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[MDFification]

Corley's Log:
The Perfect Candidate
--
It is only now that I realize what a fool I've been recently. For the longest time I thought that Rhaken would be the prime candidate, and that Emdief would only be useful as a back-up. It only just dawned upon me that -- despite his lack of military experience -- Emdief is the perfect candidate for my project. Every trait of him is perfect, from the insanity to the hatred of all things magic. And to think, I thought that elves would be a necessity in this project; daemons and magicians will do just fine.

All I have to do is encourage him to take up a career in the military. I understand that he once served in a marksdwarf squad; perhaps he'd be willing to join in. Nothing else will even need any influence from me, for his insanity and anger is growing on its own. My plans to take command of this fort are also in their later stages; all I must do is sit back, and Emdief will bury himself.

Might want to ammend that to maintaining a career in the military; Emdief was drafted during Rhaken's reign as the head of a marksdwarf/engineer squad (not sure how the engineering came into it) and was apparently returned to the position post-reincarnation by Fractal.
Anyway probably finishing up my turn tomorrow, so if anyone wants to insert suggestions for how that should go down, go ahead. Declaration of independence inbound, stepping down from power inbound, etc.

EDIT: Emdief is intended to be pretty popular with the dwarves atm, since he is kind of generalissimo-father-to-his-country and they haven't had enough time with him/her to realize the growing insanity and excess of power. So another popular revolution would be questionable. Thankfully, Emdief is going to just suddenly leave a power vacuum if left his/her own devices, so there'll be plenty of opportunity for infighting, coup plotting, and general politicking.

[Rhaken]

Might want to ammend that to maintaining a career in the military; Emdief was drafted during Rhaken's reign as the head of a marksdwarf/engineer squad (not sure how the engineering came into it) and was apparently returned to the position post-reincarnation by Fractal.
Anyway probably finishing up my turn tomorrow, so if anyone wants to insert suggestions for how that should go down, go ahead. Declaration of independence inbound, stepping down from power inbound, etc.

Technically, it was a squad of nothing but mechanics who just took up marksdwarfship when they weren't reloading cage traps. It's how I typically ensure that they don't just die helplessly if caught outside in an ambush.

[MDFification]

Might want to ammend that to maintaining a career in the military; Emdief was drafted during Rhaken's reign as the head of a marksdwarf/engineer squad (not sure how the engineering came into it) and was apparently returned to the position post-reincarnation by Fractal.
Anyway probably finishing up my turn tomorrow, so if anyone wants to insert suggestions for how that should go down, go ahead. Declaration of independence inbound, stepping down from power inbound, etc.

Technically, it was a squad of nothing but mechanics who just took up marksdwarfship when they weren't reloading cage traps. It's how I typically ensure that they don't just die helplessly if caught outside in an ambush.

Ah, I see. Well, they became a force that can be drafted during sieges, with their own tower and numerical superiority and everythin' through merger of the marksdwarf squads.
Also; I'm kind of scared to call up the military again since Rhaken's wife will probably definitely snap. I also can't remove her, because then she will snap. I don't even know why she's so upset, so I guess we'll just have to wait until she recovers. It would be useful to train some dwarves up to hero-level to get around our terrible fatality record and training woes.
Question for the thread: We consider danger-rooms exploity, right? I generally don't play with them, but a subsequent overseer could find them very useful.

[fractalman]

I also gave you an office that included the mechanics and masonry workshops, and reserved two mechanics workshops for you.  that's what I meant by "in charge of the engineers", at least.
Guess I didn't make that quite clear.

[Oshha]

I march towards Emdief's office. The Gods have told me that his rule is coming to the end and now is a time to ask for a temple. I was also recently by captured my filthy foe, the Maskdwarf. I'm going to ask for Rhaken to tell what he knows about him. At least I saw the room and know to be careful for any traps. And I now know to place some my own. I enter the room. "Emdief," I say to the dwarf behind the desk, "I need a temple."

