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[mahrgell]

5th Moonstone
Solon had finished her work and made a bed.

I was completely okay with that, a bed is something useful. But what I was not okay with... SHE USED SOME WELDED MITHRIL FOR IT! We only had a few bars anyway. Now we had even less. If she would have at least made some decorations praising some important event...

6th Moonstone
Mosey requested more titanium to be brought from the liaison. This was what we were lacking most right now. He then proceeded with trading away our now almost useless hourglasses and some clothing from the killed invaders for various bars, booze, plants, and some smaller items. Overall the trade value was around 5000 Urists, which may be considered not much, but it was still the biggest trade to have ever happened here at Hexxedgarish. Until now we had always just robbed those left behind wagons. Oh... and he bought a special pet... A changeling. It could be useful later on. I hope we will be using it for magma. Mosey also tried to sell them some slag bars but the traders kindly refused. Claimed they couldn't carry them away. Whatever, it had to be tried. Then we just throw them in the slag pit. The slag bars, not the merchants, I mean.

12th Moonstone
Guess what the mountain homes requested for next year... Hourglasses... Didn't we just sell them a ton? And now they want even more, even willing to pay more? Whatever... We will probably produce a few ones again...

1st Opal
Today Kob, one of our miners, suffocated while digging some coal.
It all happened so fast, that nothing could be done for him. He will get a place besides Ushrir, our still remembered first miner that had suffered the same fate. It reminded us all, that the battle against the ground was as tough as the fight against those creatures at the surface.

6th Opal
Right now the town center looks like a huge mess. The old dining hall has been razed, instead there is now the first floor of the new bedrooms. But there are still tables, chairs and all kind of other items from former stockpiles and workshops lying around. We really have to clean up a bit.

17th Opal
We now have a city ghost!

Some merchant didn't get over his death and is now annoying the town folks. Production of a few slabs was started so we can put him back to rest. Right now everyone is busy, so disturbances can't be allowed.

19th Opal
Today the Drow caravan arrived, reminding us, how far the season had already progressed. For some reason we hadn't encountered any enemies yet this season...
Shouldn't have said it... The Drow caravan promptly got attacked. And not by a Kobold or Goblin. Also not an Orc or Warlock.... Hell, not even an Automaton but a huge Frost giant.

The caravan guards tried to engage the giant and kamikazi was readying the militia to help them, when we heard a signal horn from a slightly different direction. This time it didn't sound like Frost giants at all.

ORCS! They were led by an hammerorc riding a giant drowspider, but otherwise consisted only out of orc snipers.

The caravan was trying to flee inside, while the guards were still busy with the Frost giant, but also seperating the Orcs from the merchants.
Kamikazi quickly decided to hold back our troops to wait, if more enemies would arrive and what the Orcs would do. Sadly our fortifications on the outer wall were not done yet, so it was clear we had to face them in a straight up fight.
May Armok be with us.

20th Opal
The Frost giant seemed unsure about the arrival of the Orcs and fled the field, which freed the Drow guards to engage the Orcs. Then everything went very quick. The Drow got pelted with arrows from the sniper and webs from the spider. They didn't stand a chance to the concentrated fire, when the orcish leader jumped forward on his spider to get some glory as well. Being the only target in reach of the Drow, they focused all their remaining energy on the leader. Even while injured heavily, the 4 guards were more then a match for the hammerorc. He quickly lost his shield and weapon and was now helpless against the merciless strikes of the Drow. Even though his spider did the best to take the Guards down, there was no stopping them, when finally the Orc was split in two. The remaining  Orcs noticed the loss of their leader and turned.
The siege was broken as fast as it had started. And all that without any intervention by us. We should remember not to anger those Drow. Their fighting spirit is incredible. Our militia quickly took down one of the Orcs that had fell in the moat but then returned to their barracks.

23rd Obsidian
Everyone had survived the Orc siege... And then today we suddenly found a corpse of one of us.

But again, Berim was not fallen in battle but in the shafts. Was it really our fate that those, that went under ground for our city to flourish, would all die a horrible death there?

1st Granite
And the third year is now over. We count 115 dwarves, having lost 2 miners to suffocation and a baby during the autumn ambushes this year. We had experienced a massive rise in enemy counts and winter had even brought us Frost Giants. So now we have encountered all great races. During winter we got lucky, when the Drow caravan guards singlehandedly defeated all invaders and lifted the Orc siege. But luck won't help us in future again. We will have to expand our defense measures massively to withstand further attacks. While we made some big steps during midyear, towards the end of the year the results were lacking. The bedroom building will probably be finished soon, but our fortified positions on the outer wall are not even close to be ready. We estimate, that we will use most of the fourth year on improving the outer wall. We are planning hallway along the whole wall, with advanced raised fortifications in key positions. Also it had been noticed, that a lot of civilians were using the old defense hallway above the entrance as a bridge to cross over there more quickly. For that reasons the fortifications have been replaced by solid walls and a second floor has been constructed above, from where our marksdwarves can open the fire on any invaders.
Another thing that had been neglected during the last year was the expansion of our military. We will certainly draft more dwarves for both melee and ranged combat. We were initially planning on producing welded mithril armor for our military, but production has stalled. We will produce some temporary steel armor, until we have better materials available.


