Okol Anam: There Will Be Blood [Let's Play Dwarf Fortress!]

So does Dwarf Kingdom have an accurate (any) simulation of the water cycle? like if it rains a lot and the ground is saturated does it flood your underground city?

2nd Moonstone, 154




Ten goblins (some still arriving) show up to plunder Okol Anam's wealth. I haven't had a chance to set up an army yet, but we've got temporary measures set up to handle invaders from the Terrors of Cleaning for now.




Warning shouts direct our citizens to open their pocket safety pamphlets, letting them know which burrows are safe to travel in while a siege remains. Written in bright pink letters is "NOT OUTSIDE."




The siege plan is pretty simple. The burrows cause any dwarf outside to come inside. Once they appear to be in, the lever for the bridge is flipped, sealing the main entrance, but leaving a slim hallway with multiple cage traps that our citizens can move safely through into the fort. Invaders however--drawn by either the entrance being the only way in or the stray dog we've penned at the end of the hallway--will trigger the traps and get caged.



3rd Moonstone, 154

As the goblins advance slowly in two groups, we catch sight of an advanced scout!




This goblin has the audacity to claim that she's not an invader, but a "spoken word artist." And she's completely ignoring are placed traps!




Fearing the tactical brilliance of these new goblin operatives, I order the doors at the end of our hallway of cages sealed. We must not let any goblin through.



5th Moonstone, 154




The goblin "poet" keeps up the ruse, not warning her compatriots about the cages. The first goblin gets trapped, causing its friends to hesitate, but not retreat.

The remain members of the Goblin Terror Squad #1 are quickly all caged.



11th Moonstone, 154




After the second wave finally arrives, it only takes one more trapped golbin to cause the remaining four to scurry off, ending the siege.




The head to the south, cursing and muttering something that probably translates to "curse that beautiful dwarf Eddie for outsmarting us!"




One goblin still remains though: the "poet"! She remains waiting patiently outside the door. We can't risk opening the fortress back up without getting rid of her.

Except that goblin "poet" is still around.

Galadrome takes it upon himself to become our fortress's military commander. He sets one of our miners, Daikaiju, the task of rounding up a squad of dwarves to take that goblin out.

"What will we fight with? Our weapons are scattershot and you're taking the steel short sword," says Daikaiju.

"Back off man," says Galadrome, "I found this sword first! Just grab a pick or something!"




And thus was born Okol Anam's first military squad: the Diamond Door-Umbras.



15th Moonstone, 154




Armed and wearing their safety helmet, the group gets ready to teach this goblin a bit of Dwarven Justice!






It's upupdowndown who scores the fort's offical first "kill." Great job! That will teach those "poets" what our fortress thinks of them!




Galadrome celebrates his victory by giving me a big list of demands to accompany his new "position."



22nd Moonstone, 154

Work begins hauling the goblins prisoners out of the cage traps hallway and into a room where we can start stripping them of their weapons and armour. It's not much, but maybe we can melt some of their crude weapons and armour down.



7th Opal, 154




In the caverns below, a forgotten beast roars! All the entrances into our fortress are thankfully sealed from this flying menace.



10th Opal, 154




FINALLY, someone gives me the recognition I deserve in stone! I ask the stonecrafters if they could includes a basalt crown and ruby scepter accessory for future editions.



28th Opal, 154




Work continues in my quest to put a ceiling between my dwarves and the human blood. It will take some time and a lot of stone, and construction is constantly hampered by dwarves complaining about the very thing this ceiling is meant to protect.



8th Obsidian, 154

Kylie creates another masterpiece figurine in my likeness! A quick check reveals there are no less than 25 figurines dwarves have made of me, although Kylie and Son of Sinistar's figurines are of much highest quality.

I will never trade them.



25th Obisidian, 154




While I appreciate that Mayor Awkwrd Grunt is willing to haul marble from our mines for our dwarves who will be using it to make steel, I think wearing four crowns on his head is a bit... much.


1st Granite, 155

Another year has gone by for Okol Anam, which means another year of reflection. Also, some quick updates on fortress progress!




Given our citizens... desire... to run to far away pools of water to clean themselves, I've order the infrastructure built to add a side entrance. This will let us herd dwarves inside faster, and significantly cut down on travel times. A bridge has been built and mechanisms used to connect that bridge with the same lever the front bridge is connected to.




Kishi and Octopus Prime have finished smoothing almost all the walls of our temples, with only the non-diety specific "Abbey of Shocks" remaining.


Our dwarves who have achieved a legendary skill are now as follows:

Eddie (Miner)
Brickroad (Miner)
TheSL (Miner)
Sven (Gem Cutter)
Gerad (Stone Crafter)
Son of Sinistar (Stone Crafter)
Alixsar (Grower)

With the goblins clearly aware of our presence here, it's clear that we need to step up training and equipping a military, as well as continuing our project to protect our future military from our weather. This is doubly important as training outside will more-or-less be impossible.

