Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ShadowHammer]

The necromancer walked slowly through the halls of the fortress, wary lest that which toppled this stronghold should attack him. He walked down the stairs, picking his ways through fallen corpses. Sitting off to the side, partially hidden by rubble was a journal, written by a dwarf named Vucar Rigothtosed. He opened to the first page, and was soon caught up in a tale of strength and endurance in a harsh wilderness. Eager to learn more of this heroic story, the necromancer began raising the corpses of the fallen, but instead of rising as mere servants, he gave them the gift of speech, and commanded them to tell him the story of their doom. As a token of respect, and because of the strength of these dwarves' spirits, he did not keep them as slaves, but instead buried them respectfully.
With the new knowledge he had gained, he returned to his tower and began carving into the walls the story of these doomed, brave dwarves. Years later, after the necromancer had fallen and dust covered his decaying tower, an adventurer happened upon it in search of the secrets of life and death. He saw the carved runes upon the walls, and what follows is the epic that he read there.
===
Ok so Warhelm (the fort the necro in the intro wrote his story about) is a Spartan fortress, with the following rules:
-no being cowardly (lockdowns, long range weapons, defensive traps, etc.)
-no danger rooms
-everyone is organized into five classes:
Spartiates (male, good attributes, military)
Women (female, good attributes, cooking and such)
Perioikoi (either, medium attributes, skilled workers)
Helots (either, bad attributes, unskilled workers/farmers)
Healer (random, healthcare)
Not precisely how Sparta was organized, but good enough.
-Good food is only created for celebrations (after battles, new discoveries, etc.)
-Bronze armor iron weapons
-Any other generally approved suggestions.

Anyone who posts on this topic will be automatically dorfed, if you have preferences about what kind of dwarf you want, put them in your post. I would appreciate feedback from the community, suggestions, excerpts from their dwarves "personal journals", etc.
I will attempt to post every 3-4 days, and will probably play ahead a full year between posts, so your dorfs may not appear in the story immediately. The posts will be mostly journal entries, but when you see this
===
it means that I am putting in an out-of-story thing,
===
and this
~~~
means I am switching perspective from journal to first hand account, usually for combat narratives.
~~~

This is my first attempt at a story/community game, so recommendations for stuff like more/less story, information, pictures, and such is greatly appreciated. I will post the story of the first year later today.

tl;dr version: THIS IS SPARTA!

List of Dorfs:
Me (Shadowhammer)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Status: Went stark raving mad.

Peregarrett

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Status: Alive, and the best soldier in the fort, but currently fighting zombies outnumbered 15-1.

Ruhn

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Status: Went stark raving mad.

Lalasa

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Status: Became melancholy after her whole family died.

Brag

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Status: Went Berserk.

[peregarrett]

We need to invent a way to throw weaklings from high cliff.
Also, we need Professional Kicker to meet liaisons next to deep well.

[ShadowHammer]

Chapter 1: Strike the Earth
~~~
Vucar was awakened by a jolt. He leapt out of the back of the wagon, reaching for the spear that was usually at his back, before remembering that it had been “confiscated” as a security measure by the humans they had been trading with. He had been willing to fight them, though he had only one other soldier with him and they were in the human Capital, but Tobul Foreststeels, the group’s perioikoi, had insisted that he not attack and ruin the trade expedition.
Once Vucar was sure that the wagon was not being assaulted, he immediately started grumbling.
“Tobul! You could have given me some warning that we were stopping, and done it a lot more gently , too!” He yelled at the perioikoi.
“I’m sorry, but the wagon broke! This thick vegetation has been hard on the axles, and one finally snapped. Looks like we’re going to be out here for a while.”
Vucar grunted in annoyance, sifting through papers to find a map. He finally did, and it seemed like a decent location:


Lots of wood for smelting, lots of metal for weapons; they might even stay here permanently. The goblins and necromancer might cause some problems, but strength of arms would prevail, as it always had. Not wasting any time, Vucar threw a pick at Athel, the other Spartiate, and began digging.
~~~
A group of wild dingoes has appeared, but they don’t seem too dangerous. Even so, our perioikoi has begun making weapons for me and the other soldier.
All the main workshops have been set up: a carpenter’s, a mason’s, a still, a jeweler’s, a butcher's, and all the metalsmithing ones.
Despite the map assuring us that this land contains shallow metals, we have yet to find anything other than magnetite. I have decreed that large grid be dug, encompassing one full level, so that we might uncover any metal that might be hiding there.
Success! We have found malachite! With the fifty boulders of tin ore we brought here (traded for from the humans), we can begin smelting bronze for armor.
The Primitive Treaties, my squad, was called into the caverns to deal with a giant Olm who was threatening the helot fisherdwarves. If the fortress was a bit bigger, I would have let the slaves fend for themselves, but right now, we can’t spare any dwarves.
The rest of the soldiers in the army have finally gained enough skill with their weapons to be granted the title of speardwarf. Unfortunately, Athel, the first militia captain, went missing when he ran down the stairs to fight a giant toad ahead of the rest of his squad.
===

