The founding of Rusticgrowl by The Craters of Failing
A logbook written by Saneb Kabdugan Expedition leader and member of The Craters of Failing, citizen of The Gloves of Requirement
Sand, sand everywhere I look! Why had it be me to be on the head of this bloody expedition. Why couldn't I just be assigned to some of our forts closer to our homeland, fighting Orcs in The War of Eviscerators instead of running for Clouds of Blinding Sand and eating fish all day. Instead I was giving the order to set up a glass industry on behalf of queen Zust herself. Can you believe it, glass? Of all the things we could possibly do it had to be FREAKING GLASS!! And now I'm here on the far north east of the known world (Buksutlocol, The Cosmic Planes) in the Sand Desert known as The Animalistic Deserts. Out here there is really nothing but sand, there are no trees to be seen for miles on end. That might be a problem because sand won’t bloody HEAT OUR FURNESESS. I guess our biggest enemy would be mother earth instead of invaders or animals. So far we only spotted a small group of Crocodiles, a Snapping Turtle and a Huge Sponge. To our south west lies a Forest Retreat of Beak Wolves called Trashyfrothed so we may encounter them a bit more then we wish for.
It all started a year ago in the year 98 in the Age of Legends, just after the order to establish a settlement with a high glass export I started planning the journey. My first thought was to go to the far south east, but scouts reported we would end up in Salt Water Marshes. If there is one thing I hate more then sand it would be mosquito's and of course those nasty Ladybugs (tho i don’t think we would encounter them in Salt Water Marshes, but you never know). The second option was going northeast to The animalistic deserts a Temperate Sand Desert with Scarce Vegetation and Untamed Wilds. The good thing about is was the Major River Th Trssd Frnzs running through it (I wonder who named the damned thing). Our scouts reported their would be Little Soil but it would be more than enough to set up some farms. Their should be Shallow Metals and probably Deep Metals as well. I hope we find some of them quick or we might have to fight with GLASS weapons.
After finding a possible location we started packing stuff for the long journey ahead of us. Expecting warmer temperatures in the desert i only packed my short trousers and some thin shirts, how cold can deserts be right?
The next thing to pack was booze, lots of booze and of course meat and seeds for the farms. For livestock we took:
3 Mastiffs (1 male 2 female)
3 Moleweasels (1 male 2 female)
3 Dewbeetles (1 male 2 female)
6 Bearded Cavernkeets (1 male 5 female)
4 Boozebelly Goats (1 male 3 female)
3 Woolly Mountain Goats (1 male 2 female)
2 female Mountain Tuskox.
On department day I felt happy because personally i like a good adventure and I’am damn happy to leave the crowded cities here. Tho on the other hand I feel it's my duty to fight in the ongoing War of Eviscerators against the Orcs, but after a long night thinking it over I decided that my duty lies elsewhere. And so my journey started along with 6 other dwarfs that I don’t know and have been hand picked by the queen herself. I met them this morning, they seem quite... replaceable.
Spring year 99
And here we are then, right in the middle of bloody nothing! I must say i despise crowded places but this is all but joyful. To make things even worse, I saw icecaps floating in the river! ICECAPS in the desert, it's outrageous! I Am sleeping with the Woolly Mountain Goats tonight! But first things first we need to dig a hole and because it’s just a flat landscape I pointed at a random spot and so the digging started. On our journey we named ourselves The Craters of Failing and the new dug hole in the ground became knows as Rusticgrowl. Because someone forgot to bring some materials to build workshops most of us just did nothing at all and let the 2 miners do their thing. Except for Tirist Mozibcerol she started fishing from day 1 and basically never stopped doing so.
What a morons! After inspecting the freshly dug out entrance I noticed the miners dug too deep at the entrance so we have a ditch just in front of it! Well maybe we can use it to our advantage in the future as an extra defensive line so we can act like the ditch was actually planned to be there.
