GitP Dwarf Fortress Succession Game 4: Dwarves on Patrol

[Sohala]

Yeah...

When everyone stopped eating and drinking, more people just kept dieing. Then due to a tantrum taking out the bridge I had to breach the wall, which in turn let an ambush into the base. At that time we had no military dwarves to hold them off, nor anyone willing to wall off the base, even though I was yelling at the screen for anyone to do anything.

Or did you want to roll back the save?

[Wookieetank]

Or did you want to roll back the save?

What is this eldritch ritual you speak of?
Nah, but since you didn't make it a year you're welcome to start the next fort.

[Sohala]

Here you go.

In case it was missed.

[turbo164]

4th Sandstone
Our legendary bone carver has been struck with a mood, I wonder what he is making...

3rd Timber
Another child...

That's...quite the artifact. Did it menace with spikes of granite?

[zabbarot]

An artifact dwarf would be amazing... Though maybe it would be a golem.

[Wookieetank]

Journal of Wookieetank the Hunger Artist:

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1st of Granite, 1056: Seeing a distinct lack of fortifications around the entrance to our fort, as my first command as overseer, I've ordered the construction of walls to serve as the base of an above ground fort.

18th of Granite, 1056: Migrants arrived today. After checking our food stores to see how this will impact things, seems we are in dire need of foods and drinks.

12th of Felsite, 1056: One of our dwarven children has withdrawn from society today. It was also brought to my attention we're out of booze. After a bit of searching I finally found our stills and ordered a full que of drinks from both.

2nd of Malachite, 1056: More Migrants showed up. It would seem we make awesome booze, because our lack of food certainly is a factor to draw dwarves to our land.

23rd of Galena, 1056: Seems we're still out of food today. I've ordered the entire area to be scoured for plants.

3rd of Sandstone, 1056: My measures to aquire food have not been enough. Today I was informed that one of our children had gone insane and shortly thereafter went beserk. I know we're all hungry, but how much food can a child eat?

unknown of Sandstone, 1056: My papers say we have a store of seeds. Our farms are set to use these seeds. Why can no one find the seeds! I'm so sober it'd make a dwarven baby cry. In fact I can hear several of them crying now. Or is that the victims of the rampaging children? Its so hard to tell these days. The ground shakes with a terrible rumbling noise, I know not if it is the volcano getting active, or the sound of our empty starving bellies crying out for food in unison. I know not what I did to deserve this sort of fate.

http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7950

[iyaerP]

Did you kill ANOTHER fort wookie?

[Psionic Dog]

Sheesh, you guys go through forts fast!

Would it help if the next fort managed was already several years established? I've got a nifty clay castle that started as a no-pick challenge that combines an established surface with untouched underground for interesting future management opportunities.

[Wookieetank]

Did you kill ANOTHER fort wookie?

Yes... I shouldn't have though! We had like 150 seeds, farms set up to use them, farmers to farm, and NO ONE who actually did anything with them. Even scouring the entire map for plants accomplished nothing, and there were quite a few plants around! I was planning on taking screenshots of the fort at the end of the year, but sadly that didn't happen.

Sheesh, you guys go through forts fast!

Would it help if the next fort managed was already several years established? I've got a nifty clay castle that started as a no-pick challenge that combines an established surface with untouched underground for interesting future management opportunities.

I'd be for this, but know that you offer up your fort at your own risk, particularly if and/or when I get my hands on it. I don't kill every fort I touch, but when I do, its a spectacular disater (usually, sometimes it seems more like a bug starting the downward spiral).

[iyaerP]

Sounds like chronic meloncholy or something. Also, you need empty bags before people will go gather plants. I don't know if we had any of those or not.

I guess I will start up the next one if nobody objects. Yea or Nay on video stream?

[Wookieetank]

Sounds like chronic meloncholy or something. Also, you need empty bags before people will go gather plants. I don't know if we had any of those or not.

This explains SO very much any number of forts that starved while plants were plentiful on the surface. You'd think they would figure out: pick plant, eat plant, don't starve.

[iyaerP]

And so it came to pass that in their not quite infinite wisdom, the leaders of Mafol Laltur have decided that it is time to send another one of those Armok-forsaken expeditions into the wilderness in the vain hope of starting a new dwarven colony. And who else should be appointed the overseer of this foolish venture, but myself? While I realize that my brilliant designs aren't always seen that way by my peers, especially those unfortunate enough to be on the wrong end of a superweapon test, or there when it misfires, or just in the way when some madman pulls the doomsday lever at the wrong time, but those aren't deaths caused by DESIGN FLAWS! They are quite simply operator error and the result of bad leadership on the parts of those in charge! The Royal Architectural Academy had no right to disbar me from practicing fortress design like they did. That flooding was a classic case of overseer malfeasance.

