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[Anu Necunoscut]

Spring: 1st Granite, 1054.

(enter mason GODEN GLAZELANDS; miners DATAN TRUSTEDTOURS and ASTETH METALSAINT; carpenter LORBAM PAINTEDGIFTS; planter STODIR LANCEMASSIVE)

GODEN GLAZELANDS: A fine horse.  His back ought rather to be roofed
  with obsidian blocks.  Yet here it droops, thatched with
  swillbarrels.  We'll want a wall about this site before the sun is
  set, or is elsewise blotted by cave swallow wings.

DATAN TRUSTEDTOURS:  Leave off.  Rum's a sainted thing after an honest
  day's work.

GODEN:  Now that's holy Etur's truth.  Yet so little of it here!
  Asteth's wine has cost us dear.  The dwarf is a cask unto himself.

ASTETH METALSAINT (hauling a winebarrel):  I thought everyone liked
  wine.  You all told me you liked wine, remember.

STODIR LANCEMASSIVE:  Miners and their booze! Four casks of drink to
  wash down two slim barrels of food.  What shall we eat come winter,
  when we're colder than a wagon tire?  I've counted more seeds in your
  vomitpools than you've let me bring to this horrible place, Datan.
  "A fair and just compromise," she says!

DATAN:  Ha!  So I did, and say still.  No pricklier creature than a
  selfish planter.  Make no mistake, I would throw you to the snatchers
  for another cask of rum.

LORBAM PAINTEDGIFTS:  And I would kick your dear whiskered mama for a
  solitary swig of ale, of which we have none.  So.  Are we all done,
  said, and thoroughly finished?  That was a troll I spotted to the
  south.  We're all potted for her bonemeal if we don't leg it.

DATAN:  Fine.  Hack up this mossy ruin of a wagon you've guttered and
  hump the tower caps over to the site.  Brave the marmots and grow the
  woodpile--I'll dig you a beautiful burrow.

LORBAM:  Well enough.  Whether this axe meets swaying palms or grimy
  trollnecks, I'll see seven soft beds built before the month is out.

ASTETH:  It's quite clear then--you all despise me.  I suppose I knew
  it, even at the start.  It might have been better had you told me. 
  Or perhaps not.  Yet still I knew, you see.  No sense hiding the
  truth.  At all events, Edem can always make more drinks.

(enter brewer EDEM NATIONLANCERS, holding metalsmith DATAN CHEWEDCONSTRUCT)

EDEM: Chewie's lost it.  Anyone got a rum cask?

GODEN:  What for?

EDEM:  To bash her over the head with.

GODEN:  My beard for those obsidian blocks.

CHEWIE:  O heavy day!  Lashes, fire, demons, beak dogs and chains!
  Are you all mad?  Soft?  A goblin tower beetles over the cliffs to
  the north!  A vent festers with Etur-forsaken nightmares away south!
  Our crabbing caravans will crater to the chitinous clickclacking of
  antmen!  We can never leave!  We're bottled in this hellcanyon to
  rot!  And you're wagging your beards about booze?  So free; so easy.
  So corned with ale you've lost all sense of panic!  Augh!

LORBAM:  Calm down, Chewie.  Besides, there isn't any ale.  I've
  checked repeatedly, and with increasing frequency since you decided
  to scream all the time.  A stack of charcoal is all for you once we
  get a furnace up.  Afore your forge is built, that coal shall be your
  very own, to cuddle and coo while you rock back and forth.  Meantime,
  we could get started.

DATAN:  Enough.  Lorbam's right.  Let's get to work, everyone.  Goden,
  Asteth and I are to pick-swinging, Lorbam is to the leafy necks, and
  let the difference be hauler-dogs and barrel-proppers. I want
  everything neat, girded and cloistered.  Idlers, fishmongers and
  nobles are for the chasm.  Keep your stockpiles neat and your tools
  sharp if you want so much as a languorous blink this month.  Strike
  the earth!

