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[Fedor]

I review my fellow dwarves.  We currently assemble:

1 swordsdwarf and no fewer than 14 marksdwarves of at least "competant" skill.  Our best fighter is, of course, Nekose, who's "talented" at riddling Ogres and Harpies from a safe distance.  His problem, like that of his entire squad, is that he lacks the strength, dexterity, and toughness to be a truly effective fighter.  This is going to change.  They also all need armor - Nekose counts himself lucky to have scored an (iron cap) and an (iron shield) from somewhere.  If he and his merry dwarves are to survive any real challenge, I have to find a way to fix this.

2 skilled carpenter/woodchoppers (Rictus is our best carpenter with a skill of "talented")
2 legendary miners, with five others "proficient" or better.  (Aargh the Foreman being our second-best)
3 legendary engravers, with a fourth at "proficient".  (Nekose the Artist being our third-best)
3 skilled masons, the best being "adept".  (Aargh is third-best, at "proficient")
6 growers at least "skilled" in planting. (I'm only "normal", so don't really count)
a "skilled" brewer and a "novice" cook.
no craftsdwarves of greater than (normal) skill, except for a proficient bone carver already hard at work at making crossbow bolts and ...

our most remarkable single dwarf:  the legendary jeweler Tekkud Alisedem, creator of a perfect Aventurine.  He is currently the least replaceable dwarf among us ... by a considerable margin.  I notice his work on far too little around here - although that anvil is pretty cool.

Our other two artifacts were created by possessed dwarves, which is a small part of the reason for our very large population with almost no skills to speak of:  I am but one of no fewer than 79 dwarves with no military or trade skills above (normal) and no other skills above "competant" (or who only have skill in over-served professions, like engraving).  It's clear that more than a little skills-training is in order ... and my raddled ass is going to be first up on the treadmill.

====================

Organizing the dwarves

Having taken stock, I start grabbing dwarves and shoving them at jobs (or kicking them out!).

I stop trying to tan hides and call bagsie on farming detail; only myself and the best of my fellow workers will be permitted to plant a seed or harvest anything from here on out.  This business of "every idiot dabbles in the fields" ends now - we're going professional!

Same story with mining - five get to mine, the rest will haul; same with engraving - three get to engrave, the rest haul; same with carpentry - one carpenter (Rictus), one woodchopper, the rest haul; same with the other professions.

The entire Fortress Guard gets disbanded - the nobles can whine to the little fishes for all I care.  Nekose loses six fighting dwarves to haulage detail, sees another five stripped away to guard wells and the chasm, is brusquely told to have everyone stop wasting time [ooc: buggily] filling waterskins, and sees his remaining seven-strong command split up.  No more "guarding the leader" while he eats/drinks/sleeps!

By the time I finish harrassing the guilds and trimming the military, the list of dwarves at Axefather looks like this:

Getting food on the table

We're mighty short on edibles.  Unless I'm missing the main stash - and I've looked everywhere I can think of - we have exactly seven units of food remaining:  Two dead cats and a solitary plump helmet.  50 days at least will pass before we can harvest.  We must save ourselves by nook or crook.

Or, indeed, by hook.  Fishing in a cave river so exposed to flooding frightens me no end, but our hardy fisherdwarves divide into specialist fishers and fish processors (we would already have abundant fish except the rawstuffs are all rotting in the barrels untouched!), start work on two more fisheries (one near each river) and cast their nets and poles with an urgency that only the hunger of their children can impart.  The general food stockpile now longer accepts raw fish.

Kel, our delicated cook, hastens to the stoves; meat's off his menu options as it is already edible, but we do have enough spare seeds and animal fat for him to make a real contribution to staving off starvation (at the price of a few heart attacks).  He notices that the farmers have grown tired of trapsing all the way to the general food stockpile every time they want to sow a seed and have therefore set up a dedicated seed stockpile inside the farming area.  He, therefore, sets up a new kitchen right next to the seeds and (right after I finsh the map, the injit!) orders the fat moved nearby.

The soldiers still under Nekose' (nominal) command are ordered outside to bring back ...

Our one reasonably skilled herbalist heads to the cave river to gather what little's to be found there; our farmer-butchers chase down the few remaining livestock (four kittens, three foals - we've already eaten everything else except pets) and set up new butchery sites outside; we double-check our stock of elven-safe tradeable goods; dwarves scamper for the farm floodgate levers.

Food!  Food by any means!

No more idling!
We now have 95 working dwarves ... but more than enough gainful work to keep twice that number busy for a very long time.

I order every non-food stockpile in the fort to be deleted.  No more hauling stone to the masons and to the catapult trainees; from now on, both go where the stone already is.  No more "dump anything and everything in a huge disorganized pile".  No more long walks from workshops - especially the kitchens! - to fetch inputs.  Every production chain of this fortress will be rethought from scratch.

There is a time to coddle dwarves - and there is a time to crack the whip.  We're hungry, and that means we all work until we aren't.  Every adult dwarf attending any party or "on break" gets conscripted (by a very gleeful Nekose) into the military; after a little bit of running about they'll have forgotten their break or party and be ready to be useful.

Bones and shells
Cog Limullokum, now the official fortress Fletcher, is one of the more important dwarves in our community.  With all the practice he's had making bolts and totems, he's a natural for making rough but serviceable shell armor to help keep Nekose alive.  I tell the haulers to set up a large bone/shell stockpile around his current place of work.

Jeweling and Decorating
No more stupid stone mugs.  We'll make some skull totem just because we can, but decorating with gems is how our fortress will pay its way this year.  But what to decorate?  My first thought is bolts - but Nekose puts the kibbosh on that idea.  After toying with decorating mechanisms, metalware-we-don't have-and-can-just-barely-make, kobold clothing, and rotten cat chunks, I turn back to those stupid rock mugs.  It's kinda embarassing for a fifth-year fortress to still be hawking "-Diorite mug-"s, but it's going to be a lot less embarrasing once Tekkud Alisedem puts some exceptional-quality diamond bling-blings on them!

