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[jimboo]

GreedyLittleBastards.  A ☼4i☼ fortress for dwarves living as they should: in the mountains, working hard, drinking hard, mistrustful of Elves and with a keenly developed sense of self-interest. 

In which jimboo learns that higher invader skill levels in Untamed Wilds is a really bad idea.
And in which TimelessBob (his pun, not mine) takes the Portal to that next level of quantum existentialism, a meta universe of possibilities. 

The Objective is a ten-year fortress, minimum; it takes longer than that just to explore the many options of Masterwork.  Heck, it takes that long to establish all the flavor workshops and have more than the beginnings of Magyck.  This can be a fun game/tutorial along the lines that Meph has started a couple of times but then never followed through as new releases came out.  With him traveling and 4j only tweaking a few things and still so new, 4i was chosen. 

The embark:
Mountains, Untamed Wilds, temperate, B-A War Elephants and Evil Elves, higher invader skills.

Gold.   

The word roused jimboo from his drunken stupor, at least enough to raise his head slightly from the tavern table.  He peered at the minstrel through bleary eyes and strained to hear his story over the ruckus of the crowd.  The newcomer couldn’t sing for spit, that much was certain but there was that word again.  Gold!  jimboo shook his head and tried to focus through the cheap whiskey haze.  “Golden nuggets just lying in streams, too heavy to lift,”  “Precious gems scattered about on the ground …”   Those phrases got through, despite the minstrel’s voice sounding like nothing so much as a screeching cat in the upper registers.  jimboo hated cats.  There were other verses about “fierce animals” and “Orcs” and “unknown unknowns, long forgotten” and he was only getting maybe every third word but wait, there he said it again: Gold.  jimboo had only seen gold once, in the hand of a wealthy merchant at the marketplace.  He looked down at his own meager purse containing a dozen coppers and one silver coin.  Enough for another three nights of ale and then he would be penniless.  Homeless.  Without prospects.  Well, he had been in MountainHome long enough.  There were some nasty rumors starting to circulate about him and besides, dwarves here made fun of his name.  jimboo made his way towards the minstrel, managing to stumble only twice and spilling only one stranger’s tankard.  Stupid Elf, jimboo thought, serves him right for drinking from a cup in the first place.  He took a seat on a bench close to the minstrel, elbowing aside a Human also far gone into his drink.  “Friend,” he said as the minstrel’s song came to an end, “I can tell from the sound of your voice that you’re a stranger to these parts.  Let me buy you a bucket of ale and you can tell me more of this land that you sing so beautifully of.”  jimboo was rather proud of the little speech, both for the artful deception and that he managed to say it without any drunken slurs.  (“A stranger to these parts”?  Any minstrel in MountainHome with a voice like THAT had to be a newcomer!)  jimboo was not aware of the dangling participle at the end of his artful little speech but jimboo was too drunk to notice much of anything just then.  His thoughts were of gold and easy money.

[jimboo]

Rules: just use common sense.  DFHack digv is not cheating, reveal.exe is.  If you feel the need to use a Danger Room, you will be mocked mercilessly. 

Turns: too many succession forts die/are abandoned for RL timing conflicts.  One week, max, and if you can do more than one year in the week, go for it.  If you need/want less time for your turn, that’s OK too.  At the end of the week, upload what you have.  If you need more than 3 days between posts, go ahead and upload a save, it’s no big deal.   


Overseers so far:
1. jimboo                  finished, end Winter 74
2. LMeire                   in progress -- crash death, probably selective to his machine                
3. TimelessBob     ...  in progress
4. TalonisWolf  ...      tentative order to RL schedules
5. Grimmash         ...  Everybody's a Winner!  See p. 4 of thread for details --
6. kamikazi1231                       
7.
8.
 
