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[Haspen]

Monkey innards stew is best stew, don't let your mom tell you otherwise!

[Cathar]

Wow, a lot of things ><

First of, don't worry, the puppers are doing good, and it's my project to grow their population to the point they can be used in defense against small threats, and by small threats I mean rhesus macaques specifically. I haven't mentionned that yet, but six months in, and the pups are already adult. Tho : we'll have many, many more.

On metal and gear design, and design philosophy used in MK :

In general in Mong Kima, what we do is we try to forget the real world and instead use the game's data to create an original world. Pearlites have, for exemple, nothing to do with european civilization, they are a thing in their own right. The goal of design is not to replicate our world, but to create a brand new one.
With that said, using real life inspiration is permitted, but the two main factors are :

• Is it loyal to the game data ? The rules of the game are the physics of the universe. Thats the most important stuff
• Is this cool and or fun, do people like it ? That's where artistic licence kicks in.

For reference, usually, pearlite soldiers and fighters wear an armor made of leather scales and a conic cap made of metal. The symbol of the country (a three point crown) is usually worn of the cap. Rich fighters show their wealth by using gems for the said symbol.

Tho this is for low level fighters, the kind of people you see in village defense forces or as travelling mercenaries. Thomocemir knights use metal breastplates, copper chainmail and a helmet that looks like a mixture between a beret and a samurai helmet, usually made of bronze or iron.

TL;DR :  Create new stuff, instead of relying on historical gear. Loyalty to game data > loyalty to real history

I'm absolutely sure I forgot something, I'm sorry if this is indeed the case

Edit : AH YES. The status of copper.

Copper is considered cheap... for a metal. Metal is expensive as all hell. It is, all things considered, a rare thing, and have a lot of applications in tools and gear of war. A fortress able to clad its whole military in copper is already considered rich, as most village can only afford leather, and even tho, not full armors. Keep in mind we're quite less technologically advanced than ancient egypt

[Imic]

As a study-er of History and architecture, I have to agree with Cathar. What people did in the past is all right, but coming up with your own creations, especially by interpreting pre-existing vague concepts, is immensly satisfying. Creating something unique within limitations is a wonderful thing, and the Pearlites are definetely something very unique.

[Splint]

My "loyalty to history" in this case stopped at color pallet and the design. I have a preference for the Sallet-bevor combo and light gray, and honestly it's a look that I don't think would look near as good in tan (that is, copper or bronze. I don't think it'd look good in light blue either. ) I consider it to be a style of helmet that looks cool and doesn't need any flashy embellishments, but it does need to be made from iron or steel to really shine and not look wonky (to my own tender A E S T H E T I C sensibilities anyway.) It just so happens it's also a helmet design that happens to work with Hauben's, since the back allows room for his hair.

But then, I'm a boring person who knows what he likes for armor aesthetics, and that's primarily based in real world designs, especially since you can only do so much before designs start looking garish and silly/out of place or too utilitarian and boring. Plus, I'd like to draw something pertaining to the thread, but what I've seen for helmets just don't look good to me personally.

Spoiler: A long winded tangent (click to show/hide)

Copper is one of those materials that due to its poor performance in extended combat and its extremely low value (it's worth the same as wood for gods sake,) comes off as useful only for cheap tools for would-be settlers and training for aspiring smiths. "It's better than nothing, I guess." Is probably a sentiment echoed across DF worlds with mild disappointment and during times of war, possibly even dread.

Any non-military role copper can do, wood can do just as well and for fewer resources and a fraction of the weight. For weapons and armor, literally any other martial-grade metal is better except when compared to silver, where it's an inferior mace or hammer metal but a better edged weapon metal. In DF it's just not a good material for anything beyond self defense against wild animals and as ammo or skill training, and even then anything with enough mass behind it is gonna shrug off even well-made copper weapons; hell, something big enough wearing regular cloth and leather clothes can put serious wear on iron and bronze armaments, I don't even want to think how badly it'd ruin copper weapons.

It just comes off as a material nobody should want to field ever if they can at all get anything more effective, unless they have some serious pride in the local coppersmiths' workmanship, and even then that workmanship will only do so much to compensate for material weakness against the beasts elves and goblins can often bring to bear. And not only that, just look at the elves - they could have the finest wood arms and armor ever made, but it's still wood up against metal, and it'll come apart under moderate punishment. Likewise you may have the best copper armor ever, but a guy with an iron sword or axe isn't going to give two shits about that; his weapon is objectively better than your armor, forcing a reliance on skill over equipment to be able to compensate because such a weak material just can't be trusted to withstand too much punishment, no matter how well made it is.