I pray to Stettad that this year runs as smoothly as the last.

3rd Granite, 155




A new oddity: while bathing Kishi found a small pile of clothes, neatly folded near one of our many stagnant ponds. A headcount indicated all dwarves have been accounted for, leaving the owners of these articles unknown.



5th Granite, 155




Our bonecarver, BEAT, was taken by a mood! He claims a craftsdwarf's workshop and starts gathering cloth, bone, and wood.



11th Granite, 155

BEAT takes less than a week to finish his project:





I order all the stonecarvers to start carving a new accessory add-on for a certain figurine they're all making.



18th Granite, 155

Migrants! And potentially our last wave. Awkward Grunt has changed his "open door policy" to a "we're good Mountainhome, thanks" policy. But here are our new residents:




Demoweasel introduces herself as a competent hand with an axe, and a great chemist. I ask her what a chemist does, which causes her to nervously shuffle her feet.

"It uh, isn't implemented yet in this game. At all."

I do my best to seem sympathetic.

"Maybe after they implement artifact ownership, eh?" I say cheerfully.




Issun introduces herself as a gem cutter, which gives me the perfect opportunity to disappoint her. I tell her if Shivam or Sven ever keel over tho, she'll be first in line.




Another speardwarf and beekeeper join our cause. Sanagi horks and spits on the ground, and spends a good half an hour telling me about how "back in her day, human blood rain used to be a lot worse" before heading to her room to dining hall to have a nap.






Our hopefully) last family are a pair of fisherdwarves, dragging their five (!) kids along. The wife, Lady, introduces all five, claiming "the Avuznikot Empire begins here. Treat me well and you may have a place in our future empire."

Nothing to do but assign them to wood hauling.




Our final dwarf is named Nodal, and he claims he's got some skill smithing weapons. We could actually use someone with some initial training, so I let McClain know that while he won't be crafting us any weapons, he can still be the number one dwarf for our metalcrafting and blacksmithing needs.



20th Granite, 155

If we're going to be prepared when the goblin horde returns, I figure we need proper training facilities. I decide to carve out a space for an archery range on our second floor, close enough so it's near the surface but far enough away that the military drills don't bother us when we're trying to sleep.



4th Slate, 155




THIRTEEN dwarves lazing about in the tavern!? Get back to work you lazy arseholes!


16th Slate, 155




The last archery target has been (more or less) completed! It's a state of the art facility! Features include:

• 11 Archery targets, in eleven different shades of basalt!
• Storage space for all your practice and "serious time" needs!
• Individual crossbow and mug holders! Never spill your drink while shooting!
• Miss your target? No problem! Arrow Trench technology will gather all your missed bolts for easy retrieval!

Clearly, a masterpiece.

But WAIT! There's more!

What's an archery range without someone to use it?

Introducing our newest military outfit: the Grey Torches!




Leading out new squad will be jovewolf, our brave hero who hasn't really done anything other than lose his wife and child, but Galadrome says those traits will make him UNSTOPPABLE on the battlefield.





I'm honestly starting to question Galadrome's military leadership a touch.




The Grey Torches begin training immediately.



17th Felsite, 155




Another goblin scout! This "poet" will quickly learn that Okol Anam's preferred artform is her doom!

Unfortunately her doom is not quick, because apparently this goblin has not been neglecting leg day. running literally from one corner of the map...




To the literal other corner of the map:




All the while, our new marksdwarves are--save a few bolts--spending most of their time missing the goblin.

Eventually however, the goblins can't run no more, and our Minerdwarves catch up... four days later.



21st of Felsite, 155







SpoonyBardOL gets the kill, surely preventing another scout from reporting back to her goblin masters.



25th Felsite, 155




Hey Sanagi! Get that crazy duck outta here!



1st Hemitite, 155




The spring ends and summer begins with two of our many visitors asking to join our fortress as residents.




Trura is a human who claims some skill with a hammer in combat, and apparently is here to avoid the extensive amounts of child support he is not currently paying to his wife and six kids.




Domas, a fellow dwarf and bard, says her works all reflect the futility of the dwarven condition and the jumping spider menace, and is horrified that those two goblins scouts we stopped were killed, as she had invited them to a poetry slam battle.

Elven culture, I swear!

She should be the life of any future parties at the Muffin of Truth.

Of course, "Thrura Stipothluhmat." Just doesn't ring off the ol' dwarven tongue that well, and Domas says she feels her birth name is holding her back from stardom.

Therefore a poll for our dwarven citizens: What shall we call them?

