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[Telgin]

Welcome to Duskfields

A few of you will probably recognize what this is off the bat.  For those of you who don't, this is a direct successor to my old community fort from late 2011, Dawnpick.  If you're not familiar at all with Dawnpick, that's okay!  I do recommend that you go back and read the fort updates if you get a chance though, which are linked from the first post.  They will help place the setting.  The bottom line is that this is a fort based on My Little Pony, but the canon is very different from what is in the cartoon.

This is not a succession fort, despite the fact that it's a successor to my previous fort.  Don't be confused, it's just a community fort.

The Story Begins

It's been five years since the events of Dawnpick came to a close.  A few things have happened since then in that little mining town, but this is a story about another group of ponies.  This is the story of the Fellowship of Hope, a group of ten brave ponies who heeded the call of the king and queen of Coupledye.

The populations of Coupledye and its attendant lands have grown considerably over the past decades, and resources are starting to be spread a bit thin.  Twenty years ago Virtue Cookales led an expedition to seek out new sources of rich minerals to fuel the economy.  But ponies do not live on steel alone.

This is the story of Virtue's younger brother Temperance Scribebakes, and his expedition to fulfill a more basic need.  Coupledye needs more food, and new farming communities are being established throughout the land.  Temperance volunteered for the most distant and challenging of the new sites, eager to prove himself to the royalty and everypony in Coupledye.


My, what a nice place you've picked out to journey to, Temperance.

Temperance and his band have traveled for three months to reach the rolling plains that they were promised, and in celebration of arriving he has christened the lands Duskfields.  Will he succeed and bring more honor to the family and himself?



Or is he doomed in ways he cannot begin to imagine?


Huge thanks to Kryptid for all of the artwork you see here!

From right to left, Smoothblock, Case Study (on the rock), Flamberge, Maize, Temperance, Crosshair, Wood Chips (way in the back), Cream Puff (on the ground), Holly and Veneer (way in the back) settle in after a long journey and prepare to put in the hard labor to build Duskfields up strong.  This is their story.  Hopefully, it won't be a short one...

Temperance's Journal, 1st Granite, 269



We're here.  It's not as impressive to look at as I expected, but we're here all the same.  After three months of slogging our way here, we've made it.  At least it's warm.  Trudging through snow the whole way here wouldn't have been very fun at all.

There's so much work to be done.  I've talked with Virtue a dozen dozen times about how she started things out in Dawnpick.  I've heard every last little detail.  She even let me read some of her diary to see what decisions she made, and which were mistakes.  I think I know how to proceed.  It's going to be a huge amount of work, but I'm ready.  I'm not scared to put in some effort.  And I know the others aren't either.

Which is good, because I've already got work laid out for most of them, and there's plenty of lugging stuff around for the rest.  The land's fairly level, thank goodness, but there's still a bit of earth moving to be done so I've asked Smoothblock to look into it.  That ought to give her something to do to get her out of my mane for a little while.  Holly too.  I don't think the two are getting along too well, which is somewhat understandable.  I'll get Holly to start knocking some of these trees down to let her vent a bit, and to get us something for Veneer and Wood Chips to start working with.

As for me and the others, there's a lot of unloading to do.

I'll probably keep reciting all of Virtue's warnings in my head as we unload everything.  That keeps coming back to me whenever I don't have anything else to occupy my mind.  She begged me not to come.  Begged me.  I know she means well, but I'm a thirty five year old stallion.  I can handle myself.

