.

[Stakudomer]

3rd Felsite, 301

“No no no no no! It's all wrong! Wrong!”

“Oh, hey, Stakud's back,” Cerol jeered. Tholtig just rolled his eyes like usual. He was a hard one to upset, but that only made it more fun. Their feckless leader was another matter entirely, likely as he was to arrive pre-riled. “Welcome to the wonderful land of people who actually work. From what faraway shore do you hail from?”

“What do you... I've been working! I helped move the supplies inside, didn't I?”

“Yeah. A week ago.”

“Well... I started to count them, too, but I don't have a place to keep my records so I went exploring. It's quite nice out there. Lots of rocks, and minerals, and rocks... Have you seen the canyon yet?”

“Does the canyon make chairs? Because if I don't get a decent place to set my a-”

“Is there something you wanted?” Tholtig interrupted.

“Oh! Right, yes, I needed to tell you that we have to move the workshops.”

Cerol exploded. “WE JUST BUILT THESE WORK-”

“Why do we need to move them?”

“Well, over there it's all sand,” Stakud said, pointing towards the farming area. “And you said if we dig too much farther that way or that way, we would hit sand there, too.”

Tholtig nodded. “So you want us to make some bedrooms but you don't like the idea of sleepin' on sand, right? You want to put them here.”

“But he's the one that told us to put the workshops here,” Cerol grumbled.

“Well, we could put the bedrooms behind that wall, but wouldn't it be too noisy there? I certainly don't look forward to trying to sleep while you're bangin' rocks together in here.”

“Sure it'll be noisy, but I need chairs! And a table so Sarvesh stops whining when he sees me eating over a barrel!”

“Is that why...” Stakud began to back away slowly, his hand on his stomach. “No! Make the furniture first! Whatever you need! And build another workshop before you take this one down, too! I'll... I'll go now....”

Cerol watched him turn and run off down the hallway. “What's his problem now?”

Tholtig sat down on one of the larger pieces of microcline they had dug out, and grinned. “Have you ever seen yourself eat? I'm surprised anything makes it past your beard!”