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Author Topic: The chronicle of Calmspears  (Read 3981 times)

Meng Lolorked

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The chronicle of Calmspears
« on: October 20, 2017, 11:44:26 am »

Calmspears is my 6th of 7th fortress. So far I didn't last longer than 4-5 dwarf years, and this time I decided to do everything in my power to survive longer. I thought I knew the game fairly well by now - boy, was I wrong. Soon I noticed I got attached to my dwarves, and to preserve their names and deeds for history I decided to write this chronicle. Not only it records the dwarves and their exploits, but also me endlessly discovering new dimensions of the game and dealing with ever changing challenges.
Calmspears was founded in 203. The chronicle itself starts in 206, just after a huge battle that almost spelled the end of the fortress.
So here it is, The Chronicle of Betanlokum, also known as Calmspears. Let me know if you like it.


All is well in Calmspears.

The great goblin invasion of 206 is a history. Glorious defense saw two dead elite dwarfs, four dead recruits and seriously wounded recruit squad leader. One elite dwarf was grievously wounded, two other elites required hospitalization, but their wounds were relatively minor. The most injured one was separated from the rest of squad, and got surrounded. He put up a valiant fight against six goblins (killed them all) and four beak dogs (two slain). In addition to that, most crossbow-goblins and bow-goblins concentrated their fire on him. He managed to withstand the barrage of furious attacks until his comrades disposed of bow- and crossbow-goblins, and came to his rescue. Just when they arrived and massacred the rest of his assailants he dropped unconscious to the ground. When the battle was over he was taken to the hospital, but few had any hope that he would survive - after a while only he and noob-squad leader were left in hospital, in the care of a dabbling suturer and dabbling diagnoser, for the fortress didn't have any better medics.

Tale of the great siege of 206 should and will be retold with more details in another place. It will be explained then why green recruits from noob-squad were sent to battle for certain death. It should also be mentioned how dreadful were the enemies, for there were numerous humans and elves marching with the goblins, and one of the goblins themselves was an elite crossbowman. Also, in this battle one of the seven founding dwarves, nicknamed "Fishbutcher", made a name for himself, by slaying four notable and twelve regular enemies.

Suprisingly enough, after several weeks of treatment and rest, both convalescents left the hospital. Even more surprising, elite dwarf, although wounded in virtually every part of his body, rejoined his squad and fought reasonably well against different monsters emerging from the caverns. He must be one badass soldier, with all these scars and stumps. In the meantime, less wounded (he managed to drag himself to the hospital) noob-squad captain died less than a year after leaving hospital, succumbing to his wounds.

The siege of 206 taught us a lot, especially the initial setbacks were a source of knowledge. It was decided to wall off refuse stockpiles and leave access to them only by a drawbridge. It will serve double purpose. First, necromancers appearing regularly at our land will have their minions walled off (in early 206, just before invasion, there were six dwarven deaths to a resurrected zombie cow). Most importantly, the walled off regions leave only narrow paths between them for the invaders to traverse. We will fill them with traps and seal of with drawbridges - but not to keep the invaders out. To keep them in.
Why? Because in 206, just as victory was near, the enemy force retreated. Only about third of invaders were slain, the rest escaped. That is unacceptable for so many reasons. Firstly, they will probably return in a year of two. Secondly, my soldiers need live training and notable kills to boost their fame. Third, but least important reason - goblinite.

One more fun thing came from the siege of 206 - one of enemy combatants, an elven hammerman, stumbled into a cage trap. After the battle it was decided to put him in an arena and pitch him against wild animals caught in the caverns. Unfortunately, the animals fought mainly among themselves, and only after a while they noticed the elf. He came out victorious, although his duel with a jabberer left him quite seriously wounded. To finish him off, a squad of new recruits was sent. This new squad was sort of Foreign Legion, with two human mercenaries and a goblin lasher, commanded by an elite dwarf. I was pretty confident about them - after all, they were training for some time now, they arrived with competent skill at their respective weapons, and received proper steel armor from our legendary armorer. As often happens, at first only one soldier heeded the order, and the rest lingered. That one soldier was the goblin lasher, and he entered arena to attack the wounded hammerelf. To the surprise of all the fortress, the hammerelf quickly beat the goblin to a bloody pulp. Only after few seconds the rest of the squad finally killed him. He proved to be quite a fighter, contrary to all the stereotypes of his race. I think he deserved an engraved memorial or even a statue.

In economic news - dwarven caravan arrived, but was stuck at "Apologies but we are still unpacking, we will be ready soon." And that continued until they left. It turned out that two of the merchants with pack animals probably got scared of something (maybe the big pile of bodies left after siege) and didn't make it to the trade depot. One good thing that come out of this - they left their goods behind, so we got some free stuff.

The year 207 started peacefully.

In the spring elven caravan appeared with a diplomat to boot. They wandered a little, giving us scare, but finally they found the depot and unloaded their goods. One surprising thing they had - some instrument strings worth 9000! This is more than all elven caravans that reached us so far were worth combined. Of course we bought it, just to show these smelly hippies we can afford it.

We have big plans about the elves, and we are happy that there is a vibrant, powerful elven civilization nearby. The dwarves of Calmspears know very well the legend of Tholtig Cryptbrains and they long to avenge her sorrowful fate. The hippies will pay for their insults and their savagery - after all, these monsters, while professing love for nature and life, devour sentient beings, even of their own kind! When we are ready, with powerful adamantine-clad military, we will provoke a war with them and slaughter them mercilessly. But that is for the future.

Defensive arrangements have been planed and are being built. Two outside refuse stockpiles have been walled off, with bridge access only, though one bridge is still in construction. This is generally the problem now - things get built quite slowly, some furniture and some walls waiting to be build for months. It is not currently known why this inefficiency occures - probably stockpile arrangement is not perfect. It will be investigated and improved as soon as possible.

When human caravan arrived it was finally discovered what scared the merchants, causing them to dump their cargo and escape. It seems they are horrified by the great pile of bodies at the fortress entrance, left over from the great siege of 206. It was not yet cleaned up, for it is truly enormous. As a temporary solution, another entrance straight to Trade Depot was built and trade with humans was conducted successfully. Unfortunately this leaves the fortress vulnerable, for there are two entrances now, the new one completely unfortified and unprepared for attack. We hope to fix this soon.

It was decided that founding dwarves deserve not only nicknames, but proper mausoleums. One of them died early in the embark, torn asunder by giant chameleon, Armok bless his soul. He was a fisherdwarf nicknamed "Fisher king" and groomed for baron, but alas!, he had to be buried in a regular grave. The remaining six is still alive. They are the pride and glory of Calmspears. Expedition leader, carpenter nicknamed simply "Leader", became the baron and later the duke. Jeweller, called "Shinystones", works also as accomplished trader. Fishery worker, nicknamed appropriately as "Fishbutcher", joined the military and became great hero of Calmspears. "Stoneborn" (mason) is an accomplished mason, engraver and craftsdwarf. "Oaksbane" (woodcutter) and "Digger" (miner) lead comparatively unremarkable lives, but are legends at their respective professions.

So far one other dwarf was deemed worthy of a nickname - young recruit from one of the first waves of migrants. He almost singlehandedly brought down the first siege of Calmspears, conducted by seven goblins and few trolls. He was grievously wounded in combat, but killed 5 goblins and scared away the rest (also one of the trolls fell into a cage trap). For his bravery he was given a nickname "Goblinsbane". The fortress already had a hospital and chief medical dwarf, so "Goblinsbane" was taken care of. Unfortunately there was no soap and possibly no yarn for stitches. Brave "Goblinsbane" left the hospital after few days, but often had to stop his activities due to being "too injured". Finally, few weeks after discharge from hospital, he died in a furniture stockpile and was buried next to "Fisher king".

But that was pioneer years (3-4 years ago), let's return to 207. As was said, trade with humans was a success. Their diplomat let us know that goblins are raiding and massacring neighboring sites relentlessly. We are not yet ready for their return, but when we are - the things we will do to them... what they are? We know yet not... but they will be terrors of the earth.

In military news - Foreign Legion is slowly gaining new recruits, mostly humans. They started training in danger room, like their elite comrades, and are quickly improving their skills. We wish we could provide them with good quality foreign weapons, like mauls, great axes and longswords, but these are rare. At least they get a good armor forged by legendary armorsmith (he is another good candidate for nickname commemoration and maybe even a mausoleum).

In gossip and entertainment news, some strange and hilarious things take place at the tavern. Calmspears tavern is a thing of beauty - huge, round rotunda with pillars, with tables and thrones on three sides, arranged by color and building material. No wonder it attracts crowds of poets, dancers, performers and other travelers of all races and trades. Suddenly it was noticed that clouds of miasma cover the middle of tavern. It turned out that there is a dead body lying exactly in the middle of the place - a human body, to be exact. Nobody seemed to mind, performances, dances and drinking continued around the poor fellow. Rumor has it that the tavern keeper sometimes forcefeeds liquor to patrons till they die, so he was quickly fired. Still, nobody bothered to clean up the body. After some time miasma stopped emerging, since meat entirely rotted off, leaving bare skeleton behind. When miasma disappeared it was found out that here and there lie the poor fellow's teeth, so maybe his death was violent after all. No matter - patrons seem no to mind a skeleton in the middle of their dance floor.
Another tavern story is even more amusing, sort of. It was noticed, that one dwarf idled all the time at the tavern. No mater his orders, assigned job or profession change, he would sit at the tavern with "no job" status. After closer investigation of this lazy dwarf the reason was soon obvious - poor fellow had no arms. They were bitten off or slashed off during the great siege of 206. Let's hope he will not be elected mayor one day, for he would be unable to shake hands with diplomats, which could lead to international incident. Other than that, he is totally armless (sorry, I had to do this dad-joke).
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Meng Lolorked

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2017, 04:31:45 pm »

Second half of 207 was more eventful.

Valiant elf foe got his statue and a little statue garden near dwarven quarters. Now they can admire how great is Calmspears, attracting such famous enemies. Elf's name was Nguslu Naimsin the Sizzling Hair. Turned out this elf is of some noble family, snatched by gobs as a kid, and was a terminator under some famous goblin. Who knew.

Beginning of fall saw an invasion by undead army, lead by three necromancers. One was close to reaching our refuse stockpile (full of bodies) and then... well, fun things would happen if he resurrected them all. Fortunately he was crushed by a stone-fall trap. Zombies were generally easy to dispatch, and remaining two necromancers quickly panicked and fled. Unfortunately somewhere in the fray the valiant battle-scarred elite dwarf, survivor of the great siege of 206, was killed. His name was Tobul Konosilid and he was a Mace Lord. He died a warrior's death, which is what he probably wanted, so we shouldn't despair.

