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[Tarrasque]

Hell, I will take seventh if this is still active then.  

[Arkan15]

Dude, I totally want to use Thimeth as my character.

[ September 24, 2007: Message edited by: Arkan15 ]

[Fedor]

<<Ebe>>
Calmed down, we sleep the sleep of the hard-working.  Nothing like hitting a hard stone floor sweaty, exhausted, and proud.

Late Slate:

Soothed by the sweet darkness and quiet waters we all oversleep, but soon forgive ourselves as we see each other competing to be the one of greatest benefit to all.  As is now making beds; she promises a bunk for each of us by the time we nap again.  Thimeth and I are past the river.  We'll extend the main corridor well into the mountain, as past that natural moat is where we intend to mostly live and work.  Mechanic Ongu is most valuable dwarf right now; she has to get two floodgates working and do it quickly; we're running out of food.

Early Felsite:

On the 7th of Felsite, our farm is ready for flooding.  A door-locking and a couple of lever pulls later, and two very happy farmerdwarves are racing each other to be the first to get a plant into the ground.  Plump helmets will be our staple crop, but we have the seeds, the time, and the dwarves to get at least one crop of sweet pods and one of pig tails to add variety to our meals.  I get dizzy just thinking of the coming parties...

My happy thoughts are interrupted by Cemir the Mason approaching.  Cemir spent an apprenticeship with the flood engineers of Kingsmountain; thrown out on the street to make way for a nobleman's younger son, he nevertheless didn't waste what time he had.  She explans that, firstly, seasonal and accidental floods are two of the most dangerous things in a dwarven fort; apparently, more dwarves die to floods than to any wild beast.  She's already designed our new riverside gateways, now the floodplain is her topic.  Given that the raw materials of the cave river and its floodplain will be important to our prosperity, she earnestly proposes that we cease digging west and immediately set up two fortified floodzones, one on each side of the main corridor.  Both will only be accessable though a set of doors and traps; movement in and out will be carefully controlled.

I immediately detail myself and Thimeth to dig out her northern zone; we have plans for those herbs.  

Mid-Felsite:

Our farmers are hard at work.  Cemir the Mason and Ongu the Mechanic both shift their production closer to available stone as they exhaust the supply near the entrance.  The two of them have grown thick as thieves during the construction of the farm and now appear to be plotting something rather ambitious as a permanent path across the river.  The diagrams have more traps then I personally think necessary.  But, then, I'm not the boobytrap layer.  Leave hard-working dwarves alone, unless you want an axe in the head, that's my motto.

I catch our farmers wandering around between seed-planting jobs and lock them in the farm room.

Thimeth is also caught; he's grabbed our last turtle.  Now, the LEADER is supposed to get the last tender morsel, and his punishment now is to be cook for a while.  Dwarven wine, plump helmet seeds, and prickle berry seeds will be his menu options.  Boys are so cute when they sulk.

We also have two mules that need slaughtering.  We're short on labor (which is why we haven't done it yet), but now sweet Ongu is persuaded to become part-time butcher.  She is promised lots of time with her traps once we can get food on the table.  I mentally kick myself for not setting up an initial farm plot on the ground wetted by the intitial flood; would have let us get in a quick crop of plump helmets to tide us over until the floodgate farm could yield.

I wander past the kitchen ... and there find Thimeth sweating over a gargantuan meal.  He's stuffed in 25 units of dwarven wine - most of our stock - and two seeds to make enough food to feed the seven of us for half a year.  I congratulate him in front of everyone (and suppress my opinion of the taste).  The mules - and Ongu - are given a reprieve.

Of course, that does leave us with the small problem of a 5 unit liquor stockpile.  It might hold out until we get something to brew, and it might not.

We strike copper ore.  We also see tin right in the area we plan to excavate for our southern floodzone, and zinc not far south of that.  This mountain is really growing on me...

