“Someone, find a life preserver or anything that will float! Get the rope! Which one of you dwarves knows CPR?!”

As I frantically scramble, Alath, the soldier in the water, smiles back.

“Eh boss, what’s the worry?” she cheerfully queries.

What the what!

“I thought you were drowning, Alath!”

“Drowning? No, no, boss. This isn’t much more than a little brook. Barely comes up to my waist.”

“Then… what…?”

“Just getting a drink of water.”

“Water? Water? Why are you drinking water?!“

“Oh, I just felt like it.”

“But you dwarves need booze to live. Why didn’t you just drink the booze back in the fortress?”

“I wanted to try something new.”

“But you love wine! I know this because I asked you all when you arrived, and took very careful notes! And we have lots of wine left. Go, drink it, and have happy thoughts!”

“Ick. No. I like dwarven wine. What you have is prickle berry wine and strawberry wine. And I’ve been drinking that swill for months now. Get me some dwarven wine or it’s water for me.”

“But you’ll get sick and die! Also, this brook is like a multiday journey from the fortress! I can’t have you doing this!”

“Too bad! Just try and stop me.”

!!

Oof.

Dwarves.

…

Referring to my well-worn handy field manual the elders provided, I see that dwarven wine is made with plump helmets.

“Steenky!”

“Uh yup?”

“You’re the head farmer, brewer, and cook. Make some dwarven wine!”

“Oop, well sorry, see, when I’m at the Still, the booze, it talks to me, and I must listen and make whatever booze I get a vision of.”

“But we really need dwarven wine.”

“Well you better hope the booze spirits agree, then. But even if they did, there’s nothing I could do about it right now.”

“What sort of short person treachery is this! Why not?”

“There ain’t no plump helmets to brew with.”

“Nonsense, I saw a huge harvest just last month. You’re the damn head farmer, you should know that better than I.”

“Indeed.”

“So where did the plump helmets go? Did those humans steal them? Did a goblin mistake a grotesque mushroom for one of your worthless children?”

“I cooked them, like you told me to, boss.”

“I never told you to use all of them. You were supposed to use meat and tallow!”

“Nope, I’m pretty sure you told me to make this. Or the food spirits commanded me to. Someone did!“

“Noooooooooo! Plump helmet stew mixing plump helmets with plump helmets! You used up at least 8 plump helmets to make that! And your stew was so retched and miserable that it could even be stacked. Who makes that?!”

“Ayup, there’s yer problem.”

“Oh, get out of my face.”

So now I will have to wait until the end of Autumn (still late Summer), to get plump helmets and make dwarven wine. Lets hope that Alath can survive that long (and I can tolerate the wasted walks way out to the brook), or someone brews some new and exciting booze out of the new cave wheat (dwarven beer) or pig tail (dwarven ale) harvests.

Now I’m an angry mood. Let’s put it to good use.

…

“Vabok!“

“Vabok, let’s talk about that little incident last week.”

“Yes, boss, I’m still recovering.”

“You. Idiot. … You’re recovering from your own idiocy?”

“Nope, the dehydration, the hunger, the sore back.”

“And you don’t think you’re to blame for any of that?”

“Nay, boss. I just do what you tell me and hope that there’ll be food, drink, and beds in the fortress when I need them.”

“Well I think you’re a lot responsible. I asked my masons to build some extra wall extensions on top of the farm wall. To protect against archers being able to fire on the farms from higher up the hill.”

“Uh huh.”

“And you went up and built a piece of wall that blocked off access to the hill.”

“Yup, that was the first piece that needed building.”

“No! No! It was not special! Any other piece first would have done! *sigh* But, continuing with the story, you then went to build the next piece of wall, and you, of course, built the piece of wall that would block access to the stairs. So where did that leave you?”

“Stuck, boss, you got me stuck.”

“How is any of this my fault you stupid, stupid, little dwarf!! You know what I had to do? I had to have you tear down the wall you just built, so that your sorry little dwarf ass could finally get down.”

“I’m down now.”

Grr. “You know what’s the worst part? You didn’t even ask for help. You would have died up there if I wasn’t so damn attentive. Just how many days up there were you without food, drink, or a bed?”

“A lot, boss. You got me stuck a lot.”

“Ok, that’s it. I wasn’t in a nicknaming mood, but now you’ve done it, Dingus.”

…

Apparently, I “prefer to consume rageahol”.

…

“You there, in the armor, what’s your name, soldier?”

“Mistem, m’lord.”

“And when I asked you to do target practice with Alath, you did not.”

“Nay, m’lord.”

“And why not? Alath had no problem with it.”

“I had nothing to shoot with.”

“Wrong! I made Santa make like a hundred new wooden bolts just for your target practice.”

“I guess I couldn’t find them.”

“They were right there, on the floor of the workshop.”

“I dunno.”

“You had a crossbow, you were able to find one of those.”

“Aye, m’lord.”

“But not bolts. So you just stood there in the dining hall. Doing nothing. And more nothing. So I told you to switch to another weapon, and you did so, dropping your crossbow. I did this so that I could then tell you to switch back to crossbows and perhaps regain some common sense.”

“Nay, m’lord. As an off-duty dwarf with an axe, I only have one job.”

“Yes, I saw. Sparring. With Alath. Who had a crossbow.”

“But she can use it like a hammer,” he defended.

“But that’s not what happened. You sliced her with your axe. And she shot you with her crossbow. I saw the wound. Blood was drawn. I’m lucky neither of you got permanently injured, or worse, before commanding you both to drop your weapons.”

He just gives me a gruff stare back.

“So there, I showed you where the bolts are. I’m now telling you to switch to using crossbows.”

“Okay.” He runs around a bit and then sits down in the dining hall.

“I see you found a crossbow. But didn’t grab any bolts. You did grab a quiver, though, but it’s empty.”

All I get is a blank stare back.

“Fine. Axedwarf. If this was your way of saying you didn’t want to be a sniper, that was a horrible way of doing it.”

…

Misery loves company. And upon looking outside, I see the human merchants in an odd predicament.

I walk up to them, silent.

“Howdy, partner. We… ah… seem to be in a bit of a jam.”

“Yeah, looks like you’re stuck. You’ve been there for a month or two.”

“Golly gee, I reckon you’re right.”

“I mean, even your horse is, like, lodged into that wall?”

“Son of a gun, it looks like he is!”

“Let me guess, this is all my fault. My dwarves built something or dug something, that somehow… shunted you and your wagon up two levels and into a wall?”

“It was a one-in-a-million shot. One-in-a-million.“

“Whatever. I’ll let the dwarves know to try and dig behind you there, but otherwise you’re on your own.”

“Much appreciated, partner.”

“Sure. Right. And if you die up there, we’re totally claiming all your loot and selling it to the next stupid caravan.”

“Well that’s down-right unfriendly, and no way to be treatin’ a guest.”

“Well I’m in no mood for your stupid human accent.”

I swear, if but one entity in these entire lands achieved even Proficient rank in Common Sense, they’d be able to conquer it all.

“Oh, what is it, boss?”

“I designated you as the bookkeeper, the broker, and the manager. At the time, it was a whimsical selection. I used my whims. But now, you’re kind of a big deal.”

“Indeed, boss. We have nearly 40 dwarves here, and they need someone to give them guidance. And we can’t tell the difference between your whims and your punishable-by-nickname demands, so there it is.”

“Ok then hot shot, answer me this. You’re the bookkeeper. How many bars of metal do we have?”

“Tenish.”

“Tenish? Excuse me?”

“About ten. Around there.”

“What’s ‘around there‘? Do I have ten or not? I’m trying to plan a metal industry here, whether our military gets metal shields or wooden ones.”

“Well, you could have 5 or you could have 14, it’s not really clear.”

“Not really clear? Now I know you dwarves don’t have any quantum mechanical stuff going on there (for fear of losing my sanity), so why isn’t it just one number? The difference between having 5 bars of metal and having 14 bars of metal is a lot!”

“Oh, boss, I thought you’d never ask.”

She gets as cold stare from me.

“See, up until now, you’ve had me doing all this accounting and bookkeeping in addition to my other tasks. And I was happy enough, while passing to and fro addressing your other whims, to look in bins and barrels briefly and estimate what I saw. And occasionally I’d jot this down when I got a chance.”

