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[zdrgn]

Fortress Log "Twinklingwhips" by Leader of expedition Mebzuth "dzangor" Lormedtobd

Our small civilization "The Big Rocks" has tasked me with embarking into the frozen north because our surveys indicated an abundunce of ore and steel making materials between the mountains and forests of this location. 
And the site is a beauty! 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Thx Snow Dwarf.

After a long trudge through the snowcovered Musical Forests and up the massive frozen river we found ourselves at the base of a mountain in the Teeth of Stabbing with steep cliffs along the river.  A brook atop the mountain appears to be frozen but will provide a lovely waterfall in the summer.  Opposite the waterfall is a lava tube extending almost to the plateau atop the mountain.

We camped on the frozen river and I dreamt of a grand fortress shaped like a cube under the mountain cliff and behind the waterfall.  So I designed an elaborate blueprint of a cube fort. 

15th of Granite
After what seemed like an eternity of planning, day dawned and it was time to strike the earth.

Luckily, due to a premonition of DooM that involved half our supplies crashing through the melting ice into river below, I immediately ordered disassembly of the wagon which had found itself stuck in the ice.  No sooner had we done this than a warm rain melted the snow atop the lower river and it seemed like water was flowing beneath the ice there.  Quickly orderering a stockpile be made in a safer location upstream my team and I hauled all of our equipment on to the stockpile. 
We finished on the 18th of granite and it was time to channel into the ice at the base of the cliff to provide a tunnel that will one day fill a lake around the site of our Dwarf Cube Fortress.

My premonition proved correct on the 21st of granite when the former wagon location and forest portion of the river suddenly was a vast roaring river.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Export of relevant map and designations date 21st Granite: http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-12795-twinklingwhips
(I used the DF map repository because it works magic with ascii and tiles so instead of uploading 25 meg BMPs for each level, the whole 16z section is only 43kb. Wow!)

Here's a link to worldgen params via the worldgen cookbook thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=168543.msg7726749#msg7726749

[snow dwarf]

In this tutorial you can find how to post pictures instead of just the link http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=162924.0

Anyway, keep it up

[zdrgn]

Fortress Log 21st Granite(1/21) - 12th Hematite (4/12)

End of granite saw us delve a passage that will one day be a mighty entrance, for now its just a tunnel to take our Yak and Horse to pasture.

At the beginning of Slate I ordered my dwarves to begin digging into the foyer of the Fortress.  And also designated a aqueduct that would wind down and back up to the bottom of the fort in order to provide water for the farms.

The three miner's in the foyer had hardly dug out our to be trade depot when I was alerted by a frightened miner that we had breached the caverns!

I halted progress on the aqueduct and immediately ordered the cavern sealed up, but it had revealed not one but two layers the bottom of which I believe to be the deepest of caverns as you can see the tops of massive bloodthorns.

After redesigning the aqueduct to avoid breaching more cavern and designating a smoothed and fortified drain.  I let my miners work the rest of slate to dig out the skeleton of our fortress.

Felsite brought good progress.
Stone and Wood industry are up and running, and we built the crucial workshops Mechanic, Mason, Carpenter's.  I designated some more upper floor rooms dug out where we had found Obsidian, and proceeded to try and make obsidian mechanisms. 
Trees were chopped down and Wheelbarrows built to speed up hauling.  As we're short on lumber for beds.

Sometime in the middle of Felsite (3/14 i'd hazard a guess), the river began roaring and the waterfall began to crash down.   Then before I knew it Summer was upon us.

1st of Hematite, ordered the Trade Depot Built
4th of Hematite, Built a meeting hall and queued up tables and chairs to turn it into a dining hall soon.
12th of hematite, its gonna be a hot summer, already vermin are all over our food stores, I need to build more barrels I don't know why we've got so much food sitting in piles.

I'll end the log here with a with a plan to focus our efforts on the aqueducts, I'll need numerous bridge and lever parts to be able to control the irrigation system.  Once we have a surplus of mechanisms, maybe I can trade one for a cat.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Another compressed map viewable at the link below.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-12797-twinklingwhips

And for rmblr:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I dug 7 levels up and down from this floor for a 15level cube.  The designations around it are the planned open air cavern/cistern around the cube.

[rmblr]

Beautiful site. Looking forward to following this one.

edit: would appreciate some screenshots however (maybe you can use imgur?). The DF map archive doesn't work on Linux these days.

I'm curious to see what you mean by a Cube fortress.

[Llamageddon]

Wow, I am always looking for an embark like this, even if a volcano can be a bit OP. Might have to use you worldgen and this site just to see how dramatic the FPS change is when the ice melts. Looking forward to seeing how your fort progresses.

I also agree with rmblr, screenshots would be lovely; in my case I just didn't want to install flash any more, so last season.

[zdrgn]

Fortress Log 14th of Hematite (4/14) to 15th of Limestone(7/15)

After my last log I did some rethinking and made three updates to the blueprints and schematics.
First - Another floor atop my fortress for needed expansion space in the residences.  Though I still plan to refuse admittance once our fort population reaches 120.
Second - The aqueduct got a small redesign to put it fully outside, giving me a little more interior space.
Third I moved the planned supports from the corners of the fort to above the cornerstairwells, now they will double as stairwells.

14th Hematite - What looked like a bloodthorn sapling was in the middle of our entrance, I've ordered the road paved.

