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[Rince Wind]

Dear hunters,

please hunt. Seriously, there are keas all over the place and they scare some of our dwarves, maybe even your friends. They also try to steal stuff, which is worse.
So, don't hang around doing nothing. I have seen some bolts in the area, so you must be doing something, sometimes. I had no reports of you hunting or fighting though, so until you prove me wrong I will assume that you just put the bolts there to trick me into thinking that you go out hunting while you are drinking booze inside instead.
I know, it is nicer to be inside, but you came here, carrying a crossbow or at least knowing how to fire one, so go out and use, for Armoks sake!

sincerly yours,
the annoyed overseer

[pisskop]

Dear hunters,

please hunt. Seriously, there are keas all over the place and they scare some of our dwarves, maybe even your friends. They also try to steal stuff, which is worse.
So, don't hang around doing nothing. I have seen some bolts in the area, so you must be doing something, sometimes. I had no reports of you hunting or fighting though, so until you prove me wrong I will assume that you just put the bolts there to trick me into thinking that you go out hunting while you are drinking booze inside instead.
I know, it is nicer to be inside, but you came here, carrying a crossbow or at least knowing how to fire one, so go out and use, for Armoks sake!

sincerly yours,
the annoyed overseer

Dear lowercased overseer;

Do not try to flatter us with you informality.  We know you know as well as we that to hunt the monsters of the world (like doe hares, eagles, and the occasional giant wolverine) we require free quivers, assigned bolts of the specified material, to be told explicitly to hunt, and enough skill to motivate us to prioritize hunting over hauling or shearing or cleaning partying.  Just disable our other jobs and then make sure we each have bolts and a quiver or that there is a free one in the stockpiles.  Yea, we don't want to go messing with the bureaucracy or nothin', so jut picking up random and un-ledgered equipment is a big no-no.

Also, we hear Armok got bored with the old ways and reformed his habits, so perhaps there is an issue underlying this; a genetic inability to 'get right'.  But I doubt it.

    signed
        The Hunter's Guild

[Akura]

Dear parents of Lali Bowelswallows,

Why. Just why would you name your daughter shit-eater?

[Rince Wind]

Dear hunters,

please hunt. Seriously, there are keas all over the place and they scare some of our dwarves, maybe even your friends. They also try to steal stuff, which is worse.
So, don't hang around doing nothing. I have seen some bolts in the area, so you must be doing something, sometimes. I had no reports of you hunting or fighting though, so until you prove me wrong I will assume that you just put the bolts there to trick me into thinking that you go out hunting while you are drinking booze inside instead.
I know, it is nicer to be inside, but you came here, carrying a crossbow or at least knowing how to fire one, so go out and use, for Armoks sake!

sincerly yours,
the annoyed overseer

Dear lowercased overseer;

Do not try to flatter us with you informality.  We know you know as well as we that to hunt the monsters of the world (like doe hares, eagles, and the occasional giant wolverine) we require free quivers, assigned bolts of the specified material, to be told explicitly to hunt, and enough skill to motivate us to prioritize hunting over hauling or shearing or cleaning partying.  Just disable our other jobs and then make sure we each have bolts and a quiver or that there is a free one in the stockpiles.  Yea, we don't want to go messing with the bureaucracy or nothin', so jut picking up random and un-ledgered equipment is a big no-no.

Also, we hear Armok got bored with the old ways and reformed his habits, so perhaps there is an issue underlying this; a genetic inability to 'get right'.  But I doubt it.

    signed
        The Hunter's Guild

Dear Hunter's Guild,

thank you for yor prompt reply. Your members do have crossbows and quivers full of bolts. During my previous assignements in other forts, they usually charged out as soon as prey was on the map, but I will try and lessen their possible workload and see, if they will then go out and hunt.
If not, I might be forced to conscript them into the military, which I would not like to do (yet).

yours truly,
the overseer

[TV4Fun]

Dear Urist McEngraver,

I realize that single-handedly engraving the walls of an entire fortress is an arduous task, and that after a while, you must begin to run out of topics for engraving, however I think you may have an overly narrow reference pool. For example one of your recent engravings, while unquestionably a masterwork of your craft, depicting you carving another masterwork engraving into another wall, itself a work describing another engraving you had done, seems a little overly self-serving. Perhaps you should consider broadening your creative horizons a little.

R/OS

[Larix]

Dear hunters,

please hunt. Seriously, there are keas all over the place

Dear overseer,

The problem may lie with the way the common dwarf hunts - by going to the place where an animal was last seen and tracking it on foot. Keas, alas, are very unreasonable creatures and rarely move on foot. We can spot the places where they land, but whenever they take off again, we lose the track. We'll happily hunt more pedestrian animals, but outside of rare luck, birds are beyond our ken. Now, if you conscripted us into the military and gave us proper rank and military equipment, we might be able to do something about those annoying parrots.

