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[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 1st of Malachite. (mid summer)
Hottest time of the year. Luckily I get to spend every minute of it indoors, but it's still really hot.

I've had the engravers smoothing the 'access to bedrooms' floor, and they recently moved on to engraving it. I've found some images I like. Here's some.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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Also we've had our first ever masterful engraving. (I THINK it's the first...) It's a picture of Emperor, Elfbane, Lambskin, Glack, Dracnor, Rick RFB, and myself travelling towards the proposed location of this fortress and the wagon broke down partway there.

[inaluct]

Hey, do we have very many tamed animals yet? Because having a herd of 30 tame stray camels would kick ass, and it would provide us a lot of food and leather. All we would need is a few peasants set on mechanics to do the potentially dangerous trapping, and a relatively competent animal trainer.

Or we could just do it with peasants, I guess.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Are the really descriptive engravings toggleable, or in the latest version?

[Shoruke]

As far as I can tell they are toggleable, but since I don't know what toggling engravings actually does, meh. (It just makes engrved tiles still look like floors or walls right?)

And why aren't more people posting? 

Shoruke's Log. 10th of Malachite. (mid summer)
No migrants this season, again. Not that we need them. It's hard enough to find work for all of the dwarves we DO have. Pretty soon we're going to have to start exporting clothes to make room in the stockpiles. The point of keeping everyone busy is so that nobody else becomes popular enough to get elected in my place.

I locked Lambskin in a room with a catapult, a channel at the far end (so she can reuse the rocks), a hole in the top (so we can dump drop food down to her), and a bed for her to sleep in. She is spamming that catapult just as fast as she can, and she's getting pretty good with it. Hopefully this will allow her to operate the ballista in the hallway with great mastery.

Inaluct interrupted my meeting with the liason briefly to make a suggestion. It was that we try to tame some of the wild animals in the vicinity. I assured him that we have some cage traps already set up, and that if anything gets caught in them, we will quite likely tame it. Unless it's a goblin, in which case I might just construct an arena.

I have also issued the order to complete the glass hallway. Invaders that are forced to take the long way around might as well marvel at our awesome glasswork. Except for the corner. The corner is full of cage traps, stonefall traps, and one weapon trap.

Shoruke's Log. 23rd of Malachite. (mid summer)
One of the fortress guard died today during training. I once again consider completely disbanding the fortress guard. But, with this many dwarves in residence in the fortress (81 dwarves), I feel that the fortress guard is necessary to keep everyone in line. I find it harder and harder to keep track of individual dwarves.

We have enough iron, and the entire military (not the fortress guard though) is outfitted in it. I'm wondering about simply digging around listlessly trying to find some veins of metal, but it seems a waste of our limited space.

The humans merchants and diplomat finally left. It took them forever to organize all those mugs. It literally took them two weeks. I wonder what humans use mugs for. Not to DRINK out of them, surely.

The windmillstone is finally in operation. Now we can have flour and sugar. Nummy.

Those skeletal bastard camels are back, and are interrupting the bone carvers who are attempting to make bone bolts from the dead goblins of the most recent ambush. I think I might just have the military kick their butts out of here... just as soon as they all get organized at the gate.

Speaking of the military, I have recently decided that the should all carry backpacks with two rations of food in them. This way, the amount of transit (and therefore not guarding) the military does should be reduced by about a third. I will not give them waterskins, however; disallowing a dwarf his booze is simply cruel. It also makes us work slower.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
I recently figured out why the butchers won't butcher the animals Rick (or the rest of the military but mostly Rick; Monk is still out of action) kills. Apparently there was a standing order that dwarves should ignore refuse that is outside the fortress gate. I VETO'd that order's butt and now the dwarves are hauling lion corpses to the refuse stockpile, and butchering them.

Hmm, if there's more than one way to skin a cat, is there more than one way to skin lions too?

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 26th of Malachite. (mid summer)
Whilst the masons are engraving every square inch of the fortress that's developed, and the craftsdwarves are busy... crafting... and the military are all picking up their backpacks and rations, one planter was overcome by a fey mood. He was simply processing plants in the farmer's workshop, and then randomly started charging towards the craftsdwarves workshop. He took over a workshop where one of the stone carvers was making an obsidian blade, evicted his butt from the premises, and IMMEDIATELY (as in with no running around collecting stuff) began working furiously on an artifact using nothing except for one obsidian rock.

Shoruke's Log. 2nd of Galena. (late summer)
Well, that planter has finished his artifact. You may question,
"Did he create a legendary rock weapon, the likes of which can tear down walls and megabeasts alike?" No.
"Did he create an amazing piece of furniture, the kind the king himself would sell his kingdom to have in his room?" No.
"Did he at least make something decent or valuable?" No.
He made an obsidian puzzlebox with a pictue of a cloud in it, worth 7,200 munnies. It's almost completely worthless compared to the other artifacts, and has absolutely no use except for trade... and its creator won't allow that, which we have to respect.