OOC:
State of the city will be pushed back a bit. Right now I'm not happy about the city at all and want to restructure few things.
The siege was kinda odd. I even forgot taking pictures of it because it went kinda unexpected. When looking at the reports it quickly looked like the drow were lost because of the spider webbing them all and they caught quite a few arrow while trying to close the distance. But the leader being their only melee fighter doomed the orcs...
Still, those spiders are scary. Main reason why I need better ranged defense ^^(beside warlocks and frostgiants... lol)
About the miners. I do not dodge coal dust. It feels kinda cheap to do so, so I just let them mine all the coal (dust) and pretend the coal dust slowly amasses.

[mahrgell]

10th Granite
The children are fooling around as usual. But they already know who the enemy is. I'm sure they will be prepared, once their time has come to stand their ground for the city.


15th Granite
For most time of the last year Dumed had made hourglasses. Now he felt, he needed more.

He claimed a craftdwarfs workshop and started collecting materials. Suddenly I saw kamikazi rushing in. Several dwarfs jumped at her to stop her. She was raging and it looked like she would cave in Dumeds skull any second. When I saw the reason, I could actually understand her. Well... maybe they should let her do it actually to give a warning to all other dwarfs. Dumed had grabbed one of the few welded wolfram bars and I had promised kamikazi a nice little welded wolfram knuckle duster... Additionally he had also taken 2 rosegold bars, which were essential for welded wolfram.
In the end kamikazi had to calm down, and slowly walked back towards the barracks,steaming, while Dumed started his work.

22nd Granite
When Dumed finally presented his work, we all just stared in disbelief. Guess what he had made...


An hourglass... Didn't he make already enough of those?
At least the welded wolfram had been used to picture the founding of Hexxedgarish. Still... it was hard to forgive and kamikazi was still
angry about what had happened.

26th Granite
It is almost a tradition by now. Migrants show up, and quickly some stupid trader arrives shouting terrible stories about us and scaring away any further migrants. This time only 3 resisted the trader's propaganda and have now joined us.

10th Slate
The trader is finally gone and another 17 migrants have made their way to our city. We didn't expect much of them, but they proved us completely wrong. Among them were 2 guards, 2 wrestler and to our surprise an arcane dwarf, that was a professional sorcerer. As soon as the equipment would be ready, the first 4 would join the militia. For the sorcerer we would need some time. Right now we did not have the resources to equip and train him further in a proper way. But his time would surely come.
Also the first bastion for our marks dwarves has been completed. It is guarding the front of our entrance now.

25th Slate
And again.

Maybe we should stop mining coal, right now we have more then enough coke anyway. Throwing lives away like that can't continue.

15th Felsite
It has begun. The seasonal invader period has been started by a warlock thief. He just made one mistake... He went straight into our drakes, which immediately jumped at him. He quickly lost his dagger and tried to wrestle and bite the drakes attacking him. Even his occasional magic could not save him against the overwhelming number of drakes.

17th Felsite
The drakes are still fighting with the thief. He is badly injured but somehow still standing. But it was just a scout...

More of his brethren have arrived. This looks more serious what we had encountered before. Lenz and his man were waiting in behind their fortifications. It would be their task to decimate those warlocks before they could enter the city and face the militia.
One of the haulers for some reason misunderstood the order to get inside and ran straight into the warlocks. Noticing his mistakes, he tried to flee, but in panic he took the wrong direction leading him even further away from the entrance. The warlocks followed him and we had already given up on him. There was little hope. In the meantime, Udib, one of our javelin throwers had finally finished off the thief near our entrance, but another warlock thief showed up as soon as the first had passed away. It seemed, the warlocks use those thieves as scout, because right behind him suddenly another group of warlocks jumped out of their cover.
They were cutting of two more dwarves from the saving passage to the city. But this time it were useful dwarves. Our newly arrived mage and one of our craftsdwarves were now running for their life. Maybe our beasts could distract those warlocks. Also our marksdwarves were opening fire on the warlocks, while the drakes and our 2 guardians of armok engaged the enemy.


