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[Lemunde]

After the agitating demise of Emerald Road I said I would get around to starting another fortress log. Well it's been a while but here I am, ready to delve into one of the various worlds of Dwarf Fortress again. This time we'll be visiting the world of Oguspmon, The Portentous Planes.

Now I've been away from DF for a few months so to refamiliarize myself again I went ahead and established a fortress in this world and ran it for about five years.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Vodstakud (Soundmachine) was pretty typical of one of my fortresses. There were the predictable werecreatures, cyclopses, giants, goblin sieges, and forgotten beasts, most of which weren't too much trouble. The goblin sieges were mostly composed of dwarves for some reason. I noticed when they went through my weapon traps the traps would break apart after a few went through them, which is something I've never actually seen before.

There was one forgotten beast that I thought might have been trouble, being a firebreathing, towering louse. It was incredibly aggressive and actually killed another FB that was already roaming around, as well as most everything else that inhabited the caverns. I closed off the caverns until I could devise a means of dealing with it and just as I was about to let it in to try to trap it, something (I think it was an elkbird) managed to slam it into a wall hard enough to crush every part of it's body. I'm still at a loss as to exactly what happened. I just know that the combat log had several entries of "took the full force of the impact" and it ended up floating in a small lake in the caverns.

I also managed to capture a magma crab, which is another first.

Aside from that it was just a typical fortress. I took it a little farther than I intended. Originally I just wanted the basics up and running so I could have another fortress to interact with that wasn't procedurally generated. I ended up fleshing most of it out with rooms for every dwarf, a fully functional jail (which never got used), two rather effective military squads, two temples, a fleshed out inn with rooms for visitors, a small library (with an artifact book), a museum, and two throne rooms; one for the mayor and one for the countess.

Here's a sampling of some of the more prominent areas:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I must say I really liked the name "Vodstakud". A lot of the names generated in DF don't really stick with me but for some reason this one did.

So that's the background of the world so far. In the next post we'll actually get into the new fortress and what my plans for it will be.

[Lemunde]

Now before I get into the new fortress there are a couple of things I should probably point out. I typically run my fortresses with a low population, generally between 30 and 60 as I'm still trying to find the sweetspot between a manageable amount and enough dwarves to cover all the vital areas and still have enough left over for miscellaneous tasks. For Vodstakud I experimented a little with 70, but I ultimately decided that's still too many for my tastes so for this one I'm taking it back down to 45. Also to try to match the fortress population I took the number of invaders down to 30 and invader monsters down to 12. I also set the visitor cap to 3 and the baby/child cap to 10.

Now with the requirements for nobility promotions in the newer versions of DF, I don't have to worry too much about not meeting them based on my population size, but there were still some things that needed to be adjusted if I wanted to get sieges. So I went into the raws and modified them so that it's based on production instead of population.

Another thing I adjusted was stress vulnerability for dwarves as the default values create far too many that become suicidal or homicidal over the smallest inconveniences. I didn't drop it down too much as I still want it to be balanced, but by default no amount of micromanaging your dwarves' happiness can keep them from eventually leading to a tantrum spiral.

Aside from that, the only other modding I've done is with the tileset (which you can find here) and of course the graphics set is from Phoebus. Now with all that out of the way, let's get on with the fortressing!

[Lemunde]

This looks like an ideal location for what I have in mind. It looks to be about a day's journey from Vodstakud, across the gulf to the west. It's situated in what looks to be a sheer cliff with a brook running adjacent to it.

Now I know what you're thinking: "What? No shallow metal?" You're right. Typically you only find iron in shallow metal which means all that flux stone is going to be useless in the production of steel. The thing is I don't base the sites I choose solely on the materials that are available. I like the challenge of being forced to work with what I have, and just because there's no iron on-site doesn't mean I won't have access to it. I also like the mystery of what deep metal might be available. I generated this world using all default settings so the number of ores available are going to be limited no matter where I embark. Personally I'm hoping for tetrahedrite but we'll see. Keep in mind there are multiple biomes here so there's the potential that there could be more than one type of ore.

There's also clay here so I might delve into some pottery just for fun.

For the civilization I'll be choosing The Bridge of Ferocity, which is the same civ as Vodstakud. All the typical neighbors are there and as expected we're at war with the goblins. No towers to worry about, although I'm not always opposed to that level of fun. It looks like everything is set here so let's move on to the embark screen.

I'll be using my typical embark setup: two miners, a carpenter/woodcutter, a mason/mechanic, a weapon/armor smith, and two farmers with a little bit of growing, brewing, and herbalism. Actually with the metal looking the way it is, I'm going to change that armor smithing to metal crafting.

