Slothen's Final Update, part 2Here is the save.
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=6027Diary of Slothen "Glovedtalons" Regkidet, 10th of Obsidian, year 19. Late WinterWe have repelled a siege of nagas and helmet-snake men. However, I must preface my account with a brief description of our new defensive architecture. In the summer, our "hole-in-the-stockade" entrance was replaced with an entrance corridor. Since then, its become a mechanical bridge. To come in from the outside, you ascend a short ramp, cross a causeway, and descend again, and you're in. The difference is, if a certain lever is pulled, the sides of the causeway are pulled up, narrowing it dramatically into a small bridge lined with traps. The fall from this bridge is quite short, but should you fall, you find yourself trapped under the bridge with no means to escape. This prevents wagon access, however, and so there is a secondary entrance that consists of a sufficiently long, winding corridor that leads to our dormitories. Both entrances are overlooked by a newly expanded and lengthened perch for our jelly shooters.
Now that that's explained, here's how the siege was repelled.Enemies approach.The bridges were raised as they crossed, dropping many into the room below.The bridges were closed again, trapping them. The naga archers couldn't shoot anything now. The other half of the siegers then engaged the jelly champions on the bridge, with support from above from the jelly shooters. A kobold thief tried to sneak by in the confusion. I'm fairly sure he was horribly mutilated by someone. One recruit died in the fight on the bridge.Nagas have a lot of teeth and fangs. It looked like fighting the blendecs, but instead of putrid smoke, there were explosions of teeth every time someone punched or kicked one in the mouth.With the siegers defeated, we had a small dilema in deciding how to kill the nagas under the bridge. They would hurt any jelly shooters that tried to shoot them from the bridge, but any jelly champions would have to jump off the bridge and be swarmed before they could engage. Despite the danger, Katana ordered the second option, instructing me his troops were well trained enough to avoid being crushed by the rising bridges. The champions assembled on the bridge, bracing for the moment they would face a storm of arrows.
The plan worked perfectly. Two champions jumped down and made a methodical, bloody process of killing the remaining nagas and helmet-snake men.Diary of Slothen "Glovedtalons" Regkidet, 12th of Granite, year 20. Early SpringSpring has arrived! All things are green and new, and even this nasty jungle smells a little better. It has also brought me another child. Eral and I are parents once more.
My daughter is a worshipper of an appropriately-named diety.
There are a number of other important changes to the fortress. In addition to the new entrance defenses (which could still use much improvement), the second level storage has been expanded, mostly stockpiled with weapons and armor from dead invaders. I've built two roofed rooms inside the north-east corner of the stockade wall. One is a dedicated hospital with a well. It is lacking traction benches and surgery tables still however. The other room is a well-furnished office for mayor Lorbam and his wife, Jelly Champion, First Lady of BloodSyrup, Master Lasher and Legendary Axedwarf Ilral Paintcleaned the Insensitive Clutch. The south part of the fortress now has a dedicated room for a barracks, although the carpenter's shop hasn't been moved out yet. Since the last spring, facilities have been added for weaving and clothesmaking, woodburning, glassmaking, and metalforging. In general, stockpiles have been expanded and reorganized, although because we have little space, they're still quite a mess.Diary of Slothen "Glovedtalons" Regkidet, 1st of Slate, year 20. Mid-SpringBromek, the wounded militia captain, called me to his bedside today. He confessed that to me a small cruelty he had done months before. He said that he had taunted Olon over his lover Endok's sinking depression, and that he and Olon had had an altercation. Two days later, Olon went berserk and was cut down in the middle of the fortress. Bromek told me that the ghost of Olon had attacked him while he was training, and that's why he was injured in the hospital. He had refused to speak because he thought it would anger Olon's ghost and no one would believe him. I was about to tell him that was ridiculous, when his eyes grew wide and he began gasping for breath (his ribs were broken you remember). All of a sudden, he was levitated into the air, his limbs stiffly pointing outward. He looked like he was trying to scream. Then the most horrible thing happened, his guts exploded and he was ripped in two, spraying blood everywhere. His legs flew against the stockade wall, and then both pieces of him fell to the ground. He blinked a few times, and was dead. There was no sign of any ghost.
Taking a drink of some strawberry wine later, I asked another jelly shooter about the incident. He told me that there indeed had been a falling out between Bromek and Olon.
I ordered the civillians to hurry up with moving the beds to the newly constructed dormitory.[OOC: Bromek
was torn in two. There was a mutiltaed corpse and a Bromek's lower body next to the bed he had occupied for months, at one point he also had the 'attacked by the dead' thought.]
Diary of Slothen "Glovedtalons" Regkidet, 15th of Slate, year 20. Mid-SpringWe have been attacked by the nagas and helmet-snake men again, at a most inopportune time. Many dwarves were partying in the swimming pool area, so I locked the doors and pumped in some water. It took quite awhile for them to all swim properly. A few jelly shooters were upset because they already knew how to swim and fell asleep in the mud. When we were finished a log was removed from the stockade to drain the water. That's when the invaders appeared, and went straight for the hole! unfortunately, dwarves were being washed out by the rushing water as they tried to go through the doors to get back into the fortress. Luckily, everyone made it in, except for someone's pet goat. The invaders were defeated on the bridge. The jelly squire Bim was injured but survived (he'll need a crutch), and the jelly shooter Led threw a tantrum outside the gates because his lover, another jelly shooter, had gone insane. Led was shooting helmet snakes left and right though, and apparently will make an emotional recovery, all too rare among the jelly shooters.