The fight got even messier when out of nothing some Elves appeared. Elf merchants to be exact. We had no idea, what they wanted here, but in that moment no one cared. They were a welcome distraction and they even brought 2 guards who now joined the battle.
In the meantime the first warlock pack had stopped chasing the hauler and instead went for the sorcerer and the craftsdwarf. They were now caught between the two warlock groups.
In that moment kamikazi made a brave decision. She ordered our whole militia into the battle. There would be no better moment then that one to join the fight. The drakes and 2 elves wouldn't be able to beat the warlocks, but were providing some nice distraction. Also the battle was happening right in front of our marksdwarves throwing javelins from above. Maybe that taking that fight was madness, but waiting would not improve our situation.
But we had underestimated the beasts. When the militia arrived, 3 warlocks were already dead. But also most of the drakes had already injuries, so the fight was far from over.
While the drakes and elves focused on the 2 remaining warlocks close to the entrance, kamikazi went ahead trying to save the 2 civilians still being lost between the warlocks. One warlock was already extremely close to the sorcerer, when kamikazi intercepted him. And she was in a hurry. It took her only half a dozen punches, before she smashed the warlocks head.

The craftsdwarf was less lucky. He got caught by the 5 remaining warlocks, and the militia started another sprint to save him. But would they make it in time?

(there is one of those stupid traders that blocks migrants near the warlocks, but the sad dwarf on the right is, who is important)
The answer was no. Before they had even crossed half the distance, the dwarf was dead, his head smashed by a golden staff. Tekkud, a wrestler, rushed ahead of everyone and instantly paid for it. Hit by a warlock spell he was now lying right between the warlocks. The other dwarfs tried their best to surround Tekkud to protect him. The warlocks had no time to strike the defenseless wrestler. Now being outnumbered by the dwarves, each knowing his weapon to perfection, they were quickly cut down.
But even with the warlocks dead, Tekkud didn't look good. Would he make it? Several other dwarves, both militia and civilians were hit by warlock magic and complained about extreme pain and some minor bruises. Quickly the latest floor of the bedroom building was assigned as a temporary hospital.
(I was sure I had made a screenshot of Tekkud. He was winded, unconscious, paralyzed and had every part of his body yellow. Turns out I didn't make a screenshot)

20th Felsite (the battle ended here)
We were facing a difficult situation. The warlocks were dead, but Tekkud was still out there. But there was no security this were the last attacks. Should we allow civilians to leave the city to rescue Tekkud?

21st Felsite
The decision wasn't needed anymore. Tekkud collapsed under his wounds.
Meanwhile the hospital filled, but no one was there to treat them. What was with our medical staff? They were lingering around all year, had no other task then to save lifes and now? None showed up.


26th Felsite
Kamikazi fell unconcious in the hospital.

The warlock magic seemed worse then we had thought at first. The doctors are slowly starting to treat the wounded. But can they heal black magic?

1st Hematite
Summer has arrived, but there is no time for celebrations. Right now the dwarves in the hospital have highest priority. Luckily no further attackers showed up and the civilians were now allowed outside again to bring in all the corpses and loot dropped by the warlocks. Overall we had killed 14 warlocks, but losing one skilled worker and one of our best fighters still hurt us.

4th Hematite
WHAT? Still badly hurt, kamikazi woke up today and immediately jumped our of her bed, going back to the barracks. Saying something along the lines of  „they will come back soon, have to be ready“ Still... her injuries looked severe but no one could stop her.


5th Hematite
Nothing can stop kamikazi. She has ordered the attack on the Elves. They didn't expect that we would backstab them again after having fought with us against the Warlocks and so they were quickly overpowered.

11th Malachite
Another dwarf had one of those moods. He made a cup, this time without wasting too valuable ressources. Actually, I was quite impressed by his work, considering how many stories he had put into that cup.


19th Hematite
I met kamikazi, and it looks like she has fully recovered. The whole city is happy right now. Without our militia commander the future would have looked grim. To celebrate this, she finally received the welded wolfram knuckle duster I had promised her.
Lenz javelin thrower squad also has a new recruit and we made a new axe throwing squad, currently 2 dwarves strong. Tekkud got replaced by a new recruit as well.

15th Galena
We ran out of coke today. It looks like our miners have to get back to the dangerous coal mining. Hopefully there are less accidents this time. For now we will burn some wood. Also another bastion in the north east has been finished. Lenz and his men are already waiting for the end of season attacks.

17th Galena
A single Kobold was the first one. As usual he started running before anyone could get even close to him. Still... this was the sign for everyone to be prepared for what may come.

19th Galena
The human caravan arrived almost simultaneausly with the Orcs. They immediately started a race for the entrance.

We didn't know how many more Orcs may be hidden out there, so we decided to wait inside. Only Lenz and his men were waiting for the Orcs to come closer.