Anyway, I did some debating and I think I'm going to name this place Duskfields.  It's kind of a small nod to her and Dawnpick, even if she didn't like the idea of me coming out here.  Maybe she'll get a kick out of the name when she gets my letter.  But more to the point, it's getting dusky, and the name just stuck with me.  Far off to the north, I can see what looks like a small dust storm sweeping the land.  I didn't expect that out here, but it's a minor inconvenience.  We'll weather a dust storm with no problem.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

[Telgin]

Game Status

Claimed Pony List

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name	Player
Temperance	Telgin
Flamberge	KingStrongbeard
Case Study	Kryptid
Holly	Omicega
Crosshair	vkiNm
Cream Puff	Khenal
Veneer	zomara0292
Maize	TheBronzePickle
Praetorian	Dsarker
Serenity	Impending Doom
Redhat	Jaxler
Wood Chips	Pokon
Steel Rivet (name change pending?)	Fr0stByt3
Max (Griffon)	DVNO
Morning Dew	Dsarker
Mountain Dew	Dsarker
Convalescence	Amorack
Patches	Amorack
Mittens	Amorack
Bonesetter	Pants
Scimitar	Splint
Pepper Flakes	Splint
Epaulette	TheBronzePickle
Bascinet	TheBronzePickle
Prodd	L1wW
Quarrel Lightning Runner	Iceblaster
Sweet Potato	Iceblaster
Yari	Kryptid
BasilicaSacerdotessa	Dsarker
Marble Slab	Dsarker
Vambrace	Relus

Update Milestones

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1st Granite, 269 – You're here!
2nd Granite, 269
2nd Hematite, 269
7th Timber, 269
4th Granite, 270
18th Granite, 270
4th Hematite, 270
21st Galena, 270
2nd Obsidian, 270
11th Hematite, 271
1st Timber, 271
19th Granite, 272
26th Malachite, 272
15th Sandstone, 272
The Battle of Duskfields (Ending)

Game Save Snapshots

I'll be posting one of these per game year, or at other significant breaks in time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Year 269
Year 270
Year 271
Year 272
Year 273 (End)

Rules

As a whole, I'm not enforcing much in the way of hard rules.  This is a community fort that mostly abides by the general standards and rules of a community fort.  If there's an unclaimed pony you want, have at them and post journal entries from their perspective.  If this develops into roleplaying like Dawnpick did, then feel free to have fun with that too.  If you want to keep your involvement comparatively light, then by all means, keep it to journals if you want!

If there end up being a lot of players, I may enforce a player limit to help rein in the sanity a bit, but for the moment, there is none.

I reserve the right to change these rules as things develop!

Spoiler: Claiming a pony (click to show/hide)

If there's an unclaimed pony you want, just post asking for them and I'll set you up.  At the moment I'm planning on doing this like Dawnpick where pony avatars are posted with journals to give a better idea of who is who.  I'll get avatars made as soon as I reasonably can.

If you want to rename a pony or give an existing pony a new profession, that's okay, but try to work it into the character or story if you can.  Yeah, this is a bit more stringent than what you'd normally see in a community fort, but I'm holding myself to a higher standard of story quality too. 

If you want to pick a pony that's directly related to another that is owned by a player, this can be complicated.  You'd probably best check with the other player if you're planning on claiming somepony's spouse!

Lastly, as I did in Dawnpick, I'm capable and willing to use hacks to set up or break up relationships.  If a migrant arrives that you want, but they're married and you'd rather have a single pony, I can fix it.  If two players decide that they want their ponies involved, I can fix that up too.

As of today, June 9th, 2013, registration is now closed.  The game is in a state at the moment where it's probably for the best if nobody new joins.  Sorry for any inconveniences.  Actually, it devolved into an unholy mess, so I'm really just saving you a lot of pain and heartache.  Don't expect to see a Dawnpick 3.  I'm sorry if anybody was really looking forward to the chance to participate in a sequel, but at this point I'm entirely convinced that doing so would be pointless and just make even more people even more upset.  I'm pretty skeptical that anybody really would want to at this point, but if I've learned anything it's that people are crazy.  I saw way too much of it in Dawnpick and Duskfields to not believe that now.

Yes, I really came back over a year later to edit that in.

Spoiler: Setting (click to show/hide)

So, you don't have the inhuman willpower to read all of Dawnpick to get a feel for the setting?  Or, even if you did, has anything changed?  Yes, so read on.

