Bay 12 Games Forum

Just a small experiment with the pen tool, I think it worked out quite well.

My version of Aste:

Entry 5

Alright, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is that we've run out of coal, our best mason is crying in a corner, there's a giant shrimp in the dungeons, we don't have enough bedrooms, our people are being scared by Grimelings, we don't have enough gold or manpower to fullfill mandates, the dining room floods every now and again and people are crazy enough to request caged goblins in their rooms.

The good news is that we haven't run out of booze yet, which makes things slightly more bearable.

Mega-shrimp is still stomping around in our caverns, thank Armok we breached the caverns through the ceiling rather than through the walls. We can just sit on our fat asses over here and he won't be able to reach us, ever. I still want to take care of the situation and to this end I have thrown together a squad of marksdwarves. Mero (the hunter whose bolt was stolen by a kobold earlier) volunteered to train and lead this squad. Seeing as he's the most skilled marksdwarf in the fort I have allowed him to do this. The miners are digging out an archery range as we speak.

---

The caravan arrived today, and they brought cloth! Hallelujah! I also requested the Mountainhomes send us every single bit of gold that they can spare.

Goldenblocks took a bit of alpaca wool and started working, he later presented to me the prettiest damn floodgate I have ever seen:



Goldenblocks was already a mason of legendary skill, but with this amazing contribution to masonry around the world I don't think 'legendary' is the right word anymore. That's why I invented 'smoorp'; a new word to describe dwarves who are incredibly awesome at their job. Goldenblocks doesn't seem to be all that happy about becoming a smoorp mason, he still grumbles about wanting to work with gold. I thought about this and have agreed that he can perform some goldsmithing jobs, provided that he'll smelt the gold himself and that he won't skip out on his duties as a mason. I have ordered the excavation of a special room dedicated to the smelting and smithing of gold.

The marksdwarves (or "Executioners", as Mero calls them) have been training hard so that they might defeat the Forgotten Beast that roams our caverns, they are not that well trained yet (they're less 'disciplined, well-oiled machines of war' and more 'a bunch of fat, hairy men sitting around and sharing the three crossbows that were made for the ten of them') but they have requested that they be allowed to try and kill the super-shrimp. Seeing as they can stay out of reach of the beast I have allowed them free passage to the caverns.

---

There was a knock on the door of my office. Or at least there would've been a knock if my office had a door. Maybe I should do something about that.

Alright, so there was no knock. It was just Mero barging into my office as I wrote "Make more doors" on my checklist. Mero managed to pull off a nice salute.

"Mero Cilobdesis, Executioner reporting on the situation of Iklist Disuthostuk, Mega-shrimp. Sir!"

"Yes, Mero. I know who you are and what orders I gave you."

I don't think he even realized I was talking. "I am delighted to report that the attack on Iklist went off without any casualties or injuries on our side."

"So you killed the beast?"

"Nossir!"

"Oh, well. Did you at least manage to injure it?"

"Nossir! We missed every single shot."

"So we're pretty much in the exact same situation as we were before?"

"Well, not exactly sir. You see-"



"-and also we're down some bolts. Sir."

"So let me get this straight. I send you guys out to kill a forgotten beast, and when you return to me a second forgotten beast has appeared?"

"Yessir."

"You're aware that this is the exact OPPOSITE of what I sent you out to do, right?"

"Yessir. We would like to request that the Executioners can take another shot at it (no pun intended, sir) seeing as there are now two ginormous beasts which, according to dwarven mathematics, should be twice as easy to hit."

"And according to dwarven Murphy's law a third beast will appear as soon as you attempt the attack."

"Please, what are the odds of a third beast appearing?"

I sighed. "I guess you're right. Go attack the creatures, Armok knows you need the target practise. Besides, what's the worst thing that could hap-"



Son of a bitch!

Entry 4

"An altar? Seems reasonable." Spaghetti and Shino were pitching their idea to me. "Should there be anything special about it?"

"It shall be build from solid gold!"

"In the bowels of the earth!"

"In room at least three Urists high!"

"And the walls should be engraved with- wait, what's that?"

A crowd had gathered in front of the mason's workshops. They were all pushing and shouting to get in front.

"All right! What's going on here?!" They were far too busy with shouting to pay any attention to me. I grabbed a hammer and jumped into the crowd.
As I fought my way to the front line I managed to hear a couple of snippets of conversation:

"This one kind of looks like a donkey!"

