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Ok, here's my final post, the entirety of winter!


Journal of Rīsen 'XMark' Swallowclasp, 5th Moonstone 184


Morale continues to be low in the fortress, at least one dwarf seems to have a depressive episode every few days. There isn't much that I can do other than wait for the corpses to be cleared up.


Excavations of the next level of the arena have also begun in earnest, and I have had some kennels set up for us to train guard animals for the vault.



12th Moonstone 184

I have made an odd discovery. Some of the body parts that have ended up in the fortress halls (I presume them to be dropped by depressed dwarves) are forbidden. I am correcting this now, they need to be dumped!


I have assigned two trainers to a couple of puppies, and when they are grown I expect that my successor will have them trained as war dogs for the vault.


21st Moonstone 184


Sazir, the Smithsguard captain, is currently putting his rage before the law, and is beating one of our bone doctors to a pulp.


He will not be allowed to continue as our fortress' law enforcement, and his replacement's first task will be the arrest of his predecessor.


In an attempt at salvaging the morale of the more fragile dwarves of our fortress, I have opted to get the waterfall working again. After pulling the lever only served to turn the waterfall's pumps off, I found that the lower cistern was empty. I have expanded the pump operation crew so that we can fill it up.


22nd Moonstone 184

I have discovered why the corpses and body parts of the siege were all ending up in precisely the same spot.


This will not do. The dump has been undesignated, and the corpse pile has been designated for dumping.


27th Moonstone 184

The corpse pile in the hall isn't being cleared at all. A workaround is needed, or we're all going to be horrified every time we need to go to the workshops. Time to plan out a new corridor, I think.


1st Opal 184


The bypass is open for traffic, and it's already seeing use. Thank Arm_Ok for traffic designations!

5th Opal 184

Our fortress has a lucky escape today.


Another werechameleon was discovered, on the front bridge no less.


Thankfully, two Ochre Bolts were returning to training and loosed their crossbows on the thing.


They missed, but had the initiative to call up the barracks for support, and engaged the beast.


One cook, Asmel Matultulon, did not run from the beast, and began attacking it. Strikes me as something she'd do.


The next two bolts from the two marksdwarves flew much closer to the mark; one through the leg, and another through the head that killed it.


By the time the incident reached my desk, the threat was over, but Asmel has been injured - bitten - multiple times by the foul chameleon. I believe that she will go the same way as DwarvenLord. I need to confine her in short order or we will face that threat anew.

6th Opal 184

The question of handling our on-and-off chameleon brethren has brought my successor, DwarvenLord, to the front of my mind. I believe that a new, safer, access port can be dug from above, behind the gate.


While Asmel recovers in hospital, I planned her new quarters. Spartan, like DwarvenLord's.


10th Opal 184

The access room to DwarvenLord has been built, a few mechanical devices have been planned to isolate the chamber again if circumstances require it.


While I am aware that this is against dwarven tradition, I know who must follow me. I also believe it necessary to take steps to ensure her ability to run the fortress.

14th Opal 184

Amid all of the excitement, I have had little time to check on the temple's arena. The next level has been fully excavated!


Preparations for my succession are continuing; the bridge and the lever are in place. I also discovered, today, that the miners won't channel under a bridge's footprint, even when it is raised. Amara tells me it's a long-standing tradition relating to the ancient practice of "health and safety". It seems that throwing off one tradition piles on another. I ordered the bridge to be dismantled.

Furthermore, Asmel's cell is ready for furnishing.



The farmer's guild put forward a petition for a guildhall today as well, and while going over their documents I discovered that The Company of Dawning already has two meeting sites. The smaller (and physically non-existent) of the two has been retired. I gave the guild a few statues for their fancier hall, and that seemed to satisfy them.

A zone for animal training has been established in anticipation of some war dogs.


The pump crew has, finally, managed to fill the lower cistern. They were struggling to get enough dwarves to the pumps at once, as they need to eat and sleep. Time to get the waterfall going, I think!

16th Opal 184

Asmel's confinement cell is ready, and she has been briefed of the situation. She is to be the captain and sole member of The Damned, and isolate herself here until a more permanent solution to the werebeast problem is found.


