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[Solitarian]

But what are the statistics for the weapons? Are they flimsy like featherwood or delicious like candy?

[Superdorf]

The forge is built of heinous smoke? Marvelous. Are those "rock" swords made of divine metal actually like vanilla rock swords, or are they like divine weapons?

The forge is indeed built of heinous smoke, as are all the smelters. Like Dodok said, it was either that or sphalerite, and smokerock's less useful for other purposes. So... smoke-forges! 

Are those "rock" swords made of divine metal actually like vanilla rock swords, or are they like divine weapons?

Though I've not really tested myself, according to the wiki, rock short swords use the material properties of obsidian. I think this means they'll have a divine edge if made of divine metal? I'll have to look into it further at some point.

When you mine divine metals, it drops a boulder that you have to designate with melt.  It then gets melted at the smelter, and turned into bars. THEN you can smith it.

Ayup, that's how I'm doing it. It's working out nicely so far.

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Spring has arrived. I'll be posting the update tomorrow, hopefully, along with the save.

[wierd]

Sweet.

Last I looked into it, divine metal is very light, like adamantine. (but not quite so.)  This means hammers are styrofoam, and will do poorly.  It does however have good shear and edge.  That means swords are awesome with it.

[methylatedspirit]

Swords are useless in this reanimating biome, yes? If so, what use does divine metal have in this place?

[wierd]

Might make good armor? It's the next best thing to candyfloss...

Could also be used to make "harmless" training hammers? Just be sure to get your military recruits to drop the worthless wiffle-bats before they try taking on undead.

[methylatedspirit]

Wait, is sparring dangerous enough that training weapons need to be used? Is there a use-case (other than the hammerer) for divine metal hammers that I'm not considering?

I thought of something incredibly dangerous and stupid: make a load of divine metal swords, stuff them into weapon traps, watch as a goblin invasion gets nuked by the severed limbs of their comrades.

[DwarvenLord]

It is perfect that it's rusted metal, because it's associated with blight. It fits the theme perfectly.

[Blackchibisan]

Actually, in my experience with divine metals the hammers are still amazing and I think it is because they are divine. After all, Thor's hammer feels light as a feather to him but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be hit by it.

I find it amusing that I claimed a dwarf just as he stopped having drawings in him.... I mean it lowers the expectation curve for the rest of us but I find it amusing. XD

[Superdorf]

Last I looked into it, divine metal is very light, like adamantine. (but not quite so.)  This means hammers are styrofoam, and will do poorly.  It does however have good shear and edge.  That means swords are awesome with it.

Well, that's what I'd expect... only the wiki says they're good for hammers after all? Seems suspicious to me... I'll have to !!science!! it in the arena sometime.

Swords are useless in this reanimating biome, yes? If so, what use does divine metal have in this place?

I'm using it for armor at the moment. Should beat back just about anything the goblins have to offer, and it's nice and light into the bargain. (Not to mention it's gotta look super-intimidating to a marauding goblin!)

It is perfect that it's rusted metal, because it's associated with blight. It fits the theme perfectly.

I know right? I didn't realize at first, but then I looked up the wiki page and... whoof! We're turning the evil gods' own weapons against them!

I find it amusing that I claimed a dwarf just as he stopped having drawings in him.... I mean it lowers the expectation curve for the rest of us but I find it amusing. XD

Well... I was gonna go back with illustrations. You should get your dwarf pic at some point, just... later. 

[Superdorf]

13th of Timber, 1050
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Slowly Daedalus worked the rusted stone over a molten fire, and slowly the rust came together. The particles flowed together as the stone melted, individual yet cohesive. The glowing metal cooled, cooled as the hours passed, but still a cold gleam emanated from the bar. The metal was... wrong. Its surface twisted, pitted as the bar cooled, fading to a sickly green lustre, still gleaming with a strange phosphorescence.