I was expecting a lot more catastrophe to happen in this game. Constant rains of blood, a single were-horse, and goblin poets, while certainly interesting, are almost anticlimactic.

from what i understand, things get more Fun as the years pass

It's early yet. The real fun starts a few years in, or once you dig to/below the magma layer.

i admit that I'm a pretty cautious player (if a dwarf is going to die, I want it either to be due to stupidity or through a hard fought defeat, especially since they're all named after you!) but i wonder if part of it is that I'm working in seasonal increments. Sometimes not a lot happens in three months.

(During those times I try and find the weird stuff. DF is nothing but full of strange behaviour.)

But yeah, things will pick up once we get a few more sieges. I had to dig really deep for water (which is itself a long term project to bring to my hospital), hopefully water is not too much deeper.

We'll see how exciting things have gotten by the end of the year, and if necessary I'll change my update "timeframes" accordingly.

- Eddie

Is The Bewildering Tresses a hot new Dwarven prog rock band? Thrura likes their sound.

Rain can be important. It refills surface pools. If its too hot and doesn't rain, the pool will dry up. Rain will not flood your fort.

If you build in a low spot, you will often find an aquafer which simulates ground water and it definitely can flood your fort.

If you use dwarven engineering to redirect a river, you can definitely flood your fort.

the game does calculate fluid pressure, and water can go up if its pushed which can flood your fort.

You can use rain to (slowly) make moats!

Filling them with crocodiles is substantially more difficult however.

Next season was boring so expect a double update soon. And more death!

- Eddie

P.s. Still looking for suggestions for guest names!

1st Hematite, 155




One of the first things I notice as summer begins is that we've got a small pile of random scepters just sitting on the floor near our empty cage storage. I had told various dwarves to use this spot to dump weapons and armour stripped off the goblins from our first invasion here, and apparently they chose to dump some scepters here as well.

This ends up being an outrage, because our artifact scepter, Gusilberdan Keshshaknimar, is sitting in that finished goods bin! I said all artifacts are to be deposited in my, uh, security office! Which doubles as a bedroom. For security.



3rd Hematite, 155




One of our cats, Muthkat, has chosen to adopt one of our dwarven children, Jakanden. Take good care of her Muthkat!



10th Hematite, 155




A Human caravan! As per standard caravan protocol, I keep a good eye on it to make sure it doesn't mysteriously vanish.



15th Hematite, 155



The caravan arrives in tact and our fortress can once again restock on cloth, leather, booze and food. I also pick up a few books on the behest of Falselogic, who is muttering something about a secret library.

Our armorsmith, aturtledoesbite, has been training by making literally dozens of copper caps, far too many to be useful for our military. I trade as many away as possible.



17th Hematite, 155

Awkward Grunt ends his mandate prohibiting the trading of scepters, trying to appeal to moderate dwarves during his reelection campaign.

I use the opportunity to haul all these useless scepters to the trading post and swap them for junk.



16th Malacite, 155




The next several weeks pass without incident or note, with our dwarves healthy and the human caravan departing for sites unknown.



1st Galena, 155

Our mayor gets another application for residency from a local visitor. He believes the more the merrier, so is given a full mug to drink and an empty room to stay in.




Isun Focusskinned, human crossbowman joins. Like Thrura Stipothluhmat before him, he appears to be neglecting a wife and a brood of kids.

Isun is a veteran of a war between the human group, the Confederacy of Circles and the elven group, The Ape of Scalding of The Butterfly of Yore. in 129, he killed eight elves in the forest retreat of Velvetyfondles, back in 129.



1st Limestone, 155

A very uneventful summer comes to a close. The artifact scepter, Gusilberdan Keshshaknimar, remains unmoved in its private bin.

1st Limestone, 155




Mere hours into the official start of Fall, we are invaded!

In total, 64 invaders creep into site. The goblins, presumably from the Terrors of Cleaning, are joined by a few humans and beakdogs!




Beak dogs are much larger than our dogs, and have a nasty bite. Goblins sometimes ride them as mounts.

They also shine with all the colours of the rainbow! Truly a menace.

An alarm is raised, instructing all dwarves to head inside.




While dangerous, it appears that even creatures that live in swamps hate being pelted with blood-related weather.




Once everyone is inside, we raise our bridges to the goblin menace.



6th Limestone, 155

The invaders reach doorstep, and begin chasing after a rattlesnake.




The snake does not come close to winning, but it does do a number on a beak dog's toe. It also appears to inject a load of venom, but that doesn't seem to notably slow the rainbow terror down.

With no more excuses, they begin swarming into our cage traps.



8th Limestone, 155

One of visitors, a human pikeman, believes that *now* would be a perfect time to leave Okol Anam.




She takes the only exit available: the one leading straight into a mob of beak dogs and goblins.

She is also using a silver pike, one of the worst weapons imaginable. Apparently humans are too stupid to understand that if you want a sharp weapon, you need a metal that can really carry an edge. Silver makes great blunt weapons, but very poor edged or piercing weapons.






