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[Splint]

Sent out a scouting detail to check out an abandoned human castle about a week out factoring in travel time to and from Fireblade. They came back with an artifact quality steel short sword by the name of Coppermurders, a weapon I'd written off as acquirable a while ago when I was flipping through for artifacts and books near the place. Opal, having the highest notable kill count among the swordsdwarves, received it to replace is iron blade, which had been showing some noticeable wear after the last zombie attack.

Humans arrived, and I scored another elephant, though still no two-hander for Pine to complete is ensemble. They brought halberds, mauls, and pikes, but no swords, not even shitty copper ones. Figures they only bring the shit I don't want for two years straight, the elephant not withstanding.

Also found the possible spot where animals kept getting exposed to postlances extract, a hilariously deadly substance that caused near instant death from bleeding through the skin on the contaminated bodypart far as I can tell found on Hands of Postlances, an experiment made from goblins. Hopefully I'll stop losing dogs randomly to the stuff now.

Militia training is going well, with the two main squads currently sporting a fair number of weapon lords. Armor production for squad three is slow due to lack of hands (what with fully a third of the population tied up in militia training to get the new guys up to scratch so they can handle the next showdown with the dead.) Also had to deal with a fist fight in the tavern, but no fatalities. The goblin responsible is just gonna have to do some time in lockup for assault.

[Nilsolm]

Apparently, not only can undead lieutenants come to your fort as migrants, they can also get married to each other.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Four of them just showed up in the first migrant wave. They all have decent fighting skills. At this rate, I'll be able to create a military squad made up entirely of lieutenants. I wonder what the advantages of that would be.

Assuming it's similar across the board, they come packing some magic abilities depending on the type (the rotten zombies in Fireblade's world seem to be able to inflict dizziness, brief paralysis, and mild pain/nausea, going from the reports,) They aren't susceptible to nerve damage, possibly blood loss (unlike ghouls who are,) pain, or exhaustion, and they're retardedly strong (able to punch through steel using silver morningstars for example.) They also aren't subject to the agility penalties of regular undead

The only injury that seems to inconvenience them is broken bones. But, this is just the ones in my own world. Should make a separate copy of your game and stress test them in battle.

Well, their special power turned out to be... shooting icicles. It didn't seem very useful in a fight as most enemies just dodge them. The other advantages, though, are rather useful. They dispatched an attacking cyclops with ease. I also noticed they are completely impervious to stress, so they make ideal corpse haulers as well.

There are some drawbacks as well, though. They don't seem to be training properly like living dwarves. Most of them still have dabbling skills despite having been in an actively training squad for almost three years now. Not really sure why, but I presume it's because they are constantly tired and distracted by unmet needs. They don't seem to be able to ever fulfil their needs for some reason. One of them spent an entire year praying in the temple and was still distracted by the end of it. They also never sleep and still get affected by tiredness.

Also, one of them was elected mayor in the meantime, of course, and it leads to some funny situations. I'm picturing an unhappy dwarf crying on the shoulder of a very stoic, uncaring corpse.

Other than that, events in my current fort have been rather uninteresting. No attacks yet, apart from that one cyclops, despite being surrounded by necromancers. Not that I mind for now, since there are no useful metal ores on the map and equipping the military has been rather slow-going.

[HungThir]

They don't seem to be training properly like living dwarves.

i vaguely remember reading somewhere that undead don't learn, which if that's correct, this would make perfect sense

[Splint]

The militia, barring technically two, are now fully made of weapon masters. The Guild of Dawning, the farmer's guild, has also petitioned for a guildhall. Once completed, third squad will begin training, to get their armor user and strength up some if nothing else.

Thieves buzzed the place as well, but scampered away when the dogs spotted them. Also discovered that an on-duty (that is, active in the militia,) hammerer will still met out hammering sentences.

Not activity from the dead in some time, nor the goblins who've buzzed Fireblade a half dozen times over the past decade. Wonder what they're up to.