Working this stuff would be a nightmare.
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1st of Moonstone, 1050
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The air bit cold, the land shone with frost. Winter was come, and the Grim Jungle paid it no heed.
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4th of Moonstone, 1050
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Now she'd properly sampled the marble, Scourge began to quarry in earnest, extracting great deposits of rusted metal from the surrounding stone.



Soon, she vowed, the hammerdwarves would fit themselves in fearsome armor indeed.
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10th of Moonstone, 1050
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Methylatedspirit drilled with quiet competence, practicing over and over the techniques Atir had invented with him. Atir watched, and grinned a sinister grin, and deemed her soldier ready.

*WHONK*
"Ow!"

"Defend," said Atir, grinning wide with hammer raised.

*WHONK*
"OW!"
*WHONK*
"Cut it out!"
*WHONK*
"No really, stop!"
*WHONK*



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18th of Moonstone, 1050
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Twelve bars of rusted metal gleamed dark in the smelters. It was time, Daedalus decided, to see what armor might be made of them.



The metal heated slowly, slower than steel, becoming workable only when any earthly metal would have melted. Even then, Daedalus could shape it only with long hours of labor, beating it into shape with strong blows of the hammer. The stuff seemed to fight him, twisting out of shape with a mind of its own. Daedalus forged and reforged, and slowly the metal smoothed, flattened, took on a new form and a new light... and at last, it was armor.

The mail glowed foul, with an evil light trapped by the heat and hammer. It was loathsome, and yet... magnificient.



Atir would be pleased.
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27th of Moonstone, 1050
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Solitarian had been griping lately about her quarters-- a queen, she said, should have better. Scourge had just about finished with her quarry-work for now, and so decided to try and alleviate the situation somewhat.



It seemed a little unfair for a single dwarf to claim such sumptuous accomodations, but it wouldn't do, Scourge figured, for Solitarian to be unhappy. She was surprisingly useful around the fortress, for all her demands.
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28th of Moonstone, 1050
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One by one the dwarves of Dawnthunder wandered into the dining hall. Daedalus stood at the end of the hall, a stub of smokerock in his hand.

"We are all here? Good," said Daedalus. "I call you here with new orders, and a new Vision."

Scourge glowered. This "vision" thing was getting old.

Daedalus pretended not to notice. "We have been trapped down here like rats in a hole. Only Dodok's hatchwork preserves us from the horrors of the Grim Jungle. We can't access our own wagon, and the caravan cannot reach us with its own wagons. Every migrant that arrives here trudges through horrors innumerable, and sees what? A wagon and a hatch cover! And they run a gauntlet of terror to reach that hatch cover, hoping against hope that the sparrows won't notice!"

The migrants nodded solemnly. Their arrival had not been an easy one.

"And what," cried Daedalus, "of the goblins? They will find us, I promise you that, and they will come with their trolls to beat down the wood of our protection! No! No! We cannot, we will not continue this way!"

The dwarves murmured. The goblins were many, the goblins were fierce. It would not do to meet them unprepared.

Daedalus smiled, and said: "Now then. I have recieved my Vision. We will claim the surface for our own: a little at first, but more in years to come. The migrants will come, and they will see dwarven stone before them, and dwarven warriors to meet them. Such will be our glory."

Atir grunted, approving. The words were meet.

"How will we do this?" said Daedalus. "Like so!" With that, he began to scrawl quick plans across the wall.



"I spoke with Dodok some weeks back. She's been chiselling blocks of slate nonstop ever since; we have hundreds in storage. They are heavy, but you will find them far easier to move than boulders. Haul them quickly, set them well, and be prepared to return to the safety of the underground should the wildlife prove too dangerous. Do not panic, or you will surely die. Work quickly, and you will triumph over the land and our glory shall be eternal. So shall it be done."

And so the work begun. Furiously the dwarves labored, hauling stone day and night-- for they knew the Grim Jungle would not suffer their presence long.



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3rd of Opal, 1050
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Five days after construction began, the jungle sent its first champion.





The scout lay dead, but the jungle had stronger beasts than a mere owl to hurl at Dawnthunder's growing walls.



