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Addendum to field report
Events of the meeting of 24th Malachite recreated from transcript by The Vamp and Tannen's notes

Tannen stood on a boulder in the stock room, glaring at the assembled crowd as he counted heads.

"Minions. We are all present, I shall begin."



"Er... the soldiers are still outside," interrupted Imp, but Tannen just growled and continued, ignoring her.

"You all know by now that we are acting on orders more complex than the supply operation we were expecting. With the new arrivals here, we must start taking our long term duties seriously and begin production for the cause. Istas, Imp, Urist the Red; our orders have specific instructions for you."

"52: I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about."

"I have seen the work you miners have done and the tunnels seem simple enough. I want you three to make absolutely certain that our tunnels are the only ones in this mountain."

Istas spoke up, hesitantly, "There is the vent of the volcano of course, we know about that and can avoid it, but in a mountain like this there could be drained vents, old magma chambers... a whole network of tunnels down there."

"He's right, I've seen caverns that have formed that way before," Imp confirmed, "they can be spectacular on the inside and the old vents can go for miles."

Tannen swung one of his crossbows idly on his finger while he considered this, the weapon not having left his side since its creation.

"Then you have your task. Miners, if these caverns exist you are to find them. Urist the Red, if any are found you are to assess them for stability. The rest of you, know that we are still going to perform our original duties. Overlord demands weapons, equipment and coin, and we will supply it. We have not yet had our delivery of metalsmithing tools, so from you lot I want ideas of useful work we can be doing with all this rock. You. What can you do."

Julius the glassmaker started in surprise as he found the loaded crossbow suddenly pointing at him.

"Er... um... rock... yes. Rock forges. I can make mini-forges and hammers out of this alunite."

"Mini-forges? Explain."

"Well... maybe our agents can use them to make weapons in secret."

Tannen sighed, "I had one when I was a child. You can make a blade about half the length of your finger in those things! They're toys! Utterly worthless!", he paused and frowned, "What about the rest of you?"

Tannen waved the crossbow wildly, pointing it at the assembled dwarves as he gestured, "Can any of you make anything more useful than that?"

There was a babble of suggestions from the minions,

"Scepters!"
"Rings!"
"Mugs, we can make lots of mugs, maybe we could poison them."
"Puzzleboxes, perfect for smuggling notes in, we should make lots of puzzleboxes."
"Trumpets! I bet we can make trumpets out of rock, and maybe they can be made to shoot poison darts!"

The trusted lieutenant watched the enthusiastic discussion in growing bewilderment, then turned and left them to it, an unpleasant snarl on his face.



He was interrupted in the corridor by a shout from Julius.

"Sir! Sir, there is something else I wanted to discuss with you. I've seen our orders, and I think there is one thing we should do immediately. It mentions avoiding putting cover in the hallways, and, well... I was thinking those pillars in the stock room... we don't really need them. Invaders could certainly use them for cover. They might be a security risk, sir."

The squat, powerful glassworker stood there with a serious expression as the lieutenant thought, stroking his beard.

"Excellent thinking, minion-technician. You are to take charge of Urist the Red and consult with her on removing them. I will see that you are rewarded for this. Now get back to work."

---

Also, the Cell Blocks have some extended rules which are important to follow. Especially the early 140's are important exceptions to an earlier rule.

I'll only be obeying the top 100 from the list linked in the first post. I know that's not the original list, or the whole thing, but for now those are the only rules that I'm considering part of the story. The others might turn up later.

Field Reports of Tannen Rimtarazin, Trusted Lieutenant
12th Hematite, 301

With very little wood to spare for crossbows, I approached our weapons technician, The Vamp, to ask whether any of the metal ores we had found were suitable for making springs.  She is quite certain that copper or iron springs would work well on a crossbow, but then when I asked how long it would take to begin production she made a basic mistake. She mentioned killing in front of Doc Zaerosz.

Don't let it be said that I shy away from cruelty - when you are working for the right side any act is justified to advance your cause. It just isn't good style to laugh quite like that while you're doing it...