The second phase of furnishing the dining room has begun today, now that we have a sufficient stockpile of gold for the tables.


22nd Opal 184

Asmel is now confined to her cell. Time will tell if she succumbs to the werechameleon curse.


I have also decided to commission some statues from our finest masons, relating to the life and achievements of Zon Ironmarks, the Stern Dream of Gold, who died in the last siege.

Morale still isn't improving, but at least it seems to be familiar names that Rimtar is telling me about.


25th Opal 184

Found that I made a mistake when designating the wood stockpile: the QSP itself had (somehow) been undesignated. I know not if this is a sign from Arm_Ok, or another administrative error, but there has been a persistent swarm of dwarves around the stockpile, almost perpetually moving wood to and from the QSP. The stockpile has been redesignated and the feeder stockpile is clearing up.


2nd Obsidian 184

My concerns were justified: Asmel transformed into another beast today. That wall is not coming down under my leadership.


I have decided to add a few side chambers to the Temple, one to house levers and the other as extra storage space for prisoners. As the miners/masons don't have much to do at the moment, I have them smoothing the first level of the Temple's arena.


All of our artifacts are now safe and sound in the vault, with room to spare. I don't expect that we'll need to find a new home for them.


6th Obsidian 184

I've been at work on the magma handling systems for the Temple for the past few days, and figuring out the best way to dig out the sump. I have some steel grates on order, and the magma moat valve has been planned too.


9th Obsidian 184

Without much to do, I have decided to return to reorganising the workshop level. All of the single-ore stockpiles in the smelting area have been consolidated into a new QSP for all ores, and new storerooms have been planned out to house our coke and metal bars. The bone QSP feeder has been scaled back and the space has been given over to a larger stone block stockpile, and a new QSP has been set up at the western end for metal furniture.


While I have shown restraint with Arm_Ok's gift in the past, I feel that the workshop level - and the fortress as a whole - will benefit from the shortened hauling times and better organisation.

19th Obsidian 184


Id is the latest dwarf to be struck with inspiration from... somewhere. I don't actually know who, or what, keeps possessing our dwarves. If it be Arm_Ok, then He has remained silent on the matter.

The new rooms have been dug out, and the northern bypass smoothed. The new stockpiles for those storerooms are now in place. They are gradually being filled up from the old stockpiles. Someone else started throwing a tantrum today too. I'm getting a little tired of all the cranky dwarves in our fortress, and the never-decreasing corpse problem.

20th Obsidian 184

That ticked-off dwarf, a blacksmith, has taken it out on one of our medical staff. Hopefully they'll recover.



Id has also claimed a glass furnace. I'm not sure if we have any glass in the fortress, a lot of it went into display cases for the vault...

23rd Obsidian 184

While reviewing the actual digging designations for the Temple today, I couldn't help but notice a few discrepancies.


I spent the rest of the day redrafting the designations, and planning some modifications to the holding chamber. While a pain to redesign, it would have been a far greater pain to fix later.


27th Obsidian 184


Good for him, I suppose. I always prayed to The Machine God whenever I had trouble visualising something. Anyway, I've had it with these monkey-fighting corpses in this Monday-to-Friday fortress.


Everyone is on corpse duty!


Turns out, the atom smasher was never made into a dump for garbage. I have made it damn clear to everyone: Corpses. To Arm_Ok's fist. Now.


I'm heading up to the gate like the rest of us. We're clearing those corpses!


1st Granite 184

My time is up as overseer, and I am proud of my work. At the start of the year, the new traffic designations and quantum stockpiles may have saved the fortress from an "FPS death" as Arm_Ok says, or at least staved it off. The new temple, vault, and dining room will serve the fortress well for years to come, and the adamantine is ready and waiting for my successors (may Arm_Ok guide them). The only mark against me is, as far as I know, is the handling of the enemy dead after this year's sieges, and that is already being resolved decisively.


The overseer nominations were a close contest between Amara and DwarvenLord, but DwarvenLord won out (in absentia) as most of the fortress (including Amara) was busy hauling dead goblins or sleeping. Arm_Ok works in mysterious ways, indeed.

