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[Marlowe]

This is from mid-summer, so I'm being a bad boy and posting screenies from ahead again, but here:

A goblin's eye view of Fogcrystal from the bank of the brook, showing the completed Wulfen Tower.

More shots tomorrow if you like.

The colours are wrong, of course. The Wulfen is Jet, with the spots that show as darker being Bauxite and Kaolinite. So imagine black and red instead of grey and darker grey.

It looks a little narrower on the east-west sides.

[rickvoid]

Rickvoid cancels Craft Bone; Interrupted by Awesome

 

[Marlowe]

Spring 205-Part 1

Much has happened, I may have to write in patches. There is so much to do and little spare time to write.

Our injured weaver collapsed again shortly after finishing his skirt, and was taken to bed to resume his recovery process. Well, he's not the first to knock himself out chasing skirt. He's now a legendary weaver. I'm not sure how useful that's going to be.

 Spring began excitingly when our bowyer-turned planter was returning to the fort with a clutch of silk and ran into not one, but two kobold thieves. One of these escaped but the other he seized and strangled to death. Very nice. I may have some work for him after all in the future. If we ever get a fortress guard then I'll want them armed with bone crossbows.

 If we can ever get a fortress guard. There's not a lot of people in the place that aren't useful.

 Morul rises from his sick-bed early in the season and I present him with a crossbow. He stares at it blankly for a bit, so I show him which end the sharp things comes out and he seems to understand. He's not happy. Thanks to his injury and the concerns about possible Werewolf extinction he's looking at a future of perpetually being the weakest amongst the crossbows.

 The other people training in hammer and sword and axe are coming along fine. I've stopped making the marksknights train unarmed, as it was effecting our crisis response time. Instead I've got two at a time practicing with silver hammers. Silver. Goes well with the werewolf thing.

 I've taken all the wooden spears and iron daggers and useless stuff and put them in a weapon trap out the gate.

 Laying out the higher floors of the Wulfen is taking a lot of attention. We've got Olivine lined with Kimberlite  on floors 10 , Bauxite lined with Kimberlite on 11, and floor 12 is a quartered pattern of Olivine (twice), kimberlite and slate inlaid with Bauxite. We're having to dig out halls in the tomb level to get enough Olivine. Anyone's guess what we're going to do with them. At least it's cleared out a lot of the tombs.

 By the way, I designated tombs for all founders a while ago. We all get the same 3x5 design. You can accessorise when you're dead.

 I'm expecting more immigrants shortly, so we're carving out a new bedroom block, and building beds and furniture in numbers. I'm sending out the woodcutters again, not because we need to but because being up in the Wulfen really brings home how many trees there are here. The forest spreads out around us like a sea. And we are an island of rock. No, enough of that. We're not an island, or a ship or a metaphor. We are Fogcrystal, and those trees belong to us.

 The Elves come. I almost can't be bothered. I vaguely order out three of our lesser platinum goblets, some crafts and a few pig tail clothing items and look over their goods. I remember yawning frequently.

 They do have one cool thing. I buy it, some more wooden swords, a few cloth bins and the usual drink. They make a good profit but obviously wished for a little more. Should have bought more stuff we want, silly large person.

 Their cool thing gets tied up next to the Giant Jaguar. It's a Giant Leopard. They seem to get on well. With all the werewolves we've had, it seems weirdly right to have our entrance guarded by big cats.

 In any event, Elves are just a catalyst. I notice while they're here that the air seems thick, hot, slow. Something is about to happen.

 Something does.

 Dodok, a blameless planter, is returning with silk. He's almost at the gate when:
 
 "An Ambush! Curse Them!"

 Three spears and three wrestlers. They're right outside.

 We have 9 Marksknights on duty. It's all over very quickly. Not quickly enough for poor Dodok. He takes a spear through the lungs. He lurches toward the gate under his own power, and dies right outside, his life bubbling up through his throat.