The World
First off, this is not Equestria from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  There is no direct correlation whatsoever!  Other than the creatures found here (that is, ponies, griffons, zebras and so on), there is very little connecting the two.  Characters who exist in the cartoon do not exist here.

Relatively little has been established about the world other than that.  For our purposes, it's mostly important to know that the home city is known as Coupledye (established in Dawnpick, even though this was necessarily different for the world genned in .34.11), in the same nation as Dawnpick.

One unfortunate consequence of regenning the world is that the deities that were part of Dawnpick do not exist, and we must use the new ones generated retroactively.  Here is the current list of deities:

Amug – A unicorn mare associated with dusk and twilight.
Thebil Toastsdumpling – An earth pony mare associated with partying.
Aval Moralsaviors – A pegasus stallion associated with charity.
Nirmek Fencecherishs – An earth pony stallion associated with mercy.
Govos Dawnshore – A female mosquito() associated with plants and rain.
Gasis the Periwinkle Charms – An earth pony stallion associated with love.
Nokzam Rakedfamous – A unicorn mare associated with valor.
Babin – A pegasus stallion associated with generosity.
Laltur Stockadepure – A unicorn mare associated with law, order and lust.
Kulet Savantlens – A pegasus mare associated with scholarship.
Ramol the Wispy Style – A pegasus stallion associated with art.

Ponies
Anyone who has used Nidokoenig's My Little Fortress mod should be pretty familiar with these critters.  I have however, made some changes that are worth knowing.

First off, ponies have been scaled to roughly human size.  This will affect combat balancing somewhat, but since I changed all of the pony mod species, not very much.

Secondly, ponies have had their peculiar life spans altered a bit.  Ponies now have human like lifespans, dying of age from around 70 on up.  They also mature at more human like rates: ponies grow up at 10.  This is different from Dawnpick, where foals grew up at 6.  The timeline will have to be bludgeoned into making sense, perhaps, but I always wanted this in Dawnpick, but it was too late to change.

Third, ponies do not eat meat in this fort.  They do not fish, nor do they hunt.  This retroactively applies to Dawnpick as well!  I wish I'd done this in Dawnpick, but it was far too late to change things by the time I wanted to.

Fourth, I have removed alicorns from the game.  They just don't fit in with my head canon and cause trouble all over the place.  They are still present in canon, to accommodate characters from Dawnpick.  Just don't expect to see new ones.  Yes, I know this makes people mad, and no, I don't care anymore.  Please, for the love of Nirmek, reread the third sentence in this paragraph.  I have not forgotten that Stiletto and the alicorn country existed.  I just want to avoid that forsaken fiasco from reoccurring!

Other Species
The world is also filled with griffons, buffalo, zebras, cave ponies, and discordant ponies.  These are based on Nidokoenig's original My Little Fortress mod, but have been considerably altered in some cases.

I have removed the non canon castes from griffons, buffalo and zebras.  They only come in the versions we see in the cartoon.  I have also as a result removed the royal castes, just like alicorns.

Cave ponies I left mostly alone, and they're really only here as a holdover from existing in Dawnpick.  The royals are gone though.

Discordant ponies are mostly a copy-paste job from the old diomedians, minus the dark royals.  However, I have replaced tentacle ponies with discordant unicorns.  They fit my head canon better, sorry.  I should clarify that discordant ponies are the ones who don't have weird, random tentacles.  Diomedians still have tentacles, for those who like that sort of thing.

Note that diomedian ponies still exist in canon to accomodate the characters from Dawnpick.  They just won't be showing up in this game.  There is no correlation between diomedian and discordant ponies whatsoever.  Reread that sentence, and again, for the love of Nirmek, reread the paragraph above about alicorns.  I know that diomedians were in Dawnpick but they're just not going to show up in Duskfields!  I don't care what your excuses are anymore!

All of these have been rescaled to more human (or relative) proportions, and have human like life spans, just like ponies.

Spoiler: FAQ (click to show/hide)

I don't like ponies...
Thanks for sharing.  Why are you here again?