Zombie invasion proved that our defenses, even unfinished, are working well. Unfortunately it means more bodies lying around, potentially scaring merchants away. Dwarves won't touch them, probably giving priorities to other jobs, and this becomes a problem. To try and mitigate it, a very deep shaft was build, all the way from the surface to the magma sea (yes, we finally reached magma in 207; strangely enough, we haven't broken into 3rd layer of caverns yet). Dump zone was set over the shaft, but it seems dwarves use it very rarely.

In economic news - something very worrying has happen. In autumn dwarven caravan did not appear, neither did outpost liaison. Has Mountainhome been offended by us using goods their panicked traders left behind? Does unsuccessful trade last year mean there will be no more caravans? Or maybe Mountainhome was conquered and there is nowhere to get caravan from? This is very unsettling. Hopefully next year will bring some answers.
There were also some food production problems, when cooks were allowed to use booze for cooking, because of overflowing liquor warehouses. This forgotten order almost caused fortress to go dry, because almost all alcohol was used up in various dishes. Fortunately the pandemonium that is a sober dwarf was averted in time.

In military news - Foreign Legion is at full strength now, and it distinguished itself in zombie invasion. It's sole goblin member is now a swordmaster, the rest are humans of different provenience (and a dwarf mercenary). Most humans are not mercenaries (fortress attracted surprisingly few of them), but human bards, poets and dancers that applied for citizenship. These people have usually some skill with weapons, although rusty. Well, if you want citizenship, you have to serve in Foreign Legion for 25 years.

In entertainment news - somebody finally picked up the dead body from the middle of the tavern. It is not known if it was cast into dump chute, or converted into bone bolts at craftsdwarf's shop. Cloth and other crap belonging to the deceased still lay on the floor, but at least there is no corpse in our beautiful tavern.

In the winter the fortress was visited by an uninvited guest - Oggez Ugoshgosmer Tolvesh, a great shrike with lidless eyes, large mandibles and noxious excretions. All military was sent to deal with him, but it turned out that bastard can fly. Most of dwarves run towards his last landing place, whereas he flew above them (these caverns are HUGE), and attacked a straggler, Mace Lord named Imush Imodatul. He was a Mace Lord, but he didn't have a single kill attributed to him - all his skills he earned while training. I was quite worried, but he put up a gallant fight. Oggez managed to stun him with his excretions, but the monster himself was repeatedly wounded in all it's numerous limbs. Where are the rest of military, I wanted to cry. Finally, after impossible long time, during which a stunned dwarf stumbled around megabeast fighting for his life, they arrived. First at the scene was the hero Fishbutcher, but even he couldn't dispatch of the monster by himself. Finally swordmaster Eshtan Zonmemad arrived and helped to do the deed. Kill was attributed to Fishbutcher, which is kinda unfair. I think Imush did the most damage and definitely fought the bravest.

In winter outdoor barracks were created for elite dwarves. In this way, by training outside, they will avoid cave adaptation. Foreign Legion can still practice underground, close to caverns and never-ending source of targets.

There was quite a naked mole rat debacle as well. It was noticed that some naked mole rat got stuck on underground tree. He multiplied happily, and soon the tree was swarming with naked mole puppies. Soon they grew up and began spawning more offspring. That was unacceptable, so a tunnel was dug to the tree, and both squads were sent to thin naked mole rat population a little. Then for more than a month our squads ran around fortress, chasing and massacring hundreds of naked more rats and puppies. These little buggers managed to infest almost entire fortress as soon as they were given a way down from their precious tree. Even the traps set between fortress and caverns did not stop them - they simply clogged them with their corpses. Now there are their bodies everywhere, and soon there will be miasma as well, cause they are too numerous to be cleaned or cooked in time.

And finally, in the very last days of winter, werelizard appeared. Calmspears has some serious problem with werebeasts, unfortunately. This is the third visit - first two were waited out indoors, behind raised bridges, although second one managed to kill three stragglers. This one was quickly killed by elite dwarves, having killed only one wandering poet beforehand. We shall see if he managed to bite anyone.
We also have a strange visitor - human doctor necromancer. It seems he fancies our recently build library. Let's hope he won't be doing any necromancing during his visit.

208

Beginning of the year 208 did not foretell the important events that were about to happen.

Spring was relatively uneventful, although a lot of people were relieved to see elven caravan appear. With it came a diplomat, demanding we limit our tree cutting and start respecting nature. He was politely told to bugger off - although we have both bituminous coal and lignite, we need charcoal as well. Besides, these trees are death traps for dwarves, who sometimes climb them and get stuck at the top, eventually dying of dehydration. So we plan to cut them all down. Also in the future we will need large empty fields for our megaprojects.
Elven diplomat also brought news of great conquests and raids performed by our goblin neighbors, The Curses of Cackling. From the three sieges of our fortress that they performed, we know them to be formidable (first one was small and defeated by brave Goblinsbane, second was waited out inside fortress; this one was huge, but they left pretty quickly, maybe they were just marching through our land towards better target... third one was the great siege of 206). Still, we didn't care much for their exploits.
But soon after the elves left, something remarkable happened - one of our citizens, humble farmer named Mafol Ralzeg, inherited the throne and became a king! That was totally unexpected. He arrived with some early migrant wave in 204, and never mentioned his royal blood. His wife was torn apart by some creature, probably the same giant chameleon that killed "Fisher king" - thoughts of being horrified by his death are her last. So he is a widower, and since dwarves don't remarry, we will not have a queen. Why would such a lowly dwarf inherit the throne? Our civilization seemed huge, list of barons and other nobles is several pages long. It might be a coincidence that a king died, and Mefol happened to be next in line to the throne. But its also possible, that Mountainhome was razed by goblins - that would explain lack of caravan last year - and royal family was wiped out.
This is not how it was supposed to be. We hoped to invite the monarch when we are ready, with prepared royal chambers, and expected inflow of legendary warriors and rest of the court. Instead we have a confused monarch, no diplomat or queen, and we have to build a a throne room and other facilities hastily.
So the rest of spring and summer was spend building kings chambers - almost everybody was put to work, even preparations of defenses was put on hold. In the meantime, human caravan arrived, with their peculiar diplomat, Islas Saninger, a human law-giver.
He visited us before, and at first there was nothing remarkable about him. But this time, during his visit, a dwarven child was found dead in it's bed, drained of blood. There was a vampire in the fortress, apparently, but who? We haven't had a migrant wave in years, and even visitors didn't ask for residence in a long time. An investigation was necessary.
All recent arrivals were scrutinized, but seemed OK. Since vampires don't eat or sleep, they don't have any recent thoughts about food, dining rooms or sleeping quarters, and that's one of the ways to identify them. They also don't drink, which is sure tell-sign in dwarves. But all our citizens were clean - properly drunk and voracious eaters. Some recent visitor then, for sure. There were several witness - in particular, the deceased dwarven child was found by human lasher, diplomat's bodyguard. At that point, after hours of reading dwarven thoughts and characteristics, I gave up and used DFHack's curse checking utility. I already suspected diplomat or one of his bodyguards, and I was right - wretched guy was in fact a vampire! I should have known not to trust lawyers. His vampirism poses a lot of problems. This time he killed a child, a tragedy, but without serious consequences for the fortress. But what if he decides to feast on our legendary armorer? Or someone from founding seven (well, six, since Fisher King is dead)? If he kills our broker or one of the elite soldiers we are in trouble. At first it seems that he will be only a nuisance - after all diplomats finally leave. But this time he lingered a long time, several months. Fortunately he didn't claim any more victims. The worst part is, he will be back every year, a returning menace to our precious dwarves.
What can be done about him? We could dispatch our military to get rid of him, but he has bodyguards, and vampires themselves are notoriously difficult to kill. Still, that's not the worst - our soldiers can probably handle them, and even if not, vampire can be arranged to die in some other way, like cave-in or magma. The biggest problem is that it would probably mean international incident and war with humans. I think we could handle it military-wise, but that would also mean end of human caravans. Since we will probably have no more dwarven caravans, and elven caravans are near-useless, that would mean end of trade for our fortress. And trade is currently the best way to get rid of unwanted stuff cluttering our fortress, like tons of tattered clothes, products of idiotic mandates, poor quality merchandise created by training craftsdwarfs, etc.
Besides, in case of war with humans, how will the men of Foreign Legion behave? Where will their loyalties lie? It is well known that blood is thicker than water. What if their brother or relative arrive with an invading human army? If they turn their cloaks and attack from within, well, there would be a disaster. We have four human soldiers with legendary skills, and it's a quarter of our armed forces. Even if they simply abstain during human siege, it would severely diminish our military might. Well, the loyalty thing will be tested at next goblin siege, we will see which side will our goblin swordmaster take.
Another option about the vampire is to lock him up somewhere. Normally if we locked up a diplomat, he would finally got mad, die of hunger or thirst, and we would still be accountable for his death. But vampires don't die of thirst or hunger, so maybe that wouldn't be a cause for war, but we would probably get no news from outside world. Since no dwarven liaison appears anymore, we would need to rely for news on elves, and we are planning a war with them anyway. In any case vampire finally left, and we will think how to deal with him next year.
Necromancers appeared at the end of the year and were quickly dealt with, and we caught one in a cage. That is a good news. We can make him resurrect something, and then use it to identify vampires (vampires won't be scared of the undead). But that's for later.