Besides, steel with worth its weight in gold, and iron its weight in silver. Granted getting steel to work requires trading with the dwarves for it, but still. That's being rich and extravagant, not copper. And this is a place with people looking to strike it rich in creating a new trade route, right? 

Spoiler: That tech level comment (click to show/hide)

I dunno man, last I checked ancient egypt couldn't replace stone with green glass, make two-handed swords, make chain armor, create numerous valuable alloys, or had the capacity to work iron and steel (gotta remember we can work steel, just not make it ourselves. ) In any serious quantity. Sounds a tad more advanced in the metallurgy department than ancient egypt to me.

Strictly speaking though Cathar, you're within the right to tell me to get fucked and call me wrong in absolutely every single area since this is your show.

EDIT: Edited for grammer, but on a third viewing I love just how calm and matter-of-fact that long-nosed dude sounds in my head in the previous action-y tinged update that showed that battle with the elves. "Do not surrender, we're not taking prisoners."

It's a sentiment I fully request we embrace should raiders inevitably come.

EDIT II: I do however now have a ridiculous idea for a rough sketchy comic thing. Who is the armorer?

[Haspen]

We're definitely past Ancient Rome, what with our glass making, steel, and crossbows

[Cathar]

Spoiler: About copper (click to show/hide)

I have to insist on the fact metal is super precious to pearlites. It is a very rare commodity, as we are installed mostly on areas that are totally deprived of metal - and stone but mostly metal. Copper is bad, but is more than nothing, and nothing is the standard of the kingdom. Seriously there are acquifers everywhere we go, and where there is no acquifer, theres no metal anyway. Really we are in severe metal shortage - copper would be very valuable to us

Spoiler: A note on our technological level (click to show/hide)

Well, see that's the thing ; the history of Minbazkar do not follow at all the real world history, so it would make sense to come with original designs. Tho everything we do (glass, crossbows, litteracy...) was done better by 200BC China. Plus they could into steel (altho they did bronze too).
My point is ; if you want to compare MK to a time period in real history, we're closer to antiquity than to middle ages.

Our big technological breakthroughs, compared to most other countries, is cloth making and litteracy. We're the most litterate of all human kingdoms, and we produce excellent cloth. With that said, we do not know how to make dyes, so colored clothings still look like magic to us.

All  of that is an opportunity to be creative ; plus if your design is better, I'll just adopt it and make more of it. Like in real life, best designs get copied over ; I prefer to make those designs evolve organically, if it makes sense to you.

With all of that said, the absolute best you can do is to modify existing designs from the thread. BUT if you want to come up with something original, you're very welcome. Have fun, that's the most important. I'll adapt myself to what you do.

Strictly speaking though Cathar, you're within the right to tell me to get fucked and call me wrong in absolutely every single area since this is your show.

You are by all means very welcome and I'm happy to discuss aesthetics, I just want to explain my creative process so we're on the same page. I'm very happy you've finally came to my little world o/

What else ; Joakim is the smith, but we don't have a forge yet.

And about Pathril, the commander of Thomocemir's knights...he saw a lot of things. This is his 13th battle ; since Tetzobsha was destroyed and commander Stipoth was slain, Pathril is now the most important military figure in the whole country.
In general, we tend to take prisonners and to avoid escalation of conflicts - the assault on Pilalene  was rather exceptionnal, as we needed to cripple their military and to avenge the population of Tetzobsha.

First years are usually very calm, so next update is almost ready. There's not a lot happening as long as we're less than 40 souls

[Splint]

I'll be 100% up front, I haven't tried to read the entire thing. Threads that get past a certain point I seldom get involved in because there's a ton of back-tracking to do, especially in ones that are poorly organized (Spearbreakers was a very, very harsh teacher in terms of control and organization, which is why I seldom ever get involved in things.) This is unfortunately one of those threads where going back through everything feels like a rather daunting prospect due to poor organization, and I hope I cause no offense in saying that. 

