e2Fun

1st Granite, 1054
Well, it looks like we partied too hard at Year's End again. I woke up this morning and found myself not only in Hapax's bed (suck on THAT, you dirty elf-humping tree-lover), not only missing my pants, but a note on my arm reading:

UR TH LEADER NOW, I MISS THERAPY ALLIGATOR

No amount of washing has been able to take the writing off. I'm not sure how he managed to get that on there so well.

...

Panic is starting to settle in as the hangover wears off. I can't find Clockmaker to confirm what's on my arm and I've already had three dwarves walk up and ask if I'm going to take care of that bird-moth-dinosaur on the lower levels. How should I know? The current militia commander's nowhere to be found and this DAMNED INK STILL ISN'T COMING OFF

~

2nd Granite
Well, I sat down with Kizor and we took stock of the fort's situation. Since I ceded control of the fort:

• 36 dwarves have perished, mostly by giant cave mole attacks.
• Many dwarves were injured by same, including myself (no left hand any more) and Hapax (wicked awesome scar on her arm). One of the dwarves is paralyzed from the waist down and has been put in a bed in the hospital wing. (Poor bastard.)
• The supplies of booze are dwindling; we should be okay for another month or so but will need to make sure someone's in the still from here on out.

Kizor wouldn't look me in the eyes when I asked her about the dress and the pair of pants lying on the floor of her office. I didn't press the issue but I'm pretty sure I saw "CLO" written on the inside of the waistband.

~

5th Granite
The new labor assignments have been handed out and things are running a bit smoother. Clockmaker finally reappeared and was assigned one of the younger female migrants as an assistant nurse. Still haven't seen Creases since the 1st. Kizor's been taken off of all other duties until the bookkeeping can be brought up to snuff. Our new soapmaker got a bit huffy over being reassigned and complained to Kizor; as far as I know she talked him down and he's busy setting up the workshops he needs.

~

6th Granite
Future note: if I become administrator of any other forts (gods forbid), the hospital gets dedicated ventilation. Some of the dismembered body parts are starting to smell up the entire workshop district and I can't get Clockmaker or his nurse to clean any of it out.

~

14th Granite
Sauth and his assistant engraver ran out of stone to smooth and started lounging around the workshops getting in everyone's way. I told him to find work and he got a weird look in his eyes. The two of them have been having hushed conversations and pointing at stuff a lot while in the dining hall and the dorms. I hope nothing strange comes out of this.

~

17th Granite
No one will shut up about that blasted monster in the dark down on the bottom levels. I've decided to put in a ceiling three floors up where the workers won't be attacked. Out of sight, out of mind!

~

27th Granite
A pack of rhesus macaques got caught in the cage traps out by the front gate and will NOT shut up. I detached a couple of haulers to go move them indoors and maybe feed them or something but they all refuse to get close. I guess I can't blame them; those are some pointy teeth.

~

5th Slate
A pack of migrants have arrived - twenty-two of them! As before, the majority were conscripted for manual labor and the tiny few with actual skills were put to work. Tobul, the militia commander, reappeared and pulled a few more of the hardy-looking ones out to start training as part of her militia.

I'm a bit concerned about Tobul; that dent in her head from that last giant mole attack must have warped her or something. She's got this dead look in her eyes all the time and won't stop sharpening her axe, even while she's eating. I heard that she even sleeps with it in her bed now.

~

20th Felsite
Elven traders arrived, and as we were moving a bunch of caged goblins out to the trade depot, the goblins attemped to break out. They released four or five of the macaques. Tobul and her squad got right up there as soon as the alarm went out. In fact, Tobul cut three of the goblins down in under a minute as soon as she spotted them. In honor of her deeds and the first kill she took against a dirty elf, her new nickname is "Crusher of Forests."

~

26th Felsite
Something happened with the elven trade liason and they're leaving without doing any business. When I asked Kizor about it, she said "How was I supposed to know they'd object to fungiwood?" and huffed off.

~

4th Hematite
Before the liason left, she tracked me down and insisted that we limit the number of trees we cut down this year to under a hundred. I assumed she meant "aboveground" and consented.

~

6th Hematite
I can't get anyone to clean the goblin corpses out of the holding pens. The stink is so bad it's penetrated several floors down. Is everyone a mincing dwarfmaid now or something?

~

14th Hematite
Kizor has been ejected as expedition leader and some unknown hauler named Nish Mörulmistêm has been elected as Fort Mayor. I can only assume this is due to the elven trade debacle. Neither my nor Kizor's duties appear to have been changed. Figures.

~

16th Hematite
That moron Mayor is asking for a bunch of ridiculous equipment, like his own fancy quarters and dining room. I asked Tobul if she'd be willing to let Nish have her quarters and she stared at me without blinking for almost a solid minute. I asked if that meant yes and she didn't say anything else, so I told Tobul to go ahead and move in for now. Man, that dent in her head is creepy.

...

Creases has gone crazy and taken over the carpenter's workshop, muttering something about trade and statues. That jerk, I bet he's just faking this to make out like he's better than me or something.