At any rate, I know my duty as colonization overseer, and so after picking up the map to the site as detailed by the Royal Exploratory Society, I set about gathering the materials that I knew any starting fortress would need.

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The standard assortment of tools, some crundles for egglaying, enough food drink and seeds to feed us until the winter caravan at least, and some lumber to kickstart our industrial ambitions.

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Now to see what morons that the RES has decided to saddle me with in their efforts to banish me to my death on the edge of the evil lands to the south. "Expanding the borders of dwarven civilization" my ass. If they wanted to do that, this would be a military expedition of 50, not seven civilians.

Let's see, the official dossiers....

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here they are. There is of course, yours truly:


Luzahn, a good carpenter, I've worked with her before, never been anything but pleased.


Psionic Dog I haven't met, but word over at the Farming League is that she knows her business. No taste in music though.


Sohala, a miner who does a bit of smithing on the side. Odd combination, but sounds respectable enough, especially if we have trouble attracting a good migrant smith from the mountainhomes.


Grim Portent, a veteren hammerdwarf with a good record, if a bit standoffish. Still there are worse qualities in a military woman than professionalism. I shall be quite pleased to work with her if she is as good as they say.


turbo164, another miner, this one who has a secondary specialization in masonry. Another excellent pick on the part of the Royal Exploratory Society staff. If I didn't know better, I would say that they are actually trying to give us a good crew here. Only one name left on the list.


No... No, say it isn't so.... nonoNoNoNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, NOT HIM! not the Wookietank I knew there had to be a catch. This was shaping up too bloody well! I knew it, I KNEW it, I BLOODY KNEW IT! They're trying to kill me, and saddling me with this psycopath is clearly just the latest effort. We're doomed. DOOMED I say.

Well, after the indignity of breaking down and weeping in the main throughfare, I apparently got completely blitzed on swamp whiskey and punched three different dwarves and threw a table at some high up muckity-muck noble in charge of the RES personnel division, and was sentenced to four hammer-strikes. Once that indignity was over, I woke to a splitting headache on this wagon with the others as we made our way out the gates of the Mountainhome. A quick inventory showed that at least we had the gear I had requisitioned, but Grim Portent calmly informed me that she had orders for what would happen if I were to undertake any "rash actions that would endanger the Westlances expedition." Apparently the rest of the group has come up with that name while I was blacked out. Not the best of starts to a journey, but indignity aside, this is going about as well as I expected, which is to say not quite catastrophically. Yet.


The journey took almost two months on a southern westerly route from the mountainhomes. About half of that was done on the human trade-roads that they are so fond of building, and I have to admit that those roads saved us at least another whole month of traveling. We didn't arrive in the best of condition, but it is spring and it looks like the start of a bright new chapter in all of our lives. I hope only that the ominous earthquake that occurred as we reached our destination wasn't a sign from the gods that this is all just another doomed folly on our part.

As we let the wagon slow to a halt in the aftermath of the tremors, I set about drawing a map of the surface of our new home.

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ooc: nothing against you wookietank, it is just that after what happened with FLOODER, I felt it appropriate that my dwarf would have some animosity towards yours.

I have begun laying out the plans for our new home. They may have banished us to the wilds, but they say that the best revenge is to live well, and so out here, we shall live as KINGS!

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[Grim Portent]

A pleasantly extravagant set of quarters for the founders. Just remember not to skimp on the statues.

[iyaerP]

12th of Granite: In the digging to begin hollowing out our dining hall, we have unearthed both Bauxite, a magma safe sedimentary stone, and Limonite, the ore of iron. This is an auspicious start. A couple minor gem clusters have also been excavated.

19th of Granite: A cloud of "eerie soot" was reported as being spotted across the river from us. I have ordered everyone inside our hole-in-the-ground as a precautionary measure. Who knows what evil haunts these lands?

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21st of Granite: The cloud drifted south along the edge of the brook before dissipating. If we are to ever draw water from the brook, we should take appropriate filtration measures as a precaution.

14th of slate: Several of the workshop spaces have been fully dug out and I wasted no time in establishing the basics of our industry. I have ordered every tree on the surface to be felled and brought inside as expediently as possible to ensure a good lumber supply in the event that we have to wall ourselves in to protect against another evil fog bank. Beds were one of my first priority as nothing is worse than having to sleep in the dirt like some kind of animal. Sohala and turbo are working to dig out the farming plots, and once those are up, we will make our first steps towards self sufficiency.

