Logs of the fortress manager

[XSI]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Leaders log, page 48, 7 felsite, year 247

Well, that's where all the cows and donkeys went. Gathered around the tax collector and the duchess' body are 3 dogs, a cat, 4 cows, and 6 donkeys. I guess the cows and donkeys will just be sold again, the cat will do whatever, and the dogs will do whatever they want as well.
Besides that, everything outside is dried out and yellowed again, oh well, maybe next year.

10 felsite

That was quick. Welcome the new tax collector, and with her, a migration wave.
We also got a new duchess and duke, they both seem to be ok from what they told me, but you never know. I've just put them in the first duke's room for now, we should probably get them their own room some time, or clean out the old room.

Besides that, we got:
"Jack Urst", a siege engineer, but he has plenty of ideas, I guess he's going to end up project advisor.
"Brak SkullCrusher", hammerdwarf. He joined the hammerdwarf squad we already had, and I expect him to do a few good things when called on.
1 crafter
1 tanner, but will do farming as well.

Also arrived:
1 child
1 cow

And because nobody cared to get him food, the woodcutter died in jail. A woodcutter that came in the first migration, RIP.

I'll also mention a little side project I did while waiting for migrants, or ideas, we can now much more easily make specific furniture and items, and there are some luxury housing suites being made near the old workshop area, for the important dwarves.

23 felsite

Well, Brak already got himself injured, he broke his leg, and hip. He's going to take some time to heal. Luckily, it was in the barracks, so he was close to the beds anyway.

Jack has given me plenty of suggestions, and the first new project will be a goblin bathing chamber. With magma. I'm thinking of a design, and have set the miners(Which were getting bored) to work on it, we have plenty of magma now anyway, and we can get it anywhere we want. All that's left is finding out where exactly it will have to go.

9 hematite

Found a suitable site for the new project, which also fixes how we get rid of excess magma left over after use. I thought of pumping it outside, but that would be a project in itself, so I've settled for dumping it into a reservoir, to be precise, a reservoir for water, which will make obsidian when mixed with the magma. The miners will then mine out the obsidian and we can start the process again. Work is a bit slow as I'm expecting traders soon, so there won't be too much hauling, we need the labour for moving goods to trade.

12 hematite

Instead of traders, we welcome the walking iron ore, goblins, another siege. We have 3 forges set to smelt down their equipment, and we still have too much of the junk. We have plenty of iron though, and they just keep delivering more. Oh well, I guess Kharak could use some more sparring partners. As sad extra news, Dogstile's dog died of old age, and will be buried next to his owner's tomb.

22 hematite

The goblins got past the traps, and were then shot. The remaining goblins tried to run back out and by doing so they ran through the traps again. One goblin escaped with a broken lower spine, he crawled out until Kharak finished him. Well, that were the goblins then, I hope the humans will still try to come trade this year.

15 malachite

It seems a crafter got possessed, and pushed a working dwarf out of a workshop to make an artifact. I'm fully expecting to see the next expensive ring or so in a few days, and that would hopefully get word out about our fort, and attract more migrants.

17 malachite

We don't need artifacts to get migrants, there's a group coming right now. Welcome to our new dwarves,

1 Mason
2 Guards
2 Carpenters/woodcutters(No axes, note to self, tell the weaponsmiths to make some)
1 furnace operator-great, we need that to work with all the goblin junk.
1 Royal guard

Also arrived:
1 child
1 cat
1 cow

While I was taking notes on the migrants, the crafter started making his artifact, and while these weren't a lot of migrants, at least some of them were useful.

 

[Host]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Did someone say succession game? (No, they said 'Bloodlines', and that was ages ago. You missed your chance.)
BAWW =(

As for projects, a massive and interesting maze with the spare space left over from your fortress, whose only use is to make an interesting challenge for prisoners. Load it full of nasty and inventive traps, guide the prisoners with caged tame animals (for bonus points, have it so that they never actually reach one - this will likely involve floor grates over channels controlled by pressure plates) and have it pass next to the barracks before finally going outside - if they actually manage to survive all that, they probably deserve to escape. Especially if Slusa is the end-boss. For extra fun, put dwarves on patrol at points (going to have to be very clever with this one if you don't want the dwarves dead). And don't forget to make it all repeatable, meaning ways to reach and re-cage the animals.

 

[XSI]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Did someone say succession game? (No, they said 'Bloodlines', and that was ages ago. You missed your chance.)
BAWW =(

Nothing big got said about that, but if we get enough people it might be interesting, so no missed chances here. I'm not sure how many we need, I guess 4 or 5 would be enough to have it interesting.