As for myself, I will have a temple to run, with any luck, by this time next year. For now, I think I need a long rest, and some quiet time with Rimtar and Fath.




Yeah, I failed a few spot checks with where dump sites actually were, and whether dwarves were actually dumping anything. Hopefully putting the whole fortress on clean-up duty will get the corpse situation out of the way so DwarvenLord can get on with other projects.

I have some words for DwarvenLord:

• Check the notes around the new temple, and the main corridor/northern bypass on the workshop level. There's some specifics about the temple's design written there, and some reminders about traffic designations.
• I didn't update the burrows for the expanded and re-planned temple, so you should do that so no mishaps occur during the first service. The northern pit in the pitting room also has walls too close to it that need removing to prevent things from climbing out.
  
• I did update the hotkeys as I played, though, so be sure to have another look at those.
• The access channel to your dwarf hasn't been made yet, either, and you'll need to either extend the corpse duty burrow or turn off the alert if you want that done.
• Don't forget about the possessed dwarf. I didn't get an opportunity to check up on him once he claimed his furnace.

And now, here's the save!

Given that I took so long in getting this done (and by rights should have been skipped as it's taken way longer than two weeks), I probably won't take another turn any time soon. Regardless, XMark has probably had enough of fortress management. Thanks to all of you, for your patience.

Excellent work. Smashing the Gobbo corpses should definitely help with morale. Just make sure to strip as many as you can, first, for the sake of the Goblinite we can get. Also, is anyone showing the 'getting used to tragedy' thing or similar?

Speaking of Gobbos, how're the traps outside the main entrance doing? Expanding them may help, considering the weakened state of the military and the size of the sieges. Additionally, perhaps either you or DL could experiment with live training on the Gobbos until the military rebuilds?

Could just be me being sleepy and not fully getting it, but I must ask you to elaborate on/clarify your suggestion about linking reports.

I mean something like what The Museum does for its turnlist.

We're also drowning in goblinite already, and how exactly do you strip a corpse? The traps have been holding up fairly well. I am tempted to build a few more cage traps, now that you suggest it.

We don't really have anywhere that's safe for live training, but the military we do have should become a hard core in no time now that I've got all the squads active (rather than just sitting around like they were for most the the year).

Very well written Project, liking what we have.
From what I have heard, villains are formed during world gen and also during fortress mode over time

I didn't realise we had multiple thefts though, thought it was just the one?

I'm pretty sure that we've had multiple thefts, though I can't remember if I saw them in Legends Viewer or the artefacts menu.

Mind dorfing me as a smith/mechanic?

Urist McRecon has begun to stalk and brood
I want to see goblin blood for what they did. The best goblin hunters demand the best tools of death.
May Armok grant us strength, for our wrath must eclipse his own...

There was heavy pounding later that night after the ceremony. Sounds from a dark forge obscured by a stone door wherein dwelt the so called Hammerer of Hate. A relatively normal dwarven smith who one day got drafted at the mountain homes, whose idea of testing was to compare the caved in skulls of goblins to his latest weapon out the forge.
Few know what happened after his only battle, only that the previously happy dwarf now smirked grimly but maniacally whenever the order came for more tools of war, be they armour to withstand a thousand trolls, or menacing spikes on which to hang invaders.

A bitter dwarf may think of a death trap. Few would actually go out of their way to start making it

Metal. I will see to dwarfing you up, and see if I can find a speardwarf for QD2 while I'm at it.

If they're masterworks as opposed to artifacts, it's very likely they were sold to caravans, then the roc has killed their bearers in the world's background.

The king... narratively, we should I'm not happy about it, I myself avoid the king like the plague in my own playthroughs, but given the state of the dwarven civilization, there's no reason to not have the damn nuisance set up shop here. Doylistically I don't want it, watsonianly, I can't avoid it. Bleh. 

Speaking of: is there a dwarven king elsewhere in the world? Does s/he live in some settlement held by another civilization? Can we indulge in massive in-story paranoia about him/her?

As to the prison, I think it was just always lower-priority than other things.

Ah, I thought something like that might have been the case, regarding the roc.

