Cavern: A Dwarven RPGYou are a dwarf, a short, hardy creature fond of drink and labor.
But what kind of dwarf are you? What are your dreams? Do you love to talk? Work? Fight?
Well you had better decide soon, because you're about to go on an adventure!This game will be based on Dwarf Fortress, with a few of my own ideas. I'm looking for about 3-5 players before starting the game.
This was inspired by Shade-o's Cobalt Fortress, but won't be anywhere near as complex. Probably. We'll see what happens.
Post turns in
bold, role-playing in
italics, please. If you have any questions or spot any errors, please say so.
Now, let's see what your dwarf is doing...
As you walk into the office, you spy a small dwarf doing paperwork.
"Oh, you looking for a migrant application? Right there, just fill it in as best you can and give it to me."
This is the template to post a character.
Name: Your name.
Gender: Male or Female.
Appearance and Personality: Go into as much or as little detail about yourself as you want. See Character Creation for those things below.
Age:
Social Class:
Religion:
Stats: This is a little complicated to explain here. See Character Creation.
Burliness: #
Stoutness: #
Brains: #
Intuition: #
Coordination: #
Slyness: #
Jollity: #
Divinity: #
Luck: Do not fill in, this is random.
Labors: See Character Creation.
Major:
Minor:
Extra(s):
Equipment: See Equipment, below Character Creation.
Personal Item:
"Need some help? Let me tell you what those categories mean..."
Appearance and Personality
You'll want a discription of your dwarf's life that fits with their class status and labors. This is mostly for fluff and story building purposes.
Age: Between 13 and 80.
Social Class: Where and how you grew up. Here are the options:
High Noble: You were born with a silver toy hammer in your hand, into a world of politics and backstabbery (and a fair amount of frontstabbery as well). Bonus to Brains and Slyness, penalty to Burliness and Jollity. Gains an extra Politics labor.
Well Off: You weren't rich, but you had food in your mouth. Bonus to Stoutness and Intuition, penalty to Burliness and Slyness. Gains extra Crafts labor or extra Manufactures labor.
Taverner: You love to drink, and can afford it. Those bar brawls are good for the muscles, too. Bonus to Jollity and Burliness, penalty to Brains and Intuition. Gains extra Crafts labor or extra Manufactures labor.
Militia: You've been a military dwarf since your first step, and it shows. Bonus to Burliness and Stoutness, penalty to Intuition. Gains extra Military labor.
Street Dog: Life has taught you one thing; if you want something from someone, punch them and take their stuff. Bonus to Burliness, penalty to Slyness. Gains extra Manufactures labor.
Street Rat: Life has taught you one thing; if you want something from someone, get them drunk then steal their stuff while they're passed out. Bonus to Slyness, penalty to Jollity and Stoutness. Gains extra Crafts labor or Politics labor.
Thug: You love to fight, and can throw a barrel with the best of em'. Bonus to Burliness and Stoutness, penalty to Brains, Intuition, Slyness, and Jollity. Gains extra Manufactues labor and extra Military labor.
Religion: These have little effect on gameplay (as far as you know >;]).
Elemin, God of rivers and caverns.
Wran, God of wealth.
Dratih, Godess of mountains and darkness.
Flana, Godess of jewels and fire.
Rick, God of swamps.
Nothaf, God of metalsmithing.
Ununbiu, Godess of the harvest.
Smaug, God of teeth and trees.
Woud, God of death.
Stats
You have 100 stat points to distribute between the eight non-luck stats. At creation, these stats can be anywhere between one and twenty. (So you could, if you wanted, have five maxed stats and three empty ones.) High or low stats modify various rolls, and a stat of zero or less has a rather large penalty. Your stats can go below zero or above twenty due to modifiers from your Social Class.
Descriptions of the stats:
Burliness:
Physical strength. A burly dwarf can lift more and hit harder, and can move faster in armor.
Stoutness:
Constitution, physical health. A stouter dwarf can go longer without eating, drinking, and sleeping, and can handle injury and sickness better.
Brains:
Ability to think and learn. A brainy dwarf will learn slightly faster, and can plan or teach faster.
Intuition:
Ability to see outside the box, think in unexpected ways, and plan for the future. Crafters need some intuition.
Coordination:
Ability to make accurate movements and control the body. A coordinated dwarf can make complicated machinery by hand, and is more likely to hit while in battle. Useful for crafters who need to make fine details.
Slyness:
Ability to trick, mislead, and lie. "Cold" charisma. A sly dwarf can go through a room naked without being noticed, but draw a crowd anywhere they want to. Forms grudges easily.
Jollity:
Cheerfulness, "warm" charisma. Jolly dwarves have lots of friends and are easy to get along with.