Late Felsite:

I dig out the copper seam north of the corridor but more than half of the metal is destroyed by my clumsiness.  Thimeth catches me wrecking a nugget and glares.  I'm still embarrased when I think of it...

Cemir sets up a statue just past the river and calls it a garden.  It's about the crudest thing any of us have ever seen - even the slums of the old country are better chisled - but it's what we have and we're grateful for it.  Dwarves without a sense of beauty are moles.

Early Hemetite:

Summer is here.  Cemir warns of seasonal flooding and so I brusquely order a farmer (all the tilled land now being cropped) to finish up the fortification holes in our northern floodzone and thereby turn it into a natural herb farm.  He gets let out when he is well and truly done the job.

Thimeth discovers a massive copper seam in our main corridor and just to the south.  He sets up "do not dig here" signs all around the juicest-looking beds; we'll practice some more before tackling anything so valuable.  I do the same with a Chrysoberyl cluster that looks wonderously rare and terribly fragile.  This is such a change from the old country.  None of the seven of us ever owned anything made of chrysoberyl; we would have given a year's hard labor to have something so wonderful as that for our own.  Now, with gems for the taking, we keep them encased in rock for fear of breakage.  So strange a change in our hearts has our change in fortunes wrought.

Cemir complains of having to drink from the river.  I sheepishly promise booze soon.  That what leaders are for:  hear the complaints, take the blame, and make promises.  You ask for a solution?  The solution lies with our farmers, who truly are doing all they can; all I can do is not get in the way.

Early/Mid-Hemetite:

We get a few days warning of the coming inundation by a slow rise in the water level beforehand.  I've locked all six doors on both sides of the bridges, but it's quite unnecessary; everyone except me is fast asleep on new-built beds in the barracks.  As the flood proper hits, it pours through the fortifications to the north, just as most excellent Cemir said it would.  I - O, virtuous I! - am beavering away south of the main corridor.  I'm getting more and more good at this mining stuff and find my Toughness increasing daily.  Thimeth became Agile a while back and - until I put him to cooking for Totally Unrelated Reasons - was actually more skilled at mining than me.

A little damp but quite safe, I gaze with quiet satisfaction at a more-or-less-tamed flood.

Mid/late Hematite:

I join the others in sleep.  When we wake, those of us who thirst must drink from the river.  There is grumbling in my direction.  There is most especially grumbling in my direction when I time my own thirst to happen 2 seconds after the first first plump helmet out of the field is brewed.  Here you see me guzzling.  My, I can pack it away.

You also see Cemir's latest project; a bridge faced with dressed marble blocks.  It's not the most impressive span in the world, but it outdoes the grey rock slab currently over the river as much as gold outdoes brass.  Since I can't understand her and Ongu's diagrams, I leave all this to them.  Yessir, I'm GOOD at this delegation stuff.

Early Malachite:

Thimeth taps into a siver vein!  We are finding treasures everywhere.  It begins to dawn on us all that, if we survive this adventure, we're going to be seven extremely wealthy dwarves.  One by one, we each take a few days off to give thanks to Armok, master-forger of the created world.  Newly marveling, newly hopeful, we return to our labors.

Mid-Malachite:

We miners have carved out both Cemir's floodplains and my own cloverleaf workrooms.  Thimeth gets put to hauling (everyone's gainfully employed and we lack hands to shift stuff) while I head deeper into the mountain to discover what mysteries it hides.  Ore and valuable gems are amazingly abundant and accessable; we can but wonder what kept the mighty crag of Palath-halir from becoming a magnet for brave dwarves long ere this.

Erod finds a quarry bush!  Quarry bushes are the well-established dwarf's best friend:  Good to eat, wonderful in stews and roasts, nothing packs so much good taste into such a small space as a stack of quarry bush leaves!  Yummy for our tummies!  But not this year; we lack bags and dwarves who know how to thresh.