 I see him buried in the tombs level. His Tomb is smoothed and engraved, a mark of his sacrifice (Neo died through bad luck, Zulthar the wrestler by stupidity, this guy was sort of an unwitting hero). I have a slate armour stand placed by his coffer, to symbolise that though a planter in life, he died our defender.

 There is little time, I must get back to work. But before I do I must tell you what happened after the Elves left.

 First, a werewolf appeared and the marksknights killed it.

 Secondly, a planter suddenly got possessed and occupied a clothier's shop. But I don't get any chance to check what he needs because:

 A Countess has arrived.
 A Count-consort has arrived.
 A Tax collector has arrived.
 A Hammerer has arrived.

Armok hates me.

[Sparksol]

Fikod's Journal
  Entry 2
After some looks as though I was insane and further contemplation of the map, that waterfall tower is looking less feasible. I mean, without any way to catch and remove the falling water, it'd be more a way to flood us all out than a way to make pleasant mist. Oh well, I'll eventually come up with something a bit more suited to what we already have.
Perhaps a wading pool so people can learn to swim...but where would we put that? Same problem.

Eh, no need to rush. I've got plenty to do working on the Wulfen.

I found it a little odd to restrain ourselves to such a small above ground area when we can expand nearly as much as we wish (and often moreso!) below ground. But with the increasing incursions of goblins and such, it becomes a bit more clear. It'd take a lot of stone and time to make a wall large enough for our needs if we tried to take more of the sunlit territory for our own.

[Marlowe]

[An outer perimeter has occurred to me but right now there is no time. This is the smallest population I've ever got nobles.

I'm thinking about these werewolves. If I've made the right assumptions we get 10-20 per biome. There's actually two biomes on the map. I didn't bother to mention it because they're both frickin' identical (except maybe for rock layers...not 100% sure on that), but the north-east of the map is a different biome. That's why we get werewolves largely from the south and north-east.

Incidentally, that means the original werewolf (Ol' Toby) was probably not the one to the NE that mauled Neo. Chain of events may have been as follows:

1, Ol'Toby spawns to the south on disembark, hangs around, leaves to the south shortly before autumn.

2, In the spring, a new werewolf enters from the NE. We assume it's Ol' Toby.

3, Shortly afterwards, Ol' Toby re-enters to the south. SInce we assume he's dead, we name him Young Toby.

That's assuming "3" wasn't a completely new werewolf, and Ol' Toby didn't leave the map never to return.

We've killed 15 werewolves. I we only get 10-20, we are about to run out or already have. If we get 20-40, we should be OK.

I should probably put a tunnel to the NE to check if the rock layers are the same, but there are insane demands on everyone.)

[Strife26]

We seriously wonder about how many more killer, bloodthirsty wolf-monsters we'll have to fight, and we hope that it is more.

 

[Marlowe]

[Strife, I want my Dyers to specialise. But I do have a planter who's been dyeing (silly of me, really.). I can make sure gets he the other jobs you want.

We have a zinc table. ]

[Marlowe]

Spring 205-Part Deux

Those HARPIES!

 These are the most potentially dangerous bunch of nobles I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. The Countess likes Adamantium and Clear Glass, the Tax Collector likes Green Glass, and the Count consort and Hammerer both like platinum, which will be easy to arrange but will mean we can't export any of our goblets. By the way, except for the consort, they ARE all women. So's the mayor and the DM. I have embarked on every man's nightmare. Five women with insatiable demands.

 Did I say insatiable? I meant unappeasable. I must have been thinking of something else.

 Of course, they all want rooms. All our furniture stockpiling has not prepared us for this. Having just completed (and smoothed) a new housing block that now won't see any use, we are short on spare beds and doors. In cabinets and coffers we are doing OK. So, oddly enough, are we in  armour stands [OOC: The armour stand is the first thing on the masonry menu and it's really easy to queue up one by mistake.]. But we have no weapon racks, and all coffins are down in the tombs. So I have to frantically order masonry jobs.

