Dwarf Fortress: The RP (Dead)

[STE3L]

welcome gamekid, if you feel as if you need a second opinion on things feel free to ask. (note that, in the spirit of a good game, i will not tell you what to do, rather try to point you in the right direction, if sak sak doesn't mind)

anyway back to the game.

"brothers! ARMOCK WILL BE PLEASED TONIGHT!!!" i call. moving back into the line and joining the formation. send one of the less enthusiastic men back to make a "end game" by laying some of the brown coal as to be set alight in the event of us needing to fall back. if the dwarf has a spear or other such weapon, take it as i would like to avoid taking more poison hits.

"WE MADE THIS PLACE, AND I'LL BE DAMNED IF I GIVE IT UP TODAY. READY!!!"

hope you get more sleep. what do you do for work? if you don't mind me asking.

 

[Zacharine]

Snip

The spring has been costly to Mountainhome. Three clans, gone. Everyone can feel it, the nobles losing the respect and command they have enjoyed for the past several centuries. Now, their decisions are questioned, they are mocked over a barrel of ale, and several unsavoury rumours are starting to circulate. Some of them most likely are even true.

The nobles are seething. The royal guard has stepped up their training regime. And yet, the smithies suddenly have a distinctive lack of orders for anything resembling a weapon.

You can read the signs, and having dealt with and helped outlaws in the past, you know what the nobility does when threatened.

Four days ago, the Hammer Steel clan left. If those discontent are leaving when not directly pressured to do so, the wrath of the Nobles will fall even harder. And a likely start, is to seal the enterance until the Nobles have absolute power in their hands again. Your clan is likely to be set up as examples, perhaps prosecuted for trying to start a rebellion, and possibly executed. Not going to happen, you swear.

Your carpenter is building a wagon outside, in secret from the guards manning the outer gate walls. You've dug a small tunnel to act as your exit route, and you've used it to transfer supplies to the almost ready wagon. The dawn rises on the fifth day after Hammer Steel left. As the clan leader, you are the last to emerge from the tunnel, carrying the heavy book wrapped in cloth and leather that is your clan's most precious item, and pull a hidden lever. The small tunnel, having served it's purpose, slowly begins to crumple and collapse ; no sense leaving a route that bypasses all defences. Mountainhome was your home despite everything.

At first you follow the tracks left by Hammer Steel, but when you come down from the mountains and reach the arid plains proper you loose the tracks. The ground is simply too hard to leave week-old marks visible and distinguishable. But you've seen the maps, and know enough to keep heading west, that way you are bound to hit the rivers.

As days roll by, the ground begins to change. At first, there are only a shrub here and there more than previsously, but then patches of green become visible. Soon, you are walking on a veritable grassland, and your scouts report the river is near: Ten minutes by jogging.

A quick look around tells you there are plenty of small plants and flowers around small thickets and trees too far apart to be called a forest, including several plants that produce berries and you know to have edible roots. As summer is almost present and ideally you would already be planning your farming, a multitude of edible plants and fruit will be a good source of nutrition to sustain you should anything go wrong with your harvest. You decide that a small hill slightly to the north, composed of gravel and mud and sand in the topmost layers, will be your new home.

You begin to dig in, at first a bit down to ensure the stability of your tunnels, and then branching off to create your rooms. Mason's and carpenter's tools are quickly set apart on brand new workshops, and the essentials like beds are soon carved at rapid pace from felled trees. Chalk seems to be your main and only source of stone at the moment, with large deposits of it right beneath the few top layers, mixed among clay and compact sand.

You dig out a small dining room to act as your meeting hall, stores to take your goods to safety, and begin to dig for a farming area and individual bedrooms.

Summer has arrived in full force: the heat outside is rapidly rising during daytime, and only the shade of trees offer places to rest. Underground however, is cool and comfortable.

This morning, you've just finished a meager area for farming belowground. You have several varieties of mushrooms with you, as well as more long-term sources of nutrition and raw materials like Cave Wheat, Pig tail-reed, and dwarven sugarcane among others. You've brought no seeds for aboveground farming, but the book 'All Ye Plants' tells you of several ways you could start controlled farming of them as soon as you see berries or seeds.