For the fortress name I typically hit the random key until I find one I like. This one took a few tries. Often I'll come across a name that just doesn't quite roll off the tongue or doesn't use words that I'm all that familiar with or words that just don't go together, not even in an amusing way. I finally settled on Taremrakust, Fatetombs. A rather portentous name, I must say. I hope it's not an omen.

For the group name I didn't have to hit the random key at all. Odrozlibash, The Fatal Axe just sounded too awesome to even want to try anything else. Based on this I made the symbol Bonecleave, an image of a jagged battleaxe.

Here's all the goodies I'll be embarking with:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Alright, let's get this party started!

Interesting. This seems to be more of a canyon valley than a sheer cliff. Trees are mostly maple and various nut trees with a few cherry, plum, and bayberry trees mixed in. High on the western cliff is a layer of marble with a few veins of cobaltite showing. This doesn't sound good for setting up a metal industry. Cobaltite masquerades as a metal ore when in actuality it's pretty useless. If this is what composes the deep metal then... well we'll just have to get creative.

Time to start delving those secure lodgings...

[Lemunde]

I finished digging out the first vital rooms. The entrance level leads to where the trade depot will be before leading into some winding tunnels that will eventually contain traps and a draw bridge to close off my everything if something really bad shows up. The down stairs leads to all the noisy portions of the fort while the up stairs lead to all the bedrooms.

Here are the first few bedrooms all dug out several layers above the entrance. This is the first time I've tried a layout like this so I don't know how it will turn out in the long run. I can add a couple more layers to the residential area if I run out of room.

The food and furniture stockpiles are in place. The food stockpile will be expanded on over time. I always end up dividing up the meat, veggies, and drinks into different stockpiles. It makes it much easier at a glance to see what exactly I'm running low on. Across from the food stockpile you can see the beginnings of where all my food and drink production will be.

I'm happy to report that upon digging further down I came across a vein of galena. Galena is an ore of silver and lead. The silver is useful for making bludgeoning weapons as well as bolts if I decide to go that route, and it's a pretty decent material for crafts. They also make half-decent spears. The lead... well I'm the kind of asshole that likes to forge lead barrels and trade the drinks they contain off to the elves. We'll see what inspiring uses I find for it this time. It's a shame lead-glass isn't a thing in DF, but it's not like I have access to sand anyway.

[Lemunde]

The first basic workshop areas are in place. I'll be adding crafting workshops to both areas once I actually get some craftsdwarves. By the way, those green gems in the middle there, those are emeralds. 

I decided to put the dining hall near the entrance this time. We'll see how this works out but I think it will put most of my dwarves in a better location for accessing things on the outside and it puts them closer to the stairs. I dug out some spots around the edges to put statues. I don't often see dwarves having thoughts about statues but I like making them anyway.

Remember when I said there wasn't any sand on this map? Yeah, the adjacent biome has a whole layer of nothing but sand. This area is going to be for the farms and double as a sand source.

[Lemunde]

My yaks were getting hungry and I didn't want to leave them outside so I decided to delve deeper until I hit a cavern so that mossy grass would start growing on the soil layers. I can't exactly see where this pit is just yet but the cavern I dug into seems to be between 50 and 60 layers deep, maybe deeper. No other metals were exposed but there are quite a few topazes scattered throughout the cavern. I'm really hoping I get some good gem cutters and setters.

When digging into a cavern like this it's always a good idea to cover it up by converting the up/down stairs into upstairs, just in case something that can fly decides it wants to rampage through your fort.

Spring finally arrived and with it the first elven caravan from Ecu Nine. I didn't have much to trade that didn't involve wood but I wanted to trade something just to get the ball rolling, so I loaded the depot down with a bunch of stone blocks and traded them for a few pieces of fruit.

Sooner or later I'm going to have to start trading for some leather and cloth. I usually make all the clothes out of leather just so I don't have to bother with cloth, but you still want to have that stuff available if a dwarf in a strange mood decides he needs it, which means you also need as many types of cloth as you can get. In Vodstakud I was sure I had all the types of cloth I would need yet the dwarf who was painting pictures of it still needed something else. I can only guess it was some kind of forgotten beast silk or something. My axedwarves ended up having to put him down.

The first layers of defense are finally in place. There are two drawbridges: one that allows access to the trade depot from the outside and one on the exterior that cuts off all access to the fortress. I probably won't need to use the exterior one but I feel more comfortable knowing it's there. The interior gate won't be closed all the time. Once I get some migrants I'll start getting hunters and they'll need go in and out regularly, but for now there's no reason anybody needs to be going out there and I don't need any surprise weremaggots rampaging through my fortress.

