~PROLOGUE~
There it was, the promised land, the island that would bring the mountianhomes untold riches. This island was known as the awe-inspiring forest, a tranquil coniferous island forest, naturally protected by an ocean from rampaging goblin hordes, undead armies and other horrors, unfortunetly this also restricted trade to fellow dwarves, as Humans and elves dare not brave the ocean of madness to reach the island. But this island would be the pride of the dwarves, the island itself was very peaceful, albeit the odd sow encounter not much was to be found on this island, its what was below that still brings a dark memory to my mind.
~THE EMBARK~
It begins with the embark, as always. The island was well forested, and the absence of nosy elves would mean logging was a safe industry, but the best feature of the island was the amazing volcano, hence the fortress name
Scorched Mountain. Early access to magma forges, as well as plentiful ore, gold,iron,aluminum,and many other valuable metals. After getting set in, the group began expanding their industries downward to find more hematite ore to begin an iron industry. The miners were the best of the best, speedily clearing strip mining operations, but oddly enough we were producing more metal goods then we were finding, thus we needed to dig deeper, so we did, and the unavoidable happened, the miners gaped in awe at the subterranean network of caverns they unearthed, however the growls from below unsettled the miners, so they lined the enterance with traps, as any dwarf would, but something would push the miners deeper, the discovery of an ore mother-lode, smack in the middle of the cavern. So the Scorched Mountain militia, known as the Scorched Knights took up posts in the deep cavern to keep any skulking creatures away from the miners.
An entire year passed and about half the ore was removed from the cavern.( I lost a few legendary miners to a magma incident, so it took longer)That's when things really started getting out of hand....thats when
they came from the darkest corners.
~THEY COME~
It started out small, an occasional cave crawler took a few swipes at the guards but they were put down, various other critters were captured to be used in the gladiator arena. The trouble began when the Troglodytes came. Like a native tribe, they grouped up to defend their home, after all, we were the intruders here. The knights fought off several Trogs that attempted to halt out mining operation, luckily the knights were equipped in full Iron, so their swipes merely glanced off them before they could do any real damage, but then they're numbers grew, vastly, its as if they banded together to drive us from the cavern, my scouts spotted them grouping near ore-heavy areas, ambushing defenseless miners, in an almost tactical way. We captured/killed many, used them in our gladiator games, pitted a few against a Giant cave spider we tamed, very amusing to watch. But then..one Trog arrived that stood out from the rest, a named one, much taller and more muscular then his smaller kin, He spearheaded an attack on our mining op, in a deep part, many miners were injured or killed, I even paired the miners with war dogs and other tamed creatures but they slaughtered them as well. The biggest blow however was their attack on our nursery..
They focused an entire attack on a dwarven baby nursery, while the guards were occupied fighting other Trogs in the caverns. The bastards killed 5 children, mauled 3, and even killed the war dogs protecting them. That was the last straw, the war was on.
~THE WAR~
I equipped all able bodied male dwarves(With military experience) in iron armor and weaponry. They stormed the caverns, killing numerous Trogs wandering in the caves, but i wanted to find the named one. He didn't appear until he had about 10-15 other Trogs with him, they attacked from the shadows, ambushing my dwarves, killing an entire squad(of mostly recruits) and injuring others. Then I saw him, the named one,I called out the Scorched Knights to bring him and his followers down, they charged right into a trap, several dwarves were caught in cave spider webbing, the Trogs used that to their advantage and slaughtered them, it wad down to 6 remaining Scorched Knights, the finest warriors in the Fortress. They made a final stand in the biggest part of the cavern, where they were swarmed by 12+ Trogs, they took injuries but managed to fight them off until the named one attacked. He outright killed a wrestler by tossing him into a nearby lake, knocking him unconscious and drowning. his minions injured 3 others, now only a Swords dwarf and the Macedwarf were left, the swordsdwarf fought bravely while the macedwarf held off the others, he even managed to hack off the named ones leg before succumbing to injuries, outnumbered, I regrouped my remaining militia for one last assault into the caves, if they failed, I would close it off, the ore would not be worth this many lives.
They plunged into the cave, getting picked off, until the revengefull macedwarf found the named one, legless and broken he finally slew the foul Troglodyte that caused so much death, it was almost unfair, he could not defend himself. However in the process the macedwarf was badly injured by other Trogs, both arms broken and various fractured, he couldnt really hold a weapon or walk as well as he used to, but after the named one died the Trogs scattered, moral possibly broken by their Alpha male being killed. The macedwarf was retired as the captain of the guard , the Trogs still attacked later, but the trap system kept them away indefinetly.
-Apologies if this was hard to follow, but i felt I had to document this, this is what makes the game for me, the stories.
-Also to note that I never did get all the ore, I kinda just sealed the battleground as a memorial, Trog bones and Dwarven equipment still litters the field.
-Thanks for reading, hope I entertained you!
Author
Topic: The Troglodyte Wars(I.E. my best DF experience thus far) (Read 4695 times)