 Needless to say, we also have to dig out the actual ROOMs first. I site the suites on the level below residential, where the mayor already has her apartments. I make each suite self-contained with the tomb area included. I'm hoping these harridans take the hint.

 There's plenty of other stuff we have to do. The bones&shells stockpile needs SERIOUS enlargement and we have so much fat from the butcherings (we have 2 butchers and tanner's shops now) that part of the food stockpile looks like a farm plot [I know that's out-of-character]. We need another loom as well, thread is piling up.

 Between frantic digging and ordering the furniture in position as soon as it's made, I completely forget about the possessed planter. He's in the clothier's shop mumbling to himself. He's got jewels and shells and a few cloth [silk, actually] bolts, but....what's that last bit? Blocks...bricks....BLOCKS! That's right, we don't have any. I order some carved out and prioritised, even if it does put more stress on our overworked masonry shops.

 The countess has Words with our humble mayor and issues her first mandate. She wants a buckler. That's easy. I order one forged.

 The Wulfen is complete up to level 12 and the only things left to do are the upper ramparts. I order these done with walkways of Kaolinite. I wish I had more time to attend to these duties.

 I've had very little time to shake down the other migrants that arrived with the nobles. One of them's a swordsdwarf. By nature of an experiment I order him to spar with a wooden sword rather than by training in wrestling first. Another notable person is a ranger, who starts happily running around the forest murdering foxes. If we do get another werewolf someone's in for a surprise. There's also an animal trainer. Would be nice if we had a decent number of dogs. We have four. All female. I'm sensing a certain theme to my problems.

 The possessed planter picks up the blocks and makes a tunic. Interesting. That skank-ware artifact ensemble could well come together.

 Our countess pronounces herself pleased with the buckler and then orders clear glass items. As though they planned it ahead of time, the tax collector demand green glass at the same time.

 Excuse me, I need to go up in the Wulfen and throw up.



 



 

[Marlowe]

Another midsummer image:

The ENTIRE MAP:


Strife I've given you that Planter. Interestingly he turns out to be the guy I mentioned pages back, the one with a lot of jobs enabled I certainly didn't order. I've turned off the soap making and lye making and stuff, and kept the stuff you wanted. You don't like zinc unfortunately. Nickel.

[JoshuaFH]

ya know, when you first mentioned you were building a tower, i thought you were building a traditional 'watch tower' type tower, not a hulking nightmarish monstrosity that casts its visage across the warped landscape for miles around.

[Marlowe]

I live in Korea. EVERY building's a hulking nightmarish monstrousity that casts it's shadow across the warped landscape for miles around.

here's the view from the top:


It's nice. That's because it's pretty much the only place in the entire forest where you can't see the Wulfen.

[Marlowe]

Summer 205 Part one, probably

Summer comes with a host of issues.

 We have all the furniture desired stashed in the leeches's rooms now, but they won't be happy until we've got everything smoothed and engraved. The engravers are at it and Koji's produced a few masterpieces, but it takes time. I've ordered a concentration on the Countess's rooms, as she's the one with the highest rank and the adamantium fixation. Once we've got her happy we'll know how far we have to go for the others. I think the hammerer will be happy with smoothing.

 The Countess put out a mandate for earrings (done) and then short swords (done). I'm beginning to think she knows she's not getting her glass. The count-consort has ordered export bans on platinum and armour stands (oh dear. We made so much on those last year). The hammerer has taken to swiping platinum goblets out of the stockpiles while the Tax collector just keeps asking about her glass.

 Why do I know so much? Why, I made Mayor! A pity we didn't get the word before the humans arrived, or we'd have been able to shift some silk. But I did get to sleep in a fully smooth, fully engraved mayor's quarters.

 I do get ahead of myself. Some other matters have occupied me. Firstly, the completion of the Wulfen. This is the end of a year and a half's work. I should feel happier, but the mandates of the nobles concern me rather a lot. Besides, those whose jobs take them far from the fortress report that the sight of the thing scares the life out of them. I'm not sure what they mean. What's a tower supposed to look like?

