Part 1: 1st Granite 186. First Impression, WTF.I have, once again, been called to serve as overseer of SmallHands. This time though, I have not attempted to; in fact, nobody has attempted - there have been no candidates coming forth at the end of Obsidian. As it’s usually done in these cases, the people got to ‘volunteer’ their own choice for leadership. Needless to say, I am flattered that I was the one who was chosen.
On the other side of the coin, now I have to catch up with everything that has happened in SmallHands during these last years; there was a significant amount of digging and smoothing to be done, especially in the future Temple of Armok that ‘XMark’ began two years ago. He had a different name before, but now he is XMark. It would be quite improper to call him by his old name.
But I digress; blame the lack of sleep if you will. The point is, I was not prepared to become an overseer, so I am not as connected to the fortress as an overseer should be. I do not know what is needed, or what is wanted. Therefore, even more so than last time, to the office!
… Oh dear. It seems very many questionable things have happened, and have been done, while I was doing my duty as a miner.
Happiness has decayed terribly in the intervening years. Two of our kin now have the were-chameleon curse inflicted upon them, through no fault of their own. Three others will certainly end as a result of their shattered mental state, and at least two more are in danger of the same:
There are many reasons for our diminishing sanity, but the most approachable ones seem to be all the corpses, and the decayed state of our clothing. Terribly sorry, my fellows, but there’s not much I can do about all the friends or family outside the fort that you have and can’t speak with.
Corpses can be easily handled; either dumping them in magma to burn, or smashing them out of the world; in fact, a good number of them are already poised for the latter:
I never bothered counting all of them, but I’m eyeballing between 170 and 180 corpses and corpse parts (and one chunk of mudstone which shouldn’t be there, but who cares). After I ensure there are no dwarven corpses in it, and that I lock the door after I leave, I pull the lever myself, with great satisfaction. I’ll do the paperwork for it later.
While we’re here, strange things have been done to the neighboring plant processing room. The stockpile for stoneware pots was removed, and in its place, someone built two more stills, and a carpenter ‘shop with associated wood stockpile.
Below, in the thread and cloth processing area, it’s even worse: all stockpiles have been removed, and all kinds of foods and drinks are stacked right next to looms. Just… why? At which point did this seem like a good idea?
This also means I can’t just order our clothiers to start making clothes, either. Dammit. I draw up an order to dismantle that fishery workshop and after that’s done, I’ll make cloth stockpiles. Again.
Come to think of it, why are there two fisher’s workshops? Was I not supposed to have made a clothier’s ‘shop there? Let me check the archives…
Oh lord Emuth preserve me. That was from my order. I’ve somehow managed to fill a form for a fisher’s workshop instead of a clothier’s. What was wrong with me?
… Well that was embarrassing. Anyway, the two offending fish processing workshops were marked to be torn down. Likewise for the two unenclosed clothier’s shops, which really ought to be replaced with the fort’s only leather stockpile.
The giant food stockpile that should not exist was marked to give anything it could to all other food stockpiles; what will be left there, will be handled at the end. It will have to go eventually, the only question is how long until then.
I briefly look over our citizen’s bedrooms; I find 4 who never picked a room on their own, despite having available suites for years, and manually assign them. There are still empty bedrooms, so at least that’s good.
Our mayor has no rooms assigned. I presume nobody updated the ownership of the mayoral suite, after Ducim FaithfulCloisters became mayor.
Weeelll, you would think so, wouldn’t you? The mayoral suite was in fact updated - in the weirdest way possible: the rightmost room is unassigned, while the left one has both an office and a dining room defined from the middle table and chair:
I’d ask why, and who, but I have this gut feeling that I don’t want to know. I’d have thought some other room or location was established in there, but no; it’s just this odd assignment. I’m going to tear down the extra tables and chairs, and restore the mayor’s quarters. Honestly, people…
While on the subject of nobles, I see that we have no captain of the guard. That is deeply concerning, because I know for certain we have three dwarves in prison. Who knows how long ago their punishment has ended?
It doesn’t take me long to settle on Monom CraftBulbs as the new lawgiver of SmithSoldier; he is reasonably happy, has a good history of judging other’s intent, and of being either intimidating or consoling, as needed. He’ll do fine.
(ooc: Do you know who’s even better than Monom at intimidation and judging intent? Me! Or, well, Amara LancedDeer. I think I just figured out how I’m going to retire from being overseer).
Our prison situation is as I knew it already - nine cells, three of which are occupied. What I didn’t know is that we have a truly staggering list of complaints, which I fully intend to process. Only the oldest three of them are correctly documented; and the accused are long dead, so convicting them is easy. The rest have only the names of the complainer and the crime committed. I presume the old captain of the guard has died at about this point. Oh well; Monom will have to make some interrogations, starting from the only name available. I will have to remind him that these are the victims, not the perpetrators. And also, I’ll have to remember to make Monom some quarters.