  **************************

Sold back some unneeded seeds, supplies and the 250-point wheelbarrow and the 50-each fungiwood splints and crutches; that totaled 700 extra points, spent those on a war mastiff bitch.  Sadly, no Golden Geese were offered nor any feathered egglayers at all.  Brought along some soap, cheap graphite, 2 gypsum plaster, anthracite, a few 10p copper bars, bags and thread.  Some different colored 3p sands, just for the extra bags.  Muskoxen are the best guard animals but cost too much.  Leatherwing bats for shearing, to give cloaks and pads right away and a couple of boozebelly goats for wool; it can get cold here in wintertime.  Dewbeetles and a pair each of cave turtles and crabs for chiten.  One expensive box of library supplies because otherwise without birds it’s just too long to make quills and pens and spring steel is outrageously expensive.  A few potash just to jumpstart the fields until smelting kicks in.  War elephants were added.  Also Evil Elves.  High invader skills.   

[jimboo]

Storyline:
I'll try to do the storyline as spoiler so as to avoid the Wall of Text effect.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Six coppers’ worth of ale later and jimboo had all the story he was likely to get from the minstrel.  It sounded promising and incredibly exciting but it was sketchy in some places, missing entirely in others.  If there were indeed old, abandoned fortresses in those mountains, why had they been abandoned?  The minstrel didn’t know.  He claimed to have been to the region twice, passing across it on his way to one of the established outer duchies where, he also claimed, he’d been paid in gold.   jimboo had his doubts but the minstrel’s clothes, while stained, were much finer than his own.  The minstrel left the table then to ply his trade for more tips and ale and his place was taken by a lean, scar-faced dwarf who sat down heavily across from jimboo.  “If ye be goin’ into *those* mountains,” he said, “you’ll be needin’ protection.  I’m Crypt and I heard what you’s a-askin’ about with that singer.  I’m good with a blade, make my own way and can keep your soft skin safe ‘till you’s done arrived.  Do you know why they call that region *Untamed Wilds*?  Because it is.  More than you could even imagine.”  Crypt then filled in at least some of the missing parts of the minstrel’s tale and jimboo’s purse was getting dangerously thin by the time they reached an agreement; Crypt evidently had a hollow leg.  Crypt claimed to have been there several times, knew details about that duchy and made his way in the world, he said, hiring out to greenhorn explorers like jimboo.  For gold.  “I don’t take no markers, seein’ as how I don’t expect you to live long enough to pay ‘em.  Half now, half when we gets there.”  Now that was a problem: jimboo was flat.  When you’re out of luck, out of money, out of cards and the only play left is a bluff … “Maybe,” jimboo said.  “Maybe you can do what you say and maybe you can’t.”  He left it hanging there because, well, he was making this up as he went along.  Crypt gave him a hard stare, stood up and said.  “Wait.”  He walked across the Tavern and struck up a conversation with a *very* disreputable-looking dwarf and the two of them came back to the table together.  “This is Lens.  He’s a hire-on, like meself, and ‘twixt the two of us, we can get you to them mountains.”  Another bucket of ale and Lens filled in a bit more about the region, more than he could have heard from Crypt in that short time and he didn’t look the type to be making it up.  Hard, that’s how he looked.  “Let me see yer map that mistrel drew.  No, this here ain’t right …” and so the conversation continued.  After several more hours and several more buckets, jimboo had sealed a deal with the two mercenaries to meet at the front gate to Mountainhome on the morning of the third day and with that, they parted company.  jimboo went back to the Tavern the next night with his few remaining coppers and a simple plan.  If the minstrel had convinced him with fancy talk about gold and jewels why, he’d just do the same to others.  He had some skill with words -- and a map!  And so he found them: the glassblower, the blacksmith, the farmer and a couple of others.  What they all had in common was this: they had no ties to MountainHome and their eyes lit up with the idea of easy gold.  One of his excited volunteers had introduced him to Torch, a rather fat lady dwarf who gave him a solution to his main problem.  “You don’t have the money to pay for this, do you?  Or to pay those guards.”  She had a no-nonsense way about her and a penetrating look.  “There’s a way.  It’s risky, but … what you propose is also risky and there are those with money who’d be willing to pay to let *you* take that risk for them.”  Torch knew some of those people and was willing to introduce jimboo to them – for a price.  Her price was to join the expedition.  She needed some time in another place, she said, and jimboo knew enough not to press for details.  “You have an idea.  Ideas are a copper a dozen.  You need a PLAN, with details.  Have it ready by tomorrow afternoon.”  So jimboo had fleshed out a real plan.  She met him at the appointed time at the Tavern and they walked a bit to one of the better streets where they got into a wagon.  The driver seemed to know her and they went to a much better part of town, one with manicured lawns and polished marble columns.  After paying the driver, she led jimboo to a group of old dwarves who were waiting for them.  jimboo was sober – for jimboo – and he was as eloquent as he could be while making the presentation for the fortune that would soon be his.  But he couldn’t fool them, these were business dwarves that knew what he was talking about even when he didn’t.  Then Torch gave them a paper with numbers and *her* plan and jimboo realized he was there for an entirely different reason.  But he had been sincere and earnest and that was what she had needed from him.  There was some haggling over figures and commissions but in the end, the dwarves agreed to finance the ‘grand venture.’  On the morning of the third day, jimboo, his new companions and a stout, ox-drawn wagon made their way from MountainHome to … where?  They needed a name.                 