Yours sincerely,
the Hunters' Guild, not at all lobbying to become the officially sanctioned Artillery Squad.

[Rince Wind]

Dear hunters,

please hunt. Seriously, there are keas all over the place

Dear overseer,

The problem may lie with the way the common dwarf hunts - by going to the place where an animal was last seen and tracking it on foot. Keas, alas, are very unreasonable creatures and rarely move on foot. We can spot the places where they land, but whenever they take off again, we lose the track. We'll happily hunt more pedestrian animals, but outside of rare luck, birds are beyond our ken. Now, if you conscripted us into the military and gave us proper rank and military equipment, we might be able to do something about those annoying parrots.

Yours sincerely,
the Hunters' Guild, not at all lobbying to become the officially sanctioned Artillery Squad.

Dear Hunter's Guild,

so in a way you confirmed my suspicion that there is some paragraph in the service contract that forbids your members the hunting of these annoying pests. If my memory doesn't fail me, you used to hunt for giant birds just fine, maybe it is that these here are so small and don't yield any meat when butchered?
By the way, thanks for sending a master hunter, whom I gave no other jobs but to hunt.

I have since been transferred to another fortress, where I decided to conscript an otherwise unremarkable dwarf in the military as a marksdwarf.
This one now refuses to pick up some bolts, but I will try to persuade him later, when I get back to the fortress in question. I know he does not fall under your jurisdiction anymore.

regards
the overseer

[Rince Wind]

Dear Urist McMason,

thank you for finishing that order of ten orthoclase statues. One of those is truly a masterwork and a marvel to look at. Though I have to say, that somehow I still like the finely crafted statue of Dodok the Safety of Prisons best. It is always a good idea to placate the gods, especially someone as stern as Dodok, god of law and oaths. Even you depict him as looking offended.
I don't think giants are as moved by art though. So, would you please explain, why all nine other statues you've made are depictions of Cor the giant? And all of them show the same scene, he is labouring, which clearly refers to him settling down in the Beak of Confinement.
That is a little boring, don't you agree. Until you made that masterwork, it was fine, you were really trying to get that scene down. But now, I would prefer if you found something else to carve out of the rock.

regards,
the overseer.


(yes, the world only has a history of 5 years, but still, 9 out of 10 statues showing the same damn scene?)

[Walrusking]

Dear Former dwarves of a certain fort,

When you evacuate the fort due to abandonment, please keep your clothes on, do not throw furniture all over the place, and do NOT shoot crossbows wildly all over the place. Seriously, the living quarters, mess halls and the outside are a mess.

Regards,
Overseer of the reclaiming party

[escondida]

When you evacuate the fort due to abandonment, please keep your clothes on, do not throw furniture all over the place, and do NOT shoot crossbows wildly all over the place. Seriously, the living quarters, mess halls and the outside are a mess.

Dear Overseer:

Thank you for your feedback. The Mountainhomes Bureau of Internal Affairs is always glad to hear from our valued citizens.

If you would kindly take a moment to look over the language in §c, ¶5, of chapter 7 (Standard Procedures for Protection of Mountainhomes Intellectual Property and State Secrets) of your Fortress Management Standards and Procedures book, furnished to you at no extra charge when you signed your contract, you'll find that if a fortress must be abandoned for any reason, it is *vital* no Dwarven technology fall into the hands of our enemies. Surely you don't want to see goblins wearing our precious masterwork steel, or---Reg Furnacemountains (god of fortresses and war) forbid---an artifact! Imagine the havok that would ensue if humans had access to our mechanisms! To date, the most efficient method we have discovered for preventing any future non-Dwarven inhabitants of or visitors to a site from stealing anything dangerous is simply to leave the site in such a state of chaos that they give up hope of ever finding anything useful.

It is our sincere hope that you will read through not just chapter 7 but the entirety of the Fortress Management Standards and Procedures book. Remember, there are rules for a *reason*.

Yours sincerely,
Bomrek Datanbomrek,
Undersecretary for the Mountainhomes Bureau of Internal Affairs

[Walrusking]

When you evacuate the fort due to abandonment, please keep your clothes on, do not throw furniture all over the place, and do NOT shoot crossbows wildly all over the place. Seriously, the living quarters, mess halls and the outside are a mess.

Dear Overseer:

Thank you for your feedback. The Mountainhomes Bureau of Internal Affairs is always glad to hear from our valued citizens.

