The tale of Tetothdumed, The Lone fortification, continues! (Advanced apologizes for the wall of text. It was a busy night, DF-wise.
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We are now officially a barony! Armok bless Baroness Kib Kubakallas, the legendary stoneworker widow! Winter 253, a group of Varmarin* traders showed up and were quickly bought out with several barrels of prepared meals and some random trickets. They had rimeberries and crowberries, which quickly lead to the tracking down two Master Brewers and making up some really nice, expensive booze. Stocks of both the wonderful, wonderful alcohol and food are well over 7000, due in part to the annual slaughter of any animal that wasn't a pet, a guard animal, or breeding stock. I've even got three kitchens set aside for the highest level cooks to make stews and roasts for trading.
One of the farmers got killed while working on the back roof due to a slight oversight and the sudden removal of the wall he was standing on. Also had a Spike Beetle die of old age and some other critter get squashed in a cave-in. Then a clothier went fey and produced Made Okabam Asol Gim, "Breakopen the Seizure of Twisting", a rope reed fiber head veil. :-| And with the Spring and Summer of 254 came yet more migrants, pushing my fort up the around 180 dwarfs. This might actually be the first fort I have to actually reach the population cap! 8D I've set every dwarf up as pump operators and placed glass pump stations near the new main hall to start working on making stronger, tougher dwarfs. Unfortunately, even with the making a gypsum stone road and walling in a path that will funnel enemies and traders straight to the traps, having loads of food & booze to store in one of the many larders, as well as the need to cage the latest litter of puppies spawned by the guard dogs, guess what happens? I leave one or two dwarfs idle for more than 30 seconds and BAM! Urist McPampered is throwing at party at the newly finished farm well!
The militia is now 4 squads (3 full squads and one with 6 new immagrants), who have been training on and off at the entrance/training barracks. I've expanded my magma forges and now there's at least enough steel armor to got around. Which only a few of militia seem to be wearing complete sets of... Seriously have a wrestler who if I recall correctly has got on nothing but trousers, two leather caps, some kind of metal high-boot, and maybe a leather cap. If they survive long enough (or do something truly nifty), I think I shall call them "El Santo/La Santa". Not sure yet if I'm going to try making and using a danger room since I have training dummies modded in for them to practice on. Also, I hope to get a return of the reptile/amphibian people to "trade" with this year. It be nice to make some *snakeman leather hammocks* for the new bedrooms.
On the construction front, I've now got yet another cistern (this time, it's feed via fortification filters!) on my ground level and accessible to my farms. Since the fps keeps waffling between 10-ish and 17, I've been hesitant to start filling the big cistern/cavern flooder. I might just get a wild hair up my butt and turn it into a drowning trap. Which means I need to make more fortifications, put in more flood gates to control the flow and access, then figure out a way to not cause total fps death. Between this and engineering a defensible roof, thing are gonna be FUN.
*Because the Varmarin always bring nice things, I've decided that (once invasions are cut back on) they will be given the fort's protection. Mainly because I've just realized you can't grow rimberries, lingondon berries, or crowberries in Warm biome... (Got plenty of seeds though, just in case.)