20th Galena
The caravan made it in. The Orcs finally were in javelin range and the marksdwarves opened fire from their secured position. A single human caravan guard misunderstood that as a sign to attack and charged into the Orcs alone. Few drakes followed him, but two were killed before they could even reach the Orcs.

21st Galena
The human actually knew his business. Now assisted by our two guardians of armok and another bunch of drakes he started whirling through the Orcs. Their bows proved to be useless in melee combat and again and again the human beheaded the bowmen.

23rd Galena
The Orcs are dead. At least the ones we had spotted. The remaining few had charged forward into the entrance, which was the dead spot of our javelins, but being clearly outnumbered on the ground, that didn't help the Orcs. Overall we had lost 4 drakes, but we still had plenty. There may be more Orcs hidden outside, so we are staying on alert. But it looks like those Orcs are no match for our defenses.

26th Galena
Mosey and kamikazi came to me. They made serious faces. We lacked steel, they explained me, and while the humans had more then enough, their prizes were too high for us to pay. We needed all trade goods we had for the dwarven caravan in a few month. Price negotiations had failed. Mosey pointed out the increasing number of attacks lately. We had no choice, he explained. Kamikazi nodded slowly. It would be tough but possible, she explained. What could I say to change their mind? Probably nothing. And I also knew they were right. We needed the steel. We needed steel now! We couldn't wait until next year. And so it was decided... As soon as autumn would begin, we would take the human caravan by force.

1st Limestone
Autumn is here, and I knew what this meant. Soon the trade depot would be filled with blood. We had seen what the human soldiers were able to do and had to be wary. But it has to be done and our soldiers were well rested for their mission. On the outside, after the Orcs had fallen, only a few thieves had been spotted, but were quickly forced away. An Orc got slaughtered by our mountain tuscoxes, but otherwise nothing worth mentioning had happened. Summer had been a bit more peaceful then Spring. But I doubt that trend will continue.

[mahrgell]

3rd Limestone
Everyone was prepared. At least every dwarf. With the training grounds being right next to the trade depot, all it needed were a few hidden gestures by kamikazi and our marksdwarves made a few steps back, while the melee fighters waited for the sign. When kamikazi gave the 'go' a hail of javelins and axes hit the Human guards. Completely taken by surprise, the Humans found themselves immediatetly in close combat with our militia. The battle would be decided before it had even started. The shock of the sudden attack had maimed the Humans will to fight and they were no match in weaponskill to our well trained dwarfs. But what they lacked in skill they compensated in equipment. They may have not been able to strike back, but their steel paladin armors glanced away blow after blow. When I was still studying the art of smithing, my master had explained me, that the Human paladin armor was no match for our breastplates, but seeing that fight, I had my doubts. But in the end, it was too much for the Humans. Being unable to resist, all 7 guards were struck down.
The merchants, having the horror in the face, when they saw their protectors getting killed one by one, tried to run. But when there was doubt and maybe even some fear in the dwarven eyes before the battle had started, there was now only one thing... blood lust. Merciless every human got taken down by the attackers.
Once they were all dead, haulers came from everywhere to loot what was there to loot. They had the steel we required so dearly. I ordered all the steel to be brought to the greatforge so I could create more proper steel armor for our soldiers.

13th Limestone
We have encountered 3 Kobold thieves. Odd. We didn't expect them around that time. Two of them ran away quickly, one got chased down by a drake. A drake, that missed one leg actually. But was still faster then the Kobold.

15th Limestone
Experiments have shown that one Orc can't fight 10 drakes. It looks like our enemies are mixing up their attack patterns for !SCIENCE!.
Sadly, one Kobold stabbed our stonecrafter before justice could be done by our guard animals.

Poor dwarf will need some medical assistance.
I was also told, that two of our dwarves seem to be rotting from the inside. The reason is unknown, but probably they ran into some warlocks at some point and no one had noticed. With their days counted we are considering the ultimate sacrifice for the well being of the fortress. I hope we can successfully convince them of that option. A temple of Armok has been constructed just in case.

25th Limestone
Experiment number 2 has finished. An Orcish master sneak is actually able to take down a mountain tuscox before being eaten alive by the drakes. Those Orcs are really determined to push !SCIENCE! forward.

8th Sandstone
The coalmines have taken another dwarf. But this time the death was entirely avoidable. Those miners know exactly of the danger of coal mining, so why would any dwarf think, it is wise to take your fresh born baby with you?


2nd Timber
We expect incoming enemies soon, but now we are prepared. We have finished our northwest bastion. Also the 5th floor of the second bedroom building is completed. But as usual we are lacking behind in sleeping space. We have 80 bedrooms, but 150 dwarves. So you better couple up, if you want to have some bed.
We also ordered more tables and chairs to be built. Not because we were lacking those, but because our bonestockpile was reaching his capacity limits. With the amount of enemies we were encountering, we surely would never have a shortness in bones and meat. Only our butchers were complaining about the sheer amount of work.