~

19th Hematite
Another pack of migrants showed up, but there were only eight this time. No weirdness to report, fortunately.

~

21st Hematite
I've been trying to someone, anyone, to set up the soapworks down on level 48 ever since the beginning of the year. Each time I ask, I get treated to a patient explanation of dwarven supply and demand and workshop logistics. I got sick of it, went down there myself, and moved the damned rocks out of the way of the building site. The soap maker gave me a nasty glare when I told him it was all ready for him.

~

22nd Hematite
That jerk Creases came out of the workshop carrying a statue (made from wood, of course) that showed the very first trading session we had with the Homeforge. I have to grudgingly admit that it's well done, but then he used it to coerce me into letting him have a couple of assistants to help out with the new barrel quotas. I let him have the assistants, but just to mess with him I put the other workshop he requested on level 22.

~

23rd Hematite
The Fort Mayor has instituted a Captain Of The Guard and promoted Tobul into the position. I'm not sure what the difference is supposed to be from her old position as militia commander and sheriff, but it encouraged a few more dwarves to volunteer for military service and we now have two small squads training 'round the clock.

~

8th Galena
A giant olm attacked the workshop district earlier today. I'm still having trouble believing it, but Tobul actually cut it in half with her first swing. The olm knocked over a couple of statues in the Mayor's quarters before Tobul got down there; watching Nish fuss and complain was worth the attack.

~

13th Galena
Great tragedy today. The junior militia squad was training up on the top floor when a goblin siege party showed up. The whole group was butchered; someone said they had forgotten to put on armor before rushing out. Tobul's squad has been dispatched and the front gate has been closed.

~

20th Galena
I'm not really sure what to do at this point. A scout reported that the rest of Tobul's squad was killed right by the front gate; one of them bled to death before we could get the gate down and a hauler out to get her. As far as we can tell Tobul's been fighting alone since we sent her up there. Goblin fingers and toes litter the landscape.

~

27th Galena
Well, it's over. The rest of the goblin skirmishers got sick of Tobul harrassing them for another straight week and surrounded her. I'm not sure on the particulars, but it sounds like she fell or was pushed into the moat and drowned under the weight of her armor.

The front gate's been sealed until further notice. Either we wait the goblins out or we find another way to kill them. If they get inside, they'll butcher us all.

~

4th Sandstone
The large number of unemployed workers is taking its toll on our booze stores. We don't have enough to last another week. I've told the brewer to pull out all the stops, and he says he might be able to keep us supplied, but we won't be able to build up any reserves. Ugh, I hope we don't have to start drinking water.

~

8th Sandstone
One of the haulers went crazy and forged a silver warhammer. Despite being mostly ceremonial, it's pretty impressive; there's a design of a famous human myth on one side and a design about the first goblin attack we had on the other side.

~

10th Sandstone
Even if we can't do anything else, we can at least honor our dead. When we manage to recover Tobul's body from the moat, we're going to inter her in her own special tomb in an artifact glass coffin that one of the others made a few years back.

~

14th Sandstone
One of the other dwarves came up with an idea to try and break the goblin siege. We're going to reroute some of the moat and build a gigantic pit trap with a bridge over it, then lure the goblins inside and drown the bastards. Work has commenced, albeit slowly.

~

4th Timber
To commemorate the siege, Aerobe volunteered her artifact mechanism for the construction of the bridge trap. Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to get it done for at least another month.

~

21st Moonstone
Kizor got the bridge finished, but when we opened the gates to lure in the goblins, it looks like they'd up and left! I sent out a scout to recover Tobul's body, but it looks like the moat iced over and we're never going to be able to pull her out.

~

3rd Opal
Another pack of migrants arrived to bolster our numbers. One of them, Stukos, is apparently a warrior of serious renown back home. He's been assigned as the new Captain of the Guard along with a couple of flunkies who look like they can use an axe.

~

21st Opal
Everything appears to have stabilized after the attack. The booze production was higher than we expected, and we should be okay for a month or two, but a second still is probably not a bad idea. Like they say, "there's no such thing as too much beer!"

~

28th Opal
A liaison from Homeforge showed up and said that in light of the war with the goblins, the colony's history, and our production levels, they're going to make us official! Maybe now they'll stop sending us convicts and college dropouts. I heard rumors that my name's been put forward for a barony. If the Homeforge goes through with it, I'll eat a goblin.

~

21st Obsidian
Nothing to report in the meantime besides another crazy hauler. Unfortunately, it looks like those goblins came back with a bunch of their friends. Stuko's squad still isn't quite up to snuff, so I ordered everyone back inside and the gate closed. Our stocks are much better off this time. We should be able to wait them out way past the end of the year, at which point it'll no longer be my problem. I miss my forge.