As is happily taking a break from farming to brew up more delightful nectars.  He's offering free samples of not just Dwarven Wine, but Dwarven Rum and Dwarven Ale as well.  Productivity has, naturally, gone to the dogs.

Late Malachite:

A 1-gram dead monarch butterfly releases a massive cloud of miasma, disgusting most of us as we pass by the food-preparation area.  Happily, our stockpiles are unaffected.

Roughly 155 spaces from the front entrance I find what seems a void.  It is only with much shining about of lights that those I call realize what we've just found; a long - we cannot see either end, deep - we cannot see the bottom, pitch-black fracture in the mountain.  We have none of us ever seen such a thing at home, but we've all heard stories.  Most of the stories have unhappy endings for the dwarves involved.  Ongu the Mechanic takes a couple of days away from her mechanism-making to study the area and scribbles out a temporary plan of defence.  To no-one's great surprise, skull-smashing traps are featured on the menu.

As the Brewer has been hard and effectively at work turning fresh plump helmets and sweet pods into delicious alchohol.  Only lack of labor prevents us from making food and drink for an army!

Thakom and Ongu have a mutual project going:  "Make lots of cage traps before Ebe puts us to hauling!"

Me?  I am lost in thought.  I now know enough about the structure of the depths of Palath-halir to make major decisions on what our new home can look like.  My problem is deciding what it should look like.  In the end, I decide that I lack the skill to determine over-much and cut my musing short having scribbled out the following sketch:

We will not cross the chasm soon.  We will someday need to cultivate tower-tops on a large scale for reasons both of potential wood scarcity and outside perils, but our focus now will be on building a proper dwelling-place between the river and the chasm, with farms, food processing, Great Hall, and (temporary) living spaces all housed within a vast complex that should, hopefully, be convenient, defensible, and expandable.

This is my most important decision as leader.  I took it after seeking counsel of each of my companions, but the responsibility for any failure will be mine alone.

[ September 25, 2007: Message edited by: Fedor ]

[Adalore]

Ooo, Very neat Floor plan you got going, Way more complex then what I am used to making.

Hope I don't scorn the design of the fort when It's my turn.

[Tarrasque]

Indeed, it looks rather neat, but, the only thing I worry about is that it looks like the main hallway is only three tiles wide at max.

[Fedor]

Late Malachite:

Zaran Isikothvir the Metalsmith arrives with an anvil!  She's tired, dirty, and has some harrowing tales to tell, but she's alive and finally she's rejoined us.  After subtracting three - the deaths of whom she's certain - we're still missing five dwarves out of our original party of 16.  Despite the appalling risk of attracting attention, we've kept up signal fires and sent lookouts to the heights, but so far only Zaran has arrived.  We nervously scan for wildlife, but the only predator (a skeletal giant leopard) is far away.  On the 25th of Malachite Zaran lugs her massive iron anvil pass safely across the fortress threshhold.

Over dinner that night, Zaran describes how she survived.  After eating rations, jugged meat, skinned mice, and finally donkey leather she fell in with a human caravan.  In exchange for her shaping their metal bars, they fed her, clothed her, and told her of smoke rising from high Palath-halir.  We are beginning to attract attention.

Early Galena:

Attention of all kinds, apparently.  We've seen giant leopards and skeletal leopards:  Why not giant skeletal leopards?

I fall asleep.  As I dooze, Cemir puts the finishing touches on a dressed marble span across the cave river.  Wide, broad, strong, and beautiful, it is the most impressive work of we dwarves of Palath-halir so far.  As we others wake to marvel, Cemir deprecates the work, noting that her design is but half-accomplished.  Ongu is close in consultation with her.

Early/Mid-Galena:

While I was asleep, Zaran started her own project:  She's smooth-talked tough but innocent Thakom into logging further and further along the river, and - by her own unaided efforts - designed, dressed, built, and is now operating a charcoal furnace.  Black smoke rises from the slow-burning trees she and Thakom haul in.

