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[Flarp]

It is said that, in the mists of the world's dawning days, the Creator looked down upon His creation and said, "Yea, this is totes boring, forsooth. There doth be far too few caves!" And so, with a few taps of His divine fingers, that baleful boredom was banished forever:

In just six score years, Eweecamo (Eh-WAY-eh KAMH-oh), the Enchanted Land, was bustling with mortal life. As it happened, a band of seven dwarves was returning home from war with the perfidious goblins when fate dictated that they cross the great ashen sands of the Dunes of Seizing, the vast desert that separated the human farmlands on the coast from the mountainhomes of Ozorthikut.

The Dunes are a fell place - two vile wizards have raised up their dread towers in the cold, rocky wastes to the west - but on its northern edge, where red ripples begin to appear in the ebony sand, the land is still warm and full of life. It is in this borderland, stopping by a nearby stream, that the Lost Band sighted a great mesa of siltstone, jutting out of the landscape. A single entrance lay in the craggy pillar's side, through which the sounds of mole dogs chittering and cave swallows calling could be heard.

The great cave Bothon Lokum, Spearmurk, had been found.

The Way of Magic, the dwarven road spanning the Dunes from north to south, is days away at the very least. The Band's supply is dwindling - and they would find no quarter or rest on the sands. If this great cave is good enough for the beasts of the desert, then so must it be for dwarvenkind! Strike the earth!

---

So, yeah. I've never embarked on a cave before, nor do I actually know what can spawn in caves (other than mole dogs and giant cave swallows, apparently), so 6/7 dwarves have exclusively (or almost-exclusively) military skills:

But hey, there's trees. And no aquifer! We'll probably be fine. The cave is at least 8 z-levels deep, and I suspect a fair bit more than that. Considering the unknown contents of the cave, and the alligators in the river, the first order of business was to get the soldiers equipped and ready:

At first, there's no trouble getting them into caves:

But on the level below, a giant cave swallow lurks! Zon, the Speardwarf, is caught off guard, and the terrible she-bird corners him and snaps his right elbow like a twig. But the axes and swords of his brothers are close behind, and soon the monstrous avian is no more. Zon, in terrible pain, collapses from exhaustion atop the bird's mutilated corpse:

---

So, 'cause this is in the Story forum and I'm not (yet) willing to orchestrate a succession game, what should the valiant heroes of the Lost Band do next? Plumb deeper the depths of the Spearmurk? Establish a base camp outside? Try and deal with all the alligators in the river? If people want to be dwarfed, that's cool too.

[Gnorm]

Set up camp in the upper levels of the caves, close to the entrance/exit. Set up some traps as well. This will be an interesting fort to watch.

[Flarp]

Just got the first Cave Swallow butchered (with a new workshop setup in the cave's shallows), when:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The siltstone transitioned to slate and mica laced with galena and prase - before unexpectedly opening up into the first cavern layer!

Let me be clear: the cavern floor is covered in troggs, mole dogs, giant rats, giant moles, and a really distressing number of giant cave swallows. Which now have a direct path into my fort.

Maybe trapping should have come first.

EDIT: Good news: all that time my soldiers spent in romantically-close-quartered fighting against mole dogs means most of them are boinking each other, so morale is high.

[peregarrett]

Did Zon survived? Dibs on him. Nickname him Gar

As for plan - block the passage with door or hatch, cut some trees, make wooden shields and bone bolts. Widen the cave entrance so wagons can pass, and make mechanisms from that stone, but leave the cave mostly intact.
Build traps and  let the guests in.

[Kamin]

Dorf me. Preferably as something cool, like a dude that swings a weapon of some sort. Also, I like being a boink-er, not a boink-ee.

I'm excited for this. You seem a good storyteller, so venture on!

[Flarp]

Now would probably be a pretty good time to mention I'm running the DF Chocolate mod. I know a lot of mods have purported to offer extra stuff without changing the flavor of DF, only to go off the 'vanilla' thematic rails somehow - but I think this one does a pretty good job. There's a bit more magic, within the constraints of DF2012, which means those two towers might be particularly fun.

Did Zon survived? Dibs on him. Nickname him Gar

Dorf me. Preferably as something cool, like a dude that swings a weapon of some sort. Also, I like being a boink-er, not a boink-ee.

Gar Memadothsal (Reined-Sewers) - Speardwarf

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(sorry about the icon there)

Congrats, you're a speardwarf who got his arm broken by a bird. And likes muskrats 'cause they're stinky. And hates ladybugs. You monster.