The tale of Outpost Copperstrapped
A Dwarf Fortress Bloodlines Game, told in parts
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1st Granite, 1053: I seem to be alive and back underground. I still don't remember what happened after the goblins rushed me, but I'm told I became the leader of the fortress before collapsing with a concussion. My colleagues get cagey when I press them on the details. For the time being, I'll have to accept distractions from my bookkeeping to make sure we don't all die. Kizor Bekomfath, ruler of the Dwarven outpost Copperstrapped.

My first act was to make clear what would happen to anyone who suggests that I set foot in the overbright again.

2nd Granite: I've gone through my predecessors' journals. Sauth's account of the deep mineshaft dug last year was fascinating. He had the miners survey the earth several times deeper than the current Copperstrapped. Not only did they strike silver and platinum, but cassiterite, galena, magma-proof quartzite, and several kinds of opals. By this rate, we'll all be rich before we dig deep enough to awaken an ancient anything.

Speaking of, I knew of the cavern at the end of their shaft, but not of its fifteen-meter drops or underground lake! The shores support fungiwood and tunnel tube, good lumber; it could be a pleasantly deep alternative to the surface some day. It also hosts giant cave spiders and whatever it is that giant cave spiders eat, so the cavern has been sealed off. Any attempts to explore it will need a failsafe system. I have ordered the excavation of a tunnel to the river's bed and the construction of assorted mechanisms. Once these are installed, the flick of a lever will operate a system of floodgates and divert the river into the mineshaft. I wish we had the resources for a properly destructive solution, but this one may do. Unless there are killer cave carps in the lake. I should add a pressure plate system halfway down in case of killer cave carps.

Scouts report that the goblins have been stranded beyond the river that's beyond the moats that are beyond the wall that's at the mouth of the unclimbable canyon that's been fashioned out of the hillside around our entrance. Six swords and a crossbow menaced forty dwarves. It'd be ridiculous if our numbers didn't consist of seven founders and a mass of unskilled dregs, the kind that migrate to unproven outposts. The fittest were formed into a militia. When the goblins came and Copperstrapped went into lockdown, half the population was still left to mill about, unable to find work. I have solved this problem by opening our doors, and ordering them to haul all loose rocks outside for inspection and cataloguing.

6th Granite: I'm worried about our stocks of booze. Twenty barrels' worth may have suited the first seven of us, but right now it's not even a barrel per dwarf. Our mushroom farms are modest, and the goblin mess has left our aboveground bushes drooping with withered prickle berries and strawberries. Ale and rum are running low, so we may be forced to subsist mainly on wines.

This sort of thing can kill a fortress. I lost a great-uncle to sobriety: he'd stumble along the corridors, shaking and ranting horribly slurred things, until water-fueled rage drove him to attack a hammerdwarf. Not here. I have ordered the construction of a farming hall under a sizable pool on the hill, and a stairway to run from it to the still and the grand hall. My calculations show that once we breach the pool, the water will rush to the hall, muddy the floor, and evaporate. We'll then wall off the hole and the pool will start to refill for the next time we need to irrigate. It's a foolproof plan.

11th Granite: The bottom of the deepest shaft trembles as something moves in the cavern. A rhythmical thwop-thwop-thwop comes through the walls, sounding like multiple pairs of wings were beating against scales.

Work on the tunnel to the river is proceeding apace. Good times.

20th Granite: OldMiner installed the floodgates today. In doing so, he locked himself and a junior miner into the tunnel. The gates are closed, and their mechanisms would break if they were operated by hand. You'd think that he would've noticed he was on the wrong side after installing the first gate of a row, but apparently he'd gotten too far into it. I can understand that.

1st Slate: I've finished the appraisal of our trade goods! The last free wall of my office is now filled with equations. I'll have to smooth them all again.

I'm not too proud to admit that my job would be easier with paper, the namby-bamby stuff that it is. We only brought enough for leaders' journals and the occasional letter, not for things that don't need plausible deniability.

It'd be great if the wastrels of this fort could study paper-making, but that's impossible. There may be elves in the region. Tradition is clear: until we know for sure, trees must only be felled for essential purposes. I won't be known as the administrator who met elves and couldn't chop down enough trees to piss off the gits.

In other news, OldMiner and the not-so-old miner are still trapped. Shouldn't someone be working on that?

4th Slate: Well, OldMiner and that other dwarf are free. I ended up constructing the floodgate control mechanisms myself after Aerobe barged into my office and revealed some things about herself and OldMiner. She rushed off to install them, and now the two are back together again. This is not a bad feeling, but I can't dwell on it. There are figures to add up.

The floodgate control lever was installed in a new chamber off the side of the great hall. I'm hoping to expand it with another level that collapses the chamber entrance, stocks of food and booze, and a pick-axe.

7th Slate: The farming hall is finished. It's always a pleasure to watch Hapax work. She doesn't really mine: she just strolls forward, and what her pick-axe does to the stone in front of her is both scary and exhilarating. The timing couldn't have been better: yet another group of migrants has arrived. They've managed to arrive on top of the hill, with no way around and no way down on this side. I've sent Hapax to fashion stairs into the hillside, and one of our less accomplished miners to undermine the pool.