What mod are you using?
It's a heavily modified version of Nidokoenig's My Little Fortress mod, updated by Dsarker to work in .34.x.  It also borrows some from Sorcerer's Losing is Magic mod, mostly plants and a few reactions.  It has also been extensively altered by me, most of the details are listed above.

There are also some unspecified changes... I wouldn't want to spoil things. 

Are you hacking?
Yes, and no.

As with Dawnpick, I'm using hacking tools to alter relationships upon request.  I'm also willing to alter physical and mental attributes and traits to a point, but these should be sparing and justified.  If you're interested in how I do this, PM me and I'll be glad to send you the details.

I am also using tools to help manage families.  Mothers will only have a few foals apiece, at most, and after a certain age won't have any more.

Other than this, I'm keeping hacking to a minimum.  I'm specifically not cheating, by deleting enemies, giving ponies super speed, getting items for free or the like.  Except I did, though I hesitate to admit how just yet.  Maybe one day when guilt or bitterness completely overcomes me.

Can I play a pony from Dawnpick?
Maybe, but it's probably for the best if you don't.  If your pony died or was otherwise made unplayable in Dawnpick, it ends there.  If you want to play a pony who was still alive and who could reasonably migrate to Duskfields (as in, they're not bound there by relatives or duty), then it's a bit more open.

If you can think of a good explanation to have any of the background ponies from Dawnpick migrate, then it could probably work.

Can I play a non pony?
Maybe.  I have some roundabout techniques I can go through with DFHack to make this work, as was demonstrated with Max the griffon.

If you've got a good excuse and don't have outlandish plans, then I'm not opposed to the idea of playing something other than a pony.  In general, zebras and griffons are the only things likely to work here.  A buffalo might, but it would take some powerful explaining.

Anything non MLP related, such as humans and dwarves are right out, sorry.

Gee, you sure sound bitter up there in the Claiming a Pony section.  What's up with that?
It's impossible to explain without you either being there or me depositing my 25 pages of notes on what not to do again here.  The short version is that the players kept finding reasons to hate each other and make my life very miserable.  I'm frankly shocked that we managed to get to a point where the game could be closed in a sensible and meaningful way.  You'll notice that this fort ended much, much sooner than Dawnpick.

So, no, I'm not doing a Dawnpick 3.  I'm not going to let all of the baggage from this criticality accident (complete with explosions and environmental damage that persists for thousands of years) carry over to a new fort.  I really can't imagine anybody would want to play in this universe anymore anyway.  The few people I've solicited gave very cool receptions.

Instead, I am currently considering running another fort that won't be a sequel.  It's probably going to turn out just as awful, of course, but since I never completely learn my lessons I'm going to try it anyway.  So, gear up and start planning to make my life miserable and destroy any semblance of fun that anybody might be planning on having.  It's all the craze these days!  Oh, and make sure you bitch a lot.  As much as humanly possible.  Preferably directly to me rather than with whoever you're disagreeing with.  I'll make sure nothing gets resolved and people only get more angry, because that's what I do.

IRC

RPing developed, but the game is over now so I've removed the link to the IRC chat room.

Postmortem Analysis

Spoiler: Contains Graphs (click to show/hide)

Dear Amug in heaven.  Just... look at the graphs, then we can talk about things.




The top graph shows how many unique people posted on a given day, as well as the running average.  The second graph shows the number of words posted in a given day, as well as the running average.  Neither graph tries to account for the content of the post.  That is, people posting things out of character, "PTW" and so on still count, but those were rare enough that I'm not overly concerned about the effect on the results.

The first thing I'm going to say is that I'm actually quite shocked.  While it was active, Duskfields had almost the same level of activity per day that Dawnpick did.  Looking back on it, I was expecting way, way less.  In reality, Duskfields just didn't last as long as Dawnpick, leading to it having only a little over half as many words in total (455K vs. 797K).