15th Timber
A Goblin ambush! Even though those dwarven traders are annoying when they are scaring away migrants, they do good work in spotting ambushes. And in getting killed by them. Whatever, we didn't like them anyway. Right now we have spotted 12 goblins. That's a bit lackluster. We would like to test our new defenses, but that can hardly be called a challenge.

16th Timber
The caravan from the mountain homes has arrived. While most of the Goblins were still far away, a single flailgoblin decided it would be a good idea to charge straight into the caravan... and the caravan guards... and the drakes... right under the bastion with 6 javelin throwing dwarves.
Conclusion: It wasn't a good idea... for him

20th Timber
Goblins are unable to learn. The remaining gobos decided to follow the example and ran into the drakes as well, while under constant fire of axes and javelins. In the end 6 Goblins died, when we lost 4 drakes to their bows. The remaining goblins turned and our marksdwarves enjoyed the practice session, even though the goblins decided to use the disgusting tactic of throwing their own bodyparts at us. Just the little dwarven baby that got lost n the bastion was slightly disturbed.


1st Moonstone
I just wanted to write about how winter had arrived and how peaceful beside a few more thieves the rest of autumn was. But then Tath, one of our doctors, decided to venture out of the city for whatever reason, when he spotted just another Warlock thief. The medic decided to start running, but it was the wrong direction, leading him farther away from the city gates. And promptly he found more warlocks. An ambush!

Everyone got called in immediately. Right now we were only seeing 6 of them, but we had no idea, how many more may be hidden out there. Luckily Lenz and his men were still in position to guard the entrance. At least 2 dozen civilians were still out there, trying to collect what was left from the Goblins that had been slain earlier. Kamikazi assembled our soldiers to defend the city. But everyone still remembered out last battle against the Warlocks...

[Tenderroast]

great fort so far. Request for dwarfing, the sorcerer if he is still alive.

[mahrgell]

I just checked, yes he is still alive and kicking. Completely recovered from all his wounds.
But that puts pressure on me to actually use him Will try to do that during the coming year.

Do you have a wish for an element? (not Black/White)

[Tenderroast]

Fire is cool, but too risky. Earth is fun, and great for melee.

[mahrgell]

Okay, so let's do earth, never had that before...
Which leads me to the question... how many items can an eartmage wield at the same time out of the following:
- first 2h weapon
- second 2h weapon
- regular shield
- aura item
- staff

My last mages only had a staff and an aura equipped, but I doubt that is a good choice here. Manual says earth mages can wield dualwield twohanded weapons... but do they have to skip their aura and staff then? o.O
If it is only two items... Any wishes?

[kamikazi1231]

That was touch and go for a while. I felt concern for my dwarf. I hope she continues leading well and thanks for the new nuckle dusters. How many kills do I have to my name?

[Tenderroast]

im not sure on how many items can be used at once... you would have to ask Meph, but if only 2 total, a 2hander and the aura

[Meph]

Depend how strong the guy is. I have seen people wield two weapons in the same hand... in the end the staff is a one-handed weapon and the aura counts as shield.

[Tenderroast]

Too bad a dwarf cant be a mage, and military caste at the same time any more. 

Would be awesome to see a fully decked out Legionare Earth mage ripping through enemy ranks

[mahrgell]

2nd Moonstone
Tath was running for his life, but he had no chance. He was hit by several warlock spells already.
I'm not sure if it was pure panic or if he, knowing his fate, was trying to help us, but he was now luring the Warlocks further away from the entrance giving the militia more time to prepare for the upcoming battle. But he didn't make it far and a crushing blow by a copper staff to his head ended his life.
Watching the scene from the bastion above the entrance, Ineth screamed at the Warlocks, throwing one of his javelins. The distance (about 45 tiles!) made this throw almost impossible, but the anger combined with Ineth's legendary abilities guided the weapon to its target. The javelin hit one of the Warlocks right into the shin, cutting the whole leg off.

Now it was the Warlock, who screamed in pain. The Warlocks may be some of the most fearsome creatures out there, but having seen Ineth's demonstration of incredible power, they were looking in horror at the dwarfs standing at the bastion, before they decided to do, what no one could have ever expected. They ran! They ran for their life, afraid of that one dwarf up there, that had just done the impossible.
This all could not undo the loss of Tath, but still everyone was relieved, as worse things had been averted. Tath would receive a proper burial beside all the others, that had fallen in the name of the city.
In all that mess the liasion ha decided to run for his life. Looks like there won't be negotiations this year.