The current king of The Bridled Pulley, since 178, is Rith Rampartbalance: his profile in Legends Viewer does not say where he is. Checking through the sites of The Bridled Pulley doesn't turn up anything either. The only dwarf in the world outside The Bridled Pulley is a visitor of The Evils of Perplexing. I think offering up enough stuff to the caravan will cause him to come out of the woodwork like most of our migrants.

Are there any more votes in favour of attracting the king? Since the caravan is still in the depot, I could certainly offer enough stuff, and I checked; we have more than enough wealth in architecture and I'm pretty sure we're a metropolis too.

Unexpected personal issues slowed me down again, as well as some inspiration that will be clear at the end of this update. I hope the wait will be worth it!


Journal of Rīsen 'XMark' Swallowclasp, 2nd Limestone 184

I inspected the military over the past two days, and found it surprisingly well-equipped - I was not expecting full steel armour given how recently we started production, but perhaps that's selling us short.

I assigned the barracks below the Jewel Temple as a training area for our melee squads, as they certainly didn't seem to be doing much training before I'm not convinced that anyone actually gave them a place to train.

I began the second phase of furnishing the new bedrooms and dining hall today, sending out some work orders for gold tables and microcline cabinets.

Right then, I suppose I should get back to -


Again!? And so soon as well! Time to put out a siege alert, and send word to The Ochre Bolts to get up to the tower and begin picking them off.


5th Limestone 184

The Ochre Bolts are in position and have begun picking off the goblins advancing on our walls.


6th Limestone 184


Now is not the time!

7th Limestone 184

The military is now gathered (as much as they can) behind the gate, so I gave the order for them to sally forth, and kill any goblin, troll, or beak dog that dares attempt the gate.



As the bulk of the besieging force has now moved north, the Ochre Bolts have been repositioned to the northwest patrol route, through some of them have very odd ideas about what constitutes patrolling.


8th Limestone 184

Arm_Ok scrap us all, the military just deactivated!


Never mind about the assault, then.


9th Limestone 184

The military has reactivated, after the change in orders. We're going out!


11th Limestone 184

The past two days have been a bloodbath. Goblins are dying in their droves (ours and the enemy's) and our other squads are sustaining heavy losses. I'm raising the gate again in case we cannot hold them off. Whoever survives the battle, will survive the battle.


13th Limestone 184

The siege is broken. Most of the military was wiped out, anyone who was still behind the fortress gates when they were raised for the second time survived. All others were killed. The dwarf named Zon died fighting. That includes three marksdwarves who sallied while the gate was open instead of setting up in the tower.

The support of the marksdwarves was undoubtedly key to victory; many of them have increased their kill counts significantly


There are still a few stragglers stuck in the moat, so I had someone unlock the moat access door. One enterprising goblin ran straight into a cage trap immediately afterwards.


I need a rest.

14th Limestone 184


In a feat of extraordinarily good timing, the dwarven caravan has arrived. I can only imagine what they were thinking as several dozen goblins fled the site.

15th Limestone 184


I can see this going swimmingly for everyone involved.



16th Limestone 184

Now that the danger of the siege has passed, I ordered the gates opened and lifted the siege alert. However, it seems that the goblin bowman that was mauled by Arm_Ok's wrath survived the ordeal, and is now bothering every single dwarf that passes through the gate. I hope he expires of his injuries soon.


20th Limestone 184

Turns out I had the wrong lever pulled and all our dwarves were using the trade entrance. This has been rectified.


21st Limestone 184

The goblin is still in the moat. This is a sample of what Rimtar has been sending to me for the last several days:


I'm opening the moat bridge and setting the Silvery Shanks on that damned goblin.

23rd Limestone 184

The outpost liaison managed to get to the mayor today, and conducted a meeting.


I ordered him to negotiate for more seeds, dye, instruments, and gypsum plaster.


All in all, a productive exchange.

25th Limestone 184

The goblin got put down today. Arm_Ok be praised!

1st Sandstone 184

Burials of the dead continue apace. I have been using the old tombs in the upper levels, for lack of anywhere better. Most of them were half-finished and left undesignated. Perhaps I will find the time to plan out a proper graveyard.

I need a rest, and a long time to think...