Divinity:
How noticable a dwarf is to Gods and magical creatures. Highly divine dwarves will attract attention, both good and... Not.
Luck:
How often things, especially things far outside of a dwarf's influence, go their way.
Stats can be raised or lowered by various things while in play (For example, Burliness can be built up by lifting heavy objects repeatedly), but the absolute caps on stats are -20 and 50.
Labors
You may choose a Major and Minor labor, as well as an extra labor based on your class.
Your major labor is three levels above baseline, while the minor and extra(s) are one. You can train labors by performing them, and they will get rusty with disuse.
Politics:
Speach: You can speak well, inspire others, and convince dwarves to do what you want.
Management: You can organize efficiently, and can visualize how every part of the fortress effects another.
Bookkeeping: You can delve into two hundred year old records, and figure out that the last fortress fell because there weren't enough socks.
Forgery: You can edit existing documents, or create new ones, without leaving a trail for enemies to follow.
Tactician: You can command others, and have an eye for shifts in power, both social and on the battlefield.
Military:
Swordsdwarf, Hammerdwarf, Speardwarf, etc: You wield a weapon in battle with skill.
Armored Movement: The heavy armor of war does little to hinder your movements.
Dodge: You get out of the way, fast.
Battlehardened: Wounds, pain, death, these things have less of an effect on you.
Mounted Combat: Your skills are less effected by being mounted on an animal.
Manufacture:
Metalsmith: You can cast metals into bars, and know your way around a furnace. You cast metal into furniture and some crafts.
Weaver: You can spin fibres into thread, and thread into cloth.
Farmer: The hard earth yields fruitful crops under your watch. You can grind grain and extract dye, and maybe shear a sheep or milk a cow.
Woodworker: Wood turns to planks under your hands. Furnature is assembled easily and without fuss.
Stoneworker: Great boulders become sturdy blocks as you chisel away. Walls spring up, one brick at a time.
Cook: Even the most inedible of meats could make a fine stew, you just need a little salt.
Brewer: See those plump helmets? Wine, just waiting to be made.
Butcher: Turns animals into meat and bones. May also tan hides into leather.
Crafts:
Weaponsmith: A bar of metal and a hammer is all you need to produce a fine tool of war, able to pierce the thickest shield.
Armorer: You can turn some hunks of steel into platemail, able to weather the mightiest blow.
Clothier: Some thread, some cloth, and you've got a shirt. Add some dye, and you've got the latest fall fashion! Leather boots for everyone!
Woodcrafter: Flutes! Mugs! Plates! What's the point of having a table if you've got nothing to put on it?
Stonecrafter: Flutes! Mugs! Plate- Wait a minute, this is the same as the other guy's! Well that's not right, while he's fussing over his little wooden toys, we're making beautiful works or art! It's completely different!
Glasscrafter: See Woodcrafter and stonecrafter, but with glass. Plus, windows. Windows are awesome.
Artisian: Make decorations, write poetry, and carve engravings, as well as many other miscellanious crafting arts such as gem cutting and setting..
Other:
Doctor: Diagnosing, cleaning, dressing wounds, "hands off" medical work.
Surgeon: Setting bones, sewing wounds, "hands on" medical work.
Miner: You can swing a pick with the greatest of ease, extracting usable stone quickly and easily.
Animal Trainer: You can train animals for combat or entertainment.
Fisher: With a line and some bait, you can catch a fish. You also know how to properly prepare them for cooking.
Ranger: You can find food easily aboveground, and trap or hunt.
Spelunker:You can tell the conposition of soil at a glance, and know exactly where to put a support. You also know caverns like the back of your hand.
"You want to know what you can bring along? Hmm, let me see... Ah, here's the list."
You have 300 Urists to buy stuff, provided by the Mountainhome. Items have values based on what they're made of and how well they're made, but these sold to you here by the Mountainhome are all baseline.
All dwarves automatically have a set of clothes and one "personal item", which is anything they want within reason, and can be something not on this list. The personal item should make sense for the dwarf to have.
Let's look at the general equipment:
Food: A dwarf regularly consumes one unit of food a day. Eating low quality food for long periods of time can make a dwarf unhappy or sick.
8 Urists:
Trecker's Lunch: Dehydrated meal. Filling, tasteful, and ready to eat with only a little preparation.
5 Urists:
Salted Helmets: Plump helmets salted to so as to keep on a long trip.
Wheat Crackers: Filling but tasteless crackers.
Equow Jerky: Jerked meat from an Equow, tasty but thirst-inducing.
3 Urists:
Cave Fish: Whole cavern fish, raw and uncleaned. Cheap but not immediately edible.