GARR!

In an unrelated note, we are going to begin training all the stray dogs in the fortress into war dogs, and assign them to key members of the military. Now if only we had more key (as in, named) people in our military. Rick and Monk will each be assigned an equal number of dogs. This should help prevent them being killed if they are outnumbered in a fight.

Also, I am having the weaponsmiths make some copper hammers, and then I shall have the marksdwarves (there's three of them) join the rest of the military in melle combat training. The theory here is, that they will gain armor/shield user skill to gain defense and speed, and they will also be able to land a hit if they are forced to club something with their crossbows.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 20th of Galena. (late summer)
The military has successfully beat off the skeletal camels. None of our dwarves even got hurt. They were replaced by a skeletal giant jaguar, which Rick killed on his own. He is becoming a fearsome warrior, with 33 normal and four notable kills. Monk is grumbling that he could not participate, saying he wishes to "shoost" our enemies. I reminded him he would only be a liability in his current state.

The dogs are being trained into war animals. Guess who by? None other than the DM (dungeon master) himself. Rick is being assigned the dogs. Monk is still out of action, but he should heal in ten days or so. In theory.

We're having a bit of an economic problem here: there's not nearly enough barrels. Or ANYTHING wood. Some of our food is simply lying around on the floor in our food stockpile, and we are unable to create any more booze.

Lambskin's progress with her use of siege weapons is steady. She is a "great" siege operator.

Shoruke's Log. 1st of Limestone. (early autumn)
Monk was previously injured in two places: his right upper arm, and his right lower arm. Now his right upper arm is perfectly fine again, having healed within 10 minutes of autumn arriving on the calendar. Not that autumn really makes it much cooler around here. Monk's right lower arm is still broken. I predict that it will heal on the first day of winter.

And somebody made an engraving that was quite mean.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Other engravings include:

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I rather enjoy the one where the mules are killing the goblins. Partly because it highlights goblins' stupidity, and partly because during that event, the goblin advance was halted for us.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 2nd of Limestone. (early autumn) (yes I realize it's the very next day)

Holy crap. Remember that guard that died while sparring a while ago? Apparently that guard was the Captain of the Guard. We've gone for like, 2 months without a law-deliverer! Goes to show ya how important he is... anyway. I suppose I might as well randomly choose someone from the fortress guard to take his place.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
I chose Tirist the Guard to be the CotG. He was the only member of the guard using a crossbow, so since he's singled out, I thought he might as well be further singled out and made him captain. There's another member of the guard who just uses wrestling and no weapon, but whatever. All of the guard uses wrestling in some way.

...Screw it. He's getting a sword.

Shoruke's Log. Umm, I don't recall the day. (early autumn)
The merchants came. Then they went, without ever trading. The reason for this being that they were ambushed by goblins, one of the merchants' pack animals died, and they figured it would be a good time to leave because my fortress' defenses are obviously not up to par. WHAT THE FRICK! So let's try autumn again.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. Fourth Retry of the month of early autumn.

...Damn this is annoying. The goblins keep coming from different directions and I can never predict where they come from. One time they even formed an all-out siege, which was broken by one marksdwarf, but three dwarves were killed, so that was no good.

It also just so happens that the caravan refuses to come at all if you're under siege when they were scheduled to appear. How very tiresome.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 20th of Limestone. (early autumn)
The traders came on the 10th.
The goblins came on the 10th... the 11th... the 12th... and the 14th.
And we haven't lost a single dwarven life! Sweet!*

We're selling the other dwarves the goblin's clothes and some random crafts that we still have left over from the last human caravan. In return, we get metal, wood, alcohol, and nummies (as in, food).

*Armok's Log.
It only took five tries... involving lots of luck and save scumming. Shoruke DID lose a war dog and its puppy, however.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
Oddly, there seems to be a post between this one and my last one. When I get some free time I'll read it.

We're having a small labour problem. Since I did the trading in two waves, everyone is bustling to get everything out of the trade depot and into the stockpiles, as opposed to out of the dump and into the depot. This causes something of a hindrance in my efforts to trade with the other dwarves.

Oh, and the depot got really full. I mean REALLY full.



And a lot of these dwarves are standing on top of other dwarves. It's INSANE.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 11th of Sandstone.
The merchants leave soon. They should be fine as long as they don't go northwest, where the skeletal one humped camels are. Speaking of which, we have 3 of them in cage traps just outside the fortress. I'm currently wondering what to do with them. Since nobody of our fortress is adept at turning, banishing, taming, or controlling the undead, Rick and I agree we should set up an arena. He also requested the honor of being featured in the first match. Monk also requested this honor.
Two versus three. You would have to feel sorry for those camels if they weren't already dead.