She manages to severely damage a beak dog before she tires and the swarm tears her apart. It's a goblin's iron scourge that ultimately decapitates her.



10 Limestone, 155

About half the goblins ranks have been caged, cause the goblins to begin a retreat. The Grey Torches and Diamond Door-Umbras are ordered outside to pick off those it can, now that they are no longer outnumbered 3 to 1.

As I was busy admiring all the figurines that look curiously like myself (Ed. note: I accidentally forgot to take a screenshot of the ensuing carnage), what follows is the various reports I received post incident.




By all reports, the steel picks I had forged did their job, allowing the Diamond Door-Umbras to tear into the retreating foes, cutting through their armour or hide like it was paper. SpoonyBardOL gets the first kill on a beak dog, lopping its head off.

SpoonyBardOL claims that two more goblins followed, although such reports are unconfirmed.




Daikaiju cuts two goblins in half with her own pick, although her shield-bearing hand is damaged in the scuffle.




Daikaiju works through the pain and helps take out a human maceman and goblin hammerman.




Unfortunately, just because the goblins are retreating does not make them any less dangerous. MetManMas takes some serious injuries, with her spine getting seriously injured thanks to a silvered bolt. The goblins take advantage, nearly taking a leg off, and seriously injuring her hand.




MetManMas is apparently part monster however, yanking the spine-paralyzing bolt out of her spine and then shooting a goblin bowman, causing a grievous gut wound.




Destil does great work, firing bolts left and right with pinpoint accuracy. She does take an injury to the spleen, but powers through and helps take down a maceman and beak dog.






While estragon gets no official kills, he is a huge help in taking the remaining goblins down, hacking more than one arm off in the process and taking just a small foot injury in the process.






Like estragon, upupdowndown takes a few bumps in the process of dismembering the invaders, but unlike estragon she decides that a pair of bruises justifies an over-dramatic reaction. (note in margin: it has been three months and upupdowndown is still complaining about long-healed bruises.)




In the world of injuries that are, in fact, serious, Taeryn takes an arrow to her right lung, but thanks to some serious skill with an iron shield, manages to successfully fend of a relentless attack by a beak dog before lopping its head off.

In total, we've captured 32 of the invaders, and killed about a dozen more. The rest managed to flee with their brightly coloured tails between their legs.



12th Limestone, 155




AS the battlefield settles, one dwarf does not walk away. MetManMas's spine is damaged to the degree that she can't stand up.

After the alert is lifted, Gerad grabs MetManMas and helps her to the hospital. Hopefully Dawnswalker can fix her up, although her initial diagnosis is that she'll be using crutches for the rest of her life.



13th Limestone, 155




An outpost caravan from Zaneg Tinoth arrives! I immediately order dwarves to start hauling all those goods we've been making to the trading outpost!



15th Limestone, 155




As soon as the caravan reaches front door... they all turn away, and start heading to their next destination. I am both baffled and angry. My screaming at them does nothing.




The caravan's sudden reluctance to do its job doesn't stop the liason, Ingiz Terothineth, from wandering up from the dining hall and telling Awkward Grunt the news. As I hear later, the Terrors of Cleaning have been on a warpath, conquering three cities.




My eye twitches as Ingiz has the gall to deliver me a note saying that Mountainhome wants a variety of crafts (scepters, amulets, rings and bracelets).

I ask her what the point of giving me a list of stuff to have crafted if the caravan ends up being too skittish to actually trade, but she runs off to the hills before giving me a proper answer. I guess she took a hint that lazing around our dining hall would not be welcomed while the caravan refuses to visit.

21st Limestone, 155

MetManMas is up and walking!




Sort of. The diagnosis is that MetManMas is not expected to ever fully recover the use of her legs, so she will need to learn how to shoot while using crutches.

Meanwhile, the fact that the caravan from MountainHome has decided that it doesn't want to visit me, I get concerned about our food supply. Googleshng says Alixsar will probably be able to grow enough plump helmets to feed the fort until the next caravan arrives, but I decide not to take chances.




We've been building up a nice supply of foreign seeds, but they have two flaws. The first is that they can't be grown underground like plump helmets can. The second is that if they are grown above ground, that complicates things should our farmers be outside when something invades.

I order a room dug out next to our farm with the ceiling temporarily exposed. It should be large enough to have a few plots to grow fruits and vegetables, and once the ground has been exposed to the sun we can safely seal up the ceiling and grow strawberries, carrots, and whatnot.

Because as all dwarves know, a patch of dirt only needs momentary exposure to the sun to grow outdoor crops on it forever.

It will temporarily leave our fortress slightly exposed, but I think that's a risk worth taking. I mean, what are the chances of some creature coming along and exploiting our temporary vulnerability?