The beast had not sighted the masonries... yet. Furiously the dwarves labored.
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8th of Opal, 1050
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Tiny hooves, wide eyes that did not blink. The jungle had turned the dwarves' own beast against them.



The dwarves scurried inside. Atir did not wish to engage this strange foe until her squadmate was properly armored, though Daedalus ground his teeth at the delay.



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19th of Opal, 1050
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Now things had calmed a bit up topside, Scourge had a chance to finish up Solitarian's chambers properly.



Very nice. Solitarian would be pleased at the improvement, even if it was but a small one.



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1st of Obsidian, 1050
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By the unceasing labors of Daedalus, Methyl now stood fearsome in a harness of rusted plate. Atir deemed him fit for war, and the two set forth to wrest the construction site from their dimunitive but potent enemy...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Their sparring paid off. The reindeer collasped swiftly, beaten down by a relentless onslaught of bronze.

The hatch was thrown open once more; Daedalus declared the construction work unsuspended. Furiously the dwarves labored.
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2nd of Obsidian, 1050
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The wall was complete, the wall stood strong. The dwarves rejoiced, and Dodok ascended to replace the temporary door with a mighty gate, fit to repel even the strongest of foes.
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8th of Obsidian, 1050
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A harsh cry sounded far above. Frustrated at the blindness of its champion, the jungle had sent one last enemy, to fly over the walls and assail the dwarves within. Atir rushed with her soldiers to do battle, her face a terrifying visage behind the rusted visor.

Atir had killed ravens as a novice. They meant nothing to her now.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The hammers swung, the bones crumbled. Lowering her weapon, Atir surveyed the landscape. "Are all safe?"

"Mmph," grunted Likot, her face marred by long gashes. "I think one... knocked me out somehow? Clawed my head up good, anyway. I'm okay... wouldn't mind one of those fancy helmets, though."

No other dwarf bore wounds. Somewhat shaken by the sudden attack, Dodok resumed her work on the gate.
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11th of Obsidian, 1050
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After long hours of stonework, the gate was completed, a lever fit to it with Solitarian's cunning mechanisms. The lever was pulled, and the gear ground as the bridge rose, sealing shut just as some decaying emus-- foul foot soldiers of the jungle-- were about to investigate.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dawnthunder was safe once more. Daedalus marked the beginnings of a roof for construction.
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13th of Obsidian, 1050
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"EEYAAAH"
"Wait, Scourge-- WHAT ARE YOU--"



"Pull that lever!" shrieked Solitarian down the stairway. "Scourge is out there!"



Thikut bolted for the lever. "How'd she even get outside the keep?!"

"I dunno!" yelled Solitarian. "Jumped the wall? HANG ON SCOURGE, WE'RE COMING--"


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If a dwarf wasn't at stake, Atir would never have sounded the charge. Too dangerous. Enemies too strong, too numerous.



But Scourge was fighting for her life out there.



Nothing else mattered.
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For all its reek and horror and decay, the Grim Jungle for a millenium had been a place of peace-- the peace of the grave. The undead do not fight amongst themselves. Perhaps a goblin strayed now and again into the woods, and the jungle claimed it, and again the jungle subsided, the goblin now one of its own.

Fury like this the jungle had not known in all its days.



For a long and fearful year, the dwarves of the White Hammer had cowered in their hole as prey.



Now they were the predators.





Now the Grim Jungle belonged to them.



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Clawed and bruised, Scourge stood proud over the corpses of her enemies, her pick slaked in blood. With head held high, she walked on her own two feet back into the fortress, allowing no dwarf to aid her.



Solitarian took it upon herself to tend Scourge's injuries, but Scourge would have none of it-- her shoulder was fine, she said, just fine. What she really needed, she said, was a good drink.



A true dwarf.
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1st of Granite, 1050
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Daedalus had been thinking hard these past weeks, and had come to a realization: his Vision lived. Dawnthunder stood. That had been Daedalus' task, and now it was done, and he need no longer have a hand in it.