“Yeah, enough story-time, get to my numbers.”

“Well if you want an answer that’s better than just one digit of precision, I’m going to need an office.”

“What?! Why you conniving little dwarfy… Look around! We are way too busy for me to stop and somehow make you an office! Even I don’t have an office.”

“But all those numbers. It requires so much calculating“, she pleads, “and you know we dwarves are not good at that.”

I try to stare her down to a compromise, but she’s not having it.

“Then tenish metal bars it is.”

Grrr. “Fine. You can use this chair, in the dining hall, to do your numbers.”

“And I get to call it an office.”

“Yes. Whatever. Just get me some estimates of our stocks that aren’t crap.”

“And don’t let that musk-ox break your concentration.”

I had created a squad of three military dwarves, but when sparring it leaves one dwarf always sitting and watching. So Kol, the slow-talking 2nd wave hauler gets promoted to future marksdwarf and greatly speeds up sparring practice.

After giving it some thought, I realized that in assigning new labors, I didn’t take into account wanting dwarves to get good at their tasks. So instead of scattershotting everyone on everything, I tried to remove dwarves from attempting tasks that had several experts better than them. Skills that have no one of the 2nd rank or higher still get scattershot treatment, and whomever ends up gaining the most skill there will get to continue doing so and have some of their other responsibilities lessened.

I also decided that any dwarf with skills gets exempted from all hauling tasks. At the moment that would appear to mean a skill of the 5th rank or higher, or if you’re on the critical path to clearing out a level (the stonewasters).

Here are the 59 changes.

And at the moment, the list of jobs and tasks to be done in the fortress is down to 125.

With four miners all focused on nothing but mining, progress is made. Some of the housing floor gets dug out, and it has some pretty blue (but otherwise ordinary) stone. As soon as I see a room get fully dug (which takes a while with the dwarves following wherever the stone is talking to them), I designate a bed and a door to be installed.

As soon as this happens, Steenky wastes no time.

Instead of using one of the twenty beds in the communal room, he uses this undesignated room and its bed. Note, his lover Santa is asleep in the communal bedroom. Lovers quarrel perhaps?

This was right after Steenky finished making a meal (I reauthorized some very light cooking, hoping that with so many more haulers and organization, a meal wouldn’t be left out to rot). He chose to combine minced mountain goat meat with minced mountain goat meat. Delicious. Maybe he lived up to his nickname and was kicked out of the communal bedroom?

After a bit, the list of jobs to be done is down to just 75. What an impressive reduction. I can almost keep track of all the various things I’ve asked the dwarves to do.

Once again, it’s time to recognize Feb.

Feb is the first dwarf to achieve 20th rank in a skill, Legendary +5 Miner, while also being Very Strong, Very Tough, and Unbelievably Agile. Her tremendous skill in mining will be an essential part of our success in accomplishing my goals.

Next closest dwarves are Sleepy the 11th rank miner, Snipey the 10th rank marksdwarf, and Ike the 9th rank woodsman.

Out at the farms, we have our biggest crop yet.

Look at all those planted Prickle Berries. Something about getting prickles stuck in your throat while eating fruit really appeals to my dwarves. Well they make food and wine, so I’m content for now.

Spring finally ends (it seems like it lasted forever), and Summer brings a new season of crops to plant and harvest.

Oh the strange things we find in our mountain.

Soon, the whole world will fear my arsenal. Or not.

And then some more strangers want in on my sweet stone craft action.

Great. Humans. The merchant (on the right) looks like an asshole. With his big stupid human hat and his big stupid human belt buckle. “Aww shucks,” he’ll say, “what can I do to put you in this fine used auto today?” And then I’ll punch him in the face. Also, I will sell him stone toys.

The merchants bring two wagon and two camels worth of stuff. Oh boy!

This time, I’m hoping to snag more seeds, some weapons or armor, any cloth or rope, and cages and animals.

Ack!

Every time a caravan comes, it seems a bunch of parasites come along as well. Apparently this goblin wants to steal our children? Well, they’re kind of worthless at the moment, but I suppose I don’t want it to happen. Let’s see if he turns tail and runs like the kobolds do once spotted.

Yup.

And then it gets too close to the incoming humans and gets slaughtered.

The human diplomat wants to meet with Santa, but she decides she needs her beauty sleep first.

There, in her brand new private bedroom, she’s sleeping. And the human diplomat just barges right on in and starts blabbing on about trade deficits and protectionism and embargoes and who knows what. But Santa’s a dwarf. She’s built for sleeping. Or perhaps the humans did not get the memo about how much booze these dwarves drink every single day.

Meanwhile, the parasites don’t stop.

This goblin got all the way to my main intersection. But all around him are Stone Traps. These are basically giant boulders set to fall if anyone triggers the trap. All my dwarves are smart and don’t trigger them.

But the goblin doesn’t know.

Sadly, instead of testing his luck, he realizes he’s spotted and climbs up the stairs and exits out the top. But that’s why those traps are there, for anyone climbing down from the currently-open top area.

Back to trading, The humans give a slightly different pitch: “On behalf of the Merchant Guild, let me extend greetings to your people. There is much to discuss.”

“What requests do you have of our merchants?” I indicate, with the lowest priority, several of the necessities, including stuff that we make, but can’t seem to make enough of.

He then reviews our craftsdwarfship and sets some prices on our goods. The only area of interest is amulets at +14%.

He bids farewell, so I can actually get to the trading. But not before calling us “stout dwarves“. Oh yeah? You got some mouth on you, just like that little dwarf diplomat did.

I have about 3,000 in value to trade. Here’s what I get:

• Trifle pewter bar for 20
• Sterling silver bar for 40
• Nickle bar for 30
• Cat in a cage for 30
• Another cat in a cage for 30
• Cedar cage for 10
• Kapok cage for 20
• 3 barrels for 40
• Bronze battle axe for 80 (for wood chopping)
• 20 pieces of miscellaneous leather for 195
• 2 bronze picks for 120 each (for mining)
• Leather bag for 10
• Cloth for 34
• 30 pieces of meat for 2 each
• 2 pieces of thread for 12 each

And at this point I still have 1,400 in value to trade. I just go crazy and load up on all sorts of thread, leather, rope, and bags. Effectively, I transmuted the stone that was littering the storage level into leather and some cloth. Commerce!

Now Thob, a jeweler migrant with the 3rd wave, starts feeling funky.

So, not unexpectedly, she goes and claims the Jeweler’s Workshop (which wasn’t working on anything at the time).

She goes and grabs some of the rough moss agates (green gems) the miners recently ran into. Then she grabs some shell opals (gray gems) we also dug up at some point. Next, she rushes out to grab a couple of groundhog bones.

Back at the Jeweler’s Workshop, she begins her “mysterious construction“. Given her ingredients, I can kind of guess how this will turn out. Like a kindergartner’s arts & crafts project. Sure, honey, that pile of noodles, popsicle sticks, and paste is a masterpiece!

A moss agate chain adorned with bone rings and moss agate spikes. Note that this isn’t a piece of chain jewelry. This is a big hefty chain, that you would attach to a prisoner you would throw in a dungeon. Well this artifact just sounds delightful, if you’re a dwarf. It is, of course, of no use beyond its 18,000 value which will no doubt make me a prime target for fast-talking stylishly-dressed thieves. Also, where did this lowly dwarf learn about the history of the very first year? I know I ain’t got no book in my fortress.

But as for Thob…

She just got stronger, more agile, and a heck of a lot more tough while immediately becoming a Legendary Gem Setter (16th rank). That’s a pretty useless skill, all told. But why not, I tell her to go about encrusting things with gems.

Work at the dwarf fortress continues, but mysteries continue to arise.

???

The dwarves all give me a blank stare.

“I know you’re all afraid I’ll react negatively, or give you a stupid nickname, but I’m serious. I want to hear from you what we could do better.”

One of the little girls (I can’t keep them straight), speaks up.

“I’m tired of sleeping in the same room as everyone else!”

Ah, a valid complaint.

“Everyone’s all sweaty and stinky, cuz you work ‘em so hard!”

True, true. I’m proud of that stink. It means I’m doing my job. Measure me in units of dwarf-stank generated.