1st of Hematite: Summer is here, and with it, more soot. I am quite glad that I designed our entrance a little ways away form the creepy eyeball grass that seems to mark the boundaries of where the soot clouds roam. I have seen no sign of ill intent from them, but at the same time, I can't help but be uneasy. In less morbid news, the farms are now up and running as are a still and kitchen, and our miners have started on the magnificent apartment complex that I have designed for us to live in.

19th of Malachite: Calamity has struck! Fully three of the glorious super-apartments designed for our starting seven have at least part of their designated areas located in SOIL. This is intolerable. I have ordered that further digging in that direction be ceased and for the miners to dig down another layer before repeating the apartment complex design so that we may live in proper stone rooms.

27th of Malachite: Another cloud of eerie soot, followed very shortly by migrants! It is a good thing that they arrived after it had dissipated. I shudder to think what would happen to any dwarf caught inside it. The migrants are a bevy of fisherdwarves and farmers, with a single child in tow. A couple of them have rudimentary military experience, and will probably be drafted to serve under Grim Portent. I intend to have the fisherdwarves take up masonry as well. I don't trust the waters of this land enough to eat the fish from them. A lone metalcrafter followed some ways behind the other migrants. I almost missed his presence at first.

21st of Galena: A kobold has tried its luck against the outpost today. This was no ordinary kobold though. Its eyes glowed eerily, and it was covered in the soot of the clouds that sometimes float around here. Although muscular in appearance, it is strangely emaciated. It took a while for our fledgeling militia to destroy it.

18th of Limestone: The digging for the starting apartments is completed, I have reassigned our miners to begin excavating for a stockpile for our goods for the caravans. After that, they can begin work on the pleb housing and fortifications.

17th of Sandstone: More migrants! Unfortunately, they arrived at the same time as an evil cloud of soot. I ordered the "everyone inside" alarm bell pulled immediately in hopes that the migrants would rush in and dodge the cloud of evil.

19th of Sandstone: The alarm bell seems to have done its job and 5 more dwarves have safely arrived and now call Westlances their home. My biggest current concern is that with all these migrants, we are eating through the stores at faster than anticipated rates, and the farms and eggs don't seem to be able to keep up with all the hungry mouths. I only hope the caravan arrives from the mountianhomes soon. Seeds, booze and food will be the greatest priority, to be sure.

9th of Timber: A werelizard has appeared outside the gates of the fortress. I order our paltry militia out to engage the vile beast, only for it to turn back into an elf before their very eyes! Much to my regret, it is able to evade our forces and escape unscathed. Pansy tree-huggers, thinking they can send a were-lizard infiltrator to our lands to try and infect our dwarves with its evil.

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14th of Timber: Praise be to Armok! The caravan has come! Once the merchants are safely inside and unpacking their wares, I order the gates sealed. It is well known what kind of parasites and undesirables follow dwarven caravans to raid the places they stop at along their journey, and I see no reason for us to let them in and make a mess of the place. Better that they be kept outside where they can be slaughtered without putting the civilians at risk. I order the massive piles of mechanisms that I have spent most of the year working on when my designer's eyes weren't needed overseeing blue-prints and drafts.

1st of Moonstone: One of the miners interrupted my negotiations with the merchants to inform me that they had found indications of an aquifer in the area designated for public housing. Damnable water, ruining my beautiful plans. First it was those evil soot clouds, then dirt, and now water. WHAT OTHER FORCES CONSPIRE AGAINST ME? The merchants, already unsettled by the plantlife that they saw on their way here, whisper to each other behind my back. I resolve not to let their weak wills and feeble resolve taint my majestic plans. This fortress WILL be constructed and operational on schedule, or I will feed all of these plebeians to the Armok-forsaken mists!

OOC: ****. Just got a crash to desktop. I think this is all for the moment, I will finish up the year later tonight.

[Wookieetank]

No... No, say it isn't so.... nonoNoNoNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, NOT HIM! not the Wookietank I knew there had to be a catch. This was shaping up too bloody well! I knew it, I KNEW it, I BLOODY KNEW IT! They're trying to kill me, and saddling me with this psycopath is clearly just the latest effort. We're doomed. DOOMED I say.