5th Sandstone 184

Rimtar has been running the fortress for the last few days. I have been in my room, calling out to Arm_Ok, seeking his guidance on things to come. Yesterday, He spoke to me, and burned this vision into my mind. I know now what I must do, to repay his gifts.


For their wars of extinction against all dwarves, the blood of goblins will grease the gears of the Machine God, Arm_Ok! When this temple is complete, and our army rebuilt, we will carve a great scar in The Evils of Perplexing, and reclaim our lands through blood and steel!

This new temple may also serve as a worthy site to contain an artefact vault, as well.



I was genuinely not expecting another siege so soon after the last one. It's a shame that most of the melee squads were wiped out before they had any time to train.

Designing the temple held me up by a few days. Planning things out on this scale in DF takes time, after all.

Regarding marble, you shouldn't need to mine much more. I moved about 400 into the workshop area later in my turn. It might be forbidden accidentally, so take a look. There's no way we should be going through that much marble unless you're making a ton of marble crafts or something. I'd believe it if it was a pig iron shortage though, I did not make enough

I'll have a look tomorrow!

Journal of Rīsen 'XMark' Swallowclasp, 8th Granite 184

I've got myself together after the surprise siege, so back to work! The last of the invaders have fled, so I ordered the bridges lowered. Rimtar's assessment of the fortress is coming along, and he tells me it should be ready for review by tomorrow.

10th Granite 184

Life as a mechanic has not allowed me to grasp the full complexity of Smithsolider. And I will swear by Arm_Ok:

This will not do.

Loose stone lies everywhere in the fortress, in the stockpiles, in the bedrooms, in the corridors, in the giant empty spaces that one of my predecessors decided to quarry out, for some reason. More stone, apparently, as if we have a lack of it. There are 10000 cubic Bomreks of stone, pervading everything. There's a phyllite boulder just sitting around in my room, and I'm off lightly; the good doctor Īton at the end of our level is drowning in leftover stone.


Stockpiles are placed each and every which way in the workshop level, each one seeming storing everything under the sun. I have no clue about how Mosus, our manager and bookkeeper, keeps track of anything in this fortress.

Arm_Ok told me once that empty spaces and clutter slow down the passage of time, as has happened over the last two years. Perhaps these literal time sinks can be put to use.

The Trade Depot is open to the outside world, which, despite the best efforts of our previous overseers, has let goblins in on at least one occasion. It's a good thing our military has been trained so extensively, otherwise we'd be at their mercy. All of us would be dead, or taken prisoner to have our beards burnt. Probably the latter.

The upper levels, where the farmers reside, are a labyrinth of intersecting stairways and narrow passages. I cannot fathom how anyone could possibly navigate them. Some of them just terminate in holes in the floor.

Our dining hall seats eight. In a fortress of over one hundred.


None of the military squads are at full strength, and we'll need to be ready for the next siege.

We have no jail - how on earth are we supposed to enforce the law?

This. will. not. do.

Still, can't get mad at the situation, nobody knows Him like I do; they're not gifted with his guidance. He, Arm_Ok, Machine God, Blacksmith of Worlds, will lead me through this chaos to calmer shores.

12th Granite 184

My prayers to Arm_Ok were answered last night. He granted me a vision. I saw stone pile upon stone, bin pile upon bed upon coffin, dumped over and through each other into kaleidoscopes of wood and rock. I know what I must do, and have begun drawing up plans. I need to send word to Mosus to get some cheap minecarts put together.

I have also written up a list of thoroughfares through the fortress, particularly the large open spaces of the workshop levels. Designated "high traffic" areas ought to make the dwarves spend less time thinking about how to get from A to B.


I've been thinking about the lack of public facilities, and I believe I have an answer:


15th Granite 184

Noted that a few dwarves had, somehow, fallen into the moat at some point. Ordered the access tunnel opened, and made a note to replace the wall with a bridge to avoid further accidents. Everyone seems to be following the newly designated pathways. Time will tell if they succeed in helping the fortress run smoothly.

16th Granite 184

The prototype "quantum stockpile" seems successful, though the lack of flux stone in the feeder stockpile isn't allowing a proper demonstration... I performed the mechanical rituals to build another, for the hematite stockpile.