[jimboo]

1st Granite 74, early Spring.
Day One.  The animals were set to pasture in a defensive perimeter from the cliff face and we had a bit of luck: a mated pair of tuskoxen are pulling the wagon.  There are trees on the surface and a large swath was designated for lumber.  This will piss off the Elves but Torch – early on voted our Expedition Leader –  called for a show of hands and nobody cared.  The plan is to use ‘em for temporary furnishings and workshops until “the good stuff” is ready.  Wood is for Elves and wussies – and also for dwarves eager to get to mining gold and jewels.  The exposed cliffs show this is a flux mountain and the brook’s banks are lined with clay. 

5th Granite.
Digger Mortis.  It seems Dwarf Therapist and I had a misunderstanding but the dwarves took the unexpected break to raise their first concerns – otherwise known as a bitch session.  This brook has no gold in it!

18th Granite.
It takes awhile with unskilled miners but our central staircase is dug from +1 on the hillside to a depth of 11 levels.  The surface clay gives way to yellow sand, much rubble, kaolinite, chalk and finally, orthoclase.  The smiths are excited about a vein of bituminous coal close to the surface but it is loaded with dust and there was some grumbling about that; our miners will have to be careful and just now, Artifact isn’t feeling too well.  He’s the self-proclaimed stud (metalcrafter) and is anxious to have an anvil and workshop of his own and not be digging coal dust.  Our chief farmer, Rag, got busy right away planting the ironoak and steeloak seedlings; it will be a year before they’re ready so she continued with some boozeable berries and the bloated tubers.  Wish we’d could have brought along a couple of bars of potash as planned but, out of points so one of the kaolinite boulders was hauled to the surface to make an oven (for the only proper use of wood) and our surprisingly guilded Carpenter, Lens the Merc, is making some buckets with the newly cut logs.  Next, an Ashery. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It’s a start.

[Grimmash]

Here we go again!  If you get a chance can you run the forum dwarves thingy and give us info on our future fictional selves?

Regarding timing, I will be pretty free until mid month.  I am moving then, and will be a bit cut off from a computer that can play DF from roughly the 19th to the 1st.  So put me early or late in the turn order.  Early and you'll probably get lots of organization and quantum stockpiles and symmetrical rooms dug, late and you'll get some sort of contraption.  Choose your own adventure!

Oh, and if anyone absolutely hates drop chutes, QS, or stuff like that let me know.  I don't have to build them.  I just like them a lot.

[Meph]

Forumdwarves-thingy: ctrl shift p. Then look into the forumdwarves.txt.

And neat, four running dwarven mdf forts, plus the crazy kobold/warlock challenges in the Mdf board.

Good luck jimboo.

[jimboo]

For anyone else that also maybe thought that went by a little fast, here's Meph's original explanation when I asked in a previous succession fort how he was so damn good with MSP or Photoshop to get the background color to exactly match the forum grey:

"Its not a screenshot at all. Its fancy dfhack magic.