Wow. Athel dodged off the stairs, and I didn’t realize that they could be this badly injured by a 1 z level fall. (head happened after)
===
~~~
Athel raced down the stairs, heart pounding. This wasn’t the first time he’d had to deal with troublesome wildlife, but this Giant Toad was so close to the fortress that many helots were abandoning their work stations to flee from it. As he rounded a corner of the staircase, he was thrown backwards and off balance from some impact. He looked up, and saw that the obstacle he had slammed into was the toad itself! Stumbling on the stairs, he was unable to get the first strike. The toad leaped towards him, massive body poised to crush him against the stairs. Realizing that his shield would be useless against such a huge creature, he tried to dodge the attack, but he was much closer to the stair’s edge than he had thought, due to running into the beast. He flailed his arms, balancing precariously on the edge for what seemed like an eternity, and then fell. His body plummeted to the cavern floor, and he heard a sickening crack as his foot hit the ground. He flung his right arm forward to try and soften the blow, but it too broke, and he slammed into the hard rock, bruising his stomach. Then he heard shouts and warcries as his squadmates raced down the stairs, pushing back the beast. It took several blows, but managed to scramble away into the water. His disappointed fellow soldiers watched it go, and then turned and went back up the stairs. His barely audible gasps for aid were drowned out by the monster’s splashing.
Then, as if he hadn’t already suffered enough, the toad came back out of the water, lunging for him with a gaping maw. It grabbed his head in its slimy jaws, shaking Athel back and forth. He could feel the pressure building behind his eyes, threatening to shatter his skull. He desperately fought back, forcing it to release him. It struck at him, and he dodged and counterstruck, fighting for his already lost life. He knew that he was dying regardless; the monster had broken too many arteries for him to ultimately survive. But he would take his foe down with him.
They fought there in the caverns, unseen by any dwarf or beast, the toad always striking at Athel, Athel always desperately evading the attack. He was being pushed farther and farther from the stairs and the rest of the fortress. Finally, the fight reached its conclusion. In a massive final effort, he pushed himself out of his enemy’s reach one last time, and tripped over a small piece of rock jutting out from the cavern floor. The toad came onwards ponderously, reaching for his prostrate form to finish him once and for all. Then there was a squealing of gears as the trigger Athel had tripped just seconds earlier activated a mechanism which caused long wooden bars to shoot out of the floor, caging the Giant toad. Athel looked proudly at his defeated enemy, caged and helpless, and then fell backwards, unconscious. It was days before a helot, routinely checking the cage traps, noticed him, and he was finally brought to hospital. There, he was fed and watered, but his wounds were too great to recover from.  He died one day later.
~~~
Today, the 13th of Obsidian, is a day of mourning. Athel Gidthursarvesh, captain, has died of his wounds while in hospital. He may have killed only a single enemy, a cave crocodile, but he fought a giant toad bravely, even with a broken arm and foot. Even though it tore apart his head, he would not give up, and harried the creature across the caverns, driving it into a cage trap built to capture creatures such as these. There he lay, forgotten on the field, until the helot reloading the trap saw him. He was immediately brought to the hospital, starving and dehydrated, but his concussion was too far gone, and he died later in the evening. He will be remembered as a hero.
A tomb has been created for all those who die in battle has been designated underneath the first dead enemy in our territory; a kobold thief who was harassing the woodcutters. Athel has taken the first coffin.
Urgh. For some reason, no one has been eating any plump helmets, so the number of seeds we have is not increasing very quickly, and we can’t make more than a couple barrels of booze at a time. Hopefully once the farmers get better at their job, there will be more plump helmets to go around.