It is simply a matter of desiding what to plant and make it happen.

It is lunchtime, and you've prepared a meal from the rations brought with you. The mood among your clans seems optimistic, but several topics do cause worry: the large felines you've spotted outside, the situation and it's development back at Mountainhome, lack of general knowledge of the larger area near your new home, and the poor resources found underground so far: clay, sand, chalkstone and gravel mostly.

Your clan has just about finished eating, and are about to go back to work; mostly digging personal rooms, creating furniture, felling trees and expanding the stores. As the discussion turned to darker and darker topics at the end, you feel you must give a quick speech to take their minds off of future threats and the ugly status of your past home, as well as perhaps direct some manpower to ensure your food supplies will last.

What do you say, and what are your intentions for the clan in the next few weeks? Also, if you do beging farming, give the few greatest priorities of plants: Cave Wheat (takes a long time to grow), pig tail (long growth time, hard to chew and is a somewhat acquired taste, but can be processed both for strong rope and threaded to cloth.), mushrooms (grow fast [fast as in measured by weeks and not fractions of a year], but can be somewhat bland in the long run), dwarven sugar and other plants (medium to long growth time, can be processed for food), or topside berry- and small fruitplants (requires significant amount of dwarfpower as you have no actual topside farm, plus you have no prepared seeds.)

And always remember, I rarely give you all choices out in the plain. If you think of a good idea/a solution I didn't present, go for it freely. The main advantage of playing an RPG with other humans is that the GM is restricted to a prepared script, so use that advantage as much as you want.

Also, if you feel I'm griefing you or being unfair, do not be afraid to call it out. We want to have fun here, right?

 

[Zacharine]

Tell two dwarves to search for a track or hint of where the humans came from or where some may have left, telling them to stay together. Send out some dwarves to make some improvised crossbows, telling them to stay in twos, they only have to be used once, get some to start to pack up the wagon/s.

2 to track humans, 2 to make crossbows = you begin to pack the wagon.

The wagon is ready to move half-an-hour later, when the two dwarves you sent to make crossbows return.

The things look absolutely pitiable. Unpolished wood, with stumps of branches still sticking out on different parts, rough approximations as measurements and bundles of thread used to keep them from falling apart. You carefully test the thread acting as bowstring, drawn back as it is: a bolt form that won't fly further than 25-30 paces. The bundle of young birch bended tight as the bow curve will go slack before a day has passed, or the second the crossbow is actually fired.

Come to think of it, the whole thing will most likely fall apart the moment the bolt is let loose. One shot that is propably deadly is just about the best you can hope from these constructs.

Just as you finish the inspection, you see your trackers return. The Lady (aka 'one in a million chance') seems to smile upon you at last: they report they've found a trail, and the actual place where the humans were staying. It is but ten minutes away by running.

A gruesome description is what they give you: blood, skulls and animal entrails seem to be the motif for a single mud-hut and smoothed stone slab, with small torches and candles set around the slab at regular intervals. It is on the bottom of a small cauldron-like shape in the ground. They counted at least 8 humans, and your missing dwarf, bound and gagged, before they came back. The humans were wearing similar torn and cheap clothes as the ones that attacked you, and now they've painted themselves with strange symbols in what is most likely animal blood.

When they mention the altar itself almost shone red in the candlelight from the amount of blood spilled on it during long periods of time, you've heard enough. Bile rises to your throat as your realize the fate awaiting Gurnmor Ingelsson should you fail to rescue him: ritual sacrifice.

 

[Zacharine]

welcome gamekid, if you feel as if you need a second opinion on things feel free to ask. (note that, in the spirit of a good game, i will not tell you what to do, rather try to point you in the right direction, if sak sak doesn't mind)

Indeed, I do not. You can all discuss the game, implications of what I've described or said, or plans for the future and whatnot amongst yourselves freely.