 Secondly, a number of dwarves, including Argentum and a couple of the marksknights, have shown symptoms of phantom spider poisoning. This is a permanent effect that stuns the victim at random moments. This is unfortunate but not really avoidable, and it's something that can be lived with. Even stunned, the markknights are swifter and surer than the average dwarf.

 Thirdly, Xenomorph was diagnosed with a minor brain injury. An end to his sparring. This too, is unfortunate. On the plus side, he now is an expert axedwarf, legendary wrestler, and general badass.  Also, there's no need to keep him with the copper axe any more. I hand him back his original steel axe, now thoughtfully decorated in well-crafted turtle shell, and tell him he's now part of the first line of defense.

 Sort of wish we had a second line.

 Oh, yeah, Rovod has changed his name to "Overlord". I knew I had to keep an eye on him. One of the more enterprising planters (he does dyeing and cooking) has decided to be known as "Strife". It all sounds very ominous.

 In any event, most of our events this month hinge around the arrival of the human traders. As usual, we order out the marksknights, now supplemented by Morul and Xenomorph.

 I'll skip the details of the trading. We get rid of a lot of junk and buy everything they have (lots of wood. leather, metal bars, meat, booze). Blah, blah.

 The first sign of trouble is our returning ranger encountering a goblin snatcher. So he shot him. That was easy.

 The second sign of trouble was a Dark marksdwarf suddenly spotted ON THE DRAWBRIDGE, having penetrated MY trapline (armok, I really should plant more of those things, it's been HOW long?). Straggling behind him are 3-4 "boneunits" (that's "goblin wrestlers" to people that aren't Rickvoid) and two goblin pikemen.

 A few seconds later they're all dead. And one of the marksknights (his name first name is Ubid. Not the founder.) has an extra title.

 We recover the goblin bodies (the Dark Kin can rot), but I hold fast on ordering the equipment recovered (or should that be "covered", since we never owned it in the first place? I don't know). The air still has that thick, heavy, greasy feel. Something's still afoot.

 And it turns up a few minutes later, revealed by a cat. A Dark Axedwarf, two goblin bowmen (I HATE goblin bowmen. They're dangerous AND they have no useful equipment), and four boneunits (now I'M doing it). Again, they're right outside the gate, but a little further away.

 To my disgust, but not to my surprise, the goblins chose to chase the cat. It takes a hit but has the brains to run. I order a charge. The marksknights, firing on the run, show impressive common sense and put both bowgoblins down first, then use their remaining bolts on 3 of the wrestlers. The forth boneunit, impressively, charges into combat with four marksknights.

 What do you THINK happened?

The Dark axedwarf is still slowly pursuing the cat. We pursue him in turn. We're already catching up when somebody discovers he has some bolts after all, and knocks him down. He's hammered to death amongst the stinging nettle.

 Oh, and somehow, between these events, a kobold turned up and died. I'm still trying to find out how.

 I pull the marksknights within the gate for reloads, and order the equipment recovered. Most of it's just trade goods and trap fooder of course, but the Dark Marksdwarf has a servicable (bismuth bronze) crossbow plus bolts, the Dark Axedwarf had a good and perfectly usable set of steel equipment, and we get three decent quivers.

Shortly afterwards, our Ranger meets his first Werewolf. He shoots it fatally, then runs in terror.

 Nice to see somebody with survival instinct.
 
EDIT: So, that screenshot at the top of the page? Imagine the middle distance covered in dead goblins, because that's the actual situation. We hope it improves the colour palette for you.
 
 

[rickvoid]

From the Elf-Flesh bound Journal of Rickvoid, Lord of the Bones;

The Tower is nearly complete. It is a dark, menacing monstrosity, that appears to have burning red eyes staring into the four cardinal directions. It can cast a shadow over half the forest at a time. There was much celebrating.