8th Slate: There's been a miscommunication. The young dwarf mined under the pool instead, causing a significant lack of flooding. He's been instructed to dig out a way up from the tunnel and sent back.

9th Slate: The young dwarf dug a ramp to the tunnel's ceiling. He's been instructed to smash rock upwards until things start getting wet and sent back.

10th Slate: The goblins! They found a way to the hilltop and they've swarmed down the stairs! I saw one twisting a sword in Clockmaker's throat - they made him jump before he died.

We have no armor, so few axes. The forges are cold! I've had to conscript the migrants and send them to wrestle the goblins. They're falling almost like elves!

Oh God God God SAVE US

14th Slate: We found Aerobe's head.

We'd run out of fuel for the forges. The militia hadn't been drilling properly. I knew these things. I saw the figures, added them up, and did nothing about them.

So many are dead now. If we couldn't have led them into the cage traps my predecessors installed, we might all have been killed. As it is, I think we only got one of them because it rebounded off a dwarf as it stabbed her and fell into the river. A new arrival finished off the last two. Now he's just flopping there on the floor, three of his limbs cut open and his intestines spilling out. He's vomited 29 times so far. 30. 31. I don't know his name. 32. 33. A part of me admires the miracles of dwarven physiology.

We're safe. If sorrow and rage don't make us tear each other apart - and in these cramped halls, they may - we can go on. But what sort of self-respecting dwarf would ever again migrate to a fortress like this? What kind of merchants would assume that they'll get their money's worth in Copperstrapped? 41. 42. The chief medical dwarf won't be seeing our new hero, or anyone else in this world. 43.

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<-- Back | Let's try that again -----/

1st Granite, 1053:

This morning I woke up to the realization that I have no idea what a scalpel is.

Squinting through a bleary haze of sobriety, pawing at my nightstand for the mug of Dwarven Atomic Grog I keep there, I turned it over frantically — but sluggishly — in my mind. I had just concluded that I must have lost my skills through lack of practice when three dwarves stormed in, shouting.

»You're useless!«
»You never do anything!«
»Sauth resigned!«

Then they dragged me off to be the new overlord, claiming that since I had to do some job and didn't have any skills, I had been automatically chosen.

I always wondered how you become a politician.

As soon as they left my new office — which turned out to be my own room, they had just dragged me in a circle — I snuck off to get properly drunk so I could think clearly, all the while reading the briefing someone had dumped in my room while I was being hauled around. Dang! I'm glad I did! It turns out the rulers of this place get the good stuff, I tell you, diary. Apparently GhettoAardvark built a secret snack chamber in... but I cannot even commit it to paper. The only copy has to stay in the file. Which I burned, I think enough guys are skimming off it on the sly already.

Anyway, this super booze really makes you sharp! I had figured out what the problem was in moments, dear diary. The reason I had lost my skills was that I had no work! And the reason I had no work was... that the hospital was gone! It's as though it had never existed. I tried to look through the file to find an explanation, but I realized I had just burned it. The only remaining parts were a meticulous log by GhettoAardvark and a scrap of paper from Aerobe Lolokfarash saying something about a nonexistent Therapy Alligator. (I looked over the Creature Registry, and it wasn't in there, not in the deceased column either. It seems to have never existed. Kizor Bekomfath keeps his registers scrupulously. Albeit in a repurposed closet on the second floor.)

I soon discovered that these were not the only things missing, however: another absentee was any semblance of a functional economy. All my fellow-citizens were idling about like... like tallfolks, pardon my Elfish, just idly taxing our resources! I asked the first clutch I could lay my hands on why they were refusing to do any work, and they said we were »being besieged by goblins«. Mounting to the surface level, bringing the fort's strongest spyglass with me, I surveyed the canal-riddled landscape — what had these people been doing? — beyond the gates. Far, far away, on the far side of a raised bridge across the river, I saw a tiny cluster of goblins. The maps told me there was no way they could get into the fort even if I ordered everyone out, so I told the sheriff to...

There was no sheriff.

I hastily assigned one, and told him to go to No Alert and blow the all-clear. He told me there was no alert system. I may have become mildly intemperate at this point, and instructed him in no uncertain terms to arrange one with haste. He exited stage left, pursued by a swear.

14th Granite:

I've been spending two weeks drawing up plans for our new installations, including a wood furnace, a hospital and a kennel for training our dogs. I'm baffled and amazed that we have no wood furnace already, since that means no charcoal, and no charcoal means no functioning industry. We also have four butcheries but only one butcher, and no fishery despite lots of raw fish needing to be cleaned. In the inner courtyard, a whole year's harvest of prickle berries is rotting on the vine! There are also gobs of mineral veins sitting totally unmined everywhere; I've ordered Hapax Dorenamug and her team of mattock-waving crazies to start exploiting them immediately. It's a litany of woe.

17th Granite:

Our scouts in the underground inform me of sighting a hideous steam-beast in the southern caves. Supposedly it has deadly spittle, and is named Aditha. I asked the scouts how they knew its name, but they seemed completely nonplussed by this simple question.