20th Granite 184

The hematite stockpile is set up and working exactly as Arm_Ok told me; the stones, after falling out of the minecart, just... blend into each other. We can still see all of them, Mosus should have no trouble counting them, but they all just happen to occupy the same position in space. He who forges the gods be praised, our storage problems can be solved!


26th Granite 184

We've ran out of flux stone. I'm going to see about digging up some more if we have any. I've also began rationalising the storage of stone furniture; I'm setting up another QSP to store it all next to the mason's shops. The feeder stockpile alone was enough to start pulling clutter out of the workshops. I've been too busy resetting cage traps at the gate to perform the stockpile rituals, but once that's done I plan on making this QSP the sole repository for large stone goods in the fort.

27th Granite 184

I heard the usual monthly screams from DwarvenLord's cell. A punctuation to the quiet unceasing murmuring that gets through the wall.

Cleanup of the siege is continuing, after I remembered to release the confinement notice last week. The sheer quantity of goblins slain has put me on edge.

These new stockpiles are making it difficult to cover up my... unorthodox spiritual beliefs. The atom smasher was skirting the line as-is, and the fact that it never really worked properly allowed me to keep a lid on them. I don't think that I can remain in hiding for much longer...




The sheer quantity of stone and furniture just lying around got on my nerves IRL, so I decided to remediate the issue. I've played a bit further than this, but I don't want to leave anyone watching behind. Expect a continuation into Slate (and beyond, as I hope the months will compress a bit more) tomorrow.

I don't think I will be the one to poke at the cotton candy. I've never worked with the stuff before, so I think I'll leave it to my successor. If I find the time, I will at least try to gain access to it.

I was getting around about 30 FPS, even with the quarry open. Is that an improvement?

Report isn't too bad, though I must ask: Was QD the only one we lost, or did some of the other military guys bite it?

Also, Goblin Claus either really likes us or really hates his Elves, considering the amount of gifts he's sending us.

As for re-dorfing, go ahead! Speaking of that, what're the other ex-Overseer Dwarves looking like?

Dwarves other than QD died, I think a few civvies who were stuck outside might have bit it too. I'm not sure if there's an easy way to tell which dwarves died when, so I can't say for sure.

Here's a report on all the still-living former overseers:

• Amara: Ecstatic. She is currently storing seeds, and needs beer and family.
• DwarvenLord: Stark raving mad, still stuck in her box. Restless, lonely, and worried, and apparently needs a dressing. Request form medical attention denied by overseer's decree. Still, XMark may be persuaded to remove the wall...
• Glloyd: Fine, currently getting themselves a new tunic. Needs to see their friends and family, and practice their skill (that should change soon - they're a doctor and we have one injured dwarf that needs diagnosis).
• LeftHand: Ecstatic, though unfocused due to too many things to count. Is also, according to Dwarf Therapist, a Competant UNKNOWN (Rusty). Nothing seems odd in-game though.
• Salmeuk: Ecstatic and Thirsty, and is currently rectifying the latter. Was apparently haunted by their dead pet at one point last year, probably got a glimpse of the year's siege because they saw a corpse during the last week.
• Zon (who?): "What the f*** did you just say about me, you little b****? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Cobalt Spikes, and I have been involved in numerous not-so-secret raids on the Evils of Perplexing, and I have thirty confirmed kills. I am trained in dwarf warfare and I am the top speardwarf in all of the Bridled Pulley. You are nothing to me but just another-" moving on.
• Monom (who?): Quite content. Saw a fine door, but needs to see friends and family.

Everyone important is in good health, much like the rest of the fortress. Apart from QD, of course, he's very dead.

XMark is ecstatic, but is still recovering from the shock of the siege (he saw, like, seven corpses); his friend Rimtar is running errands while XMark prays to Arm_Ok (though, outwardly, it's to Ethķr Embracebrunch) and plays with his cat ("I feel fond."). With the first QD's death, XMark, Rimtar, and DwarvenLord are the only three left of the seven founding dwarves.

The dwarfing list ought to be updated with Amaru et. al., by the way. Does anyone have any re-dwarfing preferences?