OOC: The Temple would be a large room with pillars plus a side room near the other side of the entrance to be Lorius' bedroom. Hopefully Emdief will grant this request and Corley will honour it when he becomes Overseer.

[Rhaken]

Might want to ammend that to maintaining a career in the military; Emdief was drafted during Rhaken's reign as the head of a marksdwarf/engineer squad (not sure how the engineering came into it) and was apparently returned to the position post-reincarnation by Fractal.
Anyway probably finishing up my turn tomorrow, so if anyone wants to insert suggestions for how that should go down, go ahead. Declaration of independence inbound, stepping down from power inbound, etc.

Technically, it was a squad of nothing but mechanics who just took up marksdwarfship when they weren't reloading cage traps. It's how I typically ensure that they don't just die helplessly if caught outside in an ambush.

Ah, I see. Well, they became a force that can be drafted during sieges, with their own tower and numerical superiority and everythin' through merger of the marksdwarf squads.
Also; I'm kind of scared to call up the military again since Rhaken's wife will probably definitely snap. I also can't remove her, because then she will snap. I don't even know why she's so upset, so I guess we'll just have to wait until she recovers. It would be useful to train some dwarves up to hero-level to get around our terrible fatality record and training woes.
Question for the thread: We consider danger-rooms exploity, right? I generally don't play with them, but a subsequent overseer could find them very useful.

A look at her thoughts screen could help. Maybe she's down because of lots of small bad thoughts. It happens. If she does snap, it could lead to a tantrum spiral. With the deadliest dwarves in the fort right at the fulcrum.

As for danger rooms, they are a bit exploity, though certainly not as bad as the Shaft of Enlightenment. Live target practice is my typical training supplement. On that note, send Onul to torture an unarmed prisoner. That might help. MIGHT. I'd suggest trying it with another dwarf and comparing thoughts before and after the experience.

I believe this is one time in the history of this clusterfuck fortress where the players (not the dwarves) must put their heads together for the sake of the plot, such that we end this turn in style and still let Gnorm take over in his own way. I'm curious as to his plot twist. Still, we have plenty of space for interesting developments even before his turn. We have a genocidal vampire conspirator, a mysterious shapeshifting magic user, a hardass spymaster, a mad doctor, a revolutionary, and as many plotters and minor gang leaders as we could possibly want. It's just a matter of putting our heads together.

[MDFification]

I'm getting too Dwarf for this Carp

10th Timber

Today as I supervised the cleaning of the fort, Lorius Zane approached me, claiming to have captured the Masked Dwarf and asking for the construction of a temple.
I'll speak plainly; he doesn't hold the masked prophet. Our friendly neighbourhood demon worshipper can walk through walls, command the minds of dwarves, and honestly believe that demons have its best interests at heart, a most remarkable power. I suspect that when he next looks upon the cell of the cult leader, it'll have gotten bored and wandered off with some dangerous idea in its head.
As for the temple? Well, why not?
The unhappiest dwarves, including Onul, have renounced the cult of the masked one. Their happiness as a result has started to rebound. Morale is increasing across the board with our rooms cleaned, our cloths new, and our freedom secured.

11th Timber

The dwarves report with great alarm that a human has come!
Why they're so scared of it I don't know. I wish they'd brought a caravan with them. It promptly falls into a cage trap. I guess we'll leave it in there.
Rhaken only needs to have his ankle immobilized for his healing to be complete. This is a good reminder to our dwarves. We must attempt to stockpile as many castes, crutches and splints as possible to allow our fallen warriors to get back to the field. The new hospital is almost complete; as soon as its resevoir is filled, and Rhaken has been cared for, I will designate it the new hospital.

14th Timber

The space for our new temple has been dug! I now wait only for statues of our gods to be produced to adorn the central sanctum.