You are all also welcome to ask questions or bounce ideas off me. I'll answer what I can, when I can.

Oh, STE3L: I'm a university student studying Industrial Engineering And Management, majoring in industrial economics and technical speciality of Wood and Paper chemistry. I'm currently doing a summer job at a office of a brand new power plant construction site (intended to burn lake-grown canary reed, wood waste and peat). I'm translating documents to english (as I live in Finland), writing law-based procedures regarding site workers' safety and security, and sending out invitations to tender different aspects of the project (based on material given to me to scan&print&compile to physical folders), all the while learning how to handle the invoice management system at the company so that I can take over for the month or so the actual person handling them normally is on vacation.

Needless to say, I'm kept fairly busy: My salary is the lowest in the office, so any job that I'm allowed to and qualified to do, I do. Because it saves time for the actual consults and engineers to do the critical and complicated "We needed this done yesterday"-stuff that crops up before vacations.

I most certainly don't mind, but it does tend to keep me there for over the 8h norm on an average day.

Now, back to the game

Snip

It is a tough exersice in willpower, to stay in formation and slowly advance through the mass of spiders, when your blood is calling you jump forward and tear the spiders apart with your bare hands.

But you manage. Barely.

Most of the fighting passes in a red haze, and your internal struggle to contain it and not go berserk. The spiders simply seem to stop: you pierce yet another one, just like the countless before that, only to find there are no more live spiders in front of you. You look around. You feel pride in your clan, having fought such a glorious battle. Still they stand, vigilant besides you.

Until the first one collapses to the ground, wheezing and panting and too tired to even lift a shield. Most simply seem to fall against the walls, leaning against it to catch a breather.

You are not so lucky. As the red haze lifts when you are no longer killing and stabbing and screaming glory to Armok and almost drinking the blood of the felled spiders-

The horrid memories assault you. You did drink the blood, you bathed and revelled in it, you kept driving the shield wall forward and screaming to assult and keep pushing and-

You vomit. You dare not think what comes out. As you fall to your knees like a marionette with strings cut, your muscles hurting so bad you almost beg for death, your eyes strangely focus on your hands. Distantly, you feel your body convulsing, muscles seizing and cramping and breathing becoming painful- you look past the flaking, hardened blood coating your fingers.

What is beneath, is almost as white as snow. Strangely, you realize, with so much blood around, you'd think there wouldn't be such a lack of it within your own veins.

Mercifully, you pass out.

Waking up, in your own bed, bandaged tightly and with an assortment of empty, discarded cups of medical salves around you, is quite a surprise for you.

Egads, but you hurt. As you lift your hand, it is twitching and convulsing.

Your consciousness is discovered soon, as one of your miners enters the room with a bucket of water. Soon, you are receiving reports of what has been going on.

You've been out cold for a week.

Your dwarves have just yesterday finished cleaning up the 'tunnel of slaughter'. The walls are still red, nothing short of digging it out can change that, but at least there are no more rotting corpses there. The last bodycount was over 500 dead spiders, with over 40 the size of a dog or larger.

The numbers are staggering. In your mind, you begin to thank the entire dwarven pantheon for the miracle of actually winning the battle. One dead she-dwarf, Hild Rakshooek, and your own condition are small compared to how many should have died even with a blessing form gods.

If your hands weren't shaking already, they would be now.

Your own future is uncertain: you had more bites upon your body than anyone else, and you lost more blood than should be possible without dying outright. There are no trained healers among you, so what they have to offer you is a best guess: With luck, the poisons in your body will be diluted and come out on their own, with time. They are hopeful normal purgative tea's and medicinal herbs will help them along.

But as it is, you won't be fit to walk around on your own for daysw, perhaps weeks, simply due to your muscles painfully contracting randomly every now and then.

The tunnels themselves have been blocked. There are half-a-dozen feets of stone and plaster, a veritable siege-wall, now blocking off all enterances to lower portions of the caverns. YOu can dig a new passageway, if required, in less than a day but for now nothing is coming trough from or going down to there.

