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The Undergrove

6 (40%)

The Corpselight Grove

9 (60%)

Total Members Voted: 12

[Halfling]

Early Sandstone.

All the migrants made it inside just fine. We don't have a lowering bridge at this point, so we just tore a hole in our wooden perimeter wall and they made their way through it.

The new underground glade is growing all kinds of underground herbs and flora. Having brought a professional herbalist, this will make our food production much simpler than even farming.

In the forest, our quarry dwells free among the glumprongs.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My plan is to later train trappers to transport the beautiful creatures into the safe underground forest where we can harvest their silk in peace, but we are still far away.

[Halfling]

9th Sandstone

Dear diary, today it has happened! Finally this beautiful device so necessary for our survival has been completed!

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Yeeeeesssss! Goodbye nasty grazers! Goodbye...!

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Oh, I can see you now, dear reader, thinking that I'm crazy and wasteful. You do not know the horrors my forefathers have endured at the hooves of these wild beasts brought back from death. I'm not crazy. Nasty grazers are worse than nothing. Yes.

[Halfling]

8th Timber, late autumn

I wonder if the caravan will come by this year. I've started the effort to forge silver spiked balls to give to the traders. Our herbalist also braved the cursed wilds and harvested some sliver barbs. I'm hoping to start a little farm in our above ground cloister to produce precious, unique sliver dye later. Unfortunately we don't have a bookkeeper at this time as all hands are busy mining the tree-farm, so I have no idea how many sliver barbs or their seeds we may have. Enough, I hope.

16th Timber

I was searching for the most useless dwarf around here to turn into a bookkeeper, jobwise, and decided it was the clothier-hammerdwarf. That is, me. Time to sit down and crunch some numbers and count some sliver barbs. Keeping a book can't be that hard, can it?

[Orange Wizard]

DIE, POTENTIAL ZOMBIES! DIE!

[Halfling]

Late autumn

Some traders finally made it here.

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...and on the same day, 21st Timber 1001, we spotted these horrors on the other shore of the river that runs across Ghoullights.

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I've heard stories of these fell beasts. They say no dwarf, not even a legendary axe lord clad in finest steel, can face one in combat and survive. Their horrible trumpeting keeps us awake at night and fills what little sleep we have with night-terrors, but fortunately they seem afraid to cross the river and have left us alone so far.

In other news, I've decided I can be the broker as well as the bookkeeper while others dig. Can't be that hard.

[Sabretache]

Great write-up so far. I really like your writing style, fantastic job!

Could I be dwarfed? An interesting dwarf would be nice if possible but I don't mind (if you get any medic dwarves that would be good). I wish your small company luck in their endeavour of creating the fabled phantom silk and I shall be definitely watching this thread.

[Halfling]

I traded almost all that they had for a bunch of silver balls. Merchants...

Well, it's guaranteed we won't starve this year. I'll make sure to ask the outpost liaison for some leather, since that's a hard commodity to come by in this climate. I don't really know what else we should ask for other than wood, so I'm going to ask for some petrified wood because I like it. Oh, and silk. Even though they don't have phantom silk.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here is the export agreement. Although what they really want is balls with spikes. Not that it's likely they'll be coming back alive next year.

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Great write-up so far. I really like your writing style, fantastic job!

Could I be dwarfed? An interesting dwarf would be nice if possible but I don't mind (if you get any medic dwarves that would be good). I wish your small company luck in their endeavour of creating the fabled phantom silk and I shall be definitely watching this thread.

Of course! Currently what we have is mostly miners, for a reason, but some have more potential than others. Do you want a potentially interesting dwarf right now, or would you rather wait until we get a medic?

[Sabretache]

Hmm...might be nice to have a dwarf now. Could you name him (or her) Sabretache and make the custom job Commissar? One of those rangers might be a good candidate. Tis time to execute some heretics!

[Halfling]

Ranger, huh? Let's dorf you as Sabretache Openlabored, the strong ranger without patience, if that's alright with you. It seems like the right combination for a Commissar. Right now you'll be a miner, but earmarked for promotion into the warrior caste.

Here's a full profile:

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Hm, upon re-reading it it seems like this one would make a good medic later on due to liking helping others.

[Sabretache]

He seems perfect, thanks. (It looks as if he likes spiders and silk a lot... May be useful).

[Halfling]

5th Moonstone, early winter

Today I learned "Sigun" Openedlabored is properly called Sabretache. I've decided to name him my Commissar. The good fellow may not be much of a conversationalist, but he has a healthy love of spiders and silk. I see great things in his future. But for now it's dig, dig, dig.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Forest of Smearing has been surprisingly good to us. Only a few undead roam the plain. I occasionally think we could just tear the protective wall down, wrestle and hack with picks at what few undead there are, and gather all the spider silk we want. Then I snap out of this dangerous lull and remember that all it takes is for one of us to die, turn into a soulless revenant and start killing the rest.

(I decided we need a manager. A name comes to mind.)