The trade depot has been… redone, at some point in the past. By which I mean someone saw fit to dismantle a golden depot and replace it with a copper one.
… Actually, hasn’t there been an unfortunate troll incursion through the depot airlock at some point? That would explain the loss of the depot, but not why it was rebuilt out of copper. No matter.
On the room to the upper left, there are two stockpiles taking every possible finished good. I can only guess this was done for trade, but I can only guess somebody also wanted to trade essential finished goods, or even masterworks, because there’s been exactly zero filtering established for such. The old stockpile for finished goods sits north of the trade depot, almost empty. Once again, people are asked to move what they can.
To the right, there is a corpse stockpile, which includes a whole lot of goblins, and a dwarven corpse. The goblins can go to the atom smasher, but the dwarf must be buried properly; let me guess, we have no coffins either.
We do have four empty coffins, which I’ve swiftly marked as available for citizen burial. Since we’re here, our burial arrangements are about as strange as anything else in this fortress. Slabs and coffins have been built without any care, or planning. The slabs at least are mostly congregated in the memorial hall I have defined during my first mandate; however, some are also scattered throughout the fort, and a lot of them have been engraved for our enemies. Not fanciful enemies either, just some random goblin who’d gotten lucky once, and slain a dwarf; therefore, they’ve been memorialized here, along with some preference that they have revealed to who knows when. I’m very tempted to tear them down and toss them in the magma pipe, but just by reading a few of them I have found their use: to remind us of our enemies. It’s all too easy to put the goblins out of mind when they have no individuality, when they’re just an undifferentiated, faceless horde. I want people to remember they are individuals, and individuals always seem much easier to kill. Goblins may dominate the world now, but they didn’t always do so, and with the grace of gods, they won’t always do so.
And while on the same level with the coffins…
Our esteemed tavern, the Laborious Bellies, has been heavily outgrown by the needs of the fort. I fully intend to expand it, from stairway to stairway; I’m still not sure how the vertical aspect will look like, but I’m tempted by a simple square; the first version of the tavern has this concentric pattern of gold and lead that has become deeply familiar to us; many a dwarf would be sad to see it go, myself included.
It’s all too easy to find the center of the future tavern; there are 18 tiles between the stairs, and so the next incarnation of this location will be an 16x16 cavernous room; I’ll have to throw in some pillars, for both safety and looks. The adjacent space to the west is ear-marked for the fort’s primary alcohol stockpile; we are long-overdue in having one. I’ll have to select a place for the corresponding stockpile of prepared meals, too. Perhaps directly above? We have some unused space from our first temples, and the engravings there are the sort that should be covered.
This also means the original Temple of Armok needs to be disaffected, but we all know it never worked right, and our current needs for goblin slaughter will be met elsewhere.
Something else which has puzzled me: vast spaces have been dug out in random places; I have worked in them myself, and I presumed they were excavated for some purpose. But no, all were left as they were. Even the loose stone was left to lie where it was, unmoved for years.
Good question.
I honestly have no idea what this was supposed to be, on level 130:
Artifacts are on display in the top rooms, but what’s with the winding passage? And why is there a single ramp, descending on the corridor to where goblins get smashed on the floor (an excellent system, by the way)?
In the cavern, not much has been done. The temporary looms have been dismantled, and the entire cloth stockpile was moved here, alongside two unsecured clothier’s shops. I would understand keeping silk thread here, but… literally everything? Really? I at least note to order any loose silk collected; quite a few patches have accumulated in the south of this room.
From level 122, this happens:
The Library of Letters is truly a magnificent dwarven creation, marred only by a slight chance of certain death by drowning, due to the 2-deep artificial lake in the middle; it was constructed without ramps for any fallen dwarf to get out to safety.
On level 105, we have evidence that the second cavern layer is as rich in webs as the first:
At level 94 we have the magma pipe, which is making my fingers itch. This should be the basis of a magma powered smithy - if we have the time to establish one. Just as in the last term I carried, I’d really like to make a magma smithy, but I can’t quite justify it to myself.
And lastly, from level 80 downward, we are in the process of unveiling a vein of adamantine - with all the care appropriate to such an endeavour. Not a single adamantine stone has been excavated in this fort, and I am sincerely thrilled by the prospect of being the first to do so.
The old crafting layer has changed the most; I’m still trying to properly unpack what’s going on in here, beyond the obvious - that it’s been heavily expanded with rooms and stockpiles:
I suppose it’s best I start from a point and continue?
Well, the trade depot was covered already, so it’s as good a starting point as any.
Directly south of it, where I wanted to build a library, there are two unused meeting areas. South of that, lies the Temple of Jewels; the cut gems previously littered on its floor have been placed in four bins off to the side, and the temple is poorer for it. East of it, lies the Beak of Crevices, a guildhall; east of that, another guildhall is prepared, and waits only for assignment.
