I hope you guys can just chalk it up to crossed wires. Dumathoin (to him) was not abandoned, he's not Bay12 so he was unaware of this thread. He had hoped to log back in and have his stuff intact. Dumathoin to you guys was long abandoned, and you were just trying to protect it and add to its legacy. You had its best interests at heart.
GM is a good guy, he was very upset that his first night back in game he finds that someone busted into his own vault and broke into his chests. I don't know if tahu's chest was done by Van G on his own, or GM giving him the go-ahead or what, it was a really lame move no doubt. However, I know the place was abandoned and all, but after reading the Civcraft reddit for the past few weeks it's pretty clear that there really is no such thing as 'abandoned' in Civcraft as people take breaks and come back to the game frequently. People will always side with the original owner, and virtually everyone that has heard of Dumathoin thinks of it as Goldminer's regardless of who the land claim has currently passed to. So from GM's perspective, breaking into his vault and his chests was an actionable offense and he only had my word that Bay12 didn't just outright steal his stuff. I know all three of you are decent guys (Van G however I've never met). It's unfortunate what happened, but understandable, and hopefully you guys have sorted it out. There's so few people active, it's a shame if we don't work together.
I have lots to say about Dumathoin and some mixed feelings about GoldMiner returning. The problem is that he quit because most of his citizens (the originals, plus our first Bay12 settlement wave) had left, and Dumathoin was empty. He got heartsick of an empty city and was also burnt out, and left. One of the major reasons (I feel) that Bay12'rs left is that GM had an extremely clear vision of how he wanted Dumathoin to look - but he couldn't really articulate it to anyone, and never got around to delegating how new citizens should fit in or where they could build. Most of B12 simply popped on and promptly knocked homes into the walls of the main cavern, and he was angry that they did not ask - the main hall was not really meant to be for personal homes and in Civcraft new citizens generally ask permission to do things when they join a city. But he never got around to actually saying where people could build homes - I personally had to ask him several times where it was ok to set up a place, so that's why my home is in Old Dumathoin. So that first migration wave petered out - who wants to be a citizen of an awesome fort when you can't find a way to help contribute to it? GM ended up with a negative impression of us as too may B12'rs came in to sightsee, knock a home in the wall and do a little project without permission, and then never log in again.
GM has a pretty clear vision of what he wanted Dumathoin to look like, and on our own we can't hope to match it. Personally I'd like to see him included, put in charge such as it is, and encouraged to articulate how we can help work on what he wanted Dumathoin to be. He wants citizens. You can't run around in there more than 5 minutes without being amazed at the sheer amount of work that he sank into that place. But at the same time, I'm a builder, and a casual, and a bit of a loner. I don't want to log in and have to constantly ask for permission to build something, or be micromanaged. If he still doesn't want us changing Dumathoin, well then I might be done. The place is fricking inspired, I want to help to see it expanded and finished and I hope he can at least bless that, but better yet, guide it. He's been talking about making a new village somewhere else, which is a bit disappointing, but that talk might've been an initial shock to coming back and having lost his stuff.
That's my 2 dwarf bucks.
PS, I love the dome idea, agree it would probably need to be oval to fit the shape of the main cavern, just wanted to comment that it ought to be in cobblestone instead of stone block.