[Anu Necunoscut]

Mid-Summer: 24th Malachite, 1054

(miners GODEN and ASTETH, eating; woodworker LORBAM, on break):

LORBAM: So, you and Datan, eh Goden?  You and our fair leader?  My
  virgin ears were well and truly sullied last night then, even as I
  believed.

GODEN:  Pah, you woodrats make for foul keyhole polish--there's no
  privacy to be had in this rough clutter-choked pit for any of us.
  A fair wonder that you heard anything, sleeping in that fine willow
  bed you claimed all for yourself.  Tell me, have your tufted ears
  ever caught wind of dwarves sleeping on beds of palm before?  Dare
  you guess at the reason?

LORBAM:  There are no woodsmen but work with what's brought or what's
  cut.  Rattan palms do yeoman's service for furniture, not a duke's.
  As to what service yours did last evening, my ears I now shut.
  Too late, alas.

ASTETH:  And I thought Datan liked me.  Me, you understand.
  She spoke to me even yesterday.  She called me her friend.
  It's fate, you see--only "friends" for Asteth.
  And what benefits, you ask?  None, null, zero, zed.
  Always the dwarfmaids skulk after dash, flair and the sweet chime
  of coins.  Love was made for high master masons and foppish nobles.
  Life is pain.

LORBAM:  You'll be proven wrong--and in the very teeth--come next year.
  There'll be maidens among the migrants, you see.

ASTETH:  Should the Mountainhomes be emptied, and every dwarf maiden in
  the Barricade of Meetings laid in curtsy before me, not by a rock nut
  would things change.  Yet I am cheerful, am I not?

GODEN:  Ahem.  Seems about right.

LORBAM:  Buzz, buzz Goden.  I marked Asteth speaking with the Chewed
  One just yestereve.  Mining something out there, perhaps?

ASTETH:  Chewedconstruct... frights me.  She's, well, fierce.

GODEN:  Then fright no further.  Chewie, our resident nervous wreck,
  hates you.  It's a grudge, clear as pearl, heavy as lead, and so
  readily read it's writ in pink-penned letters o'er half the cliff
  face.

LORBAM:  A fortress grudge?  Yet we're so few.  And no lawmen among us.
  I've walked a vale of years as an expeditionary dwarf, so mark me:
  nothing good will come of such ill feeling, seeded overearly in these
  most savage surrounds.

GODEN:  Walling trolls out will wall her in with you, Asteth.  When the
  fell mood comes on, look to your pick.

LORBAM:  Best look to suspending Datan's butcher shop workorder for the
  moment.

ASTETH:  And then?

LORBAM:  Look to your pick.

[Anu Necunoscut]

(from the journal of Datan Trustedtours)

20th Timber, 1054.

Gnomes.  Dark gnomes in the savannah.  They flowed from the cliffs with maleficent stalk, murder and larceny their constant motive.  Edem Nationlancers the Brewer was surprised and attacked while gathering fresh-felled acacia near the brook.  She survived and fled to safety.  The smallbeards, outreached by our brewer's paces and little contented with their presently bootless deploy, commenced beating out their larcenous ways for our walls.  My pick and the axe of Lorbam Paintedgifts stood ready.  All else fled inside.  Ill-enduring our stretching hours of expectation, I resolved on a sortie.  This is what I discovered:



Little did I understand our seeming fortune before the brush bleared dark with shadow, and fell cries broke upon me.  In coarse-feathered reek it winged past: the giant cave swallow our mason Goden Glazelands had descried on our arrival.  Its talons dripped with gore.



The pointycaps' raid had dissolved into a rout of bright terror as the swallow followed them north to the hills.  We shall roof the fort.  The outside world will be our pigeon cage.  Not only for this our tame swallow--ere the wheeling monster had middled its call, 'twas answered.  Smaller notes, and struck from lesser throats.  These bespoke some reason, and a will behind.  Cave swallowmen.  Gathered at the southern vent.

