Lakebones: The Exile
Okay, guys, I feel I've done enough solo-fortress play to try a real challenge and at the same time try to boot up a succession fort. Who wishes to join me on horror of Lakebones [Nerosod]?!?
Opening Story: (in spoiler)"I am so DEAD..."
Harper dragged himself like the corpse that he soon would be, shuffling dejectedly, carrying only his pet cat Moonshine.
The guards behind him weren't taking any chances, and they eyed the cat carefully as they escorted him to the caravan that would soon make its way far west from The Just Fence into The Jungle of Slapping.
Slapping. Indeed, that was what was happening. A righteous slap to the wrist for his 'misdeeds' towards the monarchy. Gastark had its fair share of upstart heroes these days; humans and elves that went out and called themselves demigods just because they had dubious parentage and the means to slay a few incompetent bandits. The incident where a certain adventurer brought a flesheating plague down upon a human capital to the south was well known even among the insular dwarves. As a result, the xenophobic (in Harper's opinion) lords had come to the conclusion that they would lock up the mountainhome for twelve years and a day, in case such a fool wandered into their historic site trying to gawk. No one would be allowed to see the interior of the dwarves homes!
He had the rather daft idea to say this was a bunch of goblin faeces in the presence of his so called betters, since what was the point of glorious halls that no-one ever saw!? His general distaste for the lords was already known from his past, and this was the tipping point. No longer could he rely on his good eyes and that one time he made a sculpture of the Duchess that she had liked (it was meant as an interpretive piece stating her idiocy~ and the fact she loved it really drove the hammer home about its subject matter).
He arrived at the depot. His meager possessions were already on the wagon, and there he saw a ragtag bunch of six other (probably) disowned dwarves.
All of them on their way to form an outpost for The Just Fence; an outpost that would be the focus of the world; because yesterday, thirteen couriers had set off to instruct all human and elven trade meant for our mountainhome to come to this ragtag outpost. He suspected several couriers might take the oppertunity to become adventurers themselves, since they too were aware that they could never come home again for twelve years.
"It will be an engineering challenge for you, Sir Harper! I know you love them! Our prospector; Hack, assures me you'll be rolling in minerals!"
If you call a freezing cold lake of saltwater in the untamed wilds an engineering challenge. His beard would freeze first, then a snow tiger would rip out his nostrils and leave his entrails as bones on the bottom of the lake. And Lord D. F. Hack? Wasn't he the one who put disclaimers on his work!?
He turned to look at the other six who were loading things dejectedly. They all stopped to look at him... was that hope in their eyes, or malice... oh no... they didn't expect him to... no...
"I am so DEAD..." He whispered...
The world used is Gastark, previously a crapsack pangaea world with a horrifying ocean generated for me to kill adventurers in (hence the tongue in cheek references above), but I was looking around it and there are some !!FUN!! potential sites for us to use in this project. The one I've selected this time is:
And here is Lord D.F. Hack's noted 'report' for the minerals:
Should be quite a challenge: untamed wilds and the cold, salt water lake that will probably freeze a fair bit. Completely flat plain surrounding it, sabotaging easy defences, and a Badlands next to a forest; with the lake, for 3x biome diversity. There are some Terrifying sites as well on the world, but I imagine they're sporting the instant death syndrome* that has now killed at least 3 of my adventurers of this world (also referenced above), so for now I'm going to give them a miss.
Still seeking future overseers and anyone who wants dorfing is also welcome.
Suggestions for our groups name are also welcome, though I'm leaning towards "The God-Cat of Prophecies" at the moment since its silly. 
If you take up an initial dorf, you can also specify skills within reason (keep it to 8 points just in case we run low on embark, though take note that I'm planning to go with no anvil as well for extra !!FUN!! so a metalsmith might go rusty. Finally, my character, Harper, will be an Architect/Building Designer to fit the above story.
As for succession rules, the following sound decent to me, but I'm also open in that regard:+ 1 + You have
5 DAYS to complete your run. If you can manage a year in that time, great, but its not essential.
+ 2 + The Main focus is writing a bit of a story though, ideally with at least a couple of screenshots. You can be as verbose or barebones as you like to reflect your dwarves diary entries or other such framing plot device.
+ 3 + All other diary entries from dorfed civilians and other media is great. I'm not sure if this concept will measure up to the silliness of Boatmurdered etc. but if the narrative swings that way, then thats ok!
+ 4 + Anyway, get your zipped save up to an accessible location (Mediafire etc.) by the end of the 5 days. Don't panic about getting the story up in time for the switchover, just get it done ASAP and thats fine.
+ 5 + Our goal is to be alive in 12 years time when the mountainhomes open up again, and hopefully prosperous. Given the story, we shall be assuming that our Dwarven Caravan/Liason is either from separatists who don't want to see us die or from other dwarf civs, or whatever. If you have suggestions on this, great.
+ 6 + If the fort explodes or dies, you can restart from the original save you got given as much as you like as long as you have the time left, but remember your time limit, and if you can't actually do the full year as a supervisor, add something funny as to why you got deposed early!
Anyway, thats about it! I'll wait the weekend for entrants and start my embark on Monday.*
See it in this thread post[/font]
Its because of this that I always like to start early on and craft things just so we don't have empty history with nothing cool in it.