“And you don’t want to know the nasty things I’ve seen in there! Some dwarves need their own rooms!”

All the dwarves are nodding their heads vigorously at this point.

“Ok, fine, I’ll plan out some rooms for you all. But it’s up to you guys to motivate the miners to actually dig there and not the other 10 dig jobs I’ve designated.”

More nodding, and they get back to work.

Six floors beneath the main floor, I plan out some dwarvey housing for our dwarves and some bigger rooms for any future fancy dwarves.

I smartly un-designate access to the outer path and the bigger rooms, leaving them for future digging. The accesssible designated 46 rooms should last us a while.

I notice our plant levels are very high and our drink levels are dipping just a bit, so I re-authorize some brewing (just a limited amount!) for the first time since the Great Brewtastrophe.

Immediately, Sparky’s on it with his pet bull Rovod, and Steenky’s there watching. God, these dwarves and their booze will be the end of me.

A kobold appears at the entrance. Rovod the bull is there. The kobold just retreats once spotted. Snipey’s right up on the hill, though, so bone bolts made from mountain goat bones zing across the the landscape. The first shot that hits mangles its lung and its winded and leaving a streak of blood as it runs.

Snipey then gets hungry and calls off the hunt. I assume the kobold learns it lesson, though. It runs off the far right of the region and disappears from view.

Dwarves love mushrooms!

Look at all those Plump Helmet mushrooms that got planted and are starting to get harvested. The bottom plot is the Quarry Bushes.  Of course, the dwarves didn’t get any of the berries above ground planted.  But Plump Helmets are food and can also be brewed, so let the dwarves choose for themselves, I suppose.

Three of them!

That makes six dogs.  Now I’m afraid of a population explosion.  I put one of them in the fancy cage I traded from the elves.

Did I say population explosion?

Migrants arrive!

• Thob, the Fisher Worker
• Sodel, the Peasant
• Fath, the Fish Dissector
• Iteb, the Herbalist
• Bembul, the Bowyer
• Sakzul, the Weaver
• Stakud, the Peasant
• Ilral, the Animal Trainer
• Aban, the Peasant
• Urvad, the Jeweler
• Unib, the Peasant
• Urist, the Miller, and his pet cow calf
• Vabok, the Peasant, and his pet horse foal
• Ingish, the Cook
• Mistem, the Butcher
• Alath, the Potash Maker
• Vabok, the Bone Carver
• Asmel, the Fish Cleaner, and his pet puppy
• Urist, the Planter
• Thob, the Jeweler

Yes, you’re as overwhelmed as I am.  I had 17 dwarves, and 20 migrants just arrived.  So far, every wave has been 3 dwarves more than my total population.  If 40 dwarves show up in half a year, I will go crazy!

I address them en masse.

“Alright, all you newbies, gather round. “

They’re all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

“First off, I’m the only one you should you ever listen to here.  My word is law.  My whims are your toil.”

Some of their enthusiasm wanes.

“Second, most of you come with worthless skills.  Why did you think I needed a Fish Worker, a Fish Dissector, and a Fish Cleaner.  Really?  In your whole life, the only job you ever had was dissecting fish?”

The dwarves who smell of fish look at their toes.

“Potash Maker?  Animal Trainer?  Bowyer? Bone Carver?  Yeah, you’re all going to learn a lot more skills than that.”

“Finally, and I know this because I’ve watched two expeditions of dwarves before you.  You’re all going to fall asleep at the same time.  And I do not have 20 beds for you.”

“Now get out of my face and make yourselves useful.”

• Four of the peasants become haulers.
• The 3 fishmongers become masons/stonecrafters, to work Craftsdwarf Workshops and Masonry Workshops on the storage level to clear out all that stone.  Three full-time dwarves should make a dent in it.
• The Potash Maker becomes a full-time military marksdwarf, Unib the peasant becomes an axedwarf, and Mistem the butcher also becomes an axedwarf.
• Everyone else kind of falls into their related jobs, as the leaders like Santa and Steenky show them the ropes.

So here’s the totals:

• 7 haulers
• 5 “hard” crafters (metal, bone, stone, gems)
• 4 “soft” crafters (leather, plants, etc.) (note Santa gets counted twice, above and here)
• 4 farmers
• 4 food workers (brewers, cooks, butchers, tanning) (note Steenky gets counted twice, above and here)
• 3 full-time stone user-upper
• 3 military
• 3 miners
• 2 wood cutters
• 2 children
• 1 hunter
• 1 animal trainer

Or, pictorally.

It’s… confusing.  I’m certainly earning my non-existent salary.

I also get this message.

Well, I got dwarves misbehavin’, but I don’t think I need a sheriff yet.  But I’ve noticed young Logem has become a dabbling Liar (the only dwarf who’s told a lie so far), so I’ll keep an eye out for criminals.

Workshops on the storage level get designated, beds get assigned to the communal bedroom (for now), and here’s the military dwarves sparring in the makeshift barracks until the new one up top gets dug out.

But what’s this… Ast Rovodvumom has been possessed!

Sadly, I have not yet been able to craft a proton pack!

Ast is a little talked about food worker.  She came with the second wave of dwarves.  She’s a 2nd rank butcher, and a dabbling brewer and tanner, amongst other things.

Let’s see where this goes.  She’s currently in the brewery.

Okay…  I had queued up some leather armor for my new military dwarves.

Ast grabs a mountain goat leather from a nearby bin.  Then a turquoise.

And here’s what gets made.

A sandal.  A fucking sandal.  Get back to work you stupid dwarf!  Don’t bother me with this nonsense.

Only when possessed could you make menacing spikes out of leather.  The artifact sandals have a value of 5,800, and are just stuffed in a bin for now.  I really have no idea how to tell a dwarf to change his shoes, and if it would have any effect to have such valuable sandals on.

Everyone gets back to work…

Feb, the Legendary +2 Miner, while digging out the lowest level exploratory stairs strikes gold!  Gold, Santa, Gold!

Now which workshop makes grills?

“I have too much stone!”

“Look at this room right here! Of the 121 squares I designated to be dug for our new storage area, 98 have been dug. But of those 98 dug squares, I have just 17 squares that don’t have stone in them!”

“First of all, Feb, as the top miner, explain why you left this room so haphazardly dug out. What is this pattern you left behind?”

“I go where the stone speaks to me, boss”, she explains matter-of-factly, “and the stone said to dig here, then dig there, and this is the result.”

OK, I suppose one could go a little crazy down there doing all this digging… “Alright, but really, must so much plain stone be left behind?”

An audible gasp immediately rises from the miners.

“Sir! We. Are. Dwarves. We do not waste stone, boss. Never speak of this again.” Some mouths on these dwarves.

“Fine, fine, I get it. If I ask you to dig, I’m going to get a lot of stone.” Sometimes I think this job isn’t worth what they’re paying me. Wait. What are they paying me?

“Bah! Do any dwarves have any ideas on how to make good use of all this stone?”

Santa speaks up. “We could build temporary masonry or craftsdwarf workshops in those rooms and use them to exhaust the supplies and produce fine doors, chairs, and crafts.”

“Hmm, true, but it would take a single dwarf working for several seasons to clear just one room, and we don’t have that many dwarves.”

She’s anxious to help solve the problem, though. “Alright, well I noticed you are digging a new refuse location 2 levels above the main level, and that it will need to be made fortified. Building those walls around the surrounding areas could put many of these stones to good use.”

“Ah, now there’s a good idea.” I pat the little dwarf on her industrious and grizzled head. “I have seen the effect that building the walls in the entryway and around the farm has had on clearing those areas of stray stones. Of course, this too is limited by available masons, and the diggers haven’t decided to go up and dig that area out yet.”

Santa nods in understanding. She may just be patronizing me, though. I’m sure to the dwarves, having piles of loose stone everywhere they go is like some sort of blessing.

“Very well, I shall employ both of your suggestions as soon as the areas are dug out enough for them.” Maybe that will curry their favor a bit in case I need to screw them over or have an accidental screw-up.

A new season means new seeds need planting on the farms. I draft the haulers into farming once again, and they’re on the job.

That’s three plots of Quarry Bush being planted right there by three haulers. I figured I was doing alright on food and drink, so why not try something different like the neat-sounding Quarry Bush?

