Goblins have always been a minor annoyance rather than a real adversary, so I decided to up the ante with this fort and start a game I cannot win in the long run. This fort has the following restrictions: No metal objects of any kind (no picks :O), 21 population max, goblins siege at 20 population, glacier, no mechanisms (and technically no marksdwarves from the bugs, not by choice), and no fullying walling myself in (not that I even can, I can't farm for my own beer). I'm currently partway through my third year, much longer than I thought I'd last.
Here's the tale told so far by Fath Dumaterar, the brewer:
Year 1:
Dwarves have a rather cruel way of punishing their felons in the southern region. No we don't get bludgeoned or jailed. We're sent to a glacier right next to a goblin fort for 10 years. And that's not the worst part. We're forbidden the use of any metal or mechanics. I feel like a friggin' elf. What did I do to deserve this? Let's just say even dwarves can drink a bit too much and leave it at that.
Our expedition leader, Melbil, had an odd choice of supplies: lots of wood, lots of coal (huh?!), some obsidian, some leather, a few stones, a lot of dogs, and the usual plump helmets. Well at least I'd have a lot of brewing to keep my mind off things. You'd think they wouldn't allow my near the forts booze supply, but dwarves'll do anything for some high quality beer
Immediately, we begin making some barrels, booze, cooking the seeds into biscuits, turn the dogs into food and goods, and then Melbil, asks me to make some charcoal and turn all the coal into coke to build the walls. I wonder what's the bloody point in evaporating half the resource when we could just make the walls out of coal. It's simple physics! Well, physics decided to take a vacation that day, as we made 180 walls/floors out of 90 units of coal. To top it off our crafted obsidian short swords popped out of the workshop as wooden short swords* Maybe the cold was making me hallucinate.
The rest of the year was pretty uneventful. There were some trade goods, with lots of shiny, sparkly steel, but not for us
A few more loads of unlucky convicts appear. Three soldiers and eventually most of the immigrants were bashing each other with leather shields all day thinking it'll make them leet**
*(Freakin' .31.03 bug)
**Technically they were bashing
themselves. Yay individual shield training.
Year 2:
One of our winter immigrants is going nuts. All of us here have weathered snowstorms and crappy beds without our own rooms for a year and this shmuck is smack talking after a month or two. I warn the leader that this'll get out of hand but she's a bit too confident in her own leadership abilities, thinking she'll be able to handle it. Then he starts a fist fight. Turns out this guy's got a record for pissing off just about everyone* We knew what had to be done. The elves come by and nervously sell us some beer and plants, prolly wondering what the hell they're doing around some pissed off dwarves in dog bone and leather armor. After the trade, we tell Litast, the shmuck, to go scout the northern area of the fort. We lock the door. We here some shouts and some rather baffled humans on the outside as he raids their caravan for food, but they won't let him touch a drop of their wine. And a dwarf without alcohol... well. It's best not to think about it.
The rest of the crew are getting mildly annoyed so we order some gems for next years caravan. We may be cold and eventually die from goblin invasions, but by god we'll enjoy it if our tables are full of diamonds. Oh and our leader gets married. A rather odd setting to get married if you ask me, and they wisely forego throwing a wedding party. 6 of our military are nearly finished with their swordsman training, and all remaining dwarves but me, the cook, the bone carver, and our leader are sent into shield training. We knew it wouldn't be long.
*Rarely happy? Worst attribute you can get on a glacier fort.
Year 3:
A Goblin siege. The time has come. We knew our inferior gear would never get us through the day, but by god we wouldn't go down without a fight. A dozen goblins and a jabberer (what in gods name IS that beast?) come in through the west immediately heading towards our tiny fort. We send our 6 battleworthy dwarves to hopefully smash their ranks before the jabberer can hit us too hard, and I look out hopefully on the unfinished rooftop. The humans were apparently
really ecstatic about the trading and decided to join in too. The battle lasts a few hours* Our soldiers take quite a beating but we manage to kill a goblin and... and THEY RUN! 13 goblins and a giant beast AND THEY RUN! We spend the next few days** mopping up the remaining force. Victory. Not one loss.
Or so we thought... Our militia commander, Dumat, comes back grinning with blood all over one leg*** Tud, the leaders husband, comes back with a pretty mangled looking foot**** Dumat goes right back to training but Tud looks a bit sick. It's just a foot wound, though, how bad can it be? And then it happened. The Dwarven Wound Syndrome. Tud lied down and started requesting that foulest of medicines, water. It was too cold to melt the ice around us. Eventually Tud passed away. Tud's death heavily weighs down on Melbil, but she looks like she can take it. No doubt the lingering memory of Litasts end was in the back of her mind.
More goblins will likely be fought, but we'll be ready. And Dumat made sure they'd be nervous. Don't mess with a dwarven convict:
*a few seconds basically. I was on 300 FPS XD
** a minute. Not surprisingly, while you can cripple someone pretty bad as a legendary fighter, you can't do much LETHAL damage without metal.
*** Red, broken right leg.
****Another red wound.