#forumdwarves
keybinding add Ctrl-Shift-P forumdwarves

Whenever you see text ingame, you can press ctrl+shift+p. Just think of it as "print". It will print the text into the forumdwarves.txt file in your dwarf fortress folder. And it will automatically add the correct tags for the colors on bay12. You just need to copy and paste the text, and the forum will know what color which parts should have. Its soooooo much easier than screenshot+paint+crop+upload+img-tags+see-if-everything-worked-alright.

With forumdwarves, its just "print", copy+paste the text. Done. "


The keybinding is already done, now it's just a 3-key press.

As the forumdwarves.txt file says (when initially empty),
This is the forumdwarves text file. Whenever you view a text ingame, for example a creatures description, you can press Ctrl+Shift+P to print the text into this file. It will have all the correct tags and colors to directly copy it into the forum. Great for succession games.

Some of the colors read easier against DF black than Bay12 grey but it's certainly faster.  So for example, 'jimboo' from the u-screen, Ctrl+Shift+P loads keycodes into that forumdwarves.txt file that when copied directly to the forum (no screenshot, no imgur, no adjust) looks like this --


`jimboo' Wordmountain has been quite content lately.  He ate a truly decadent dish lately.  He slept without a proper room recently.  He was caught in the rain recently.  He has complained of the lack of dining tables lately.  He admired a fine Door lately.  He has been satisfied at work lately. 
He is romantically involved with Dye Sackplated.  He is a worshipper of Contest and a worshipper of Contest. 
He is a citizen of The Stockade of Accidents.  He is a member of The Blotted Seam.  He is the manager of The Blotted Seam.  He is the bookkeeper of The Blotted Seam.  He is the overseer of The Blotted Seam.  He arrived at Greedbeard on the 1st of Granite in the year 74. 
He is thirty-seven years old, born on the 18th of Galena in the year 37. 
He is muscular.  His eyes are round.  He is muscular.  His straight hair is crinkly.  His very long sideburns are braided.  His very long moustache is arranged in double braids.  His very long beard is neatly combed.  His long hair is braided.  His somewhat long nose is broad.  His eyebrows are high.  His somewhat short ears are extraordinarily broad.  His somewhat tall head is somewhat narrow.  His hair is dark chestnut.  His skin is dark tan.  His eyes are amethyst. 
He is strong, but he is flimsy. 
`jimboo' Wordmountain likes light green brick, earth, red beryl, giant tortoise tooth, the color Xibar-blue and bogeymen for their terror-inspiring antics.  When possible, he prefers to consume glasseye, dwarven fungi brew and cave wheat flour.  He absolutely detests oysters. 
He has a great affinity for language, a great ability to focus, a great musical sense, a great kinesthetic sense and a sharp intellect, but he has poor spatial senses. 
He is always tense and jittery.  He often feels discouraged.  He occasionally overindulges.  He dislikes intellectual discussions.  He is disorganized.  He has very little self-discipline.  He  stiffens up when he's surprised.  He needs alcohol to get through the working day.  He likes working outdoors and grumbles only mildly at inclement weather. 

*FARMERS GUILD* This dwarf belongs to the guild of farmworkers, millers and cooks. They handle most of the food production, from planting crops and brewing them, over milking and cheesemaking, to butchery and cooking. A basic, but important factor of every fortress.

[Timeless Bob]

Stick me in any old time - I should be able to get some stuff going.

Incidentally, since we're going for longevity, we need to remove the first names of all unclaimed dwarves and rename them "Mr." or "Miss" for the unmarried ones, but "Mr." or "Mrs." + their original name (found by clearing the name field of anything then pressing <enter>). 

Way I figure it, dwarves put their family name first and their individual name second, followed by whatever titles they gain third.  Unmarried adult dwarves should only be known as "Mr." or "Miss." followed by their individual name, while children should bear the family name, descended from their mother, since dwarves propagate via spores.  Married dwarves should take on the name of (in descending priority)
1) The nobility
2) Guild membership
3) The most owned items
4) The most amount of total skill
5) All else being equal, the female

Named player dwarves are assumed to come from the family of that Player's chosen name.