If you would kindly take a moment to look over the language in §c, ¶5, of chapter 7 (Standard Procedures for Protection of Mountainhomes Intellectual Property and State Secrets) of your Fortress Management Standards and Procedures book, furnished to you at no extra charge when you signed your contract, you'll find that if a fortress must be abandoned for any reason, it is *vital* no Dwarven technology fall into the hands of our enemies. Surely you don't want to see goblins wearing our precious masterwork steel, or---Reg Furnacemountains (god of fortresses and war) forbid---an artifact! Imagine the havok that would ensue if humans had access to our mechanisms! To date, the most efficient method we have discovered for preventing any future non-Dwarven inhabitants of or visitors to a site from stealing anything dangerous is simply to leave the site in such a state of chaos that they give up hope of ever finding anything useful.

It is our sincere hope that you will read through not just chapter 7 but the entirety of the Fortress Management Standards and Procedures book. Remember, there are rules for a *reason*.

Yours sincerely,
Bomrek Datanbomrek,
Undersecretary for the Mountainhomes Bureau of Internal Affairs

Dear Mr. Datanbomrek,

I see you have a point. Our reclamation team found what may have been goblin corpses strewn about. While the team's memory is quite fuzzy and we have no idea of the cause of this, we assumed the disarray caused the goblins to annihilate themselves. We will be sure to employ this tactic much more in the future. Thank you again.

Sincerely,
Overseer

[10terrapin01]

Dear Reclaim Party,
Now, I know the vultures in the ruins of a fortress may be terrifying.  I shall also grant you that dodging is good, it can save your life.  But please, don't end up like Bomrek, 170 Z levels down and spread all across the floor.  Watch your step.
-Your concerned overseer

Post Script to Ineth
Yes, your sibling just fell down the main stairwell and exploded into gore.  However if you read the letter to the fort you will see she clearly disregarded the information.  Now dwarf up and stop crying in the corpse heap, overcome by terror, next to your sister's dead body.

[the1337doofus]

A note to the miners of Nilzuntir;

Why, pray tell, would you ignore the horrendous screams coming from the recently built magma forge room, that you just dug the magma channels for? Did it not occur to you that one of your fellow dwarves may be burning to death in there? Furthermore, WHY, WHY? Why would you dig under one another?! Are you secretly all murderers, hoping to kill your fellow dwarf? Thanks to your utter carelessness, we're one dwarf down, and even worse, it was the weaponsmith that you let burn to death in there. You idiots are lucky I don't order you all under an atom smasher.

-Your FUCKING FURIOUS Overseer.

[Kumquat]

To Mr. Tarzan McHumanMerchant,

Your climbing skills are impressive, I admit that. You made all the way up there on a smooth dwarven wall. Your perseverance is even more impressive, since you took a whole two weeks to climb there.

Now get down and move to the depot. Your fellows are getting restless and they cannot start trading without your goods. And think of your poor cargo camel, running around to and fro trying to join you but the beast is totally incapable of climbing.

- The higher force guiding the resettlement effort of Cloisterdunes.

PS. Necromancers of The Good Trades: It was very nice of you to send a welcoming party. Next time, send someone who is alive rather than these elf zombies. Clawing off someone's face is not generally appropriate etiquette.

[Panando]

Dear Urist McDead,

I can understand that Giant Peace Faced Lovebirds or whatever are extremely horrifying, in fact running away in terror is quite a reasonable response. Maybe.  But, just but, isn't a squad of War Elephants [Fortress Defense enemy, steel clad] even MORE horrifying, and MORE worthy of running in terror from? You know, rather than running in terror from the Lovebird INTO the squad of war elephants, you should consider running in terror FROM the squad of war elephants, even if it means running TOWARDS the lovebird. Lesser of two evils and all that. Oh yeah and screaming "Help help!" was a cute trick, but the only kind of help a war elephant is going to give you is 'helping' you shuffle off this mortal coil.

PS. Not that it really matters. While you were being crushed to death by a stampede of war elephants, one of your fellow flee-in-terror from a lovebird-ee, the Weaponsmith who likes Adamantine, successfully dodged the elephants and ran with a couple of war elephants hot on his tail until the army intervened and saved his sorry ass. You'll be immensely gratified to learn that despite surviving the war elephants and he almost immediately died in the tantrum spiral following the war elephants massacring most the marksdwarves. Nearly no civilians survived. But the brave fighting dwarves came through intact and after the half dozen sane survivors finished building caskets, immigration repopulated the fortress. The moral of the story is that your sorry immigrant ass is not actually essential so this is one of those 'for your own good' notes.

Your Benevolent Overseer.