~~Journal of Overseer Dolwina - Spring 129~~Today I decided
not to murder my husband, but it was a very close thing. I dont know if it was his promotion to militia captain of the entire fortress or what, but he completely lost his connection to the common dwarf this afternoon. He stood up right in the middle of the dining hall and proclaimed that the entire military (over half the adult dwarven population), was embarking on special training and will be completely unavailable for the next two years. TWO YEARS! Not one to be bashful, I immediately protested the decision.
"Two years with no military support?? What happens if the goblins siege us? Or a titan comes to visit?" "Thats the next overseer's problem""And who is the poor sod that has been selected?""Last fortress the traders were talking about had the chief mechanic in charge. They said it worked pretty well.""But I'm the only mechanic here!""Guess that means you're it!" he smirked.
.... which is what lead to my vast thoughts of murdering him. Apparently I'm now in charge of keeping this fortress afloat. My first act as overseer is going to be to review the current state of affairs and see what needs to be done. I told my assistant Mebzuth to grab a tablet and make some notes while we toured the place.
The first thing I noticed is a profound lack of specialization among the civilian dwarves. There are 44 of us. We really dont need 23 acting as interim doctors. Its not going to do anyone any favors. I told everyone to grab a nametag and write down what their best non-farming related job was so I could sort us out. The 20 or so that couldnt answer that were put into a separate group for a little bit while I made a tally of any missing professions. I was nearly done when I came to the very last dwarf, whose nametag only said "m4king b4biez lul". After I recovered my ability to speak, I asked him just what the hells he was thinking.
Apparently ol Ilral has never done any work in his entire century of life and has 12 children. The poor things could really use a better role model than he has been so far. I appointed him our Jeweler and proceeded down the list. After I finished divvying up the labors, we went to do an overview of the fortress itself.
The first thing that struck me was that anything that flies, swims, or has more than 10 attackers will be able to easily get into our fortress. Every dwarf has hear tales of the 100 strong goblin sieges that have plagued our race. With no military available, you can imagine how this might be a bit of a problem. I commissioned a bridge to be placed to seal that passageway off, but then realized that we would have no way of letting any migrants into the fortress. I designed a quick migrant trap as well, then proceeded with the tour.
There is an old dwarven proverb: To achieve peace, you must prepare for war. This is very true. What they dont tell you is this: Those that prepare for war really underwhelm at overseeing peace. Everyone is so crowded at the moment. Not enough tables & chairs in the dining room, not enough workshops, not enough of a lot of stuff. I told Mebzuth to make a note that we needed a bigger dining room to start off with. Since we need to drain the moat anyways to install some saftey fortifications, I'll add a waterfall/bath combo leading up to it.
To the south, the first thing that struck me is the odor surrounding the buthery area. We really dont need those workshops surrounded entirely with waste. I gave them a bit more room to work with and then saw the dwarf corpses rotting away. When I inquired about the lack of coffins, they told me that the military had designated half of them for decoration only, no burial allowed. After correcting this, the next stop on the tour was the food stockpile. We are a bit low on food, but a few nest boxes should get us a poultry farm up and running nicely. There are also a few dozen crossbows littered about. I spent the next hour or so examining all the stockpiles and working on specialization for those too.
The last thing I did before letting everyone get to work is to design a new trade depot. This will allow us to have seals between the fortress proper, the depot, and the surface. Now all thats left is to make an ungodly amount of rock blocks. We have to wall in around the moat as well as providing a massive ceiling to prevent flyers from entering. Wish me luck journal, I'm going to need it...
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