Big-picture thinking

And this talk of adding value bring us to a question:  What ARE we going to do with this fortress?  We have several competing objectives here:
1.  If practicable, make use of existing structures, especially those of beauty and imagination,
2.  Set up reasonably efficient magma-powered metal forging and glassworking operations and start training up dwarves (while hoping for a few fits of inspiration), ...
3.  But not without sacrificing food-production (!) or the existing industries that depend on wood, silk, leather, plants, etc..

A look at the map....

Suggests three particularly interesting positions for Axefather's ideal "center of gravity", the place near where the food, booze, and beds need to go.  Each position is marked with a number; all satisfy the three objectives (with varying amounts of digging and engineering).  Ebe's having a REALLY hard time deciding.  She needs some advice...

Poll time!  Readers, a question for you all:

Axefather's new center of gravity should be:

1. "At the position marked '1'."
2. "At the position marked '2'."
3. "At the position marked '3'."
4. "Don't move it - keep it where it was before."
5. (write-in option)

[Fedor]

1st Granite:
Aargh sets his mining crew on widening the main path between the river and the chasm; we intend a five-grid walkway all the way to the magma.

I hand him a set of secret blueprints for our new fortress center.  The position is a compromise between my own inclinations and the feedback I took from former leaders and concerned citizens, but the design is a farmer-leader original.  I've been a planter and food-preparer long enough to have a very clear idea how to feed and liquor my fellow Axefather dwarves better than it's been done around here thus far.  By this time next year, we're going to be walking less and tippling more!

2nd Granite:
By the end of the first day everyone who can be put to work is either doing work (or unavoidable stuff like eating and sleeping).  Virtually all of the dwarves Nekose conscripted to stop their partying rushed to the barracks to get in some starring, which was odd because the room hasn't even been designated as a barracks yet - all it has were some free beds and archery targets.

I let them off duty.  Without exception, they raced back to the statue garden to start up the party again.  Shaking my head, I walk into the room, rip the "This is a Statue Garden!" sign off the central bust, and tell them that the fun and games were over.  They sheepishly get to hauling, making mechanisms, and so forth.

3rd Granite:
Nekose and his lieutenants are now using a new system of organizing soldiers.  Instead of permanent squads, they're starting to form temporary battleforces using fighters who actually assemble at a given rally point in good time.  A trio of Ogres have lurched a little too close to the outside river bridge to be ignored any more; they, not the warthogs, will be the first test of the new methods.

4th Granite:
It's hustle and bustle inside and out.

Nekose and crew open up on the ogres from a safe distance, killing them.  Pity we can't eat ogre...

He and they then go inside to reload.  This and other factors causes much delay in going after the warthogs.

Early Granite:
Our fisherdwarves and specialist fish preparers are rapidly becoming most valuable players in our fight against starvation.  They've even discovered a way to restore aged raw turtle!

Thikut Rigothetur gives birth to a baby girl.  Another mouth to feed ... but a very cute one.

More and more dwarves are walking around hungry...

10th Granite:
Flood warning!  The single thing about Axefather that has had me tearing out most hair is the total disregard of flood safety.  Vital pathways - including the one between our fields and food storage! - are nakedly exposed to every rise in water.  How we have lost so few thus far is more than I can understand.

As the waters rise, I desperately conscript fisherdwarves and others near enough to the water banks to be in mortal danger and order them away from the shore.  Not everyone is getting the message:  Here, we see Tun the fisher - a dwarf we can't afford to lose - walking over an unwalled bridge (with no safety net downstream), in precisely the opposite direction from his station point, despite being on duty and not otherwise engaged.  

What we do not see here is the growing indentation in my office desk from me beating my head against it.

Wave "hi" to newborn baby, carried by mother, on insecure bridge, in the middle of a flood, four years after fortress founding.  Armok preserve us from our folly.

Mid-Granite:
Hunger increases.  Warthogs die.  We find out that dwarves weren't being allowed to haul ore from the mines and correct this, and then chivvy our haulers to drag corpses from wilderness to our two new butchery sites near the outside river.  Planting progresses rapidly, but we wish we were able to grow enough of something more productive than plump helmets, which cannot - unlike sweet pods, pig tails, or quarry bushes - be reliably multiplied fivefold before consumption.  I finally organize the cooking properly and two dwarves are now busily making meals of seeds and fat.

Food's a problem, but haulage and production are beginning to turn the corner.  Haulage right now consists of an undifferentiated mob of about 50-60 dwarves sloshing about the fortress with whatever been tasked at the moment:  right now it's moving ore to the smelter, thread to the loom, edibles to a new stockpile near the dining hall, and furniture nearer the new fortress center.

Koji the Artist leads the fortress engravers; he and they have been smoothing a great many rough patches in the existing fortress between the surface and the cave river.  Everything looks better finished.

Axefather now has a dedicated weaver and another dwarf specializing in clothes-making; both benefit enormously from stockpiles of raw materials positioned right next to their places of work.  We'll need every bag Udib the Tailor can turn out!  Similar methods will soon enable a small but steady flow of metalware.

Our catapult operators have disassembled both catapults near the front gates.  These novice-produced machines are far too inaccurate to defend us, but will make fine training weapons.  And stone-clearers!

Master jeweler Tekkud Alisedem has cut a number of decorative and semi-precious gems and will soon begin to decorate in earnest.  His plans come to fruition in good time - elven traders and their precious cargo of food have just appeared!  Never have pointy ears looked so good.  From the look on their faces they don't seem as happy to see us as we are them.  Can't imagine why.

Nekose reports that he and his men have slaughtered eleven warthogs - enough to feed our community for half a month - in their great hunt so far.