8th Sandstone, 155




Whoops.

Gica Limacorowa yara Femeli is a skinny seven-headed hydra with gold scales and black eyes. The fearsome hydra has been rampaging for over 25 years, and has over 100 confirmed kills to its name.

Galadrome order the dwarves inside and I order the bridges raised. If we fight directly, we stand to lose many.

Hopefully the hydra will head through our cage traps.


9th Sandstone, 155

Gica Limacorowa yara Femeli avoids the cage trap hall entirely, murdering an opossum before heading into my in-progress outdoor farm and begins battering at door.




Galadrome orders the Grey Torches and Diamond Door-Umbras to station outside the buckling granite door, ready to pounce as soon as Gica Limacorowa yara Femeli breaks through.



11th Sandstone, 155

The hydra breaks through, and all hell breaks loose! It's over quickly, but not without casualties on our side. It may be a lone beast, but the hydra is both strong and has seven heads to tear dwarves apart with.






First, SpoonyBardOL falls, overwhelmed by the ferocity of the beast. One of the heads ends up picking up the broken dwarf and shaking SpoonyBardOL around like a rag doll.

By this point, our marksdwarves start landing some blows, and Mightyblue--furious after the death of SpoonyBardOL--wades in and starts trying to bludgeon it with an iron crossbow. The effort is enough to knock the hydra onto its back.






But Gica Limacorowa yara Femeli is still quite capable of tearing apart dwarves, and turns its attention to Mightyblue after clawing one of Lucas's legs off.






The dwarf does not last long against the furious onslaught, eventually have her guts forceably extracted.

Lucas (wielding his sand pear wood shield like a boss, despite having only one leg and suffering from severe blood loss due to having lost the leg so recently) now draws the hydra's focus, tanking way more hits than he should, while estragon and mopkins swing sweet with their steel picks.

A pick hit strikes one of the hydra's lungs, and unlike the loss of one of its heads, the loss of the lung is quite crippling on it. The dwarves are finally making some headway on this creature, whittling down its deadly weapons one at a time.






Lucas continues to fend off its remaining heads while the rest of the military finally put the creatures out for good.

Lucas almost immediately passes out as the victory cheers begin. Mogri is soon along to help bring him to the hospital.

The kill is credited to estragon.


12 Sandstone, 155




Gerad breaks down at the sight of his wife's corpse. He recovers enough to gather her belongings.




Excitemike experiences emotional shock as well, and tries to deal with it by cleaning her husband's blood off the dirt floor.




Our first two warrior tombs are now filled by are created to honor our mighty fallen warriors. May they rest knowing they saved our fortress. I will have to remember to get their tombs smoothed and engraved.



21st Sandstone, 155




In happier news, butchering the hydra provides a substantial amount of meat, basically tripling the amount of meat we have, and doubling our overall food count. This should last us until the next caravans come.






Galadrome picks some replacements to fill out our two military squads.

Parish, a competent marksdwarf, joins the Grey Torches, while Buge joins the Diamond Door-Umbras (and is told to start practicing her mining).

I ask Galadrome if anyone is going to join him as a swordsdwarf with the Amazing Boards but he mutters something about only having one steel sword and runs off.

We lost more than just military folk tho, we lost a mason and cook! Loki is told to replace Mightyblue as a Mason. Spoonybard's role as a cook will not yet be replaced. Patrick and Zef should be fine to handle all our fort's food preparation.

We also need another furnace operator because the furnaces are finding a small bottleneck in the process (due to Wolfgang being busy with his military duties) so Tomm is called in.



27th Sandstone, 155




In the middle of pouring herself some wine, the dwarven child Brer drops their stone mug (and some of the aforementioned wine) onto the floor and shoves Balrog out of a craftsdwarf workshop. Brer grabs some galena, hematite, some maquise cut pyrites, some alpace wool cloth, and some gold bars and begins furiously working.



8th Timber, 155




Brer finishes their work: a glen crown! And one worth *20* times more than our previous artifact crown!

But I think there is room on my head for two...



21st Timber, 155

Okol Anam apparently becomes a tourist spot! We get nine visitors in 24 hour period.

Then ten visitors.

Then... thirteen?

OK this is getting ridiculous.



27th Timber, 155




A full 20 visitors within a single week! This is not cause for celebration. I worry that these visitors, most of them human, are refugees fleeing from the Terrors of Cleaning.




They all gather in the Muffin of Truth while I try and build more rooms for them.




It's not long before the first, a Bard named Zuglar (who is also a competent hammerdwarf), asks to stay. Sanagi is actually an apprentice bard under her! Zuglar is the author such works as "And We Sang 'Wonder!'," "The Sun Sets on Ear," and "Pot and Northing More."

She has traveled for over two years, visiting dozens of places before deciding to settle in Okol Anam.