I go on break and wander out into the brilliant sunshine of a summer day.  Zaran meets me at the entranceway and takes me aside.  She speaks.  She speaks of gleaming ore, she speaks of sounding hammers, she speaks of the hot tang of molten bronze and the wonder of ductile steel.  She speaks of traditions, of the way of our people, of what Armok meant for dwarves to do.  And, finally, with a calculating look into my soul, she speaks of a spear.  For my very own.

She and Thakom get let off food-hauling detail.  As I go back inside, they cheer and high-five.

Late Galena:

I've put him to cooking, I've put him to hauling, I've put him to gathering plants, but it's time right now to just come out and admit that Thimeth is getting better at mining faster than I am.  I can endure hardship and wounds better than anyone else in our party, but when it comes to breaking and clearing and hauling and running and dodging, Thimeth bears the bell away.  He is becoming almost ... romantic.

Early Limestone:

It is fall.  Winter approaches.  Food, drink, and seeds for next year's harvest are all not where they should be, but it begins to looks like none of us will go hungry before the spring harvest.  Our single bitch gives birth to puppies; unfortunately for future canine breeding, both are male.

Zaran's made her charcoal.  She's got herself, Thakom, and anyone else she can weedle into lending a hand lugging dirty black bars towards the malachite and casserite veins just southeast of the river bridge.  I really don't understand how she persuades people, but she's got me wanting to haul ore just to see that spear take form.

Ongu isn't helping Zaran's project, having more than enough work of her own to do as it is.  While she's managed to secure both the front entrance and the chasm gate, the river traps are just chalk lines right now.  They gather dust as Ongu pursues a second project:  When Zaran spoke of traders, she was the most eager listener and now she's commandered the main hall just past the bone/shell pile for a rough but perfectly serviceable trade depot.  The very next day she ropes off a craftworking area, hauls in a table, and begins to bang out stone toys.  With still-novice eye and hand she is turning over-abundant loose rock into something of value.

Mid/late-Limestone:

Dwarven traders arrive!  This means dwarven food!  Dwarven drink!  Meat, leather, cloth!  They cross our tiny bridge over the river with their nimble-footed mules and trot into the fortress with shouts of gladness to see fellow dwarves.  

They bear the first news of home we've had in almost a year ... and that news is well worth hearing.  By order of the King, we of Diamondlucid are officially a Outpost!  All of us - who are collectively described in the official letter as "Citizens of Palath-halir" - are manumitted - released from servitude as free dwarves!  Apparently, by dwarven tradition extending back to the misty past, any dwarven founder of a new settlement cannot be ever again held to bondage.  None of us have ever been addressed as "citizen" before.  We walk a little taller knowing we have made our liberty good.

The traders then speak of migrating dwarves seeking new homes - homes like Diamondlucid.  Yeah, we dwarves are cracked that way:  Never mind the giant skeletal leopards, the swamp-miasma, the dark fortress we can see from the heights on a clear day - we'll flood into a fortres 'till the goblins wipe us out.  Zaran, cheered by all, offers a toast to us Dwarves:  "We may not be human-tall, we may not be elven-graceful, but we're too crazy to quit, and now this crag BELONGS TO US!"

Early Sandstone:

Shouts from As and Erod bring me dashing into the fields, pick at hand.  The threat turns out to be a cave spider, small in size but capable of a bite that has permenent effects on the victim.  Unfortunately, I can't catch or kill the tiny critter; we need a cat to keep the vermin down around here!

The Dwarven traders enjoy our company but winter comes on and they have other places to go.  We frantically rush a few more trinkets to the depot and finally manage to close a deal for most of their stock.  Only the expensive giant cave spider stuff is not bought.  Ognu accepts the praises of all of us - and gets first choice of the meat.

I start cracking the whip.  No food's going to rot at the depot on MY watch!  Everyone except farmers As and Erod get drafted into my chain-gang; working together, we get the perishables to the stockpile in double-quick time.