I was also surprised to see that there really weren't any game changing moments.  Behind the scenes, there was an astounding amount of anger and arguing in this game.  In particular, killing Carnith and mounting his head on the gatepost felt like it nearly destroyed the game, but... that's not evident at all from the graphs.  The highest peak in the words per day graph is the scene where Carnith was killed.  The game did begin a decline after that, but it wasn't the sharp nosedive I expected.  I guess that the players who didn't quit just picked up the pace as the game became more focused on them at that point.

Somehow... the inertia of the game carried it through to its finale.

What did I do right?

I... don't know.  I think the stronger story actually helped a little.  At least, it seems to have given the game more inertia to survive its troubles.

What did I do wrong?



Excuse me, I'll stop laughing now.

Where do I begin?  Well, I'll say that I definitely didn't do what I wanted, which was be a stronger GM.  If anything, I was even worse this time, and boy did it show.  I learned that player animosity is both something that will come from seemingly nowhere at the slightest provocation, and will leave persistent environmental damage that nobody will forget so long as they live.

In particular, I learned these things:

Villains and Heroes Shouldn't be in the Same Group - While I still applaud KingStrongbeard for trying to be different and interesting with Flamberge, the amount of frothing lunacy and hatred that was spewed from the other players as a result was just dumbfounding.
Dragons are Serious Business - I learned that firstly, if a dragon shows up in a scene it had darn well kill a lot of people, or someone is going to get mad.  I also learned that if you let your players kill the dragon, don't let them put its head on a gatepost, or it'll make a whole lot of people mad.
Don't Let Players Fake Votes - This makes the other players think that the player who did it was just making stuff up to get their way, even if the GM okayed it.

I also feel that while the strong story carried the game along in a state of a shambling zombie, it was bad overall.  Instead of allowing the players to draw up their own charming stories, the discordant ponies and Entropy dominated the story and crushed those attempts.  What little was left was drowned out by Flamberge or the frothing lunatics trying to kill him.

What would I do differently next time?

Note: I'm writing this after Shadytrails ended, but I'm writing it as if from the POV of myself at the time of Duskfields.

First: Don't do a next time.  Seriously, it won't end well.

If I must do a next time, I'm going to dial back on the story a lot to see if maybe I can recreate the slice of life from Dawnpick.  I feel like the hard feelings are so pervasive at this point that it would be a lost cause, but... if I ever did try again... that's what I'd do.

And for the love of Nirmek, if people start disagreeing, do something about it instead of just sit there this time!

Disclaimer

Just as with Dawnpick, I'm releasing the setting of Duskfields and any and all content produced by me to be used in future stories, games, artwork or any other media.  Not that I expect anyone to actually want to use this or anything.

"You threw the bad memory away.  But it came back."

[zomara0292]

Ah, finaly. I have been waiting so long for this. Might i take Vaneer? And, i know it might be asking  bit much, but I would like To see his personality to. As before, I am far to lazy to make him a character of my own right.



Edit: it is also nice to see you again, Telgin.

[Khenal]

Cream Puff's Diary Prologue 1

Yes!  I've been selected to join an expedition, finally!  I had to keep lowering my expectations, and looks like I got stuck with one going a long ways off, but I am finally out of here!  No more cooking with old or preserved stuff!  We'll get to grow our food, and I can give ponies fresh meals!  I can't wait!


Prologue 2

Are we seriously headed someplace called "The Hills of Worry"?  Maybe I shouldn't have lowered my standards quite so much.


Granite 1, 269

Well, we're finally here, so I guess I'll stop procrastinating and actually write regularly in this thing.  Temperance seems pretty excited, but this place gives me the creeps.  Still, the soil looks good, even if some of the plants in it look unsettling.  I hope the seeds we brought will grow well.  I wonder if anypony can get seeds from the native plants.  Maybe they're tasty.  I doubt it, but you never know.

[jaxler]

gonna probs pick up somepony. aside from that "post to watch"

[Telgin]

Ah, finaly. I have been waiting so long for this. Might i take Vaneer? And, i know it might be asking  bit much, but I would like To see his personality to. As before, I am far to lazy to make him a character of my own right.