Example:
Adult unmarried dwarf with unknown parents:
'Mr.' Tunnelpants or 'Miss.' Drowsyspider

Adult married dwarf with unknown parents:
'Mr. Book' Tunnelpants or 'Mrs. Book' Drowsyspider

Adult unmarried dwarf chosen by Player: 
'Mr. Timeless' Forgepants or 'Miss. Timeless' Arrowroot

Any dwarf (not chosen by a Player) with known parents:
'Mr. <family name of mother>' Fiendnightmare or 'Miss./Mrs. <family name of mother>' Suppergood

Any dwarf chosen by a Player, with known or unknown parents:
'Mr. <Chosen Player name>' Brewhappy or 'Miss./Mrs. <Chosen Player name>' Colortemple

This should set up a comprehensive system of geneology for the dwarves in our fortress, as well as keep track from player to player of who has what relationship to whom at a glance.  With a long running fortress, I expect to see some clans of families eventually grow into prominence, with one clan managing all the smithing, another one the magic, yet a third as the masons/miners, ect...  Guilds could become a family affair...

Incidentally, please dorf the first married female to have at least one child (living or not) as 'Mother Timeless'.  She's still greedy, but she'll be greedy for power, power built upon her family as a militant priesthood.  (So, while some will go into the clergy, the rest will join the military or be in military supplies such as beast taming/training or weapon/armor manufacturing.)

As an aside, this will make new migrants to the fort easy to spot and place, and any historical dwarves joining the fort will be recognized by their extensive family relationships, allowing us to make the most good out of those histories to create stories.  Vampires and were-creature migrants will also be easily spotted for "special jobs" such as "Permanent lookout" or "Were-Creature Labyrinth Squad".

[TalonisWolf]

  So it begins. May I be dorfed, please? As the scummiest, most disgusting, irritable little git possible at the moment, if I may be so bold.

[jimboo]

1st Slate, mid-Spring.
Grimelings.  That didn’t take long.  They snuck past the tuskoxen and went straight for the leatherwing bats still on the surface and wiped them out.  The other animals jumped ‘em and even the dewbeetles joined in; one Grimeling was tusked and stomped by a boar but two others are still wrecking havoc.  What happened to our mercenaries?!  Lens, our so-called military commander is outfitted with a shield but can’t seem to find one of the copper chopping axes.  I don’t think he’s looking all that hard, had my doubts about him back at the Tavern.   

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

3rd Slate.
Lens finally found an axe and joined the fray.  It seems he lied about his axe skills, too, as he’s mostly punching the evil bag o’ weeds from a Drunken Master stance.  He’s getting the worst of it, the Grimeling now has a name.   One boulder crab has ripped off a foot so at least the monster is hobbled.  Our first mason’s workshop is up and Crypt is making blocks for an Ashery.  The miners found one tile of malachite which turned out to be a pretty small vein but for now, copper battle axes and swords are the working plan.  And more picks.  We have one iron anvil with us.  Our metalcrafter, Artifact FadeShell sadly informed us that copper cannot be used to make another, even one for crafting and asks why we didn’t pack along a few bars of iron for his immediate use.  It was a good question.

6th Slate.
The three Grimelings are now down but a Sporeman has appeared and wrapped Lens in a cloud of toxic stench, rendering him helpless.  Artifact took up a shield and the other axe to give aid.  I wonder if higher invader skills affect ambushes right off the bat?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(Several pages not shown of “the military commander vomits.  The military commander retches.”  There was a lot of vomiting and retching.)

A SporeMan is “a toxic cloud of spores in the shape of a human.”  And he evidently flies, is 1z above the surface.  How is a dwarf expected to fight that?? 

19th Slate.
Damn.  Lens succumbed to the toxic spores and that Thing is still flying around out there.  It also took out every last one of our leatherwing bats which we were counting on for early leather armor and cloaks.  Damn.  Our mason is carving a coffin and slab.  The hospital consists of one bed in a hallway.  It’s no longer occupied.   

After an attack by our mastiff, the Sporeman spored himself and is now 11 levels up in the air.  I hope he chokes to death on his own cloud. 