Congratulations to Lorbam and Ilral on the birth of their first child! Ilral will be leading a training squad for Jelly knights.
Diary of Slothen "Glovedtalons" Regkidet, 20th of Hematite, year 20. Early SummerToday will be my last day as the civilian overseer of BloodSyrup. My mandate was for one year, and I stayed on for a bit past that. I will be stepping down to bury my dead child, and raise my newborn. If the next overseer asks me to continue managing the books, I can do that as well, but no longer will I be calling the shots. I'd like to think I've left this place in better condition than I found it, in particular, more defensible, better stocked, and more comfortable to live in. There have been failings as well, the jelly shooters have taken heavy losses, mostly to insanity during my term. Quite a few of them are raw recruits. I've also forgotten to brew some booze, and we're getting a bit low, luckily we have plenty of water and plants, so it won't take me long to replenish the stocks. I've taken advantage of my last week in this position to order a bedroom built for myself, the wife, and the kid.
The defenses can certainly use some improvements. Some retractable spikes along the narrow pathway when the bridges are up would really help against those enemies that are too nimble for our traps, such as the nagas and the blendecs. This would take some work, but we have no shortake of pikes, halbereds, and spears, and the more recent blendec siege has left us with enough cassiterite that we could make enough mechanisms for it to work. I also worry about the wooden bridges being vulnerable to fire, and what to do with enemy archers that get stuck in the pit after falling off the bridge. The naga siege showed me that from their usual position in the archer tower, the jelly shooters cannot fire into the bottom of the pit, and moving them to the narrow walkway would be far too dangerous. Moving the champions onto the walkway worked, but could be dangerous against other enemies [OOC: I'm thinking imps here.]
I submitted a plan to Katana to reorganize the Jelly squads and suprisingly, he accepted. There is now one squad for champions, two squads for jelly shooters, and 2 squads for jelly knights in training. The champions train just north of the main entrance, the the knights train near the south entrance. This should make it easier to monitor the training and distinguish the two groups.
My last advice to my predecessor would be to keep buying wood from the caravans and chop whatever you can when you have spare labor, continue to improve the defenses and closely watch the training of the new recruits. Keep bolt production flowing, and monitor it so it is not depleted. Perhaps only have one squad at a time training at the archery range. Finally, the first big construction project should be some kind of mausoleum, but please keep it as a separate building from the main structure. That would be creepy otherwise. The bodies ready for burial are in a pile inside the walls. You can't miss it.
Now, I'm off to go brew some booze, the still is near the farm plot if you need me.[OOC: well, my first time doing a succession fort and my first time doing fortress defense and my first time doing a no-dig fort has been pretty fun. Documenting and keeping these updates going with all the sieges has been a lot of work, I suppose I could have gone a bit lighter on the RP, but whatever. Originally I was going to do more stuff between the Katana dwarf and my dwarf, and do this big justification of the no-dig rule and no-wall-in rule based on Katana being suspicious of traps that would marginalize the need for him and his soldiers, and the whole point was to fight stuff constantly in dwarf-on-monster combat, which is how it has gone so far. If you convert the current meeting hall into a water tank, the infrastructure is there to make some kind of water trap, although that won't work on many of the enemies such as the nagas or imps. Lots of the dwarves have swimming at adequate or better, but believe it or not I can't see swimming skill levels in Therapist, or I would have included a screenshot. I used DF hack to rename the squads to something sensible and not random, and to clean up the frozen hill titan extract. Finally, here are the kill counts for the Champions.
Katana Hammersuns the Watchful Wails of Discovery, Jelly Commander - Wearing nearly all steel items, 117 total kills. 64 with his bismuth bronze short sword Uzolkashez, Oillesson
Dariush Acedoors the Depresssed Creature of Armories - 81 kills, Wields Sibreknazom Alildakost, a bismuth bronze short sword, also killed a Hill titan by scratching it in two.
Kogsak Entrancedirons the Blanketed Temple of Poetry - 20 kills. Wields Asolkodor, a well-crafted bismuth bronze battle axe with an image of hill titans.
Lance-a-Lot Paintedwinters the Cobalt Luxury - 53 kills. Wields Egom Meng, a steel spear.
Vgray Pulleystance the Scarlet Moral of Celebrations - 33 kills. Wields Ogred Karas, a steel spear.
Jack Whisperedsling the Virginal Illness of Gilding - 56 kills. Wields Oltarkudust, a steel battle axe
Lor Minegrooved the Godly Moth - 28 kills. Wields a superior-quality bismuth bronze scimitar
Domas Figurerite the Dim Rampages of Painting - 23 kills. Wields Duralod Omeremal, a well-crafted bismuth bronze short sword.
Here's what the fort looks like (its worth calling a fort now)
Population, 77 dwarves.
Also, there are 4 burrows. A melee burrow, an archer burrow, a swimming burrow, and an inside burrow. Setting any squad to the alert "knight defend burrow" will cause only the melee squads to go to that burrow. Setting any squad to "shooter def burrow" will cause the jelly shooter squads only to go to that burrow (currently the archer tower)
FINALLY. Here is the save.
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=6027Have fun, I will be monitoring this thread of course.
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Topic: [Succession] BloodSyrup- Above ground | Fort Defense | Titans Everywhere (Read 8815 times)