Besides that, I like the maze idea. Want a dwarf so he can tell the mayor all about it?

 

[Host]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

A special two for one deal:

Hayasye, Wife - the leader of a different expedition, and the first I did that actually went well. She had all the designated noble jobs. The title Wife is something that sort of happens, because she has gives off that feeling of "doing everything that you should be doing, for you", but is too young to be considered 'mother'. Other than noble-ing, (which she probably won’t get to do, not being the fortress leader), Hayasye was good at both wood cutting and crafting, and occasionally dabbled in growing and cooking (but not that much, when people realised she's terrible with food, they stopped her).

Shade, Accountant - for once, the 'nickname' actually is a nickname. ...Probably. No one bothers to find out his real name, anyway. Apparently enamoured with numbers and records, Shade actually doesn't have the bookkeeper job (that’s Hayasye) - instead, he is a miner and stonecrafter. He's a reasonable mason, too... one can only assume that he gets his kicks from counting the rocks.

 

[XSI]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Host's new dwarves will arrive next migration(With their ideas)

Leaders log, page 49, 20 malachite, year 247

I think I forgot to list a few things, namely, the likes and personality of our new important dwarves.

Jack Urst:
Likes copper, larch wood, coral, swords, armour stands, amulets and horses. He hates rats.
He is comfortable in social situations, does not handle stress well, is reserved, prefers to be alone, and likes art. He also likes to take a few risks.

Brak SkullCrusher:
Likes clay, rose gold, agates, chimp leather, crossbows, pants, and beds. Hates spiders.
He is quick to anger, and socially crippled by thoughts that everybody is watching and judging him. He drinks a lot and is completely uninterested in art, and hates rules. He also believes himself to be somewhat better then most others, and is straightforward.

And today we had the artifact completed, a rock bracelet, Zursulothsin, Severbowed. Worth 81 600, has decorations of gems and turtle shells, bands of marble and more shells, gem rings, and spikes of rock, gem and leather.
It also has an image of itself on it in wood.

27 malachite

So, the cage traps are empty, and Kharak is bored. He needs to take out at least 12 goblins to fix the cage shortage.

7 wrestlers, and a master thief were killed before Kharak went away for a drink, cleaning cages may continue some other time.

8 galena

Next round, Kharak is back in the arena, this time he took out 1 master thief, 20 wrestlers, 1 lasher

Notable mentions:
A wrestler got hit so hard he flew out of the arena, and back into a cage trap.
Another wrestler got hit hard enough to fly across the mini-moat and land on the other side. Kharak's dogs were on that side.
Yet another goblin landed in the mini-moat and survived that, he got shot by a passing marksdwarf.
The thief dropped a fairly expensive bag..For something goblins made anyway.
Side note on why I selected mostly wrestlers to be pitted against Kharak, they help him train his wrestling, only drop their mask to melt down, and whatever limbs get chopped off(So it's easier on the haulers, the junk just stays on the ground), and they were just quick to slaughter and move on to the next.
As side-side note, Burrito managed to dig a channel, and get himself stuck in a corner, surrounded by his own channels with no way past them again untill other dwarves install grates.

4 limestone

Glurki got promoted to champion, but only because his skill with a spear against things that try to go easy on him, he knows next to nothing about being attacked, or even the right ways to wear armour. In those areas, Kharak excels, he knows his armour, his shield, and the axe, not to mention he knows what a dying goblin is like. Brak is still in bed, he doesn't really know anything on combat except that you hit the other repeatedly with a heavy item.
We're also out of leather as the human caravan didn't show up, I'm hoping the dwarves bring some.

14 limestone

The dwarven caravan arrived, but strangely, with them was also a human diplomat. I assume he's just going to explain why we didn't get a caravan this year, but we already know, those goblins just blocked the way. Not an issue, we're trading with the dwarves now, it's mostly their loss that they didn't come. Still too bad, they usually have some nice things.

18 limestone

Well, as if we didn't have enough of those this year, more goblins, an ambush this time, so we're going to have to stay in longer. They popped up near our bauxite/iron ore mine, so a few dwarves had to dodge arrows to get back home. Luckily, goblins have bad aim, and are slower then a fat dwarf tripping over his own beard. I've traded with the caravan, and well, it's a little disapointing, they usually have some nice extra things, but now its just a nice amount of metal and some food. They only had 2 wooden logs, which is usually a cartload full from them. No pets, no armour, no trinkets.. Bad year I guess.
Oh, and the caravan let me know there won't be migrants this year. We have a reputation as death-trap...A rich, wealthy and safe death-trap, but anyway, no migrants till spring at the least.