I decided to finally lift the order that no civilian dwarves may venture outside. The way I see this pattern, the goblins muster a force together and send it. They do not draw out their conflicts. I expect their survivors are still running back to their tower to warn their leaders of our awesome might, capable of quashing four simultaneous ambushes while protecting a foreign caravan. Anyway, most of the corpses we left outside were rotten, and the ones inside... well put it this way, I do not envy the military their post. Rick and his squad were forced to stand still within the miasma while the corpses around them rotted.

On a related and yet not-quite-the-same note, most of the goblins we killed had metal iron. Guess what that means? LOTS OF FURNACE OPERATOR EXPERIENCE! Dracnor is ecstatic. I'm thinking of locking him in a room with a magma forge and a bed, and dumping a whole bunch of iron/bins/food down for him while he turns a lot of our metal into weapons. In this way, we ensure that if he gets a fey mood (we can only hope it is him next) he will make a legendary weapon, and not some metal craft.

One last point: The migrants. Again, there were none this season. But it is odd. Usually migrants do not come because the fortress has not accumulated enough wealth recently; this time, they were too nervous to make the journey apparently. I wonder if it was because of all the skeletal bastard camels or slew of goblin ambushes. Personally, I think the camels are more of a threat (they come more often and in bigger clusters), but news of the goblins is more likely to have spread to the mountainhomes.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 21st of Sandstone. (mid autumn)
The skeletal camel menace has, once again, been dealt with. Sheesh, why don't they ever stop coming? You'd think the elvish druid-apprentices do their daily practise wandering in the desert, murdering camels and raising them as undead slaves. The skeletal bastard camels were replaced by relatively harmless warthogs.

Pets are getting to be a nuisance. Dogs can be trained for war, and we have enough cats that have owners that we needn't worry about vermin like *shudder* fire snakes. Other than dogs, all stray animals are to be butchered, and all pet animals except dogs and cats will be put in one single cage to reduce hallway traffic. This action seems kinda totalitarian with an animal cruelty bent to it, but at least everyone will be able to get to work faster.

And uh, one of the merchants' entourage seems lost or something... the liason, and all of the traders passed beyond the fortress' boundaries safely, but that one hammerdwarf has gone from 'merchant' to friendly, and is just standing around outside looking lost. Interestingly, the pack animals of the elves we brutally robbed traded with this spring did something similar. Except that the pack animals were smart enough to maze their way out of the fortress boundaries. I therefore deduce that he somehow managed to lose track of his merchant on the way out, and cannot navigate his way THREE STEPS east to clear the fortress boundary.

Shoruke's Log. 19th of Timber. (late autumn)
I am constructing a room for Dracnor which will have a magma forge (the path between the magma forge and the volcano has engraved walls, of course), a bed, a channel above it for stuff to be dropped in, and a channel out of it (on the opposite side from the volcano) for him to drop what he makes out and avoid clutter. I am doing a similar thing with a peasant who is destined to be a mechanic, but does not have enough work available to gain experience and earn his colors. And the mechanic's torture chamber practise room doesn't have access to the volcano.

Shoruke's Log. 23rd of Timber. (late autumn)
I am thinking of making an 'outfitting room' for military dwarves (Rick for example) who need to move from their lackluster old equipment (e.g. iron) to better equipment (e.g. masterfully worked iron, or maybe steel). It will involve more use of 'dump' zones, but it can be managed.

With the passage from Dracnor's torture chamber practise room engraved, the engravers are moving onto an even bigger project (well it's bigger for them). Engraving the entire workshop level. Twelve 7x7 rooms with walls and floors to engrave, despite most of the walls overlapping, is quite a sum of tiles that need to be done.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
The peasant is busy grinding away at his mechanisms in his torture practise room, so we're going to drop him some food and a bunch of rocks, and let him churn out all the mechanisms he wants. I will give him an order to cease construction and dump his mechanisms out of his way at regular intervals. Since Dracnor's torture chamber (screw the censoring, it's hot enough in there that it deserves to be MENTIONED dammit) is done, I'm going to have him make something in there and then lock him in. He won't mind. He'll get a lot of experience if nothing else.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 18th of Moonstone. (early winter)
Okay, I lied. Dracnor's torture chamber was NOT complete; it had a bed, stockpiles, except that in the corner was a down staircase with no magma, as opposed to a functioning magma forge.
I was also wrong in my supposition about Monk's arm; it hasn't healed as of yet. Maybe in spring.

[GoldPanda]

Elfbane's Journal:

Shoruke has gone mad!