Your mason, and his new apprentice, pulled all week 20h work-days to complete the task as soon as possible.

Hild Rakshooek is yet to be buried. She has been placed in a casket, and her body preserved in dwarved tradition, but concensus was to wait for your awakening, or death, for final burial rites.

So far, nothing else has been done: clearing the corpses, tending for you, guarding the tunnels and building the walls has taken all of their time. Even the farm has been left unattended.

All your live dwarves, now 8 in addition to you, are spread out around your bed. They are tired, their mood is in shreds, and your awakening has been the only piece of good news they've had since the battle.

A wounded, tired, poisoned, weak dwarf you may be, but you are still their leader. And they are clearly looking to you for that leadership and planning.

 

[One Seven One]

-snip-

hmm intersting

for order of business will go to getting a better food supply, send three people to find anything that seems plentifull and hardey, but not to far from the camp, due to the animals.

Also send three people to get wood to be used as a barricade around the current encampment (propping up pointy sticks to, hopefully, ward away any unwanted animals)

have a two people start growing mushrooms

as for the rest, have them continue building the homes

and at the end of the day give a speech on how I'm proud of them all for their hard work thus far.

 

[Zacharine]

Snip

With the division of labour clear, work resumes at fast pace.

It takes a few days to fell enough trees and smoothen and sharpen them, as well as dig the small foundation for the wooden barricade.

By the end of the fourth day, you have three rows of pointy sticks, rising on top of eachother in different angles and supported by a sparse palisade rising two dwarves height from the ground up. It doesn't cover a large area though, creating enough secure room for a dozen, twenty at most, dwarves between the enterance to your home and the palisade. Smaller climbing animals will easily bypass it, but larger animals will have trouble with it. It does have a narrow opening in it, to allow you access outside of your fledling fortress.

The mushrooms have taken well to the underground farm you've created. As a pleasant surprise, not even moisture of the soil, normally the limiting factor, seems to hold them back and they are growing fast. You expect by the end of the second week after planting for the first ones to be ready for harvest.

The dwarves you sent out to nearby areas to gather supplies have been bringing in plenty of fruits, leaves, naturla herbs and edible roots. Most of the berries, they report, are still raw. They've also brought in a strange plant. It bears a strong resemblance to what is commonly called Snowbell among the dwarves, and Maiden's Tear among the elves.

Spoiler

From outer appearances at first glance, it fits to a T of the description given in All Ye Plants for Snowbell.

What doesn't fit is that Snowbell only blooms during winter, and prefers cool environments.

With your palisade/barricade finished, and mushrooms planted, work continued full-force on finishing personal quarters. So far, everone has a meager room with the barest of furniture, but they are far better than no rooms at all.

It has now been three weeks since your arrival, and mentally you've just about began to settle in. Midsummer is one short week away, and if all goes well you'll have your first keg of Toland-brewed rum from freshly harvested mushrooms for the celebrations. Your close future seems fairly secure: you've got supplies, a small mushroom farm, a meager dining hall, workshops to work on stone and lumber, a small kitchen, individual bedrooms and sufficient stores that your wagon now sits ouside, empty.

Much work needs to be done to ensure your home blooms into a proper fortress. You've no trading partners, you are only growing mushrooms, chalk is somewhat second-grade building material, the inside of your fortress of bare and rough with walls and floors of packed dirt, among other challenges. Your clan also knows this, but they are also glad to be free from the Nobles from back home and free from the constant suspicion caused by the stigma of dealing with those outlawed either by their own choice or by the Nobles.

 

[One Seven One]

Begin growing pig tail so it can be used for rope (I plan to make a makeshift net to catch fish and maybe some wips).

send a three dwarves to look for any durable metal.

send four dwarves along the river to check for traders and to check the kinds of fish.

have the rest of the dwarves chop down some wood so it can be used for furniture.

As for the plant, I'm not sure what I could do with that, ask any traders I may find if they have any knowledge of why such a plant would be growing out here. (unless it is becoming winter!)

