Dwarf Fortress Succession Fort—Angnomal, "Redstaff"

[Anaris]

27th Hematite, 1051

I have to admit, it's starting to get a little discouraging.

The storage level is complete, and Zaneg and I began digging an exploratory tunnel towards the area around the volcano a level down, in hopes of striking an obsidian intrusion.  Not far in, though, Zaneg declared that he was just too worn out from all the mining, and needed to take a break.  I yelled at him at first, but before too much longer, I found that I needed a break just as badly.  In fact, I've been on break ever since.  It didn't help that, while we'd found some lovely gems, we hadn't struck obsidian or anything else particularly useful. Just lots and lots of basalt.

And then the migrants came.  Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to have them—every pair of hands is needed right now.  But to get a gem setter, a weaver, and a miller...and then two children...  I don't know what they were thinking, sending children out here! 

I can console myself that I was able to assign Dumed Storlutmedtob, the weaver, to take up the job of engraver.  He was able to carefully breach the wall of the volcano by carving fortifications into it, and thus gain us our first filled magma channel.  Once he was done with that, I had him start smoothing the walls of our initial dining room.  Medtob Adilsherik, the miller, claimed some knowledge of a smelter, so I assigned him to build one over the magma channel. We may not have much interesting ore yet, but what little tetrahedrite we have may as well get smelted; it's not doing us any good as it is.

I also assigned the gem setter to start making mechanisms so we can get working on at least a rudimentary set of defenses for the fort.  You can never start preparing too soon for the goblin hordes.

[Alpha]

I've really enjoyed reading your reports.

[Foundation]

So IC... Tim...  is it because of BM?

[Anaris]

So IC... Tim...  is it because of BM?

No, not really.  It's all just a result of being part of a highly literary family, I think, and having a fertile imagination.  I like to think I have a high degree of empathy, too, or at least the type of imagination that allows me to attempt to think, and feel, as someone else would.

(Not trying to brag here, if it sounds like it...just trying to describe how I write stuff.)

[Anaris]

13th Malachite, 1051

Praise Nikuz¹! We have found hematite!
The very day after I wrote my last journal, Zaneg picked up her pick and got back to work.  After just a few hours' digging, she struck a vein of hematite—and just on the other side of it, obsidian, and lots of it.



You're not going to believe this, but just as she was starting to mine out the obsidian, Ducim, who was out fishing, swears she saw, off in the distance, panda men.  Yes, that's right, she said they were panda men.  And I suppose you have to call the females panda women.  She didn't get a good look at them, though, and it's a bit hard to believe that such creatures really exist.



Well, the news about the hematite and obsidian fired my spirit once more, and I went to help mine it.  On the way down, I drew up the designs for the magma smelter so that Medtob the miller could finish constructing it, and start smelting our first iron. (I'm not sure I did all that good a job, but the smelter seems to work, so it couldn't have been too bad.)

As the smelter was being constructed, Vabok, the mason and fisherdwarf, came back from his own fishing expedition with some shad, and the news that he had seen the panda men, too—and he swears they saw him!  I reproduce here the story more or less as he told it:

"I was sittin' there, see, and I heard this rustlin' and crashing in the brush to the north, upstream.  So I looks over there, and through the trees, I see this face—not quite like anything I've ever seen before, I tell you that.  The face looked white, with black 'round the eyes, like he'd been fightin', only it weren't no bruise: it was his fur!  And, well, he had these little round ears stickin' up out the top of his head, so I knew it weren't no human, though he was tall as one.  He'd been pickin' some bamboo with these odd hands that looked kinda like paws, only they weren't.  Soon as he saw me, though, he let out this odd soft call, and I could swear there were words in it, only I couldn't understand 'em.  He and the rest of 'em—who I hadn't seen till just that moment in the shadows of the trees—turned tail and ran west.  They walked—and ran—on two legs, legs kinda like them tall humans have, only a bit thicker, and furry, and they had little stubby tails.  They ran fast, too.  In just a minute, they was all out of sight in the trees on the other side of the brook."



As yet, I am unsure as to whether to consider these panda men a threat.  If they truly communicated with each other using words....I wonder if one could be captured, and taught our language?  Could they become allies? Servants?  It is a project worth consideration for the future.

In the midst of all this excitement, the entrance was fitted with cage traps, and some extra cages ordered to be held in reserve.  A crude defense, but better than nothing.



1. Nikuz, a deity of The Matched Spears. Most often takes the form of a male dwarf, and is associated with valor, war, and fortresses.

[Anaris]

1st Galena, 1051
The remainder of the month of Malachite was relatively uneventful.  There have been no more pandaman sightings.  Medtob, the miller, was able to smelt two iron bars from the hematite we mined.  We finished mining out the rest of the initially-designated storage area (though I strongly suspect we will need to dig out more to the west as our storage needs increase).  You can see the results of our work in this sketch.  I have also included the crafts that Bembul "Alpha", our bookkeeper, made, in their stockpile there on the right.