I design a diabolical new entryway.

The big room on the left will be the archery practice range. The long winding path will be the only route into the fortress if the drawbridge is raised (and after I wall off the farms and new refuse dump). Arrow slits (fortifications) carved into the walls will allow the archers to shoot at the invaders while they charge back and forth down the long corridors. I’ll line the snakey part at the top with traps for invaders who get that far.

Of course, so far we’ve been attacked by all of one kobold who lasted all of two seconds once he appeared, but I’d rather be safe with my dwarvey dwarves.

I designate too much digging to do. Thankfully, Feb has reached 16th rank “Legendary+1 Miner” status and can clear out a whole room in what seems like a few seconds, 99% of the time leaving stone behind in each square.

Elves!

An elven caravan from Eyazaeletha has arrived. Fucking elves.

Well, I’ve done this trading thing once before, so I try to be smarter about it

• Steenky will have to be available to meet with the liaison for a while
• Santa will have to be available for trading
• I will need to move everything I want to trade to the Trade Depot.

I queue up mainly the various crafts and whatnots. Also gems, just in case. Since everything’s in bins, it’s only three objects to move. I’d rather not part with anything that’s really “useful” right now. If they’re willing to pay 180% price on some items that are “useful”, I’ll consider adding them in. But we’ll see what they have to trade.

I’d certainly like a wider selection of seeds, plants I don’t have any seeds for yet. Some animals to put in cages and make a zoo from would be good. And cheap things that would be trade practice for Santa. Anything that’s cheap and heavy lightens their load to buy my goods.

The elves and their horribly ugly giant pointy ears bring no wagons, just two mules and two merchants. No guards, either.

But first!

Another kobold thief, same equipment. This time it’s Uvash, the new, but “tough” miner who’s adjacent to the kobold and was building a section of wall at the time. The fortress is in a very indefensible stage as I’m still walling off openings (like the farms).

Snipey’s off in the hills, asleep with one dog. But Lor the Dog is in the dining room.

I activate Uvash and Snipey for military duty.

Uvash looks all tough ready to wield her mining pick.

The kobold takes a step back and Uvash rushes him!

They’re both stunned! No other injuries so far.

After a bit, Uvash is the first one to recover from being stunned, but the Kobold recovers a moment later.

The kobold steps back again!

Uvash swings and gets first blood!

It’s a minor injury to the lower body, but it’s blood.

Next, Uvash bruises the Kobold’s right hand. That’s the Kobold’s weapon hand.

With a wild swing, Uvash’s pick lands on the Kobold’s left arm.

That’s a broken left lower arm and some pain.

In the Kobold’s “inventory” is a surprise.

Uvash got her mining pick stuck in the left forearm of the Kobold with her mighty swing! Will she be able to pull it out? Will she have to resort to wrestling for the rest of the fight?

The pain turns into “extreme pain”. Uvash remains untouched.

After a moment more, the Kobold is knocked unconscious (perhaps from the pain of its broken left arm).

And Uvash finishes the job with her pick.

For his heroism while just trying to build a wall, and her wild hacking and slashing at the kobold with her mining pick, Uvash earns the nickname Hacker.

Hacker just goes back to work building the wall. What a good dwarf!

Back to trading! Here’s the partial trade list.

The gnomeblight draws the most attention, but I ask my dwarves and they tell me it’s of no use. Apparently gnomes got a tolerance to it?

That birchen puzzlebox is superior quality, encircled with finely-crafted Maple bands, and has an exceptionally-designed image of diamonds made out of Pine. Fancy. Santa’ll make something that fancy one day, you just wait.

Some items of interest:

• Willow barrel for 10
• Rope reed bag for 80
• Well-crafted cedar cage decorated with superior-quality Alder for 60
• Rope reed cloth for 34 (18 of them)
• Prickle berries, 10 for 5
• Wild strawberries, 20 for 5

Summing up all of my goods, I have a value of 661, so I should be able to procure a good bit.

• I start with the strawberries, trading well-crafted scepter and earrings. Oh grandpa.
• Next, for practice, it’s the willow barrel for a well-crafted goat skull totem.
• Now the prickle berries for a well-crafted stone crown.
• A fancy cage would be great for a zoo. I get it in exchange for the first kobold’s silk loincloth and a superior-crafted stone idol.
• It would be good to get my cloth industry going, but I have no appropriate plants. These items snag a roll of cloth each.
  • Finely-crafted toy axe and well-crafted earring.
  • Kobold’s leather tunic and a bracelet.
  • Finely-crafted toy axe, a rock trumpet, and a mug.
  • (for 2 cloth) Well-crafted crown, ring, earring, puzzlebox, amulet, and an ordinary earring.
  • (for 2 cloth) Well-crafted idol, 2 mugs, a turquoise crown, and an ordinary mini-forge and idol.

And that’s it. I choose to keep 170 worth of ordinary items for future trading (cheap stuff is good for optimizing the trades). I should be able to get 7 new bags out of that cloth. As a parting gift, I offer them hunk of claystone, weighing 801 pounds, as a free gift (value: 3).

Fucking elves.

OK, everyone back to work!

Not so fast!

Another kobold thief! This time, it’s Zon the craftsdwarf, Big Fath the farmer, Santa, and her lover Steenky, that are nearby. Snipey’s far to the north with her dogs. The miners are all back near the central intersection, and Ike (and his axe) are asleep in the barracks.

Given how rapidly the last two kobold fights have gone, I deputize Zon and Big Fath, and hope they can take it unarmed.

The kobold gets the first strike in, bruising Zon’s right hand. But then the kobold runs away!

Zon recovers from her bruise, takes off after it, and out in the countryside, well past the farms, he catches it and begins wrestling it.

Some minor injuries to the upper body and left upper leg, and a bruised right upper arm.

Next, Zon stuns it. When the kobold recovers, it tries to run away again.

Zon catches, it “breaks” it’s upper body (bad ass!) and has it in Pain.

She bruises its lower body next, then its right calf. It tries to escape once more, but it falls unconscious.

Zon continues to pound on it, mangling its left bicep, breaking its left forearm, injuring its liver (now that’s a punch!) and shoulder, and bruising its elbow!

The fists keep flying.

She keeps at it, mangling the entire left arm, and finally scoring the kill.

For displaying uncommon valor, frightening blood lust, unstoppable tiny fists of rage, and running down a kobold from behind, she earns the nickname Zippy.  I expect all my dwarves to brutally beat and mangle any enemy they come across.  But running a smaller, more agile opponent down, in the open field?  That’s uncommon dwarviness.

But that’s it, no more nicknames from kobolds. In three tries, all they’ve done is run away and bruise the hand of one dwarf who recovered within seconds.

The dwarves stand supreme against all comers!

Very snazzy in purple.

“Santa, dear, here’s what I’d like to do”, I implore. “Lor, the hunting dog who saved our entire fortress (or at least that nice cup you made), should be recognized.”

I lay out my vision. “A hundred dwarves, in a vast chamber, with a triumphant symphony, as Lor makes his way to the stage, and standing on his hind legs, is awarded a medal by a beautiful maiden with a low-cut top.”

“I’m sorry sir, but we don’t have any medals. Nor do we have the chamber, the maiden, the symphony, or nearly that many dwarves.”

“What? Did you see how he trounced that kobold? He didn’t even get hurt. The kobold had a large dagger! Flawless victory!“

“Yes, yes, I heard, sir, but really, there’s nothing to be done.”

“A nickname, then, I will give him a great and mighty nickname. Not like these embarassing ones I give you dwarves.”

“Once again, sir, I’m sorry, but it is dwarven tradition that even though we give elaborate full names to our pets, they cannot have nicknames.”

“What?! Really? Oh. God! Didn’t you see what he did! Lor the Dog. Master of combat, savior of the fortress.”

I give him a mental medal. And the maiden has a really low-cut top.

In the following period of peace, it’s an industrious time in the fortress.

