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10th Felsite, 12~We’d just gotten the main floor of the workhouse done when we heard voices from behind the palisade.
“Uh, hello? Anyone home? …Hello?”
We all turned to see where this new voice was coming from (except Jyrvus, who didn’t seem to notice). There was a rather timid looking dwarf poking his head around the wall over the bridge. He was a bit odd looking, but I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. Then, suddenly, it hit me: his beard was clean. How unnatural! Distasteful, even.
He blinked at us from a distance. We blinked back. To be honest, I don’t think any of us had really expected migrants. It had been over a year; Thob and the merchants’ visits were the only connection to the mountainhome we’d had. Had anyone expected dwarves to brave these evil lands, I don’t think anyone would’ve expected them to look like this chap, anyhow.
“Well?” called Bodark eventually. “Aren’t you going to get over here and introduce yerself?”
The strange, timid dwarf hesitated, then stepped towards us rather hurriedly. “Uh, yes, right. I’m, uh, Lance. Er, Julius Lancestraps, not… this is embarassing… I’m a, uh, mason? Sort of? In training, you know, sort of… of thing—”
As we watched him flounder socially, a female dwarf equally unfamiliar to us sauntered past him. “Don’t mind the kid, he’s been like this the whole journey. Samantha Worktrade, a pleasure. Call me Sam. Say, there isn’t a tavern around here, is there? Long trip.”
I turned to eye everyone else, as if to ask ‘Why haven’t
we thought of building a tavern yet?’ I was met with looks replying ‘Hey, mister manager – why haven’t
you thought of building a tavern yet?’ Damn it.
We must have looked awfully silly. Thus far our clan had said nearly nothing, and Julius was flubbing his own introduction, leaving Sam unimpressed. “Uh, well, not quite,” I said. “We’ve got a dining room in the cabin over there, and there’s a bit of rum left—”
“Rum? Oh, and don’t tell me – you’ve got the usual assortment of beer, ale, that standard stuff too. No more of that, how about? I didn’t come here for the stimulating conversation, I’ll tell you that – sun-brewed liquers are the hottest new thing right now.”
I said ‘Oh’ in a way that made me sound very out of touch with modern drinking culture (which I suppose I am) and left her in the cabin while I excused myself to grab a barrel of whip wine. The othes were still outside the workhouse. Julius, the bookish one, was attempting to tell the story of their journey over, and from a distance he appeared to be failing miserably. Such odd new people we’ll be living with now. I wondered if they would fit in.
Irwin ran past with the pack of war dogs, all yapping and nipping at each others heels. He was covered with hay and mud.
Sadly, yes, yes they would.
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Aaaaand here's our personality charts. A few extra thoughts since I didn't think to take them right away.
I'll grab some screenies with both programs, but for now keep in mind we really don't have much. It's reeeeally really basic until we can kill the imps (or capture them as per Haika's suggestion, which would be interesting) and expand our perimeter.
ed- aaand back.
The site, with north marked in the SS screenies.
And this wide-view VF shot helps you get a sense of the layout (there's a bunch more mountain that extends west and north, too):
As you can see, we've clearcut the area around the castle and progressed in a straight line to the east, and a bit around the magma pipe that we took stealthily while the imps were roaming. The non-clear-cut section is imp territory - Sam and Julius spawned at the exact point of the map that would take them directly beside the magma pipe when heading to the castle, so I had to use crazy traffic orders to reroute them. You can see how expansion is a problem when we can't safely attack the ranged beasties who've claimed their territory.