"This one's metal bars!"

"Yeah, we figured that one out already. We're working on the one with all the squares."

I finally emerged from the front lines. "Alright, will someone please tell me what- Oh."

And there was Goldenblocks. Sitting in the fetal position and rocking back and forth.

"Crap. He went fey, didn't he?"

"Secretive, actually." Takoa handed me a stack of charcoal drawings. "He scribbled these and then he just started crying in the corner, poor thing."

I looked at the first drawing. "Well, that's metal bars. Tell someone to smelt some gold and-"

"He already grabbed some iron."

"Pity, he'd have liked the gold. This next one is-"

"A donkey!" Takoa seemed extremely proud of his discovery.

"-cut gems, actually. Goldenblocks is not an incredebly good artist but I'd recognize gems anywhere. We've got some rough rubies lying around, somebody cut them." One of the dwarves in the crowd waddled off. "Next up is rocks. Last time I checked we still live in a cave so that shouldn't be a problem. Last but not least is... Leather? I think?"

"We tried leather but that's not it. We think it's cloth, but none of that plant fiber stuff."

"Shit, do we have any sheep? Llama's, maybe?"

"Nope. Maybe we should try shearing a dog. Fur's fur. Right?"

"Let's try our luck with cave spider silk, first. It was time for us to breach the caverns anyway. Uthrist's been bugging me about only getting ores from caverns so it's a two-kobolds-with-one-stone situation." I gave Goldenblocks a firm prod with the handle of my hammer. He didn't respond. "Keep me posted on everything he does."

---

Something shook me awake. It was a deep rumbling from deep inside the earth.

"Is this another ghost? I got a doctor's note saying I'm excempt from ghostly activities, so scram!"

Another rumble, this time accompanied by a large splash. I heard the sounds of feet rushing towards my room as I got out of bed. I opened the door and saw the pale face of one of our miners.

"Tryrar? Ye gods, you look like you've seen a ghost!"

"SHRIMP!"

There are some things you're just not prepared for. One of those things is a crazy miner shouting the word 'shrimp'. Another one of those things is a shrimp.



Look at that thing. I mean, really look at it:



Ugh, disgusting. Anyway, this really messes up the cavern exploration plan so I'm afraid it's back to the drawing board.

Sorry about the delay, I recently re-installed Black & White. That game is way too much fun.

Anyway, let's stop the excuses and move on to:

Entry 3

We're actually accomplishing stuff here! We've got an ironworks all set up, with four smelters and two forges. This allowed us to make a full set of armour for Anderz, and not only that:



We actually have a militia going on! Ten dwarves, each of them equipped with a complete (alright, mostly complete. We ran out of iron at some point but we're smelting more) set of armour. We're still mostly unarmed but Uthrist, cape enthousiast and self-proclaimed 'dungeon master', seems to know which end of a hammer you're supposed to hold so I guess I'll let him give it a go.



We also built a wall (complete with drawbridge) and some basic traps. They don't really do anything to keep the harpies out but they seem to calm Gar down. That's a good thing seeing as he's the one currently working on the fountains for the dining room and I do NOT want him to screw those up.

---

"...And this lever operates the pumps that will pump the water from the cistern to the fountains! They get their power from an array of-" Gar spent the last half-hour showing me the various tricks and mechanisms that he'd used to construct the fountains. He claimed he was done but I insisted on checking things out before we activated the fountains. "-And this lever operates the floodgate connected to the river. All we have to do to activate the fountains now is pull this lever and start the whole thing up."

"And you're sure this all works?"

"Oh yes, there's no way I could've made a mistake. So... Can I pull the lever now?"

I had already ordered the evacuation of the dining room. If this goes wrong at least it won't kill anyone. "Alright, pull it." This seemed to please Gar immensely.

"Alright! Behold as I pull this lever and the enormous pressure of the river will fill the cistern immediately!" He pulled the lever. A number of clunks and whirrs were heard as the mechanisms hooked into each other, spun around and activated other mechanisms. The orchestra of sound effects was punctuated by a click, followed by the sound of a small trickle of water.

Gar looked confused. "That does not sound... Big enough. It should produce the roaring sound of an entire river being emptied into the cistern." He hurried downstairs to the cistern, I followed him. When I arrived downstairs he was already there, putting his ear to the door. "'S not filling up right." He opened the door, on the other side was a puddle.