Kamin Uthmikkosoth (Shaken-Palace) - Swordsdwarf

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Okay, so maybe not so much what you meant by "something cool", but hey, he's a dude and he swings a sword. Sometimes he even hits things!

---

The six warriors plunged deeper into the caves, leaving a trail of mutilated mole dog corpses and Gar's teeth. Eventually, the ruddy pinkish-brown siltstone turned to grey slate and tinted mica. Behind nearly every corner lurked another underground beast - until, at the end of a long hall lined with galena and prase, Kamin glimpsed a thin shaft ringed by a narrow, circular ramp. At the base of that ramp lay a cavern covered in colorful growth - and filled with dozens more giant swallows, mole dogs, giant rats, and even degenerate, hostile troggs.

The dwarves pulled back, hastily constructing a door and using it to seal off the caverns just above the long prase hall. Slowly, they began to butcher their kills, move their supplies inside the cleared portions of the cave system, and hew out a home for themselves from the rock. The sounds of battle were heard from the caverns below - the troggs and swallows began to tear at one another, dispersing into the darkness. With the immediate threat gone, the underworld could be surveyed, if not explored.

Beyond that door, not a single stone had been mined by dwarven hands - the whole expanse was naturally formed; or, at the very least, not formed by dwarves. Zefon, the sole civilian dwarf in the band, dozed off one night while taking stock of the weapons, writing down some nonsense about blowguns and wooden spears... or maybe it wasn't nonsense? Who can say- the world is strange.

---

So, yes, the cavern's been unearthed- I'm thinking of using some constructed walls to bottleneck the north end of the prase hall, put a door/hatch on it, then trap the hell out of the place and put a bauble at the other end before unlocking the door. A rather nasty giant toad had been terrorizing the caverns before disappearing - it took out several troggs (including graphically tearing apart one's eye) and swallows without any regard for its own substantial injuries.

But things seem safe, for now. The question is, what should this place, Bothonnunur (boh-thohn-nuh-NUR), Murkcrevice, become? There are many ways to get rich off the deeps, after all- but who knows? The desert's edge could prove fertile too.

[peregarrett]

But things seem safe, for now. The question is, what should this place, Bothonnunur (boh-thohn-nuh-NUR), Murkcrevice, become? There are many ways to get rich off the deeps, after all- but who knows? The desert's edge could prove fertile too.

We must take over the caverns! Live in hollowed stalactites, farm at cavern fungus, explore the riches of underworld!

[Grombardrim]

Dibs on an Axedorf, I don't care if I'm a female (it seems to be a trend, so I might as well go with it )

Wall off the cavern for now, mayhaps?  Double wall, with two openings to allow manageable numbers through for training?  I think this place needs to become an expedition to see just HOW deep we can delve.  Create a Dwarven Kingdom such that Moria pales in comparison!  And then laugh maniacally as it descends into a drunken spiral of doom and burning Queens!

[Flarp]

Grom Kubukast (Lancesabres) - Axedwarf

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

---

It seems that Murkcrevice is doomed to be vexed by birds of all sorts.

A pair of antlered, flightless birds blundered into the Prase Hall before one of our two new migrants - a married couple bringing to the fortress the vital skills of Potash Creation and Beekeeping - could construct a wall and a door. The militia were quickly dispatched, but before they could get there, something strange occurred: Monom, the potash maker, was passing by the butcher's shop when she caught something moving in the corner of her eye.

Oh, balls.

As our battle-medic lagged behind in the rush to the butcher's shop, a veiled figure appeared behind him in the darkness of the cave. A human woman, with white-grey hair and chilling blue eyes - the apparent culprit for our risen feathers. Zuglar, a wrestler before learning the arts of medicine, decided to punch her in the face. After an inconclusive exchange of his punches and her attempts to grab parts of his body with her elbows, the fortress stray joined the fight. He bit at the necromancer's hands, letting Zuglar get some choice shots in, before being thrown across the cave and having his paws stomped on.

Meanwhile, the soldiers hear fighting just as the empty, feathery hide of a giant cave swallow descends from the tanning shops. Our Marksdwarf, having been nearly lobotomised by the thing in life, wastes no time bashing the flimsy undead apart with her crossbow. The Macedwarf makes it down to the lower levels and starts beating on the necromancer - who can take a hit, but is not terribly effective without corpses to raise.

Finally, Kamin arrives and catches her with a surprise-impaling-stab-to-the-leg, thrusting his sword through the fell sorceress' head as she succumbs to pain.

[Grombardrim]

o.O  "I'm in ur base, rezzing ur doodz.  So they can kill u."  Dwarf Fortress, people.

[Kamin]

I'm a badass. -stabstabstabstab