Early Autumn, 103The sauropod is finally trained for war, and promptly assigned to Panopticon. The dragon raptor is still waiting, but both of the beasts are out there with the dogs, guarding the entrance.
Most of the lads are sparring, which is good I guess, but it slows down every other process. Mining came to a halt, and work on my fitting quarters is not going as smoothly as I hoped. Still, training is good, so I won’t stop anybody.
This is not the first, and I’m sure not the last time I wish we had a migrant wave. Maybe the mountainhomes still hold a grudge about that incident with the first caravan? I hope not. By the looks of it, the two children will mature faster than we have any hope of reinforcements.
Mid-Autumn, 103Steel production suddenly stopped. The marble we’ve mined so far has finally ran out, and the miners are still budy doing... well, nothing actually. Lazy bastards.
Some good news though: the dragon raptor is trained and ready for duty. There were some minor grumbling about it, but I claimed the creature for myself: Panopticon already has the sauropod, and Higginbottom is the only one of us who can decently hold his own in an open battle. That covers all three militia captains, and the recruits aren’t worth the effort. I’d like to say the next warbeast goes to Higginbottom (to be fair), but I think that won’t be my decision to make.
Combat training goes worse than I hoped, but better than I feared. No injuries yet, so that’s good, but no real progress, so that’s bad. I hope to compensate for lack in training with decent equipment: we’ll have steel weapons for everyone in a few weeks, and then we can proceed to armorsmithing. We have 17 steel bars stockpiled, and quite a few weapons already, so our current supply should be enough for weapons, but armor will take quite a bit of flux-mining. At least by then, coarse iron-hammering will be far ahead, so that won’t be an issue.
Late Autumn, 103Dwarven caravan! Finally! Okay, they were immediately attacked by grey langurs, but:
- That’s their problem, not mine.
- They handled the annoying little shits like a charm, so no harm done anyway.
- One langur wondered close to our entrance, and my dragon raptor tore it to pieces. Magnificent!
- I think I’ll name her Watchingtours, since she guards the caravan entrance so well.
Yes, the sauropod is gigantic, menacing and all that, but there’s just more... finesse in a dragon raptors’ movement. It has style, rather than brute force, and it’s... well, it’s so much smaller than the sauropod. Okay I may be a bit jealous.
Anyway, traders. The basic idea was the same: a shitload of gold crafts for whatever useful wares they’re packing. We have to brace ourselves, winter is coming.
Early Winter, 103Who the fuck requested all this shit? No proper metal, no turrets, no landmines, nothing, and barely a few logs of wood - how do I piss off elves like this?. I took a mithril spear (the sweetest piece of the haul by far), some basic iron armor, and quite a lot of booze and food, since we are starting to run low on those. I also took a breeding pair of drakes. My term is coming close to an end, so I probably won’t reign long enough to pull this one off, so note to the guy who takes my place:
DO NOT eat their eggs. Breed them like crazy, as armor made from their scales may not be nearly as good as proper steel, it can be nice as a trade good, or at least practice for our armorers.
All in all, a pretty lucrative haul, but it could be far better. Really, a few constructs would have been nice. Warbeasts make good defense, but I could appreciate some turrets too.
Mid-Winter, 103And just to prove my previous statement, the dogs caught an illithid mind flayer, trying to steal one of our kids. Population is serious business around here, so no quarter was given. A recruit went up to deal with the monster, but that was just a formality – the sauropod crushed it way before the recruit even got there, and Watchingtours delivered the killing blow.
The caravan guards apparently took this as an incentive, and they promptly rushed out of the trade depot, and gutted two centaurs who presumably looked at them funny. Fun times.
Also, Ushrir told me the drakes can be trained for war, so that’s what we’re doing. I hope it never comes to that, but it seems foolish to miss the opportunity: if worse comes to worst, they can defend themselves a bit better. We can’t pass up any advantage with so few of us here.
Late Winter, 103An orc berserker jumped out of a bush, and overdramatically mauled a cat. I don’t know what that was supposed to accomplished, but I couldn’t give less of a fuck. I think he noticed we are not impressed, because he then killed a mastiff. A female, even.
That just pissed us off. All of the warbeasts, and the entire (still laughable) military flocked out to give chase. We even scored a few nice hits, but some undead animals kept us occupied long enough for the orc to slip away. That’s not good at all. A don’t think he was alone.
14th Obsidian, 103A drow caravan just arrived, and seeing that dealing with them probably needs more than my remaining two weeks as overseer, I decided to step down a little early, to avoid confusion, and possible bad deals. The dwarven liaison is also still present, and we haven’t agreed on our import request, so that’s also the new guys’ responsibility.
Even though I'm stepping down as overseer, I would very much like to keep my position as militia commander, as evidence suggests I'm the most capable military leader of this lot. I also recommend Higginbottom and Panopticon to remain captains themselves, as they proved their worth quite a few times over the past year. Also because both of them could kick my ass now than Panopticon has that dinosaur following him around.
But, this decision is ultimately left to the new overseer, these were just requests on my part.
As this is my last entry for my term, I thought it would be appropriate to summarize the year:
As you can see, I came close to tripling our total wealth, at the cost of burning through our stockpiles - food, booze, and especially charcoal is quite lower than it was before. In exchange, we have a sensible military, a nice supply of trade goods, awesome warbeasts and great bedrooms: I regret nothing.
The outside of the fort. The so-called trade road is not finished sadly, but I've had the trade depot somewhat walled around, for better protection, and the stairs leading down to the fort are also walled around, floored over and protected by doors. Some say hatch covers would have been easier, but far less bitchin' cool to look at.
Also notable is the treshing maw of death that is our line of dogs and other warbeasts in front of the trade depot. While I'm not foolish enough to think those animals could hold off a real siege, they brutally killed anything that came our way until now.
Barracks and wood storage, both of them sadly empty at the moment.
Graveyard is expanded a bit, and as you can see, the new hospital is pretty basic, but it has something considerable in its favor: it fuckin' exists.
Also note the drake breeding pen near the stairs. They haven't claimed any of the nestboxes, so it's up to the next overseer to handle them.
Nobles' quarters, at the smelting level, as smelting is the most dwarven labor known to man.
The two on the northern side of the corridor are for the broker and bookkeeper, and there's one on the south side that's mine. A keen eye may notice that my rooms are slightly larger than others, and also the first to be smoothed. I assure you, that was not
completely just to fuck with the others.
The other rooms await furnishings, those don't belong to anyone yet. Finders keepers.
These are the major fort improvements, the rest are small things, I'm sure a capable overseer can navigate the layout easily enough. the fortress doesn't face any urgent needs, soldiers are all armed, and most of them somewhat armored,though that's far from perfect - steel armor is still not a thing, except a few imported pieces here and there. Food and booze stores are lower than they were, but still absolutely safe. Miners resumed digging, but still couldn't find any coal. No migrants, no invaders.
All things considered, I'm proud of my work, and hope to serve as an overseer again, should the need arise. Strike the Earth!
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Topic: ☼Angelictower☼ (overseers wanted: new fort soon!) (Read 39175 times)