[Fedor]

Mid-Sandstone:

The traders start packing up.  Zaran gathers us all around her metal forge.  There, she climbs up on a slag-heap and sweeps her hand to indicate the six bars of bright bronze she's smelted.  We all applaud - who could not at such a work? - but she's not done.

"Fellow citizen-dwarves of Palath-halir, we stand here at the beginnings of greatness.  I have never witnessed, heard, or read of such wealth in ore and crystal as we have here!  The silver-mountain of Zarak-zigil?  Overrated!  The gems of deep Gonofar, the "Diadem of Kings"?  Not so clear and bright as those we mine!  The pure copper masses of Tarmentazad?  The seams of ice-moated Turmin'Giltar?  We have the riches of both and more!  Here are the firstfruits.  The first bar becomes a spear for our noble leader, Ebe.  That leaves five.  What shall we make with them, O most long-bearded of dwarves?"

We dwarves just love this "What shall we make?" game.  We pull up chairs, we roll up kegs, we roast pop-slugs over a fire and jump into the action.  Speeches for and against, refereed (and scored) shouting matches, challenge-screaming, table-smashing, flowery eloquence (and thrown dimple cups), ... basically, we blow the whole day devising the following list:

1 spear
2 crossbows
2 war hammers
1 battleaxe

With a prayer to the Forger Unforged, Zaran heats the metal.

Mid-Sandstone:

The traders pack up.  At their last dinner with us, they speak with grudging respect of the great ox-wagon caravans of human merchant-princes lumbering, heavy and well-guarded, on the great trade routes that form a web between our cities and theirs.  Cemir puts down her mug to listen.  She must have been enthralled because I manage to sneak the drink right out from under.

Late Sandstone:

Thimeth and I mostly finish carving out the area I plan to have furnished by the end of the year.  We join most of the others in hauling furniture to furnish the vast caverns - empty except for an amazing quantity of ore.  Ognu is left off the rotation; she has enough to do in linking up levers.  Just as the month turns, she puts the finishing touches to her and Cemir's great work:  A bridge, completely faced with veined marble.  She estastially pulls the final lever and the side bridges rise, forming walls.  Cemir's gotten me to mobilize and try to stand on the edge of the bridge; I can't, which means a flood can't throw me off.
     

But all is not quite well around here!  Both farmers are lying at their ease!  Why?  Those two rascals are holding a "harvest festival" that's lasted more than ten days so far, despite a real shortage of helping hands to gather in the ripening crops.  Thinking bitter thoughts, I tell the six remaining dwarves that everyone not playing Kick-me-Kobold is needed in the fields to prevent spoilation.  I'm going to give those layabouts one more week, and then I mobilize their little fannies.

Early Timber:

Sixteen days of raucous partying end.  As and Erod get a bucket of water each and sober up.  They're great friends now - heck, they probably told each other all their life secrets - but I want some work out of them.  

Mid-Timber:

The six of us who can hold their drink - yes I'm talking to you! - have been busy enough for eight:  We've set up honest-to-Armok bedrooms for all of us; they're just temporary arrangements in the same grand chamber as our maximally primitive dining room, but each have some personal space.  The food growing and preparation area is about half-way furnished.  It's all very crude-looking - unexcavated ore nuggets everywhere, no smoothing whatsoever, not a piece of personal furniture except for beds sectioned off by hanging sheets of thatched reed - but we're all convinced that we're looking here at a future home worthy of dwarves.
     

Late Timber:

Cemir is just as glad to see something closer to real bedrooms as the rest of us are, but her brows are furrowed.  I ask her why, and she takes me on a tour of her workshops.

"Ebe, I've taken the words of the dwarven traders to heart.  We need a road.  I could head up a work gang and get us a dirt path in less than two weeks, but it would need replacing every year.  I could throw up a rough rock path in less then six weeks with not a whole lot of help; although that would last, frankly it would like like kobold scrapings.