He and Koji swap minions.  Legendary engravers come under Nekose' command to train as wrestlers; they - unlike any of our current soldiers - have the physical attributes to bear heavy armor and so be truly formidable fortress champions.  Nekose intends to be a leader well worthy of the coming army and so demobilizes himself and his three best marksdwarves to beef up.  All take up chisels and start smoothing floors.  It will take time, but we're going to field a mighty army.

Late Granite:
We trade with the elves.  They dote on iron bolts and crossbows.

As a note of thanks, we offer a gift of a stone axe.  What's so special about the axe?  It's encrusted with aquamarines.  Elves just can't resist that blue.

With elven groceries, fish, and warthog meat, we have enough edibles to tide us over until the first spring harvest ... and even something to brew, which we order to be done immediately.  Our remaining three foals are saved from the butcher's knife.

Here we see Rictus about to be fed.

There are happy dwarves ... and then there are unhappy dwarves.  The fortress broker in particular has got a beef about the mason carving out doors right in the middle of his office.  Rock-clearance - we do what we can with the tools we've got.

[Rictus]

Great work Fedor sorting out the mess I left you with, and really well written too.  I'm embarrassed to say, but there's a few screens (and ideas) that are totally new to me there.

Keep it up!

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by Rictus:
<STRONG>Great work Fedor sorting out the mess I left you with, and really well written too.  I'm embarrassed to say, but there's a few screens (and ideas) that are totally new to me there.

Keep it up!</STRONG>

No worries; it's all good.  Heck, I'm probably messing something up for the the next chap myself.  In fact, as the next update shows, there's a real chance of me messing up worse than anyone has before...

[Fedor]

Late Granite:
Tekkud shows off his latest masterwork of decoration.  The humans will just love this little trinket.

He ceases operations for the spring to conserve gems (we have plans for using them on our own furniture someday) and Cog the Fletcher turns his able hand to making totems out of the horse and cat skulls we have in such abundance.  We can sell the humans (unlike those picky elves) anything and there's a whole bunch of useless organic crap littering this place we aim for them to haul off.

27th Granite:
Nekose is stricken with inspiration!  I race to his side to inquire the nature of his desires, but gets only mumbling and evasive answers from a dwarf grown oddly secretive.  Fearing to spark off his renowned temper by further questioning in the corridor, I order a metalsmith to prowl after Nekose and see if he whispers anything helpful when he feels he's alone.

But the plan falls apart.  Nekose wanders to the statue garden and mopes about.  Frantic reading of the ancient records of our race reveals that he may perhaps want a workshop we have not yet built.  This can only be something magma-based; we've everything else a moody dwarf could want already.

Ah, this is going to be interesting.  The problem isn't that we need steel bars but don't have them, because making them won't take very long with iron ore, flux, and coke now ready to hand near the smelter.  I bless Rictus for finding that iron - if he hadn't, Nekose would be doomed!  No, the problem is twofold:  firstly, the magma is so far away from all resources that Nekose might well go mad traipsing back and forth; and, secondly, we not only have no clear or crystal glass, we don't even have the industries needed for them.  I'm just grateful we have leather.

Every day is vital.  We'll pre-position a selection of tempting options for Nekose near to the magma smelter and the magma forge we're about to build.  Our missing fancy glass is going to appear just as fast as we can make it.  Let's get to work!

Late Granite:
Rictus is our best carpenter, but he's not getting much done.  He's spent nigh-on a month on making less than a dozen items.  I'm strongly tempted to rip up his bed room, dining room, and office, but he convinces me instead to shift the carpentry nearer his home instead.

Early slate:
Rictus built a single cage just before tearing down his old workshop and we're now caging the livestock as there's already more than enough congestion in the hallways.  Koji has just found a way [occ: external] to remove the mud and dirt spotting the floor outside the walls of our statue garden and his minons are already smoothing them.

[Fedor]

7th Slate:
The first plump helmet timidly pokes its cap above the mulch ... and, to my amazement, is not instantly set upon by a horde of ravenous dwarves.  I've seen dwarves fight hungry, party hungry, and go to bed hungry; I've seen them eat worn out cave fish, dripping warthog meat, and prickle berry seeds fried in lard; I've even seen one of our cooks hunt for vermin in the fields.  But all that's over with; let's hope we never get so close to starvation again.

Booze will take just a little more time.  We're setting up a new still right in the middle of a dedicated plant stockpile and plan to stash its output near where I see the most dwarves congregating.

Early slate:
I shut down fishing (for safety reasons) and butchery (as it chews up too much hauler time).

10th Slate:
My furious impatience with Axefather's novice metalworkers ends today as we start hauling two bars of gleaming steel to the magma, there to build a forge (using our only anvil, taken from our already-disassembled existing workshop) and smelter.  Things are really looking up around here ... let's just hope it's not too late for Nekose. <<chews>>

Mid-Slate:
I'm a happy dwarf AND an unhappy dwarf, both at once.  Why am I happy?  BOOZE!

Aargh thinks it's about kobold-!(*&$%#ing time.

Why am I unhappy?  Stupid me forgot to pre-position the anvil for the magma forge and Nekose is getting IMPATIENT.  O, if I lose Nekose on my watch I'll never forgive myself.  We have four dwarves dedicated to getting that building up and running; when one drops the anvil to eat, an idle replacement is already available to restart the job.

19th Slate:
The anvil passes the magma doors.  Almost there!  I lock the smelter carrying it inside the metalworking area to make sure that, this time, the job'll get done before anyone scampers off for tea.

... And it's finally built.  Yes!  Nekose is running for it!  20 days lost:  We just don't have room for more leadership fumbles here, people.

[Rictus]

quote:Originally posted by Fedor:
[QB]
Rictus is our best carpenter, but he's not getting much done.  He's spent nigh-on a month on making less than a dozen items.  I'm strongly tempted to rip up his bed room, dining room, and office, but he convinces me instead to shift the carpentry nearer his home instead.
   