 

[DragonofDecay86]

Spoiler: Sheet

If there is still room, mind if i join this?

Group Name: Iron Fists
Settlement name: Kazkan
Description of area: Just off the mountainside, place right before the desert. This village is naturally protected by the mountainside. A vast desert flows out from the village, hardly any water can be found and the only water is the water that flows down from the mountain during rain season.
Group history: Once used to be a large military group, but was reduced to few in number because of a siege on the elven capital. The few who remain are skilled fighters and excellent hunters.
Fields of talent: Fighting, Hunting
Special item and it's description: A large hunting bow wielded by the master hunter. It rarely misses its target and is passed down to whoever the previous master hunter chooses, whether it is an heir or a family friend, or just someone who is deemed worthy..

Now edited

 

[Zacharine]

Begin growing pig tail so it can be used for rope (I plan to make a makeshift net to catch fish and maybe some wips).

send a three dwarves to look for any durable metal.

send four dwarves along the river to check for traders and to check the kinds of fish.

have the rest of the dwarves chop down some wood so it can be used for furniture.

As for the plant, I'm not sure what I could do with that, ask any traders I may find if they have any knowledge of why such a plant would be growing out here. (unless it is becoming winter!)

Clarifying questions and comments:
1. You got ten dwarves, including you.
1 to expand farming area and begin planting Pig Tail
3 to search the area... for ore... generally mined belowground. Well, if they get incredibly lucky, they might find a suitable site for a open pit mine. How long do they search?
4 to hang out by the river and catalogue the fish. How long do you want them to stay? hours, days? weeks?
= 1+you unassigned. = both of you chop down wood and make furniture.

2.

It has now been three weeks since your arrival, and mentally you've just about began to settle in. Midsummer is one short week away, and

Midsummer is about to come. Winter is nowhere near. = the plant is put in a pot ouside your enterance.

Which is still open by the by. You don't have a door.

I have no problems rolling with this. Just thought you might want to have a second look at what you are actually telling me to do.

 

[Zacharine]

Spoiler: Sheet

If there is still room, mind if i join this?

Group Name: Iron Fists
Settlement name: Kazkan
Description of area: Just off the mountainside, settled in between two cliffs. This village is naturally protected by the mountainside. A dense forest covers up the exit from the village, and a large cliff drops down just after the forest, making the village nearly impossible to penetrate except for a small tunnel leading to the front of the base which the merchants and such use to trade goods with the Iron Fists.
Group history: Once used to be a large military group, but was reduced to few in number because of a siege on the elven capital. The few who remain are skilled fighters and excellent miners and blacksmiths.
Fields of talent: Mining, Fighting, Hunting
Special item and it's description: A large hunting bow wielded by the master hunter. It rarely misses its target and is passed down to whoever kills the previous master hunter.

Yes, we still have room. Welcome.

Couple of problems with your sheet.

#1. Only 2 specialities/fields of talent. Ditch one.
#2. Promoting inter-clan fighting with promise of giving the Master Bow to whomever kills the previous master hunter might not exactly be the best long term-plan for a group consisting of 10 dwarves known to have a liking for fighting. I have no problem with it per se, but just thought you'd might like to rethink some aspects of that.
#3. East or West side of the mountainrange that Mountainhome is in? Ie. the elven jungle-side, or the arid plains-side.

 

[DragonofDecay86]

I finished editing it

 

[One Seven One]

-snip-

I didn't want the four to watch the river all day, just look at it while they where looking for traders.

I also kept forgetting to count myself in the tasks, thank you for reminding me.

After thinking over it a bit more I need to make some changes to the commands.

five dwarves will chop wood and begin crafting the door and furniture
One to begin planting pig tail
one to watch the river for any fish
one + me to walk along the river and find traders
And two to go in to the forest in search of any different resources, such as stronger trees or rocks that could be used in place of ores.

Edit: and the plant is a mystery, maybe if me and the other dwarf find any traders we'll ask them.

I chose the higher numbers for the away-from-camp tasks earlier because I'm half expecting to get mauled by a tiger or something.