I, however, am not in a celebratory mood. Shortly before it's completion, I recieved word from some... "special" contacts, that the worst nightmare of any dwarven fort would be arriving soon.

Nobles. *there is a long line of frustration-marked blood-ink here*

I had not expected them to arrive so soon, if at all. They will have to be... dealt with, before they can reveal my plans. I am most concerned about the Hammerer. They are typically nosy, self-centered, fascist arseholes, and many of my more... questionable practices would be worthy of more than a few hammer-strikes. This will be my last entry for some time, I must hide this, less the hammer-bitch learn my secrets...

OOC:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

God I hope my little bone-crafter and the hammer-chick become lovers. 
Would just be funny as hell now.
Shit, the Lord of the Bones finding love at all would be hilarious. 

[Strife26]

Diary of Strife.
We now have nobles. Damn. They seem like they are a picky bunch, they could make life dificult for us here, if they aren't pleased. You know, I could kill two giant eagles with one coin here. A chance to start up a real cafe, and serve the fort at once. I'll have to think it over a bit, find an architect (or learn architecture, starting with its spelling), drwa [sic] up some plans and present them to the mayor. This bears thinking about.

<There are several rough sketches. They are clearly the random plans of an amatuer.>

<There is a line and a break>

I looked at the zinc furniture today, I had heard that it didn't have much of a use, and I though that it might help my plans along. TABLES! I need counters to fufil my vision! Counters!

<There is a sketch of what may be a counter, or not, it's tough to tell>

I'll have to redraw the plans now. My old calculifications [sic] will need to be changed. Maybe I could include that magma fall . . .

[Marlowe]

Summer 205-zwei

Kubuk came up and told me that the Dark Dwarves now lying before the gate were undoubted kidnapped as babies, and bought up by the goblins never knowing their true destiny. She said that leaving them to rot was cruelly harsh.

 I said yes, that's right, and asked if she was going somewhere with this.

 She said that they should be given proper tombs, that they could be the dwarves in death that they never could be in life.

 I told her that more dead dwarves was rather the opposite of what I was working towards here.

 She said that the sight of them was upsetting people.

 So they're now buried down in the tombs level. We don't need more upset people. Dwarves are quite on edge enough with people having to sleep in the barracks.

 That annoys me greatly. Some of those dwarves have been here for years. They've more than earned their rooms. But since little miss tax collector didn't see this, because little miss tax collector wasn't there, they get no credit and have to sleep in the barracks.

 I suppose I really should put some beds in there.

 Our ranger killed another werewolf. I wish he'd stop doing that. Doesn't he know they're endangered?

 Our nobles are pronouncing themselves happy with their dwellings. To celebrate, the Countess issued a mandate for Adamantine items.

 I hate her.

 I've opened some shops. It might stop the hammerer and count consort from pilfering our platinum if we actually have the goblets for sale.

 The count-consort seems an easygoing sort. But of course he'd have to be. Now the four vampires are happy we need to concentrate on improving the countesses rooms 'til she's so blinged up she forgets to boss us around, then work on the others.

 I forgot to mention that little miss tax collector likes mudstone, which made her happier about her rooms (although, we just HAD to run into a bauxite pocket just then) but which means we probably don't dare export most of our crafts. Soon we'll be down to exporting clothes and goblin junk.

 If you don't like your nobles can you return them and ask for some new ones?

 Anyway, we now have an OUTER perimeter! It's not pretty and it's not fancy, just a simple ditch around us covering more area and crossed by a bridge to the north. It's not really intended as a serious defense, but rather to channel invaders so they come at us by a single predictable angle and have to cross clear ground to reach the gate. We'll build a wall behind it when we can be bothered. I'd rather look for more ores.

 We can raise the bridge before the goblins cross.

 Or after they've crossed.

 Or while they're crossing. WheeheeEEEeeEe! Flying goblins!

 And then lower it again. WheeEEEeeEEEee! Squashed goblins!

 Then then raise it again. And lower it again. And raise it again. And lower it again.

 I think I need to lie down.