Bwa hahahahahahahaha! (The character description, baring the physical appearance bits, is strikingly accurate for real life )

ooc: nothing against you wookietank, it is just that after what happened with FLOODER, I felt it appropriate that my dwarf would have some animosity towards yours.

No worries, I'm surprised I haven't seen more trauma induced rants about my dwarf alter ego. 'sides with you back in things, I'll have new "toys" to play with.

[tonberrian]

Try pressing ? (or whatever you have mapped to help) multiple times in a row. It's funny.

[iyaerP]

Well, my save reset back to the first of moonstone thanks to the awesomeness that is autosaving, so I didn't actually lose that much progress. Gonna finish this year today.

[iyaerP]

7th of Opal: After much trading back and forth, mostly our mechanisms for their food, the dwarven traders of the mountainhomes have departed today. I am sad for a missed opportunity as the caravan carried a giant centipede that would have made a most formidable attack animal, but unfortunately, the beast proved too expensive, and the needs of the fortress for food and drink too great. At least I was able to ensure that in our trade agreements with the homeland, they will bring us a quantity of the beasts next year in addition to the normal supplies.

23rd of opal: The entire surface as far as dwarven eye could see was blanketed in the eerie red soot. A number of ravens were caught up in it and began to glow with the same unearthly aura that had infused the kobolds who tried to raid our stockpiles earlier this year. I order the military onto high alert. The ravens look creepy, but for now seem content to fly around the surface.

27th of obsidian. Miners broke into a vast underground cavern today. I ordered it sealed off with fortifications for the time being, but in the future, when we are more established, this could prove a valuable resource.

End of year report:

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[iyaerP]

http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7961

Save is uploaded

Side note of hilarity from adventure mode: If you show up at a necromancer tower, and all the necromancers are outside, you can recruit them as minions. Unless you are already a necromancer yourself however, this is NOT a good idea, as the zombies that your necromancer buddies raise will all be hostile to you.

I ended up having to feed them to an army of bandits to get rid of them without ruining my civ relations. Then, when I stormed the tower for myself, killed all the zombies and raised them as my own, I learned that zombie armies cannot swim the oceans like your player can. They don't drown, but they don't walk very well along the bottom either, and I ended up losing my whole horde to loading screen. Incidentally. When I got to the next island over (my adventurer spawned on an island of an archipelligo, and the tower was the last big threat on his home island), I learned that bogeymen can't be zombified, and while they won't attack if you have a single zombie buddy with you, they don't particularly care about you raising one of a random bit of wildlife mid-fight. Also, even though I am superhumanly strong, they are still stronger for wrestling purposes.

[randman22222]

Hey guys, I was wondering how I could get into this succession? I looked at the OP, and the most recent savegame listed isn't the one iyaerP just posted. What player list are you guys using, since the OP looks out of date?

[Wookieetank]

We're doing a more of whoever volunteers gets the fort at this point. I'd have picked up the current fort myself, except I had the go before iyaerP and was letting someone else get a chance to go. So since you're interested randman, grab iyaerP's save and have Fun!

[randman22222]

We're doing a more of whoever volunteers gets the fort at this point. I'd have picked up the current fort myself, except I had the go before iyaerP and was letting someone else get a chance to go. So since you're interested randman, grab iyaerP's save and have Fun!

Oh I think I shall.

[iyaerP]

By all means, do so and post stuff, I had figured our thread had died of disinterest again, and am glad to see that that isn't the case.

[Luzahn]

Nah, our thread can never die. It's just very prone to naps.

[randman22222]

Husks.

[Grim Portent]

Nah, our thread can never die. It's just very prone to naps.

I must confess I've found myself migrating to Bay12 for my fortress based needs, some of the forts there are decades old, and Drunk Fortress is always a pleasure to read.

[Wookieetank]

I must confess I've found myself migrating to Bay12 for my fortress based needs, some of the forts there are decades old, and Drunk Fortress is always a pleasure to read.

Note to self, go read this.
On a similar note, if you haven't seen Star Drunk its a hilarious little vid floating around youtube.

[randman22222]

I slightly changed your title, Wookie, to reflect your dorf's skillset. It's still a very admirable title, I promise.

[Wookieetank]

I slightly changed your title, Wookie, to reflect your dorf's skillset. It's still a very admirable title, I promise.

I know me own history, and am sure it be suitable ta my exploits. Just be sure ta keep me dorf away from any levers, or anyting wit sharp edges really.

[iyaerP]

Yes, husks are somewhat terrifying. I kept running this fort on my own for a few in game years for funzies. To compare husks to the terminator feels pretty accurate.