OOC: I have no clue what happened, but yes, the Warlocks really fled as soon as they had killed the medic and they were hit by a single javelin... And I knew about the extended range of marksdwarves... but i didn't expect a 45 tiles throw...

4th Moonstone
Another two Goblin thieves and one Warlock were sighted by our haulers. Surpsingly enough, the Goblins did more damage then the Warlock. Each of them stabbed a hauler, one of them being in critical condition now. Hopefully he makes it.. At least a cragtooth boar pet of a nearby hauler took both Goblins down.

10th Moonstone
Dumed was still limping from the Goblins attack, when an Orc sneak suddenly stabbed him again. Already weakened Dumed had no chance to dodge and with 2 quick strikes the Orc killed him.

Those new kind of stab attacks are getting a serious danger to our haulers. Also it seems that enemy thieves have extended their activity period from the last month of a season now at least 2 weeks into the new season.  This is really disturbing.

11th Moonstone
With Mosey taking his break for almost 2 weeks now and the merchants announcing their soon departure, we couldn't wait any longer and let just some random fool do the trading. This may not have been to our best, but was still better then no trading at all. In the end we traded away goods  for a volume of around 18000 Urists. Actually msot of it were the clothing of invaders, that would not fit any of us and old ragged clothes of our own. And what we got for it? Besides buying all kinds of bars the caravan had to offer, we bought a few cages...

The question remaining now would be how to use those... Without torching our whole city.

2nd Opal
We have now finished the east and the west bastion. Also we drafted a few more dwarves, expanding our military to 22 dwarves. That is almost the number of masons we have.

19th Opal
Today our construction workers on the wall got disturbed by something odd. Somehow a wild boar has managed to get up on the wall.

As wild boars can't fly, as far as I know, it must have walked there. Through our entrance with 2 dozen drakes, 2 dozen militia fighters... Then went through the whole town undisturbed, up the stairs to the outer wall and then balanced himself to the position he now was in. I guess it is more likely that wild boars can indeed fly. While most masons started running, one took the initiative and tried to strike the boar with his bare fist. The boar dodged the incoming strike, but instead fell right of the wall into the moat.

Problem solved...

24th Opal
Finally the caravan has left. They were packing for more then a month now. In the meantime one of our legendary furnace operators decided to waste some welded wolfram again. They should know how valuable it is. He used it for some set of dice. Again he embedded a picture of our foundation. I think I could clearly recognize myself in that one. It seems to be a very popular topic around here.


12th Obsidian
The Drow have arrived early this time. Actually before any enemies could have been spotted, this was a novelty.

20th Obsidian
After we had spotted some Goblin, Kobold and Automaton thieves, Kib found more today. An Orc ambush.

I would say it wasn't his lucky day, because the Orcs caught him before he could even try to run. The Orcs were now rushing for the entrance, but even before reaching it few of them were already severely injured by throwing axes.
Their situation surely didn't improve when suddenly kamikazi and her men leaped forward from the entrance. Neither in skill nor equipment nor numbers the Orcs could compete with our militia. Quickly they were all cut down and everyone moved back their post.

28th Obsidian
When the drow diplomat left, he spotted 3 Orc thieves. We sent some recruits out there to gain some valuable combat experience, but sometimes I doubt their skills. Ducim was assigned the good old copper knuckle duster of kamikazi, but it seemed he really lacked for that weapon. Instead he desired something... bigger... Something more appropriate for an Orc hunt... I guess he found a fitting weapon:

OOC: the dwarf is under the table in the picture, and yes, he is trying to kill that orc... I'm not sure where he got the table from, as he was training all the time... Maybe he used it during training as well... Never noticed.

1st Granite
Ducim missed the first 2 Orcs, because some axethrowers took the glory before him, but is now chasing down the third one. Will he get him? Until now it looks like the Orc does not want to run away from the charging table wielding dwarf.
But instead of watching the spectacle outside the fortress I decided to celebrate the new year instead. The last year was surely eventful. We had several bigger battles and everone slowly got used to those attacks around the end of the season. We had decided to not only backstab the elves, who were still trusting us, but also the humans who had the desired steel we needed.
The biggest threats to the life of our dwarves were without doubt Warlocks and coal mining. We are still lacking the necessary means to kill Warlocks efficiently without risking our soldiers, even though the completion of 5 bastions on the outer wall has greatly improved the efficiency of our marksdwarves. 3 more bastions facing the south were planned for the upcoming year. Also there were some idea about some... special features for our entrance, but those were not yet refined. One thing we hadn't encountered during the last season, and everyone was very thankful for that, were the Frost giants. Not a single one had shown up here, after the single scout during the previous year. Were they afraid? Or maybe just preparing for a bigger attack? Similarily we didn't have met more then a few Automaton scouts until now, Surely more would come. We had to be prepared, there would be no resting.
On the civilian side the housing situation has improved and another bedroom building is under construction right now. Soon almost all dwarves will have their own room. Finally after 4 years! At least in the dining hall there is right now a table and a chair for every dwarf in our fortress and the bone design is appreciated by nearly everyone. We have added some illumination for the looks but also the tombs of our fallen comrades, so everyone dining in that legendary hall will always be reminded of those, that have sacrificed themselves to make all this possible.
I'm excited to see what the upcoming year will bring. Will it be glory? Or death. But for now I have to work on something... Some secret project a single dwarf has tasked me with. I was sceptical about it, but we would see how it turns out.