It was time, Daedalus decided, another dwarf take the command around here, and so guide Dawnthunder to greater glory. Atir could do it, maybe. Or Dodok. Or one of the migrants. It didn't really matter, so long as it was a dwarf with a bright passion and a bold Vision.

As for Daedalus... well, there was an awful lot of armor to forge. There'd be more soldiers to equip soon, after all.

The migrants would be coming.
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Spoiler: OOC (click to show/hide)

Scourge, I don't know what to say. You apparently decided those emus needed to die right then and there, and... well. You made that happen. I don't even know how you made it over the wall with the gate shut... it was certainly impressive tho. 

[Superdorf]

And with that I present to you the save!

We have a four-dwarf military in full rusted plate, a functional infrastructure, and the beginnings of some above-ground fortification. It's not much to look at, but should hold the goblins back nicely... for a little while, at least.

We'll probably want to expand the farms at some point, and we'll probably want to set up a clothing industry (well, either that or a realllly good armor industry. Whichever.) For now, though, it's all running just fine. Pursue whatever megaprojects you see fit, just so long as the military gets some love in the process.

Of note: divine metal is completely heatproof, even against the legendary dragonfire. We might consider looking into upgrading our gate at some point to secure the keep against even our most fearsome opponents... after all, y'just know there'll be dragons at some point. Zombie dragons, most likely.

I had a wonderful time running this, and I can't wait to see what y'all do with it. All luck to you, wierd.

You'll need it. 

[methylatedspirit]

A roof over that wall would be great; it would stop flying zombies from swooping in for a quick snack.

[wierd]

Agreed. That and crenelations on the top. Cant have climbers getting on the roof and sniping people trying to get out of the gate after all.

OOC:

Ok, I am taking a quick survey of our setup here..  I note that the cavern layer contains giant cave spider silk.  Installation of "shutoffs" (floodgates in the narrow channels down there) would enable us to isolate areas of the cavern safely from a distance for silk collection, then open them back up again for the wildlife to do their thing again.  We really do not need, nor want, GCS corpse zombies. Just saying.  the silk will be very useful though. We'll have to set a "collect silk" job, and immediately suspend it, to keep Urist from going on suicide missions though.


Wood is useful for a number of useful things, such as water wheels.  These will be needed for paper pulping, dye grinding, flour making, etc.  We have stone that is blessed with being an aquifer, and we can produce a suitable drain off the side of the map.  We can kill many birds with one stone by planing and constructing grow chambers for mushroom trees. (we pierced the caverns, so we have spores now.)  Likewise for isolated (and quarantine provisioned! The last thing we need are zombie animal teeth raising from the dead after the livestock gets unruly in their pens!) grazing chambers, since now we can grow cavern fungus on exposed mud.

I am gonna spend a little time doing some planning before I do anything just yet.

Looks like we are gonna have to use wheel driven screwpumps to pump water up from the aquifer, since the aquifer is IN the damned cavern layer.  That means bucketing water up into a closed system above, and creating a dwarven perpetual motion machine, that can then be used to pump large quantities of water up using said screwpumps.  this is gonna be a large project in and of itself. I will familiarize myself with the purpetual motion machine designs, and see how I can bolt one onto this fortress..

The mine layer has a section of aquifer near the map edge.  This is fantastic.  I can and will use this instead.  Much less trouble, but less dwarfy.  I can build suitable plumbing to route the flow off the map through edge of embark fortifications, and make use of water teleportation to have permanent "instant flow", which should help with the FPS hit waterworks normally cause.

I think I will assume the narrative role of Kogan, hammerdwarf.

[Blackchibisan]

This stuff is going to be fun.

[Solitarian]

What I usually do to defeat invaders is make a chamber through which they must pass that has 10 high-quality metal spikes on every tile. When enemies walk into the chamber, I pull the lever and the spikes skewer everything. Then I do it again. And again. And again. That kills pretty much everything, from elves to titans. I suggest that be done with this rusted metal.