 

[Zacharine]

I finished editing it

Much better.

Let us get started.

The glory days of your clan are gone, lost along with the battle to take the great elven city of Xaltelolco a lifetime ago. The once great barracks are empty and in disrepair, the walls of your villgae are crumpling and only the underground portions see any use. Your clan sees the occasional group from the nearby Moutainhome, coming to learn some of your arts of fighting, but when such groups always eventually leave and ask you to join them, your dwindling clan of 10 stays behind.

This village is your home, and for long it has been said that the village will stand as long as even just one Iron Fist remains.

But as time takes it toll on the old structures, you are no longer quite so sure. The surrounding lands are seeing more wild animals than ever before. Your treasures, with the exception of the Master Bow, have been sold overtime to keep the village standing. Stores of stone and metals are almost empty, the smithy sees use only to repair the occasional pot or knife. The previous clan leaders did their best to bring back the glory of old days, to grow the clan back into prominence, but Mountainhome being so near, their task proved impossible: trade happens to Mountainhome as all caravans go straight there, and it allows the Nobles to dictate prices of eveything you sell or buy. Immigrants seeking to move into the area all go to Mountainhome, those wishing to leave want more distance.

But this early summer, something new happened. Instead of the common group of a dozen dwarves seeking learning and brining gifts to pay for it, an armed group of 50 soldiers came to your village, marked with the symbols of the Nobles personal guard unit.

They brought with them a degree from the Nobles: you had to pay a tax for the land. Ignoring your protests to contrary, they marched in and took what they could. The few remaining objects of gold, a heap of weapons and training tools and the silk banners from the top of your rotting main gate. They sacked your ancient training hall aboveground and set fire to it, quickly fleeing afterwards to escape your ire.

You had heard some rumours that things are not well back at Mountainhome. This seemed to prove it, it is as if the Nobles have gone mad and are seriously fearing a civil war.

It is the midsummer festival a week later, and you have pondered the happenings and rumours since the soldiers' "legal" raid. It is time to revitalize this clan. Mountainhome has proven an irritant, but is also an opportunity in these tumoultous times. You simply need to find a way. In your mind, you make a wow to make the Iron Fist clan rise back to greatness, and bring Kazkan glory that is not tied to ancient times.

On the other side of the large bonfire you've built, lies the ancient bronze gong that used to ring every morning as signal to begin training. You heft a small stone form the ground, and even in the twilight hit the gong with a supreme throw.

The sound is like your village: Failing and rusty, but it still has strenght and deep within is buried the clear note of ages past.

The sound comes as a shock to your clan. Not in 60 years has it been rung.

You have their attention. It is time to put fire in their eyes, and begin fulfilling the wow you just made to yourself.

How do you proceed?

 

[DragonofDecay86]

Well first, send four dwarves out to hunt, you cant survive without food and food is needed to support a base.

Secondly, send two dwarves down into the mines to mine ores to make new weapons for the ones lost to the nobles.

Third, send two dwarves to cut wood for building repairs.

Fourth, set the last two dwarves for repairing what little the can and scavenging around camp for anything that wasn't taken by the attackers.

 

[Zacharine]

five dwarves will chop wood and begin crafting the door and furniture
One to begin planting pig tail
one to watch the river for any fish
one + me to walk along the river and find traders
And two to go in to the forest in search of any different resources, such as stronger trees or rocks that could be used in place of ores.

Edit: and the plant is a mystery, maybe if me and the other dwarf find any traders we'll ask them.

I chose the higher numbers for the away-from-camp tasks earlier because I'm half expecting to get mauled by a tiger or something.

The week before midsummer passes quickly. With wood rolling in, carpentry skills are being put to proper use as tables, chairs, cabinets and chests roll out. But the biggest task is building and fitting the grand oaken door to your enterance. The door itself used up most of your supplies of rope and fibers, but now it stands as solid as an iron porticullis, and as tight as a floodgate. You order a barrel of wine opened that night, in celebration.

