(I was going to see if I could invent a way for a Legendary Record Keeper or Legendary Organizer to kill a fortress, but I couldn't figure one out.)
Record Keeper: Urist, look at these numbers. This is fantastic! Every time the Mountainhome approves a fortress, the settlers get 1500 "points" which are basically dwarfbucks. It's a license to print money... every fortress starts out 1500 dwarfbucks ahead of the game, so even if they lose half of their value, all fortresses still turn a profit!
Urist: All of them?
Record Keeper: Sure! I mean, some percentage fail and have to be abandoned, but in the aggregate, everybody wins.
Urist: Including us.
Record Keeper: Well, the Mountainhome and the trading company make
most of the money. They make a profit sending traders to all the other fortresses, who trade with us for our value-added craftsdwarfship. They ride their wagon from place to place collecting money.
Urist: How can I get a piece of that action? This farming crap is for the birds.
Record Keeper: You can't! It's not like you could run your own trading company.
Urist: True... we don't even have wagons.
Record Keeper: ...but we do have Dwarfbucks, so we could buy a stake in one of the expeditions, or in a trading company that expects to make money off of several expeditions...
Urist: What if we pick one that fails?
Record Keeper: We'll diversify! We will buy a tiny share of each wagon. Besides, they all succeed, mostly.
Urist: But no expedition wants to do all that bookkeeping and pay out shares on such tiny investments.
Record Keeper: We'll find a Mountainhome or a trading company to bankroll the whole project, and then instead of trying to make money on each little fortress, they can sell shares in fortress growth to raise capital for more wagons.
Urist: But again... what if we buy one that fails?
Record Keeper: Oh, you won't have to buy the risky ones. We'll shuffle them all together into a pile called consolidated fortress futures. The best fortresses are grade "A" for "Armok", and the riskier types are "B" for Boatmurdered, "C" for... well, nobody wants a fortress that's riskier than Boatmurdered. Anyway, we shuffle them together so everyone gets an equal share of the risk, and then sell the least risky ones at a premium...
Urist: ...but won't I still have some share of the Boatmurdered risk?
Record Keeper: No, they're in another tranche.
Urist: Tranche? Is that some kind of Elvish word for mining?
Record Keeper: No, no, don't worry about it, it's very technical. The bottom line is, it's all risk-free. Absolutely no chance that any of these forts will get flooded with kittens or magma or both.
Urist: Great! Forget farming, I'm going to start buying magma kitten trenches!
Record Keeper: Tranches.
Urist: Whatever. Oh, hey, so if I buy kitten magma truncheons, does that mean the traders will make even more money if they invest in our fortress?
Record Keeper: (
scratches head, scribbles on parchment, blanches) Er, yes. That's exactly what it means. Everyone makes a kabillion dwarfbucks,
unless more than one fortress crumbles to its end.Urist: Well, with all that money rolling in safe as houses, we won't be needing this farm plot! (
begins pumping magma into the soil layer)
Record Keeper: Of course, we are one of the fortresses that mustn't crumble, so it's important that we--
Urist: Where's the lever that opens the kitten cages?