What can I say? I like the commute.

Still great stuff here Fedor. Can't wait to see if you beat the invisible timer on Nekose's madness.

[Fedor]

Late Slate:
Aargh and his team of miners proudly unveil their latest handiwork:

You're looking at the new fortress center here.  My original plans benefited from a close discussion with Aargh, who personally oversaw the creation of what is arguably the most beautiful room in the fortress - the engraved circular statue garden between this view and the cave river.  Like his earlier work, this area features circles - two of them this time.

The portion above the main cross-fortress corridor will be the agricultural and food processing area.  The portion below will be the Great Hall.  The rooms just above and just below the corridor will hold the main liquor stockpile and the edibles (more on this later).  Bedrooms are an integral part of this great complex; everyone who works with food - grows it, prepares it, or is a specialist food hauler - will be able to sleep near their place of work.  The catapult are for, you guessed it, rock removal.

'?'s below the future Great Hall indicate spaces that should be dug out for symmetry.  I haven't asked Aargh and crew to do so yet because I'm not quite sure what I want there.  Butchery/Leatherworking are possibilities, but there's no special reason they need to go there (instead of, say, nearer the main source of leather, which will be traders).  Bedrooms?  Something decorative like a stone garden or even an irrigated pool?  I just don't know.

Big-picture thinking (2)
Aargh then asks me "So, what do we dig next?".  Here, again, I need a little time to think.  Let's review the map of our community:

"1a" is where most dwarves currently sleep.  Axefather's residential complex was a little far away from too many workplaces even when the fortress was young and small; the problem is so much worse now that I'd rate it as the second-biggest time-waster here.  Only our food and drink arrangements are worse.  Now that we seek to tap resources stretching all the way from the outside forest to the deep magma, we'd be well-advised to locate bedrooms near individual industries - in other words, to think modularly.  As for the old residential complex:  Maybe a cemetary?  Maybe use the upper portion to house soldiers?

"1b" is where our craftdwarves (still) labor.  This is still a useful site, but it lacks convenient storage and will be too distant from the new fortress center.  It gets mothballed.

"2" is where we leaders and former leaders live and dine.  Problem here is that everyone except Nekose has to walk so far to get to work that they punch below their weight.  So I'll ask Aargh to dig me out a little place somewhere else (not sure where).

"3" is a currently unused cavern that will actually make a pretty good location for industries that rely on imported goods and outside or cave river resources (was this intentional?).  There's even a little space to squeeze in modest bedrooms for the craftdwarves.  The space just below "3" is taken up by nobles' quarters; this intrusion is a real nuisance that I don't think we have enough dwarf-hours to fix.

"4" marks prime real estate.  Something that lots of dwarves use frequently should go here.  Bedrooms for hauler-dwarves would suit perfectly, but perhaps we should save it for something more interesting?

"5a", "5b", and "5c" all mark possible sites for an indoor forest (perhaps more than one).  I'm motivated to have Aargh carve one out so we don't have to walk so far and risk so much just to get wood.

Late Slate:
But we need to shift the bedrooms and workshops first.  I order every bed in the bottom half of the residential quarters taken apart, and devote another ten dwarves specifically to furniture hauling.  Where are all the dwarves I'm evicting going to bunk until I figure out where to house them permanently?  In a temporary barracks right below the "3" on the map above, on their old beds.

Axefather's hard-working pair of masons have been carving out doors for some time, and today we have just enough to start taming the cave river.  Doors erected as a stone barracade or levee along the banks will both protect us from the riptide and allow controlled access to fishing and sand-collection sites.  In time, I intend the entire accessable waterfront to be warded.

25th Slate:
Nekose stands down all but two dwarves (melee fighters permanently guarding wells) to train as wrestlers.  He encourages his men to equip themselves with all the shell armor Cog the Fletcher has turned out, both for protection against accidents and to get used to wearing heavy battle-harness.

No fewer than 27 immigrants come to far-famed Axefather, raising our total population to 149.  Leading them are a trade minister, two guild representatives, and a philosopher.  Four marksdwarves boost Nekose's force to a much  healthier number.  I learn of innate clear glass-blowing and steel-working talents in two of the newcomers and recuit a cook and a leatherworker.  For now, everyone else is needed to help haul.

Late Slate - early Felsite:

The wheels of Axefather begin to turn great and fast and smooth.  Plump helmets, sweet pods, and the first quarry bushes ripen in the fields.  Alchohol production has just now gathered enough momentum to build up a small reserve.  Koji chisel side-by-side in the main corridor past the river; Aargh is carving out bedrooms and widening hallways, Rictus is hard at work on bins and barrels.  Our masons are engaged in building a raising bridge to stop anyone being swept off the main river bridge by the summer floods, now 40 days away and counting.

Only Nekose still has me worried.  He wanted raw glass - by great good fortune raw green glass - and we didn't have it stockpiled, which means another long hike, which means his patiences is wearing dangerously thin.

It's time for the Dear Leader to feather her own nest.  Aargh and crew spare a couple of days to hack out a cute little villa for me in half of the reserved space south of the future Great Hall.  On the other side will go a public garden.

Mid-Felsite:

Aargh joins in the masonry work as mining is progressing much better than furniture-making.  Fortress expansion, swapping out old doors with better new ones, and flood-control together give three dedicated masons plenty of work.  Rictus grabs numerous hauls and turns the cavern above the former leaders' rooms into the new wood-working area.  

My focus is elsewhere:

Nekose has a long list of demands, ranging from ore, to wood, to cloth, to leather, to both rough and cut gems, which frenzied production of all possible alternatives reveals to mean rough clear glass (green and crystal glass being deemed unacceptable).  We've had to set up a fancy glass production chain pretty much from scratch since the beginning of the year; make the bags, get sand in them, create ash, turn it into potash, turn that into pearlash, and finally guess at the proper kind of glass.  All of this is taking a worrying amount of time.  I sorta wish I'd thought to actually make some raw fancy glass immediately after taking charge: this error might well cost Nekose his sanity and his life.

