Okay, I had to give this a go after an epic sequence in my latest fort.
First, the setup:
I'm using Masterwork 3a (great stuff, Meph!) Beyond that . . .
Settings are rated W for Wussy Dwarf.
Mainly because I tired of getting overrun by goblins before being able to build the later stuff, hee hee.
I do have invaders on, with just kobolds as the only surface invaders, and gremlins in the caves. I also left in all the interesting uncivillized creatures for this gen, plus HFS in case I ever get to it, heh, and the Fear the Night plugin active.
All four trading races in the mod are active. That's humans, elves, drows, and gnomes for those who play without Masterwork DF.
Most of the extra Masterwork workshops are available in this gen.
We begin
So I genned a world, and the cursor began on a nice place: Thick forest, temperate climes, calm surroundings. Aquifiers were off.
My embark team is not much different from the default: Four miners and equipment, three farmers. One of the miners is also a mason, and one of the farmers is a woodcutter with axe. Standard mining and tree-felling frenzy ensues . . .
The Chronicles of Urist Scribetables, dwarf reporter: Part I Failing Expeditions 101 Your humble reporter, Urist Scribetables, was sent by the Dwarf King to investigate some troubling reports out of the new outpost Stringhames.
What I found there was a strangely organized chaos, worse than other forts. The expedition leader had succumbed to dehydration, leaving the fort without guidance. The other dwarves were gamely trying to work on the initial plans, but they, too, were weakening without proper fluids. They lacked both energizing alcohol and the clear stuff that falls from the sky.
The reason for the misery was obvious. The outpost was succumbing to a common problem of dwindling supplies.
The expedition's seven dwarves had brought plenty of provisions, but several overeager migrants overwhelmed their supplies before a steady production the precious alcohol could be established. The fort had plenty of natural fishing ponds, but winter befell them, and the murky waters iced over, leaving the fort without even that barest of necessities for survival. Sadly, no one thought to build a well.
Without a leader, no one bothered to step up and be a trader for the caravans that came. So no one found a way to purchase a few barrels of rum or beer.
Idiots! They deserved to die of thirst and grief tantrums.
Author's note:
Yup, got that "lose leader, lose ability to appoint nobles" bug, compounding my problems.
Once again, I was sent by the Dwarf King to the troubled outpost known as Stringhames. The first
expedition and far too many migrants had fallen victim to dehydration and mass death. Yet, the first
miners did strike some good veins of metal ore, prompting the Mountainhomes to try again with a fresh
new expedition.
I traveled with a new wave of migrants, hoping that the two dozen or so of my travel companions would not be a strain on the fort's resources, as happened the last time I was there.
When we arrived at Stringhames, no one greeted us. I had a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach.
This place is troubled, I thought.
Goblin invasion? Another set of idiots? Doc Killdorf looked over the first bodies we encountered in the spacious lobby just inside the cliff.
Dehydration and tantrum fights, he diagnosed.
I groaned. My worst fears realized.
Doc noted that some bodies were fresh. Oh, how heartbreaking! Had we left sooner, had we not gotten caught in that late winter snowstorm en route, we might have been able to save some.
Suddenly, we all heard a mewling. At first, I thought it was one of the many cats and kittens around, fat on vermin.
Then, one of the bodies stirred. To our collective amazement, a baby emerged from beneath it's dead
mother's beard! One of the females in our migrant group immediately took to the little one.
Will wonders never cease! There's hope for this place after all!
While the women cooed over the baby they named Hope, the masons prepared new sarcophaguses, and the others started gathering corpses for burial. At least the reclaimation expedition had managed to properly interr most of the fallen from the initial expedition.
I left before they tapped a leader . . .
Author's note:
Once again, dehydration had claimed too many dwarves, and I lost my nobles again. After much death notice spam, I noted the game was still going, but I didn't notice any dwarves trying to keep things together. One refresh of Dwarf Therapist, and I saw . . . a single dwarven baby!
Welp, I'm dead, I thought.
Might as well see how this ends. Lo and behold, a migrant party arrived before the baby died! I didn't think to nickname the baby to track it to see if it grew up or not. But that fortuitous event saved me from debating trying a second reclaimation.
On the other hand, it left that pesky no-nobles bug to contend with . . .
Time for me to revisit the somewhat troubled outpost known as Stringhames for the third time. It had fallen to dehydration once, and almost fell to that a second time. (The ponds in the area ice over, and no one thinks to build a nice clean well. Idiots.) Would my third visit see the same?
I traveled with a new migrant wave of about thirty strong. All had heard good things about Stringhames, mostly that it was a nice, quiet neighborhood. This was true enough, but I worried that the Mountainhomes were downplaying the troubles of mismanagement too much in order to manage their own overpopulations and kick out undesirables. I still had yet to see a thriving brew operation going in the outpost. much less a metalworks.
When we arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to see adults standing about. They were grieving from some latest tragedy, to be sure, but they were adults in full beards. This fort was starting to survive the harsh icy winters in this area. Someone around here must have a brain!
Ah, no wonder. They finally got around to electing a right proper mayor. He greeted us warmly.
The migrants were welcomed by the fort. A massive tragedy had just claimed about three dozen dwarves at the Trade Depot. We replenished their population almost completely.
My nose for dwarfy news tingled. I just had to inquire about the tragedy. At least it couldn't have been mass dehydration this time around.
I learned that the mysterious dark drow had sent a caravan to Stringhames. All had gone well through the conclusion of business. (This mayor was not such an idiot, and had nominated a broker to handle the trades.)