Ma'am, I want a road faced with moonstone to our home here.  I want it straight and bright and beautiful.  I want to see every migrant who walks on it to high Palath-halir come inside already happy because he's seen something worth the gazing on.  To get it, I need most of us to fetch and carry, I need at least the rest of the year, and I need some food and tables and drink to stay near the entrance 'till we're done."

I muse on this request.  I muse on it hard.  When this particular dwarf dreams of masterworks, she don't mess around.  I sorta wanted to dig out a tree farm, I was mighty interested in fully shifting our operations well before spring, and I was eying potential spots to put a modest statue garden commemorating the founders, but the sheer absurdity of an eight-dwarf outpost building a road worthy of a prince enthralls me.  The chasm for all small-minded deeds!  What of the cost?  What of the time?  What of the jaguars?  We'll DO IT REGARDLESS!

I gather the eight.  "Dwarves, Cemir wants a road.  We're going to build it for her.  We're heading for the sunshine, I'm locking the doors to the river entranceway, and none of us will see a bed until we finish.  If I catch any of you headed past the cave river, you'd better have a leopard riding your ass, or I'll geld you to stop a coward breeding."

Raucous cheers resound in the cavern.  We race for the entrance.

(OOC: this job's going to take long enough without dummies trying to haul stone from the chasm).

Early Moonstone:

By the 9th of the month, all the last-minute scampering around is under control and everyone's mining, hauling stone, or dressing rocks. ... Or eating, drinking, sleeping, or wandering around, as the case probably is when Cemir and I aren't watching.  Ever tried to herd pixies?  We dwarves are just as bad - actually, we're worse, because pixies don't scream and throw axes when riled.
     

From left to right, we see a mason's shop (with a very happy mason), a moonstone pile (moonstone's on the way), a grey rock pile, a food and liquor stash positioned for easy access, and a bunch of not-so-happy haulers.  Can't please all the dwarves all the time.

One thing we don't see are any nasty felines.  There's only one in sight right now and he's far away.  Let's work fast before this changes...

Mid-Moonstone:

Thakom's had enough.  She wants to get on a few little projects of her own, and she just can't bear to see all these perfectly healthy dwarves tote stupid rocks for Somebody Else when they ought to be hauling willow wood for her!  She knows that she may never get a better opportunity to get a serious woodpile set up, and so fans my ear with a battleaxe until I tell her to go away and chop trees.

Late Moonstone:

A quiet period devoted largely to haulage of great quantities of stone and wood.  As notices a (relative) shortage of liquor and prepared meals and dips into our large stock of fresh vegetables to get dainties on the table and firewater in the kegs.  We currently have roughly 100 brewable units of plants in stock.  Even with the occasional nibbling on a tender plump helmet, that's still enough to make an awful lot of booze, which, cooked, will provide food for twice our present numbers for a very long time.  In fact, a quick back-of-the-tablet calculation shows that we have at least 10 dwarf-years of food and drink and possibly much more.  Farmer/Herbalist Erod takes charge of the stone smoothing needed to clear away the pits and outcroppings too rough to put a road over.

Early Opal:

Cemir falls ill from overwork!  (Actually, she went on break but that wouldn't suit the story...)  The rest of us offer to dress stone and lay roads, but she tells us that the first will be done but slowly, and the second but poorly, by unskilled hands.  Now that we have hauled the stone she needs she can take care of the rest.  Given more time and fewer cats.

Ognu plays architect just long enough to set up a raisable bridge in the now-widened entranceway.  She eventually plans to attach the mechanisms and set up the control system needed to fully block the outside entrance on demand.  What's got her puzzled is where to actually site the lever; we want it in a secure site to stop the gremlins, but also one near the main arteries of traffic so a nearby dwarf can run to the lever and pull it quickly.