28th Hematite - Wanted to order bridges built when I realized how little obsidian had been collected thus far.  New orders were set to create blocks, and assign stockpiles to only accept obsidian. 

6th Malachite(5/6) - One of my paved sections of road was cancelled due to a rock blocking the construction and I can't get anyone to move the damned stone.  I was readying a curse at my foul luck when word came that migrants had arrived.  I held my tongue for the migrants luck was far more deplorable being as they were stuck on the north mountain across the river. 

15th Malachite.  After stewing over my options I decided I would aid the migrants.

My first instinct was to build the bridge from cliff to cliff where I plan to build my lava pipe.. But the migrants would starve waiting for that construction and I'm lacking the obsidian I planned to build it with.  Another idea was to build a tunnel to the upper river and let them wait till it froze over, but that could be months of starvation. 

So in the end I order a tunnel dug out under the river. 

2nd Galena (6/02) - Tunnel complete.  Here's a sketch of the scene where thirsty migrants rush into the tunnel while my miners exit the south side.  I don't blame my men for not wanting to socialize with the dirty peasants who camped on the north mountain for a month. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

7th Galena - Still no obsidian blocks! Even though the other blocks have cluttered up all my stockpiles.  I order the rest of the aqueduct dug and shout at random idle dwarves to start using bins.

15th Galena - I now see why our miners were hesitant to finish the aqueduct.  It accidentally breached the first cavern layer.  Anyway, it's been floored over and walled in for good measure.

1st of Limestone (7/01) - Autumn has come, and my bridges aren't ready!  I issue hurried orders to place the levers and try to link them.

15th of Limestone  - The river must have frozen over just as the last mechanisms went into my levers and bridges.  Irrigation must wait till next spring.  But we're in luck, a caravan has arrived along with an envoy from the Big Rocks capital.  They are coming through the migrant's tunnel now and I should be able to purchase what I need to survive until the next thaw.  I'll end my log here and get ready to talk to the envoy.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-12798-twinkilingwhips(Another compressed map stack on the map archive)

[zdrgn]

Log entry 4.

Well its the 28th of Limestone and we finally finished trading. 

We got rid of our surplus blocks! And our extra mechanisms, actually got a some value for them.
We were able to purchase a breeding pair of cats, seeds to replinish the ones that seem to have been eaten.  All of the traders bins of cloth and leather.  (not much sadly) and some extra ale, food and empty bags.

We owe the decent prices to the negotiations of Zon Rigothkordam from our first set of migrants.  He's Our newly appointed appraiser I must say is a little  intimidating.  He also claims to be a fine brewer so I'll reward him by giving him all the stacks of Plump helmets we traded for and see what he can do.   

Now that the river is frozen I might as well see to the well being of our band,  I hardly have a bedroom per 5 dwarves, I'll make sure everyone has their own bed this season.  I don't doubt they'll slack off that much more but if I don't have to hear another complaint it'll be too soon. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We'll soon have a bridge to guard our entrance.  A proper dining room now with 4 tables and 8 chairs. 
Stockpiles are still strewn around in any open space, I'd like to make minecarts for help with hauling and creating more efficient stockpiles, but I can't bear the thought of wooden minecarts.  I suppose we'll hold out until I can get some lava piped in.  THough that project could easily take all year.  I guess it'll be something to occupy ourselves with until the water thaws and we can get our fort  self sustainable by irrigating some farms.


8-28 13 More Migrants - 2 farmers, trapper, brewer, mechanic, nurse, fisherman, leatherworker, siege operator and four kids.  They will probably just idle around and eat our food.


9-04 Vutok one of my miners was taken by a fey mood.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

9-10 Vutok created bungektusung, "Lizardconjures" Artifact obsidian weapon rack.  It has a picture of Asen Gleamdoor ascending to Baron of the Big rocks in '51 surrounded by other dwarves.

10-1 Winter arrived just as I built my still and setup a stockpile for brewable plants.

10-15 ordered the luxury apartments dug,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

and some more doors.  Bout time my band of 7 gets a room to call their own and these will be fitting of kings.  I can't wait to have a bed of my own.
>
I'll end the log here. This winter will be a good time to being work on harvesting magma and building a pipe from the volcano now that the fortresses needs are mostly met.

[FakerFangirl]

Frozen biomes for the win.

[zdrgn]

15th Moonstone (88-10-15) Log 5

Now that the fortress is running more smoothly, we've plenty of mechanisms and blocks, and the aqueduct is ready for the thaw,  I can focus on building a Lava Pipe to fill the tubes under the planned magma forges.   I will also begin carving the cavern around my fortress, I designate the top level for construction and dig out the lava tubes on this side of the river.

20th Opal (88-11-20) Ready to begin construction of bridge portion of the lava pipe.

1st Obisidian(88-12-01) Luxury apartments are complete and assigned, now myself and the other starting 7 can rest in luxurious comfort.  Still lacking in decoration though.  I gave one to our Broker as well, and have one reserved in case a royal shows up.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

20th Obsidian(88-12-20) Layer 1 of the bridge's construction nears the far side of the river.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

First Granite (89-1-1) Spring has arrived and still no Lava or Irrigation this year should bring us access to both.
Excavation of our cavern is proceeding at the top level

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

20th Granite (89-1-20) Can't believe a year has past since we unloaded that wagon, here's an updated snapshot of the entrance level. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)