Sorry for the triple posting, but with the weird formatting I was using, I couldn't get the BBcode tags that appeared to go away. That's also why the middle post is on one line, instead of four.
Now, at long last, screenshots!
The beginning of the muskskoxen fight that kicked off the Battle of Hellcannon.
Two dorfs grappling in the dining room. A fine evening's entertainment. Especially if one of them's the mayor. (I'm pretty sure this particular mayor has since died. I have no idea who he was.)
The no-dwarf's-land south of the main topside enclosure, after the aboveground portion of the Battle of Hellcannon was over. I later built the rear entrance in this zone, which has allowed us to receive dwarven merchants and a migrant wave, at the cost of a few snatchers who got driven away and a couple more deaths.
The second half of the year was pretty uneventful, by previous standards. Apparently the skrundles were killed and driven off, allowing us to make use of the second and third cavern layers again. Construction of the top floor of the first cavern layer outpost finally resumed, and was mostly completed when the year ended. (To finish it, build more floors over the open space inside the enclosure, and fortifications on top of the walls. There are a few supports already in position, just in case.)
The mayor issued mandates for tin items. Luckily, we have a high master metalcrafter, who produced, among other trinkets, this:
I didn't have it brought up to the depot when the merchants came. Trading it away seems like such a shame. The mayor's next mandate was for two anvils to be forged, so I queued up the order in the magma forge. So far no-one's gone over and done it. In retrospect, I think all our blacksmiths are dead.
Apparently, the Foul One has already managed to poke a tendril inside the shield surrounding Hellcannon.
Luckily, it appeared in the first cavern layer, which is entirely walled off, and it's just wandering about.
A bunch of merchants came, luckily without wagons so they could take the rear entrance. (Gosh, that sounds dirty.) The caravan guards killed and drove off some skelk, although I think one of them died. Big whoop.
Apparently, we're famous in Graspedseduce. Tales of our exploits must be wildly popular in the comedy circuit.
I sold all our gems (I'd had our stockpiles of valuable gems cut over the course of the year) and some other random trinkets in exchange for several bars of metal, some picks, and all the wood, food, booze and animals they had on them. We should have enough supplies to tide us over, and the animals can be milked and/or slaughtered if necessary for more food.
I placed orders for iron ore, flux stone and turkeys with the liaison; we can burn the wood we'll get from chopping down the trees in the second cavern layer enclosure for charcoal, and then we can make steel. The turkeys are something I've been making a habit of recently, they produce eggs by the buttload and plentiful meat too. The liaison said he'll pay top Urist for crutches and instruments, nearly double their value; especially the second should be doable, I've been smelting random ores ever since we uncovered the magma pipe so we have a lot of decorative metals lying around. We also have a huge load of galena, so lead and silver should be easy to come by if you build another smelter or two and put some useless gits to work. He'll also pay half again the value of battle axes, rings, cut gems and meat.
Even the gremlins in this place are skeletal.
Not pictured; the skremlin falling apart immediately afterwards.
Finally, good news, bad news, good news and good news. The good news is that I've designated a little niche in the second cavern layer for garbage dumping, and I've been offloading all the random clothing cluttering up the finished goods stockpile there. I've tried to get them to dump only clothes, but the idiots have also dropped some other goods (mugs, crutches, bracelets, etc.) down there, that I've been trying to reclaim, so I'd recommend checking it once in a while to see if it's all okay. I deliberately avoided dumping it into magma for precisely this reason (also clothing may come in handy later on, if only to foist on hapless caravans). The bad news is that Urist Imiknorris II went topside to grab some random crap, and got brutalised by a muskskox. And he was such a good Captain of the Guard too =/ I've given his room, currently the most lavish in the fort, to the mayor instead. (I also switched the office and dining room designations, but I forgot the personal statue garden assignment.)
More good news; I've got a standing order in place for coffins, and I've put away some dead. We still need heaps and heaps more coffins, ofc, but it's a start. There's also a chamber dug out one level below the first cavern outpost, since I needed some stone; it'd make a fine communal cemetery after the current one gets full, provided you can supply the coffins. Also, Dariush has dug out over 2/3rds of the residential area, and should be done with the rest in no time flat. Legendary miner + clay = instant chambers. However, you'll need a LOT more furniture before you can move everyone in there. I've got standing orders for doors and beds too, but right now everyone is too busy doing other random stuff to bother with that, apparently. I did put doors and beds in a couple of rooms in the bottom left, which have now been claimed.
I didn't do any more dorfings, though we have a sizeable nameless population (mostly because I got almost the entire named population killed). We have a Legendary Bone Carver and a High Master Metalcrafter, at least, in addition to other random idiots (two cheesemakers, an herbalist, a leatherworker, etc.) that got put on hauling duty. I've also enabled masonry and/or engraving and/or carpentry for several of them, since we need those things badly.
Here's the save.
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=5233I'm sorry I took so long. The Battle of Hellcannon was my first violence-related fortress-wide collapse, and it lasted for several hours while I constantly paused to make notes, so it had a rather big effect on me. Then when I got myself together again, the Curse of Battlefailed hit and RL started intruding, hence why I took two weeks for a turn that should've been a few days at most. Sorry.