That secret booze cache is making more sense every day.

18th Granite:

Now the damn creature has vanished as well. The scouts are terrified of their own shadows, but I won't let this stop my GLORIOUS PLANTS.

13 Slate:

A bunch of migrants arrived! Our scouts aboveground caught sight of them and estimated them to be fortyish in number. Unfortunately, those pesky goblins also caught sight of them, and promptly set off to slaughter them. I'm worried about the potential PR effects of a thing like this.

26 Slate:

Yep, they're all dead. And they don't even seem to have dinged the goblins' weaponry.

4 Felsite:

For lack of other entertainment, the goblins have taken to sitting on our inner curtain wall, which they apparently discovered they could get atop after that little mass-murder jaunt. They can't get down without breaking their necks, but we can't get at them up there either, and even though they're harmless, people are refusing to do any work outside. A bunch of tall vegetarians, the lot of them!

10 Felsite:

After I found out we had crossbows in storage, I ordered OldMiner Ableludist to go fetch one and perforate the goblins. He went to bed instead.

12 Felsite:

OldMiner finally woke up(!), but even though he tromped off and got the crossbow and went to stand in the courtyard, he wouldn't shoot at them; he hadn't picked up any bolts. We have lots of bolts, so I tried to get him to explain why he wasn't using them, but he just stood and sulked, and try as I might I couldn't get him to budge. If I didn't know better I'd've thought he resented the job.

An elven caravan also showed up today. I hoped the elves might go ahead and kill the goblins, but they just stood on the border and sulked too. I wonder if OldMiner is half elf.

20 Felsite:

The goblins have apparently decamped. I ordered the bridges lowered so as to let the elves in for trading.

In other news, some troglodytes have apparently been seen massing in the caves below our fortress. I'm convinced this will never be a problem.

22 Felsite:

Damnation! Some different goblins were lying in ambush! I've decided that I've had enough both of being cooped up under siege like this and of not exercising my medical skills, so I sent our watch patrol, The Crowded Boats, to smack them around.

25 Felsite:

After several days of claiming that they were very sorry but they couldn't obey my orders, the Boats have engaged the enemy. Two or three of our civilians lie dead, and many more are no doubt wounded. I confess to rubbing my hands in glee in anticipation of the much-needed practice.

26 Felsite:

The goblins were quickly put to the rout, but not before scaring away the elven merchants. Oh well. You can't trust treehuggers, I always say. I've often wanted to see if trepanning might fix their obvious psychological deviancy. I think trepanning is the wave of the future.

What's worse is that they left some sort of envoy behind, who keeps demanding to speak to Kizor about a no-logging treaty. I've ordered him to stall for as long as he can, and he seemed happy to comply.

In other news, Aerobe is spewing out a constant torrent of masterful rock sculptures and jewelry. They're cheap for the most part, but we can no doubt pawn off some of the dross of it on the humans later.

10 Hematite:

The troglodytes snuck in and started surreptitiously ripping up Master Engraver Ugoshkol. I ordered the Boats down to aid him, but they all refused, saying they were busy eating, so I fear he is not long for this world.

11 Hematite:

Nope. He wasn't.

28 Hematite:

Finally, a hospital where I can work. Unfortunately, it turned out that all those wounded people weren't content to wait for proper medical care and decided to just fix their problems with naps, leading to several now walking around maimed. One bled to death in his bed in the dormitory. It was a mess.

23 Malachite:

We've run out of booze. It's horrible. I can't even drink from the secret stash anymore, or the others would notice I was drunk and lynch me. Sobriety grates like a sharp flinder of granite inside my head.

26 Malachite:

More migrants. Apparently they're unfazed by the dead bodies strewn about the landscape, and ignorant of the lack of alcohol. Poor bastards. They'll find out soon enough. A heavy rain welcomes them to Copperstrapped.

1 Galena:

Last month of summer. We appear to finally be running at something vaguely approximating efficiency.

11 Galena:

Another heinous monstrosity, Nethgön Vurtibngalák Ulthush, has seen fit to arrive. I asked the scouts who comes up with these tongue twisters and they all became skittish and nervous, as though they were talking to an insane person. I've put them on my mental list of trepanning candidates. The other beast, Aditha, has disappeared again after making itself known awhile back. I'm sure neither of these things are worth worrying about. On the plus side, the booze stocks seem to be growing again!

12 Galena:

Some schmuck I've never seen before named Urist Keskalnökor flipped out completely! He's sequestered himself in GhettoAardvark's smithy, as much as you can sequester yourself in a workshop with no walls in the Artisans' Hall, and is giggling insanely over a cow hide and some iron. We'd best leave him there.

17 Galena:

A human caravan! We will bring forth our shittiest works and trade them for worse beer. Hopefully they also have some gypsum powder, which I need to make plaster casts.

19 Galena:

That metalsmith nut made an iron barrel. I don't want to talk about it. I'm declaring a damnatio memoriæ, outside of this journal anyway.