[Anu Necunoscut]

(from the journal of Datan Trustedtours)

9th Obsidian, 1054.

Goden Glazelands makes laughter and mock, not roofing blocks, for the giant cave swallow.  Calling the dwarficidal rockbrooder "benign," he declines to cap our fort, Sarekeshtan.  Being of a different mind as to the danger, I've kept an eye or two on the gentler creatures of this land, having long been possessed of a meat-eater's hope they might settle and multiply.  This was folly:



Not only two mountain goats, but a pair of duncecapped smallbeards and a warthog also have met the grasping, reechy beak of this giant flapper.  Benign!  Best to get our metalsmith, Chewedconstructs, to forge a crossbow or two.

[Anu Necunoscut]

(from the journal of Datan Trustedtours)

11th Malachite, 1055.



Our itinerant squawker is to the earthly dust.  Lorbam Paintedgifts discovered the tented form rotting at the terminus of a blood-trail, fresh-fledged in miasma.  It lies near the western brookbank, its killer nowise visible in these surrounds.  Ambushers?  Kobold thieves?  None saw it die, and until the killer is found I will not rest the easier, though Goden naturally sees this as the fatal period to his belief in the creature's harmlessness.

The first immigrant wave has footed its clumsy ways to our halls, two furnace operators being the sum of its worth.  The rest is rootwaste and bumpkinage.  A full score we now are, and thus the tedious desklabor of bookkeeping I freely relinquish.

One of the little flapmonsters has been given a name: Ezum Ilralsuvas ("Treatylustrous") the cave swallowman.  Which of our pig-tail pated haulerdogs came up with the cumbersome surname?  Etur knows.

[Glacies]

Stick to the play format. It's more original.

[Mulch Diggums]

Pretty good cant belive no ones posted in this yet. Please continue

[Anu Necunoscut]

As far as the play-style, I'm trying to limit it to the times dwarves actually are sitting around talking and have something to talk about.  During the start, that's a fairly rare occurrence.  Sieges should be a lot of fun in that format, however.  In any case, when nobody's around for an interesting event, into the journal it goes.

I'm glad at least a few people are enjoying this.  The world of Dwarf Fortress has some rich content for metaphor! :-D

[Specialist290]

Impressive work, I must say.

Hope to see more soon!

[Anu Necunoscut]

Late Spring: 1st Felsite, 1056.

(enter mayor DATAN, woodworker LORBAM and miner ASTETH attending party; CHILDREN, PEASANTS, ENGRAVERS, and FURNACE OPERATOR idling)

DATAN:  Smooth! Engrave! Carve, my beauties!
  Bite and tooth to bleeding gums,
  nail and scratch with bloodied nubs,
  but carve!

LORBAM:  Poetry.  Get along with you, now.

(exit ENGRAVERS, grumbling)

ASTETH:  How likes you the mayoral seat, Datan?

LORBAM:  Solemn pomp, the tune and note of office, has not been much
  heard.  Hers remains a nag and bark to shatter the windiest imperial
  theme.

DATAN:  Ha!  Mark you anew these peasants two.  Stone wants hauling and
  refuse wants dumping.  Yet here they skulk idling.  Have we a heap of
  maximal reek for such baggage?

PEASANT:  What baggage, Etur please you?

ASTETH:  I believe, sir, that by "baggage" she refers to you.  You are
  thereby made the subject of fun.  It could as well have been me.
  And has.  Will again.

LORBAM:  Believe him, sirs.  His experience as such a subject stretches
  wider than the brave and sparkling firmament.

PEASANT 2:  I'll not be fun-subjected.

PEASANT: Nor me.

DATAN:  Nor thrown in the vent, either?  These free-assuming premises
  want trying, for confirmation's sake.  Which shall verify first, I
  wonder?

(exit PEASANTS, trembling)

DATAN:  Good lads.