Your farm has been expanded, the soft clay and silt yielding to a pick and a shovel. The planting itself for the reed-like Pig Tail is half done by the midsummer festival, and should be completed in another day or two.

A day spent on the river has yielded varying results. There seems to be plenty of fish there, some as long as an arm. You also found something else in there: huge, huge crocodiles, nothing like the small stream crocs back at mountainhome. These ones could easily chomp out an arm, and perhaps even devour an armed and armored dwarf if given time. They seems to ignore you mostly, perhaps due to the abundance of fish and game.

The forests and plains surrounding the river seems to have plenty of wildlife; mostly things that are small and agile and quick escape the moment they hear you coming, but you did catch a glimpse of something bigger as well before it escaped.

The felines you saw earlier are also around. Mostly you've kept your distance, as have they, but there is no fear of you in them. They are as tall as you are, even when on four legs, and have long and sharp teeth. Carnivores for sure. They seems to be pack animals from what little you could see, and they never approach the river in groups smaller than four.

Unfortunetaly there's been no sign of traders, or any civilization at all in fact. You know that there ought to be at elast some human outposts out here in the plains, but you never paid close attention to the old maps made by dwarven explorers, and human maps are notoriously unreliable. Come to think of it, you aren't even sure the river is used for trade; one would think so, but offhand you cannot remember any larger settlements, human, dwarven or elven, on the northern parts of the arid plains and the rocky wastelands beyond.

Perhaps, in time, a merchant might come accross you, but as no one knows that you are even there and even back at Mountainhome there is no knowledge of your precise location, at least on short term someone coming in to trade with you is somewhat a small hope. Somehow, word needs to get out that you are there, and looking for trade.

The dwarves sent to scout for resources report also somewhat mediocre news. The plains themselves contain little of worthwhile stone materials: limestone and chalk boulders mostly every now and then. The trees here grow large and strong, and veins of chalk seems to surface every now and then. They did find a few hours away a hill that seemed to be made of Microline stone.

Spoiler

The stone itself is only slightly harder than chalk, but has been known to occasionally contain low-to medium value gems like Moss opals and green Zircons within. But mostly it is regarded with caution: ancient legends of old, older than any Dwarven settlement and perhaps even older than the great elven cities, speak of this stone as the Cage Of Evil, containing unspeakable horrors within. Naturally, these stories are mostly laughed at, and yet even back at Mountainhome tunnels tend to circle around larger deposits.

It is now the midsummers festival, and your brand new redwood tables serve you some of your last meat rations from home, rum and wine and ale (with your first keg of Toland brewed among them), fruits, berries, mushrooms and fine dwarven bread. Torches light up the dining room, the rough walls casting flickering shadows at curves and angles. You've made fine results so far, having just finished the worskhop and still for your farmer; nothing is more important to a dwarf than access to a stiff drink, water is for the sick, the feeble and the elves. Of course, most dwarves simply prefer to forget that those stiff drinks are impossible to make without water, but most simply do not care one way or the other.

Most of the partying is your average belching competitions, loud singing and talking of good times over a barrel of beer. However, as the night continues, topics every now and then return to the matter of a shrine. It seems many of your dwarves feel a proper community shrine to one of your gods would be proper. It certainly is something to think of, but as clan mood seems to be high and gods have seen fit to not punish you for leaving Mountainhome, it isn't a matter of hurry.

As the sun rises, your dwarves are eating breakfast and recovering quickly from their hangovers from the festival previous night, you realize most of them have no directly given tasks from you: farming only needs one dwarf part-time at this point in time, you have plenty of wood in store and have only one skilled carpenter, most of the furniture requested has almost been done and you've set no major tasks or goals to be accomplished.

 

[Zacharine]

Well first, send four dwarves out to hunt, you cant survive without food and food is needed to support a base.

Secondly, send two dwarves down into the mines to mine ores to make new weapons for the ones lost to the nobles.

Third, send two dwarves to cut wood for building repairs.

Fourth, set the last two dwarves for repairing what little the can and scavenging around camp for anything that wasn't taken by the attackers.