However, just as the merchants released the Trade Depot and packed up, and swarms of free dwarves came to pick up the loot, a bold kobold decided to steal right under the drows' hooded noses. The caravan guards, naturally, retaliated.
What happened next is speculation. Maybe one of the drow shadowsnipers threw a fireball at the poor kobold and missed, hitting a barrel of imported wine. A stray cave beetle was also in the area, so maybe its burning ichor heated the wrong thing up.
At any rate, something caught on fire. Flames spread throughout the depot! Many of the dwarves who were there just to transport goods either caught fire or died from smoke inhalation. Both drow wagons burned, but the drowspiders pulling them escaped much harm and shot webs at the kobold.
A drow merchant stood outside in shock at the loss of property and life, too much in grief to attempt her limited dwarvish, and I didn't know any drowese. The surviving drowspiders seemed to try to comfort her.
I do not understand their fascination with arachnids. Give me a warm, purring cat any day.
Just as everyone was settling down and collecting corpses and the drowspider's wonderful silk, we all heard an animal roar! I looked just in time to spot a machine operator transform into a huge, hulking werewolf! I mean, this beast looked like he'd be a good match for an orc, and the orc might be the loser. Everyone lingering over the first tragedy in the trade depot thought they'd be goners, including yours truly.
But the drowspider webbing was still all over the depot! The werewolf got himself entangled in the webs, allowing the civillians excellent chances to get him before he got them.
Only, he was a tough bugger. He still roared and snarled despite getting hit in every limb and appendage. Not even disabling his legs seemed to slow him down as much as the drowspider webs did. Those strange but valiant creatures died protecting the lone surviving drow merchant. Not even this new danger roused her from her catatonic state.
Finally, the mayor proved he had a real brain and organized a couple squads. They still did not have a
metalworks up yet (idiots!) so there were only wrestlers and marksdwarf hunters. Even this did not finish off the werebeast.
Some babies wandered into the depot, despite all the danger. Babies would be a mere snack for that hulking werewolf. Yet there were some intrepid souls in those wee bodies. One bit and latched on hard to the werewolf. She did some new damage before the wolf tore her off of himself and then tore her to bits.
The epic battle within the webs raged on and on. So long, in fact, that a human caravan arrived, not knowing all the tragedy that had befallen their drow colleagues in mercantile pursuits, and not knowing of the crippled yet still dangerous beast inside the trade depot.
This should be interesting, I thought to myself.
The fresh, well-trained, well-armed imperial caravan guards made short work of the deeply injured werewolf dwarf. Even their caravan horses got in a few good kicks.
Everyone, including myself, erupted in joy. The humans didn't know what to make of our little celebration. They had merely killed a weak and injured werewolf, to their eyes.
Soon, it was time to get back to work. The broker was debating what goods to order sent to the trade depot, and all available dwarves were picking up the endless supply of corpses to bury.
Meanwhile, some idiot had ordered the soil floors around the farm plots to be tidy and tiled, spliting the
masons between all that work and coffin-making. I just hope the inevitable ghosts are gentle and quiet until everyone gets laid to rest.
I left with a wagonful of dwarfy interest stories to tell to the other Mountainhomes and outposts.
The drow merchant was still frozen like a statue, dripping wet with rain, near the trade depot.
Footnote: While I was preparing this for the royal archives, I caught wind that the Mountainhomes were preparing to offer a barony to whomever wants it in Stringhames. By all my personal gods, troubled Stringhames a barony! Anything truly is possible in this crazy world.
Author's note:
The fort recovered enough to be able to elect a mayor and reinstall nobles, yay!
Reminder: I'm playing Masterwork DF 3a, trading with drows and gnomes, and Fear the Night mod (stronger werebeasts and vampires) on. Just kobolds on the surface.
I got the thief announcement and the game focused over the trade depot not long after I had concluded a trade session with the drow caravan. I unpaused--
Suddenly, whoom! Flashes of red, then yellow, then the grey tiles that indicate smoke. I forgot to check the reports before the combat log buffer flushed away the details, so I do not know exactly what had happened. But I did find the kobold thief and then the drow caravan fighting.
Just as I was recovering from that, I got the transformation message from the werewolfy machine operator going berserk. I figured he'd do a lot of damage.
Yet, after a while, he didn't. There wasn't a whole lot of obvious carnage, no fleeing dwarves in the rest of the fort. So, I checked things out and saw the werewolf was buried in webs at the trade depot. Some upset and thirsty dwarves were hanging out outside the depot.
The werewolf's status page had a dense screenful of big and small scars. Every limb and appendage under Wounds had suffered some hit, and by the time I saw all this, his legs were red from disablity and copious bleeds. But he wouldn't go down!
I finally decided to resort to the military (I tend not to bother with it, or dorf justice, hee hee) to finish things off, but no go. And yes, I did see some combat between the werewolf and some dwarven babies. Tough mites, those guys.
Then, I saw the human caravan arrive, and the wolfy dwarf was finally no more.
And there is a single drow merchant who's stuck around throughout the rest of the year. She's clear of wounds, so this sort of puzzled me. I finally noticed that she is shifting position in a small square. She didn't have the sense to get out of the rain. I have yet to come back round to their trading season of winter. I did have the other traders come and go without her leaving.
I was running the game as I was composing this, and I got the barony offer, woohoo!
Author
Topic: (Complete) Stringhames, adventures in a Masterwork fort (Read 1207 times)