Mid-Opal:

Thakom Orbworked is normally a tough, efficient dwarf.  She was smart enough to log on the far side of the river first, and only then to clear the near side, crossing the little bridge only twice.  However, with the trees all felled, she's taken to blissfully wandering in the wilderness doing precisely no work.  This is what happens when we get locked away from our indoor statue garden...

And now, she's attracted furry attention.
     

If I did not have lookouts scanning the wilderness constantly, Thakom would be lunch soon.  As it is, I have just enough time to race for the drum we use as a signalling device and wail away furiously with a stick on it, screaming for everyone to Get Inside Right Now!

To my horror, Thakom doesn't listen.  I stare in shock as she dances on the grass and the great cat comes closer...closer...closer.  Suddently a idea hits me!  Unlock the doors to the indoor statue garden!  Thakom delightedly races inside and we, equally delighted, watch as the mighty predator is bilked of its meal.  We blow rasberries at the slinking feline.

Some of us sleep.  Thimeth and I get back to mining.  Since we cannot get the road built right now, I've reverted to my original plan and that plan is to finish digging out the new fortress center.  Both farmers, supported by Ongu and Zaran, tackle the serious business of shifting and reorganizing our food stockpiles.  By next spring, we need to be ready to plant, crop, thresh, brew, cook, haul, and serve at our new site.

Late Opal - early Obsidian:

Cemir narrowly watches the scouting jaguar and comes back outside, aggressively pushing her project forward in the face of hazards.  She knows that she'll never get a road built in these parts without courage - and won't survive to completion without unceasing, lynx-like vigilance.  She dances in and out of the fort as the jaguar advances and turns away.

Our farmers make real progress in shifting the food and drink.  One of their maneuvers - stripped of the haulage jargon they seem to speak more and more - is to set the old stockpiles to accept nothing, but not to destroy them until empty for fear of spoilage.  I also see them whipping a clean rag over the meals that some idiot keeps lying around and and calling it a "stockpile".  And then they instruct the correct stockpile to take from it.

Head buzzing, I return to mining.  And see Thimeth.  He has grown wonderous fast these past months.  Strong and tough and Masterful, he is so greatly my superior in mining that I would not be honest if I did not admit it - and would not be a worthy leader if I did not now decide a thing:

"Thimeth, the two of us will not mine the ore we have so carefully set aside.  I have seen you, with strong and gentle hands, carve out a nugget to perfection.  I cannot do this, not yet.  You will mine the ore and gems ... and I will help haul."
     

Mid-Obsidian:

A giant skeletal jaguar relieve the giant jaguar on Dwarf-Annoyance duty and investigates Cemir's stone block workshop.  Cemir spends her idle time hauling food.

Mid-late Obsidian:

Hard work at hauling.  Hard work on the ore seams.  Hard work attaching the second floodgate so our new farm can be wetted.  Hard work, hard work for all ... except those damn-fool farmers who go on break again.

Ognu pulls the lever and floods our new farm.  We don't have to plant immediately - in fact, we could get away with not planting for an entire season - but the farm is ready for almost as much growing as we please anyway.  We DO, however, need some more booze within the month.

I retire as leader.  The fort is bigger than I can easily understand, the future vaster than I can well comprehend.  Greater souls, broader minds, more expert hands and eyes must make fair Palath-halir - bright Diamondlucid - all it can be.  And it can be so much.
     

Year end:

At the turning of the year, the eight of us again stand and clasp forearms.  Cemir leads us in a prayer to the god who created this world and us:

"May high as Hope upsheer our towers, our fair-dawning garden thrive,
May deep as Faith and dark as Judgment our unplumbed foundations dive.
May wide as Mercy, white as moonlight, stretch our fore courts to the dawn;
May we dare this, bright commandment: ‘Let it rise as it is drawn.’"!

(adapted from Runyard Kipling's poem "Akbar's Bridge")

[ September 25, 2007: Message edited by: Fedor ]

[Fedor]

Righto, next up!