With this final complaint, spring has arrived.

Layout of the main floor:

Below are the mines, with the stairs leading directly down into the caverns. Above are the workshops/furnaces, with the farms and helot’s beds above that.

[Ruhn]

So is this the story about Warhelm before it fell, or how it's remains were discovered later?

Axedwarf please.

[ShadowHammer]

The intro was after it fell, but the story is when it was alive.

[Lalasa]

Looks pretty fun.  The sudden viewpoint changes are a little confusing at first, but I can understand it.  I'll be watching this. 

[Timeless Bob]

I'd suggest using dfhack's "tweak makeown" on any cage trapped sentients, then renaming their profession "Helot" (aka "Slave") as well.  Dorf me as "Timeless Bob" please, whenever your first birth happens.  We shall see whether Timeless Bob survives to become a man of Sparta or is culled as unfit.

As for throwing the misbegotten from a high place, A door leading to a 1x5-tile wide room containing a 1x5 tile bridge over a 20z level pit should do nicely.  Simply assign a bedroom to the individual in question adjacent to this "culling" passage and a door leading to a 1x1 stockpile of food on the other end of it then lock them in when they enter.  A simple wait will have the chosen move into the passage to eat or drink, whereby they'll be able to be locked in there and the bridge raised to seal their doom.

[Braggroksmasher]

I like it!
Armorsmith if possible ((I like shields) name the dwarf brag)

[ShadowHammer]

You have both been dorfed, but I have like a month left in the next year, so brag most dorfs won't appear in it's update. The first child was born a couple months ago.

I don't have DFhack, and my parents don't like me downloading stuff  so I probably can't make humans helots, but its a good idea.

[ShadowHammer]

Chapter 2: The rise of Warhelm
To begin the new year, a perioikoi has married a helot. There was much celebration, and a feast is being prepared to celebrate.
A massive wave of migrants has appeared, over doubling our population. One of them in particular, a dwarf by the name of Peregarrett, is very promising. He is very impressive physically, almost a match for me:
 
A helot has just withdrawn from society and claimed a craftsdwarf’s workshop. He ran off, grabbed a bunch of bones, and began working secretly on some project.
His project turns out to be a cave crocodile bone mace. While not practical for combat, it shall stand as a symbol of the authority of the ruler of this fortress, with its graven image of the fortress’s founding in Giant Olm bone. Whoever wields it shall be acknowledged as the lord of all this land’s citizens.
Now that As (the helot who made the mace) seems to have gained amazing knowledge of bone crafting, I have asked him to create a set of bone armor for the ruler as a further sign of their rank. He has agreed, and says that he will work and work until all the armor is of the highest quality.
The elves arrived with a trade caravan today. They brought many barrels of golden salve, some alcohol, and a few animals, all of which we took. The perioikoi in charge of commerce, ushrir, was downstairs at the time, and us spartiates aren’t allowed to handle money, so we didn’t pay for it. The trader seemed fairly angry, and he packed up and left.
An arena has been built for combat training and entertainment. The first victim combatant will be the giant toad who gave Athel his mortal wounds. It will stand no chance, though its new enemies will be armed with only blunt wooden weapons. It will die, and Athel, my friend, will be avenged.

~~~
Peregarrett looked up nervously at the caged beast that he would soon have to fight, tapping his feet constantly as he always did when he was anxious. Then the door was opened, the giant toad flung out, and the battle began.
He launched himself at the beast, determined to prove to the onlookers that he was not merely powerful, but brave as well. The toad already had some injuries, but it fought back well. He soon found himself hard pressed to dodge all its attacks. He got in many strikes of his own, but the blunt wooden sword he had been issued could only bruise the beast through its layers of fat. Eventually, he slipped on the bloodslick floor, and the toad leaped at him. It tried to bite him in the legs, but the attack glanced of his copper greaves. He immediately regained his footing and counterstruck, but the attack glanced away. It was enough of an opening for him to fully recover, though.
He warily circled chasmmurder, looking for an opening. Then, without warning, it whirled around and flung itself at Zasit, the unskilled recruit. It bit his arm, tearing the skin and letting blood splash onto the floor. He broke its grip very quickly, but then lay still, faint from pain and blood loss. Peregarrett and the other soldier held the beast off, protecting Zasit until the gate to the arena was opened and a properly armed squad quickly finished chasmmurders with their metal blades. Zasit refused to be taken to the hospital, insisting that he was fine. Though he had allowed himself to be injured, he had regained his squads request by this act of fortitude.
~~~

