Fun Stuff > CLIKC
QC Forums Dwarf Fortress Succession game.
Buttfranklin:
Haha, great update!! Keep em coming!
KvP:
I have a massive thing of snapshots to upload and write up, but I've gone through two seasons and it's running me pretty ragged. I'm not doing horribly, mind you - our pop's pretty high, I just laid down a subterranean farming operation near the surface, and I managed to bump into the cavern without losing anybody. However I do have a lot of reading and projects to do for school this week, so unless you don't mind this pace (one post per 4 days or so) then I can hand it off to the next chappie in line.
KvP:
Vol. II: Survival and Other Futile Pursuits
Chapter 2: One Step Downward, Two Steps Up
From the Journal of K'veep Thosbutashtesh, Scribe and Acolyte of the Royal Tongs
I've been able to pick up a bit of the slack around here since my last entry. We're not exactly "fucked", to use the language so many of our low-born brethren employ, but the screws are tightening.
First off, the successes. A particularly loudmouth sod whose name I didn't pick up suggested a rather effective solution to our stone clutter problem - Dumping grounds. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but it is certainly the most space-efficient solution to our stone problem. I've also begun digging out the areas of the workshop level designated by my predecessor, and it indeed contained many things of use - Gems for encrusting, cutting and selling, and gold for smelting into coin. However I don't believe this outpost will survive long enough to see entry into the histories if we don't have armaments - luckily enough we've found rock that can be smelted for copper. Not nearly as useful as an iron ore, but better than nothing.
I've also been working a bit on my calligraphy. It's coming along nicely.
I've also put some thought into our food situation. Obviously we can't grow anything on rock, and it would be too costly (not to mention undwarflike) to farm under the sun, so I've designed a rudimentary scheme for turning some of our sand-level complex into tillable ground for cave wheat and mushrooms.
I started off somewhat clumsily, having our miners dig east towards one of the pools before realizing half the space I had planned out was actually rock. It turned out to be a boon, however - the rock held a good amount of silver / zinc ore, which we may be able to use to create armaments. We'll certainly be able to handle any lycanthropes that come our way.
Creating farmable cave space is a matter of mathematics, more than anything else, so it's a good thing these sods have me around. Any given horizontal slice of mountain is about 7 meters in height. If we measure that out on our map grid, we can get a rough estimate of how much ground the ponds we have at our disposal will be able to cover before running dry. We want every square meter of our field space to have just one meter of water covering it - That way our dwarves will be able to move around in it if they have to, and the water will evaporate quickly, leaving muddy floors ripe for planting. I've had two chambers dug out, with a channel opposite the pond. If I've underestimated the amount of water coming through, the 5 meters of channel will be able to hold 35 cubic meters of excess water, which should certainly be enough.
...
Shite.
Well then, I'm going to open up the pool directly adjacent to the one I just drained. It's a fair bit more sizable, and I'm nothing if not a cautious dwarf, so I'm adding another large farming chamber to the two existing ones. A waterlogged farm is more of a pain in the ass than one which is dry but only half-usable. There is an abundance of such water sources on this level of the complex, so creating more farm space should not be a problem, should we need to.
...
That's more like it! I had to remove the door I had put in place before (it was causing an impassable backup of water in the corridor leading to the farm) and the chamber isn't fully converted, but we have enough to start a modest farming operation, hopefully one that will see us through the hard times. Three plots, one of which will be yielding Plump Helmets year-round, one that will provide Dimple Cups year-round, and one that will provide Cave Wheat, except during the wintertime, when it will bolster our Plump Helmet harvest.
I picked a smart time to bring our farming apparatus into commission, because soon after we were set upon by a great influx of immigrants. Given the greater labor force, I felt it wouldn't be a bad idea to start putting a little time in myself.
I have no idea where this rabble get their nicknames.
As an added boon, the influx was so great that I was able to assign a full squad of seven dwarves to militia training and duty. Our arsenal is pitiful currently, but with a little work and some luck we might not bowl over like an Elven child in a slight wind should we be set upon by enemies. Aside from Scandinavian War Machine, who is the militia leader, all the recruits were taken from professions we have little use for here.