She confirms that many of our visitors are from sites conquered by the Terrors of Cleaning. Most of the dwarves are former inhabitants of the Last of Pulleys of the Relic of Equaling's fort called Glazetakers. The humans meanwhile mostly hail from the human settlement of Wavygrooves, founded by the Band of Competittions of the Confederacy of Circles. I imagine we'll here about them in next year's news from Mountainhome.

The dwarves are one matter, but the human refugees? That is a question we must wrestle with.




Meanwhile, I get a certain vulnerable entrance to our fort patched up.

But suddenly another unexpected visitor!




Have the Terrors of Cleaning now figured out how to weaponize the undead!?

A question to ponder (and figure out how to deal with!) as winter approaches...

Oh no, what will become of Lucas!?

Oh well, even if that is the end of my military career, at least I went out tanking a legendary monster to keep everyone else safe.

Ha you think a little thing like losing a leg will halt your military service? Heck, MetManMas is now a paraplegic and that won't stop her...

- Eddie

Just caught up on this thread and I would like to be endworfed good sir! Ideally I'd be working with glass*, but since that's not an option I'd like to do all of the silliest jobs you have available. Which is zero because wow them's a lot of Dwarves.
I guess my third choice is to volunteer for SpearDwarf duty? Surely I will have a long career in the military and won't be immediately killed by a goblins pet.

How goes the implementation of that highly detailed defense blueprint you posted earlier?

*Are green glass giant sawblade traps still rather excellent? Been a while since I played last.

Implementation is slow (I'm still building the roof so our military dwarves won't suffer cave adaptation) but progressing.

I'm actually not sure if our fortress will get any new migrants; I set a soft cap of 100 dwarves, but you can go over that with visitors. Unless we lose A LOT of dwarves in a short period of time our ranks wil instead slowly grow through visitors instead. So I will likely start naming these dwarves, humans and elves who visit after those looking to join.

- Eddie

You should totally forge a heavy silver or platinum crutch for MetManMas. Crutch-walker skilling can cause her to return to normal speed at Legendary, and they're actually reasonably effective blunt weapons. The legendary dwarven scientist ITG did an experiment proving the viability of dwarven "special" forces (aka cripples), and posted a thread detailing his findings. Since crutches use the "Misc Object User" skill for combat, it'll have to be specifically trained in militia training regiments, but on the plus side, it'll also improve the effectiveness of shield bashing. (Assuming you bother to equip them with shields at all, or care to use metal shields.)

Bit of a delay in the next update as I lost a couple of seasons to a crash. No biggie, except the world will never see an unarmed Galadrome rush by a berserk werehorse completely unscathed through a door perfectly locking it behind himself.

- Eddie

I am not upset by this.

A quick update on this:

The blood rain has another effect that I've just figured out: it's what's causing caravans to "disappear." Or more accurately, if *any* member of a caravan gets scared (such as due to the sky doing its best impression of that scene from Carrie) the *entire caravan* will do a 180 and leave.

This is... mostly bad, as it means I can't trade for valuable food and materials. There is a small upside; any wagon whose owner gets terrified will dump all their goods on the ground. Of course, that mostly means that I end up with a bunch of discarded stuff I have no use for and a growing pile of stone crafts I can't spend.

I could try and counter this (perhaps by setting up a series of underground tunnels that would allow caravans to minimize the amount of time above ground) but I find this quite hilarious.

Food, uh, might be an issue tho.

- Eddie

Food shouldn't be an issue--assuming the caravans don't disappear, you should be making enough valuable food via chef-dwarfing to buy the entire caravan and not care about sustenance. Unless you like to feed your dwarves rich imported cheeses or something stupid.

This sounds like a thing that the Toad needs to be informed of, though. >.<

Yeah BUYING the food isn't the problem, it's that the food isn't always making it to our doorstep/trading post. Rather than go in on yet-another-Megaproject to try and fix this however I'm just going to let it happen and deal with the fun afterwards.

- Eddie

At least it's just blood rain and not knockout gas!

RIP Cursenegated

Yeah it could be clouds that turn creatures into brutal zombies. Always gotta look on the bright side of Dwarven Fortressing.

Update is a coming. Nothing super exciting, but rather get an update out than not!

- Eddie

The fact that there are different completely impossible, regularly expected, and potentially game-ending weather phenomenons baffles me. Like the rest of this mostly makes sense, but why magic weather?

I can't speak as to the origins of magic weather, but it's easily avoidable during the embark (you just need to avoid evil surroundings). It's more of something to add challenge (and a little LP spice) than anything.

- Eddie

1st Moonstone, 155




The cooler winter air makes it an ideal time to move the pile of corpses gathering near our front entrance. Some dwarves have suggested that caravans might not want to deliver their goods past a row of dead goblins.

