((Tacky festive update time)){3} - Edna and her team grow new house-trees.
{5} - Edna manages to create a prototype modified house-trees. They now have at least a basic level of intelligence, and have the awareness to not expand where they're not wanted or overcrowd their neighbors. Doing so required adding in the ability to sense the miniscule levels of ambient magic. She also ensures that they'll emit a particularly weak and harmless conical burst of magic at an area they're about to expand into, reducing their competition amongst themselves.
Modifying the other house-trees will take half a month.
Near the end of the month, she notices that one of the rabbit creatures has begun to follow her everywhere. It spends the night desperately scratching at the walls of her house. When she opens her door the next morning, the obviously exhausted creature rushes over and begins emphatically nuzzling her ankles. The evil sorceress gives it a pan of water and a bit of bread, which it happily consumes -- until she leaves the room, at which point is stumbles after her.
{6}+1 - Unen works heat-seeking into his explosive arrow design. The new arrows are much more dangerous than the originals, but slower to make, and require a source of suitable magical resources to construct in appreciable quantities.
{3}+1 - His energy absorbing stone that releases heat when wet is ready. It's not very efficient, takes a full week to charge, and can only store a single one-hour charge. Carrie takes the prototype.
{2} - Zedas builds a tavern. It's small and not very well made.
{3} - He's only allowed to claim a small quantity of grain. His attempts at brewing make Flourintine question if he's trying to kill her (but she orders a second mug anyway. Then a third ...). At the end of the month the building is completed, but he still has nearly all of his "beer."
{6} - Gorden orders the golem to hunt, kill, and return with an animal from the forest as a test. It momentarily ignores him to scratch some words into the ground (
The dangers that may be faced are futile compared to the dangers from within) before leaving. Milly observes its hunt with a scrying spell. She reports that it is utterly terrible at tracking, has no concept of hitting vulnerable points, and doesn't understand when the target is dead. The animals don't run from it as they do from humans. It returns six hours after it leaves, carrying a large and slightly mangled yellow bird. Further testing indicates that the golem will only write more if specifically told what words to write. It has a speed about four fifths of a horse at a full gallop. It will literally obey orders, to the best of its ability. It cannot be controlled outside of vocal range, and it only obeys orders if it can identify the speaker as human. It does not acknowledge written orders.
{1} - He tries to flow granite towards the residential district, but he tries to bring too much and accidentally destroys some farmland after a random surge of ambient mana disrupts his concentration. {1} - A group of seven farmers were killed by the uncontrolled liquid rock. Gorden spends the rest of the month slowly cleaning the rock out of the fertile lands, but the damaged harvest is irrecoverable.
{3} - Ari doesn't manage to glean any knowledge on improving the currently used construction methods.
{4} - She does manage to design power generators that run on ambient magic, with only the resources currently available to the colony, but they're inefficient and hard to make.
((I'll measure units of power in Barons, because the name amuses me and I want to leave things mostly abstract or I'll end up updating even less. One Baron would be enough to power one medium tank.))
{3 of 3} - The Trailsapper is fully repaired.
{2} - The military spends most of its time patrolling the streets. Frontier life is grating on morale, and people spend much of their time either slacking or pretending to work. There are plans for a large harvest festival next month, which the leadership hopes will solve the problem.
Morale is bad.
Players:
IronyOwl's Edna Black, the Mutationist
Fniff's Zedas Piek, the Thanaturge
Tiruin's "Ari" Eloam, the Artificer
Draignean's Gordon Neider, the Geomancer
Lenglon's Unen the Entropist
Civilian Population: 4492
Government: Pioneer Despotism
Governor Jaegar (Old War Vet, Alcoholic, Demotivating)
Construction Organizer Herbert (Zealot, Slacker, Depressed)
Farmers: 35%
Fishermen: 10%
Lumberjacks: 20%
Construction Workers: 10%
Shipwrights: 10%
Blacksmiths: 5%
Miners: 5%
Wizards: 1%
Government: 4%
20 golem workers
Small circular defensive palisade at the arrival site.
A neat grid of dirt roads lies throughout the site.
Neat tent 'districts' for 3600 people.
Constructed wooden houses for 800 people.
Edna's live house-trees house 600 people.
Ari's factory.
Food will last for 2 months.
Tools will last for 20 months.
1st Battalion
1st Infantry - 100 veteran musketmen
2nd Infantry - 125 regular musketmen
3rd Infantry - 125 green musketmen
4th support - 35 veteran engineers
10th Cavalry - 40 regular light cavalry
20th Artillery - 75 regular gunners (15 light guns)
Munitions predicted to last for 16 light engagements, 8 moderate engagements, or 4 heavy engagements.
Trailsapper, scout zeppelin
Full repair
Crew: 8/8
2x ballista
Carries standard operating supplies of 1 month
Full load cargo: 2
Capable of landing anywhere.
2x Giant Scorpions
5km of rope
Six crates of assorted mechanisms
Material Converter, requires two wizards and a source of the desired resource.
Discovered plentiful iron (Island 5 in southwest chain)
Discovered moderate copper (Island 5 in southwest chain)
Discovered sparse MAGIC_FLOWER1 (Island 5 in southwest chain)
Discovered sparse iron (Island 4 in southwest chain)
Discovered moderate MAGIC_NEWT1 (Island 4 in southwest chain)
Unen's Underground Laboratory Bunker for Dangerous Studies
Specialty Laboratory Equipment: +1 to enchantment research rolls if natural roll is above {1}.
4 empty cells
!Needs doors!
Stored: 20 explosive arrows
Prototype Thermal Google Headset
Edna Black's house-tree
Large enough to comfortably house eight people.
Ari's Factory
Usually requires two weeks of re-tooling between jobs. The re-tooling does not require enchanter supervision.
Standard staff of 25 wizards and 300 craftsmen.
In two weeks, after a source of metal is secured:
Can make enough explosive arrows to last 500 soldiers through one light engagement {2x/2.5x/3x with 1/2/3 magic resources}.
Can make enough heat-seeking explosive arrows to last 500 soldiers through two light engagements. {requires magic resources 1.5x/2x with 2/3 magical resources}.
Can make 250 Thermal Goggle Headsets, {Requires Unen} {Requires magic resources}.
Can construct 3 light generators, which each produce 1 Baron of power.
The "antagonists" are still recruiting.