Gold!  A fair amount and close to the surface (along with cobaltite).  Everything stopped for a moment as the word spread quickly through the camp – can’t call this a fortress yet.  The surviving animals are being moved into hollows dug out from the clay and sand.  By some of the dwarves, that is; half our surviving ten are presently sleeping on the ground. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[jimboo]

5th Felsite, late Spring.
Lens has been put to rest in his stone coffin.  At least the tiny tomb is smoothed – the slab will have to wait, there’s too much else to be done.  Digging another two levels down, hoping for ferrous ore but, no.  There is a second vein of malachite and at least this one is more substantial.  We’re out of wood and nobody is chopping trees; perhaps those two axes are now toxic?  Or cursed, that makes more sense with this bunch.  Reminds me, forgot to screenshot Therapist.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our starting 10-used-to-be-11.

And the starting embark:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The level indicators were blanked for this post.  I didn't take notes and didn't look where anything is, I hope everyone else plays the same.  There is PLENTY of gold -- that's what I was looking for at embark Prospect: in Masterwork, adequate gold opens all doors with the Embassy.  Options and a long-term succession game.  The world-gen parameters were default, only change was to add a couple of layers on top of the first cavern.  There's a balrog down below, maybe a ClownTown.  4x4 was chosen even though it's hard on FPS because there's just so much more adamantine.  The blue metal isn't really needed in Masterwork other than runes on account of the welded metals but still, this is Dwarf Fortress. 


Dwarf Detail screenshots don’t show very much at this point except everyone is content so dorfing requests will be from the first set of migrants. 

Torch GriffenScourge, ♀, our Lady of Mystery and contact with the MountainHome Venture Capitalist and Social Benevolence Society.

Armor DiamondBite, ♂, a skilled glassworker and novice with a hammer.
Artifact FadeShell, ♂, our metalcrafter and novice with a spear.
Bronze BreedShadow, ♂, a proficient weaponsmith and a member of the Smith’s guild.
Crypt GloomDiscover, ♂, our remaining mercenary, adequate mason and novice with a sword.
Dye SackPlate, ♀, adequate leatherworker and armorer.
Rag JaundiceTorch, ♀, a good farmer and so-so herbalist.
Theater BandSpring, ♀, a proficient gemsetter and the closest thing we have to a doctor.
Tongs Salve, ♀, a proficient cook and adequate with a needle and thread.

jimboo, ♂, disorganized, undisciplined, melancholic, bi-polar and somewhat skilled in the kitchen.  Fancies himself a ladies’ dwarf with a silver tongue.   

[jimboo]

1st Hematite, early Summer
There are six Giant Porcupines on the surface and our remaining merc, Crypt, wants to go hone his military skills.  I have mixed feelings about this since we’re so shorthanded and his (claimed) skills are with a sword and we have only copper chopping axes.  Raccoons have joined the Porcupines and while chopping axes aren’t that great, our guys have learned that punching ‘em in the head might bruise the brain.  We need gauntlets from that copper, it seems.  Well, first things first.  Everyone is still sleeping on the ground and the miners are working on that first malachite vein; we can cold-forge some for quick copper (weapons and helms at the very least, there are always spiders about). 

18th Hematite.
Aargh!  One of those raccoons stole a box of library supplies still on the surface!  Much as I hate “everything here” stockpiles, it’s past time to get everything inside.  And the first crop of strawberries is blinking red; we can eat ‘em until there’s a brewery but for that, we’ll need to cut more trees for barrels.  Or construct a stonecutter’s bench. 

18th Malachite, mid-summer.
Migrants.  Six including two children, no standouts, only one adult male.  One guilded fisherdwarf youngster but the brook is a long, dangerous walk from the front gate.  Which reminds me, we need a Depot. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our pitiful estate to date.  The brook is another 30 paces offscreen right.  Lower levels are not yet much better, simple block rooms of function.  We fashioned a Depot from gold bars, barricading it behind a raising copper bridge and the Metalworks is just getting started around that gold:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

3rd Malachite.
Bolt BustyPlay, the fishmonger girl is enraged – she chipped a nail.   