That seems somewhat sound, so I order the corpse pile to be moved to the rear entrance to our fort. It would have to be moved eventually anyway to make room for our future kickass plans.



28th Moonstone, 155

We continue to get a steady stream of visitors, a number of whom have asked to join our fortress. Notable new residents include:




Jikkuryuu is a speardwarf who is often moaning bout someone named Eral. Eral is apparently neither his wife nor one of his two kids, which raises questions I don't care to ask about.




MoneyCityManiac is a handsome fellow and a bard who thinks he can make a real mark as a local musician, although his poetry is much better when *not* accompanied by music.




Rosewood is a bard, and master of one of our citizens, Sanagi. And forget bout what I said about MoneyCityManiac's music, Rosewood's is somehow *worse*.

Perhaps their art is a meta-commentary on our fortress/weather.

Other new members of the fortress are:

• Thrura Carnagestatic, a Human Hammerman;
• Zefon Roseplank, a Hammerdwarf;
• Isun Focusskinned, a lord consort to the human organization called the Council of Poets;
• Dag Incensebean, a Human Crossbowman;
• Dobar Drillshot, a Marksdwarf;
• Lubbe Factionhowl, a Human Bowman;
• Mothror Touchchurch, a Human Lasher;
• Kumil Laboredcradle, a Dwarf Poet;
• Domas Nokimnekol, a Dwarf Bard; and
• Bembul Ikudonul, another Dwarf Bard.

(If anyone wants more information on these new residents or wants to adopt one, let me know. - Ed)

27th Opal, 155

An unexpected visitor!






A humanoid with a small beak and what appears to be feather arrives to sing beautiful poetry.

It is much less ugly than the humans so that's nice.



10th Obsidian, 155




Keas! Flying thieves! These dastardly fellows have a nasty habit of stealing shiny things!




There are a half dozen of them, and since they can fly I figure there's not much point in asking anyone who doesn't have a crossbow to get rid of the, The Grey Torches are signaled and start chasing after them.




They kill all but one, which escapes with a copper ball.

Thieving sons of elves!



1st Granite, 156

A completely uneventful Winter! But we've got a bunch of new residents, and a new list of dwarves who have achieved a legendary skill in something:

Eddie (Miner)
Brickroad (Miner)
TheSL (Miner)
Lucas (Miner)
Octopus Prime (Engraver)
Sven (Gem Cutter)
BEAT (Bone Carver)
Awkward Grunt (Clothier)
Kylie (Stone Crafter)
Gerad (Stone Crafter)
Son of Sinistar (Stone Crafter)
Alixsar (Grower)

I look forward to the legendary list continuing to grow.

10th Granite, 156




Work continues on putting a ceiling on our entrance, but it's taking a lot of basalt blocks. In order to speed things along, I assign Sprite, Mogri, Kishi and Octopus Prime to be temporary masons so we can pump out the blocks in a speedier fashion.

Dawnswalker has also been complaining that there's never been proper access to water at the hospital. I unfortunately must agree, but pumping it from the underground lake will take forever. So I set about creating a tunnel that we'll eventually pump water into. Slowly.



15th Granite, 156




A new Human Soldier joins our ranks. This one too, like many of our former guests, were horrified to see goblins die. I don't understand why!



3rd Slate, 156




Another human joins, this one a crossbowwoman named Gisep Yellscatches. And apparently another hippy goblin lover! I'm really going to want to keep an eye on these humans. Galadrome says a squad of humans will be useful if we are forced to fight outside, but hopefully with my brilliant plan slowly being constructed we will avoid much above-ground combat.




Our screw pump finishes, so I give the order to start pumping. It will take a while to actually fill our reservoir, but it'll happen eventually.

The initial pumps go poorly, getting more water on sraymonds and outside than underground. Whoops. I order the design tightened slightly, to to at least try and direct any excess water back into the pond.



1st Felsite, 156




Speaking of that pond, while helping the pumping process along by filling it with water, Galadrome notices that there's a guest dwarf passively swimming in it. The dwarf, Uzol, doesn't move, and doesn't appear to be drowning.

He just better not be pissing in our future water hole is all I'm saying.




At this point we've also done a pretty good job of equipping the Diamond Door-Umbras with iron equipment. We'll definitely want to replace it with steel when we have a chance, but aturtledoesbite's work is certainly a step up from the random pieces of armour they were wearing before.

As we slowly build up a steel stockpile, I have aturtledoesbite practice making iron caps. It's good training and we can sell them to caravans for a healthy profit.



10th Felsite, 156




While digging for marble, blinkpen discovered an underground passage! It is nothing too exciting however; I order the entrances into this cavern sealed off.



17th Felsite, 156

Our dwarves takes way too long to seal up that cavern, causing a fearsome looking creature emerges!




It uh, is obviously... trying to trick us by playing scared?