[Fedor]

Mid-Felsite:
I've mapped out the new tree farm:  work begins immediately.  Because all the urgent digging is now complete, Aargh swaps out the miners who have become legendary with part-timers of lesser skill.  The beefed up miners are a valuable addition to our military (2 become recruits) and our labor pool.  Both of our peasant catapult operators have just been summarily dismissed for incompetence, having failed to even become novices in two months of effort.  Strong and agile legendary-level miners will replace them ... and, hopefully, will finally get some stone-clearance done!

The bedrooms near the future kitchen and production areas are now furnished.  Time to move house!  I deassign most of the remaining rooms in the old residential complex (those that still have their beds) and rehouse many of the dwarves most vital to Axefather's economy near their new (in some cases still future) places of work.  Our military grabs the northernmost rooms in the old residential complex, along with those craftsdwarves who haven't moved shop yet (like our master jeweler).  The haulers will sleep in barracks for the duration.

Meanwhile, the nobles wish to bring more elevated concerns to my attention.  There are probably not three star sapphires in the entire mountain.
   

Late Felsite:
Moving the food, the drink, and all the industries associated with each is a tricky balancing act between our need to boost our still-scanty stockpiles and the urge to get settled in early.  We're moving in stages:  Plump helmets and booze-production need to stay where they are for the moment, but we can furnish the dining hall, set up the new stills and kitchens, and shift most of the food now.

Flood the fields!
 

22nd Felsite:
Nekose starts work.

He's gathered nine items, traveled roughly a thousand grids (much of that heavily burdened), and required us to set up two new industries, but at last his great creation-act begins.  If it weren't for Rictus' iron and wood and charcoal, he'd be dead.  If it weren't for turtles, he'd be dead.  If it weren't for stockpiling everything we had ready near his place of work, he'd be dead.  If it weren't for constant fiddling to get ash-and-potash-and-pearlash-and-bags-and-sand-and green and clear glass both?  He'd be dead with a bolt through his chest!

That nightmare's over.  I slump to the floor sobbing with relief.  All of Axefather awaits news on what marvel he will show us.
   

27th Felsite:
Five days later, Nekose strides out of the workship, eyes gleaming with mischief.  In his hand is "Spoiledgriffon the Sullen Stormy Glutton", a pure tin booze barrel.  When Aargh looks at it, hears the name, and takes a look at the splendid rendition of himself passed out and puking green on the floor, he goes berserk:  Never was touché more cutting.  We have to save Nekose as he's laughing too hard to run - a difficult task, as we're rolling ourselves.
   

Nekose has become a legendary blacksmith, capable of forging furniture of extraordinary beauty, boasting a value to warm the greediest of dwarven - or indeed human - hearts.  It will take a while for us to set up a large enough smelting industry to support him, but Axefather is now on the very cusp of GREATNESS.

Nekose is still Nekose, of course.  He absolutely insists on being allowed to kill something every so often.  Happily, we have more than enough giant cats and ogres to satisfy even a dwarf with ... "anger issues".  I order him to engrave some more to boost those lowish strength and agility ratings.

During the celebration (and appeasement) dinner, master jeweler Tekkud examines Nekose's creation closely and suggests an approximate value of just under 70,000 for the whole, making it the most valuable single article in Axefather.  Toasts are quaffed (messily, by tradition):  Most of us use cheap stone mugs; Aargh simply upends the barrel.

Early Hematite:
We'll be needing a dwarf who can lower liquid levels like a champ - the summer floods are almost on us.  Even if Aargh dislikes the taste of cave river water, however, this time we have a flood-control system in place.  Well, almost in place:  Our mechanic is making heavy weather of fitting the raising safety bridge.  We gather around him,  shouting encouragement and flaunting the completion-bonus booze.
   

"I'm rollin' this here keg to yer room ... Sure hope you aren't done in time because then I git to drink it!"

Other continuing points of weakness are the rough rock bridges south of the main corridor, which are as good a way to get dwarves drowned accidentally as I've ever seen.  I've locked all the doors to them and will think about how to properly sort things out when our masons and mechanics have enough time free.

15 days, and our new miner/catapult operators are already novice level.  Most excellent.

Hauler Fath Unibvunom gives birth to a boy.  Axefather is becoming more and more a real home for us dwarves; who could have dreamt of this back when our community was young and harpies ruled the land?  We owe Koji and Nekose a great debt.

Mid-Hematite:
Despite all our care and the timely raising of the bridge safety wall, the floodwaters still get in a goodly ration of devilment.  A dwarf is thrown upstream from the bridge and only the ebb-flow brings her back to safety (time for a matching safety wall).  The new-built doors between the river and the western statue garden completely fail to stop water wetting the area due to their being opened by traffic.  We'll need a second, and perhaps even a third, set as a "waterlock".
   

I consult closely with both Mechanic Ablel and our three masons.  In addition to making the spans over the cave river safer (for sure, this time!), I want them also to be more beautiful.  My more ambitious ideas require more labor than we of Axefather can readily spare (and some also resources we don't have in sufficient quantity), but a plan is starting to come together...

Here we see a scene typical of Axefather activity during this period.  Dwarves haul what seem like endless quantities of furniture, food, and production inputs past the river.  An excessive number of pet cats are getting underfoot, but at least we've caged the rapidly-growing stray kitten population.  Our haulers sleep very close to where they are on average on a typical job and our new workshop locations are also very close:  Weaving and clothmaking are visible; bone/shell craftworking and fletching are located just to the north and leatherworking to the south.  Aargh (the miner marked with a red circle) is taking food to his private dining room.  A well in the corridor hereabouts is a point of danger from raids (I'm actually surprised we haven't gotten any so far) and will be demolished as soon as the miners can get to it (they're busy carving out the tree farm).
 