In economic news - first trade with elves was quite successful, they took a lot of our tattered rags and gave us some nice animals, including leopard, which we promptly trained into a war leopard. But they also brought something of value - again, some kind of strings for an instrument (or perhaps a dwarven lady nether regions) - worth 15k ! We have never seen single such valuable item, barring artifacts. So we brought several platinum goblets, tons of clothes and some poor quality armor, and tried to trade. Unfortunately somebody left a wooden nest box at depot, and by accident it was offered to the elves. They felt offended and left. Well, next time they come, they will not be returning to their homes, you can bet your masterpiece platinum goblet on that.
Also in economic news, human caravan arrived in summer, and it was a big one - five wagons and two camels. Surprisingly, they didn't get scared at the sight of corpses this time, and arrived without incident. Trade was most successful - they took all our tattered clothes left over from sieges and normal wear, and gave us some dogs, bars of metals not present at our site, booze, booze, booze, and other useful stuff. We also sold them some gold and silver goblets, and bought weapons unknown to us, like mauls, longswords an greataxes. If for naught else, we can use these in traps. The only downside to humans is their diplomat, as was previously mentioned.
No dwarven caravan this year again, which kind of confirms what we suspected about Mountainhome.
As for production report - our mayor keeps ordering anvils and then forbids their export. We have anvils aplenty - some start thinking about dumping those into the garbage chute. King is a bit more useful, as he orders short swords and shields. Short swords can always be used in traps if all sworddwarfs are satisfied with their weaponry. Duke is sort of fixated on bolts and orders a lot of those. Fortunately they are useful for our hunters and traps.
Calmspears has a bit of a problem with artifacts. So far several dwarves fell into a mood and created something. Unfortunately, most of these creations are useless at best. We have artifact mechanism and artifact earring. Also, an artifact hatch cover and artifact bracelet. Artifact quiver and artifact toilet paper... you get the picture. Most of it is worth less than 5k. Early in the fortress history the armorer, legendary Nil Fikukasob, forged Bomrekzatthud, a jagged bronze breastplate, but it's worth only 15k and since it's bronze, we are not sure if it's better than andamantium or even steel.
In related economic news, we are starting production of adamantium. Our bookkeeper was tasked with strand extraction and relieved of all other dutes, besides bookkeeping of course. First deposits of andamantium were found at 101 level, which is very shallow.
In entertainment news, a giant cave spider managed to gnaw on a woodcutter a little. Said woodcutter, pale and with head disfigured, continued about his daily duties and didn't even bother to go to the hospital. Soon after, a forgotten beast Pastro, enormous three-eyed iguana, appeared. Foreign Legion made a short work of it. Kill was attributed to a human axeman with an awesome nickname of "Budo Sculpturenuts".
Just next day another forgotten beast appeared! This one wandered around caverns, not approaching the fortress. On this occasion the secret of missing 3rd cavern layer was solved. Turned out that this layer was already found and walled off during magma dump chute project. It was just so close to 2nd layer (2 levels below it, on 44th level) that it was always considered a part of it. This new forgotten beast, an enormous earthworm with wings and poisonous breath, appeared there. Tunnel was quickly build to reach it and Foreign Legion made a short work of him. Kill was attributed to Foreign Legion leader, who also once killed the valiant elf prisoner.
Also in entertainment news, there was a bar fight at the tavern. One of the diplomat's bodyguards, a human lasher, beat up senseless one of the bards. Bard at first tried to run, leaving behind trail of blood and broken teeth, but this was for naught. The victim laid unconscious on the floor for some time, then got up, picked up her teeth from the floor, and left. To make it more interesting, both involved parties were female. Maybe it was about a man? But then again, the bard was a dwarf-girl, and the lasher - human. Probably gals just got drunk and started a brawl.
Work on defenses was finished in 208 and all the dwarves' needs are taken care of. Since we will no longer have dwarven caravans we have no need for as much trade goods as before. Therefore some idle dwarves were employed at first megaprojects. A giant text DWARVES was carved out deep underground. Dwarven atom smasher, built since beginnings of Calmspears, is nearing completion. Components for magma-safe pumps are being prepared, and soon an attempt to bring magma to the upper levels will be made.

And thus ended the year 208, year of the king.
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Meng Lolorked

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2017, 01:24:11 pm »

209

The year 209 started as usual, with an elven caravan in the spring. Trade was complicated by the fact that our trader got into a fey mood exactly during trade, so we need to use less skilled guy. We bought insanely expensive instrument strings (they seem to have a lot of those, and they bring one every year - this year it was worth 25k) and sold  them tons and tons of tattered clothes. These caravans slowly change into garbage pickup service.
We finally have enough adamantine to start forging armor. Unfortunately, the first helmet created by our legendary armorer is not of a good quality. Maybe he needs some experience with the new material.
Soon after summer arrived, the goblin struck. It has been 3 years since the great siege, and our fortifications were finished. Of course nothing went according to plan.
This siege, remembered by our historians as "Assault of Disembowelments", should rather be named the battle of The Funnel. Goblins arrived in huge numbers, with trolls and beakdogs, from the west. On this side of our fortifications there was only one narrow path full of stone-fall traps, getting wider towards our fortress - it looked like a funnel with the narrow end pointing west. Unfortunately, the eastern end of funnel ended just above our fortress main entrance, so they didn't need to traverse large plaza where they would be ambushed by our elite squad.
Main entrance was guarded by long wide tunnel full of traps, at the end of which the Foreign Legion was stationed. This squad, currently almost as well trained and equipped as the elites, was still supposed to play only supportive role to them. Alas, it was not to be. The funnel proved to be too short and the traps too poorly constructed (we didn't pay attention to mechanisms quality, so the traps often went off too late to hurt the invader), and only four goblins were maimed by boulders before they reached main entrance. Soon, enemies were pouring through our main gate, barely touched by traps and far away from elite squad position.
Battle plan wouldn't be totally undone, if not for the usual dwarven stupidity. Between main entrance and positions of Foreign Legion, there was a wide, trap-covered passage, ready to decimate enemies. But one of legion's recruits, speardwarf of poor judgement and even poorer discipline, charged headlong into enemy lines all by himself. Squad leader, not wanting to leave his comrade to certain death, begrudgingly ordered his force to advance.
Goblins that already crossed the funnel were massacred quickly, but then the dwarves charged into the funnel itself, clashing with crowd of enemies clogging it. There they fought their way to the other side in a grim, determined pressure against a mass of enemies. Goblins put up a stubborn defense, while from the other side their bow- and crossbowmen fired salvo after salvo of bolts and arrows into our ranks. Since plan of trapping enemy invasion inside a field surrounded with traps and drawbridges failed, the elite squad was ordered to join the fight.  Unfortunately they were not smart enough to move around the funnel and attack the enemy from the side - instead they charged into the funnel as well. This must have been a hell of a fight - dwarven shields looking like pincushions from all the arrows, soldiers themselves wounded and bleeding, but pressing forward, stepping over piles of goblin bodies and pools of their own blood. Finally they made it to the end of the funnel, and tried to broaden the front to put more soldiers into action - one swordmaster managed to move left, while spearmaster and pike lord jumped right. But here waited enemy's heavy forces - trolls and beak dogs, and they charged immediately into our lines, pushing us back into the funnel. Swordmaster, named Ishas Quemerrosmic, was separated and surrounded, trolls and beakdogs swarmed around him. No dwarf ever fought so well and so bravely, and soon the ground and walls were painted cyan with the blood of trolls. Countless dreadful enemies died by his sword that day, many more lost their limbs or were disemboweled. But even the bravest are not invulnerable, and soon Ishas was bleeding from many wounds, his shield arm mangled beyond recognition, his left lung pierced and his leg broken. His comrades desperately tried to reach him, but it was not to be. Finally a beakdog's vicious bite cut off Ishas' leg and the gallant dwarf fell. I like to imagine that the last thing he saw, ground colored cyan with the blood of his enemies, made him think of legendary adamantine.
On the right wing separated spearmen were in peril too. Pikeman's weapon soon got stuck in a troll and the man himself was badly wounded. Speardwarf fought desperately, defending his wounded and disarmed human brother in arms, but enemies were too numerous. Brave dwarf fell just as his comrades emerged from the funnel again and started engaging his assailants.
Now the elite squad finally joined Foreign Legion on the front line just outside the funnel, and a brutal, close quarters melee commenced. While goblins were an easy target, trolls and beakdogs put up a savage fight. Hour after hour waves of enemies charged our lines, only to by cut down and face our vicious counterattacks. Hail after hail of arrows landed on our brave soldiers, piercing armor, hitting shields, wounding flesh. We were still outnumbered 10 to 1 and battle result was hanging in the balance. But finally first signs of the end started to appear. First one goblin, then a troll, later two more trolls and a beakdog, emerged horrified from the fray, retreating to the west. And then it happened - entire enemy line broke down, and they scrambled to the west, not caring about their now defenseless bowmen. The few unwounded dwarves made a triumphant pursuit, slaughtering anyone too slow to escape. And thus ended the siege of 209, the Battle of the Funnel.
Losses were less severe than anticipated. Two elite dwarves of Foreign Legion, previously bards that applied for Calmspears citizenship, perished. One human pike lord was grievously wounded, but surprisingly he survived and continues to serve in the army after few weeks in the hospital. Several other soldiers were wounded, but none seriously. Our defenses proved to be lacking and funnel was immediately deconstructed after the battle. From now on there would be no western approach to the fortress - whoever wanted to visit us, would need to use northern, southern or eastern way.

Immediately after the battle, the human caravan appeared. With them came the infamous diplomat vampire, although this time he assumed new identity of Ejas Miluana. We decided to give him a chance, but after meeting with the duke he drained one human axe lord of blood. That was absolutely enraging - this man fought bravely in the recent battle only to face such a grim end. Training him took several years and now it was all for naught. Decision was taken - the diplomat must be stopped.
While wandering around our fortress he stumbled into duke's throne room, and he was promptly locked up there. There was some debate what to do with him next - we could have just leave him there, and since vampires don,t age, don't eat or drink (except blood), and don't sleep - he would stay there indefinitely. By not killing him maybe we wouldn't cause a diplomatic incident with the human civilization (which, by the way, bears a menacing name of "Violent Confederacy"). On the other hand, he was guilty of two deaths in our fortress. That could not be forgotten. Finally, we decided to kill him, and both squads of military (Foreign Legion was replenished with two additional dwarves, both former bards that applied for citizenship) moved to position. This time he arrived without an escort, therefore we would limit the amount of unnecessary bloodshed. Still, he was a vampire, and they were rumored to be very resilient and violent fighters. It indeed took a bit long to kill him, but our elite military had no significant problem with it. We shall see next year if any foreign relations incident will come of it.
After engraving him a memorial, we found out that his real name was Duco Otgiartuc and he was a diplomat for the Violent Confederacy for 204 years, almost from the beginning of the world. This is kind of unsettling - maybe there are more vampires there? Is this entire human civilization controlled by these unholy monsters? In any case they already have a new diplomat and we will see if he visits us next year.

