Genned a 250 yr medium island world for the new reactions in 42.06.
Bim Fieldpebble begins in
Puzzlewheels, part of a collection of hillocks at the northernmost tip of the landmass, near an elven town which has evolved into a ☼. He starts as a melee dwarf, which is
the usual future archer set-up, as even dedicated archers will always do their fair share of fencing, particularly in lairs.
Still in Puzzlewheels, he picks up an elk bird
padded jack and ventures outside
to craft a plain bow before traveling to all the hillocks in the area to rummage through various cabinets for clothes. During this outfitting expedition, the conversation in one of the hillocks veers toward very large birds who enjoy politics.
Plenty of rocs have taken over various civs and are running amok. In this world, megabeasts (roc, dragon, hydra) were given the tokens [INTELLIGENT][POWER] in the creature_standard.txt. Apparently they've made the most of this and so Bim will avoid these sites for now.
After populating the map with lairs, using spread rumor/ask for directions, it's discovered there's a nearby ettin, who will be the first fight:
While (from behind a firewall) planting an arrow into the leg of a semimegabeast (to cut its speed and remove its charge attack) might be the preferred tactic of archers, Bim opts to just melee with this ettin who seems fairly vocal. This may or may not be a good idea since the gifts of world gen are often unknown until it is too late:
This ettin, however, moves slowly into view, and right there we know a position-based, single-action, stand and trade tick combat will be used. While there's not much !!SCIENCE!! behind this notion, as a fast sprinter may just be an idiot, generally when seeing something with a large gait move over 3 tiles in 10 ticks, it might be better if one hedges bets, to opt to multi-attack with quick attack + dodge away to control distance and ward away the grab attack. This isn't the case here, nor will the lack of metal hand and foot armor become a concern.
This fight which began with an ettin's bold call to yield, ends up being a chase around the lair with the ettin running outside:
Bim gets the leg shot:
The fight is safe enough for Bim to work in some wrestling before swinging mindlessly away until landing the mortal wound:
Back at a hillock, as Bim sits around crafting bows, graduating to
adequate wood crafter and novice bowyer, he enters into conversation with an elvish farmer named Cerol Inashdoren (Cerol Organdiamond):
Before heading out, they go to the drinking mound so that Cerol can say his goodbyes. After all, this farmer-turned-recruit is going off and leaving the everyday behind, and of course no one knows what the future will bring. Here, it seems as though no amount of questioning Cerol would have revealed this:
Drinking mounds have been better on the whole for discovering those unknown facets of an NPC companion's traits, than taverns which are performance-based venues. But then maybe my characters have gone to the wrong taverns. It seems best to avoid recruiting the anxiety prone, those who aren't brave, and those who handle pressure poorly. So, we'll have to see.
They head west. It's off to the elven town which has devolved from a ☼ to a #. First for a drink, then there's a freak mate of twilight in the area. Night troll spouses have been fairly weak in 42.xx, likely because of their sizing (no larger than human) and spears with stab contact of 20 and swords with stab contact of 50 have been able to sever their hands. In other worlds devoted to experimenting and refighting the same fight irrespective of win/loss, it's been noticed spouses can be out grappled. This has happened on a few occasions. However a pair of archers should probably try to get some work in. Archer's grip never trains itself.