We have begun digging out the rest of the main workshop level directly below.  You can also see here the iron bars that have been smelted thus far.



Nothing much else to report just now.  I will update this journal no later than the beginning of Limestone.

[Anaris]

1 Limestone, 1051
Autumn has come.

The end of summer was a hot, lazy time.  Not that we didn't get a lot done, but I suppose the initial stages where every little thing is an accomplishment, simply because it's the first, are past now.  We've got all our major stockpiles laid out now.  The workshop level is about half dug, and most of the magma channels are prepared, though still only the first one is filled.  I have ordered the collection of sand for a magma furnace that is now ready and waiting at the western end of the channel.

Telrunya is back out hunting again, now that he's got some more bolts (it's apparently fiendishly difficult for Kivish, the carpenter and bone carver, to get his work done while trying to manhandle the huge stack of giant moose cow bones in his workshop...I suggested that he only bring one bone to the workshop at a time, and I swear, the guy looked at me like I'd grown pointy ears).

The dining room now has a dozen tables and chairs in it, and the dormitory will shortly have a dozen beds (once Kivish is done with the bones and can finish making them...).

We did have a little trouble with one of the yak bulls getting upset that the llama was crowding it.  Both the yak bulls have now been moved to their own separate pastures, and we've had no more trouble from them.

I'm looking forward to the arrival of the caravan from the Mountainhome, and our liaison, later in the fall.  I hope we will be able to produce enough goods here by the time they arrive to trade for all that we need.

[Foundation]

So we're gonna get another wave of migrants, right?

[Anaris]

So we're gonna get another wave of migrants, right?

Yep.  Should be another smallish wave in the fall, then a large wave next spring for Indirik to put to work.

I hope to be able to get the next month or three done in the next couple of days.

[Iltaran]

Hmm, could I get one of the children named after me? It was done quite brilliantly in Syrupleaf (http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-Syrupleaf/)

[Anaris]

1 Sandstone, 1051
You know, sometimes Miners' Guild regulations can be a bit aggravating.  Now, don't get me wrong, I know why they're there, and I would never try to get around them.  They've kept more dwarves safe, whether it be from an ignominious death by drowning when a careless miner lets the sea in, or a horrible fiery doom when the entire fortress is flooded with burning magma.  But sometimes, just sometimes, they seem really bloody stupid.

Like when there's only a dozen of us out here in the middle of nowhere, and Indirik and I keep having to stop work to check with each other as to whether we should really mine out this section of damp stone?  When we know, perfectly well, that it's damp because there's a bloody pond up above, and we are fully capable of shoring up the ceiling to make sure not a single drop will leak down through the ceiling...

Of course, it's a good thing there are two of us miners.  When there's only one miner present, the regulations get much more convoluted.  I think there are about four whole pages dedicated solely to determining who a poor hapless miner should check with to confirm that he really should dig here, where it's warm because of the magma channels below, but shouldn't dig there, because that bit of damp stone is really an aquifer, and he'll flood the whole fortress if he breaches it...

We mostly finished digging out the workshop level, despite the delays caused by our adherence to protocol.  (I haven't included sketches because it's not particularly different from the storage level.)  I've ordered our first magma forge to be built, but no one has had time to start work on it yet. 

I have also given orders for more of the edible plants near the entrance to be gathered up for brewing, eating, and whatever else we can figure out to do with them.  Telrunya was hunting a moose, but she ran out of ammunition, and it got away.  Pity.

Our smelting operation has been producing good results.  Thanks to Medtob's good work, we have a dozen bars of iron, as well as seven of copper, and even a couple silver.  We'll need to set up a wood-burning furnace to make charcoal, as I don't think there's much coal around (at least, we haven't seen any, and there doesn't appear to be the sedimentary layer we'd expect to find it in).  Once we've got that, though, we should be set to start making steel.  More than enough trees to feed our furnaces.

[Anaris]

4 Timber, 1051
Telrunya saw more pandamen early this month.  In fact, she accidentally shot one in the paw!  Its cry of pain (she said it was a "her," so I guess it was "Her cry of pain") startled Telrunya so badly she ran off back toward the fort, where she failed to bring down another moose.  She was shaken badly enough by it that when she ran out of bolts to miss the moose with, she came back to the fort and started cooking.  She told me later that she wouldn't have been in such a bad state, but its cry didn't sound like that of an animal at all...she felt almost like she'd shot another dwarf.

The shad roast she made was so tasty, I didn't mind one bit.

This past month I have been giving some thought to the future.  My term as overseer ends in just a short time, and I want to make sure that we are all as well-provided-for and -protected as I can manage.  The provided-for part, I guess I'll just have to hope for, but the protected part, I think I can actually do something about now. 