The updated list:

RETIRED - 1st year: Fedor
2nd year: Adalor
3rd year: Arkan15
4th year: Novocain, with Grek as sub
5th or 6th year: Turgid Bolk
5th or 6th year (2): Grek, with Markham as sub

The next leader is responsible for updating this list.

+++

Tarrasque, hopefully the corridor (now complete) will look a little more satisfactory.

[Arkan15]

Savegame?

[Name Lips]

Wonderful story so far! I'm getting a real feel for dwarven society.

Imagine a bunch of fortresses infested with nobles and with tons of dwarves sitting around, sleeping on the floor, unable to even make enough money for a tiny one-cot bedroom. These are the dregs of society. Every now and then a noble has them arrested for failing to produce a moonstone music box or a clear glass piccalo, they sleep on rough stone, and the only thing they can do to make ends meet is pull a lever back and forth all day (hoping nobody notices it's not hooked up to anything). They'd do anything to have a real position of value, in a real fortress.

So that's why we have CRAZY dwarfs scattering all over the world to the most god-awful sites trying to establish fortresses. They've tired of their meek existences at established forts, and have nothing better to do than strike off, risk death, and try to be the founders of a new Dwarf Fortress.

[Adalore]

I got the save no worrys, its the wounder of PM's, I will start working on getting some where on it as soon as I can, that leads to me getting it to work first.

I was kinda hoping to play EQ2 intil my turn but well it already happened, so expect some updates even if that are low grade to what your used to.

Also to the vet's of Succession games, maybe post a Tut on how to do it smoothly, with good images in good places.

As I am a image happy spammer when I attempt to do things of this sort.

[Adalore]

Alright mateys! lets get this rolling.

I changed Ebe's profession name so I can keep track who was the past leader.

I also picked the Mason to play as, Under the nick name Delaar.

----Early Granite----

Well crud, I just had to pull the short straw.
Even being here for a whole year has not dampen my homesickness.
But while I am here I ought to make the most of it, but why did the mantle have to be given to me? I am just a simple mason.

Ebe told me where and what all of the levers do, so now I just need to do my best, I just hope that will suffice.

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OOC: BLARG I think one of the miners got stuck while puting a statue in the way of the river, I wanted to make sure nothing was able to get in or out (Besides big things at least) And now I am pretty sure the miner is stuck, Is it ok if I use the teleport thingie?

Uh never mind I gave a mine order and he moved, few.
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[ September 25, 2007: Message edited by: Adalore ]

[Adalore]

----Early/Mid Granite----

About time, we have the farms up and going, and I am setting up a Craft Area South of the Main hall, going to attempt to keep the same Style as the main hall, at least that will add some Order in this outpost.

---Farms
:p
--

----Mid slate----

The Giant Skeletal cat has self Our field of vision, but a normal one took it's place, All work outside will cease intil farther notice. (In smaller text) Jeeze scared me...

In other news the foot work for the Craft hall is almost done, I am planing to place nice large piles of each type in that area, later I will enlarge the Underground forest to be.

--- End of entry

Ah well this is going much better then I thought it was gonna, When I can I will  do the road, Hope I can get a military, thats what most of the Immagrats are gonna become if I can make em do that. but now! I MUST HAVE PANCAKES!!

I will do more later.

[Fedor]

Oh, cool, you're going to make an underground forest.  Armok knows this particular fortress will have a use for one!

Loved the "I didn't expect to choose a female dwarf" bit.  It took me almost the entire year to figure out that As, Erod, Cemir, Zaran, Ognu, and even Thakom were *all* female.  Seven out of eight.  If it weren't for odd-man-out Thimeth, we'd be a pure-Amazon burg.

[Adalore]

I haven't really done an Underground forest before, But I will just extremely Extend the nile farms, that ought to give us a chunk of tree's.

Also I am currently Writing out the next bit, I have it around 3/4th's writen on the other tab in my browser.

This is fun, Looking forward to the next version's succession games.