Diakaiju butchers it quickly. Clearly uh, not wanting to give away the brutal strength of the mole people. The legends say how one time, a mole got a hold of a magic harp and it was the worst.



20th Felsite, 156




Clearly a warmup invader for this gremlin! Except this one retreats rather quickly as well. Gremlins are known for causing mischief. Notably, they'll gleefully flip any and every switch they see, causing bridges to fall of dwarves and floodgates to open.

We eventually get a wall built, sealing the cavern off from future moles and gremlins. And presumably, ogres and dragons too.



24th Felsite, 156




Mayor Awkward Grunt decides what we REALLY need is animal traps. To trap all the mice our fortress cats are gleefully taking care of.

Clearly the rumours of nobles being a giant pain in the ass is true.


26th Felsite, 156

Bergasa, dwarven child, is taken by a fey mood! As typical, he claims a craftsdwarves workshop. Calorie Mate needs to slaughter a stray turkey hen to appease his need for bones.



1st Hematite, 156

Summer arrives! Another rather uneventful season. It does bring it more than warmer weather however.






Some goblins have come to trade with us.

1st Hematite, 156



We start the summer with a small invasion: a mere 17 members of the Terrors of Cleaning. We've got more poetry fans than that, so rather than huddle inside an wait for our hall of cage traps to capture enough to make them rout, I speak with Galadrome about an alternate strategy...



8th Hematite, 156




The Diamond Door-Umbras and The Grey Torches gather on top of the steps leading deep into the fort. They are given the order to hold steady. They may outnumber the goblins but that doesn't mean a head-to-head fight would be casualty-free.




The invaders reach the entrance, and pause before a handful charges over the bridge to our entrance. I order the switch to that bridge flipped.




One goblin is instantly crushed as bridge is raised on his face, obliterating any trace of him. Another scrapes through with a broken hand, but clearly stunned. A third glances back in horror, and forward in fear.








With the help of the Grey Torches, Taeryn cleaves one of the goblins in half with his steel pick.








Joining Taeryn in the "tearing goblins in half" competition is upupdowndown.



9th Hematite, 156




The bridge lowered once again, although by this point a few of the invaders have stumbled into cage traps while trying to find a way in. After a third is trapped, they break off the siege and begin a retreat.

While some of our military decides *now* would be a good time to go refill their waterskins with rum, some of our soldiers give chase after the invaders. Just outside the fort, Daikaiju does her best to make it three bisected goblins. She does manage to take a few important organs out, but the goblins dies before he can be properly be split in half.



10th Hematite, 156




Taeryn, still sporting a chest wound from the last invasion, decides not to wait for his companions to catch up. She decides to foolishly go one on one with a goblin pikeman.

Buge and daikaiju run out to assist, but by this point it's already too late.






Taeryn has massacred the goblin, losing only a tooth in the process.

The burrows alert is dropped, and Taeryn goes searching for a dentist. The end result is five goblins killed (one via the drawbridge) and three captured.



14th Hematite, 156




With goblin corpses still being hauled to the corpse pile, a Human caravan arrives. The weather remains clear.

Also, Awkward Grunt is reelected.

We grab some animals from the humans to butcher, save for a dog that we`ll keep as a backup sentry. We also take all their cloth, leather and food.



28th Hematite, 156

More than a month after claiming a craftdwarves shop, the child Bergasa finally gets the bones he wanted and starts working. I blame the goblins for delaying some necessary animal slaughter.



2nd Malachite, 156



SlimJimm turns 12, and becomes old enough to start pushing around as manual labour. She says she likes working with plants so I tell her to speak with Alixsar and see if she can work in our fields. That leaves only about 20 useless children running around playing with toys.



4th Malachite, 156






Yet another crown is made! This one isn't worth much, but one can't expect too much from the fevered working of a child. And my head, er, a dwarves head can wear more than one.



21st Malachite, 156

A cheer erupts as aturtledoesbite becomes a legendary armorsmith! I immediately get him to start putting that steel we've been slowly making to good use by making some steel breastplates. Hopefully by this time next year we`ll have a group of pickdwarves (mostly) equipped with steel armor.



1st Limestone, 156




As the fall begins, one of the projects I've been working on through the month of Galena comes into operation. My attempts to create a water source for our hospital was going poorly. Trying to fill the entire corridor at once wasn't working, as there wasn't enough water in the pond above, and pumping it in slowly into a huge corridor just allowed it to evaporate faster.

By putting in some flood gates (connected to nearby switches) I can ensure the water doesn't spread out too quickly before it can evaporate. We are now roughly 1/3rd of the way to getting a working well for the hospital.




The roof for our courtyard of pain project is getting close to completion as well. It should be finished before the end of the year.




And our first pieces of master crafted steel armor begin rolling out. Slowly but surely, the Diamond Door-Umbras are going to become powerhouses.