FURNACE OPERATOR:  A good mayor!  A superlative stoneworker!

DATAN:  Stopple that.  Stow it and cork it.  I'm for the pick.
  No bricklayer, me.

FURNACE OPERATOR:  Ah, but is not Lemis Kizest, "the Vines of Zeal,"
  our most beauteous artifact?  A magnificent armor stand, emblazoned
  with the manly form of Goden Glazelands, legendary mason!

LORBAM:  Perhaps also legendary in other occupations.  I'd have sworn
  you lacked the soft aesthetic bent for such things, Datan.
  Love is a curious thing!  'Twas possession, or I'm an elf.

DATAN:  That it was, and that you are not.  I've sharked it to my
  quarters, there it stays.  Let not another coarse-tongued whisper
  be breathed on it.

(exit DATAN and LORBAM)

ASTETH (striking a manly pose):  I'm a miner, and said to be legendary.
  Why always the masons?

(CHILDREN laugh)

[Anu Necunoscut]

Early Autumn: 21st Limestone, 1056.

(enter marksdwarf MELBIL BOOTPLEAT [laughing]; snatcher STRODNO NGUSLUUMA [making a plaintive gesture])

MELBIL:  Thrice-damnèd mongrel! Croaking shambler thou!
  Recline thy sooty, green and grainèd hide
  Upon this iron couch of bolts, fresh-forged.

(fires, mortally wounding STRODNO)

  Spit now, with rawer breath, thy demon's name.
  No answer but a cackling echo's mock.
 
STRODNO:  Base brushbeard! You, thy kin--nay, all thy kind
  Shall writhe in chainèd terror beneath the keep.
  Utes Eblak!  Zakosp!  This crawler's done.

(dies)

[Glacies]

Very nice.

[Anu Necunoscut]

(from the journal of Datan Trustedtours, mayor)

22nd Limestone, 1056.

An ambush yesterday, and smartly sprung at that.  Now as we've finished the sexton-work, I may set down what occurred.  In brief, our dear mewling merchants from the Barricade of Meetings have no heads for discipline.  In a naked wandering line they came, wagons all in a pretty row, only the head and front of their number being heavily guarded.  Behind?





Death and disaster.  Blood and chaos.  The livestock leaders, footsore and weary, were left by the loftywheeled caravan princes to straggle and gutter themselves.  What shield, what bulwark had they against the thousand dangers of the world?  A lone swordsdwarf, now for the worms.

'Twas a single squad of barkers all told, snatchers skulking behind.  The hunter Melbil Bootpleat was afoot in the wilds and summarily drafted.  Her bolts kindled with bloody execution, unseaming the vitals of two soldiers and two snatchers.  She lost one hunting dog in the tumult. 

The true marvel of this hurlyburly was Asteth Metalsaint.  Our shy, paranoid miner and founding dwarf entered the fray in an utter calm and quiet reserve, yet proved the very minion of valor.  He struck down their captain at the outer wall, loosening all the foul shrieker's bonelappings in a single stroke.  The rest were as slimmest parings of rock to his pick--a tap here, a tap there: all collapsed to dust.

To my shame, I was bottled for the coward's role of diplomat, barring the liason from incontinently departing before our trade agreement was set.  But such is my duty, and such was necessary.  Lorbam Paintedgifts and his axe were each asleep, and now he stews in equal parts shame and choler that he missed our sport.  Our losses, apart from the one dog, are none.

Still, overlate were our larger plans for sure watch and defense--this shall be remedied.

[RPharazon]

This is awesome beyond words. Your expert wordsmithing brings many an awesome quote to the fore.

Keep up the amazing work.

[Skizelo]

This is good stuff, and I'll second Glacie's preference for the play to the journals, though I understand that's not always possible. I'm looking forward to the "Exit, pursued by a GCS" stage direction.
Also, is it in any meter? My ear's terrible.