Something very strange just happened: Olin, one of the perioikoi, was hauling some malachite to the furnaces when all of a sudden, he threw down the stone and began speaking in a hundred different voices. The most powerful of the voices were shouting, demanding cloth, and the weakest voices were mere whispers, but Olin seemed to understand them all. He ran to a clothiers workshop, and then began gathering the cloth, all the while nodding and speaking with the voices. Once he had them a few pieces of cloth, he began working on a mysterious project, while the voices muttered “akil lesast”.
He ended up creating a turban. Why, I have no idea, but he seems very pleased with it, so I decided not to make any derogatory comments and enstrange our clothier.

===
 virtually useless artifact, and not even legendary clothier…
===

Yes! My bear trap has worked again! We now have a grizzly bear to go along with the black bear.
Ruhn asked Peregarrett to spar with him today, and it was fairly entertaining. I watched the whole battle from the other barracks, and Peregarrett could have killed Ruhn 6 times, with stabs and slashes to the head and chest. Ruhn fought well, but he couldn’t get in a single hit.

===
Lol sorry Ruhn I had no experienced axedwarves so you got to be a marksdwarf who exchanged his bow for an axe. You’re still only novice, but once a creature wanders onto the map that is not exceedingly deadly, you shall gain much experience with your training axe.
===

The royal armor that I commissioned from As is finally complete. This, combined with the legendary bone mace, shall make our ruler a truly imposing figure.
The dwarven trade caravan has arrived, but the only goods they brought only one wagon and 8 booulders of ore. Ushrir, the broker, had a long discussion with them, demanding that they bring more goods next time, and they said that since we hadn’t had a Depot last year, they weren’t sure how much we actually wanted to trade, so they hadn’t brought much. Ushrir accepted this explanation, apologized, and bought all the ore. He then smelted the gold and silver and started making coins.
A healer has been taken by a fey mood! He rushed from the dining hall, and into my hurry to get out of his way, I stumbled of the stairs into the helot’s housing. I was horrified to see a dead body, completely drained of blood! I immediately declared that anyone who had seen this happen was to report it to Brag immediately.
The healer was demanding leather, and we didn’t have any, so I made the decision to slaughter a dog. It was no one’s pet, so the death wasn’t too difficult on them. As soon as he got the leather, Ast began working on his construction.
The healer finished his project; it was an oaken floodgate. He ended up using the dog leather to make a picture of a worm, for some reason. Though relatively useless, Brag has informed me that it is worth at least 9600.
Just when I thought the year was going to end quietly, we were ambushed by goblins! There were two squads of them, six bowmen and three hammer wielders, led by an axeman and a pikeman. We won the battle, but for many of the soldiers, this was their first time witnessing death, and they were quite upset. Two soldiers died, but they will be honored in death. Many helots also died, but in the least honorable way possible: They were shot in the back as they fled from battle. I am feeling quite miserable myself, having gotten shot in the arm as I rushed the archers, but nothing a bit of good food and booze, specially made by the cooks to celebrate, can’t fix. I am afraid that Brag couldn’t handle the death of so many, and his mind broke, along with the minds of a few helots. Unlike the helots, who are naked and babbling, Brag died like a true man: he flew into a berserk rage, attacking anyone within reach before dying to a spear thrust in the head.