"Now how did this happen?" I asked.

"Must've forgotten to carry a one." Gar mumbled as he took out a notepad and made some calculations. "With this rate the cistern should be filled up in two to three decades. Unless we dig out another cistern below this one that will-"

I left him to his pondering and went to check the list of mandates again.

---

'Capes.' We got the cloth industry set up and we're growing pig tails and dimple cups so that shouldn't be a problem.

'Solid gold bedroom + magma fountain.' We found a bit of gold but it's not nearly enough for a bedroom. We're going to have to dig a shitload of tunnels to find enough. As for the magma fountain: We don't have magma yet. I jotted down a small note "Find magma ASAP."

'Mr. Fishfist's bedroom.' Right, this one was easy:



We built the room close to the farms; it was just easier, logistics wise. Also, the chair is a simple wooden chair rather than the rock thrones that we normally use. It just seemed appropriate. I put down a small check next to the mandate.

'Basic defenses.' Check.

'Fountain in the dining room.' Working on it.

'Arena.' We're still in the concept phase here. I got some designs ready but so far nothing really seems to stand out. I could do some really awesome stuff if we had access to magma though. I underlined the "ASAP" in my earlier note.

'Native gold furniture.' This one confused me a bit. Goldenblocks seems eager to be a metalsmith but right now we simply don't have the extra ores or fuel to allow an unexperienced smith near the forges. Instead Goldenblocks insisted he would be allowed to make furniture from gold ore.

---

"You treacherous little filcher!" The voice came from one hill over. I dropped the logs I was carrying and hurried over to see what was going on.

I arrived to see the hunter, swearing loudly and stamping on his own hat. "He took it! He just walked up to me and stole it!"

"Whoa, calm down! What's all this about? Who took what?"

"A stinking kobold thief! He stole one of my bolts!"

"A kobold? I heard they were so stupid they forgot to feed themselves and starved to death! What are they doing here?"

"Stealing my bolt! That's what!"

"Just the one bolt though? It's a bit odd that he ran off with just one bolt."

"...I might've shot it at him."

"Well then what were you expecting? Him to apologise, pull it out of his spleen and hand it back to you? Anyway, it's just a kobold and it's just a bolt. I'll have the smiths make some new bolts and we'll place some more traps, that should take care of things."

---

"It's just a bit damp!"

"It's a flood."

"It was just a little overpressurized! Clearly the upper cisterns were not a good idea, they were originally conceived to-" I chose to ignore Gar's techno-babble and check out the damage.

The dining room was a mess. The pumps activated while the ceiling hatches were still sealed shut so that pressure would build up until the hatches finally opened and twelve billion gallons of water came cascading into the dining room. Nobody got hurt but everyone's soaked and my dinner's ruined.



Gar was still talking. "-next time we should probably avoid that. It's working beatifully now, though."

I looked around. It was. Four waterfalls surrounded by big tables custom-made to let the water through. The result was stunning.

"Alright." I said to anyone in earshot. "Clean this up. Lay some new tiles and enjoy your dining room."

I took out my notepad and checked off another mandate.

"Thikut..."

The voice sounded like someone was dragging their nails across a chalkboard. No, scratch that. It sounded like someone was dragging a rake made from cats over a chalkboard made from glass shards.

"Thiiikuuuut..."

I decided to igore it. I'll just lie in my bed and try to fall asleep again. When I wake up tomorrow everything will be all right and totally non-scary.

"Thiiiiiiikuuuuuuut..."

I'm just hallucinating. Maybe I ate a rotten plump helmet. Can those things rot? I mean, they are already a kind of fungus. It'd be weird if they could, I should look into this.

"Dammit Thikut! Wake up!"

Lalala, I can't hear you!

Something tipped my bed. I planned to ignore it some more but then I realized that that would mean that I'd have to spend the night face-down on the cold, hard floor. I stood up, preparing for the worst.

And there he was, a mere shadow of what he used to be.

Yerp, the ghostly mason.

"Thikut, tonight you shall be visited by three spirits! They shall show you-"

"Who are the spirits?"

"What?"

"Who are the spirits? I mean, are they people who died here? Are they related to me? 'Cos if my mum is coming back from the dead I'm gonna have to clean my room or she'll go berserk!"

"Well, I'm the only person who ever died in this place so they'll all be me."