Scrap Sausage: Sausage made from "waste meat". Tastes alright, but doesn't keep as long as preserved meat.
1 Urist:
Cavern Stalks: They're cheap and last a long time, but that's all they've got going for them. Distasteful and unfilling.
Drink: A dwarf reglarly drinks one unit of drink a day. Drinking low quality refreshments for long periods of time can make a dwarf unhappy or sick.
6 Urists:
Honey Mead: The drink of the gods, tasteful and thirst-relieving.
4 Urists:
Helmet Wine: Delicious wine, brewed from plump helmets. Refreshing!
Stone Rum: Rum brewed from quarry leaves. About as tasteful as wine, with a similar level of refreshment.
Pork Rum: Rum brewed from pig tails. Tastes better than stone rum.
Wheat Beer: Beer made from cavern wheat. Less refreshing than wine, but tastes better.
Sugar Ale: Ale brewed from sugar pods. Not very good for thirst, but tastes great.
2 Urists:
Water: That stuff that falls out of the sky when it gets cloudy. Quenches thirst and clean, but tasteless and undwarvenly.
1 Urist:
Wormshine: A by-product of brewing, this is drinkable in only the loosest sense. Cheaper than dirt, this stuff could gag a moose at ten paces.
Seeds: For growing plants. These are all cavern plants that must be planted indoors in soil, mud, or "fertilizer". Plants usually take 2-6 months between harvests.
4 Urists:
Spelunker's Vine: A vine capable of growing on solid stone. It is incredibly strong, and makes superior ropes.
2 Urists:
Helmet Spawn: A packet of spores. Easy to grow and fast to sprout.
Wheat Grains: More fragile then helmets, but produces a larger yield. Most of the plant is only good for animal feed, but the grains can be brewed or ground into flour.
Sweet Beans: Sweet pod beans ready to plant, edible and can be brewed or ground into jelly or sugar.
Rock Nuts: Seeds that sprout into quarry bushes. Quarry bushes can be harvested without killing the plant, live for several years and can grow very large if unharvested. Their leaves and seeds are edible, and one can be brewed while the other ground into a paste.
Pig Tail Seeds: Grows into pig tails, a plant that produces fibres to be woven into thread. The whole plant can be brewed into rum.
Dimple Sprouts: Sprouts of a dimple cup, which produces no seeds. They will grow to maturity and start budding off, producing more sprouts. Whole plants can be ground for dye. Unbrewable.
1 Urist:
Cavern Stalk Spawn: Cavern stalks are like plump helmet's little brother who nobody likes. Stupidly easy to grow, they're often impossible to get rid of, contaminating fields of more useful crops and choking them out. They're edible raw, but taste like mouldy bread and aren't brewable.
Materials: Raw materials, the products of manufacturers.
5 Urists:
Pig Tail Thread: Standard thread, weavable into cloth.
8 Urists:
Pig Tail Cloth: Standard cloth, usable in all sorts of things.
4 Urists:
Stone Block: A big hunk of stone.
Wooden Board: Underground or surface wood cut into a thin rectangle. Easy to build with.
Raw Coal: Burns well, but must be refined into coke before it provides enough heat to smelt with.
6 Urists:
Charcoal: Partially burned wood. It lights easily and provides heat.
Coke: Similar to charcoal, this burns well and provides heat.
10 urists:
Copper Bar: A bar of copper, a soft, abundant metal.
15 Urists:
Iron Bar: A bar of iron, a strong metal useful for weapons and armor.
30 Urists:
Steel Bar: A bar of steel, a strong metal believed to be the peak of metalsmithing technology.
Goods: Finished goods, created by crafters.
2 Urists:
Paper: Wood pulp beaten flat. Holds ink and dyes well.
Ink: Used to write messages. Comes in a reusable stoppered inkpot.
6 Urists:
Bag: A pig tail cloth bag, can be attached to a belt with a string.
Barrel: A wooden barrel, used to contain liquids. Airtight.
Bucket: A large wooden cup with a handle, used to move liquids. Open top.
12 Urists:
Winter Clothes: Clothes padded to provide extra protection from the cold of winter.
Desert Clothes: Robes designed to keep dust and sand out, and keep the body cool and out of the sun.
Leather Clothes: Slightly armored, provides adequate protection from wild animals.
Utility Knife: A useful knife. Unsuited to combat due to its small reach.
Shovel: A tool used to move dirt. Not very useful for mining stone.
Pick: A tool used to mine stone. Not very useful for mining dirt.
Animals: Tame creatures. Herbivores need graze or be given feed, carnivores need to hunt or be fed meat. Scavengers take care of themselves.