15 Timber

The inspector has arrived. It begins.
His guards languish in the depot as he is led into the fort. Expecting to begin the inspection straight way, he is instead led to the mayor's office. Fortunately Corley isn't here, seeing as he's 'too busy' to perform his mayoral duties. I served my term as mayor with worse morale than this. But I digress.
It was time the mountainhomes learned the truth. The whole truth. The liaison's jaw dropped as I told him how long Steelhold has been without a warden. How the prisoners had seized control of the fort during the first year. How our baron, appointed by order of the queen, had been an insane political dissident. How the fort had been slipped into anarchy, and how it had been saved by Rhaken. Finally, I told him of my uprising.
He truly was shaken, I'm afraid. He protested that the prisoners must be recaptured, assuming that I, a free dwarf, would naturally take his side. I informed him that the mountainhomes were mistaken in the terms of of our arrangement. Dwarves serve in Steelhold for life, I told him, but they are free within its walls. If the queen has a problem with how the fort is run, she should make arrangements to have it done herself. Shaken, he departed to inform the government of our disobediance.

Later, to the caravan guards, I let loose at last the secret that had led to my exile; precisely who had purchased my services for that 'heretical' research project. Let's see her majesty weasal her way out of that. If she doesn't keep a firm grip on things at home, she could end up here herself. Might be a good idea, that; we could use her elite guards.

19th Timber

Another siege arrives as the merchants unload their goods! I immediately order the fortress sealed.
With Rhaken in the hospital, I doubt his gang's willingness to fight. And against such a large siege, the caravan guards are no match. I lead the marksdwarves to the fortifications. There is one crossbowman among the goblin forces who looks unusually competent, but we cannot be left completely defenceless!
Suddenly I hear a strange gurgling noise. One of my dwarves takes a bolt to the throat through the foritications, and is now drowning in his own blood. Though it tears me appart to leave him to die, I must save the others from what is apparently a legendary goblin archer. I lead the troops down from the tower to safety.
Above ground, a bolt plucks the baby of my fallen soldier from it's mother corpse.
They will die. THEY WILL ALL DIE. I order the dwarves back downstairs in disgust, and leave the goblins to their fate on our traps.

21st Timber

We trade away most of our old tattered clothing and crafts for vast amounts of wood, dye and gypsum plaster. Rhaken will get his cast. The mountainhomes were apparently impressed with our 'craftsdwarfship'.

We have more idle dwarves than ever. I'll take the opportunity to clean this fort even further! NEATNESS FOR THE NEATNESS GOD!
I... I'm not sure if I'm in control of myself anymore. I used to be so rational. I'm not now. Sarrak agrees. Say's I'm 'going Asmoth'. Well I'm not randomly shirking my duties to go mining, so I'd dispute that claim, but it's increasingly important to find a successor.

2nd Moonstone

The traders are getting eager to be gone. I'm half tempted to lower the gate and tear the greenskins apart. However, over 40 invaders remain free, some of them exceptionally dangerous. Our forces outnumbered 2:1 suffered 3 casualties. Our weakened forces outnumbered 4:1 will likely be wiped out, even with the support of the caravan guards.
The goblin archer, however, is unable to stomach the pain when he breaks his hand. I order the marksdwarves to return to their positions. Bolts rain on the invaders, killing many. Our entrance is painted with blood and vomit. I cannot understand why this does not bring feelings of revulsion to me.

I'm afraid Rhaken's lost his ability to stand, but he is rapidly gaining skill with a crutch.

12 Moonstone

The siege is broken! The gates are lowered, and the remaining wounded goblins finished off. Many wounded goblins escaped us, regrettably. Maybe they'll TELL THEIR FRIENDS.


Onul's getting better. I looked at her thoughts, and her main complaint was long patrol duty, so no return to active duty for Rhaken's gang for a while.
Rhaken uses a crutch now, but I think he'll be able to resume his position in the army. Because he's still the most skilled dwarf we have.
If anyone has requests for the end of my turn (i.e. what's going to happen) they should probably let me know so I can incorporate it. Otherwise I'll just step down leaving the fort's politics as-is. I won't end the turn for the next 24 hours (longer if there's enough plot developments) though, so you have time!