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The boars are going to have to be moved away from the Depot front, they’re hassling the workers.

6th Galena, late Summer.
Gnolls!  Six, and nine accompanying Giant Sparrows.  One doesn’t generally worry about sparrows but “giant anything” in this biome usually brings trouble.  Sure enough, they “killed” a scarecrow. 

8th Galena.
AARGH!!  A Gnoll made off with the library supplies.  We only had one to start with (?), the raccoon that stole it earlier must have dropped it.  A quick check and, nothing else of value on the surface.  Which is good because the Giant Sparrows are now dive-bombing dwarves for fun (“runs for his life” spam) and we have no ranged weapons.  Yet. 

18th  Limestone, early Autumn. 
At least the animals are settling in: we have a new changeling and a tuskox calf.  Followed by a mastiff puppy, despite her mother’s injuries.  Digging continues.

5th Sandstone, mid-Autumn.
Migrants.  Seven, no standouts if we disregard expert cheesemaking.  Only two adult males for military training and one of ‘em raises this question: how does Post CoilChannel, that cheezer have “the appearance of someone 104 years old” in a world that is only 74 years old?  He has a few former memberships but no Deity preferences and came to us without his wife or any of his thirteen children.  He has killed a couple of Ashlander Elves recently in his previous home (and just how far does their “holding blood feud grudges” extend?) but here, he just had a happy thought about furniture and then went to sleep (?).  He’s presently drinking but out on the surface away from the others with nothing around him but a tuskox corpse; a recent one, dead of unknown causes.  He bears watching. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The other is perhaps the most useless dwarf we’ve ever seen: Wolf SackMaggot.  He’s completely unskilled, clumsy, flimsy, a member of the Beast Warden’s Guild and came here with his equally useless wife after evidently abandoning their four offspring.  He likes sterility draught – so perhaps those four children weren’t entirely his idea.  He’s currently tending the silk moth hive. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[jimboo]

11th Timber, late Autumn.
jimboo took his sweet time getting the record keeping done and will soon be attending culinary school at the new Guildhall.  Those new records show we’re down to our last four booze and that’s cutting it close but we have a few strawberries and many bloated tubers. 

17th Timber.
The dwarven caravan is here.  They’re coming over the top of the mountain and were first spotted by a scarecrow (our Fool on the Hill).  A Kobold thief came with them and met up with a tuskox in the courtyard.  A short and predictable meeting.  It will be a fine day when our squads are as good as our livestock.  That same ox has matched with bobcats, echidnas and porcupines but has yet to earn a name.  There have been a lot of visiting animals. 

The dwarves were here from MountainHome and it was time for jimboo to have a conversation with Weps (Bronze BreedShadow, but everyone called him Weps).  He had a special work order for priority manufacture, one without the customary paperwork.  A work order for large gold swords.  Many heavy gold swords.  Weps had balked at first, this wasn’t procedure, there was a procedure in place for doing things the proper way.  jimboo appealed to his sense of duty, something particularly important to this dwarf of the Smith’s guild. 
“But, what will happen when Torch finds out?  She is quick to anger and our Leader.”
“Weps, do you remember who keeps the records in this place?  Who balances the books and prepares the reports for Torch?”  jimboo was both manager and bookkeeper and Weps had no need to know that it was Torch herself who had arranged for the off-books transfer of wealth each year back to a particular cartel and not to the King.   Looking doubtful, Weps had finally agreed to set aside the copper tradegoods and begin working the stocks of gold.  jimboo was making his way back through the smelters and workshops when he noticed an eerie silence – and this was always the noisiest part of the fortress.  In place of the usual bustle and curses and roar of processing ore was something different: gold made a peculiar sound when hammered on an anvil, like the ringing of a most extraordinary bell.  jimboo heard it echo back from the halls and felt a thrill in his grubby little soul.  Like the others, he stopped for a moment to listen.  Then the work continued.   

1st Moonstone, early Winter.
We have not much to trade.  A few swords, a few mechanisms, some pots of food and new wine.  Torch assumed the position of broker for this first caravan and there was no vote, not that it would have mattered (she counted the votes). 