 

[garfield751]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

i just found this vid looks like a good attraction for the dwarves

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[cross_grave]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Death trap... It's because of those goblins, right?

 

[XSI]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

I have no idea what the reason for being a death-trap is, and theres a small tower/hole already where some goblins get dropped. Not enough to kill them or splatter parts around like that movie, but enough to break their legs.

Besides that, no log today because my computer is being an ass and is refusing to run dwarf fort at an acceptable speed.

 

[Kusanagi]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Ack. Been so busy, haven't checked this particular thread in a while

Is there any way to make the roads safer, or is that left up to the AI? Or would it simply be a waste of dwarves to protect the roads?

Also, are Bofur and Naera still alive? They don't seem to see much action so I would think so, since their professions, I'd assume, keep them in the background for the most part, but one never knows, ne?

 

[DeMatt]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Death trap... It's because of those goblins, right?

I have no idea what the reason for being a death-trap is,

Alas... I have been reading up on

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, and I believe that the news of the valiant deaths of the duchess and the tax collector, during the course of testing the new experimental elevator system, was perverted by the traders and merchants into word of them falling prey to traps within the fortress.

That is, nobles dying had way more of an impact on migrants than ordinary dwarves dying.

 

[XSI]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Well, I have it set so dwarves take the roads whenever possible(High traffic zones), but that's not very helpful when the roads don't go very far out yet, I have one architect, and that's my dwarf, the only things he does is mayor duties, trade(Like once a season at most), and job managing(Takes about a second once he's in the office. I mostly did that so it would be a legendary architect, which would help speed up later constructions.

Bofur is still alive, but sorry to say Naera died. Sadly it wasn't in combat, magma, or something else that would make for a good story, she just broke an arm and the other dwarves forgot to get her water.(And she was still outside because they didn't even bring her in, during a titan attack.)

I could make a wall around the road, and set the marksdwarves to patrol on it, but that would be a fairly big project I suppose, especially if it includes making the rest of the roads.

(Also, no log today on account of me feeling crappy, I'm not going to risk blowing up everything because I got a headache and fail to remember which switch does the emergency magma pump stop, and which one fucks up all dwarves)

 

[XSI]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Leaders log, page 50, 18 sandstone, year 247

Another sparring incident, this time a guard died, and there is nobody around that could have done it. Bagash started the standard procedure of trying to find out who did it.
The magma bath/shower for the goblins is delayed by mechanics slacking off, yes, the same mechanics that kept complaining there was too little work.
And I've expanded the area for making specific goods, along with the luxury housing section because the miners were bored.(And we still have a lot of ore to process)
Because the masons were also complaining, they are now making some walls near the magma channel, just because they are complaining, we have a -lot- of rock blocks, and it seems to be an area that could be developed more.
And yet more news, a mason got into one of those moods, so there's another artifact coming soon. In celebration of this all, Kharak will go into the arena in a moment. Which also reminds me, we have way too many goblin bones around, even with 2 legendary bonecrafters making bolts and decorations.

1 timber

The artifact is done, a marble idol by the name of "Esdorerith", Soldlabors. it is decorated with 2 kinds of gems, 2 kinds of shell, and 2 kinds of bone. On it is the image of a different idol in bone.
To celebrate, Kharak went to the arena, fighting goblins, a quick summary of what got tossed in:
2 thieves, actually just one as the other was beaten to death already and then tossed in.
2 wrestlers
3 axegoblins
7 pikegoblins
5 speargoblins

After this, Kharak got bored and went out.

24 timber

Another sparring accident, another dead guard. And again, no known killer, bagash started another investigation, but we're now understaffed on guards.
This time the only thing left of the gaurd was an old iron shield salvaged from goblins that was used by the guard on a bed with a few bloodstains. Nothing else was there. Brak, the only other dwarf in the room while it happened was asleep in bed, still resting.
To replace the guard, a useless dwarf was made into a guard, we don't need 10 jewelers anyway, so lets keep it at 9, or less if needed. The least skilled will obviously go first.

22 moonstone

A special little prisoner was captured today, as a kobold thief tried to get into our fort it dodged the traps, but was thrown into one by a nearby dwarf. A few seconds later a clumsy goblin thief ran into a cage trap as well.