Edit: it is also nice to see you again, Telgin.

Certainly!  Here you go:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If you want him, he's yours.  Good to see you back too. 

[Dsarker]

Posting to watch. Will claim the pony when he comes.

[Splint]

Posting to watch. I'll take a scrub in the militia when one comes. I'd prefer the name be Splint, but hey, whatever you think for a name will work.

[Lycaeon]

Best of luck with the new fort Telgin!

I would request a pony but I don't have much time to post journals.

[melkor]

ptw

[vkiNm]

Can I have Crosshair's Avatar and see her stats and such, please? Thanks!

Crosshair's Diary Prologue 1
Hello Diary! Today was the bestest day ever! There was an expedition going out to settle a farming colony or something and they wanted somepony to go and make sure that the wild critters there are at bay and keep everypony safe, I applied and they accepted! Finally I'll be out of this old boring job and finally get a chance to BE somepony! So I brought you to keep note of all the exciting experiences I'll get from day one onwards! Oh I so do hope they'll have crossbows for me to use! It's going to be so great and there's going to be so much to do, I'm sure of!


Crosshair's Diary Prologue 2
Diary, I know you can't answer me this, but.. Why does anypony would even wants to go to someone that's named "The Hills of Worry?" that name already got me worried.. But I'm sure we'll be fine! I mean, what's the worst thing that can happen?

Omigosh Cream Puff is in this expedition too! I LOVE her food and she's such a great friend! Well! I guess the travel won't be so boring afterall! We'll talk about /everything/! maybe gossip about the stallions in our expeditions, take about what we're going to do, her new recipes, I thought I couldn't get more excited, well I'm wrong! This is going to be the best expedition ever!


Granite 1, 269
Hauling. So much Hauling. I thought I'm here to keep ponies safe and shoot critters! But I guess I can't complain, even the boss's hauling.. Although he's a Unicorn and I don't think his back gets hurt or his wings gets strained from hauling logs and rocks from places to places.. But then again, I probably shouldn't try flying with a boulder on my back..

[Maklak]

Posting to watch.

[TheBronzePickle]

May I see Maize's stat block, please?

[TALLPANZER]

SmoothBlock's notes, entry one: Well here I am on my way with a group of settlers going to found a farming village. Probably not my best idea, but I was drunk. We got a leader named Temperance... more swamp whiskey for me I guess! A militant named Flamberge, he has a curvy sword, and that's all I got to say about that.  CaseStudy, more like FlankStudy. CrossHair, food on target. CreamPuff, too easy. Holly, has an axe, likes to wave it around and polish it. Veneer, I think he might be a fruit vendor. Maize, who I hope knows how to grow pigtails! WoodChips, who I really should warn about CaseStudy. Ha-Ha! I got a million of 'em.

Entry two: Was out drinking today when the boss comes up and tells me to level the hills around here. I can do that, no problem, Just remember to work from the top down. Now I thought I should dig on the cellars for stores first, maybe a furniture store for our beds, hint hint! sleeping outside in the rain sucks! Oh well, time for a fine cigar.

[Telgin]

Posting to watch. I'll take a scrub in the militia when one comes. I'd prefer the name be Splint, but hey, whatever you think for a name will work.

Splint's a workable pony name, although I'll name every migrant who arrives with a profession relevant name as I did in Dawnpick.  You can decide then what you'd prefer. 

Can I have Crosshair's Avatar and see her stats and such, please? Thanks

May I see Maize's stat block, please?

Ah, yes, of course.  I should have posted all of these up front.  Here's the embark pony info, other than Veneer since I already posted him.  If anybody wants relationships, just ask.

Spoiler: Ponies (click to show/hide)

Case Study



Cream Puff



Wood Chips



Temperance



Flamberge



Crosshair



Smoothblock



Maize



Holly

I'm hoping to get an actual update posted tonight, probably covering the first half of the first year.