Human traders!  In force!  A particularly foolish kobold thief is being tramped under by a mob of sowrdsmen; his loincloth will become a small part of the leather junk we plan to offload on our gangly neighbors.  

I begin to suspect that we don't have enough trade goods prepared, and order up cave fish bone gauntlets and semi-precious gemstone decorations, and even set a smelter to work on more iron bars so we can perhaps get a high-quality (and extremely valuable!) anvil to the depot before the traders leave.

[ December 11, 2007: Message edited by: Fedor ]

[Fedor]

Late Hematite:
A quiet, industrious period.  We're planting, processing, brewing, cooking, and eating at our new fortress center; the move's gone about as smoothly as could be reasonably asked for, but it hasn't been cost-free:  Something like 15 days of planting were lost and our liquor stockpiles remain unacceptably low.  Dwarves are still occasionally seen sneaking water from the wells (most embarrasing...).

5th Malachite:
The human traders eventually cram all of their wagons into the depot and we get down to the haggling.  As Rictus requested a year ago, they bring abundance of food and drink:  I count 280 units of booze and 180 units of edible meat and drink.  We have an embarrassment of riches to pay for it all and - just to get rid of the clutter around here - let the humans walk away with a whopping profit.

I then give them this little gift:

to make sure they understand just how cool we dwarves are.

[Fedor]

Early Malachite:
The human trade representative accepts a list of desired items from our broker:  More leather is never amiss, nor a little extra cloth either.  I also ask for small quantities of food and drink just in case, and put in a bid for dogs, cows, horses, and - just for fun - red and green dye.

Every haulerdwarf in Axefather drops everything to get the food and drink safe into our central stockpiles [occ:  used Dwarf Foreman to turn off all non-food haulage].  It takes more than a week for us even to get to everything, and more than another to actually place them where they belong.  Rictus' far-sighted trade agreement has given our stockpiles a massive shot in the arm.

Which is nice.  But one thing that's not so pleasing is the reluctance of our soldiers to spar.  I've been assigning them bedrooms near the main barracks and setting up new barracks to give them room to practice their wrestling moves, but training proceeds with irksome slowness.

Nekose three times goes to make the anvil I requested a little while ago, and three times wanders off-track, first to drink, then to eat, and then to sleep.  A month's delay - I'm infuriated.  To motivate him, I promise some hunting time after he gets enough furniture made.  I also eye his current room location and make plans...

Nobles
Axefather now has nine nobles and they're starting to become nuisances.  I'm not at all interested in sparing miners or engravers to make them proper bedrooms and offices just yet, so we've set up some temporary accomodations inside what has now become the fortress carpentry, woodworking, charcoal, and ash/potash center.

Their rooms overlap massively, which doesn't please them, but they're drunken sots to a dwarf and a single placed cabinet will make them see triple:  Now they they think they have three - one in each of bedroom, dining room, and office.  When I finally convince Nekose to get on it, something valuable in their shared quarters will make all four nobles very happy.

The nobles are also screaming out mandates.  Right now, the major is getting rather angry at our failure to produce diamond items, while the trade minister and the broker between them want rope reed, star sapphire, and bracelets, none of which fit into our plans.  I'm thinking about locking up Captain Mafol.

Mid-year food review
The agricultural year is half over; it's time to take stock.

I'm still not quite satisfied with agriculture.  For starters, Kogon our (only) Herbalist has been disappointing, despite my close attention, and has brought back far fewer plants than I had hoped for.  This, in turn, means that after months of effort we still have no seeds to grow pig tails or dimple cups.  Pig tails in particular are mighty handy for brewing and for unlimited cloth-making.  We are growing a small amount of cave wheat (for variety) and had a successful sweet pod harvest.  Quarry bush growing is doing very well, thanks largely to efficient multiplication of seeds through constant leaf bagging.

With food becoming a large-scale, well-localized industry, it's time to set up a specialist class of haulers that will handle only food.  These dwarves will be able to work in the same region all the time instead of running from a wood-haulage job all the way to pick up seeds from the Great Hall.  I assign five of the six haulers with an agricultural profession this mission and tell all other haulers to leave food-moving alone (except under special circumstances).

This brings the total number of dwarves who do anything with food or drink nowadays (as opposed to during the food crisis) to 18:  2 cooks, 2 brewers, 1 thresher, 1 herbalist, 7 planters (3 of which are also butchers), 5 haulers.  Unless we start up fishing or large-scale butchery again, less labor will be needed next year; 12 or 14 will more than suffice to feed our population of 150, plus expected immigrants, from agriculture.

Mid-Malachite:
Our soldiers start to practice a bit more ... now that they know Nekose still has his eye on them.

Our major orders the arrest of one of our jewelers for failing to satisfy his diamond mandate.  Don't touch Tekkud if you value your health, captain...

Malfol is arrested.  Already sleepy when dragged to the rope, he begins to whimper for a bed.  I may be a little blaisé about satisfying nobles, but what Mafol wants, Mafol gets.

The general haulers begin to run out of assigned work; I first ask them to set up a stone block stockpile so that we don't have to traipse so far to get building stone for workshops and such, then put them to limestone hauling (for steel-making), and finally to erecting doors and statues to close off the chasm.  The cave river is more-or-less safe, but a major raid out of the chasm would be trouble.

Our farmers also find themselves short of work.  I set them to help haul furniture, but also to get the caged kittens and foals over to the new butchery site, located just southwest of the Great Hall.  We've had a veritable population explosion of cats and seen four foals newly born this summer because of our numerous pets.  I'm not really interested in slaughtering anything now, but we do want to be ready for emergency.  And to stop more stupid felines from getting underfoot!