===
  This is the entire combat report for Shadowhammer:
 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

==

~~~
The goblin crept carefully through the bushes, copper halberd in hand. He stopped well out of sight of the war dogs posted by the front entrance, waiting. Finally, he heard the signal; a bluebird’s chirp, then a wolf’s howl. He sprang from ambush, and his archers leapt out of the grass behind him. They immediately started losing arrows at whatever moved: war dogs, frightened dwarves, even a bleating sheep. As his archers kept up supressing fire behind him, he moved swiftly to the fortress entrance and began fighting the war dogs hand to hand. He was joined by a squad of hammermen, who the dwarves hadn’t seen yet. The long reach of his halberd, together with the fact that the dogs were chained, allowed him to kill many without injury. After a while, he began to wonder why the enemy was taking so long to attack. His bowmen began creeping towards the entrance, still opening fire.
Then, suddenly, the ground itself seemed to burst open. A wave of dwarves tore out of the entrance, rushing at the bowmen furiously. They goblin’s squad divided into two groups of three, and the front group only got off one shot each before they were engaged in melee. Good as they were at a distance, they stood no chance fighting hand to hand with their bows. The captain watched as a spear wielding dwarf knocked down a goblin, and as he was preparing for the finishing blow, an arrow came from nowhere and struck him in the head, killing him instantly. This was a small triumph, though, as the goblin who had been taken down was swiftly finished, and the rest of the squad overwhelmed.
As he was watching, a latecomer came to the battle came sprinting from the fortress’s gates, honing in on the enemy axeman. This was Tulon, foremost soldier of Warhelm next to Peregarrett. The goblin was surprised by the ferocity of the dwarf’s assault, and Tulon used this to his advantage, savagely biting into the goblins head. At such short range, a halberd was next to useless, and the dwarf parried his next attack with ease. Tulon struck back, and the goblin was only saved by a desperate block. The next time Tulon struck, he faked a stab at his enemy’s stomach, then swung the spear around and hit him in the arm with the spear’s shaft. He loosened his grip on his shield for just a moment, and was instantly stabbed three times, incapacitating his right arm, taking off his hand, and severing his foot. The dwarf then looked up just in time to block three arrows, and the distraction allowed the goblin to scramble away from his next attack. Tulon, knowing that the last of the enemy had been slaughtered or driven away, didn’t rush the final blow: he planted his foot on his fallen foe’s chest, raised the spear, and plunged it down. The few remaining hammermen, their resolve already wavering, saw this and fled in terror. The battle was over, but the war was just beginning.
~~~
The year has now ended, on a note of sadness and rage, as fist fights break out across the fortress.

[ShadowHammer]

Oh, and I forgot to add: Timeless Bob, you are unlikely to survive much longer, as you're mother, Brag, went insane and left you to fend for yourself because your father was slain in battle.

[Lalasa]

Not to be annoying or pushy, but you said in the first post that anyone that responds will be dorfed, and I had hoped that would've included me too.  I am realling enjoying the story so far, but if it isn't too bothersome, could I have a female dwarf named after me?

[Timeless Bob]

We shall see... Perhaps our now-orphaned Timeless will be goblinsnatched and return to plague the unhappy place of his birth... as a Persian!

[peregarrett]

Beating the toad with wooden clubs? Dull and stupid task, what's the fun in it? No blood flooding the soil of arena, no intestines popping out of it's stomach, no limbs sent flying after mighty slash... 

Next time better sent me alone against a few beasts, but with a proper gear. You get something epic then.

[NRDL]

Could I please have a spartiate, a speardorf, with nothing but a spear, shield, and helmet?