As winter rolls, and dwarven tradition dictates I must step aside, I reflect on my legacy here. There will be those who call my term of ruling over Ghoullights ineffective and draconian. After all, in a year, what have we? Many fine stoneware pots. Food and booze. A few silver balls and a caravan's treasure - but we sleep in the mud and clay and dine at crowded tables.

However, I see beyond the needs of today. In my dreams I've seen a forest swarming with death, dead elephant, dead moose, dead dwarf, dead goblin alike, some crawling in the dead dog's tooth grass trailing blood and guts, some twisted into unnatural form with loss of limb, some disturbingly as they were in life yet full of murderous wrath. All it takes is one death, and the forest starts filling with it. Below us lie the caverns. They will also swarm with death. Dead troll, dead crundle...

That is why we need the tree-farm, not just as a ground for silk-farming. When those dark days come, we will need to huddle inside, and we will still need wood to make beds. The sooner the fungiwoods and tower-caps start growing, the sooner we can harvest them.

Chaosgear has become a legendary miner. Erith Rackbored has become a legendary furnace operator. This will be useful later. For now, as I am busy updating stockpile records, I've decided to let the latter take over mechanics. Once we have wood for cages, those mechanisms will bring a way to safely remove the undead without them coming back fast.

End of Moonstone.

[Halfling]

2nd Opal, mid-winter. Suddenly I- I...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

CANCEL EVERYTHING, YOU FOOLS! I MUST HAVE A CLOTHIER'S SHOP! I MUST HAVE PHANTOM SPIDER SILK, NOW!

It was not a reasonable demand, but they obliged. What happened then is a hazy blur. The wall was torn down, some miners turned into weavers under my direct orders. We harvested the silk, somehow managing to avoid the wilddeath. Amazingly enough, because it was at that precise time a troop of foul blendec corpses marched across Ghoullights. But once again we avoided destruction, and I began constructing something of untold significance...

...


YES! IT IS FINISHED! THE SUM OF MY DWARVEN DREAMS AND AMBITIONS! My precious. My treasure. My left mitten...



It is beautiful.


End of Opal.

[Halfling]

1st Obsidian.

Edzul Divinehall was up top farming the sliver barbs (I'm starting to take a liking to gutter cruor already) when he spotted some kind of zombie raccoon running off with some bolts we got from the traders.



I was not amused.

It's almost time. After making MY PRECIOUS mitten, I've grown weary of leading this expedition. I want some time to myself. Me time. With the mitten, and some silk, and some clothes to make. I think we should probably haul stuff inside so that the crawling dead don't steal it. With that, I order digging the tree farm stopped for now.

We haul and we haul, and get most of the goods inside. Hopefully some of it will be useful later.

End of Obsidian

[Halfling]

1st Granite, early spring.

The wet season has arrived! I've decided to step down as expedition leader, and as my successor I've decided to name Chaosgear Hazypaint, our first legendary miner. May she lead us to delve deeper and harvest the earth's bounty, and eventually the spiders'...

To memorialize the end of my term as overseer I've completed some prints of the "fortress" as it now stands.

Ground level.

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I actually found the snafu. Turns out I had made a huge corpse stockpile instead of a furniture one. Oh well, it's fixed now.

One level below.

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Two levels below.

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Three levels below. The fortress proper. My tree farm extends in every direction and is about two thirds complete.

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Last time I played this, I dug many levels of tree farms and eventually ended up with several legendary wood cutters and wood burners. While I love the feeling of burning trees for fuel, that was probably excessive, but I really do believe we'll benefit greatly from having one and it was the focus of my turn.

Thence a long mine-shaft digs down through the clay (There's non-fire clay if someone wants to make earthenware. It is lighter in weight than stoneware, after all), and ten levels below...

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Below that, the walled-off caverns. With silk there as well.

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And our stocks... We have plenty. Of everything. The next overseer will have an easy time.

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Who likes gutter cruor? I know I do! Not for its foul taste or swill-like texture, but because every drink brings us closer to black dyed silk.

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Time for Chaosgear's reign of ter...ribly good management to begin!

And with that, I am done.

Honestly, I was amazed at how easy it was to make the silk this time around. I suppose the mistake I made before was waiting 'til I have a great weaver and a great dyer, and the map is swarming with undeath. See, what happens at Ghoullights is zombie cascades. It starts when they kill an elven caravan or something, and then you are stuck with elf corpses that never leave.

Of course, this was no-quality non-dyed spider silk I produced. Does not really compare to the masterwork stuff.

I suggest some future overseer starts planning migrant entrances across the map. They could possibly be airlocks with cage traps to catch any undead wandering in. Playing this before, I've had a breeding family of honey badgers there and used them as bait to lure the undead in. That kept the map relatively clear, and those same trap corridors could then be opened into the fortress for migrants to pass through. However, I'm now done with my turn and my designs. Feel free to come up with something else entirely.

Oh, one more thing - the elves bring sun berries. Means we have access to every crop except whip vine, in theory.

About the save... I now upload it with Phoebus installed. If you would like me to revert it to ascii, please say so.

[Halfling]

And here you have the save:

http://depositfiles.com/files/yotgqs5b9

If you would like for me to upload elsewhere, I'll be happy to.