From the journal of Tosid Vodsazir, summer of 115
The arrival of Her Majesty the Queen was unexpected, and the plans have been thrown into disarray. îton has insisted that the road be completed even faster now. Though we've finished paving the road itself, we've only just dug the magma channel and begun smoothing it, and we'll need to find more gold to complete the statues. The new workers need to be sorted out, the furniture needs to be forged, and Unib needs to be told, again, that he can't have his brass goblets until after the Queen has her throne. Even if he brings up how he was a child prodigy, again.
Flint has been exceptionally helpful, showing the Queen around while the furniture she ordered is completed. The work on her weapon racks was disrupted by one of our apprentice weaponsmiths, Medtob Momuztumam, who has locked himself in one of the forges and is demanding clear glass. I can sympathize with the need, of course, but he could have hardly chosen a worse time to be inspired.
Summer has come, which means that soon we will be dealing with the humans and the orcs as well on top of everything else. The humans will bring much-needed supplies, of course, but they will have to be protected from the orcs, and Flint already has his hands full. I know he's handed off supervising the new recruits to Workerdrone, but we'd likely have to find someone else to deal with the Queen if the orcs lay siege to us. I won't be able to do it, since I'm sure that the merchants will want to talk to me about what to bring next year, and I'm not sure if Workerdrone is up to the task of entertaining a royal couple that seems to be growing increasingly annoyed at their lack of furniture. Perhaps Skjald or Hat will be able to.
Workerdrone has also spoken to me about the possibility of creating a temple to the God of Blood. I've offered him a space in the communal worship room, which he eagerly took, but he's asked for a larger space away from the main worship hall for the Blood God's rituals. I can imagine such things becoming quite messy, but if the whispers in the mountain are to be believed I think I know the perfect place for it.
The humans come now, I can hear their wagons on the steel blocks of the road, so I must cut this entry short. Their arrival means that the orcs must be close, so I must go ask Flint what our defensive plan is this time.
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I really should have prepared more for the Queen...
I'll have to listen to the proposed battle songs, but I've always thought of Lanternweb's song (though perhaps not battle song, unless the pipes were carved into the Unnameable Point and played over the sound of the killing of its foes. I wonder if I could build that....) to be something like Bach's Toccata in D minor (the first three minutes or so of
this). Pipe organs in general seem like extremely dwarfy instruments, given their size, complexity, and awesomeness. Some of the foot pedals, for example, need to be pressed several seconds before the note is needed, because the pipes for the lowest notes need that long for the air to start producing the note.
You can also make magma organs (as a variant steam organs), which wins them bonus points for dwarvishness.
Edit: Both of those seem like they fit the attitude of the Lanternwebs Grand Army quite well
. Of course, now I'm going to have to take Eagle's suggestion and compose a battle poem for Lanternwebs.
/bitter happiness
), I might as well take a dwarf. If you've got an armorsmith or weaponsmith available I'll take that. You're going to need plenty of both armor and weapons if you want to survive the raptors.