Her Majesty has seen fit to order construction of a glorious temple to trade, with gleaming statues around the trade depot. Never let it be said that we ignore a single one of her whims. We just need it to be built underground so that the blood can be cleaned away.
With the spring comes some changes for the military. We have decided to give the rank of ‘Soulchopper’ to our militia commander from this day forward. That seems like a crazy unlucky thing to do, seeing what happened to the first Soulchopper, but the drunkard’s view seems to be that the lightning’ll be too busy hitting Catten to get anybody else, and ‘better him than me’. Besides, there’s another Catten now, promoted to lead the third squad, and we want to avoid confusion.
11th Granite: Goden Geshududesh briefly interrupted her military training to give birth to a boy. Shortly thereafter, yet another wave of immigrants. I think the Queen is paying dwarves to come here, we have 109 mouths to feed now.
18th Felsite: A vile force of darkness has arrived! While the elves where trading in our newly redesigned platinum trade depot, surrounded by golden statues, a goblin siege force arrived to test our defenses. Looks like sixteen goblins and a Jabberer. I pray we will be ready for them. They arrived due west of the fortress, and circled around the wall to the entrance in the north.
Most of the goblins were axemen, and couldn’t find a way into the fortress right away. The leader, however, was a goblin pikeman mounted on a Jabberer, and somehow they managed to get inside the wall and start killing the livestock. Obok Kolasol, former mechanic, current hammerdwarf, managed to distract the jabberer while the rest of the squad ran to help. But the jabberer was too large and fast, and once Obok fell into a pool of water where he could no longer dodge, it was all over. That monster tore his arm off while he lay drowning. Still, his valiant struggle bought the time the fighters needed to get up close and finish the monster from behind. By the time the goblin axemen found their own way in, our fighters were ready for them and tore them apart.
Of course, the bad news is that they found a way in. Once again, slipping around the very edge of a wall. So no sooner than the battle is finished, all available hands go to masonry. Except for Tirist Eribod, a bowyer, who flies off into a mood and sulks until we build him a bowyer’s shop. He’s screaming for all kinds of goods that I hope we have. Also, there’s a new mayor, someone other than the baron, so a new set of apartments needs to be dug out.
Tirist created Eshomesdor, an alder blowgun, really quite stunning; too bad it’s useless for anything except decoration. But now we have a legendary bowyer, so yay.
14th Galena: the enemy have come and are laying a siege to our fortress. Again. Except these are all humans, who we are supposed to be at peace with. They danced around, killing a couple of puppies, and eventually summoned up the courage to come and meet us. It was a slaughter, of course. We lost one of our new recruits, but the humans were wiped out. Body parts everywhere. The Soulchopper was knocking bolts out of the air on his way to slice off an arm here, a head there. All in all, a good season’s work.
Datan Stinthadzon, Metalsmith, was taken by a fey mood and claimed a magma forge! I can’t wait to see what he builds! … Oh. It’s a steel door. Steel. With a picture of a donkey on it. Sigh.
20th Timber: Goblin ambush on the heels of the dwarven caravan. Lost the woodcrafter Tholtig Eribid in the first rush. The furnace operator Zefon Sazirkezat was trapped up on the wall and killed; Onul Eriththimshur went up there to fight, but fell off and died. Later we lost our legendary bowyer and a weaponsmith to infection.
7th Moonstone: The baron’s habit of sleeping in peasant hovels while being jealous of anybody sleeping in his quarters has finally driven him over the edge. No one knows exactly what was said, but in the middle of talking to the liaison from the mountainhome, he went berserk. The diplomat ran out, closed and bolted the door, and said quietly over the sounds of mayhem, “The baron is trying to eat a kitten.” He left without saying another word.
1st Obsidian: Muthkat Regnicat, bonecarver, has been possessed! He created Nekikkirar, a plain donkey bone greaves. That and the construction of the first section of catacombs were the big news this winter. It was quiet, for a change.
Oh wait, no it wasn’t! On 15th Obsidian, a vile force of darkness arrived to lay siege to the fortress. Thirty-two goblins, 8 Trolls, 14 Giant Rats, 17 Jabberers. Luckily, most of those invaders went off towards the front gate, got bored and left by the end of the month. We still lost several good dwarves in the battle to the south, where the trolls and some of the goblin/Jabberer teams attacked. 93 dwarves now call Oslanzim home, when they’re conscious, down from a peak of 109 before the raids and sieges. Three sieges this year! We’re gonna need another Soulchopper.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-9456-windcrestedbarconis