[Demonic Gophers]

I started a fort to do some testing on a new variety of goblin I've been putting together.  My founding seven included two deep goblins, which are supposed to be about 10% of the population.  It's a stroke of luck... kind of.  They have a lot of advantages, but they're also bloodsuckers, so Ghoulrooted may be needing coffins sooner than I was planning.

[doublestrafe]

Got my Barony thanks to the goblins who economically linked to me previously. Now I've had a troupe move in: two goblins and two dwarves, one of whom has a goblin name. The dwarves and one of the goblins are apprentices to Stozu, the master poet. I dug into his history, and I really kind of like him. He's been married twice; his second wife is Stāsost Indigoghoul. I've always been a fan of the Indigo Ghouls.

Now something weird is happening. One of Stozu's other apprentices has shown up, with the message "Aye Eyilamafi, Elf Poet has returned." He hasn't returned very much, though. He's stuck at the edge of the map and isn't moving. Not sure what's to be done about this. Besides kill him.

[Fleeting Frames]

They don't seem to be training properly like living dwarves.

i vaguely remember reading somewhere that undead don't learn, which if that's correct, this would make perfect sense

Nah, it's the tiredness. The experiments have NO_EXERT, which locks their tiredness, and individual combat drills ignore that, and only give skills when not tired (and thus doing the Individual Combat Drill/Resting).

Which is why they're dabbling and tired; you can't train no-exert creatures with drills.

[Nilsolm]

They don't seem to be training properly like living dwarves.

i vaguely remember reading somewhere that undead don't learn, which if that's correct, this would make perfect sense

Nah, it's the tiredness. The experiments have NO_EXERT, which locks their tiredness, and individual combat drills ignore that, and only give skills when not tired (and thus doing the Individual Combat Drill/Resting).

Which is why they're dabbling and tired; you can't train no-exert creatures with drills.

Funny enough, one of them seems to be training just fine despite being tired and distracted all the time. It's the one that was appointed militia commander, so maybe being appointed to squad leader overwrites that somehow. I'll have to try turning the other two into militia captains and giving them their own squads to see if that works once I get around to playing again.

[Naryar]

Embarked right on top of a cave. Went straight in for the caverns, wanting to settle them and make a cavern fort, was expecting a few creatures but...



There's a legendary skill ettin (not sure what skill it is) in the caverns. Which feels quite weird. For some reason it is wearing three artifacts. Including a slab with the secrets of life and death. Which is sure to bring me !!FUN!! later.

It's marked as Current Resident, so looks like I accidentally embarked on a semimegabeast's lair. Man, itt's been a while since I did that. Granted, ettins are pretty unthreatening in general but it still killed the first monster slayer that happened very, very quickly. In fact, that's how I learned of the ettin's existence.

And it's a she. So she hasn't aggroed any of my dwarves, and does not seem excessively hostile but I don't wanna tempt it because I only have seven starting dwarves, and I'm fairly sure she'll clobber any dwarf that approaches too close. She's been hunting crundles so far.

Now what should I do with it ? I have my ideas, but I'm a bit stumped by this big, two-headed surprise. Cage traps, or just wall off the caverns ? I'm half tempted to add [PET] to the raws, tame themp and make them a local attraction.

[Superdorf]

Could drop a stalactite on its head. Or carve some fortifications and marksdwarf it. Or cage it. Or train a legendary military and engage it in glorious combat. Point is, you have options!

[delphonso]

Personally, I would cage it and then move it to the front of the fort. Make any intruders get past the great protector Ettin! The holder of the secrets of life and death!

[Naryar]

Could drop a stalactite on its head. Or carve some fortifications and marksdwarf it. Or cage it. Or train a legendary military and engage it in glorious combat. Point is, you have options!

Hmm, yes, I forgot the tactical cave-in option. That would be fun.

Marksdwarves... eh, they barely even work those days, and I do not have a real fort to get military out of it. Same for military, that's in 3 years at most.