The Doc's eyes lit up as soon as he heard that you could make crossbows from horse bone, and dashed towards our pack beast at full speed, dragging the poor creature off into the tunnels. Within half an hour our resident surgeon and experimentalist had set up a crude set of workshops in the newly carved out bedroom communal area.


and mere hours after that, I was the proud new owner of a pair of still warm horse bone crossbows.


One of them even had a set of decorative spikes along the front made of carved hoof. They really are quite pretty.

One of the mining minions, Istas, got into a violent argument with the Doc over his use of the room. I don't think this will be a serious problem, no dwarven blood was drawn... probably. It's quite hard to tell given the ankle-deep layer of horse gore and pools of spilled tanning ammonia. It seems that Istas had carved out this room fondly imagining it as a peaceful meeting room and pleasant place to eat, a vision that the lab did not fit into very well.


3rd Malachite, 301

Rule 56: "My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice."

The list is not clear on whether I count as part of the Legions of Terror. It is irrelevant though; learning to use weapons that I carry is basic good sense. I have personally boiled some leathers to make armour, and thus protected from danger and the cold, I have gone to practice my marksdwarfship on the local wildlife.



This isn't as difficult as I thought; it looks like I won't be used for target practice anytime soon. I have always been a hammerdwarf at heart, there's something special about the crack of breaking bone heard from up close... these bows are certainly intruiging though.

As I was using the crippled dying ox for target practice, focused fully on the beast's head, a shape ran right in front of my bow. A dwarf! Seven dwarves!


Their leader, a dwarf calling himself DoomPotato, responded very well to finding a crossbow aimed at his face as I shouted to them. He claims to be a professional soldier loyal to the Overlord, a man who has seen enough combat to know that he doesn't want a sliver of horse bone embedded in his head. I'm starting to understand what the list meant when rule 55 referred to deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics... Nevertheless, if they can be trusted they could be useful.



I immediately split the new arrivals up, telling all the soldiers to make sure the wounded muskox is dead before bringing it in, allowing me to check the other arrivals without interference. Even if they are unarmed and half-dead from the cold, I'm not allowing untrusted dwarves into the fortress where they might cause trouble. They claim to be a liason to the Overlord's smugglers, a jeweller who likes to work with bone, a squad of the Legion, and joy of joys, a weaponsmith. Their references from the Overlord bear his signature and appear to be valid, so this group are lucky, they can enter our fort without being killed.



4th Malachite, 301

I take back my earlier statement about this group of idiots being useful. After a whole night wandering about in the icy wilderness, they report that the muskox got away. It had only one working leg, was bleeding, was unconscious, and they let it escape.

HOW CAN THEY POSSIBLY BE SO USELESS!? I will have to think very carefully how to punish this failure. A solid month of patrol duty outside the fort entrance will be a good start.

---

OOC: I really did think that they'd be able to get the ox. It was standing on the very edge of the map, then turned back. It was a solid 20 tiles from the edge when I sent them after it and moving slowly. Tannen was tired, hungry, thirsty and out of ammo so I thought the new Legionaries ought to have a chance to do something. It didn't work very well. Oops.

The newly dwarfed:

Doompotato

Grue McGee

Imp

The Vamp

Urist the Red

and Doc Zaerosz

Field Reports of Tannen Rimtarazin, Trusted Lieutenant
1st Granite, 301

It's expected, almost a tradition even, for a prospecting crew to complain when they strike the earth. That tells you a lot about our pathetic civilisation. Some simply can't believe the wilderness hasn't got all the comforts of the mountain cities and aren't willing to accept it. Others have been ordered out into the world to work for nobility that they hate, but who they serve regardless. Some lack the vision to see what their work will bring forth in time.

I suffer none of these problems.


We have reached our destination. It is a harsh place that has tried its best to freeze us to death already, but it is our home now and I love it already. It may be an icy wilderness with only a volcano for company, but it has one thing that I have been deprived of for years: freedom.