• A channel is dug and a drawbridge placed across it at the main fortress entrance. This causes a huge work stoppage due to the channel being an uncrossable until the bridge was built. All sorts of dwarves were either trapped inside or outside. And then, of course, no dwarf felt like actually building the bridge, instead they decided to take this moment to complain that they can’t plant the seeds they were planning to because the fields were unreachable. Yeah, right. Nice try. You were never going to plant those seeds until the moment it became impossible.
• Some of my dwarves are unhappy about the military draft I employed when the kobold came.
• Most dwarves love my “legendary” dining room (that’s what they call it, on my side it shows up as “Fine”, an upgrade from “Decent”). It’s clearly the centerpiece of what keeps my dwarves happy.
• The side path out to the farms was dug, and great walls to enclose the farms from the outside were begun.
• The miners dug exploratory stairs down 10 levels. On the bottom two, they found diorite, an igneous rock. Hoping to find some magma, I designate long exploratory tunnel digs.

• With all the digging, we strike mica, phyllite, orthoclase, and tetrahedrite. The latter is an ore and can be smelted into things like electrum, pewter, and billon.
• The extended Farmer team does great. A huge harvest of Prickle Berries and Dimple Cups (mushrooms), with 12 Plump Helmets (different mushrooms) currently planted for harvest later in the season.
• And here, across the bridge, a spiked ball is being moved to the designated trap location. In addition with a menacing wooden spike and an enormous wooden corkscrew, they will make up a 3-weapon Weapon Trap. I hope to lay several of these cross my entrance to safeguard my dwarves.

OK, back to work, everyone.

She doesn’t get too much attention, but Snipey is an all-star.

She’s a 9th rank Marksdwarf (and is currently sleeping). She’s racked up sixty-three kills. 24 groundhogs, 7 hoary marmots, and 32 mountain goats. Here’s the fortress’ refuse pile.

Have any doubt now? That’s not even showing all the bones put to use in helmets and crossbow bolts and decorations. And you shall know her by the trail of the dead.

But a new challenger arrives.

In the mountains, near several mountain goats, is a cougar. And it’s not after my young male dwarves, either (but it is a female cougar). There’s only 8 mountain goats left alive in the region (and no other animals), and there’s 5 goats next to that cougar. A confrontation may be inevitable.

But remember, Snipey has Lor and the lesser known dog at her side as well.

Snipey wakes up and heads off on the hunt. The goats are right nearby. But after a moment she’s face-to-face with the cougar!

The cougar flees in the opposite direction, but Snipey seems to be following it!

Sure enough, Snipey moves past all the goats and is clearly pursuing the cougar. It jukes left, it zigs right, but Snipey stays with it. The goats bleet out, unaware of the elite hunt before them.

A few crossbow bolts zip across the rugged terrain.

First blood! With two shots, it’s a minorly injured upper body and head, a mangling of both lungs, and she shot the right eye out completely! Note over on the right, a pile of broken arrows and blood spatters from another kill some time ago. Unconscious and winded, all that remains is the kill.

Snipey comes up and does it herself. And with that, someone will be having cougar for dinner.

Snipey brings the kill back to base and ends up butchering it herself. All sorts of chunks, bones and meat!

I finally designate the storage level (-1) to be dug out as an initial sixteen 11×11 rooms.

It’s as much digging as has ever been done in the fortress. Luckily, Feb has reached the rank of “High Master Miner” (that’s 13th rank). Sleepy’s living up to his name, with a paltry 8th rank “Expert Miner”. Feb mines only slightly slower than her walking speed, and twice as fast as Sleepy.

But part of being a good miner is extracting usable rock from the mining. This means that Feb leaves stray rocks nearly everywhere she digs. Which leaves few open places for the storage on this level to go. I will have to make an extremely concerted effort to use up the stone on the storage level.

While Feb is busy digging, her pet cat, Bim, keeps bringing her things.

The cat’s paws get covered in blood in the process, but there she is, catching birds out in the wild. That’s pretty bad-ass. Of course, I don’t think any dwarves were afraid of being accosted by blue jays, so this isn’t really helping.

What is Feb, now Grand Master Miner, supposed to do with this? Just what you’d expect. She’s a bit a frustrated, confused, and has to throw the thing out in the trash.

Just what I needed my best miner to be doing. Yeah, fuck you too, cat.

While watching Snipey hunt more poor goats amongst the remains of other dead goats…

Spring has arrived! That means we’ve been here a year! And not died! And only moderately embarassed ourselves!

Let’s take a look at the state of our fortress!

• You can see the entranceway has a drawbridge.
• The uneven walls of the natural cave entrance are being filled in with walls to create a uniform 3-wide entry way.
• 2 traps (in red) are placed, full of crazy sharp spikey things.
• The great wall around the farms is halfway done (or will be when Santa drops in that last piece)
• Those two wall projects have helped empty some halls of stray stone.
• The main entryway looks almost clean.
• Lots of stuff is organized into barrels and bins (the Xs)
• We got all the harvest done for the season (seeds planted, enough time passes for them to grow, and then harvested).

And here’s the basement.

All that fun looking stone in the top-left is magnetite, an iron ore. Sparky’s been making charcoal like a madman, so we should get more iron stuff made soon. But we’re a long way from having clean floors to store lots of stuff on.

I’m happy to see 100 drinks, 60 meat, 20 fish (we brought with us a year ago), and 40 plants to eat, with 100 seeds to plant. That means no dwarves should be dying due to lack of the necessities. We brought with us something like 60 food and 80 drinks, so we’re not losing ground, either.

Some of the fun things that got crafted this year that you might not know about:

• Finely-crafted kaolinite toy axe
• Well-crafted mountain goat skull totem (we will shake this at our enemies to make them fear us!)
• Ordinary kaolinite trumpet (yes, that’s a brass instrument made out of stone)
• Ordinary kaolinite mini-forge (for the little girls to play at being Santa?)
• Well-crafted cougar leather armor (hell yeah!)

And here’s what everyone’s up to.

The blue happiness marks “ecstatic” while the green marks merely “happy”.

I notice that Bembul and Fatty are the happiest dwarves.

Yes, you read that correctly. Bembul, the angriest woodcutter, and Fatty the hauling peon, are a couple. How fitting that she gets such an angry mate. I’m sure Bembul will take his anger out on his over-indulgent self-conscious woman. In honor of his deeds, I dub him Ike.

So, with Spring’s arrival and the need to plant many many seeds for the season, the number of jobs/tasks to be done is currently 141.

Back to work and get busy, dwarves, and we’ll live another year!

“Yes, sir, whatever you’d like.”

“When I tried to get this expedition going, I couldn’t get the elders to spare more than seven dwarves. Yet here you are, a contingent of ten dwarves, coming of your own free will.”

“Yes, m’lord.”

“Well, why is this? Why did you all decide to come all this way to this new settlement?”

“Oh, it’s simple, m’lord.” She reaches behind her and pulls something out.

“Is that … a stone toy boat?”

“It is a replica of the toy boat our traders say they brought from your lands, crafted in these meager halls. News of this toy boat spread across the Mountainhomes, and soon many were clamoring to come settle in your lands.”

“A toy boat.”

“I had to wait in line for 3 days just to purchase this replica. The original was enshrined, and the line to just get a glimpse of it wraps around four different caverns.”

I stared at the bald woman, dumbfounded.

“Do not doubt it for a moment. This is why we are here.” And with a nod, she returned to her labors.

Back to work accomodating all these dwarves:

• I designate some more beds to be installed in the barracks. I still keep a few in reserve for when we build a real housing section.
• I queue up more tables and chairs for the dining room.
• I build a Clothier’s Workshop so we can make bags to store seeds in.

Feb, the miner, Sleepy’s lover, and cat aficionado, gets a treat.

Bim, the cat, adopts Feb. Note that it’s not the other way around. Well I’m sure deep in the dangerous mines is a great place for cat.

Meanwhile, Santa has taken a lover.

It’s Steenky. They’re the two most powerful dwarves in the fortress, so power couple indeed. At least this time it’s cross-profession. Farmer and crafter. If they had a kid, I might be inclined to make it a noble some day.

Some firsts:

• Butchered animal fat gets rendered into tallow (no idea what I do with that)
• Smelted hematite ore turns into iron bars which are turned into iron picks, crossbows, anvils, and weapons
• A mountain goat skin is tanned and turned into mountain goat leather, which is turned into a bag to store seeds

They grow up so quick.