20 Galena:

The Hu-Men had no gypsum, and not much drink, but some other useful items. We stocked up on crutches, splints and buckets, and Kizor gave the humans a nice profit so they'd want to come back, ten whole dimdums. Later in the day, he cut a deal with that elf not to cut down more than 111 trees in the coming year. I told him to go ahead, since we have several huge deposits of lignite which will serve us just as well once we get some charcoal to start the coking process.

In other news, I had a wood furnace built ages ago and it still hasn't produced the necessary coal. I looked around for someone that I could have blamed, hammered and then plastered, but the hospital was empty. (I like to do all my ruling work from here, the sterile atmosphere and ready supply of knives instills a proper fear in people. I credit this wise managerial strategy with my success in reducing the number of idlers to zero.)

14 Limestone:

Autumn is here, and with it a functioning coaling operation. This will allow us to supply GhettoAardvark with fuel for the foreseeable future, keeping him happily at work hammering out weapons and armor for our jolly hatchetmen.

24 Limestone:

The scouts tell me that both the giant, hideous creatures we saw have disappeared. I don't know why they sound so nervous, that's good, isn't it? I tried to explain to them that it's irrational to get worried both at the monsters appearing and at them disappearing, but they refused to listen. I'm starting to wonder if our scouts are some sort of mongrels. They look unsound.

1 Sandstone:

More migrants. They even seem useful this time! We now number 58.

14 Timber:

A caravan from home! Some of Aerobe's better stuff will buy us decent booze, not that there's a shortage anymore.

27 Timber:

Right after the caravan, a whole bunch of goblin ambushes appeared! They killed almost our whole guard patrol, including the majority of the war dogs we'd trained. We did get the better of them in the end, though.

1 Moonstone:

The horrific Nethgön is threatening to ascend into our fortress! The men refuse to descend and wall off the passage, because the creature is too near the hole. I try to explain that that's the whole problem, but as usual nobody listens to my superior logic.

6 Moonstone:

Yaaay, it's my birthday! I spent extra long in the Secret Booze Hole to celebrate. Kizor gave me two bags of gypsum plaster that he bought off the caravan from the Mountainhome, and the others walled off that hole. Best presents ever.

20 Moonstone:

I finally got to do some suturing! On a hunter wounded in the goblin battle. He was really good about the whole thing, even when I lost track of the wound and stitched three inches too far up. I think the trick was letting him drink the medical alcohol.

3 Obsidian:

One of our newest immigrants, a furnace operator, drowned in the river when the ice melted, and while our last soldier lies wounded, a giant mole is going berserk somewhere in the fort. As if that wasn't enough, I also found out today that GhettoAardvark lost his left hand at some point, and is faint from the blood loss, yet refuses to rest or come see me. I wonder if the hunter's been talking.

7 Obsidian:

One of the haulers was just killed by that giant mole. We're going to have to deal with it, military or no military. But wait! The sole remaining soldier is free of his convalescence thanks to my expert ministrations! He goes forth to destroy the beast! In recognition of his services to the fortress, I've made him sheriff.

11 Obsidian:

A blind cave ogre has shown up and started to wreck our shit. I've dispatched Sheriff Soldier Man to deal with it, and am preparing the Disgusting Trauma Ward right now.

12 Obsidian:

He actually dealt with it! The ogre fled into my hospital, but he followed it in and hacked all its limbs open. I think that young man might make a fine surgeon one day.

22 Obsidian:

Mere days from my retirement, the cook freaked out! He's announced his temporary withdrawal from society. What kind of artifact do cooks make? I've used my autarchic authority to claim first eating rights.

23 Obsidian:

Apparently cooks make jewelry. Garnet- and tourmaline-based, in this case. We'll see what comes out.

25 Obsidian:

The last war dog succumbed to an infection. People complained, but it's beneath my dignity to treat a dog.
Or an infection. Ew.

28 Obsidian:

It's my last day. To my successor, I leave these notes and some scrawled markings on the map. To some — you know who you are — I leave surgical scars: sorry, guys, I was out of practice. To all of Copperstrapped, I leave what is greater: my magnum opus, UNDERCITY!

Oh, the cook finished his life's work, too. It's a clear tourmaline coffin. Yeesh. What an omen on the ending of my rule.

---

Clockmaker Amostuzol's recipe for Dwarven Atomic Grog:

1 pint dwarven rum
1 pint dwarven ale
1 pint ground pitchblende

Mix well.

---

The tale of Outpost Copperstrapped
A Dwarf Fortress Bloodlines Game, told in parts
<- Previous | Start | Next ->

MY VERY DWARVEN DIARY
BY AEROBE LOLOKFARASH

(how did i get here i am not good with mining)

Having made the fortress's first artifact mechanism apparently bought me enough political capital to be de facto fortress leader for a while! What fun!

