1
DF Community Games & Stories / Dawnbreaks: Kodorokab, Up from the Ashes in the Age of Death
« on: December 17, 2009, 12:36:30 am »
Based on some posts from this thread.
Defini Etha, The Dimension of Prophecies.
The dwarven gods had not even finished crafting the universe when such a prophecy came before them, in the Majestic Court of the Celestial Mountainhomes:
This world is doomed from the beginning.
Dwarves love a challenge, and dwarven gods no less. Oggez, the lady of twilight and queen of the dwarven gods; the brothers Stettad of wealth and Uzol Graniteiron the Steel of Crystals of jewels (Uzol admired jewels for their beauty and mirrored his name to them; Stettad understood that time was money and kept his appellation short); Uk Alecandles of labor, crafts, metals, and minerals--and his wife, Limul Murkyhollow the Mine of Coal, of caverns and mountains; Ning, she of chaos, war, fortresses to stand against them and the silence that follows in their wake--and her brother, Nilgin, of unending hospitality to the weary and longevity for all: they would defy this "prophecy" and fashion the world as it was meant to be.
At last, their creation was finished, and they set it to running. There were dwarves, goblins, elves, and humans--and many, many, dragons, with which to test creation. But as soon as the humans left their gardens to civilize, and elves parted from their trees to form their own societies, and goblins learned the magic which causes obsidian towers to rise, and dwarves came upon the first anvil from which all others are made--disaster struck.
Strange and cruel rays shone from the sun, and bombarded the earth with unholy light. Many living beings perished immediately, but many did not.
"Was that," laughed the seven dwarven gods, "it? The best you can do? Being from beyond, prophet of doom, you'll have to do better than that!"
Watch.
And so the dwarven gods watched. The dragons set upon the world's beings, as expected, and soon heroes were sure to arise--
"Wait a second." Uk Alecandles was puzzled, and soon the others saw it too. "...why...why aren't they breeding? Male and female we made them, but..."
All the civilized beings which had been bathed by the sun's rays that terrible day could no longer breed.
"Goblins, elves, and dragons shall divide the world, then", Nilgin sighed, "for only they received the obligation of immortal life instead of the gift of death. Our chosen people will perish." And then a dragon died of old age. "...wait, what?"
The dragons began to die of natural causes, but not before taking every last elf and goblin with them. Thirty-five years after the creation, the last dragon had perished, and only four civilized beings were left alive--two human men, one human woman, and one dwarf, Dumed Whipcontest. The woman died seventeen childless years later, one of the men followed six years after that, and then only Thratpin Singblossoms, a mayor, shopkeeper, merchant baron, and two-time victim of the dragon Eruwa's fury, was left alive to lead the human race. He and Dumed Whipcontest, a wizened diplomat who had taken the throne of the Dwarven civilization over fifty years ago when his wife, the first dwarven monarch, was killed by a dragon, spent many days together, in a friendship born of a complete and utter lack of any other options whatsoever.
But the last man died sixty-one years after the creation of the world, leaving Dumed the only intelligent being alive on the planet. Nine years he passed in loneliness, but he resolved he would not spend a decade alone, and the god Nilgin granted his wish with a heavy heart, withdrawing his longevity and ending the existence of the last dwarf, seventy years after creation.
Twenty-three decades have passed since that day.
We are alive.
But we do not know why.
My name is Catten Roldethgoden--or so the name inscribed on a piece of stone hung around my neck reads. The other six with me, they have names inscribed as well. I do not know if I care to keep these names. I will probably pick something different, at least as opposed to "Catten". Roldethgoden has a nice ring to it, though.
I feel that I know these people, but I do not know why. The place around us feels familiar, but in a very distant way--as if you had come home after a long journey, only to find that some fool had tunneled into an aquifer while you were out, flooded the place, drained most of it out again, and gotten mildew everywhere.
These are...the Mountainhomes? But where is everyone?
We spent a long time confused and frightened, but nothing became clear. We could find no one else, no other being--there were many creatures outside, but they were nothing like we remember, nothing at all.
We cannot stay here. I have located a map leading away from this place to a place designated as the site of a possible future dwarven outpost. If these Mountainhomes have been abandoned, perhaps at this new place we will find others like ourselves.
Dawnbreaks, acommunity succession fort in the Age of Death!
EDIT:
Current list after latest finished turn!
Defini Etha, The Dimension of Prophecies.
The dwarven gods had not even finished crafting the universe when such a prophecy came before them, in the Majestic Court of the Celestial Mountainhomes:
This world is doomed from the beginning.
Dwarves love a challenge, and dwarven gods no less. Oggez, the lady of twilight and queen of the dwarven gods; the brothers Stettad of wealth and Uzol Graniteiron the Steel of Crystals of jewels (Uzol admired jewels for their beauty and mirrored his name to them; Stettad understood that time was money and kept his appellation short); Uk Alecandles of labor, crafts, metals, and minerals--and his wife, Limul Murkyhollow the Mine of Coal, of caverns and mountains; Ning, she of chaos, war, fortresses to stand against them and the silence that follows in their wake--and her brother, Nilgin, of unending hospitality to the weary and longevity for all: they would defy this "prophecy" and fashion the world as it was meant to be.