In economic news - trade is getting worse every year. This time human caravan choose a path through the battlefield, and of course some weak hearted merchant got scared of bodies and didn't reach the depot. He wandered around a lot, finally got there, but trade was not possible. It is utterly impossible to clean up all the bodies, so we prepared several entrances to the fortress and installed drawbridges to be able to left open only one, presumably the least cluttered with corpses. But it probably will not work anyway, since the merchants can still path through any part of the map and encounter bodies.
We don't know if they will return anyway, now that we executed human diplomat. That would leave us with elven caravans only, which don't ever bring anything of use (with notable exception of exotic animals). We plan a war with them in any case, so it seems that soon there will be no trade with outside world - we are slowly heading towards autarky.
In other economic/cultural news, one of the visiting performing dwarfs, a mediocre bard named Urist Nuglesherush, was taken by fey mood. He created a mussel figurine worth a staggering 337k! Far more than all our other artifacts taken together. The figurine commemorates a necromancer siege from the year 205, which I personally consider quite unremarkable. Few human visitors died back then (one is commemorated by this figurine), but there were no dwarven losses for the fortress.
Few other events worth mentioning happened - wereanteater appeared, but was quickly dispatched by elite team. Just the very next day, an ettin came, only to be slaughtered by the same unit. Kill was attributed to Led Onuldumat, our Champion and a legendary hammerdwarf. Let's hope no necromancer reanimates this ettin's corpse, for it is huge. One disappointing thing emerged as the ettin approached - our war leopard, instead of fighting the enemy, fled cowardly in horror.
Also later in the year, another team of necromancers appeared. They were quickly scared off, and one - rhinoceros man - was killed. But the bodies and skeletons outside pose never ending threat of zombie invasion. We are turning them into bone bolts, but the process is not nearly quick enough. We will try to build bowyer workshop and create tons of bone crossbows, maybe that will thin the number of bones outside a little. Let's hope elves will want to buy the crossbows, or take them for free if need be.
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Immortal-D

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #3 on: October 24, 2017, 07:58:56 am »

An interesting read, but you really need to break up your paragraphs a bit more.  Also, pictures!  The front of your Fortress sounds like a war zone, would love to see it.

Meng Lolorked

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #4 on: October 25, 2017, 02:30:57 pm »

Thank you. I will try to improve the paragraphs. As for pictures, sadly, I didn't take a lot of screenshots during early years of Calmspears - mostly I recorded Forgotten Beasts and similar events. I will post what I have.
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Meng Lolorked

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2017, 11:30:41 pm »

210

The year 210 started with a jaw-dropping event. Barely two days into the year, a goblin siege appeared. It was unheard of - no more than 6 months passed since previous one, and it was unimaginable that goblins would recover from their losses so quickly. Then again, according to our visitors, there were several goblin hordes ravaging our region, so maybe this force came from a different tribe than the previous one.
And the force was formidable. It can be safely said that never before a more powerful siege has arrived in Calmspears. First, throngs of beakdog riders appeared, and there were so many of them that everyone thought it was a cavalry incursion and that's why they appeared so soon. But then, behind them, marched squad after squad of trolls - at least eighty of these monsters. Curiously enough, there was one peculiar invader - a human recruit marching briskly with the riders. He perished in some trap, not achieving anything of note, however.
The enemy force arrived from the west, and since the funnel was deconstructed and walled-over, they had to approach us from the north or from the south. In the north there was a wide path, clear of traps and obstacles, prepared for the use of caravans long time ago. It was a beautiful paved road, constructed of orthoclaste blocks, and the dwarves didn't deconstruct it out of a sentiment (it was no longer useful for traders due to bodies lying everywhere). Fortunately it was finished with a drawbridge at the end, so an order to pull the lever was given. And then... blood curdling, horrifying panic struck. The drawbridge was incorrectly built, and instead of rising, which would form an impassable wall, it retracted. Northern approach was completely defenseless and unfortified.

But unlike in previous sieges, this time luck was on the side of dwarves. Mostly. Enemy decided to take the southern way, (although towards the end of the battle quite a lot of trolls went through the unfortified northern road). 
At this moment elite squad was ordered inside the fortress, to await the enemy together with Foreign Legion. There was no point in trying to entrap such a huge force - survival of the fortress was at stake. Foreign Legion arrived at position quite quickly, although goblin swordmaster suspiciously ignored the order and went to sleep in his quarters. Two others stragglers also didn't make it to the rallying place in time - it had to be closed off for the time being, to avoid overconfident dwarves charging into enemy lines prematurely.
To the south there was a single, quite wide approach, heavily fortified with best-quality weapon and stone fall traps. As soon as enemy entered, a slaughter commenced. Especially effective were the weapon traps - beak dogs were cut into pieces, limbs flew around and blood painted half of the plaza red and cyan. As soon as all traps went off, drawbridge behind enemy force was risen, and they were compelled to look for another entrance.

This battle plan, although quickly improvised, proved to be devastatingly effective. Now the closest path to the fortress was the southernmost of eastern approaches, and the main enemy force advanced there. Meanwhile, small force cut off inside our defenses, many of them wounded and maimed by traps, was left to fend for themselves. As soon as they approached fortress entrance (thinned further by an occasional trap), they were slaughtered by our military, now released from their station.
Meanwhile, the main invading force marched towards first of eastern paths. Tragedy struck there - one of elite squad members, a swordmaster named Erush Ankinmorul, didn't make it to the gathering place. He was very far away to pick up some piece of equipment and just now approached the fortress vicinity, only to find it swarming with enemies. As is customary among our soldiers, he did not panic, did not beg or run, but took his fate like a true dwarf. Like Ishas Quemerrosmic's desperate defense half a year before, Erush's last stand will live forever in dwarven legends. No less than a dozen enemies perished before the hero fell.
The eastern approaches proved to be just as perilous to the invaders as southern one. Weapon traps went off one after another, tearing apart goblin, troll and beakdog alike. Walls of narrow paths were painted with blood all along the way. Corpses piled up, but enemy pressed on relentlessly.
 
When all traps went off the eastern drawbridges were risen, but this time larger enemy force made it inside our fortifications. Our military charged and a savage fight begun. Tragically, our small marksdwarves squad, consisting of sole elite marksdwarf and a newly recruited human bowman, somehow wandered into the path of enemy force. They weren't even supposed to fight, probably they were simply out on a hunt, and didn't make it back before siege. Enemy slaughtered them in an instant.
Meanwhile the main invader force marched towards last open path to the fortress - the northern approaches. There were three ways there, two properly fortified and the infamous orthoclaste road - completely open and defenseless. Last squads of trolls pouring into the map noticed all the ways to the fortress closed, and marched straight north, making our situation even more desperate. So far traps and soldiers killed off around sixty invaders, but over 200 still marched inexorably toward our home. Some murmured that we should hide underground and wait out the siege as in the pioneer years, but dwarven pride forbade us to do that. After the great siege of 206 a solemn vow was taken - as long as a single dwarven soldier stands, the gate of Calmspears will remain open.

At this moment dwarven engineering ingenuity saved the day. Somebody noticed that path of the enemy main force led through our recently completed dwarven atom smasher (small interlude about the dwarven atom smasher: we tried to solve our overflow of garbage-refuse-corpses problem; first we built a dump chute down to magma, but few dwarves bothered to dump stuff; then we build this monstrous smasher, 10x10 size, to create refuse stockpile under it and smash it periodically; unfortunately when we raised it - it is essentially a huge drawbridge - it turned out that a stockpile cannot be built under a bridge, only a dump zone; so the smasher was forgotten for a time). Now swarms of enemies marched under our risen smasher, oblivious to its mortal danger. Some resolute dwarf quickly flipped the lever and over 20 enemies were annihilated in an instant.

This was brilliant, dwarven industry at it's finest. Several enemies crawled onto the lowered smasher, only to be catapulted into the air when it was raised. The fall broke every bone in their bodies. Next batch of enemies went under the monstrous machine, and ceased to exist in a blink of an eye. At least sixty invaders were evaporated before enemy main force passed by this annihilator.
Savage brutes as they are, goblins rushed from the north through closest paths they could find, which were tightly packed with stonefall and weapon traps. Blood and gore exploded yet again in narrow corridors between walled off pasture and barracks. But finally even here all traps were used, and there was no point in raising the drawbridges - enemy would simply use the orthoclaste road. Trollish late-arrivals were already pouring in that way, although there were some traps on the sides of the road, thinning their numbers a little bit.
Another crisis emerged in here. It turned out that some trolls can scale walls! They climbed over pasture fence and wreaked havoc among our llamas and horses. Worse than that - there is a narrow tunnel from the pasture straight into fortress proper, circumventing all defenses and bridges.

Now, rumors about creatures scaling walls were known, and we had flying monsters to worry about, so we thought we were prepared. At the end of the long, winding tunnel there was a small, narrow drawbridge to be risen just in such a case. But the lever that operated it could not be found.
All the levers in the fortress were scrutinized and none was connected to the fateful bridge. It seems that either dwarves forgot to connect it, or redirected the lever to another bridge. In any case, the fortress bowels soft underbelly was wide open to troll invaders.
Despair gripped us by the throat. We had no reserves left, no working drawbridges between trolls and defenseless civilian population. But - no reserves? There were three stragglers, that didn't make it to the station with their squads: there was the goblin swordsmaster and dwarf axelord of Foreign Legion, and a spearmaster from elite squad. They didn't follow their comrades into battle for some reason, probably because station order was not changed, and they had no path to station place after one of the drawbridges was risen (this may or may not be a bug, since now they had open path, and still didn't go). They were quickly made into an improvised reserve squad, complemented by anyone with any weapon skill at all. They were given some time to pick up equipment while trolls were busy massacring the animals and destroying furniture in first corridors they reached. As soon as everybody had any weapon and armor, this scratch force advanced on the trolls. Fortunately the three legendary warriors led the charge, and even the goblin swordmaster finally decided where his loyalties lie. Trolls were stopped, pushed back, and finally killed, all without losses for the green squad. Then the valiant dwarves moved to support their brothers on the plaza outside the main entrance.

And on the plaza a huge battle raged, but the luck kept favoring the dwarves. Enemies arrived piecemeal, in small groups, and often wounded by traps. Several dwarven war dogs joined the action and bravely fought alongside their masters, paying heavy price in blood for their loyalty. All over the plaza traps were scattered, and here and there an enemy combatant exploded into gore after stepping in one. Soon the scratch reserve squad joined the fray and that seemed to tip the balance - one after another enemy soldiers broke down and ran for their lives. Soon, what was left of the invasion force fled the plaza in full retreat. Exhausted dwarves didn't even attempt a pursuit this time.
This siege was aptly named "Assault of Shocking" by our scholars.

The carnage of this siege far outstripped anything we experienced so far. At least 200 enemies were killed, almost sixty of them by the dwarven atom smasher. Fortunately, these ones didn't leave bodies or belongings behind. Still, the amount of bodies, armor and weapons was enormous. Of these we could use only the weapons, to construct more traps. The rest is utter garbage cluttering our fort and scaring away the merchants.

Afterwards, life at the fortress wouldn't return to norm for a very long time. This time there were casualties, and several dwarves kept experiencing emotional shock long after the siege ended. First order of business was resetting of the traps, followed by enormous clean-up operation. The usual problems with clean-up returned, as nobody seemed to be eager to pick up corpses and severed body parts. Wherever enemy reached fortress interior, soon miasma emerged. One unburied warrior returned as a ghost, but was soon put to rest - a small memorial hall for soldiers was built close to Foreign Legion barracks. There we placed memorial slabs for all the fallen heroes. The loss of Erush Ankinmorul was especially painful.

Since Mountainhome was apparently destroyed, we can't expect any more migrants. If we loose significant portion of population, we will not be able to replenish it in any other way than by rearing children. We could in principle accept residents, but they are mostly of human origin, an we would soon have a fortress mostly or exclusively human in nature - my heart revolts at the very idea. We simply have to conserve our dwarfpower.
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Meng Lolorked

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2017, 09:15:59 am »

To minimize loses in our military, the armorer was ordered to increase efforts on adamantine armor. Unfortunately, so far he disappoints - all his creations are exceptional at best, no masterful adamantine armor yet. We also created two adamantine short swords, but surprisingly only one is used - second one lies idle in a stockpile. Probably all the swordmasters named their swords by now, and don't want to part with them.

In economic news, elven garbage pickup service, I mean caravan, arrived soon after the siege. They didn't mind the corpses, but brought nothing of value this time. We sold them some tattered clothes, but dwarven greed forbade us from donating all of it for free. We still hoped for a human caravan, to make a more profitable exchange.

Human diplomat arrived, and I'm relieved he is not a vampire. Duke was carrying heavy gold statue at the time, so he decided to take it with him to the meeting. His throne room is 50 levels down, so they went impossibly slow. Then the duke decided he is tired and went to bed. Diplomat with his bodyguards just stood there watching him sleep. Creepy bastards. I wonder what would happen if it was the vampire one and decided to have a little snack...
Omg! One of the diplomat's bodyguards went into bed with the duke! And they are both guys... Maybe I don't want to know the details there... And the diplomat and the other bodyguard kept watching... they are not only creeps, they are perverts.
And now - the bodyguard left the bed and the diplomat went in! By Armok, what is happening here? An orgy? Are they shagging the duke while he sleeps? But the diplomat is a lady, so maybe our duke likes versatility?
The duke slept for 2 days straight. Things are more clear now, albeit more disturbing. I think she slipped something into his drink and proceeded to shag him for hours, sometimes letting her bodyguard have a go. These humans are real sickos - first a vampire, now that.
Duke woke up and went for a drink - to the tavern 30 levels up from his chamber. Fortunately he left his golden statue somewhere. Finally, he conducted a meeting with the diplomat lady in his throne room, next to a body of previous human diplomat. Nobody seemed to mind.
So, no war with humans. But no caravan this year either... why? Damn! We forgot to reopen caravan bridge after the last siege! They had no way to our depot with their wagons. Let's hope they will appear next year.
The entire picture is getting clear now. As far as I know, the valiant duke let the humans have their way with him for two days, in exchange for them overlooking the murder of their previous diplomat. Such a dedication to his people.

Our increasing stock of adamantine products, as well as new artifacts and other valuables, started to lure more and more dangerous monsters and forgotten horrors from the bowels of the earth. First a giantess appeared - Dane Namenthab. She caught one of the founders, the mason "Stoneborn", and chief medical dwarf outside of the fortress. The duke was nearby and charged her valiantly albeit recklessly, while other civilians fled in horror. Fortunately elite squad's barracks were close and they took care of her quickly - no casualties.
Soon after, a forgotten beast named Siga Gamoabe emerged from the caverns. It was an enormous quadruped composed of salt. Curiously, he went into water and swam a lot, and didn't dissolve as salt should. When he approached our fortress the Foreign Legion made a quick work of him. Kill was attributed to a human axe lord named Uso Sporrorinih.
They didn't even made it back to the barracks when another forgotten beast, great eyeless cockroach named Rofa emerged. He had a broad shield and was emaciated, also he apparently had deadly spittle. Neither shell nor spittle helped him and Alpeth Turapesta of Foreign Legion quickly disposed of him. This was the same Alpeth Turapesta that had the funny nickname "Brainconflict" and once killed the vampire diplomat.
Now, after getting rid of three giant beasts without any losses, the dwarves felt pretty cocky. And we all know that hubris walks before disaster.

In early autumn yet another goblin siege appeared. We were dumbfounded - are they that numerous and powerful? But this "siege" consisted of mere 3 bowgoblins and 3 crossbowgoblins. And soon we knew - it was a mere distraction! While the invaders approached us from the west, a goblin snatcher appeared in the east. He stumbled into one of the new weapon traps, made of the best mechanisms and sharpest axes and swords. All that was left of him was a big red smudge and a bag. The six goblins were killed without mercy by our military.
In late autumn something new appeared - a dragon named Sarvesh Sirabibmat. We were kind of concerned about it, since rumors about dragons were frightening. However, this beast walked into a weapon trap and perished before our soldiers managed to reach it. Kinda anticlimactic. Still, our confidence grew, and noone expected that a great tragedy is approaching.

The tragedy took the shape of the forgotten beast Garetho, huge hairy leech composed of salt. It had a broad shell. We were warned to beware it's fire - truer words were never spoken.

It emerged from the 3rd layer of caverns. Our hubris was to be our undoing - we didn't even bother to build a drawbridge that could cut off these caverns, although we built one for 1st and 2nd layers. We were so confident that our legendary military can easily handle anything that the world throws at us. The beast moved slowly but inexorably towards our fortress. There were some traps in the passage, but forgotten beasts are known to avoid them. The fire breath, or rather spit, of this monster was a terrible thing. It set dwarves on fire and kept burning and smoldering, choking, scalding and blocking the view with smoke. First dwarf that charged the beast was instantly melted and evaporated, and the smoke made Garetho unreachable for his comrades. Dwarves moved back into the staircase, hoping to engage the monster more efficiently in a cramped space.
Elite squad arrived to support the Foreign Legion. As soon as Garetho - and this name will live forever in dwarven horrors and darkest tales - moved into staircase, valiant soldiers did their duty. And started dying.
Steel shields provided some cover from raging fire, but the smoke was the worst. It choked the soldiers, blocked their view and made attacks against the beast almost impossible. Before first hits finally landed on target, three of our legendary warriors lied dead. Then a glimmer of hope appeared - monster's shell was torn open, fat and muscle were cut, and it's mouth was badly wounded. But horror, Garetho is thy name... the beast started healing itself! After a few minutes it was barely scratched, almost all it's wounds gone! Meanwhile, the bravest and most famous of our heroes, the great Fishbutcher, slayer of over a hundred goblins, beakdogs and trolls, engaged the dreadful Garetho. You could almost see the mighty dwarf, crouching behind his shield, surrounded by flames, stubbornly approaching the monster. He managed to land several blows, wounding the beast again, but alas! Vicious bite torn off his shield arm, and the flames swallowed the greatest hero known to Calmspears.
It was now, that all hopes had failed, a heavily wounded human spearmaster (spearwoman in fact) named Quihu Estusronic trusted her spear in a desperate attack at the approaching monster. Garetho's shell, still not healed after Fishbutcher's attacks, gave way and it's vital organs were pierced. And finally the beast died.
There was no celebration in Calmspears after this victory, only mourning. Six legendary soldiers, veterans of countless goblin sieges, zombie invasions and forgotten beasts incursions, gave their lives in an attempt to defeat Garetho. Third of our small but elite military force was gone. Most of the rest were wounded, some grievously. The most lamented loss was the death of Fishbutcher, first death of a founding dwarf since Fisher king. Oh, brave Fishbutcher, how anyone who saw you in combat could ever believe that death will reach you on a battlefield? Charred, unrecognizable remains of the dwarven hero were laid down for eternal rest in his mausoleum. Calmspears mourns.

Among heaps of weaponry and armor left behind by his victims, Garetho's corpse smouldered for weeks, a haunting memento.

This was not the end of calamities that happened in Calmspears in 210. Nemen Kutepatho, human scholar necromancer visited... and started rising dead all around herself! Now, we had several visiting necromancers of different races, attracted to our famous library. But they always behaved nicely, never raised any zombies, and were generally friendly. This necromancer apparently thought it would be funny to send hordes of skeletons against us while strolling casually towards our library.
There is no other option, we have to kill her (the troublesome necromancer is a woman). But she is very fast, our soldier can't catch her! Maybe they are still exhausted after Garetho. It took them weeks of pursuit, while she ran around resurrecting stuff and laughing at us. We were forced to execute civilian alert and send all the military to the hunt. She still evaded us and raised ever more powerful dead. Finally, after weeks of pursuit and cat-and-mouse play, she was cornered and killed by Mafol Sakzuladil, a decent dwarf Axe Lord of Foreign Legion. But... what happened next?! Pikemaster Akul Gorpuimo of the same Foreign Legion squad suddenly attacked Mafol! They fought for a long while, and despite the fact that pikemaster was wounded from recent fight against Garetho, axe lord was killed. Akul himself was quite seriously wounded in the process, so it seems that the dwarf defended himself. But what was that all about? Such a good soldier, so senselessly killed... and at the time of dire military crisis... maybe it was a punishment for killing a visiting guest? But earlier we killed a human diplomat, also a guest, and nobody had any problem with it. Maybe it was species loyalty? Necromancer was a human and a girl to boot, and pikemaster was a human male... I should check, maybe it was his family. Or maybe simply the axe lord and pikemaster had some history, didn't like each other and the human picked this moment to even the score. 
Barely a day passed after the necromancer debacle, and another forgotten beast emerged from the bowels of the earth. This time it was a huge bat with supposedly deadly spittle. It appeared in 2nd cavern layer, where we had a drawbridge, but it was no use - many civilians worked in that cavern, collecting webs, resetting traps and bringing naked mole rat meat to the kitchen. The monster jumped in the middle of them, attacking a fisherdwarf on hauling duty and a weaver. Duke was nearby and once more, against his better judgment, charged the beast with bare hands. I have to say that I lost some respect towards the duke after his bed adventures with the humans. But after seeing him attacking bravely huge beasts in defense of his brethren, he regained a lot of my admiration. However peculiar his bedroom tastes, he is a caring and valiant ruler.
Fortunately, a spearmaster from Foreign Legion, the same girl that killed infamous Garetho, was close and joined the fight. She massacred the beast and saved the civilians. The kill was however attributed to the fisherdwarf and his kicks and punches. Kinda unfair.

Very few new visitors arrive at our fortress, despite our diminishing numbers. None asked for citizenship or even simple residence in several years. Civilization screen check shows that our civilization is crumbling. At the foundation of Calmspears there were four pages of dwarven baronies and duchies. Now there is only one short page. It seems we are being exterminated by goblins (we are not at war with anyone else). Gloom hangs over Calmspears in 210.

Last two months of 210 were spent cleaning up and working on adamantine armor and weaponry. The armorer finally started performing better, and created several masterwork adamantine helmets and mail shirts. Curiously, dwarves prefer mail shirts to breastplates (I hoped they would be wearing both, but they won't). Axedwarves received few adamantine axes, although swordsmasters in most part already named their weapons and are unwilling to switch to adamantine.

Scholars at our library gave a little more thought to the missing dwarven caravans and no visits from outpost liaison. According to their research, there is a hope that they tried to arrive, but did not reach us. Also, according to their research, nobody will petition our mayor for stay or citizenship until mayor or duke meets with the outpost liaison. No migrants will arrive as long as caravans are stuck.
This is very disturbing, but also gives us hope for the future. Our scientists, in a way of absolute exception, were allowed to execute some dark, dwarven magic to solve the problem. Next year we will see if it worked. [bug with stuck caravans, lua script to annihilate them]

Thus ended the sorrowful year 210, that saw 15% of Calmspears population perish. During that year a four hundred-strong siege, a giantess, four forgotten beasts, a dragon and a treacherous necromancer did not manage to break the dwarven spirit.
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Meng Lolorked

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #7 on: November 04, 2017, 02:18:11 am »

211

Three days into 211, a zombie siege arrived. It was led by a dwarf necromancer, with two other necromancers hiding somewhere in the bushes. We discovered them as soon as they fell into our cage traps. The siege leader marched confidently towards our fortress at the head of about eighty zombie goblins. On his way he resurrected whatever he could.
Dwarves were enraged. We spent whole autumn and winter resetting our traps, just to see them used up against such a flimsy foe? That cannot be. Elite squad charged outside the fortifications to meet the invaders on the other side. They would suffice, but Foreign Legion soon joined, to give its newer recruits some opportunity to gain experience.
After disastrous events of 210, the dwarves yearned for some revenge. We are told that zombies feel no pain and no fear, but I suspect that even their rotten hearts trembled at the savage charge of our warriors. The undead fell en masse, like grass cut by a scythe. Their necromancer leader lost all courage and tried to run. He was fast, as necromancers often are, but adamantine clad soldiers are quick too. He was cornered and bludgeoned to death with a masterfully made silver mace, a proper weapon to deal with such an unholy creature.

In society news, Kumil Adagas, a renowned mason, died of old age after living for 164 years, from 47 to 211. It was the first death of natural causes in Calmspears. Good old Kumil died doing what he loved, i. e. drinking dwarven beer. Also, a female elven diplomat arrived and visited duke in his chambers. Then she watched the duke sleep... another creep. Soon after that a migrant wave arrived, first one in years. It seems Mountainhome was not destroyed, probably it was only besieged. Or maybe the dark dwarven magic we performed at the end of 210 worked... Another migrant wave hit us in the summer. Neither wave brought anyone useful, unfortunately, therefore all new citizens were employed at garbage dumping.

In economic news - elven caravan brought another set of expensive strings and received ton of tattered clothes in return. Also they took a lot of inferior goblinite armor. Unfortunately our king forbade export of shields. Neither human caravan nor diplomat arrived this year. Most of the fortress is properly furnished and stockpiles are overflowing, therefore half the population is employed with refuse hauling. Finally dwarves started dumping stuff down the magma chute - but only after turning off all other labors for them. Almost the only thing we do, apart from dumping garbage, is processing adamantine.

Dwarven child created an artifact during a strange mood... wooden figurine worth 391k! The child became legendary woodscrafter to boot. Unfortunately it's not a very useful skill for my fortress.
In late summer a goblin invasion arrived - weaker force than before, still formidable, though. Mostly infantry goblins, some beakdog riders and 3 squads of trolls. Hopefully they are starting to feel the losses we inflict on them on each siege. Before Garetho our military would deal with them comfortably, but now there are too many green recruits - we decided to play it safe. Enemy, decimated by traps, got attacked by both our squads and pushed outside fortifications. Main battle was joined in the mud on the bottom of dry lake. It was intended - that place is close to dump chute, clean up after battle will be easier. Enemy was massacred and forced to retreat, no casualties on our side.

Liaison and caravan arrived - contact with dwarven world is reestablished after years of isolation. Brothers of the mine, rejoice! The merchants will receive A LOT of clothes and inferior goblinite armor. As for liaison - he arrived, but undertook no meeting. He just wandered around fortress, from one tavern to another (yes, we have two taverns now), and to the temple, and back to taverns. We changed mayor several times, finally petitions came. And at the end of year, after 6 months of drinking, partying and vomiting, liaison finally made a meeting. In spite of long time that has passed, no news worth of note arrived. Curses of Cackling are still on a rampage.

In other news, we had a visit from a particularly repulsive forgotten beast - Erawi Cewirili, enormous humanoid composed of vomit (beware it's deadly spittle!). He was killed easily by Foreign Legion - the kill attributed to Odom Odhsinendok, an unremarkable hammerlord.
Another forgotten beast appeared soon after, but it traveled a lot around cavern waters, and left by itself. The good news is that monitoring it revealed adamantine - on 43rd level! very shallow, very abundant.
Several new mercenaries petitioned for job, so 2nd Foreign Legion was created.
Rest of the year uneventful, hard work on clean up and andamantine armor. We tried to pit goblin-aligned troll against wild troll in the arena. Didn't fight. We added a jaberer - he killed both trolls. Tough bastard. He was finished off by Foreign Legion.

2 guys landed in prison for selling shields, against king's embargo.
Goblin bard was drafted into 2nd Foreign Legion as a swordsgoblin. He is constantly stressed though, and is horrified by each killing near him. Let's hope he will get over it and become good soldier - I want diversity in my forces.
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Meng Lolorked

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2017, 12:54:01 am »

212

Very first day - a valiant dwarf with over a hundred kills, Eshtad Zonmenmad, died of old age. Got a mausoleum.
Most of spring uneventful - elven caravan, nothing of value, but they took our garbage. We refused tree-cutting quota.
Late spring - dangerous forgotten beast, Tath Xakediskak, shooting webs. Engaged smartly in staircase. Akul Gorpiumo, veteran spearmaster of Foreign Legion died while fighting it. He was a veteran of many sieges, necromancer attacks and foreign beasts incursions. He was also infamous for killing our axelord dwarf Mafol that killed a visiting necromancer.
Summer - humans. Sold them unused steel armor, they could barely afford it. Still left with heaps of steel shields - they have nothing to give us for these.
Weremoongose appeared in the midst of my dwarves, but this time war dogs earned their food. They attacked the werebeast, and despite three dogs killed, stopped him long enough for elite squad to finish him. Marksdwarf also joined with several salvos. We are recreating our marks-squad, but so far we have only 2 members, elite dwarf and elite human crosbowman. We are building them an archery tower and archery range under it, next to spacious barracks. They should be happy.
Possessed craftsdwarf creates a mug worth 372k. Ever since adamantine was discovered the artifacts gotten very expensive.
All in all, 212 was the dullest year yet.

213

Very first day - goblin siege... but what kind? 23 invaders only. My elite squad charged and slaughtered them to the last one. Noone escaped, noone did any damage. Pathetic.

2 deaths of old age - including a member of elite squad. It seems my elite squad is made up of very veteran dwarves. Also it seems that people and dwarves die of old age exactly on the first day of the year. How peculiar.

We celebrated 10 years of Calmspears by massacring elves - diplomat and caravan both. All were killed, including camels. We lived in peace with them for 10 years, suffering their insolence and swallowing our pride. But not anymore. Let the elven war finally begin!

Hydra arrived and was promptly slaughtered by elite squad. Now her heads are everywhere.
Goblin bard drafted as swordsman into foreign legion, was walking around stressed all the time. Despite being competent at swords, which got him drafted in the first place, he seemed not to enjoy combat at all. He was horrified with every single dead troglodyte, elkbird or a mole he saw. Still, we hoped he would get over it with time. He got better and better at fighting thanks to training, but still wouldn't calm down. Finally he snapped and threw a tantrum. He was immediately removed from military and given a beautiful house, with a separate bedroom and dining room and golden furniture. It was hoped that it would make him less stressed - but it was for naught. He kept throwing tantrums and tipping over furniture, and afterwards he was ashamed at his own behavior, and threw a tantrum about that. Finally he started picking fights with other citizens - and that was the final straw. Since he had a military training, he was quite dangerous even while unarmed. He killed a dog, beat up a hauler, and finally whaled on a human bard so severely that the guy landed in a hospital. And died soon after.

Decision was taken - tantruming goblin had to be stopped. Since there were witnesses to the beatings, we thought justice would make things right. Big mistake. As soon as hammerer was appointed, he arrested our only weaver for selling shields to the recent caravan. Poor weaver was dealt 10 hammerstrikes and returned to work severely mauled. Fortunately he survived. Then a legendary cook was arrested, for the same crime. That was too much and the overzealous hammerer was dismissed and the cook released. Goblin was put under house arrest at his fabulous home, where he will be left to die of thirst and/or hunger.

In military news - in late summer a goblin siege arrived. Finally, some entertainment! We were so bored recently, nothing really interesting happened since 210. But what kind of siege is this?? A single miserable crossbow-goblin! And a snatcher, approaching from the other side. Pathetic. The snatcher managed to avoid several traps and was pursuing a wandering hauler, when he stepped into a weapon trap and was instantly shredded to pieces. Poor crossbowgoblin died at the hands of elite squad, barely having time to release a single bolt.

The fortress is wealthy, powerful, satiated... and boring. No enemy undertook any serious attempt to conquer it in years. No significant monster, forgotten beast or dragon approached its mighty walls since Garetho. One tantruming goblin, now locked in house arrest, is the only source of mild entertainment.
To relieve the boredom the dwarves decided to have some fun with their prisoners, and there are a lot of these. Sort of "Hunger games" were planned, and zombies, goblins, and cave monsters were to be pitted against each other.
One of two remaining caged necromancers was put in an underground hall with corpse stockpile. On the other side of the room several captive trolls, goblins and even a beakdog were places (all in cages for now). The idea was that necromancer, threatened by goblins, will start rising the corpses and a battle will ensue. To make sure some confrontation will happen, several caught monsters (mostly crudles, giant moles and the like) were added, as well as one unlucky caged dog.
The cages were opened slowly, one by one. Necromancer was released first, and wandered a bit around the stockpile, distracted. He didn't rise any corpses, however. To encourage him, a giant mole and a crudle were released. Disappointingly, he killed them by hand, not using his dark powers at all. Then the dwarves lost their patience and released all the prisoners from cages at once. At first they stumbled and walked around obliviously, but when the dog started wreaking havoc, finally something happened. Necromancer brought back to life several thralls, including the mole and crudle he recently killed. Trolls and goblins were apparently exhausted after years of bondage, and didn't fare all that well in combat. The fight took a long time nevertheless, partially because the resurrected corpses were very much decomposed and cut to pieces. It's hard to kill even a fainting troll when you are only a warthog's neck, it seems. Most of the prisoners fainted from over exertion and fatigue caused by fight against these zombified body parts, and not from actual injuries sustained.

After watching this pathetic spectacle for a while, dwarves decided to put an end to it. 2nd Foreign Legion was sent in, to give its still green recruits some first hand combat experience. It was hoped that the necromancer will rise some more zombies against them, but the moron tried to run for it as soon as the drawbridge was lowered, and was immediately slain. The rest was pure formality - our soldiers slaughtered all the prisoners and zombies without breaking a sweat. All in all, the entire "Hunger Games" affair brought meager entertainment and was rather a disappointment.

Then it was decided to solve the case of a tantruming goblin. He was locked in house arrest almost a year ago, and it was hoped he would die of thirst, hunger or depression by now. He refused to cooperate, however, and stubbornly kept living. From time to time he would stumble around obliviously, or throw a tantrum and vandalize his own quarters. Before his confinement he managed to kill two dwarves (or rather beat them up so severely that  they died later from their wounds in the hospital), so citizens were eager for some justice. Meanwhile, fortress was visited by several interesting guests, including a good looking elven swordsman mercenary (curiously, he was described as a slave). We never had an elf in our army, so we wanted to hire him, but he never petitioned for enrollment. Fortress is at its population limit, so it was hoped that when goblin dies, a free tenant slot will open for the elf.

But how to dispose of the goblin? We could simply send the military to kill him, but simple solutions are rarely safe in dwarven world. Killing of our own citizen could cause a loyalty cascade which could escalate into a civil war or all-out brawl and riots. Despite being a goblin and a murderer to boot, he earned friendship of several inhabitants of the fortress who would probably try to avenge him in case he was killed by one of our soldiers. Similar thing happened when we killed a friendly visitor few years ago - it costed us the life of one of our legendary defenders.
A different approach was proposed. The goblin was living in extravagant mansion, given to him in vain hope that it would improve his depression. He was now closed in his bedroom, but his dinning room was adjacent and also easy to lock-up. So dwarves build a captive troll cage in the dinning room, attached it to a lever in the corridor, and walled-over the entrance (doors are not enough since trolls can smash them). Then the troll was set free and the doors to bedroom were unlocked.

As per usual, dwarven plan came to naught. The troll was so exhausted from the years of captivity, that he barely moved at all. After a few weeks he kindly overthrew a table, but that was all he was capable of. Meanwhile, the goblin also didn't move much, throwing an occasional, but stationary, tantrum. After another long wait, the goblin stumbled into dinning room, and finally noticed the troll (and vice versa). He panicked and started running around, but the troll didn't have enough strength to pursue him. Finally, they started fighting in the bedroom doorway, but both were so tired that neither landed any hits... then they would stop fighting, run some more, occasionally faint, fall over or drop unconscious, and fight some more. It was even more pathetic than warthog-neck beating up the goblins during Hunger Games. This depressing spectacle lasted for weeks, until finally they locked in a more serious combat, again in bedroom door. This time goblin took some punishment, but soon his long forgotten military training kicked in and he traded a blow for a blow. The troll overestimated his own strength and fainted from over-exertion. The goblin proceeded to kick, bite and punch him, although due to tiredness and overall poor shape - with little success. He often fainted, missed, and generally did little damage - just enough to keep the troll unconscious.
 
Both involved creatures were evil, murderous a-holes, so noone felt pity for them. But the general picture of two barely-living individuals fighting each other with the little strength they had left was overwhelmingly depressing. Finally, after impossible long time, with entire bedroom painted cyan with troll's blood, the goblin killed his adversary.
That was not what dwarves wanted. Stubborn goblin was depressed for years, didn't eat or drink since forever, was haggard, wounded, stumbling obliviously and still overpowered the stupid troll. No free slot for the elf then, no way to kill the gob - he vilely lied down in the doorway between the bedroom and dinning room, so noone can enter without risking letting him loose. In any case, as soon as we would have opened entrance to his mansion, he would be taken to hospital and patched up only to tantrum and pick fights with the dwarves all over again. The only hope is that he will die of his injuries. Miasma from the dead troll already filled his fabulous home, so maybe that will help.

Near the end of 213 an ettin approached the fortress. It was an ancient monster, huge, menacing, full of evil power. It was said that this particular ettin was among the firsts of her kind, ancestor of most of the ettin-kind. Unfortunately, even she didn't provide the fortress with any real challenge. Elite squad barracks were close and soldiers quickly surrounded the ettin, just as she was closing in on her first victim, an oblivious engraver wandering the forest. It was as if the monster fell into a meat grinder. Her limbs, intestines, bones, and finally severed heads flew all around the place. Not a scratch on our soldiers, obviously.
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Immortal-D

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2017, 05:38:23 pm »

The more I read this, the more I want a tour.

Meng Lolorked

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #10 on: November 10, 2017, 03:50:03 am »

So passed 10th year of Calmspears history. The fortress grew fat, immensely rich and populous during that time. Losses of the crisis of 210 have been rebuilt and now, at the end of 213, Calmspears is at the peak of power and wealth. 150 dwarves, humans and goblins inhabit its vast underground halls. Close to a hundred visitors of all professions and races marvel at any given time at Calmspears' beautiful temples, taverns, palaces and library. Its granaries are overflowing with masterful lavish meals made of most exotic foodstuffs, liquor stores harbor delicious drinks bought from all over the world, and even better ones brewed in the fortress. The earth proved to be generous, and the dwarves rarely need to go below 50th level to gather its gifts. Gold is abundant, silver even more so, and even platinum can be spotted here and there. But the most precious of them all - adamantium - is the biggest prize: it was found a mere 43 levels down, and in abundance. Three workshops work around the clock extracting its strands, and the armorer, best of the best, creates excellent armor out of it. King of the local dwarven civilization lives in Calmspears comfortably (and torments it with his constant demands for shields and anvils). Five of the original seven founders are still alive, respected elders among their peers.

All the citizens live in their own apartments, most of which are of high quality. Significant number of dwarves, especially the more important ones, have their own dining rooms and sometimes even an office. Selected few earned their own mausoleums, decorated with statues and engravings with imagery related to their exploits. Golden furniture is common, silver even more so, and some nobles sport a platinum statue, cabinet or chest. Dwarves drink from masterfully made golden goblets, and recently even a few adamantium ones were created. Truly, it's a good time to be a dwarf in Calmspears. Silver and golden statues are so common that stone ones are build outside, at the entrances, along the roads and on the peaks of the hills. Even in caverns there are statues in many forgotten passages, to remind the dark evil creatures of the deep about the glory of the dwarves that rule this land.

Two famous taverns exist in Calmspears. One is a great rotunda build at the beginning, now beautifully furnished and in the process of smoothing and engraving. Second one, build near the surface (on the 3rd level) to serve Elite Squad members close to their barracks, was build at the time when Calmspears got already very wealthy. It is quite a bit smaller than the Rotunda, but it's made entirely of gold. It has golden walls, golden doors and golden floors. All the furniture is made of gold - tables, thrones, chests, statues and decorative armor stands. No wonder this tavern attracts throngs of awe-struck visitors.

Since a lot of dwarves were complaining that they have no opportunity to worship, quite a few temples were build in Calmspears. There is one near the living quarters, one next to king's throne room and one opposite to the hospital. All are well furnished and in the process of smoothing the stone and adding finishing touches.

So far we have only one library in Calmspears, deep underground, at the 55th level, close to duke's throne room. It is very popular with visiting scholars, astronomers, geographers, and the like. Unfortunately it also attracts necromancers, but so far only one was up to some mischief. We furnished our library very well, much better than the temples, for dwarves of Calmspears put their trust in knowledge far more than in prayer. Every visiting caravan can be sure we will buy all their books, no matter the price. Currently many books lay in trade depot, which suggests that our library is full. We will soon build a new one, bigger, more accessible, and exclusively with golden bookcases.

This immense fortress is currently defended by largest military force in the history of Calmspears.
The most valuable unit is the Elite Squad, a full squad of legendary dwarven warriors, veterans of countless sieges, ambushes and forgotten beasts incursions. Some of these soldiers accumulated over 100 kills. Most fought alongside the legendary Fishbutcher, greatest warrior Calmspears had so far.
Almost as valuable as the Elite Squad is the 1st Foreign Legion, comprising of humans, goblin, and dwarven mercenaries. They have a history as long as the Elites, and nearly as glorious. Some of its members are of noble birth - there is a human lord consort for example. While Elite Squad has its barracks on the surface, guarding the northern approach to the fortress, 1st Foreign Legion resides deep underground, near the caverns entrance. They have also some soldiers with over 100 kills, but usually not so awe-inspiring as the elites, since it's their job to dispatch of crudles, troglodytes and the like. 1st Foreign Legion also has the singular honor of having the slayer of Garetho as its member.
These two units formed backbone of Calmspears defense for years. Recently, mostly due to calamities of 210, two new squads were formed - 2nd Foreign Legion and marksdwarves unit called Bolts of Fury. They did not have any opportunities to show their value so far, and they spend their time mostly in training.