[mahrgell]

That was touch and go for a while. I felt concern for my dwarf. I hope she continues leading well and thanks for the new nuckle dusters. How many kills do I have to my name?

7 named, few unimportants
Was surprised by the low number but it looks like the kills got distributed very evenly among the whole military. They are all hanging around that mark. Also the drakes are stealing a lot of last hits (there are enough death here... so that's not the reason ^^)

edit:
i will prepare a state of the fortress until the evening...

[mahrgell]

Dwarves:
Right now there are 132 adults, 5 children and 12 babies in the fortress.
Out of those there are:
military:
3 axe throwers (copper armor)
7 javelin throwers (rigid scale armor)
12 melee dwarfs with various weapons (steel armor)
civilian:
2 woodworker
3 miner (had more, but some died to coal and i forgot to assign it again)
31 masons/architects
2 for the remaining stonework tasks
3 farmer
6 farming support (everything else, but farming, mostly busy with butchering etc)
3 crafter(processing all those bones and hides..., need more actually)
1 weapon/armorsmith (me)
8 smithing support (everything but armor/weaponsmith, mostly furnaces, need more)
3 engineers
1 jeweler
1 alchemist
1 supernoble (Mosey)
3 apostles/nuns (drowning me in bronze^^)
6 doctors (mostly lazy, but whenever someone needs treatment, they are on break)

None of the above mentioned has hauling on, so the remaining dwarves are always on hauling duty.

Average number of unemployed is hovering around 10-20.
We have 19 legendary dwarves, but most of them are in the military.

animals:
We have 111 animals:
2 animated weapons
2 changelings
6 cragtooth boars
27 drakes
1 fire landmine
1 fire turret
4 guardians of armok
50 moleweasels
2 plump helmet man (pets, hope they don't become more...)

The rest are various pets of all kind.
Drake population is an issue somehow, because there are only about 10 adults drakes alive and most are injured. While they are doing a good job against thieves, they have troubles fighting off ambushes and sieges alone. Not sure how to deal with it, as I don't want to permanently station my militia that far out close to the drakes, but also don't want to move the drakes back, as they are quite good at scaring away thieves.
The moleweasels did a good job of spotting enemies during the first years, but are rarely leaving the fortress lately. If I would ever have time for it, I would butcher down their population a bit, but sadly my butchers are massively overworked from the dead enemies.
The guardians have shown a very decent combat performance, I'm quite satisfied with them.
About the fire mine/turret I'm unsure how to use them. I have an idea for the turret, but that will need some creative construction work.

dead
Right now there are 279 dead creatures known.
enemies
4 Kobolds (never catching those...)
24 Goblins
32 Orcs (taiga and regular ones)
31 gnolls (never noticed those, they always end up charging into the drakes)
17 Warlocks
neutrals: (Humans and Elves and most of the wagons were killed by us)
14 Humans
14 Elves
23 wagons/wagonpulling animals
3 traders (those bugged migrants)
1 dwarf merchant
friendlies: (i have never butchered any living creature, so all got killed by enemies or coal dust)
18 drakes
14 dwarves
31 moleweasels

Remaining ones are random wildlife, some pets etc. I was actually surprised about the low number of drake losses. Had expected more. moleweasel were for our primary recon tool for most of the time. (now we use haulers^^) Automatons and the single Frost giant have always escaped me, so there are no kills yet.
Kills on our side are fairly distributed among the melee militia, they all have 5-20 kills total (named+unnamed). Drakes have a big share on those kills, as the militia was primarily only used for ambushes and sieges, but the drakes had to fend off the thief-spam and the gnoll invasions ^^

