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Author Topic: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?  (Read 2777 times)

VABritto

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Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« on: January 29, 2020, 08:32:55 am »

Hey there folks, I'm gonna try and rp a monastery fort using the new religion update as inspiration.

I plan on dividing the fort into two communities, one for male dwarves (monks) and one for female dwarves (nuns). Families that come here together will be the laity and will live in seperate accommodations doing grounds keeping for the monks.

Besides the monks, nuns and laydwarves I plan on having priests to take care of our chapel.

Any suggestion on limitations to give the fort and or tips on how to best implement this setting and mini projects to do?
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JEB Davis

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2020, 08:46:21 am »

That's a neat idea, I'm interested in following.
Just 2 thoughts as suggestions:
- Build it mostly above ground if you're into that.
- If the chosen religion has any related creature/animal(s), they should be kept in reverence and be involved in the temple(s).
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Sanctume

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2020, 10:32:54 am »

I first screen each of the 7 founders. 
Taking note: Name, gender, orientation, age, dreams (skill, masterwork, art, family, rule the world, no dream), and items preference (material pref). 
Now it also require Deity(s) for each. 

For Monastery / Monk, I did an unarmed embark. 
I looked for "calm" and "Can Handle Stress" (CHS) in personalities.  This became my "Master Monk" Teacher+3, Fighter+3, Discipline+2, and +2 elsewhere. 

I also went for the theme of hemp for trade industry: growing, clothing, oil, soap.

For booze, I select a tree and give it a 7x7 floor are for gathering, then surround it with wall and building: carpenter for barrels, still for booze, and booze warehouse, and housing for the master monk brewer. 

I think in this version, the Deity of the Master Monk will determine the temple and citizens.  So everyone else will either be just guests or visitor or workers.   

I would build a tower for the Monk, and everyone else will build a city around the tower. 

Definitely going to need catacombs for slain monks. 

VABritto

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2020, 10:41:53 am »

I first screen each of the 7 founders. 
Taking note: Name, gender, orientation, age, dreams (skill, masterwork, art, family, rule the world, no dream), and items preference (material pref). 
Now it also require Deity(s) for each. 

For Monastery / Monk, I did an unarmed embark. 
I looked for "calm" and "Can Handle Stress" (CHS) in personalities.  This became my "Master Monk" Teacher+3, Fighter+3, Discipline+2, and +2 elsewhere. 

I also went for the theme of hemp for trade industry: growing, clothing, oil, soap.

For booze, I select a tree and give it a 7x7 floor are for gathering, then surround it with wall and building: carpenter for barrels, still for booze, and booze warehouse, and housing for the master monk brewer. 

I think in this version, the Deity of the Master Monk will determine the temple and citizens.  So everyone else will either be just guests or visitor or workers.   

I would build a tower for the Monk, and everyone else will build a city around the tower. 

Definitely going to need catacombs for slain monks.

Thank you very much for the tips! I think I'll basically do exactly that. Only I'll call the Master Monk the Abbot/Abbess and there'd be two of them, one for the Monks and another for the Nuns. I'll also get a lot of sheep and try a clothing and cheese making business. Maybe get some honey and also make mead. I think that fits the setting nicely lol

First thing to build would be the two towers then. One for the Abbot and the other for the Abbess. Each on its own hill maybe. At first it will be only one tower and the monks will have beds on one floor and the nuns on the other. Just so they don't go on the rain. Then the other tower will be built and one of the two will move to that tower. After that I'll start making the two monasteries themselves so they will have a place to stay and slowly make the workshops and move them all out of the towers. The towers will be their first base of operations until all is sorted out.

After that we'll build a defensive wall around th perimeter. I'll probably limit the population to 40 dwarves once the newbpack is ready so as not to lag nor get invaders before the walls are ready.
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Sanctume

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2020, 10:51:38 am »

I usually set the population cap to 19 (it's a text file in one of the data*.ini file) to avoid moods sooner than I want; and to let me prepare proper housing for migrants. 

And even then, I increase the pop cap by 3 to 4 to get +10 per year at most (migration comes spring, summer and autumn). 

I also set visitor cap to 6, and try not to breach the cavern as that will have near useless monster hunters visitors.  I prefer 2 bards (carrying different instruments) and scholars.

VABritto

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2020, 10:52:55 am »

I didn't know how to do that directly. Thanks! I'm gonna do that. Will make things easier.
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Chief10

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #6 on: January 30, 2020, 11:10:43 pm »

For role playing forts I like to cap pop at 50 and name every dwarf as they come into the map, giving parents/children the same last name
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Salmeuk

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #7 on: January 30, 2020, 11:44:02 pm »

My tip is to keep the fortress small, especially if you are building aboveground. All too often I get carried away with constructing gigantic surface fortresses, only to lose interest in the dwarves themselves, and that sort of deadens the point of an RP embark. I'm talking like twenty max for the first few seasons.. plenty can still be accomplished with wise labor assignments.

I must say, monastery embarks are perhaps my favorite and most successful style of RP embark. The game flows so readily when played from the perspective of a medieval religious society. I think you are correct - the new changes to religion will make it even better!