I've been contemplating the small spur of rock that just out of the plain just to the east of our current fortress entrance.  I think it could be made into an excellent front entrance to our fortress, with a grand ramp leading up into it, and carefully crafted defenses separating it from the rest of the mountain.  Here is a sketch of my current thoughts on the subject.

Entrance level:

Ground level:


Some more planning will have to be done on this, but I think it will be important to get this in motion quickly.

Just as the ponds near the entrance began to freeze, more migrants came.  This bunch looks a lot more promising than the last.  One is a miner, a couple have experience making armour, and one even has some skill at architecture.  Oh, and there were seven of them this time!  A much healthier number.  I've put some of those with less immediately useful skills to work at masonry, and started them on the first steps of building the grand entrance I have in mind.

I also instructed one of them to start training up as a weaponsmith, as I'm sure we're going to need several of those before long.  He's already produced a couple of nasty-looking iron discs for use in traps—and possibly for trading, as I'd put their value well up into the thousands.

[Anaris]

1 Moonstone, 1051

Winter is upon us.

The caravan came this month, and I was able to buy some useful stuff from them.  A whole bunch of leather and cloth, which should mean we can make plenty of bags and some leather armour.  Also picked up some raw crystal glass; we don't have the wherewithal to make it here, and I doubt we ever will, since the equipment required is pretty specialized.  I got quite a bit of food from them, too, so we'll be in better shape for the winter (not that I'm worried; between our farming and hunting, we shouldn't have any trouble feeding this fortress for the foreseeable future).

We have the ramp up to the new entrance nearly finished, and the main pathway through the spur is dug.  That level is being hollowed out to provide storage space (so as to avoid having to lug our trade goods long distances), and I'm partway through designing the bridge across to the mountain itself personally.  As soon as the caravan leaves, I will order the construction of a new trade depot up in the spur, as I indicated on my drafts, and have the old one taken apart.

On her latest hunting foray, Telrunya brought down, of all things, a two-humped camel.  I was quite surprised to see her drag the carcass back to the butchery; they are not the type of creature I expected to see in this place...

Well, either way, we've plenty of meat for winter now, and she tells me she plans to go out and see if she can bring in another one or two of the beasts, as there was a whole pack of them (what do you call a group of camels? a humping or some such thing?).

Zasit Urolkivish, the liaison from the Mountainhome, has been following me around, but I really want to get this bridge finished before I meet with him.

[Anaris]

2 Opal, 1051

Another relatively uneventful month. Almost no new orders were given during Moonstone; we just continued work on what I'd already had set up.

I finished designing the bridge, and Vabok (I think) then went and constructed it.  Indirik and I were then eager to get the upper entranceway finished, so we dug a small barracks-room, then a simple path to a staircase down into the main fortress.  It will need to be enhanced later with some hairpins, traps, and the like, but for now, it should do.  With the cinnabar drawbridge raised, no one will be able to get in anyway.

The only new orders I did give this month were a couple of workshops to be constructed in the newly-dug-out workshop level: a carpenters' shop and a mechanics' shop, to replace the ones by the old entrance.  With the new entrance completed, we should be able to start walling in the pasturage and the rest of the area around the old entrance.

Oh, and a new indoor woodpile, just above the new carpentry shop.

Telrunya brought down another giant moose this month.  Plenty of good food for the deep winter.

I'll meet with Zasit soon, I promise.

[Anaris]

1 Obsidian, 1051
With winter well underway, I have been planning my legacy.  To be more precise, I have been making sure that the plans I have sketched out previously are being made ready for my successor.  The wall around the old entrance has been ordered constructed, and the preparations have been made for the digging out of much more of the storage level and the sunken above-ground farms that will be there.  Furthermore, I have had walls built around the bridge leading from the new spire-entrance into the main fort, and ordered the brook to be tapped for a permanent source of water for us.  I have included some sketches of all these.


The wall around the entrance


The expanded storage level, with area for farms at the southern end


The area where the frozen brook is being tapped; the floodgates will be linked to levers, to allow for maintenance later


It will continue down into this underground stream heading east out of our area, with the potential to tap it further for other uses later


The walled-in bridge; note that the new trade depot has been completed here


A broad overview of the entrance area.  You can see the planned wall, with trees in the way designated to be cut down, the area planned for sunken above-ground farm plots, and, in the southwest, the staircases leading down to the tap on the brook.

This month, I also finally talked to our liaison to the Mountainhome.  We're relatively self-sufficient here, so I just requested a few things we're short on: more seeds of every type imaginable, some ore that the survey suggests we won't find here, and some more leather.  I always say, you can never have enough leather.  They requested a few things from us; I have included their requests in the packet I will pass on to Indirik when spring rolls around.

Oh, yes, there was one more momentous occasion this month: we made our first steel!  Soon we'll be cranking it out by the cartload, I'm sure.