Today a Hill Titan appeared within sight of the fortress walls. It looks like a massive, hairy iguana and has an austere look about it (don't look at me! I don't know what "austere" means either, the engraver told me that). I immediately ordered the destruction of the ramps going up to the wall because even though the titan surely can't break down walls, doors could prove to be... less than optimal as far as titan-proofing goes. Now that it can't get in, I can sleep well again.
Actually, scratch that last part. This morning I woke up in cold sweat. I saw the titan
swimming in the Blueness of Malodors, approaching the unprotected shore, entering the fortress and slaughtering every single one of us. Just as its poisonous spine was about to pierce my heart, I awoke.
I bolted out of my room (which is quite nice, though in no way as grandiose as some of the previous overseers' ones) and found one of the soldiers looking at the sea.
"Where is the titan?" I asked.
"It just jumped into the sea. I didn't know hill titans could swim," replied the soldier.
Oh god."Tell everyone to stop whatever they're doing and start building a wall from there to that other end."
"Yes, lady."
Pictured: a major security oversight.
And the proposed solution.
And finally the finished wall.
The wall is finished. The titan simply can't get in now and neither can anything else.
Another two caravans arrived and we could do nothing but watch them get slaughtered by the titan. Then, however, the goblins returned. Half the fortress gathered on the wall to watch as the titan noticed them and attacked.
Well, as much as I loathe the greenskins, I have to say they gave the titan a good ass-kicking. It did kill a few of them before it fell, though.
A possessed dwarf then went mad. I barely even noticed that he was possessed and assumed we had enough of everything to satisfy his needs. Turns out that wasn't the case and one of the dwarves preemptively installed a door in the entrance to the workshop he was scribbling away in. I wanted them to remove the door at first, but his subsequent mad babbling convinced me that it's probably best to just leave him be. His mind is broken.
A few days before the end of winter, another dwarf has withdrawn from society. I don't really know what he's up to, but I certainly hope we have enough materials for the completion of his (no doubt magnificient) work.
The save is
here. Some details and notes for the next overseers follow.
We have a stable supply of food and drink, there should also a sufficient surplus of barrels. There are enough animals should the food supplies dwindle, so I'd suggest concentrating on the alcohol production. Having dwarves multitask is a
stupid idea. The current manager (custom title Bookworm) oscillates between smelting and managing orders and I'd say that even that is stretching it. There is a new, larger art gallery already dug out and partially smoothed (it's located one z-level above the original one), please only use legendary engravers to engrave it. There are places for statues in the walls, their location is hopefully obvious.
The hospital is now fully engraved for reasons mostly related to me not wanting to have any idlers.
LucusCasius is the secretive dwarf and he's skething pictures of an awful lot of stuff. I'm afraid he is going to die but props to you if you somehow get him the stuff he needs.
I have reenabled furniture hauling and the furniture stockpiles are starting to get a bit full.
There are currently three decent miners (one of them at Grand Master if I recall correctly), one of which is also a pretty good engraver (formerly titled Multitasker but he can't really do anything but these two things).
I've done some digging on z-level -52 (it's on hotkey F3).
We
really need an appraiser. I'm not sure if it's possible for a dwarf to spontaneously gain that skill, but our broker didn't get it yet.
And finally the stocks screen: