Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

The Undergrove

6 (40%)

The Corpselight Grove

9 (60%)

Total Members Voted: 12

[chaosgear]

...zzzzzzzz....
...huh? Oh, it's my turn?
I, uh, actually have a lot on my plate today. If I'm lucky, I may be able to update tonight.
But what's more likely to happen is I won't even be able to start playing until tomorrow. Sorry.

Alright, I got lucky, and I'll be updating tonight.

[Sabretache]

Glorious work I have to say. I may have been persuaded to give this a go and have a turn. This would be the first time that I have done a succession fort (I am newish to DF but have learnt quickly). If I did do it however, I may or may not have a lot of time to do the write up.

[Halfling]

...zzzzzzzz....
...huh? Oh, it's my turn?
I, uh, actually have a lot on my plate today. If I'm lucky, I may be able to update tonight.
But what's more likely to happen is I won't even be able to start playing until tomorrow. Sorry.

Alright, I got lucky, and I'll be updating tonight.

Great. But really, don't worry about speed. It takes a long time to build great things. I rushed through the first year because it is usually the least interesting, because I had a lot of time, and because I can't play DF every day; I sort of regret it, but what's done is done.

I've been thinking about what the rules of succession should be. Here's what I've come up with.

• From the start of your turn, you have one week's time to update.
• After every update, you have one week more to provide the next one. This will be extended if your turn is just too compelling to skip, of course.
• If the time limit is exceeded, the next player may take the turn if he's ready. If the player is not ready, or there isn't one, I will take the turn instead, and he can go next. I'm very comfortable with this map, have lots of goals and will play a turn fast, likely in two days. So you'll get to hear more stories of silk and obsession.
• And one slightly unusual rule: I'm thinking, considering that we may have lots of players new to zombifying embarks without any safe area, that we should allow limited savescumming. This fort, once it gets going, will likely be completely unreclaimable, and there is an unusually massive list of things that can go wrong - from one migrant pet that you forgot to execute dying and coming back as a walking horror slaughtering half the fort, to accidentally looting a water buffalo cage off dead elf merchants and it starving to death and breaking out in the dining hall, to simply catastrophic surface/cavern wall failure and death flooding in.
  
  How this would work is that you of course do not savescum for the fun of it, but if a stupid mistake or freak accident makes the fort mostly unlivable and you WANT to try to prevent it, I say go for it - play it off as a dream, vision, divine intervention, magic, advanced time travel technology screwing with reality, whatever your heart desires. It takes time to learn how to live here - took me several forts - and I would rather give it to you than have every turn be about someone forgetting to atomsmash someone's corpse and it producing more corpses. There's already one Horrorfailed after all.
  
  Not saying you must - sometimes it's fun to watch things burn - but would like to acknowledge that you have the option.
  

Thoughts?

[Halfling]

Glorious work I have to say. I may have been persuaded to give this a go and have a turn. This would be the first time that I have done a succession fort (I am newish to DF but have learnt quickly). If I did do it however, I may or may not have a lot of time to do the write up.

I'd be happy to have you on board if you're up to it. If now is not a good time, you can always join in later.

[Sabretache]

I agree with what you have said, maybe update the first post with that information if everyone else thinks its good?

Glorious work I have to say. I may have been persuaded to give this a go and have a turn. This would be the first time that I have done a succession fort (I am newish to DF but have learnt quickly). If I did do it however, I may or may not have a lot of time to do the write up.

I'd be happy to have you on board if you're up to it. If now is not a good time, you can always join in later.

Very good I would love to have a try.

[Halfling]

Very good I would love to have a try.

So just to be clear, will I add you to the succession list now, or do you want to think about it or do it later at a better time?

About the rules, I'll also probably sneak in the word substantial (before update) in there somewhere. We shouldn't wait weeks to read a few lines.

[chaosgear]

It just became autumn.
I did have a brief miniature zombie apocalypse, but I handled it well.
Other than, that, it's been somewhat boring, and I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.
Full update later tonight, but I have plans. The update may be pretty late.

Bah, silly me, I forgot the most important part of succession games; making myself a awesome tomb!
Huh? Spider silk? What about spider silk? Was I supposed to be doing something with spiders?

[Sabretache]

Very good I would love to have a try.

So just to be clear, will I add you to the succession list now, or do you want to think about it or do it later at a better time?

About the rules, I'll also probably sneak in the word substantial (before update) in there somewhere. We shouldn't wait weeks to read a few lines.

Yea, add me to the official list please, I already have some good ideas...

[chaosgear]

Alright, here we go.


1st of Granite
Me?! Overseer? Why me!? I just dig the holes! I have no leadership ability! I only know how to dig... And I'm very good at digging, at least. I've never been in a leadership position before...
...so maybe I am a good leader. Never tried it before. I may surprise myself. Alright, let's give it a go!
We have plenty of booze, but we have no water source. Heck, there isn't even one in the caves. I'm gonna dig out a reservoir that connects to the river.
We don't have a masons workshop. Heck, we don't have a lot of workshops. We need to fix this. Someone build some workshops!
Finally, there's still stuff left at the trading depot. I'm having the wall deconstructed so we can start bringing the crap in.

17th of Granite
Finished digging the reservoir. Now we just need a floodgate before we can start filling it.
There's porcupine corpses hanging around the wall opposite the trade depot. They're making us nervous, but I think we're safe from them.
The haulers stopped bringing in goods from depot suddenly. I don't know why. There’s still stuff out there.
Why do we have so many mechanisms? We have like fifty mechanisms and four mechanic workshops. What's the point of all this?
And why is the smelter cluttered?

24th Granite

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well, crap. There goes all our productivity.

The elephants are back, in greater numbers. They’re on the other side of the river, at least.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We tapped the river, and now the reservoir is full. Turns out we don't need the floodgate at all.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now I'm gonna start working on a proper fortress.

6th Slate
Well now I feel silly. While planning digging a proper fortress in the stone layer, I realized the tree farm is sitting on top of an aquifer. I’m channeling out a natural-looking lake. The tree farm is gonna end up looking like a natural cavern forest park...thing. It's gonna be beautiful.

17th Slate

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wait.
What.
Turns out Deduk Oltarrurast, one of the miners fell in the lake while channeling it out. Nobody saw him fall in.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well…crap.
Crap, he’s swimming!
Crap, he’s chasing the miners!
Crap, he’s chasing ME!
Crapcrapcrap!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

THAT’S ME HE’S CHASING!

Looks like it’s time to form a militia, there’s no way around it. All other miners, go get him while I run to safety!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This isn’t going well. He immediately kills the first recruit to arrive.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oddom immediately raised as a zombie. A miner immediately re-kills him. Eventually, three recruits bring down Deduk's corpse. The zombie miner fiasco is over. Both bodies are put in the atom smasher. Slabs are being made. Two injured. One with a broken knee, the other with a broken leg and hand. Unfortunately, several people are very unhappy from two sudden deaths. Hopefully, tantrums will be minimal.
Hilariously, Deduk Oltarrurast is labled as “missing” on the dead/missing list. His corpse, which got one kill, was given the name Esrelrag, and is labeled as deceased.

24th of Slate.
Migrants.
A trapper who can only trap, three fisherdwarfs, two cooks, a metal crafter, three rangers, two shearers, two engineers, two farmers, a clerk (wat), a soapmaker, a miller, a stonecrafter, two kids, a peasant, an armorer, a moose corpse chasing them all away-aw crap.
They led the zombie moose on a merry chase, but they eventually lost it.
The migrants also brought a whole bunch of critters.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our population just doubled. We really need a proper fortress.

5th Felsite
One of the fisherdwarves complained to me that there was nothing to catch in the southern swamps. I panicked for a second, thinking that they had some way to reach the surface. He must be referring to the reservoir…
Digging out a proper fort in the stone layer has begun. Production is at a all-time low.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Blasted party-goers and their stinking...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...Do as I say, not as I do.

14th Felsite
An Elven caravan from Calovi Maci has arrived. The heck am I supposed to give these people?
Oh, right. Silver spiked balls.
Tearing down the wall to access the depot. We really should build a bridge to serve as a WHAT THE HECK IS THAT FISHERDWARF DOING!?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I created a burrow restricting all civs to the fort and the immediate area around the depot. That’ll show those cheeky fisherdwarves.

17th Felsite
Hello, knife-ears. We’ll be taking your EVERYTHING. Have some silver spiked balls.

2nd Hematite
Construction on a proper fort is going…pretty crappy, actually.
Building a wall around the trade depot with a bridge gate. Once that’s done, I’ll add a bridge gate to the main wall to form an airlock type thing.

15th Hematite
The bridges are done, the wall is done, levers set up to the bridges are done. I even labeled them. I even color-coded the labels! The red labeled lever triggers the red bridge, the purple labeled lever triggers the purple bridge. (I made the bridges one tile long, so I can’t tell when they’re raised…)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The elves left this morning. Sounds like the wildlife doesn’t like them very much, but they got away just fine.
I just realized we don’t have a medical dwarf of any kind. Where’s that peasant with no skill set whatsoever? Congrats, you’re the doctor. Get to work. Those poor miners have been bedridden with broken limbs for three months.

25th Hematite
Our new doctor is working on setting the miners broken knee. Now there’s blood all over the bedroom. I can’t help but feel that he’s doing something wrong.
Construction on the fort is finally gaining some steam. Furniture is being made, dining halls are being smoothed, the whole shabang. The dwarves still prefer their open parkway, though.


4th Malachite
Migrants! The zombie porcupines are a good distance away, so we let them in.
We got two glassmakers, a fishery worker, a rooster, a mason, a weaponsmith, a clothier, a bowyer, a craftsdwarf, and a butcher.

27th Malachite
We miners have had nothing to do, so we’ve been digging deeper. We just hit another cave. What’s more…

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We have access to another cave below it.

2nd Galena
We’ve struck gold! A vein of native gold inside a layer of obsidian. Oh, yeah, and we struck obsidian.
The second I crack open a passage to the second cave layer, I get this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

FOUR PAGES OF IT.
It stops once we seal off the cave again.

11th Galena
We hit the third cave layer. Sealed it off immediately. I’ll let the next overseer open that can of worms. In the meantime, let’s dig deeper!

19th Galena
A human caravan arrived. Bring out the silver balls! I should have more of these made for the dwarven caravan…

20th Galena
GOSH DANG IT!!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I can’t open the gate for five seconds without these blasted fisherdwarves sprinting off to the river to go fishing!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well, time to start bartering with the traders...

28th Galena
My index finger hurts from hitting the enter key so much. We traded five spiked balls for the humans everything.
The dry season has come on the calendar. Come to think of it, it didn’t rain a drop all year. Odd.

20th Limestone
Finished the trade agreements with the human representative. We asked for seeds and wood. They asked for accessories and cheese. They will get silver balls. And they will freaking like it.

28th Limestone

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

YEEEEAAAAHHHH
Now to seal it off so someone else can deal with it.
…nah. I’m too greedy.
There are two veins of adamantine in sight. I will handle this with caution.
Oh, and a furnace operator has entered a secretive mood.
He claims a…craftsdwarfs workshop? Odd. And slightly disappointing.

4th Sandstone

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Come at me, beast!
It’s sealed in the third cavern layer, so we have nothing to worry about. I'll let another overseer deal with it.
The elephants have returned as well, and they’re on our side of the river this time. That worries me. They are much more threatening than any forgotten beast.

8th Sandstone

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Worth 4800*. Meh. The silk mitten was worth quadruple that.

25th Sandstone
That’s enough adamantine for now. I’m not comfortable with digging up any more. Now who’s up for some strand extraction!?
On an unrelated note, some mussel shells and pearls left along the shore from the fisherdwarves last renegade fishing trip reanimated. We have 18 undead shells and pearls wandering about, along with some undead badgers.

27th Sandstone
Crap, migrants. And the swarm of undead badgers stands between them and the fort.
…I think I’m done for the day.

With me buying absolutely everything from every caravan, we can easily make a decent militia and some traps. That being said, none of our dwarves are skilled enough to make an effective militia. I'm on the fence on how to handle the badger menace.

[Sabretache]

How is Sabretache the Commissar going? He is still alive I believe (hope).

[Halfling]

Excellent work Chaosgear, and great writeup! I love the artificial lake idea. Looking forward to seeing what happens next. Just be careful to not release the clowns for fear of lag (also death). Undead pearls? Yeah, pearls were added by the modest mod, but I actually had no idea they could reanimate. That's hilarious.

Sabretache, I've added you to the turn list.

[Halfling]

Oh, also, if you don't mind, I have a request about the military: please don't danger room them. While we need a strong militia, that just takes all the glory out of being a legendary warrior.

Besides, we have a great natural resource for soldiery training in Ghoullights, namely the endless number of crawling, walking, limping and possibly rolling dead. Say, those mussels and pearls. I imagine trying to smack a pearl moving out of its own malevolent volition with a hammer is good practice.

[Sabretache]

Thats's fine, I never use danger rooms anyways.

[chaosgear]

Sorry about mysteriously vanishing over the weekend. I was really busy. And by busy, I mean Fire Emblem Awakening.
I'll play some more today and have an update tonight.

[Halfling]

Don't sweat it. There's a suggested time limit of 1 week per major update. So far you are ahead of schedule.

I couldn't resist and played on with the save I gave you. Here's what happened there. Don't read unless you want just massive spoilers.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Fall of Ghoullights



And so it was that in the spring of 1002, by Armok's will, the very fabric of the Past Realms was shattered. In one shard of a new multiplex reality, the Halfling grew tired of power and the peaceful reign of Chaosgear came to pass. In another, they were not as lucky. She clung to power like she clung to her left mitten, and the days grew dark under her harsh rule.

It started with the elf merchants. They never left. No -- as they were making their way towards friendlier forests, a rampage of zombie elephants crashed into their yak bulls, crushing the unfortunate beasts. The elves soon followed. The elephants left, but the yaks never did. Then came the goblins. Their ambushes were slaughtered by the yaks. Then men of Bethal Atho, The Kingdoms of Soul, come to make trade, were murdered there by the walking dead. Soon the friendship of humans and dwarves was no more.

In 1003 a great host of men came to make war. They brought tigers, war tigers. They struck down the undead goblins and laid siege to the fortress, but were not prepared for the elephants. The tigers joined the zombie hordes, now stalking the jungle and preying on all living things there, man, elf, dwarf and goblin alike.

All races came to die there, and live again in undeath.


The tigers were deadliest of all. Unlike some storied walking dead, the undead of Ghoullights were fleet of foot - the tigers incredibly so. They chased down and killed all who came there.

The Halfling was relentless in her pursuit of phantom silk. She had the courtyard laid full of animal traps forged of iron. To bait those traps, they needed meat. Meat that could only come from the undead beasts, now that no caravans made it in. So they trapped the beasts, and slaughtered them. The man-zombies, still caged, they crushed beneath swinging bridges of iron, while the zombie yaks, peacocks and all were released, re-killed and butchered. Fisherdwarves fished for mussels whose shells soon came back to life, haunting the fortress.

They were short-handed, and could not safely dispose of the corpses that piled inside the fortress. By order of the Halfling, instead all citizens started wearing iron and carrying axes and shields, to cut wood and to cut down the dead. A dark hall of coal was built in the courtyard, where the remains of the dead were hauled, behind triple sealed doors. Every citizen was ordered into brigades to spring into action at a moment's notice.



It was a gruesome way to run a fortress, but it worked. They had meat to eat and to bait surface traps with, and soon caught a wealth of phantom spiders. These they released into the underground forest, and there they provided an unending supply of precious silk.





On the surface, more sieges of both men and goblins arrived and were slaughtered. The Halfling was filled with glee, her eyes twinkling with greed as she hoarded the fine silk goods, mitten in hand. But the nights closed in on Ghoullights, as the dead on the surface grew ever more numerous. And even working full shifts, with four twisting corridors of cage traps they kept emptying and rearming, the dwarves of Ghoullights soon realized they could not turn the tide. No migrants came there, no caravan made it there. No outpost liaison would tell the tale. No silk flowed back to the mountainhomes.

On the walled-off surface by the Black Hall of the Dead, near the butcher's shop, a dwarf of the hauler brigades sliced off the head of a revenant dog they intended to butcher and eat. The head promptly opened its now twice-dead eyes and with a dark power leaped off the ground, biting and tearing open the dwarf's throat. He bled to death there, and raised as a pale zombie. Two more hauler-axedwarf units arrived to strike down their former comrade. They knew that every dead dwarf was a step closer towards Ghoullights' inevitable end. Nobody would replace the dead hauler, and their ranks grew thinner month after month.

Contact was lost. All who went looking for the outpost went missing. Although there were rumors, they soon faded and Koladistan, "Ghoullights", was written off as another failed, mismanaged and greedy expedition, lost in an evil, forgotten jungle no dwarf can hope to conquer.

Bad end.

There's no meat nor fish in that pic because I used it all, all of it to bait traps. 300 units of meat caught 5 spiders. For storytelling purposes I assumed the dwarves probably snacked on some of it.

All in all, I was too greedy for silk and went ahead and played and this time successfully made some. The fortress is dead as there's no good way to deal with the undead at this point. Sending out the poor hauler corps will just make more zombies. I'm not that obsessive about the silk anymore, but I still want to do the succession. It's still the best map ever for me, and there's tons of stuff I want to do. Or see you do. Or whatever. Let's kill some zombies.