What evil witchcraft is this! Dark Clouds of blinding sand roam these lands. Normally i have no trouble being above ground but this is too much for me! I had to lie against my fellow dwarfs and told them I was the best farmer around, before they could react I grabbed the bag with seeds and left underground. They won’t see me up above ground anytime soon I can tell you that!
Finally! After 4 layers of bloody sand we finally struck some rock, Limestone and Bauxite to be precise. Let's start building some workshops! Later we also found our first metals Gelina and Mithril, that means we don’t have to fight with glass weapons.
Because we had a little bad luck with finding any materials we still don’t have any beds, I Am afraid I have to find that cosy barrel again tonight.
We started on the trading depot today, better to have it finished early so we won’t miss any caravans. That means if anyone ever is going to come visit us at the edge of the bloody world!
Summer year 99
We can finally produce our own booze and after some hard work we made a small dormitory, I can finally sleep in a normal bed again! After the dormitory we set up a small dining area as well. Our next priority now is reaching the lava lakes because of the lack of other burning material like coal or trees... In the process of going down we also started carving out some personal quarters, but again someone made a big fuckup by making some area’s too small so we had to re-plan the whole thing.
We eventually fixed it by placing walls, all extra time lost doing other stuff, I need to watch them more carefully so i can prevent more of these fuckups!
One of our miners found a cave after just 10 layers! Of Course we didn’t expect caves this soon so we quickly walled off this part so no stuff can enter our Fort. We began going down elsewhere but now only 1x1 tile wide instead of 3x3.
Some migrants of our homeland came by today but only 6 survived the long journey. There was 1 good mason and a good miner, the rest fit in the “Slave” category. I hope we get some decent people next wave.
Bloody hell, another cave? How do we ever reach the lava sea if we stumble upon cave after cave! If we just dug down a bit to the left we had missed it completely! Oh well, let's wall up some more! One lucky thing is that we discovered Obsidian! Ohh how i love the touch, smell and sight of it, i ordered a dug out immediately!
Autumn year 99
Things start to grow inside the Fort, it must have had something to do with the caves because it started right after our first encounter. The plant seem to thrive so we dug out some rooms and put our livestock in, at least they are a bit safer now.
Bloody animals! Both the Boozebelly Goats and the Woolly Mountain Goats started fighting each other and amongst themselves 1 Boozebelly Goat Kid lost both his left feet in the process. We might butcher it in the future, for now we put them apart.
The lava sea at last! One miner nearly lost his feet while digging out a staircase downwards.
I ordered them to dig out a bigger area just above some lava (tho most of the lava is just under the bloody cave). But they keep getting up saying they found warm stone and are afraid to dog any further. Lazy dogs, I send them right back down and told them too keep digging!
Atlast, a caravan of our homeland has arrived. I ordered all the mechanisms to be brought to the trading depot. I traded them for lots of Cloth, all their Wood and 2 Steel Anvils. With the caravan were also 6 migrants, 1 of them a smith from the guild tho he had only experience in operating a furnace... like how hard can it be.
Winter year 99
The river froze solid, I had hoped the current would prevent it from happening but again no luck. We had a lot of spare blocks so i ordered the men to start building a wall. It has been quite recently, too quite. Some of my men reported sights of Giant Scorpions. We need to keep them away from the fort or... maybe train some of them. As an extra line of defence I ordered the miners to dig out a moat around the walls. They have to finish it next year when the river is frozen solid, but before that a bridge is needed.
I had a meeting with the caravan master and asked them to bring Soap, Wood, Cloth and Metal Bars next time they visit. I also asked them to bring a Mountain Tuskox Bull with them so we can start breeding.
It's near the end of the year and the glass industry is not going great. We reached the lava lake so we have the hard needed fuel but we lack sacks to collect sand. The extra Cloth comes in handy but I'm not sure if it will be enough. On orders of the queen someone else should take the lead next year, I think things aren’t going as smooth as she had liked tho I must say I don’t really mind. I have had enough for now yelling at my fellow dwarfs. I might join the militia and train to become a soldier, I feel farming isn’t really my thing after all.
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Topic: Rusticgrowl by The Craters of Failing (Read 4524 times)