This was followed not too short afterwards by a goblin ambush, spotted very close to our entrance. I've ordered a group of swordsdwarves out to get the goblins, or at least keep them busy while the civilians come in. The goblins are weak, but with too many for a single dwarf without weapon to handle.
And only a single swordsdwarf shows up, luckily, goblins are morons, and he killed 3 of them before they noticed he was killing them, then killed 2 of the unarmed ones, and the other 3 ran away, but not before the swordsdwarf cut off their arms. I like this dwarf, he was told to disarm his opponents, and he did.

3 opal

5 goblin thieves ran into the cage traps, making me wonder how goblins even manage to survive in this world. Besides that, some exploratory mining deeper down, not that we need it, just some extra work to keep the miners busy. We found a nice green stone though, in case anybody has ideas for it.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Disarm... Kekekekeke!

 

[XSI]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Leaders log, page 51, 12 opal, year 247

Completely unexpected, the old duchess(The one that came with the good duke) has killed herself. She jumped off the highest ledge we had available for a reason I do not understand, she left behind 2 sons and a daughter, and a room full of around 150 bracelets. Her body was found on the bottom of our moat, she seems to have jumped from the top of one of the towers. Her children will most likely be fine, they were drunk at the time anyway.

To help the population get over the loss of a noble, Kharak entered the arena.
This time:

2 speargoblins.
1 swordgoblin.
The captured kobold thief.

Things to mention:

Originally 5 thieves were set to be tossed in, but one tried to escape when the hammerer tried to toss him in. He did not survive. The other noticed how it was a bad idea to run, and then ran into the hammerer which was still there. The third also decided to run into a hammer. The fourth tried to escape from the duke, and got beaten to a pulp by the duke. And the fifth fell off a bridge.
Kharak took a break after the first swordgoblin, and during this break I noticed we have too many bones from all the goblins, and even our legendary bonecrafters are having trouble getting rid of it all. So to speed it up, I've set the new archery range to a higher priority, it was all dug out already, and only needs a few extras(Like targets) to work. The magma shower/bath is coming along nicely as well, we might be getting close to a test soon. And actually, some bone armour would probably help stop sparring 'accidents'.

10 obsidian

Kharak is done with his break, first off, a mountain gnome, after that, the goblins.

1 mountain gnome
1 swordgoblin
2 hammergoblins
2 goblin lasher

Kharak then went away for a drink.
Notes:
During the fighting the current duchess got a new son.
A mountaingnome is locked between a wall, a locked door, and magma deep in the fortress tombs. I have no idea how he got there, it's a different one then the one Kharak killed in the arena.
A crafter got possesed and took an unused workshop. He then sat there looking silly for a while, he needed wood, and we didn't have any in stock. Woodcutters have been send out to cut down some trees.
A lasher got thrown out of the arena, and then tried to crawl away. He was caught in a cage trap a few seconds later.

7 granite 248

Happy new year, and meet our new artifact, a wooden amulet. "Kodornursher", Dawnwaddle. It's worth 49 200, and is made of wood, with decorations of wood, shell, cloth, and, as a first in this fort, crystal glass. It has bands of wood, shell, leather, marble and gems, and spikes of wood.

I knew it was a good idea to make some crystal glass, rare, hard to get, and expensive, but it saved this dwarf's life...And it just looks pretty. It's far too rare to use in bigger projects though, but maybe if we get really lucky we will just find some more.
As side note, migrants tend to arrive in spring, so a few more cheap houses were mined out.

11 granite

More goblins, another ambush. They were spotted by a dog outside, and one of the goblins was injured by the dog before it died. Luckily the dog was pretty far away, so chances are, all dwarves will be safe inside by the time the goblins reach the entrance.

12 granite

The elves have great timing this year, and even better positions. They arrived from the same side as the goblins, and just as the goblins were done with the dog. Maybe if we're lucky they make it all the way to our depot..Or a few of them just die and we can loot them. They are just elves after all.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Those tree-huggers are in for a suprise...

 

[XSI]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Leaders log, page 52, 15 granite, year 248

Seems like the elves were too slow, too bad for them, but nice free stuff for us. Not like we need what they bring, but still, it's free. The goblins killed 4 out of 5 pack animals, but 4 of the 5 elves got away. Seeing as the elves only had cloth with them, it's probably going to sit outside until we can actually use it.
The elven diplomat walked in safely, and just started talking to the duchess.
However, while I expected all dwarves to stay inside, a single guard decided to go outside and try to kill the goblins. He killed 3, and heavily injured 3 others before being killed. There are still 4 goblins in the group he attacked, one of them missing an arm, and another with a broken neck, and yet another with a spear stuck somewhere. He might have survived if he didn't get his spear stuck in that goblin's pancreas(for the records, that's the part of the body right behind reproductive organs).
Hearing of this guard's death, a recruit tries to loot the body outside, he is quickly beaten up by the last goblin that wasn't injured yet. He died.
Other guards heard of this, and rush out to kill goblins, these guards do their job and kill the last few goblins.