Early Galena:
It took half of forever for Nekose to get on it, but when he does, he makes that statue right.  The eight founders of Axefather gleam, life-size, in massy gold before our eyes.  Every fold of their clothing, every strand of their hair, every rivet on their helmets, every vein on their arms - all are depicted in art more faithful to life than life sometimes is itself.  I immediately gather around some dwarves to ponder how best to add the final touches to its beauty.  As for Nekose, he gets to Kill Something!

A look at my duty roster for today:

Rictus is getting very good at his job.  Instead of the problem being too little production, the problem now is too much.  I hand him an axe and invite him to demonstrate why trees hate dwarves.

10th Galena:
Nekose roars for his fighting dwarves to rally around with their crossbows.  The wild beasts have been getting way too fat and happy of late.  He'll start with the harpies:

Mid-Galena:
Ablel the Mechanic is conducting a major extension of Axefather's trap defences; new on the menu are cage traps, great for stopping monsters that can shrug off even a falling boulder.

[Fedor]

The Disgruntled Soldier is pleased.

Very pleased.  It's been a good day's work.  He orders his myrmidons back inside.

[Fedor]

Start the Dwarven Economy?
Meanwhile, I am pondering whether to start up a money-based economy at Axefather.  We're certainly ready for it - the question is whether it's a good idea.  The arguments are finely balanced, but in the end I decide that not being able to assign rooms and having to deal with guilds will do us more harm than melting and dump stuff will help us, and that being able to look at stocks and set workshop users are not as helpful as dealing with wages and rents can be annoying, and therefore choose not to ask our smiths to start coin production this year.  Something that might change my mind is if we ever get a lot of meltable ironmongery.  We're short on iron ore; goblin gear could make all the difference.

No, decorate THIS item, dummy!
We only have one gold statue, so moving Nekose's masterpiece depicting the Founders about via stockpiles is easy.  However, master jeweler Tekkud is having a hard time realizing that I want it decorated, instead of, say, some random bucket near to him when he got the job.  I conscript him and personally escort him to his workshop and watches narrowly as he grabs the statue at last.  I then catch a hauler tasking the statue to put back into the stockpile.  Thanking her sweetly, I tell her to instead remove the designation.  That statue gets decorated even if I have to set up CAMP here!
   

... And so it gets done, and done right.  If Axefather ever hosts a master metalcrafter, we're going to have even more fun with this.
   

Now we get to figure out where to put it.  I'm mighty tempted to put it into my own little villa, but I heroically restrain myself.  Nekose has a claim.  Tekkud has a claim.  Aargh's beautiful statue garden has a very good claim.  But I do believe our Great Hall has the best claim of all.  Every non-noble dwarf in Axefather will share one of the finest statues ever erected in the kingdoms of the Pale Frilly Sword.

Late Galena:
Summer draws to a close.  We are harvesting so many plump helmets that the stockpiles can't hold them all and I have to order the rest stashed near the hallway.  Our farming setup is not optimized for mass plump helmet growing, simply because they chew up so much space and the layout is highly compact for efficiency.  Diverse crops headed by quarry bushes will serve us far better next year.

Rictus and woodchopper Rimtar, guarded by marksdwarf Rigoth, set about clearing trees on the far side of the river.  The more trees we chop, the better our field of fire will be and the less likely it is that the great wild cats will ambush anyone.

Aargh leaves off with masonry and grabs a fifth miner to hasten work on the future tree farm.  I have a list of digging tasks that want doing, none of which will happen until that job is done.

A pair of lions threaten our woodchoppers (this is why we check outdoors All The Time).  I order civilians inside to stop haulers from running out to get logs and Nekose orders every marksdwarf in Axefather to assemble at the front entrance.

Early Limestone:
Hauler Inod Alnistobul has a new baby girl, the third child born this year.

Nekose manages to get four marksdwarves, a wrestler (who shouldn't have been invited), and our solitary sword-dwarf (Armok love him, he is slow) assembled at the same time and sets out to hunt giant lions.  Formidable monsters who could massacre any number of civilians fall easily to organ-seeking iron bolts.  Despite determined efforts by a number of soldiers to do things like wrestle lions bare-handed or charge far in front of the squad, we won't be burying any dwarves today.
   

The year is half-way over and, let me tell you, I'm not close to half-way done with my itinerary.  High on my "to-do" list are housing for Axefather's numerous haulers, expansion of the main (gateway) barracks, and a large-scale magma manufacturing complex.  Beautifying the fortress is also a priority and I have some modest plans.  Chasm security remains a major problem but we're working on it.

What will not be done this year is anything for the nobles.  Not because I have something against them or anything, oh no.  Perish the thought.  Rather, my objective is instead to lay a foundational economy so efficient and so capable that future leaders can in time create architecture and furnishings worthy of a dwarven king.  We're still short on many of the trade skills necessary to bring out our full potential here; these will come only with time and training.

11th Limestone:
The autumn floods come and, just as did the spring and summer floods, once again announce that we're a long way away from getting floodzone planning right.  Oh, sure, we're now more-or-less safe (with some door locking), but our forward liquor stockpile is scattered all over the chamber, as is our (temporary) stone block depot.  Water rushes though a triple set of doors as though they weren't there, flooding the entranceway and annoying me no end.  Short of locking the doors, I don't know how to stop this.

Mid-Limestone:
When Rictus and Rimtar get together no tree is safe.  The two of them have logged hundreds this year and look forward to toppling many more.  I won't tell the elves if you don't.
   

An assemblage of activities:
   

We have no problem with production; it's haulage that's bogging down progress now.  I cancel all wood carrying as we have more than enough for present needs.

Dastot Silvertouched has a natural talent for making crossbows.  Eager to escape being just another hauler, he proposes to set up a workshop outside where the logs are and to make missile weapons from now on.  I quickly give approval; his total lack of skill is a problem time will solve.  Not only this, but I give him a private room near(ish) the front gate and request a small wine stash outside.
   

Somebody orders a mass kitten slaughter for meat.  Experienced farmer/butchers and dedicated food haulers make short work of the task.