overall state of the defenses
Well, I have the feeling the fortress is living on the edge. While never really challenged until now, I feel a killing blow could happen anytime. Like what happens in case of a frost giant siege? Or if the warlocks do spread out so I can't just bumrush them, once they are busy with the drakes? Our ranged support is not yet satisfying me right now, but maybe I'm used too much to vanilla DF where ranged combat was purely OP(well... there were also no enemies except for goblins and single FB's...) If we are just looking at the military, i should be quite satisfied. There may not be many, but they are mostly really well skilled and have decent steel equipment. The drake population is still stable, even though I'm a bit worried here, as mentioned above. Also those little fortified positions for the ranged dwarves are now well placed and I'm able to intercept almost any attacker that way. But yeah, what happens, if more then a few Frost Giants show up, or 60 instead of 15 attackers or whatever? But I guess that's part of the challenge. There is no easy exit strategy And then finally our defenses get tested for real

stocks


We surely won't starve. Ever! Actually the butchers are lagging behind by a lot and I have a hard time using up all those bones ^^ Almost all our furniture is already made out of bones. Exported Wealth stat is super low also because we mostly traded away loot, that does not count for it.

There is a drow caravan on the map right now, but that doesn't change much on the stocks screen. We surely need more smelter and furnace operator to smelt down all that loot we got.
Considering we haven't dug deeper then 10 z-level, we have quite a variety of metals. Actually I find acquiring those slightly too easy. We got probably about 500 bars from our 2 apostles (the 3rd one is only active since a few weeks) Only thing we are lacking are welded wolfram/mithril.
(mithril itself isn't rare, considering there are still tons of items for the smelters)
Since I'm tired of clothes, wear etc I'm actually considering to force the whole fortress into copper armor. But that is nothing that can be done short term^^ It would require 120 new armor sets, which wouldn't be a problem copperwise, as we are still having tons of malachite lying around. And we have only mined out one zlevel of it... But it is a matter of time and my dislike of having additional gazillion squads.
As you can see the fortress has used around 5000 stone blocks right now. This number is a bit low due to the fact that it required me >2 years to notice, that block production via manager does not use more then 3 of my 15-20 masons workshops... Since I fixed that issue, we are much more productive now.

architecture
Finally some pictures

Overview over the whole area: (slightly cut off at bottom)


z+1 of the upper half:
note: the walkway around the citywall is not completely done in the south. The fortified positions are actually one z-level above, as my citizens like to walk around on the walls and i prefer them not to get shot by snipers. Also putting the fortified positions on an extra level helps with move-commanding the soldiers in position (giving them less choice where to stand, forcing them into the right position)
In the center you can see one bedroombuilding still being under construction


z+2 of the upper half:
note: now finally we have the bastions. The statues in the center force dwarves next to the fortifications without limiting their dodge abilities (they won't stand on on the central square voluntarily, but they can still dodge into it)
The javelin/axethrowers are still in position. Oh and those corpses on the roof of the dining hall... Before the second level of the outer wall was completed the orcsiege had some potshots at the leatherwing bat population hanging out there. Got those via some migrants, but they are all dead now thanks to the orcs


city centre:
note: the two bedroom buildings to the right are 5 zlevel high, the one to the left is under construction, as seen above
The dining hall has a stepped roof that goes up to 5 zlevel. As mentioned earlier the burial area is part of the dining room. I may change this at some point when building a temple district, but I felt it to be the most fitting solution for the moment.




general comments:
What we are lacking the most is a real hospital. This is actually quite urgent, but at the same time I'm too lazy to filter the water from the murky pools into a cistern. Anyway, it really needs to be done. But also nicely constructed palace for Mosey, some real barracks buildings and workshop houses are missing.  Actually, even after 4 years we have only very few key constructions done. Biggest reason for that is the work on the wall. This has now taken >1.5 years with only minor breaks in between. But security goes first ^^ I hope to get the general design of the wall completed in the upcoming year and may only add some turret positions once i figured out how to use them in a safe manner. After that I would like to start the work on the city itself. Another thing that makes constructions a bit difficult right now is cleaning up the space required for them. I already tried to move few things away from the center to make some space, but it is still a huge mess.
Overall I didn't expect things to go so slowly construction wise when I started the fortress, but I'm getting to it and try to adapt ^^ (MORE MASONS!)

[kamikazi1231]

The fort is looking great.  I'm guessing my kill count is low because my legendary punching with the knuckle duster just instantly smashed enemies bones and knocks them out, then someone with a sharper weapon finishes them off.

If Volcanic weapons are still far off maybe start looking into runes of poisons for everyones weapons so we can really bring the pain.

You could also use the next influx of useless workers to make a bronze golem army to give the drakes a rest for a while to breed.

I know you don't like bridges for defense so you could try something a bit more dwarfy.  Maybe construct a platform of walls somewhere above the entrance area with a triggered support to knock out in extreme emergencies.  What better way to seal off enemies then a massive land slide/cave in to block their path.

I really like the statues in the bastions.  I've used those for training before but never thought to put them in my archer towers.  This solves my problem of archers sitting in the middle no shooting anything.