Spoiler: The Gods in Full (click to show/hide)
At last, their creation was finished, and they set it to running. There were dwarves, goblins, elves, and humans--and many, many, dragons, with which to test creation. But as soon as the humans left their gardens to civilize, and elves parted from their trees to form their own societies, and goblins learned the magic which causes obsidian towers to rise, and dwarves came upon the first anvil from which all others are made--disaster struck.
Strange and cruel rays shone from the sun, and bombarded the earth with unholy light. Many living beings perished immediately, but many did not.
"Was that," laughed the seven dwarven gods, "it? The best you can do? Being from beyond, prophet of doom, you'll have to do better than that!"
Watch.
And so the dwarven gods watched. The dragons set upon the world's beings, as expected, and soon heroes were sure to arise--
"Wait a second." Uk Alecandles was puzzled, and soon the others saw it too. "...why...why aren't they breeding? Male and female we made them, but..."
All the civilized beings which had been bathed by the sun's rays that terrible day could no longer breed.
"Goblins, elves, and dragons shall divide the world, then", Nilgin sighed, "for only they received the obligation of immortal life instead of the gift of death. Our chosen people will perish." And then a dragon died of old age. "...wait, what?"
The dragons began to die of natural causes, but not before taking every last elf and goblin with them. Thirty-five years after the creation, the last dragon had perished, and only four civilized beings were left alive--two human men, one human woman, and one dwarf, Dumed Whipcontest. The woman died seventeen childless years later, one of the men followed six years after that, and then only Thratpin Singblossoms, a mayor, shopkeeper, merchant baron, and two-time victim of the dragon Eruwa's fury, was left alive to lead the human race. He and Dumed Whipcontest, a wizened diplomat who had taken the throne of the Dwarven civilization over fifty years ago when his wife, the first dwarven monarch, was killed by a dragon, spent many days together, in a friendship born of a complete and utter lack of any other options whatsoever.
But the last man died sixty-one years after the creation of the world, leaving Dumed the only intelligent being alive on the planet. Nine years he passed in loneliness, but he resolved he would not spend a decade alone, and the god Nilgin granted his wish with a heavy heart, withdrawing his longevity and ending the existence of the last dwarf, seventy years after creation.
Twenty-three decades have passed since that day.
We are alive.
But we do not know why.
My name is Catten Roldethgoden--or so the name inscribed on a piece of stone hung around my neck reads. The other six with me, they have names inscribed as well. I do not know if I care to keep these names. I will probably pick something different, at least as opposed to "Catten". Roldethgoden has a nice ring to it, though.
Spoiler: Me and My Fellow Dwarves (click to show/hide)
I feel that I know these people, but I do not know why. The place around us feels familiar, but in a very distant way--as if you had come home after a long journey, only to find that some fool had tunneled into an aquifer while you were out, flooded the place, drained most of it out again, and gotten mildew everywhere.
These are...the Mountainhomes? But where is everyone?
We spent a long time confused and frightened, but nothing became clear. We could find no one else, no other being--there were many creatures outside, but they were nothing like we remember, nothing at all.
We cannot stay here. I have located a map leading away from this place to a place designated as the site of a possible future dwarven outpost. If these Mountainhomes have been abandoned, perhaps at this new place we will find others like ourselves.
Spoiler: X Marks the Spot (click to show/hide)
Dawnbreaks, a
- All civilization has collapsed. There will never be migrants, caravans, invasions, or intelligent thieves.
- Most sensible wildlife is gone, but there are still bad things in the various site features, and new, extremely nasty and hostile wildlife. Most of the new wildlife also has a strong desire to steal your stuff and/or eat your food, if not attack you outright.
- Our objective is to survive and to rebuild dwarven civilization, or the best semblance of it that we can. In my opinion, this means, in the very long run:
- Getting the population high enough that we could qualify for immigrant nobles, even though they'll never come.
- Setting up crafts and coins and other trappings of a dwarven economy that will never activate.
- Megaprojects.
- An army.
- Breaching and beating HFS.
- We will never get immigrants, so all new dwarves have to be made the old-fashioned way. Therefore, caution needs to be taken with the dwarves we start with. We also won't have that many people to "dwarf me!" with...we have four male dwarves, three female dwarves, and they will have to suffice until some of them pair off and get busy.
- Differences from vanilla DF: greatly altered creature raws, altered entity files, slight adjustments to the reaction and stone matgloss raws that made finding a good site easier, altered shape file, language files mostly purged of accented characters, and I'm using graphics because I'm not a real man.
- Looking for players and commentators! I'll run the first year, but probably mostly for raw survival--the people following me will get a chance to cast the fort in their image.
- I'll take input on players who want to be dwarfed and what skills they're up for--although I might amend the skills for expediency's sake. One hint: until we find the underground river and lake, fishing will be useless and probably fatal.
EDIT:
Current list after latest finished turn!