Late Limestone:
Aargh and crew present the new tree farm and graveyard.  Engravers, haulers, and miners have joined forces to add something worthwhile to Axefather's growing roster of monuments; congratulations and boozing are the order of the day!  Every fallen dwarf now has a resting place.  Killed by harpies, drowned, fey moods gone bad:  we have lost many.  Now their names are carved in enduring granite.  May this community for which they died, our Axefather, not be blotted out.
 

[ December 11, 2007: Message edited by: Fedor ]

[Fedor]

Late Limestone:
The bridges south of the main span are unsafe in the extreme; I want one taken down and two equipped with safety walls.  Miners and masons join forces, but while they're all working hard, not all are working smart.

You'll notice that while Zuglar proudly proclaims his agility and toughness, he's kinda mumchance about his intelligence.  If I were as stupid as him, I wouldn't let on either...  Shaking my head, I painstakingly order up a double rescue bridge using the exact stones used in the old bridge, each stretching out from the bank the stone landed on and meeting in the middle.

It took Herbalist Kogan almost seven months to find pig tails, but at last we have a few.  Rapid brewing and replanting will multiply our still-scanty stock.  I turned off brewing of plump helmets a while ago to ensure that cave wheat and now the pig tails get priority.  Besides, 400 units of dwarven wine is surely enough to leave even Aargh under the table.

Early Sandstone:
Our glassblowers have been wanting a place of work for a long time and they'll have one soon.  There are rather a lot of things I want to make out of glass this year and hopefully we can at least get a good start on them.

Out-of-work tailors and glassblowers reinforce the masons/architects.  All three dwarves with any skill in mechanics are setting traps and connecting floodgates.

We buy everything the traders bring, up to and including the dwarven cheese at 500 gold a pop.  In exchange we hawk off a bunch more of our remaining trade trinkets ... plus a quiver with exceptional-quality decoration in red spinel.  On top of an already lucrative exchange, the traders are hired to bring back a masterpiece platinum bucket to King Dastot to spread the word about how Axefather is prospering.

Mid-Sandstone:
Our merry miners turn their attention to the magma metalforging center.  My objective is to open up the existing rooms to permit much larger operations.  However, I get a little carried away...

Late Sandstone / early Timber:
Somewhat chastened, I finish drawing up plans for some of the long-delayed dwelling chambers for our hauler dwarves.  This has taken me a while because I wanted to accomplish several things:  I needed to put the rooms close to their center of movement, which is at present about half-way between river and chasm.  Also, because there are a great many haulers - about half the population - and space near the fortress center is at a premium, I  decided to go with a dense-packed, communal dwelling chamber instead of carving out separate rooms for each dwarf.  

Early Timber:
My goodness, how we dwarves can dig.  Next on the agenda are dwelling places for craftsdwarves, each of whom should have an individual room near their place of work.  Space is usually more plentiful so I won't stint.  Master jeweler Tekkud wants a proper workshop and will get it.

7th Timber:
Craftsdwarf Vispol Armarmors becomes strangely secretive!  I sneak behind him and observe his motions as he scampers for a destination that only he knows.

Our marksdwarves kill a few more harpies.  Nekose isn't very happy about our failing to chase after three ogres far to the north but, hey, I'm got a few little gripes about him not getting a Certain Project done for me.  You do what I want, and THEN you get to play, kapish?

Vispol claims a leatherworks.  It takes a little while for me to understand his arcane mumblings, but I eventually figure out that we have everything he needs, even to the point of having some of all three kinds of raw glass.

Dastot the Bowyer is still of "dabbling" skill, but he's already turned out a superior-quality weapon.  In fact, I suspect this is the best crossbow in the fortress right now...

[Fedor]

Mid-Timber:
It's been traditional at Axefather for each leader to set up a place of his or her own.  The three previous leaders were all apparently prepared to put up with poor-quality gray furniture, hacked out of whatever rock came handy, placed higgeldy-piggeldy in blank square rooms all pretty much alike.  As for me, I'm putting the finishing touches on my modest little villa.  It's a little noisy right now, but one must suffer to be beautiful.  Can you guess what my favorite material is?

Glassblowing is obviously up and running, but how about metalbashing?  There the situation's a bit more complex.  There are now three full-time smelters, but only one has any real skill at the moment.  We're focusing on brass for furniture now, and will later shift to bronze to train up some armor and weapon smiths.

Security is a problem.  Without traps, a single fire imp would chase us all the way to the chasm.  It will take months for our three hard-pressed mechanics just to finish the work they already have lined up, let alone tackle any new projects.  Similar story on the missing doors:  the masons are overbooked already.

So what have the masons been up to?  We Axefather dwarves had extended tunnels to the chasm at dozens of points, each of which could become gateways for rock moles, iron men, or even mass antmen raids to penetrate deep into our fortress.  Our military will have more than enough troubles if goblins besiege us; trouble from the chasm would truly catch us with our pants down.  The only solution is to systematically close off all possible points, and then trap and guard any pathways that remain.  We're about 2/3rds done with this task:  Most of the mining passages are now secure, but the main chasm bridge - which we'll cap in gleaming gold because we feel like it - is only just begun.  You also see the new jewelry work area and Tekkud's Alisedem's future bedchamber.

The metalworkers, mechanics, and masons may have me breathing down their necks, but our miners have finally exhausted my to-do list.  Their assignment now is to continue Aargh and Rictus' mandates to seek out more minerals.  I want a rough survey past the chasm, all the way to the mountain edges north and south, by next spring.  We all very much hope for more iron ore instead of the endless copper and tin almost as dominant past the chasm as it is before it.

Late Timber:
We farmers celebrate the harvesting of the last plump helmet in the last field.  Completely stripped, the open soil awaits fallow winter.  Stocks of food and drink are in excellent order.  It will take even hard-drinking Aargh a while to polish this lot off!