We have one full season of gameplay left, so if you've got plot, go wild. Also, have a plot justification for the monarch showing up if any future overseer decides to do that. 'cause those guards would be really, really useful for building our military, especially with this slow-ass training process that we can't actually start because dwarves will berserk if returned to duty or removed from their squad.

[Oshha]

I met with Emdief. He agreed with the temple, but appeared to misheard me when I told him how I was captured my the Maskdwarf. Seem to think I had captured him! At least he agreed to have the temple built. However, something about him revealed, he going mad. Its subtle, but after being a spy for so long and being on the run from my enemies for so long, its hard for me to miss those of signs. I best tell Rhaken.

[MDFification]

I met with Emdief. He agreed with the temple, but appeared to misheard me when I told him how I was captured my the Maskdwarf. Seem to think I had captured him! At least he agreed to have the temple built. However, something about him revealed, he going mad. Its subtle, but after being a spy for so long and being on the run from my enemies for so long, its hard for me to miss those of signs. I best tell Rhaken.

Well, you did write that you had captured him. 

EDIT: Got bored. Opened a copy of Rhaken's save I kept around. Unleashed the HFS into Steelhold. My marksdwarves were surpisingly effective. In your face, Maskdwarf. Your gods, killed by a bunch of amateur engineers with crossbows.
If we ever actually breach pray we get the same ones.
EDIT2: It said so here.
EDIT3: Click the link Osha.
EDIT4: Click the link.

[Oshha]

I met with Emdief. He agreed with the temple, but appeared to misheard me when I told him how I was captured my the Maskdwarf. Seem to think I had captured him! At least he agreed to have the temple built. However, something about him revealed, he going mad. Its subtle, but after being a spy for so long and being on the run from my enemies for so long, its hard for me to miss those of signs. I best tell Rhaken.

Well, you did write that you had captured him. 

Where I? I need to edit that mistake.

[Oshha]

Followed the link. Let's keep the mishearing by Emdief, makes it seem like if he going crazy if he mishearing people.

[fractalman]

Journal entry:
Observations:
1. Emdief is suffering from early symptoms of insanity.
2. hypothesis: fate magic overdose.
test: bribe child to flip a coin I made 50 times in emdief's prescence.  Expected result: coin will come up edge 10 times before something happens to it.
Actual result: coin came up 36 heads to 14 tails.  This is about what would be expected from the amount of fate magic I imbued into the coin, plus the amount that typically surrounds an overseer to ensure their turn ends on the turn of the year. 
Query: where's the missing fate-magic?
Hypothesis: he dumped all of it into the mechanism, rather than half of it as I'd previously thought.
test: send different child to flip coin near mechanism.
result: coin came up 25 heads to 25 tails.
analysis: This is a result one would expect to get reasonably often with a perfectly normal coin from naive probability. this needs to be tested again.
Second test: three different children, three different coins, 50 flips per coin.
Results: one child absconded with coin without reporting results.  one child reported 27 heads to 23 tails, the other 23 heads to 27 tails.
Analysis: in laymans terms, the mechanism is more intensely anti-magical and anti-luck than Emdief herself.  to me, of course, there is no difference between magic and a sufficiently advanced mechanism...but I digress...
....
Expiriment: while Emdief was asleep, MaskedEntity and I decided to test how resistant Emdief's mechanism was.
observation: the mechanism remained unscratched after exposure to a 2-inch crack in reality, plus 3 darkness bolts, and one adamant-empowered shot from mask.  The last attempt caused the mechanism to move a bit.

Observation 2: Mask kept complaining about how childish the whole thing was. 

Observation 3: Mask stopped complaining and launched his magic bolts after I pointed out to him that there was a chance it could extend its magical properties to anything it was linked too, and that if someone :did: start linking it to every door in the fort, that would mean time to evacuate anybody who liked to use magic. 
Addendum: We kept the amount of power we chucked at the thing minimal, and did not attempt a simultaneous attack. we had no desire to risk a collision of three different types of magic at once, or worse, leave a residue of magic for emdief to detect.