"That seems a bit-"

"I mean, I could outsource. But the paperwork is just- well, you know."

I nodded. Paperwork's a bitch.

"Anyway, you'll be visited by three-"

I had to interrupt him again. "Can't you just do it now?"

"What?"

"The visiting. You're here now so can't you just to all three visits at the same time rather than visit me three times over?"

"Well, I was gonna work with a whole- Ah, screw it. Alright then. Ahem:

I am the first spirit! I shall show you Razorthorn's past! Behold!"

Honestly, I was expecting more of a light show for something that was announced by a magical floating spirit from beyond the void but I guess I can't blame it for not showing off. Everything just simply blurred and faded until we were standing next to the river.

"Okay, now what?"

"Behold!"

I beheld. It was simply the river from back when Razorthorn was nothing more than a hole in a pile of dirt (Which is completely different from how it is now. Now it's a hole in a pile of dirt with bedrooms.)

A shape approached, it was Yerp. Except this one was alive and kicking.

Another shape followed it, it was a harpy. It swooped down.

AArghSHI-RRRIIIP!

"Ooooh, now I remember! This is from when you were torn a new one by those things! Man, they really messed you up didn't they?"

"Yes they did, now-"

"I mean, they severed your damn torso! I didn't even know that was possible!"

"Yes! Thank you for reminding me of that experience. Now, can you see what you did wrong?"

I looked around for a bit. "Not really. I mean, it's not like I could help you or anything."

The ghost sighed -note to self: Why?- "I see." Everything blurred and we were back in my bedroom.

"I guess we're done with the past then."

He disappeared. He reappeared.

"I am the second spirit! I shall show you Razorthorn's present! Behold!"

Nothing happened.

"Yeah, this is not freaking me out."

"It's not supposed to freak you out. It's supposed to teach you a lesson! Follow me."

I followed the ghost upstairs, into the workshop area.

"What do you see?"

I looked around.

"The mason's workshops?"

"And what are the masons doing?"

"Making tables?"

"Ah, perhaps that was the wrong question. A better question would be: What are they not doing?"

I looked around again. "Getting their torsos torn off by harpies? Which reminds me, did you feel it when they tore out your liver? 'Cos I'm pretty sure your spinal cord was still intact at that point-"

"Yes, yes I did feel that. Now can we please drop that and move on with this?"

"Alright, whatever you say chief."

"Thank you, now can you see what they should be doing?"

I wandered around the room, inspecting every mason's work as I went by. "They should all be using chalk instead of bauxite! This guy is using bauxite!-"

"And you don't-"

"Bloody bauxite! That's completely going to mess up the color scheme! We can't have one bauxite table in a dining hall that uses chalk for everything else! That's just silly!"

"And you can't think of something, anything more important than the dining hall's color scheme?"

"Nnnnnnnnope. Nothing."

"Alright, let's skip the show and go straight to the future then!"

The future was bloody. On the floor was something that was beaten to an unrecognizable pulp.

"What's that?"

"That's what I'm going to do with you if you don't craft me a bloody coffin!"

"All this for a coffin?!"

"Or at least a nice slab with my name carved into it! It's not that difficult!"

"You could've just asked! You didn't need to do the whole three-spirits-thing!"

"And you could've just crafted a damn slab. Really, not. That. Difficult."

"Alright, I'll craft a slab! Happy now?"

"Very happy. I hope you learnt something from this experience." He started to fade away.

"Go to hell."

"You're a doooouuuuuche."

Entry 1

From the log of Tikut Febthoth, overseer of Razorthorn.

So far so good. We dig into the side of a hill and just kept digging down until we hit rock. Turns out we're on chalk here, that means iron, coal and flux stone. Truly there are no better circumstances to start a fort with.

Except for maybe a friendlier environment, this place still gives me the creeps.

We'll set up an ironworks as soon as we can but for now we'll focus on building farms, bedrooms and a dining room. You gotta have priorities.

I stopped writing. The miners -Tryrar and Spaghetti- just emerged from the stairway leading down into the bedroom area.

"We're all done down there. If you've got the beds all finished we can start furnishing immediately."

"Very good, we'll do that and you guys can start with the dining room." I handed them the blueprints I'd made for the dining area. Spaghetti's idea for a fountain was difficult to incorporate, but I have to say it turned out nicely and it's going to look spectacular when it's finished. "I take it there were no problems with the bedrooms?"