Even with that assignment, it appears we have up to ten dwarves to add to our labor pool. I'll just have to acclimate and start varying our industrial production, I suppose.
...
We have a new problem. Elves from a nearby province have arrived, and it turns out the area we have settled under is held in reverence by them. They demanded they speak with the dumbstruck Pisslips, despite my objections.
I know not what Pisslips told them, though he must have given them some answer. They did not seem particularly incensed, and we traded a handful of rock-hewn trinkets for some of their seeds.
We are now caught between a rock and a hard place. If for some reason Pisslips denied their request, we might have to contend with an Elven war party sooner rather than later. However if he indeed promised them that we would leave their precious trees alone, I see no way that we can keep that promise. We are in dire need of forged metal equipment, and the only fuel we have at our disposal is charcoal, the production of which consumes wood at a phenomenally inefficient rate (1 tree = 1 charcoal, which means we consume two trees for every item made in the forge, one for the smelted metal, and one for the blacksmithing itself). Which means we either take the wood we need for forging and get maybe a few sets of armor and some copper weapons crafted before the Elves come back and start shite, or we sit on our hands and remain armorless and weaponless until the Elves decide we've been good enough tenants to let us off the hook, during which time any number of threats could easily slaughter us, and that's assuming the Elves will ever release us from the agreement, and that's assuming they haven't counted since we started this place, in which case we may already be fucked.
We have but one possible saving grace - if there is rocky material beneath us that can be used to make coke, we will be able to cut our wood dependency in half and buy time. I've ordered the miners to start digging. With any luck there will be something, anything, we can use.
To that end, I have created a shaft near our primary auxiliary staircase to dig down into the rock. I've also created a makeshift dormitory so the migrants won't have to sleep on the floors of our complex. I've realized that with every bed we make, the necessity of finding a coke supply increases. But the beds are as an immediate of a concern as anything else. Once we've explored the rock below us I'll see to making proper rooms for the migrants, but for now I'm focusing on finding coke.
...
Well shite. Upon digging, our miners breached a wall to the biggest natural cavern I have ever seen.
Naturally, the cavern has been cut with the the rushing water of the river that flows into the mountain north of the entrance to Gorgeconfined. From the spot where our miners breached the wall, the cavern is seven levels deep. Had I placed the mining shaft only a few meters to the West of where it stands, one or more of our miners could have fallen to a gruesome death. It also appears to flank us to the North, under our main complex, but the water seems to have cut many smaller corridors rather than a large chamber in that area, so we can assume structural integrity.
The sharp-eyed miners can apparently make out luminescent white structures down on the floor of the cavern - almost definitely the webs of cave spiders. Yet another reason to forge weapons and armor. I've sealed off the breach we made, but we either need to make an excursion down to the floor of the cavern with a well-armed and trained force, or attempt to circumvent the cavern entirely. In the meantime, I've set the miners to explore the levels we've dug so far. We've found a lot of precious stones and more zinc / silver ores, but no coke. The situation becomes more pressing by the day.
...
Yet more problems to deal with. "Dicky" Dodoksat, one of our miners, must have struck an ethereal spirit sleeping in the rock, because he has been possessed.
I've ordered some sods standing around to prepare stone blocks in case we need to
Thank the Gods. Now we'll just have to wait and see what
... It's not what I would have chosen, but then, I'm not haunting a solid chunk of rock, now am I? I haven't had the opportunity to examine the floodgate but it is surely of the finest craftsmanship. I'm not entirely aware where the laborers have taken it, either. I have no use for such an item... yet. Perhaps this spirit was trying to tell us something. I will be extra cautious around matters of water in the future.
_________________________________
That's all I've got for now :\ There are at least 5 dwarves without nicknames at this point, if we want anybody to be immortalized.
snalin:
--- Quote from: snalin on 27 Aug 2010, 08:10 ---I want a miner dwarf named after me.
--- End quote ---
Muppet King:
I, again, request to have the dwarf in charge of eliminating uppity nobles named after me.
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