Mightygrips is over. Not in a 'plot = finished' over sense, but a 'hey, look, I seem to have lost interest in continuing this.' It happens, I guess. Figure I might as well lock the thread to reflect that since I'd like to keep the link in my sig without having people continue to bump the thread. Rest of the original OP is below:
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It was more a matter of pride than practicality.
The royal caravan was on its way homeward, and no-one had said much since they had left. The king was quietly seething, and his advisors were shooting each other frenetic looks. The visit to Flickeredpassionate had been going so well initially; it was the first meeting between King Zas Boardrasp and the merchant leader Egesh Inchmurder in a little over eight years. Though at peace, both human and dwarven empires had neglected to stay in close communication, instead sending over a diplomat every few seasons to keep on friendly terms. In the face of the growing orc threat, the king had finally been persuaded to journey to Flickeredpassionate on his first royal diplomatic visit. Everything had been planned out beautifully: they would eat, talk tactics for a while, watch a nice execution, and finish off the trip with some ale. Melbil Boltedbasins, diplomat to the Submerged Nation and most trusted advisor of the king, had gone over the itinerary again and again, making sure nothing could go wrong. So how was it, he wondered as he sat nervously next to the livid dwarf king, that everything had gone wrong?
What do we do? Melbil mouthed to Thob Merchantbranded, official outpost liason and junior advisor to the king.
I can’t read lips, Thob mouthed back. Melbil sighed gently. Thob would be no help. As usual. Outpost liasons spent most of their time travelling from one mountainhall to another, braving the wilds to bring news. Thob was certainly strong, having fought off numerous skeletal minotaur and cyclops attacks, but ‘able-minded’ was not part of his job description.
Suddenly the king spoke. “Arrogant git.”
Melbil jumped in, quickly trying to cool the angry king’s temper. “Indeed, my lord. He spoke out of line. However, in regards to—”
“Don’t start again with that ‘my lord’ stuff again. Lousy stickman talked down to me and you know it!” Melbil winced internally at the king’s unsophisticated language. He had made many efforts to get the king to try and behave more like nobility, but the monarch had always been more of an axedwarf at heart.
“My lord... Okay, fine, Zas, just… He didn’t mean it, all right? He’s human, he couldn’t have known—”
The king roared. “Couldn’t have known? Couldn’t have known what? That I’d take offense to his vulgar human slander? I spend three days travelling on this stupid road, in this stupid sunlight, just to visit his
stupid little empire, and he has the tenacity to call our mountainhome ‘quaint’!”
Melbil cringed. He recalled the incident only too well. After a full day in good cheer, Egesh had let slip an innocent comment about how impressive human architecture was. When King Zas had angrily refuted, citing the great dwarven caverns and mountainhalls as superior, Egesh had loosed the Q word.
Quaint. It had struck a nerve with Zas, and after some name-calling and a sudden drunken brawl, he had declared that they were leaving immediately. Melbil sighed again. This political mess was going to take years to reverse.
“I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do,” said Zas. “We’re not going to build that fort in the Malodorous Jungle like we talked about.”
“But—sir?!” Melbil blanched. The entire point of the visit was to create a more cohesive and structured human-dwarf defense against the orcs. “Having a military outpost in the Malodorous Jungle is key to the success of our entire defensive ring! Without it, there’s a huge gap for the orcs to pour into the Mountainhome and beyond!”
“We’re gonna build a castle instead.”
There was silence on the wagon. After a good long pause, in which Zas grinned terribly and Melbil’s jaw hung loose, Thob spoke up suddenly. “But… I thought we was dwarves?”
“That’s the beauty of it, yeah? Egesh thinks humans are the best with their towns and roads and
outdoorsness. We don’t need another mountainhall, do we? We just need
something.”
Melbil pressed his fingers to his forehead. “…So, we’re going to threaten our master plan to keep the Orcs out of the eastern lands just to make a point?” He sighed for the third time in five minutes and decided that it would be best to stop arguing. “Okay, so… a castle.”
“Yeah.”
“Aboveground.”
“Yeah.”
A pause. “What’re we going to name it?”
Zas furrowed his imposing brow. “It’s got to be a stronghold, right? A
real stronghold, the kind they had when they fought off that skeletal giant horde back in 5.” He rolled his tongue around the inside of his cheek, mouthing the word. “Stronghold… hm… what to call a stronghold… strong-hold… stroooonghold…”
“Mightygrips?” asked Thob.
“That’s it! Mightygrips. Yeah, I like the sound of that.
Mightygrips. Rolls off the tongue real nice. Yeah. We’ll use that.”
Melbil stared at the ceiling. There was certainly no way he was going to talk the king out of this. It would be best if he just accepted it. “Um... Well, so be it, my lord. But there’s one thing still to consider.” Zas turned to eye him. Melbil cleared his throat. “Where are we going to find dwarves mad enough to live in a
castle?”
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All right, so I’m starting up a community castle (very loosely) based on medieval Europe – that is, I’ll be mimicking real castle-building techniques as best I can, working out some custom job titles, taking some artistic liberties with dwarven culture, that sort of thing. I’ll be having a lot of fun with the story as well; writing is a hobby of mine and I don’t plan on making ‘caravan came – we bought stuff again’ updates. In terms of the castle itself, I’m adopting a ‘hell with it, let’s put a tower here’ attitude. The more out of hand this gets, the better. Feel free to suggest stuff as well.
Here’s the embark. The mountain is the Beak of Blaming on the volcano The Fires of Confinement, next to the Malodorous Jungle. And yes, I play with a graphic set.
The world I’ve genned is pretty fun – predominantly evil with no civ getting too big and histories riddled with undead cyclops, giant, and minotaur attacks. We've got seven living megabeasts, including a skeletal hydra and two skeletal dragons. As for the embark site – well, let’s just say it took me a few weeks of casual genning to find the perfect one. There’s a lot more there than just a magma pipe… though I’ve already largely forgotten where everything is. It’ll all be found in time.
For any dorf requests, I’d like a name and preferred profession as well as any side notes you’d like me to incorporate. Please, no numbers. And the military is going to work a little differently than normal, so if you’d like be in the military just say so and I’ll work you through from there. It’s not going to be so easy to become a ‘champion’ in this fort.
Oh, and I’ve never played with orcs before.Let the fun begin!
Chapters:1.
The Depressed Guild of Misery : The first three years, from starting the outpost to the first successfully defended siege. Comprises the first 10-ish pages.
2.
Of Knights and Days : Runs from the rise of some soldiers into knights and the beginnings of castle construction to the first risky melee encounter with the spider-mounted orcs. Mostly about years four through seven, and comprises the second 10-ish pages.
3.
A Noble Pursuit: Was in progress; abruptly gave out midway.
Fan Art:Styledstrike the Waxy Prison by Doomshifter.
Quinn at work by MelloHero.
Author
Topic: The Castle Mightygrips: Cancelled. [community] (Read 47988 times)