"Weell..." Tryrar started, I recognized that sound. That was the same kind of 'weell' that usually went hand in hand with such classic phrases as 'remember what you said about not using magma as toothpaste? Turns out you were right' or 'Really, I don't think demons are that bad. It's probably a good thing that we let the go from their prison.'

He continued, "I may have improvised a bit, just applying some artistic liberties you know?"

"Just... Just start with the dining room, alright? We'll discuss this later."

I descended the stairs until I arrived in the bedroom area. At the first glance everything seemed to be alright until you opened the door that had 'Tryrar' carved into it. Artistic liberties my ass! His room is twice as big as all the others! How dare he! He's no better than any of us so why does he deserve a bigger room!?

I'd be angry as all hell if it weren't for the fact that my room is EVEN BIGGER!


It feels good to be king

---

The digging out of the dining room area and the cisterns that are needed for the fountain are taking up a lot of time. I'm considering suspending the operation until a later date but honestly it's not that bad. The hallways are wide enough to set up workshops and stockpiles so we can all work without trouble. I just finished the parts needed for-

A scream interrupted my writing. This wasn't just a 'I just stubbed my shin against a table'-scream or a 'we've run out of my favorite kind of booze'-scream but an honest-to-god 'I'm being torn to shreds by wild harpies'-scream.

I rushed upstairs to find Tryrar pointing towards the river.

"Harpies!" He yelled, "They got Yerp! They're tearing him to shreds!" -I frickin' CALLED it!- "He's still alive but-"

AArghSHI-RRRIIIP!

"Not anymore he ain't. That is, unless he found some way to survive not having the top half of his body."


Guess I'm going to have to learn the art of masonry...

I turned around to see Anderz, brandishing a hammer the size of a bobcat, running towards the exit with murder in his eyes. I managed to trip him up before he exposed himself to danger.

"You're not going anywhere without a full set of armor!" I yelled as he fell to the ground. "One loss is bad enough, but two is simply too much."

Anderz got up, spun around and punched me square in the chest and pinned me against the wall in one swift motion. "Alright then mr. Overseer. If you want me to wear armor then make me some damn armor! Consider that a mandate!"

Turns out it's physically impossible to deny a mandate if whoever is making it has you pinned against a wall and is currently wielding a weapon that's capable of turning your head into an unrecognizable mass of something that could best be described as 'goop'. Who knew?

---

I took over Yerp's masonry jobs. I never had any experience in masonry in my life, but then again no-one has. Anderz is still pretty miffed about not being allowed to kill the harpies. They hung out near the river, killing fish for fun until one day they had killed all the fish and just left. I must say I'm glad they left but it's too bad we never got to have revenge, would've made a nice story too.

Anderz is running the smelter, he's not particularly good at it but he gets the job done. He wanted a full iron armor and I'll give it to him. It's tempting to use steel instead but seeing as we have nobody who can make a proper armor it just seems like a waste of time and resources. We'll get to steel once we're done training an armorsmith.

G volunteered to operate the forge on the condition that we go at war with the elves ("With their fancy rope reed trousers and their brain-melting herbs and their 'music with rocks in'. Bah, despicable!") I'm not sure if he realizes that we already are at war with the elves. I promised him we'd kill all of them, just to do him a favour. It shut him up and he went to work so I'd call that a win-win.

"A-hem." It was a clearing of the throat that had absolutely nothing to do with clearing the throat. It was simply a sound made to make sure that I noticed someone's presence. I looked up to see a dwarf dressed in the traditional mechanic's apron.

"And you are?.."

"Gar Dastotthum. Me and four other shall live in this establishment from now on. And you are the overseer of this place. Correct?"

I nodded.

"Then I must say this fortress' defenses are woefully inadequate."

"What defenses?"

"Exactly. I shall be taking over this fort's mechanic's guild and order the production of mechanisms, walls and traps to keep invaders and dangerous creatures at bay." It was impressive how this guy could somehow order himself around.

"That's fantastic, all you have to do is create a mechanic's guild and then you can do all that." This seemed to startle him.

"No mechanic's guild?! How did you survive this long?"

"Well, that depends on how you define 'survive'. That reminds me, did you guys bring a mason along? Ours is busy feeding fish."

As a matter of fact they did bring a mason along, and a damn good one at that. Unfortunately there was no armorsmith among the bunch, but the extra help is always welcome.