The pet cow calf that Sparky brought with him has grown up into a Bull. Now I know that I can’t slaughter a pet without Sparky going crazy (and who wants a pyromaniac going insane?), so I’m not sure what’s going to become of Rovod the Bull.

And the moo did follow, wherever he went (to burn wood).

Uh-oh, here we go.

Winter is upon you. Bring it. I got busy busy dwarves.

Let’s recognize a great dwarf.

Feb, in spite of her lover Sleepy and her cat Bim, has become a 10th rank miner, an “Accomplished Miner”, and is the first dwarf of the fortress to achieve such a rank. Next closest is Bembul the 8th rank angry woodcutter and Snipey the 8th rank badass marksdwarf. I’m sure Sleepy appreciates that she’s “extremely agile”.

Feb doesn’t miss a beat and keeps digging the new routes to the farming area. The stone from this excavation will be used to build walls around the farms.

But it’s time for a team break.

“Mason team, gather round.” The dusty foursome of Santa, Rith, Uvash, and Zon tiredly give me their attention.

“For many months I have been requesting stone doors, tables, chairs. We need many of them. Instead, you have been indulging yourselves with the other available tasks. You put turtle shell spikes on a stone mug, for god’s sake.”

“Have you not seen how much stone is laying around? Everywhere? And how several rooms don’t have doors? Hello? Pay attention, Uvash! Masonry. At the Masonry Workshop. Snap to it.”

“Farming Team, get in here!” And now the faces of Steenky, Big Fath, Sparky, and newly drafted Bembul are before me, grizzled and hairy.

“Ok guys, cute prank. All of you, but Bembul, are also assigned to brewing duty. I see what you did. We no longer have any plants to eat! You turned it all into booze. Zero plants. Two-hundred jugs of alcohol.” They can tell I’m serious.

“Thankfully, I was smart enough to bring some meat with us, and Snipey is out there putting her ass on the line to make sure there’s still meat to eat. Meanwhile, while you were brewing this ungodly amount of alcohol, what’s gone on at the farms?”

“NOTHING, that’s what. I see two plots planted, out of more than one-hundred possible patches. And don’t tell me it’s the seeds. All that brewing left us with plenty of seeds. Hundreds of them. Santa fucking counted them by hand.”

“I don’t want to hear about your sore backs, or your prickled fingers, or the rain, or being accosted by terrible vermin. I want your asses out there planting prickle berries, plump helmets, cave wheat, and whatever the hell else I’ve designated.”

“MOVE!!“

I catch my poor haulers as they scurry about.

“Fatty, Chubby, Kol. If you get a chance, see if you can’t plant something in the farms. This is your chance to make it big, to graduate out of your dead-end hauler caste. Don’t blow it. I’m not sure you’ll ever get another opportunity like this.” Of course, this is a lie. I need my haulers right where they are. Poor, subjugated, and hauling.

And the expanded farming team seems to listen. Six plots of Prickle Berries and five plots of underground Dimple Cups are planted.

Rith exhausts our raw hematite ore supply making iron bars; hopefully we’ll find more soon. I make sure I get a few anvils out of the iron in case I need to build more Metalsmith’s Forges before I strike another metal ore.

It’s tired in here.

That’s seven dwarves all sleeping at once in the barracks. Three spare beds. I’m hoping that’s enough until I get the real quarters dug out.

Of course, my diggers aren’t doing much better than the Masons and Farmers at getting the important work done. I asked for an exploratory set of stairs down many many floors, but nothing’s been done. It helps that the dining room is finally finished getting its floor smoothed… I hope.

Oh noes!

“Thief! Protect the hoard from skulking filth!” Right as I was about to get a drawbridge built (well, started…), there’s a kobold!

Fuck you, kobold! I won’t let you steal our precious claystone mugs with turtle shell spikes!

I draw up a battle plan.

Snipey can shoot a groundhog from a hundred paces; the kobold should make his time. I also draft the three miners (tough and have picks) and Bembul (angry and has axe) into temporary military service. The kobold has a large copper dagger and a leather tunic. The three miners are inside, Snipey is outside with Bembul right behind him.

KAPOW!

Just like that, Lor, one of Snipey’s hunting dogs who happened to be right there when the kobold arrived, springs into action. The poor musk-ox who was standing there scurries away faster than I could have imagined it could move.

And the kobold’s left upper leg is bruised, it’s head minorly injured and it’s knocked unconscious!

The dogs pounce and make quick work of the unconscious kobold!

Left behind on the square that Lor attacked from is a kobold chunk and his right lower arm.

Lor stands over his kill. Fuck yeah!

Good dog!!! Goooood dog!!

I release the dwarves from their military enlistment, and it’s back to another day in the fortress.

“Hello, I’m Rith Adalath, and I’m an Armorer of the second rank. I admire tradition, enjoy duty, and like trying new things” she sternly grunts. What a serious looking dwarf. And yes, she’s bald and has a beard. Don’t judge my dwarves.

“Wow, an Armorer. That’s like, a real dwarf, unlike all these misfits I brought with me. Of course, we have no real need for armor right now, and no way to make armor, and really very little metal, but … well … welcome aboard!” I assign him the metalcrafting tasks, to learn under Santa. “Who’s next… you there!”

“Oh”, he murmurs meekly, “I’m Asob Uzolfikod. I am but a peasant, eager to start a new life in this land. I’m often nervous, sad and dejected, and occassionally overinduldge.”

“Great, another dwarf to haul things, who also eats too much. I sense a theme in that profession.” Asob is assigned to hauling and he’s called Chubby behind his back. I point to a very dwarfy dwarf.

“Wee!! I’m Fath!” it says quickly. I’m not sure if it has a lisp and is describing its agility or if that’s a dwarf name.

“Fath?”

“Fath Shovethilral!”

“And … what are you?”

“I’m just a kid!” A dwarf child, what sort of fool brings a child to my lands willingly.

“What will you do for me?”

“Whatever I please!”

“No, no, you have the pronoun wrong”, but sure enough…

Trying to maintain my appearance of being in control, I proclaim that the little girl shall be responsible for playing with the kitties and puppies, but it’s not even listening when I say it. Next!

Oh you’ve got to be kidding me. “OK, kid, tell me your name and I’ll let you go out and play.”

“Logem Nisgakoddom!” she murmurs so quickly it sounds like she’s cursing me in some even stranger language. Two little dwarf girls can play with each other, but there had better not be any more! I need labor!

“I am Mebzuth Agmebzuth. I am a Wood Burner, second rank” he asserts calmly. So Mebzuth is both a male and female name? Because that’s Fatty’s first name, too.

“You… burn wood? That’s it?”

“Yes, sir. In the great halls of the Mountainhome, I was a journeyman in the vast wood furnaces there.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit specialized for a frontier settlement like this?”

“No, sir. I saw a great many logs felled by your wood cutter on my way in to your fortress. I would like to burn that wood. All of it.”

“Well we have many beds, bins, and barrels to make with that wood, but indeed we do need some charcoal to start our metal industry. Very well…. Sparky.” And I send the little pyro to work on all of the plant and animal processing, be it wood burning, plant processing, hide tanning, or brewing.

As he walks off, I notice he has a pet cow calf in tow. Great, a pyromaniac with his own baby cow.

“Ast Rovodvumom reporting for duty! I am a Butcher of the second rank!”

“Very well, Ast. Get to it, and help out Sparky as well. But don’t touch his wood.”

“I’m… Uvash Abanashok…” she says shyly while looking at her toes.

“Let me guess, a Miner.” I’ve seen that get-up before.

“Uh, yes, sir, second rank.”

“Well get down in there and start digging. And watch out for Sleepy. He has intentions.”

“Soon, these halls will be fully of wonderful creations: crafts of animals you’ve never heard of, clothes with amazing properties. I am Zon Fikodshetbeth, novice in bonecrafting, glassmaking, and leatherworking.” She seems like a fine extra craftsdwarf.

“See that woman over there? She’s Santa, go learn from her.”

“Have you any skills?” I ask the peasant-dressed dwarf.

He speaks like the words are made of molasses “I, am, Kol, Tulonma-”

“Oh, out with it already”

“-mot.”

“Skills?”

“N, o.”

