Started new peasant dwarf: Fath Woodpot the Hardiness of Breads.
Stout like dwarven beer, and correspondingly thick-limbed, Fath's dream—besides wandering around and crushing skulls—is to build a nice fortified house out of chert, which happens to be one of the rock types in this northernmost frozen biome.
Fath began this run by heading to the nearest fortress to swim, but found himself hunting two moose cows. While he had 60 cabbages on hand, their consumption leaves seeds and the only way to eat without leaving a mess is to stand on a campfire tile which acts as an incinerator.
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A fire started in a fortress will never go out, so it's better to go with meat. Since he started with no weapon skill, just novice fighter and wrestler, he had no shield. While watching the moose cows from the tree line he macro'd knapper to proficient and threw sharp chert stones which did little damage. Macro'ing knapping was more to see when an average analytical ability would move to above average and then perhaps to high. At proficient, there was no observable attribute change.
After swimming, ambushing and crutch-walking to legendary, which is a compressed grind not unlike bi/tri-weekly farmers walks…
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So you don't always get great terrain, but here Fath was gifted 7 tiles of drowning under the rock block pathway, and a combination of regular water tiles plus land tiles. Probably one of the best swim set ups.
This was the result (includes the knapping and the 2 moose cows):
From this:
…Fath ended up strangling a solitary giant, whose lair he stumbled upon when leaving the fort.
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It's always good to know the position of the critter before entering the lair.
Fath believes in cunning. Somewhat inspired by Dimicator's FB post (google "Having brought down a giant by cutting his lower legs, a knight slays him.")
Within the first few shots, semimegabeast XP nicely pushes strength to high. Kind of a nice thing to have for the majority of the fight.
Fath traveled westward along the mountain chain to human lands. Part of his aim was to farm meadhalls for arrows, partly for adventure, but mostly to change his clothing. It's so cold, the best clothing would be wool, and so Fath layered up, knitting a wool shirt, vest and coat. Wearing a leather shirt chafes the skin, even the coarse skin of an insensible blockheaded dwarf.
Now woolly and properly outfitted, encased in pig tail gambeson and finally warm, Fath engaged in a raid on a town troubled by human bandits. During this encounter, a maceman belonging to the local meadhall was mistakenly pin-cushioned with arrows and then morningstar'd to death. The villager whose home this occurred in, was not happy at all. Fath forgot to check inventory as hearthpersons tend to wear armor with some insignia. The rest of the bandits suffered the same fate.
The iron morningstar claimed the names of 4 humans, but felt not quite right in use. Far too many embedded strikes. Fath exchanged it in town for the rather ornate <<silver war hammer>> which caught his eye.