20 Urists:
Horse: Can pull a cart or seat two dwarves. Male or female. Doesn't like caverns.
Equow: Similar to a cow, but smaller and females produces milk constantly. Male or female.
16 Urists:
Cow or Bull: Similar to an Equow, but larger and females produce milk only for a few months after giving birth. Male or female. Doesn't like caverns.
Sheep or Ram: Grows a thick coat of fur that can be sheared for yarn.
Riding Dog: A huge dog which stands as tall as a dwarf. Can be riden in battle or to cover distance at speed, with greater endurance than a horse.
14 Urists:
War Dog: A dog trained to defend their owner. Male or female.
Hunting Dog: A Dog Trained to sniff out prey, and retrieve small kills. Male or female.
10 Urists:
Dog: Trainable, loyal companion. Male or female.
Cat: Aloof animal that hunts vermin. Male or female. Possible to train, but unlikely.
Giant Cavern Rat: About the size of a dog, these rodents are trainable but dislike the surface or open areas. Male or female.
4 Urists:
Rabbit: Tiny herbivore. Can be fed easily but produce very little fat and are a bad source of food in the long run. Good indoor pets.
Slime Dog: Small and covered in a slippery coating of slime, these amphibious creatures breed quickly and provide adaquate meat. Hermaphroditic.
Weapons: Weapons purchasable by the general public.
15 Urists:
Short Sword: A sword, about a foot long. Copper.
Hammer: General hammer, used for war but not specifically designed for it. Copper.
Axe: Axe, wieldable in one or two hands. Good for cutting trees.
Spear: Stabby stabby. Copper.
12 Urists:
Dagger: Eight inches, concealable. Copper.
8 Urists:
Wooden Buckler: A small shield made of wood. Won't stand up to heavy damage.
Here are some items restricted to specific labors. You must have at least one labor in the category to purchase:
Politics:
20 Urists:
Noble Clothes: Sleek and comfortable, but not designed for work.
6 Urists:
Keeper's Paper: Paper designed for long-life, written words and pictures are legible for years.
Gold Ink: Ink for official signatures. Hard to forge.
Battlefield Diagram: Paper with numbered grids, comes with miniatures to represent armies.
Military:
32 Urists:
Plate Mail: Thick metal plates protect the wearer from damage. Comes with matching gauntlets. Iron.
Plate Greaves: Thick plate covering the lower body and legs. Comes with matching boots. Iron.
24 Urists:
Longsword: Three feet in length, thin and strong. Iron.
Broadsword: Two feet in length, a thick sword held in two hands. Iron.
War Hammer: With a longer reach and a poined tip, this hammer is perfect for getting through armor. Iron.
War Axe: A double-sided battleaxe, much heavier than than a normal axe. Can also cut trees. Iron.
Pike: Seven-foot spike of iron, best used against mounted opponents. Unwieldy but effective.
Crossbow: A wooden crossbow designed to fire bolts. Can be reloaded one-handed. Comes with 20 copper bolts.
22 Urists:
Chain Shirt: A vest of interlocking chains, stops slashing weapons effectively. Iron.
Chain Legging: Pants made of interlocking chain rings. Iron.
20 Urists:
Rapier: A thin, bending sword used mostly for sport. Can be effective, but takes skill. Iron.
16 Urists:
Shield: An iron shield that can be held or strapped to the forearm. Strong and heavy.
Quiver: A container to hold bolts or arrows, made of leather.
Manufacture:
32 Urists:
Mini-Forge: A tiny forge, about 3x3x3 feet. Set-up time of a few minutes.
Loom-In-A-Barrel: A portable loom, which looks like a barrel when in storage.
Mechanical Saw: Powered by coal or coke, it spins a saw to aid cutting wood or stone.
18 Urists:
Farmer's Tools: A hoe, pitchfork, and sickle. Wood and copper, and near useless as weapons.
Crafts:
28 Urists:
Anvil: A solid iron anvil, incredibly useful and necessary for metalworking.
Crafter's Toolbelt: Various tools useful for crafting fine objects, usable by many professions.
Other:
22 Urists:
Doctor's Tools: Various tools useful in the medical arts.
Animal Harness: A leather harness for an animal to be lead around by. Also functions as a saddle.
Hunter's Bow: A crossbow built to reload and fire silently.
18 Urists:
Ranger's Uniform: An outfit that minimizes the noises caused be moving around. Offers some protection against wildlife.
Spelunker's Uniform: An outfit with many useful features, such as an attached safety rope with hook, and a helmet. Offers some protection against cavern life.
14 Urists:
Fishing Gear: A fishing rod and some tools used in the cleaning of fish.
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