Early spring 1052 and what this fortress needs, I've decided, is a beach. I've set the miner drones to digging an adequate thatch of channel and assigned an odd handful of indigent migrants to bucket duty. Call it a make-work project. These are troubled times and we're mostly starving. Did I mention the beach?

I'm not sure exactly how the military works, but I think we have one now. They even have a clubhouse to train in. Weapons rack, bunk beds, Spider-Man backissues. They haven't done much sparring yet, but, prepared for the worst, I built a grand & sprawling hospital. As far as I can tell, this mostly involves a lot of tables and chests. What do the bedrooms need chests for, anyway?

Some tall, pointy-earred fellows showed up - procurred a Companion Bear and Therapy Alligator for the hospital. This, then, will be my legacy.

The tale of Outpost Copperstrapped
A Dwarf Fortress Bloodlines Game, told in parts
Start | Next ->

 

22nd Obsidian, 1050
It looks like that episode with the head stonecutter's daughter and the dwarven wine and the mules has finally caught up to me. As penance (on top of throwing me out of blacksmithing college), they're making me head up the next colonization efforts. Here's my first string choices for companions:

Kizor Bekomfath: Ought to make a good leader. Never known a dwarf with such a good head for numbers; she doesn't even need to use her fingers! Also, she appears to not already know about the, uh, thing with the stonecutter's daughter, which is good, because the last thing I need is to be the colony laughingstock right off the bat.

Aerobe Lolokfarash:
Aerobe comes with strong recommendations from the local liberal arts college. I suppose we'll need some sort of scrimshaw industry so we can dupe those dirty humans out of their weapons until I can get enough ore together to make some superior ones. I'm not really sure how useful a degree in bone carving and basketweaving is going to be, though...

Clockmaker Amostuzol:
For a doctor, I have to say, he doesn't have much of a bedside manner. His office was full of rusty (I think) tools and assorted trash. When I arrived, some other patient (victim?) was there already; he threw a cloth over him before I could circle the chair. Wouldn't look me in the eyes and kept asking if I was with the town watch. Then he threw a scalpel at me and told me to get out and that he'd be there when he damned well felt like it.

Hapax Dorenamug:
So far, the most normal one of the lot. She even brought a resumé to the interview, which seemed like overkill considering I just needed an experienced miner to help out with the initial dwellings. I don't know if she understands what's she's getting into, considering I can't find anyone to help her...

OldMiner Ableludist:
Another unknown like Aerobe, but then, I have yet to see such high marks when it comes to cave fishing and cleaning. He's been working in the local fish extraction plant for the last couple years, and he says that he can farm just as well as he can fish (quote: "Pulling fish out of the water can't be any harder than putting seeds in dirt, right?"), so he's on the team. Hopefully he can keep us decently fed until the first trade caravans arrive.

Still looking for someone to handle colony defense and woodworking. Going to go ask the others for recommendations.

~

23rd Obsidian
That Hapax girl gave me the name of a friend to check out, one Creases Vucaralis. Going to go interview him and see if he's any good.
...
He's a dirty elf-lover. I should have guessed; first thing I see is a weirdo brown axe over his shoulder, and then I realize it's made of wood. He says it's just as sharp as a regular axe (it's not), and then he split a few logs to prove it. He says it's from something called a rubber tree, which sounds stupid. What kind of dwarf does he take me for, anyway?

Whatever. If he's going to insist on the wooden axe, I'll just have to make a few normal axes once we get there. Besides, the word about my reputation's getting around and no one else will even look at me, much less talk to me. Beggars can't be choosers!

~

1st Granite, 1051
We got underway today, at last. Trying to get everyone out of here is like herding cats. About a half-day's travel out, Clockmaker revealed that he'd left all of the thread and bandages back in his office. He didn't seem too worried though, which makes me extra worried. I guess we'll just have to avoid getting cut.

~

25th Granite
Trying to keep everyone on task and working is a total nightmare. That Creases fellow immediately bounded off into the woods with his axe; I haven't seen him in three days, but Aerobe and Clockmaker keep bringing logs back out. What if goblins attack and we need something other than a single pick, a couple of war dogs, and a bunch of mugs to fight them off? Hapax seems to think he's really great for some reason. Lousy elves and their fan club...

Also: it appears our little mountain is mostly made up of rock salt. All of our structures have been made of large blocks of rock salt. All of the food has been flavored with rock salt. Yesterday, OldMiner tried to offer me a piece of rock salt candy.

I am considering a strict diet of booze and raw meat. Assuming they don't get a chance to salt and cure the meat first.

~

19th Malachite
It's now summertime, and we've struck a deal with this whole leadership business, because there's no way in hell I am going to do this forever. At the next spring, someone else is going to take the reins while I retire quietly to my favorite smelter and forge and do nothing but pound metal into interesting shapes for the rest of my life.

Because the gods hate me, they have seen fit to send us a bunch of new immigrants. I had to tell them that we don't even have enough rooms or beds for us original founders, which means they all get to sleep on the ground by the cave entrance and keep watch. What the hell was Homeforge thinking with this lot? What am I going to do with two cheesemakers, an animal specialist, and one manual laborer? I don't even know what the others are good for; I told all of them to start stacking things underground and not bother me until my headache disappears.

