So it began-- my seven had perhaps one and a half dwarves who could be considered decent warriors among them. We departed all, with four war dogs and some sundries. When we arrived in the woods all was quiet. Some elephants grazed in the distance. I was apprehensive at first about the beasts, having heard tales of their destructiveness. Fortunately they did not approach us.
Over the course of the first season we went out berry-picking and chopped trees down with a fire-hardened wooden and stone training axe, and cut a tunnel into the side of a clay hill. Nice wet grey clay. Leashing three dogs outside for security, our two miners used their copper picks to carve out rooms and storage areas. In the midst of all this, just as we are digging downwards (and begin finding chert and some minor gems), an Ogre appears.
At first I was like "OH No." But then I took a look and although the beast (who was charging at the team's doctor and self-declared leader, out picking berries) was huge, it was nude and carrying nothing. Only its calloused skin would protect it. As I sounded the alarm and drafted everyone into the military, the Ogre reached my doctor. He was fat, broad of bodied. Too slow. He dropped his strawberries and ran but it caught up, missing its first strike. While I issued orders for the armament of the remaining six, the Ogre recovered its balance, knocked the poor guy over by running and pushing, and then grabbed him. Then the bone-breaking began. He dislocated the dwarf's hip straight away, broke both his wrists like twigs, tore off one of his arms with a swipe of his hand, and punched his skull in. Of course the dwarf died instantly when that happened. Inside my clay storage room, the other six hurredly armed themselves as best they could (one young dwarf woman got the training axe). We had three copper spears, two picks, and a full suit of copper plate armor. We armored our militia commander and gave him a spear (he liked spears), and all six ran in a cluster, charging the Ogre (who was wandering around aimlessly, covered in dwarf blood).
The first Dwarf to reach the Ogre got knocked down and grabbed. Muthkat. She was skinny, that was the thing. Anyhow, she spent most of the first few seconds of combat screaming on her back as the Ogre, grinning, broke her hand in two places and dislocated her wrist. I guess it didn't see the others; once it did it tried to run but then they were upon it. It got poked a few times and one speardwarf actually got a good stab into the leg. The Ogre knocked a dwarf over (the armored one-- he was uninjured) and ran, breaking from us twice before we caught him and swarmed him. Looking through the logs, I see that the Ogre suffered a spear through the back of the foot while attending to the three dwarves in front of it. It fell immediately, giving us access to its body and head. We stabbed it to death and crushed its skull with picks, then went back to bury our doctor.
After a while, things went back to normal. I ordered some mining to be done and that Muthkat lass volunteered, broken wrist unset and all. We really should do something about that eventually.
Later that summer, three migrants arrive, all adult females. Male dwarves are outnumbered six to three now. I set to them to work building a mechanic's workshop so we can create some traps. An interruption message gives me cause to look into the logs-- a honey badger? I look-- it's already dead. It became enraged (as honey badgers do) and attacked one of my Rottweilers. The rott tore off its ear, grabbed it, shook it about, and crushed its skull with a bite very quickly without suffering more than a nick to the throat in return.