Color coded clothing is always my end-game goal. To robe the monks in blue and see the seasons drift..
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VABritto

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #8 on: January 31, 2020, 06:44:59 am »

Ah yes! They need habits! I am going to have a textile business, so I am going to find out how to dye clothing and give to each monk his habit as a uniform. Will be fun. I'm also gonna design special clothes for the Abbot, the Abbess and for the Chaplain Priest that takes care of the Chapel.
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Sanctume

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #9 on: January 31, 2020, 09:46:46 am »

I started thinking about this some more, but towards my home brewed house rules for the next fort project, so I'll post my half brainstormed ideas...

So, just to get a jump start in my planning for a new fort project focusing on Religious Organizations (RO) in v 47.01. 

I start with some vocabulary and naming I've seen used when using random temple zone names.

Spoiler: religious vocabulary (click to show/hide)

Removing the Christian association for the words, chapel, church and cathedral can use just referring to the size of the buildings.

Size of Buildings.
I am trying to quantify these RO vocabulary in terms of building floor size, and number of worshipers. 

Shrine could be a least a room with a door, with at least 1x1 pedestal, and 1x1 floor to stand on and admire what is in a pedestal.  But I think a 2x2 or 3x3 should enough initially.

In fortmode, Temple can be just a 1x1 zone.  But I think at least a 5x5 dance floor (open area) should be assigned, and +1 tile for statue, and +1 tile for coffer.  So at least a 5x6 room. 

Temple can then be a building with a Shrine room addition then.

Abbey and Monastery sounds more like bedrooms associated with the temple.  Perhaps barracks for war-themed RO.  I don't recall adding a bedroom to a Temple type location.  Hmmm.

Chapel could be a similar size of a temple, or maybe just like a shrine with an altar (table?).   

Church is a larger building that can have Chapel and Shrine. 

Cathedral would be larger than a Church. 

Worshipers Count.
This is where I stopped.  It is hard without therapist to manually assign and house dwarfs monk in their affiliated monastery. 
I'll stop here for now.

VABritto

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #10 on: January 31, 2020, 11:12:33 am »

The difference between a chapel and a shrine I'd make the altar. A shrine would only have an idol, an image or a pedestal with an object on it. A chapel would be a small temple, with an area for people to congregate and an altar for religious services.

The difference between Chapel, Church and Cathedral is one of authority. So it might be something distinguishable with the new religious hierarchy expansion. A Chapel is the lowest in the hierarchy and is basically just a small community and its priest (so probably just something you'd find in outposts, hillocks, hamlets etc). A Church has authority over the neighboring Chapels, so it could be the main temple of a fortress that already has hillocks under it. A Cathedral controls many churches and could be reserved for a fortress with a High Priest (those exist now if I'm not mistaken).

An Abbey or Monastery would basically be bedrooms aye. It could also have internal workshops, but not necessarily (those could be seperate buildings). It could also have an internal chapel or shrine. Though also not necessarily.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2020, 11:14:12 am by VABritto »
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Timeless Bob

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #11 on: January 31, 2020, 12:41:37 pm »

You can co-opt the military squad mechanics to create the hierarchies of religious orders. Militias can be the acolytes/neophytes, with militia captains being the lesser priests, while the sherrifs, Captains of the gaurd, ect... can be the greater authority preists.  Your first seven would then be the the founding members of that holy site.  I like to think that they and the others who join the fort later without family affiliations are orphans who don't know who their parents are, and are thus fully invested in their chosen family: the religious order.  Interestingly, if the sites of specific worship are in the same place that your military "monks" are training, you can have a dedicated priesthood always tending to the laity. I usually set every month to training, but with only 2-3 dwarves per 10 in a squad.  Every month, new dwarves of a squad will go "worship" (practice drills or teach each other stuff), but will also "feel wonder after communing with their deity".  This allows dwarves who are in holy orders to also grow/harvest/brew and prepare foods for their larders.  When seiged or encountering creatures of the night, they  also tend to have a better chance to survive the attacks.  Surely "blessed" by their deity.
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Pvt. Pirate

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #12 on: February 01, 2020, 04:44:23 pm »

i took inspiration from monasteries a few times, but without RP, just the layout:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maulbronn_Monastery
using 5 for the measurement of one arch results in 11x11 rooms and some smaller 5x5 rooms for storage etc.
also the enclosed court makes for a great surface statue garden / garden for foods.
i used the upper level of the church as a library.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Monastery Fort, any tips/suggestions?
« Reply #13 on: February 01, 2020, 04:49:08 pm »

You can co-opt the military squad mechanics to create the hierarchies of religious orders. Militias can be the acolytes/neophytes, with militia captains being the lesser priests, while the sherrifs, Captains of the gaurd, ect... can be the greater authority preists.  Your first seven would then be the the founding members of that holy site.  I like to think that they and the others who join the fort later without family affiliations are orphans who don't know who their parents are, and are thus fully invested in their chosen family: the religious order.  Interestingly, if the sites of specific worship are in the same place that your military "monks" are training, you can have a dedicated priesthood always tending to the laity. I usually set every month to training, but with only 2-3 dwarves per 10 in a squad.  Every month, new dwarves of a squad will go "worship" (practice drills or teach each other stuff), but will also "feel wonder after communing with their deity".  This allows dwarves who are in holy orders to also grow/harvest/brew and prepare foods for their larders.  When seiged or encountering creatures of the night, they  also tend to have a better chance to survive the attacks.  Surely "blessed" by their deity.
Each squad could represent their own monastic sect or branch! The monks of brewing, the martial monks who practice fighting 24/7, the monks of smithing e.t.c.