“Hauling! Next!”

This dwarf is smart enough to know that by process of elimination, she’s last to go. “Warm greetings, sir. I am Fath Alathlorsith. I noticed the child earlier was also named Fath, and so to avoid any confusion, please feel free to call me Big Fath. I wonder, sir, where are your cows?”

My cows? “Hello Big Fath, the closest thing to cattle we have is a musk-ox, and that pet cow calf that Sparky has. Why do you ask?”

“Oh. Well I am a Milker by trade, second rank. But don’t you worry, I’ll get out and help the one known as Steenky in the farms.”

“Well, yeah, that sounds like a fine idea.”

I look around to make sure there’s no other dwarves I don’t recognize before dismissing the seventeen of them.

And so here’s what I have.

• 11 women, 6 men (that’s starting to be a really dangerous ratio)
• 3 miners, with Feb, the 9th rank “Professional Miner” being full-time miner, and Sleepy (her lazy lover, only 7th rank miner) and Uvash doing some stone detailing and masonry work as well.
• Santa’s omni-crafting is complemented with a non-metal crafter and a metal-crafter.
• The plants and animals work is split between four dwarves now instead of one. Which is good, because very little agriculture was happening.
• Fatty now has two full-time haulers to help her out. Most everyone has food and refuse hauling responsibilities (to avoid any miasma incidents), and many people have furniture hauling (otherwise beds and doors are placed way too slowly), and some of the crafters have item hauling should they need to move stuff out of their workspaces.
• The 2 children are, at this time, worthless.

Big piles of dwarves should be met with big ambitions:

• Get a huge storage level dug out
• Get real bedrooms and a housing level dug out, plus the required beds and doors
• Get a real workshop floor going
• Get the farms going
• Get some defenses (traps, bridges, and levers) built and placed
• Wall off the farms and entrance

Since I have no excuse now that I have more than double the laboring dwarves, big failures are sure to follow.

“Somewhere in our little empire, and important thing has happened. And I want this to be an example to all of you.”

I hold up a sign to the little gathering, emblazoned only with this:

+ =

“You all know that there’s roughly five times more work to be done than we have dwarves. I am not going to change how much work I want done, so you all better change how many dwarves there are.”

“There’s a lot of permutations to this math that could be done. I see (although I have to squint carefully) that we are 4 women and 3 men dwarves. I don’t really care how you all make this happen. I designate enough things, you don’t want me to get involved with this. If dogs can do this, you can too.”

“And I don’t want this to be the result!“

I hold up the other sign.

“I want your babies ugly, and I want them workable. Meeting adjourned.”

I stumble off wondering what am I going to do with these dwarves, where my salvation will come from.

A caravan from Tholadil has arrived! Way over on the far left side of the region, we have Erith Tomenkadol, Merchant, driving a wagon made of acacia and pulled by two musk-oxes, and Zulban Onulolon, Merchant, driving a maple wagon and musk-oxes. Between them is Edem Rithunol, Speardwarf.

Oh, how happy I am that I can trade with dwarves. None of those fucking elves. In fact, looking at the barrels from our own wagon, their stamps read Tholadil. That’s our civilization, the “Deep Wall”, if translated. I hope they brought postcards from home! Or, aphrodisiacs.

Well Santa is my designated tradedwarf, as she has shown some dabbling in negotiation, persuasion, and judging intent, in addition to conversation and intimidation. Those seem like skills I should foster.

Up north, there comes a diplomat.

I’m not sure if this “Outpost Liaison” is affiliated with the traders or not. But being “Perfectly” agile “Superdwarvenly” tough is intimidating. She’s also wearing some really nice mittens on her left hand.

Well before anyone thinks about intimidating me, they’ll have to cross a wasteland of dead goats and groundhogs. That’ll make them think my dwarves are tough!

The trade caravan keeps coming, though. As the wagons move towards our fortress, an additional two pairs of merchant and their musk-oxes (no wagons), a macedwarf, and a hammerdwarf also emerge.

The fancy Diplomat lady wanders around, following my dwarves, like a dog chasing Fatty with a steak around her neck. I think she’s a spy. Come to learn the secrets of my making piles of crap and getting drunk.

The wagons come on inside.

I summon Santa to do some brokering.

The merchants unload at the trade depot; they brought all sorts of goodies.

The liaison finally corners Steenky, who she’s been following, because for some reason he’s designated as the leader of the expedition (this cannot be changed apparently).

“I am your liaison from the Mountainhomes, let’s discuss your situation” she says. My situation? What? What has she heard? The prickle berries? The dead goat fiasco? The sleeping in the rain on jagged rocks? The forced mating pep talk? Having two dogs chase a dwarf with self-image issues for a whole season? Not even knowing what hematite is?

“What requests do you have of our merchants?” is her first question. I heard during my all-too-brief training that this is how they know what to swindle you on.

I carefully review the lists she has.

• Leather, leather, all manner of leather. My dwarves have clothes for now, and I think with butchery and tanning coming online, we’re fine here. Maybe someday in the future when we want to make something exotic.
• Cloth. Same deal.
• Crafts. No, no, these are what I’m going to sell to you. I’m never going to buy them from you.
• Metal bars. Hmm, might be nice to have the option to buy some steel bars next time, so I mark those at the low interest level.
• Stone blocks, small gems, large gems. No thanks.
• Seeds. Ah, seeds seem like a wise investment. I say we’re interested in more of the Plump Helmet seeds as well as some Cave Wheat seeds.
• Anvils, weapons, ammo, trap components. Nah, not for a while.
• Digging implements, namely picks. A miner has to have a pick to work, so it might be nice to trade for a pick in the future.
• Armor. We’ll make our own.
• Cheeses, drinks, pets, instruments, powders, extracts, the list goes on and on.

The diplomat and Steenky go back and forth between the dining hall (the designated Meeting Hall), and the Trade Depot, arguing about who knows what.

“Well then, we have finalized the import agreement. Feel free to go over the documents.” Sure enough, everything I marked as something I’d like to see has gone up 30-50% in price. What goes around, comes around, honey.

“Let’s discuss what we are willing to offer for your craftdwarfship.” I’m listening.

Steenky shows her around, running around checking every chest and cabinet (perhaps looking for his balls so he can stand up to her?).

“Well then, we have finalized the export agreement. Feel free to go over the documents.”

I am going to ream them on Prickle Berry seeds.

Otherwise, I have the one stone crown that Santa made and not much else on this list. I can’t wait to get to Santa’s trading.

“Farewell, Shem ‘Steenky’ Lilarerith, I look forward to our meeting next year. Our fortunes rise and fall together.” And with that, the fancy diplomat lady took off. Now get back to your day job, Steenky. You kind of sucked at that.

While our goods are still being hauled to the Trade Depot, let’s glance at what’s being offered.

Further down the list, he has a stray cat in a lead cage. A cat might deal with some of the vermin. And if I just get one of them, there won’t be pile of kittens to deal with, and cuteness-caused work stoppages. Otherwise, nothing else looks worthwhile. He has some blocks that are very cheap that might make good bartering practice, though.

Unfortunately, since my Prickle Berry seeds aren’t in bags yet, I don’t seem to be able to ream with trade them. I assign every dwarf to hauling to get the stuff I want to trade moved to the Trade Depot. I realize that the merchants have all of 334 pounds of carrying capacity, and my stones weigh 801 lbs each, so those will be of no use in the trade.

At last, everything I’m willing to consider trading is at the depot.

The cat has a value of 40, so I should have at least a value of 80 worth of goods (poor Santa isn’t really great at this trading yet) to offer. Not counting the Prickle Berry wine (it’s much cheaper than the Dwarf wine we brought with us), we have 140 value to trade. Yeah, that toy boat is worth 20, you see it. So the first 60 can be used on “practice trades”.

I offer a well-crafted rock salt bracelet for a block of anhydrite and a block of orthoclase. Immediately, I notice it frees up thousands of pounds of loads on their wagons, so I can offer my claystone blocks back. I do a few more trades and make the trader nice and happy before going in for the big deal.

My initial offer for the cat is 2 chunks of claystone, 3 barrels, and a well-crafted barrel with 5 drinks of Dwarven wine. A value of 66 to the value of 40 for his cat. He accepts! We own a cat! … Hooray?