23 granite

Another group of goblins, by now, everybody is inside, including the guards. So the only thing to do now is wait for the goblins to find our traps again, and then we shoot the survivors. One war dog was outside, and got killed. A marksdwarf was nearby and shot all the goblins before they even reached the traps.
As another note, we got another platinum vein. To be exact, 2 veins of unknown size..And we really need more furnace operators/metalworkers.
As extra note, we found another copper ore, with traces of silver.
(Added later)
The platinum turned out to be just small clusters, and we found a third cluster, the entire area around the mining site seems littered with gems...Red spinel, Almandines, Wax opals, Purple spinels, all the expensive kinds of gems.

5 slate

I suppose the dwarves can go out again, those goblins are no problem for now, and we need to get some corpses in, and they might like to loot the place.

25 slate

We're getting migrants, I'll just list them

1 axedwarf
1 ranger/hunter
1 furnace operator
A dwarf called "Hayashe", she seems good with wood, and will help supply the fort with anything wood related we need..Well, anything directly wood related anyway. Note to self, forge more axes.
A dwarf that didn't give his name, but requested to go by "Shade", anyway, miner, stonecrafter, mason, there will be plenty of work for him.
1 guard, former soap maker.

Also arrived:
1 mule

After this migration we have exactly 250 dwarves, children included. As note on children, one of the ones that made an artifact grew up, and is already one of the best stonecrafters we have. Hayashe and Shade will be in my office with a suggestion some time tomorrow.

Oh, and instead of having the refuse pit filled with bones as I expected, instead, it's filled completely with goblin skulls.

1 felsite

I should probably mention this..Strange change in Jack Urst's preferences, while his personality remained the same, he changed his favorite materials from copper and wood to raw adamantine and silver, I really don't know how this happened, but it's not such a big deal as I haven't made a luxury room for him yet. I'm thinking I should also just start a small thing to make masterwork ballistas and catapults, since the lower quality ones take ages to reload and fire. The extra parts, the useless ones at least, will just be dropped into magma..Which is actually one of the sideprojects now, a magma pit to drop the useless things into, such as the hundreds of rocks which are now stored in a room somewhere I can't remember.

Besides that, some info on the new important dwarves.

Hayasye
Likes: Petrified wood(Coincidence?)Nickel, pipe opals, crystal glass, the colour brown(Like tree bark?), and crowns. Hates spiders
She's easily discouraged, concerned about how others think of her, is very friendly, relaxed, and compassionate. She is also modest, but strives for excellence.
Worships the goddess of metal

Shade
Likes: Clay loam, brass, claro opal, and fox leather.
Comfortable in social situations, often discouraged, hates rules, is modest, likes helping others, and again, hates rules..A lot.
Worships the god of dance.

3 hematite

We have 13 metalworkers, but we still need more, none of the metal related work orders get done anywhere near the time they should be done, we still have a large chamber full of raw ore to melt into bars, half an armoury full of goblin junk, and a bar stockpile that's full of bars because nobody is using enough of them.
On the bright side, just a few more days and the magma shower is ready for testing, just one lever needs to be hooked up to something and we can start the test.

---

And to those interested, a few things the readers can vote on:
1. What to do with the gnome trapped between a magma floodgate(That can be opened to burn him), and a door(Easily trapped to capture him)?
2. How to test the magma bath/shower?
3. More mining for gems, or more expanding the moat?
4. We have 100 goblin skulls. Please suggest creative uses for them.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Burn the gnome, use goblins to test the bath, mine the gems, turn the skulls into mugs.

 

[XSI]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Ok, I think I wasn't really specific enough on the options, the magma bath/shower has 2 settings, bath and shower, both can be tested. It also makes obsidian, which can be tested.

And sadly, skulls can't be turned into mugs.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

So what? We can use goblins to test both settings. As for the obsidian, do what you want.

Let's make a skull pyramid, then.

 

[Host]

Re: Logs of the fortress manager

Heh heh heh, your dwarf can't pronounce/spell Hayasye's name properly.

The only 'good' use for skulls is to turn them into totems, and then sell the totems as trade goods. But for fun, you can try to line your entrance with goblin skulls (or goblin skull totems, for that matter) by using stockpiles.