Entry conclusion: Emdief is merely going mad with power: thankfully, she is passing power off to corley smoothly enough.
question for next entry: doors are mechanisms. humans call the dwarven trick with linking mechanisms across the map magic, though it's perfectly normal to dwarves.  Why can't these folks understand that?

Question for next entry: what, exactly, is maskdwarf up to now that I've lifted the ban on adamant mining?

__________________

Emdief has revealed our true status to the mountain home.  He -well, I suppose 'she' now that she's asking to be referred to as such-revealed a bit more than I was hoping.  She tossed a lot of dice by revealing so much at once, and there's no telling whether the mountain home will remain stable or not...since she lacks my bizzare brand of luck, I'm hard pressed to say whether this is a good move or a bad move. 

We can't afford to have the queen come over here just yet, though…well, actually, we could afford it, and the guards would be nice, but…

_______________________

Another slip of paper is found in the old bedrooms.  As before, multiple handwriting styles have been copied to keep the author's identity obscured. 

Cat see wood crises solved, but general wood+ bin shortage persist.
Cat to move: cat asks dwarves leave queen uncaught for 2, may' 3 more years. Matter convenience only.
Dwarf to move.

[MDFification]

Journal entry:
Observations:
1. Emdief is suffering from the early symptoms of a fate-magic overdose.

Can you not. Emdief is intended to be magic-resistant, not magic-utilizing. His ever-increasing paranoia and bloodlust is just a product of being trapped in a fortress full of constantly-scheming criminals, two of which wielding dangerous powers beyond ordinary comprehension.

I originally intended to kill off Fractal permanently (or at least remove his influence), but decided against it for morale/not being a jerk purposes. But the end goal of purging the fort of all magic/magic users is still in effect, so a little restraint might be a good idea. It really all depends on if 4maskwolf decides to advance the cultist plotline further.

I'm a big fan of overseer ruthlessness rearing it's ugly head once every couple turns.

[fractalman]

There. That should make it clear that emdief only manipulated magic as part of a strange mood, which everybody knows can only happen once in the lifetime of a dwarf.

As Emdief's turn draws to an end...a piece of paper is found, in the same style as the others. It is intended to be understood fully by emdief too late during the turn to eliminate the writer...but there is no telling for sure.   

cat came back, the very next day.
But if cat forced off board, cat promise not come back again
Cat agree with truce of black and white.  Cat reminds that White king sits on black square, and black king sits on white square.  king is bound to board whether black or white.
But cat offer third choice: if kings agree, cat leaves forever, takes black pieces with it. 
Interested?
Circle one: yes/no


An almost identical copy is found just outside of Maskdwar'fs wards, as if it had been left on his 'doorstep'. 



OOC: What I ACTUALLY expect/want this to end up as is: the Dwarves don't trust me enough, and put a military squad somewhere they're not supposed to while the demons are filing away to their new home.  The demons don't particularly trust dwarves in general, and they particularly don't trust Lorius (who is probably in power by the time the fort is ready to take on the clown car), so they send a scouting party around which encounters the un-authorized dwarves.   I try to stop the resultant conflict, but maskdwarf misinterprets this as a a betrayal of his gods, and so the two of us start duking it out (damaging a big chunk of fortress before we create a pocket dimension and seal eachother away in it), then the demons who haven't gone through the new portal yet howl with rage and attack the dwarves who betrayed them.

To put this another way:
If anyone tries to set this up in-game, restrict mining to me and maskdwarf.  Floor over all adamantine spires.  have a new, adamantine-wafer portal created.  On one side, tunnels leading to the adamant spires. On the other, a trap that kills roughly three-fourths of the demons. 
Have maskdwarf and I breach the clown car.

optional: burrow a bunch of cultists in the new tunnels. 
-as much as I wanted to set this sort of thing up during my turn, I'd have needed, as a minimum, the mega-project room to be set up. 

[MDFification]

If I were planning to do a hell breach, I'd paint the halls with demon blood and let the magic users be consumed by the beasts once and for all. You simply do not comprehend my unfathomable hatred for overuse of the magic plot device. Deus ex machina all up in this penal colony.