You set out the tasks for your dwarves, who seem shellshocked at first, and then, slowly, begin to sing a song to Moradin, the Crafter of Fate and king of the pantheon.

Next day, there seems to be a new spring to their steps.

Over a week has passed.

The hunters, being on familiar ground, bring in exceptional results: goats and deer seem to fly in, and are quickly cut up and their hides set to tan, albeit with little expertise, on their own fat. Most of the meat is washed, and stored in tight barrells to prevent spoilage. It isn't as good as proper salting, but those amounts of salt are unavailable. Your old farms, both above and below ground are cleared of weeds and unwanted shrubs when you degree there to be enough of meat.

The mines are desended upon with gusto, only to find them poor and almost empty. There is no coal there, not even bitumious one or lignite. There are no remaining veins of hematite, copper or other ores. You find tin here and there, but not any really meaningful amounts: less than 10 bars worth of total once smelted. There is plenty of Gabbro and almadine, a red stone often of gem-quality, but you find no actual gem-quality samples.

The old mines... are mined out. You either have to dig deeper, or wider, or start a new mine outside of the village.

Work begins on repairing the old structures, but it is slow going: the structural integrity isn't the best possible and simply felling a wall and rebuilding it can't be done. So far, you've managed to repair the aboveground storehouse, and it is quickly filled with wood from the forests nearby.

What you eventually managed to scavenge and repair, is pitiful by any measure for your clan: some basic tools, a carpenters workshop, some pans and pots of the old kitchen and some rotten wooden armor stands and weapon racks. A few steel pickaxes, some shovels and a forgotten bronze crossbow that used to be encrusted with jewels of some kind, before they too were sold years ago, as well as three two-handed battleaxes made of bronze, and finally, a single set of leather armor of cuirboulli variety wth no helmet.

Well, every grand village needs to start somewhere.

 

[DragonofDecay86]

Hmm... its a start i guess...

Spoiler: OOC

Do we just continue giving commands like these?

Well since we have food the next priority would be weapons and defense:

First, I would send four dwarves down into the mine to dig deeper so that more ore could be possibly found.

Second, I would send five more dwarves to using the new-found wood to build makeshift barriers around the village, and to repair what buildings we could. If the buildings cant be repaired tear them down and start the anew.

Third, I would set the last dwarf as watch. You don't know if the princess guards would come again.

 

[One Seven One]

I will wait to mine for gems, I could us those gems as points for spears and such later on!
(I used to play Runescape a lot...)
[While on that subject, do I actually have any gem-crafter dwarves?]

I will permanently assign the best farmer dwarf the duty of tending to the plants.

send two dwarves to mine for limestone, something such as that could be use as relics for the alter, or for the alter itself.

have one dwarf begin building sheilds for all from the excess wood

And I will send the other dwarves to build traps in the forest, both pit traps for the large animals and box traps for the small animals.

Something as sacred as an alter should be built by everyone, after the traps are built the plants have been tended to, and the miners have come back everyone should work together to build an alter.

 

[EvilJoe1]

Follow the tracks to where the 'Humans' have been staying, leave the wagon a short way away. Get as close as possible without being seen/heard, taking out any guards with the good crossbow. Once all the humans are accounted for use fire a volly of arrows with the crossbows, drop them and then advance in a shield wall grinding the humans against the walls. And once Gurnmor Ingelsson is behind the shield wall have a dwarf untie and move him.

P.S If you have time can you please draw a rought map of where everyone is? or write a description of where everyone is in relation to each other?

 

[STE3L]

snip

to do:
1. make funeral arangments, some what lavish. give a speach saying that we all knew what could happen and how Hild would want us to carry on.
2. arect a alter in the tunnle, as a reminder and tribute to the battle and to armock. (if he realy did help, better show our thanks, right?)
3. clear some of the near by trees and begin sculpting the stones outside.
4. train the guard. mock fights if need be.

as for myself, i work on controling the spazems and as a whole, get to a better state of health.