I'm thinking cage traps are the most overpowered simplest solution.

[Demonic Gophers]

It's late autumn in the first year at Ghoulrooted.  The population is now up to 20 goblins and 5 trolls; no deep goblins showed up in the migrant waves, so they are now the expected 10% of the population.  Group leader Osta Carnagemenaces now has three children - one with each of the female ditch goblins among the founders.  With the SLOW_LEARNER tag, the caste seems to be prolific as expected.  Osta also has one kill, a troll.  I saw a sleeping troll earlier that was faint from blood loss.  Not sure if the kill was the same one, and it hadn't fully recovered, or if it was a smaller troll that couldn't survive the drain.  Osta was horrified to see it die and raged while killing it.  I probably need to give sentient blood a positive-thought syndrome to help keep blood drinkers happy.

I forgot to give the goblin entity wheelbarrows, so I'm relying mainly on the trolls for moving stone.  Hopefully my deep goblins won't kill them off faster then they grow.  There's a ton of gabbro on site, so I'm using gabbro blocks for my above-ground construction.  Gives a pretty good dark tower look.

[Splint]

Finally beginning construction on an outer curtain wall, using the massive amounts of chalk acquired from shaving the hillside into clearly-unnatural contours. Fireblade's been without for almost 11 years, relying on a pair of drawbridges and a locked set of double doors in the tombs, as well as watch animals and a hopefully-swift response time from the militia to keep out trespassers. It's resulted in the occasional fatality, usually from wander werebeasts.

There's also a plan to agitate The Shanks of Crafting, a necromancer cult that controls virtually the entire hinterland around Fireblade, making it impossible for Fireblade to achieve proper recognition. Plus it's been dreadfully boring the last year and a half with nothing to actually do aside from kill the occasional ghoul that wanders in or execute insane prisoners who cop to trying to rob the temple. I've also boosted the allowed enemy count, since I've gotten two units of fighting men raised and ready.

Lost two bards to old age - humans, one who I hadn't realized was an old man who bore the title of "The Gloomy," and another who the dwarves had come to call "Granny" on account of her being in her late seventies when she first arrived in Fireblade as an itinerant musician. Gloomy died in prison in his sleep, convicted with a long stay for colluding with an outsider to steal Prairiequick (why does everyone want that stupid boat?) While Ganny died after a new years performance in the tavern. A goblin bard named Seal died  due to alcohol poisoning, and a guard dog was killed in a wereskink attack as well. Good thing 2nd Squad was still mostly in the barracks, otherwise I'm sure there would have been worse fatalities.

Another dwarf was killed by a kobold when the unarmed fool tried to confront the thief with the aid of two dogs. Unfortunately, what should have been an easy win turned into the dwarf bleeding out from a slash to the throat, and the dogs veering off to chase a second kobold spotted right after the first that was slightly closer. Kao, the closest soldier, tried to run them down but failed to catch him before the little bastard fled off-map. Tempted to leave some junk up around the spot they keep coming from for them to steal so they'll come and fight me.

The Guildhall is complete, and armoring third squad is nearly finished - Pine had to be barred from assisting because it turns out units make armor for the maker's race, not the fort's race, and we didn't need 8 suits of human-sized steel plate. They'll be able to begin training soon.

[Naryar]

Well, the third monster slayer killed the ettin. I'm surprised how well they fared against it, really. The second would have killed it if they didn't ran out of bolts (due to hunting a giant toad beforehand) and panicked. So long for my cage trap bait system.

Also my fort is a mess cuz all the cavern animals are getting right in my dwarves's faces. Miasma from dead animals, panicked elk birds, crundles getting wrestled by dwarves. Thankfully no losses apart from a dog. I got my first migrant wave, up to 15, and it gives me some sorely neeeded dwarfpower. Now I can start walling up the caverns, start stoneworking and brewing industries, and build a proper cavern fort.

Edit : DID I JUST GET A LEGENDARY WEAPONSMITH ??