Most positions here in The Grand Caverns of Scintillating Glory to Armok were voted with a simple majority rule but Torch also needed to have some ‘private’ conversations with these first traders.  jimboo along with the others had carried a bin of goods to the Depot and so was in a position to hear a few key code phrases exchanged during the customary greetings and he saw a noticeable tension drop from both Torch and the Liaison afterwards.  He didn’t want to think about what might have happened had there been some miscommunication or misunderstanding with this first caravan back to MountainHome.  Putting down his bin, he left that work for others and headed for his appointment at the Guildhall.       

This was a disappointing caravan – had there been some miscommunication?  Was there a timetable that jimboo wasn’t aware of, some violation of the Agreement to cause this?  One bin of leather?  One cheese?  ONE?  This caravan is loaded with things we do not need: dyed rare silks, platinum bladed minecarts, studded golden trackcarts, +wolfram wheelbarrows and the like.  One measly iron sword.  One basic quality steel spear and that was the only steel anything offered.  A single pair of bronze gauntlets were the only armor of any kind.  A steppe auroch bull for butchering and tons of bloated tubers, that’s what these dwarves offered. Two bins of not-rare-silk cloth.  Big whoop.   But we took them and we overpaid with gold swords.  Not a gift to the King, just overpayed.  (Besides, who wants to trigger a visit from the king?)  The traders were very ecstatic as they handed over their bins in exchange for the magnificent new swords.  Weps, who had carried the newest one to the Depot himself, looked troubled. 

[TalonisWolf]

  Wolf Sackmaggot.

   Perfect. Now I can begin:

  "I heard some rumour a'spreading 'bout a place where ya can pick up gold from da riverbed, perfect for a lazy git like maself. Bunch of lies, all of it, and still I'd to come at dis slum in these here backwoods. The Boyos are probably havin' a laugh my expense, those good for naughtens litt-"

  "Shut up and get back to work!"

  "Go an' suckle a tankard, ya lard."

  Lookin' at ma surroundin's, I lazaly shove da bub outta ma way. I may not be a gettin' way I a came here for, but I can still a'drink as much as I want. Mighta well make the besta things, right?

 

[jimboo]

16th Moonstone
An Orc thief and checking the surface (something I should remember to do more frequently here), three Ogres.  Military commander Crypt the mercenary along with Studs the metalcrafter (actually, his name is Artifact; Studs was a name he’d chosen for himself but it hadn’t seemed to catch on with the others) went after the thief and those Ogres were in the way.  Crypt had taken his gold-bearing stones right after the first discovery as his second and final payment and should have left them then but was still here.  The gold fever had struck him too, and he claimed a dugout room for his own and had made himself useful (indispensable, actually) fending off the Untamed Wildlife. The current Orc and Ogre chase took them up the mountainside and into the path used by the departing dwarven traders and the seasoned caravan guards with their iron weapons took care of business.  Wish they had traded us for those weapons, we could have used them in place of our copper ones.

jimboo passed Torch in one of the hallways shortly after his two-week stint at guild culinary school.  There wasn’t even an acknowledging smile from the normally friendly Leader.  She’d been in a bit of a mood for weeks, ever since that caravan had come.  One bin of leather?  Perhaps the Benevolence Society was double-dipping, taking some from each end of the route?  And perhaps that hadn’t been part of the original Agreement?  That might account for Torch’s irritation.  Well, it was her concern and none of jimboo’s – as long as Weps did as he was told, making golden swords off-book and keeping quiet about it.  The culinary school had been a good choice and jimboo had learned quite a few tricks for the kitchen.  The dwarves here were a slow-witted lot, as if there was some imposed 50% learning penalty somehow.  That Guildhall would prove important in seasons to come and hopefully soon, jimboo and Tong’s pots of delicacies might even be worth more than those big gold swords.  There had been some mutterings around the wine barrels regarding those golden swords traded for a few bins of cloth and the one sword of iron.  It wasn’t up to the level of ‘grumbling’ yet but, better to nip that sort of thing before it got out of hand.