As far as aesthetics, comparisons to the real world and so on, I feel like this'd escalate into an argument very, very quickly because this is a serious case of two opposing views and mental images on Dwarf Fortress itself, and that's not going to easily reconcile. Also your insistence about copper is coming off more as choosing to make use of it over other metals. The gameplay side of me is what's screeching about not doing everything within one's power to get equipment made of better materials if for no other reason than it not falling apart in two or three serious engagements. It also makes it sound like you have garbage craftsmen and lousy brokers who are too inept to secure anything better.

Copper is just something I've come to associate with a militia operating on the material equivalent of a shoestring budget or training up new metalworkers, not with wealth, and having anyone do so just sounds wrong because of how much of a stopgap material it comes off as.

Also, as a little fun thing, I noticed something about the last helmets shown so far. They felt like a look I had seen somewhere before and then it hit me.

They share a very similar profile the the Halo 2 Anniversary marine helmets, enough that they look like an extremely primitive version of them, at least to me, assuming they maintain that gradual slope to a tapered brim.

EDIT: An apology is due alongside this because I sat here for a good 30 minutes constantly having to backtrack and pare this down so it wasn't some long-winded tirade about materials and so forth.

[Cathar]

Pfff, that's okay man. Have fun, again that's what matters. I'd rather continue that conversation in private if you want, so we don't clog the thread itself, but that is okay. Don't worry, I'll do my best to make the story great

[Imic]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At this point, we had to make a choice. It was our plan, or Duslud's life. The kid had been stabbed repeatedly at this point, his guts were open, his leg badly pierced, his left hand gone. We made our choice.



A heavily wounded Duslud was transported to the hospital in a hurry. We had to at least try and save him. In the meantime, the army moved and engaged the raiders on the bridge. Mostly slave troops...But very bad fighting conditions.



Nevertheless, the troops present on the bridge were reduced without casualties. More raiders were waiting on the other side ; my men engaged them at once.



*-*-*-*-*-*

I have plenty of female soldiers to chose from, so be my guest ! I'll make a short list, have your pick and I'll give you the full details :

Shieldbangers :
• Idem Chewfirst - 14 years old, daughter of Asin, our bookkepper
• Amak Straycrowns - 32 years old, married to another soldier

Knights :
• Uknol Skindive - 14 years old, sister of the bowman Zefer
• Ghorax Splashedbreached - 14 years old, daughter of the manager Haspen
• Puja Speakercraft - 14 years old, daughter of another knight

*-*-*-*-*

[spoiler=Bonus Luki for those who followed the prologue to this serie]

[/quote][/spoiler]
I’ve gone through the old thread to find some older examples of portraits of armoured Pearlites, and I found a page with broken images. I don’t know how many might be in this state, but I’ll have a closer look.

Edit: Here’s some images of armoured Pearlites, if it does anything for the discussion.

Spoiler: Siblings (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Gobbos (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: False alarm (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Another broken image (click to show/hide)

Just a doodle because next update will be heavy ^^'

Daaaw, Onget Cattenatag looks adorable.  Y U so good drawing!  I wish I had like 1/10th the artistic talent.

Oh thank you ! It's nothing unachievable tho !

Enother edit: The first quotes images seem to have inexplicably fixed themselves, so I don’t know what that was.

[Splint]

What civilization would those goblins happen to be from? I'm obviously not on the up and up on who is who civ-wise. Because while not as good as my original idea, I'll need a name for what I plan to reconcile the conflicting design of the helmet I'd prefer to depict Hauben with.

[Cathar]

That would be Osmestobűb, Osme, or Osme Empire for short. They are the blue-gray-skinned goblins located to the east who are expending in all directions at the moment. Thomocemir was built in part to stop their progression westward

[TD1]

Apparently not XD.

[Cathar]

Guys, I'm sorry to thread police, but for stuff that is not related to MK, can you guys do that in private or in another thread? Else the thread get cluttered and unreadable, and we've been pretty active in that department already

[Haspen]

When updoot of new fort :V

[Splint]

When it's done, I imagine. I know there's elves involved who will probably get all upset over the logging that's likely happened eventually.

Spoiler: An in-character thing. Not what I was going to do originally, but the intended effect is the same (click to show/hide)

I based this off the fact that founders generally have no pre-existing history, so there's nothing to suggest Hauben hasn't seen some messy things, and thus has room to come up with ideas concerning improving the protection of the militia. Even if it has no gameplay effect, it doesn't mean it's not something that'd be an in-universe concern.

This method allows for a change of aesthetic locally without requiring any retcons to existing designs found elsewhere or already in use on site.