~

23rd Limestone
Autumn has fallen, and with it are a new batch of idiot immigrants. This time, I got a couple of soapmakers, another fisher, and a bunch of rejects from the Homeforge community college system. We struck copper, iron, and gold a month or two ago, so I put together a couple of picks and a couple of axes. Half of them looked at me like I was an idiot; the other half stared at me like they didn't understand simple language. I think all of the yelling got my point across, though.

~

10th Sandstone
Aerobe has been struck mad by the gods and has shut herself up in her room, alternately mumbling or screaming about mechanisms and rare rock formations. I had one of the flunkies put together a ramshackle mechanic's workshop; she immediately kicked her own door down, grabbed some loose rock, and knocked the dwarf out of the way on her way over. I don't think she's eaten anything in a few days.

~

26th Sandstone
Aerobe finally came out of the workshop, carrying the most ridiculous mechanism I've ever seen in my life. It's made of this crazy green rock and it's got a carving of some famous human hero beating the snot out of a fierce-looking mountain lion. She refuses to put it down, saying it's her "life's work" and that it was inspired by the gods.

I should have just accepted the prison term.

~

14th Timber
I nearly killed a dwarf with my bare hands, today: upon wandering downstairs to check on the progress of the dining hall and expanded living quarters, I found only two of our three miners hard at work. When questioned, Hapax expressed surprise that I'd ever actually assigned a third miner.

When I went upstairs and checked in the cave opening, I found my third miner using the pick as a clotheshorse. He couldn't figure out why I was so angry, and kept trying to tell me that tailoring fine clothing was his life's calling and that I was an insensitive bastard for not accepting that. He's been reassigned to stone hauling duty; the pick went to the next dwarf that walked past. Maybe we can get the living quarters done before the season turns.

~

10th Moonstone
Winter's come, and with it, our first dwarven caravan. We had to rush to get a bunch of trade goods ready; it's a good thing I had a bunch of metal bars smelted together. However, after a solid week of bargaining, the caravan owners left in a huff, and Kizor had an alarmingly smug look on her face. I asked what the result was, considering they weren't leaving anything behind or taking our goods with them, and she wouldn't say anything besides "We both know who the better trader was."

I think we're out of booze. I'm afraid to ask in case I'm right.

~

25th Moonstone
We were definitely out of booze. An emergency still has been set up, and a single dwarf tasked with nothing but nonstop brewing until we run out of ingredients or the mash tun explodes and kills him. I tried to make a joke out of it but I don't think he got it; he kept backing away from me when I tried to explain what I wanted done.

~

6th Opal
Imagine my surpsise when I went to check on Hapax's mining projects and found, again, only two miners at work. Hapax is starting to think I'm crazy, and the screaming matches with Creases over the merits of wooden weaponry aren't helping. (I don't care how much time you spend at it, wooden weapons are not useful!) I called him a dirty elf-humper and I don't even feel bad, even if no one is looking me in the eyes any more.

Anyway, I found my third miner, Erush, upstairs, moping by the cave entrance. I asked him why he wasn't downstairs doing what I told him to (or I'd hit him in the head again) and he said that he couldn't decide if making lye and soap or making crossbows was a nobler profession.

(bloodstains blot the page, making the text unreadable)

- gave the pick to a different miner and made sure he understood that I actually wanted someone to dig with it for a change. Erush has been relegated to hauling duties.

~

1st Obsidian
I am utterly and totally convinced that prison, nay, the animal fighting pits would have been a less torturous fate. I went to check on the stone stock piles that I was having all of the extras work on while I tried to think of other pointless tasks for them to do and found Erush in an unauthorized bowyer's workshop, slaving over a ridiculous-looking crossbow. Attempts to make him look up or do something other than polish wood were ineffective. I have advised the other dwarves not to get too close or they'll catch whatever's going around.

~

10th Obsidian
I'm not sure if this is existentially funny or mortally stupid, but it seems that Erush's little project is a really amazing crossbow. Except, he has the design sense of a gnat: the crossbow has been decorated with a picture of Aerobe's fancy mechanism.

Just the rest of this month, and I can relax with a hammer in a forge. (writing becomes unreadable, appears to repeat the previous sentence for three pages)

~

1st Granite, 1052
Finally, no more of this. I've officially handed the colony control over to my successor, and I plan on doing nothing but beating the hell out of pieces of metal until I pass out every day. If I ever end up in control of this place again, it'll be too soon.

The tale of Outpost Copperstrapped
A Dwarf Fortress Bloodlines* Game, told in parts
Start | Next ->

*A bloodlines game, in Dwarf Fortress parlance, is a way to play a single-player game with more than one person. Each player takes control of the entire colony for an in-game year, developing the fortress as they see fit and attempting to avoid mass colony destruction by way of lava, elephant rampage, or poor deathtrap design.