Calmspears military is supplemented by a host of war animals. About thirty war dogs constantly guard the entrance, making sure no thief, kidnapper or foe will pass unnoticed. Two grizzly bears walk among them, to lend their paw if needed - unfortunately they are both female, so no hope for a breeding program for now. Things stand better with war leopards - we have a pair of them, and already about six cubs are running around.

Few foes reach far enough to face our war beasts, however. Apart from our regular military, the deadliest defense of Calmspears is the system of high quality traps, set out in narrow passages leading to the fortress entrance. Since most of the military switched to adamantine weapons (except for hammers and maces, of course, which are made of silver), all the other, inferior quality weapons are put into traps. The same goes for weapons left by besiegers. Nowadays we have enough weaponry and masterfully made mechanisms to make almost all our traps weapon traps. Their effect on invaders is just extraordinary. There is no better sight than a beakdog shred to pieces together with his rider, or an exploding troll painting half the corridor cyan. Zombies are smashed by blunt-weapon traps into a pulp so fine, that even the most skilled necromancers cannot resurrect them again.
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Bearskie

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #11 on: November 10, 2017, 03:58:15 am »

Quote
Weapon traps

Did I hear game-breaking craaaaaaashes....?

Meng Lolorked

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #12 on: November 10, 2017, 04:02:13 am »

Quote
Weapon traps

Did I hear game-breaking craaaaaaashes....?

Won't happen if you are careful: never use serrated discs, huge menacing spikes, corkscrews and giant axes. These items contain bug. In my experience you can safely use regular infantry weapons.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2017, 04:11:06 am by Meng Lolorked »
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deathpunch578

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #13 on: November 10, 2017, 03:30:02 pm »

damn, this is absolutely amazing.
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Meng Lolorked

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Re: The chronicle of Calmspears
« Reply #14 on: November 11, 2017, 08:55:30 am »

214

Start of eleventh year of Calmspears was uneventful, without any sieges or deaths of old age. It was noticed that for the last few years large parts of the fortress are covered in blood, and despite frequent clean-ups the blood is still everywhere. Upon inspection it turned out that the blood belongs to a single dwarf, named Atir Soundfire. We have no idea when and how he got injured, but he bleeds all over Calmspears all the time. Apparently he refuses treatment, and the blood loss is not enough to kill him. Curiously, his status shows no wounds, and his medical history indicates only one event - he was stitched up by a miner a few years ago. This particular miner is a known imbecile, so probably his stitching is no better than his mining. Nothing can really be done about it. By following the trail of blood you can locate Atir's quarters, his favorite tavern, the temple he worships at, and his everyday work routine.

In the spring, elven caravan appeared, despite the massacre of the previous one. And this one was twice as big as usual, with eight merchants, eight camels, and a diplomat to boot. This time we murdered the diplomat and seven merchants, letting the last one escape and tell the tale. Hopefully this will provoke the dirty hippies to an assault. Camels are still running around, we had no heart to kill these friendly giants this time. One of the murdered merchants, named Bandjumps, was an ancestor to almost all the elven race, living in this world since times immemorial. Who cares.

Soon thereafter we received a surprising news - we became the Mountainhome! What an honor. We were told that large king's entourage will arrive (king is already living among us for years), and we hoped for legendary warriors and craftsmen. But only the outpost liaison came. Probably the population limit kept the others from coming. We started construction of the facilities for the liaison, right next to duke's throne room.

In 213 we restarted construction of golden goblets, stone mugs, and variety of trinkets to have something to trade, now that garbage dumping gets rid of most of the tattered clothes. Human caravan bought a lot of these, although we don't really need anything from them. We keep the trade just in case and their merchants piss themselves happy because of the great deals we offer. We can afford it, you peasants!

A minor incident in caverns took place - the weaver was ambushed by a jabberer. Our dwarf fought bravely with his bare hands, but the monster gored his leg and left him to die. Foreign Legion quickly cornered the beast and killed it, and some hauler took the weaver to the hospital. A host of dwarves busied themselves with taking care of him, and after several weeks of stitching, patching, cleaning, diagnosing and setting of the bones the weaver was saved. He went back into the caverns to gather spider webs for silk, and was immediately attacked by a troll. Again, instead of running, he stood his ground and threw punches and bites. A passing hauler joined in, and by the time the soldiers arrived the troll was neutralized. This time the weaver dragged himself to the hospital, since he was injured in arm and chest, not legs. Patching and stitching commenced, and soon he was back at work.

That weaver is one tough dwarf. It's the same guy that was punished and mauled with ten hammerstrikes for smuggling shields to the trade depot. Maybe he should be a part of the military, but he is the only legendary weaver we have.

The case of the tantruming goblin finally came to a conclusion. He somehow recuperated from his wounds and started walking again around his apartment, instead of lying in the doorway in a pool of blood. But he went berserk soon after, which meant that he was excluded from list of citizens and became a fair game for our military. Then it was a simple matter of sending in the boys - we chose to use the 2nd Foreign Legion, just in case. If for any reason some debacle will result, the loss of a member of this squad will not be as painful as in case of other units. Also, they need some real combat experience, and any occasion is good for this. Lastly, there are two goblin mercenaries in 2nd Foreign Legion, and we wanted to test their loyalty in fight against one of their own.

No serious problem emerged, however, and the wounded, haggard, insane goblin was finally killed. As his final act of defiance and mayhem he managed to break the nose of one of the mercenaries sent against him (a young hammerdwarf with poor defensive skills).

As was said before, fortress is overflowing with riches. Food is aplenty, so is drink, weapons, clothing and furniture. Apart from smoothing stone and engraving walls, not much work is really left to be done. Of course, strand extractors and legendary armorer Nil will always have their hands full with adamantine. But the rest of the citizens are in danger of unemployment. To remedy this at least partially, we undertook a great action of commemorating ten years of Calmspears history. A lot of statues were ordered, each with carefully chosen topic. Opposite of Fishbutcher's mausoleum, a large hall was carved, and is being decorated with his statues. The statue maker is disappointing us a bit, however. All he ever creates are two scenes from Fishbutcher's live: first is his appointment to militia captain in 206. That is fair. Second is some totally hogwash scene of some goblin mortally wounding Fishbutcher in 210. The goblin is laughing. This is preposterous, if any goblin ever wounded Fishbutcher in a dream, he should wake up and apologize. The scene is probably from the siege in 210, when Fishbutcher was indeed wounded, fighting against hosts of enemies vastly outnumbering his squad. But the wounds weren't even close to being mortal, and he died later that year fighting the infamous forgotten beast, Garetho.
Finally, after close to a hundred statues showing Fishbutcher elected or Fishbutcher wounded, the artists started to carve other scenes from his life. So now there is Fishbutcher naming his axe, Fishbutcher naming his shield, and Fishbutcher killing one or another famous enemy. This is much better.

In political news, one of our resident human bards became a law-giver of one of human civilizations, after "polite discussion with an adversary". We found a dead body in the tavern where this event took place, so we aren't sure how polite the discussion was. Dwarves care little for human politics, so the victim's body was unceremoniously dumped into magma, and the suspect wasn't even questioned. All in all, the new law-giver of "Empire of Prices" decided to stay with us for now. Good for him. We wonder, though - if we executed him, would that provoke a war with "Prices"? Curious name, by the way - "Empire of Prices". Sounds like a name of a cheap wallmart knock-off. Maybe it's a merchant republic or something.

Which brings us to economy news: trade with humans was conducted in summer and with dwarves in autumn. Even with our generous margins, neither caravan could afford all that we had to sell. We bought all their weapons to use in traps, all foreign metal bars and blocks, a lot of drinks just to spoil our citizens with luxury, and all their books. Still we are left with tons of golden amulets, golden goblets, earrings, scepters and the like.

Boredom is really getting to us now. Some cocky dwarves suggested conquest of Hell as a new glorious enterprise. We would invade the demon realm, slaughter all its inhabitants, and build an underground fortress in their domain. Then we would wall off all the borders and leave one entrance, for incoming daemons. These would be slain by our legendary heroes just for the glory of it.
Fortunately, more sober minded dwarves know very well that piercing down to hell would spell the end of Calmspears. Maybe, in a remote future, we could conscript a hundred citizens, train them all to be legendary warriors, and equip with adamantine - maybe then we would stand a chance.

Another idea surfaced - since smelly hippies won't attack us, we could start a war with humans. But this seems a bit nasty - after all, elves were obnoxious to us, and they indulge in unnatural practices, whereas humans were always nothing but cordial toward us.
And so, nothing left to do but wait for an elven or at least goblin siege. In the meantime, we are building our archery tower ever higher and designing some megaprojects. But currently we have no heart to pursue these with full energy.

Finally, the winter came. It started with the weaver being assaulted AGAIN - by a jabberer this time. And again, the weaver survived to live and work another day. I think he will get a statue for that and we will make it out of some very hard rock.

In military news, one of leopard cubs finally grew up, and was put through war training. Now we know more about training leopards, apparently - hurrah?
It was noticed that some idiot macedwarf mercenary was not advancing in his main skill despite years of training. It turned out that the moron didn't have a mace, and he charged into every fight with a steel shield and a bare hand. He was somewhat effective, having bitten off a reacher's arm and punching a troll to death. He even bludgeoned a few foes with his shield, but we decided to put a stop to this idiocy and ordered him to pick up a weapon. After all, we have like 20 masterful silver maces lying around, and our legendary armorer/weaponsmith, Nil Fukidasob, spits new ones out almost every day.

The project of cutting down all the trees is progressing nicely, now that we added several idling dwarves to the job. We hope that next elven caravan will notice this and finally snap.

In international news, civilization report shows that the annihilation of our civilization slowed down considerably. We still hold five baronies, although 11 years ago we had about forty. Probably the enormous losses we inflicted on the goblins slowed down their rampage a little.

In the middle of the winter a forgotten beast named Buqui-something-something appeared. It was an enormous feathered crab with poisonous gas, although it is not known if the gas was exhaled or emerged from wounds. It didn't matter in the end, the Foreign Legion cut him to pieces in an instant.
All the winter creatures in caverns seemed to be more active - not a day passed without a jabberer, troll or a reacher. My theory is that they try to hunt down the uberdwarf weaver to save their reputation. So far all were killed by Foreign Legion, occasionally supported by other squads.
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