Looking at a new embark.
Prospector says it has ≈140k marble and ≈38k hematite.
Was really going after some of the 950 giant cheetahs, or 8k giant lions and make an animal based fortress.
Might have to adjust my plans a little.
From the diary of Dastot Mengsefol, Chief Engineer, late Sandstone, in the year 101:
It's been almost a year since we founded Usandesil, "MurderAngel", and I am already tired of this hot hell. The grass started drying before the end of spring, the horse and camel that dragged our wagon to this place have had only the meager scraps the herbalists have been able to scratch together from the sparse bushes.
Acacia trees are everywhere, seemingly immune to the heat, but not to an axe. Our two miners went to work and hacked a small respite from the sun inside a small hill - the lifeless white sand, which is everywhere, gave way to quartzite - great, everything is gonna be so white.
Our amateur geologist proclaimed that this particular type of white sand indicated marble was beneath our feet, but probably a long way down, as well as vast quantities of hematite. We ribbed her for her surety, and would still be, if our miners hadn't discovered limonite already, but there's no word yet from Ustuth about setting up a forge or smelter.
As for me, I think I managed to draw the short straw here, having to go out into the heat to lay the cage traps - gods its so hot, even the small murky pool has dried out, and even when it rains, the ground doesn't stay wet. There's life out here though, Giant Thrips drop out of the sky and the drone of their wings scares the animals. Also, our carpenter/woodcutter saw a Giant Jaguar in the distance when he was hauling in some logs. He was also terrified by some "feathered horrors the size of horses dive bombing" him, so, possibly heat stroke, I'm guessing. The river is full of mussels and pond turtles according to all four migrant fish workers. And they've caught enough mussels to feed us for the next year, though I am looking forward to some turtle soup at some time. One of the herbalists also reported seeing a giant mosquito, enough of us have seen it to know its real and not a hallucination, nor was the chase it had with a giant grasshopper. Hope we get the grasshopper in a trap, there's good eatin' in one of them. There's toads all over the place, moving from one dried pond to the next in the search for
much smaller mosquitoes to eat, but there's little life in the dried mud at the bottom of each pool.
Right now, we're gearing up for the visit from traders sent by the mountainhome, we're hoping they need wooden corkscrews 'cause that's all we can give them. Athel's churning them out in between cages, beds and barrels. Ustuth has indicated we can't afford to sell any mechanisms until we dig deeper and get more stone, and I'm fine with that.
'Til next time.
Dastot Mengsefol, Chief Engineer.