Our plans have been secret for so long that I had almost forgotten what it was like to walk without always glancing over my shoulder, to talk without finding a remote hidden place, to do anything without the risk of revealing our plans. Here? Here, I can shout my plans into the sky and nobody will care. We're all loyal here! There are no guards! No spies! No informers! I can even write my intentions here on paper, because here, it is us who are in charge.



Our first few weeks have been nothing but simple survival - carving out protection from the winds so that we can sleep for more than an hour without freezing solid and protecting our supplies. I have ordered our mason to shore up a few areas where loose soil and weak stone was holding up our stockpile roof. I will not say our situation here is stable, but I believe we can survive for now.



1st Felsite, 301



When hauling logs inside to begin the construction of beds we made a strange discovery. An envelope was tacked to the floor of the wagon, concealed by our supplies, and bearing the personal seal of the Overlord. It seems we have secret orders going beyond the plans I knew. I had been told only that we were to supply weapons and coin to support a revolution, but now...

I don't know what to make of this.

The sealed orders are borderline gibberish in places, set out with no order, it's just a list of one hundred seemingly unrelated commands. Some of them suggest a plan. The implication seems clear that I am expected to raise an army and prepare for taking prisoners. Nowhere does it say what I should do with the army on a strategic level, or where these prisoners will come from. I do not like being commanded by implication, and if I didn't know better I would think this was a bad joke. Why would Overlord feel it necessary to command me not to turn into a snake? There is even one ordering me not to trim my beard!

The talk of heroes and royalty, children and super weapons... confuses me. Yet the seal is truly that of the Overlord, it is unmistakeable. They are valid orders and I will obey them to the best of my ability.

The only one which seems immediately relevant is number 27
"I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times."

I shall order construction of crossbows immediately.

Anyhow a Lawyer? So the Hammerer basically becomes Judge Dred, or specifically a Magistrate?

Interesting concept.

Trying to make it a meaningful change would be difficult as it would essentially mean fixing dwarf justice.

What I had in mind is all the long running community forts where the player has had to intervene somehow in hammerings and pretend that the hammerer decided to be merciful just so that a major character doesn't get splatted. It seemed like a natural thing to allow, something that might be worth bringing into the official game mechanics somehow.

I still don't understand why the option to encrust ammo was included in the first place. When has anybody ever made jewel-decorated ammunition in real life, where bugged value multipliers don't work?

Unless ammo is due to be made into a major trade good for some reason, that really ought to be removed when encrusting gets its upgrade.

Also back in the days of 40d, I was trying to penetrate an aquifer by the cave-in method. It was the first time I had tried it and so without experience to guide me, I collapsed a ring of soil down into a 3*3 hole in the aquifer, leaving one single safe tile through which I could get down. One single tile without a staircase.

I had picked the location to start digging very carefully so I didn't want to abandon the pit and try again, so I came up with a cunning plan to push a dwarf down the hole by having my starting seven train wrestling in the mineshaft. Once the careless fighting on the lip of the pit had the inevitable result, I could then dump a log down the hole, have the dwarf build stairs, and all would be well.

It didn't work out like that.

During training, three of my starting seven got shoved down the wrong hole and drowned in my well. The rest all became champions. Nobody would work. Traders came, and nobody would sieze goods. Nobody would gather plants. I was hoping for migrants, but none came because the only wealth I had produced was a hole in the ground with rotting drowned corpses in it.

I kept the game going, waiting to see if the champions could survive on automaticaly hunting vermin for food, but they fought on training themselves into starvation, and by then there was no food stockpile left to attract vermin.

The solitary achievement of the fort was the digging a hole in the soil layer.

How about arranging a cave-in over some free room and then building artificial floors in place of natural?

Can you cave through natural floor with constructed walls?

If it works, it would get my vote. Punching a hole through the top of one of those rooms would mean the main entrance can be properly sealed off with defensible walls. All those ramps around the entrance are making it impossible to wall off the bedroom building properly. If it was built up above the dining room, it could be made so that the only entrance was a staircase down - much more secure.