#8: Bold leadership

“Dwarves, heed my call!”

“We have been here for many months (also, two days), here in this strange land. We left our comfortable supplies of ale, rum, beer, and wine, our chairs and our beds, and the vast stone halls of our dwarven homelands. We came to these lands, these Mirthful Plains, to make a new life for ourselves.”

“We had the most meager of skills, be it in mining, hunting, farming, or managing dwarves. And it has not been easy. We have slept in the rain, upon jagged rocks. We have eaten berries covered in prickles. We have been forced to make children’s toys. We have been subjected to name-calling that is damaging to our self-image.”

“But, and dwarves hear me now!, we have prevailed. And with the Autumn and terrible Winter before us, I tell you that together we will overcome these obstacles before us, now and forever! Commit yourselves at this moment to accomplishing the many, proud, dwarfy tasks before you, and we will once again have a home. And generations from now, our children’s children’s children will leave the comfortable and vast fortress that we are now building and set off to conquer new lands, as we have, and they will not fear, for they will carry in their hearts the stories of what you will accomplish today!”

“Let’s get to work!“

…

Sadly, a great dwarfy silence rose up as the seven overworked dwarves wandered back to their tasks.

I have Bembul, the angry woodcutter, take a break from deforestation to help move furniture, and the mining dwarves clear out enough space to finally lay down the trade depot.

No success would be complete without a horrible failure. As you can see, a purple miasma has engulfed the dining room, as a mountain goat corpse left in there has begun to rot. I assigned it to be dumped (I had no idea I had to do that!), and assigned all dwarves the responsibility for moving refuse and cleaning.

Thankfully someone hauls the corpse away, and the miasma dissipates.

Not before several dwarves are “disgusted” by it, though.

But the successes continue, as Snipey even comes and grabs the bone helmet that Santa made out of the groundhog bones that came from Snipey killing groundhogs. The cycle of life!

We wouldn’t want those groundhogs and mountain goats to hurt her head! She’s up to 26 kills now, by the way. Awesome.

Some dwarves still go all the way out to the wagon site to get booze, but are slowly hauling it all back.

There’s now several spots in the 5×5 wagon site that no longer have anything on them. Why the wagon couldn’t be moved to our fortress site is beyond me. Don’t ask. They’re dwarves.

Not only do dwarves like to drink, eat, and sleep, they also apparently want to take breaks!

I’m not sure I like the idea. Sounds like time that they’ll get themselves into trouble. C’mon, guys, winter’s coming!!

No sooner do the breaks end then it’s time to drink again, and then it’s time to eat, and then it’s time to break again! I got spoiled by their initial surge of productivity, and I feel like my great inspirational speech accomplished nothing!

After a bit, the miners do finally get the inital interior dug out.

The bottom right room is a workshop room, it has a Kitchen and Brewery awaiting construction, and a completed Masonry Workshop. The bottom left room is the new stockpile (the old one has been un-designated).

Once again, success is met with failure: my hopes for interior soil near the farm collapse.

Obvious now, the black sand wall was dug out to reveal black sand cavern floor. Which, oddly, seems possible to farm on. But right behind that square is rock salt cavern floor, as the white hash-mark walls are rock salt, and to the south, the yellow walls are sylvite. I think I may have to dig underneath my current farm plots to plant my inside-only plants. But first, I let the miners smooth out some boulders that are nuisances in the area.

The interior’s getting nicer.

The Brewery Still is done, and is assigned to brew drinks on infinite repeat. The north wall of the dining hall has had its wall smoothed and some floor tiles smoothed. Maybe that’ll make them happier when they’re in there. Lots more doors, beds, chairs, tables, and even some cabinents are placed. There’s even a miner dwarf sleeping in one of the top-most beds!

Along the lines of moving inside more:

I designate the Craftdwarf’s Workshop to be moved inside next to the Mason’s Workshop (would be nice to make some stone crafts to use up this stone, and for trade with traders), and designated digging for two more rooms for storage and workshops. I’d like to bring the Carpenter’s Workshop inside, and then also add a Tanner’s Workshop (perhaps do something with all these hunter kills?), and look into a Jeweler’s Workshop (for the gems like hematite), a Butcher’s Shop, and others.

At this point, we’ve actually accomplished the goals laid out at the end of the last session.

No need to resort to beatings after all.

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