Between these, lies the least safe lever ‘room’ I have ever seen; given our unhappy citizens, this should, at a minimum, be walled up and have a door in place:
South of the Temple of Jewels, lies a vast room filled only with armor stands and weapon racks. Only one of them was turned into a barracks, for two separate squads. I’ll make a note to look over the military as well… my favorite job, honestly, and most certainly not sarcastically. Meanwhile, the barracks is removed; we have a fancy tower where they can train, after I revise the military. Ugh.
Moving to the west, four large and unadorned rooms are our temples; suffice to say, they could use some work. The Cathedral of Action, the Musical Chapel, the Shrine of Bucks, and the Coastal Temple. Above them, the guildhall named the Tail of Winds. The stockpiles near the guildhall are for weapons, armor, and sheets. The first two are, once again, not filtered by anything, which leaves dwarven masterworks and goblin garbage coexisting in the same locations. What truly infuriates me about this is that I know full well I made separate stockpiles for masterwork items and for useless metal items. But someone saw fit to remove them, and chuck everything in bins. Why?
West of these, another chain of temples - the Sanctum of Owls, the Church of Persuading, the Church of Intricacies, the Abbey of Heavens, the Cavernous Church, the Sanctum of Gleams, the Church of Fishers, the Chapel of Wisps, the Sanctum of Persuading. Good to know. Above them, even more bizarre stockpiles - for furniture and finished goods, and another one for furniture, finished goods, weapons, armor, and sheets… You know what, I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to do what I want to, and not care a bit what previous overseers have wanted. Before now, I thought it reasonable to respect the wishes of one’s predecessors, and at least try to keep their intentions and desires in mind. Not anymore. This is a giant, pointless mess, and it’s very possible I’ll spend the rest of my mandate walling up excavations and sorting out stockpiles. And I didn’t want that.
Anyway, these stockpiles are going. A lot of things will be going.
(ooc: my first plan was a lot less harsh - I just disabled the stockpiles, and intended to leave them alone. But idiot dwarves have ignored that, and kept hauling new furniture for the 300-ish tiles to these stockpiles. That was the real reason for destroying them).
Moving north, the stockpiles begin again. Undifferentiated bar and block stockpile; undifferentiated stone stockpile, a giant ore stockpile (mostly empty), another furniture stockpile, an undifferentiated finished goods stockpile, and… oh, a bar stockpile that only accepts lead - was this the one I made to clear out the waste from the galena smelting? Probably. Anyway, above it lies an ammo stockpile of all things (undifferentiated of course, why would we want to separate good dwarven bolts from garbage goblin arrows), and a metal bar stockpile that’s completely empty.
Then we’re moving into the north-west quadrant, where the wood and metal crafting area was set up once upon a time, and where everything’s weird again.
At some point in the fort’s history, all the wood stockpiles have been removed; a new and oddly sectioned up stockpile was placed in the south-west corner. What does it have? Furniture, of all things. The quantum stockpile in the middle seems to be the fort’s depot for barrels, buckets, beds and bins. Good enough, I suppose, but nobody’s hauling anything here anymore. Not until the dedicated stockpiles for furniture have been filled. Off by the wood furnaces, someone’s piled up all the metal furniture.
Not sure if this was supposed to be for melting, because there’s no quality sorting… and if it was, I’m not sure how they intend to melt it, seeing as nobody’s making charcoal anymore. Also, we have 2 logs in the entire fort; no matter how much we all dislike the sun, we’ll need to go cut and dump more wood down Salmeuk’s chute. I’m sure that will do wonderful things to our happiness…
I think I’m getting too distracted by just how many oddities are around to notice; I should probably re-read the list and try to order my priorities. Also, I should calm down, before I do something I’m going to regret.
Citizen corpses will be buried; invader corpses will be destroyed. We’ll do whatever random hauling has resulted from stockpile deletion. Then we’ll figure it out. Straightforward enough.
Or, we can fight for our lives against our perennial enemies. That works too.
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I ended up deleting very little; mostly; I reordered the narrative so my Doylistic impulse of “order all of the things!” was short-circuited by the Watsonian “suddenly, goblins!”
I’d like to reiterate that my own opinion is far less terrible than my dwarf’s. I’m a lot more curious about the oddly-shaped stockpiles in the crafting level than infuriated. Seriously, what was the purpose behind them?
Clothing situation looks honestly terrible: out of 156 souls, only 22 have full clothing sets, and I’m excluding the two were-chameleons who stay naked anyway. Everybody else has at least one piece of tattered apparel. Thankfully, nobody’s straight up naked, except the obvious two, and one goblin who’s stark raving mad. In my list of priorities, that’s second only after the corpses.
(edit: I borked the year somehow. It's 186 not 191. Imma blame playing late at night, which really screws with the number of available neurons).
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Topic: Smithsoldier, Year 12: Clothes, Madness, and Beasts (And Candy) [47.04] (Read 63654 times)