He's locking dwarves in what he calls "practice rooms". Basically you are imprisoned in a little cell with a workshop in it. There is a hole in the ceiling where food and drinks get dropped in, and a hole in the floor where the prisoner is supposed to drop out his work output.

These poor dwarves have no way to socialize, to shop, to admire the fine engravings around the fortress, or to eat in a legendary dining room. This dwarves have done nothing wrong! It's horrible! Horrible I tell you!

And of course, sometimes a mean dwarf would dump garbage into the food hole.

I've managed to avoid Shoruke so far, by ducking into a side passage every time I see him walking toward me. I don't want to end up in one of his "practice rooms".

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 2nd of Opal. (mid winter)
Fate seems to be rather heartily against my practise room concept. That mechanic has earned his colours, but Dracnor's room is consistantly encountering problems. First, the miners were always busy hauling stuff and did not get around to finishing the channel for a while; then it took the masons for EVER to engrave the hallway, and now...
Elfbane was the one who went to channel out the last square in the room. He did so... and then threw himself into the pit, which thank goodness had no magma in it. The moment I heard this news, I went to the practise room and asked why. He responded "Because you're stark raving mad!" I told him to dig his way out and someone would seal the new way into the passage with a door. While he was busy removing himself from the soon-to-be magma passage, I went to his room and read the most recent entry in his journal (apparently I'm not the only one in this fortress with a journal). It read,

Shoruke has gone mad!
He's locking dwarves in "practice rooms". It's a prison cell with a workshop in it! With a hole to drop food/drink in, and a hole to drop your work output. The poor dwarves cannot socialize, admire the fortress, or eat in the legendary dining room. And they haven't done anything wrong!
I sure hope I don't end up in a "practice room".

Well I'm not going to tell him that I read his journal, but it raises some interesting points. I will make sure that no garbage shall be dumped into their food hole. I shall assign only the best of our food to be given to them, as well as their own table and chair. In this way I hope to offset their temporary lonliness with good living conditions.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
Dracnor's practice room is complete. The path below is filled with magma, and his forge is operational. He will have his own bed, table and chair, and the best of food. And he will gain lots and lots of experience.

Also I have found a good place for the arena. It will be placed on the farthest place away from the main fortress' body as possible while still remaining underground. It shall be a fairly simple thing... and yet very, very grand. On the outside perimeter shall be a place for spectators to gather. They shall have windows so that they can view the matches in perfect safety. Just in front of the windows (to ensure that they are not broken) is a channel. And inside that is the arena itself. The bravest of dwarves shall prove themselves in public combat here.

I will also make it so that the viewing area is made a public place. Once some matches have been fought, I will order the construction of some statues (possibly rose gold), and they will decorate the area. This will be a place of great culture. Emperor and Domas (that other nobody miner) are currently mining out the viewing lounge and I have switched our glass furnace's focus from blocks to windows.

I suppose that clear glass windows will be far superior to green glass ones. My oh my, this is going to take a lot of wood to make all that pearlash. 82 logs at least, possibly a couple more.

[Shoruke]

Shoruke's Log. 17th of Opal. (mid winter)
Considering it's the dead of winter (dead being a relative term, and all things we associate with "winter" being irrelevant because it's too hot), production is going quite well. Dracnor's practice room is finished, and has a very nice table and chair. He's also in it, which is a nice plus. We will be dropping him iron bars and our best food shortly.

In terms of the arena, Elfbane and Domas (that name sounds a lot like 'dumbass'...) are on break, but we're halfway done carving it out and Emperor is still working on it. As far as the windows are going, we have production at every level: trees are being cut, logs are being stockpiled, logs (from the stockpiles) are being turned into ash, ash is being turned into potash, potash is being turned into pearlash, and pearlash is being turned into glass. Things are moving right along and everyone is busy.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary.
Those warthogs really are foolish. They're worse than goblins. Three of them attempted to... I'm not sure what they attempted to do, since they failed without result, but it involved rushing the fortress. Two are trapped in our cages (maybe we can tame and maybe even BREED them?) and one is dead from the stonefall traps.

Hmm... speaking of breeding... when I went to visit Monk today (I make a habit of visiting our wounded, so that they still retain some sense of connection to the rest of the fortress), I told him that we had locked all of the non-cat, non-dog animals in a cage. He asked why, since they could not breed in such confines. I told him it was to reduce hallway traffic, but it got me thinking. Perhaps I will find a place to put all the animals, with other animals of their species, in rooms... that way they can breed without being in our way.

Shoruke's Log. Supplementary Squared.
Speaking of animals, look what I found. Apparently a donkey with the name of " " was killed in our fortress, and in such a way as to cause it to scream.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)