I try to trade a stone amulet and crown and 2 more chunks of claystone for a bronze bar. He rejects this and talks smack about the low quality of my crafts (bullshit), so instead I just buy a cheaper barrel than the ones I traded him (they still function the same!) and walk away with Santa much more experienced in selling her toys.

I have a dwarf set down the cage and let the cat out:

All I want from the cat is catching some rats outside.

Well fuck you too, cat. Don’t make me press s.

Meanwhile, my smelter needs fuel to turn ore into metal, so I queue up some charcoal from the wood furnace. With some charcoal, I can also turn the raw coal into a few pieces of refined coal as fuel instead.

Steenky does the first bit of butchering.

Using a groundhog corpse from Snipey, Steenky produces 2 pieces of meat, 1 piece of fat, 2 bones, 1 skin, 1 skull, and 2 “groundhog chunks”. Previously, all kills produced just a bone or two, so this is a major improvement. Assuming I can figure out what to use this stuff for. You might notice Santa’s in the bottom left Jeweler’s Workshop cutting turquoises. For what? I have no idea. But it’s new!

Conversely, we finally got around to one of our older ideas.

At the farm, the miners built stairs down , and then dug out the space underneath.

It’s black sand cavern floor, and it lets us place farm plots!

Here we can grow Plump Helmets, which should make for good eating and good brewing, and Cave Wheat, which would give us some grain to do something with.

Soon, I have my first “ecstatic” dwarf.

I think that dining room is the key to my success, so I order Sleepy to smooth the floors in there to match the walls that they did earlier.

Santa’s a good little dwarf and has applied her skills in commerce and appraisal to take survey of our wealth.

We’ve generated approximately 6,620 in wealth so far, most of it in architecture and… “other objects” (I swear that’s not our euphemism for dildos, like I could even figure out how to make something that complex). Of course, we brought 21,360 wealth with us, but if you think of it as a return on investment, we’re doing great! And remember, I don’t pay these dwarves shit! I hope the investment bankers back home are taking notice on the great business I’m running here.

I also notice that I can tag animals as being available as pets. I could let the puppy be a pet. The cat is, “uninterested”. Yeah fuck you, cat. But what would seem best is making the musk-ox a pet. Yes, that sounds very appropriate. Oh, what the heck, and the puppy too, since I notice Bembul likes dogs and maybe a puppy would make him less angry.

Along those lines, we have some drama amongst the dwarves. I notice Sleepy’s happiness level is 391 (crazy high), and go talk to him:

He became caught up in a new romance recently. That sounds like trouble. I ask him about his thoughts on the other dwarves.

Feb. It’s Feb. The other fucking miner. I give Sleepy a bad performance review and he goes and sleeps with the all-star who’s showing him up. Sleepy, I don’t know what sort of fucking game you’re playing, but I’ve got my eye on you. That said, I could use an ugly baby miner to work deep in the mountain, so, uh… proceed.

And finally, someone answers my plea with something I actually use.

Some migrants have arrived!

…

There’s TEN of them.

All you other dwarves are officially put on notice!

“Feb, Sarvesh, when you came to these lands I provided you both with identical training in mining. Level 2 “Miners”. Our fortress has much digging that needed doing, and still does. This work was available to both of you identically. And yet, as Winter approaches, it’s time for your performance reviews. And, boys, it’s not complicated.”

“Feb, you have achieved the 7th rank of mining, an “Adept Miner” and have become better at mining than any dwarf is at any skill. You’ve amassed 5,880 XP in mining. Well done.”

“Sarvesh. Sarvesh, Sarvesh, Sarvesh. With identical circumstances, you are a mere 6th rank “Talented Miner”, with only 5,120 XP in mining.”

“But boss, that’s because I had to build that Trade Depot and the Masonry Workshop!”, he implored.

“No, Sarvesh. No. It’s because you’re lazy. And because you drink too much, and eat too much, sleep too much, and take too many breaks.”

“So I won’t be getting a raise this year?”, he asked sheepishly.

“Raises? I don’t pay you dwarves, what sort of fool do you take me for? No, Sarvesh, the consequence is simple. From this day forth you shall be known as Sleepy.”

As for everyone else…

Aware of my watchful eye, the dwarves labor for some time.

• We strike Turqouise, it’s all shiny and blue
• A lot more hauling gets done, including more wagon stuff
• Barrels, bins, booze and more get produced
• Dwarves are enjoying their beds, tables, chairs, and dining room
• This brings them from 70-80 happiness back to 100+. Sleepy even reaches “happy” vs. everyone else’s “content”. Well, that’s what being lazy will do for you, I suppose.

So, time for some failures:

• The spirits give me a vision that the hematite (which shows as a different icon than the stone) is not a gem, it’s an ore, an iron ore to be specific. Ooh, metal! That sounds like fun.
• The dwarves all have a “work dogs” menu, in which I can assign dogs to them. So Fatty finally loses her canine entourage, and Snipey gets two helpful hunting dogs! Watch out groundhogs and mountain goats! It just got real very recently.

Also note the little blue gem in the bottom left, the turqouise I struck!

The dangers of cooking:

I had the Kitchen cook one meal. It was raccoon meat biscuits, a combination of minced prickle berries and minced racoon meat (that we brought with us). Once it was cooked, it sat there in the kitchen, lost in all the other hauling that needed to be done. And instead of getting put in a barrel and stored indefinitely, it rotted, and a miasma arose. Barely any time at all passed between cooking the meal and it rotting, and every dwarf was assigned Food Hauling during this time as well.

Shameful.

Someone has to pay for this.

The dwarf who cooked it.

Shem Leddodok, farmer and dwarf of foodstuffs, I dub thee Steenky.

I designate the rotten meal to be dumped, and shortly after engulfing the entire workshop room, the miasma is gone.

Santa’s been a busy mason.

That includes building a Statue, which I thought would be nice for the dining room. As you can see, the walls of the dining room are being polished. Between that and some Statues, I figure the dwarves will be made happy every time they go in there, and they seem to go in there a lot. Of course, maybe rock salt wasn’t the smartest material for Santa to build a statue out of (even then it weights 610 lbs), but then she moves over to the bottom-right Craftdwarf’s Workshop and gets some work done there.

Now that’s a dwarf Santa. Making rock and stone amulets, crowns, bracelets, amulets, and toy boats for the hapless trader who visits our fortress. That’s a well-crafted claystone toy boat (note the hyphens on either side of its name). Soon the world will be clamoring for the stone boats crafted by my dwarves.

And just like that: Autumn has come.

I don’t know what Autumn holds, but I’m sure my dwarves are up for it.

Sleepy finishes smoothing the walls of the dining room.

The dining room has moved from Meager, to Modest, to plain (no modifier), to Decent. I’m proud. Later we’ll come back and polish and engrave the walls and smooth the floor and add statues, but I really should stop using my mining dwarves on that stuff when we have so much else still to do!

Resounding success! Our numbers have grown!

Ok, it’s a puppy, not a dwarf, but it’s life, not death! I think this one should be a war dog to guard us in case of invaders while our hunters are off in the distance. But I suppose it has to grow up first? And yes, the hunting dogs got full dwarven names assigned to them once they stopped following Fatty around.

And there’s the statue, actually placed, in the corner of the dining room.

Our fortress is still littered with the stone from digging it out, but I can’t imagine the time sink it would be to tell them to haul it all to stockpiles.

The miners finish the two new rooms.

I fill the left one with some stockpile space, as the above room is getting full (all that loose stone isn’t helping!!), and the bottom-right room gets the following: Carpenter’s Workshop (I’ll destroy the one outside), Butcher’s Shop, Metalsmith’s Forge, Tanner’s Shop, Jeweler’s Shop, Smelter, and a Wood Furnace (although this got stuck in the stockpile room for now).

I clearly don’t have enough dwarves to work all those places, but my curiosity and imagination simply exceeds the grasp of my small fat hairy beings.

Here’s the whole region.

(click get full-sized image)

Or just the nearby area:

(click to zoom)

Look at all the shrubs that grew back outside the entrace; I’ve designated them to be picked.

Well, we’re on the verge of a functional fortress…

So surely something bad is about to happen.

“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.