[Lemunde]

I turned my meeting hall into an inn and I've got my first visitors; a trio of warriors here to quench their thirst and sate their hunger at The Eater of Uniting. Now I don't have a tavern keeper yet so they'll have to serve themselves. I also don't have any mugs sooo... mind the dwarven backwash.

This is yet another reason to leave the gates open as visitors often come and go. The good news is with these warriors so close to the gate they might be willing to fight off anything that happens to wander inside.

I realized it might be some time before I see any migrants. After all it's been three seasons already and no migrants have arrived. I this might have something to do with the dwarven caravan not having visited me yet but I'm not entirely sure. In any case I figured it was time to put my smith to work. Since I don't have the dwarf-power to spare making charcoal I decided it was best to try to make for the magma sea. Turns out there's this nice little magma pool on the lower cavern layer.

Now I'm not sure it's a good idea to try to make use of this pool. I mean it conveniently revealed the magma sea for me so that's one less thing to worry about, but setting up shop on top of the pool itself might be more trouble than it's worth. However the surface of the pool is actually a layer lower than the hole itself so I might be able to work something out. There's also a lake nearby so I could easily turn this into an obsidian farm if I were so inclined.

I think for now I'm just going to setup my forge and smelter down near the magma sea and wait until my fortress is more well established before I decide to do anything with this magma pool.

And as soon as I say I might not get any migrants for a while my first migrants arrive. Two of them: a master miner and a high-master engraver. I suppose I can let the engraver get started on what he does best but I really don't need another miner. You know what, Vutok Pillarbasements? Since you have some poetic experience you're going to be a performer in The Eater of Uniting.

In other news, a cave dragon dove into the magma pool and died. He probably shouldn't have done that.

Well, the caravan's here and I got jack squat to trade. I was hoping I might have some silver and lead crafts by the time they got here but things go rather slowly when all your dwarves are spending most of their time hauling. I really need another migrant wave.

[snow dwarf]

Keep it up. A good read and it's very nice that you include screenshots. Your simple fortress design has a nice organice feel to it. Also, magma doesn't go up due to pressure, so you can set up magma forges by the magma pool on the side of it, without being exposed to the caverns.

[Lemunde]

As I said before, even when there's no metal available on site, that doesn't mean you can't get it on other ways. My preferred method is to trade directly for the ores. A somewhat more expensive method is to trade for bars, or you can go the more time consuming route and trade for metal objects and melt them all down. If you have the resources to spare you can just skip all that and trade for armor and weapons, but those are some of the most expensive items in the game depending on their quality.

Since I already have silver I'm not in dire need of iron or steel for weapons but I'd still like to make some armor. If I only make a single squad it should only take two or three trades to fully armor them.

I think I'll abuse this blog format to remind me what they're going to be paying good money for next year. Looks like figurines might be a lucrative trade good. Hope they like lead.

For now I traded a few barrels of booze for some cave lobsters and some random fruit. The booze can be replaced pretty quickly and I'll get a bit more variety out of it.

Id Factioncastle very quickly smoothed the entire entrance level and he's already getting started on the residential level. Usually I'm a couple of years into the fortress before I even start smoothing and it usually involves me having to convert half a dozen fisherdwarves into engravers. With Id (who is now a legendary engraver) smoothing and engraving isn't even something I'm going to have to think about all that much.

The forge level is now good to go for smelting galena into various items. To start I think I'm going to have Deduk Wiretorrid, my metalworker, make some lead goblets. The Eater of Uniting could really use them.

[Lemunde]

I commissioned an image for Deduk Wiretorrid to use for the figurines. I think the dwarves will like them.

Well at least the few dwarves I have are enjoying themselves. Several months have passed and I'm really just waiting for spring to arrive so I can get some more migrants. I've gotten quite a few visitors and they've been sharing news of the surrounding lands. I've been keeping an eye on Vodstakud, my old fortress. Their population has boomed to a hefty 300 and they have a new artifact, Mountainnation. I'm a little curious as to what this artifact is but I don't feel like sifting through a few hundred pages of artifacts to find out.

Other than that, I added a jeweler's workshop (left) and a stockpile for finished goods (right). I divided the finished goods up into two separate stockpiles; one for general crafty type stuff like scepters, figurines, and large gems, and one for everything else. I put a crafts workshop nearby and set it to take from the crafts stockpile so I can use it to decorate them and expand their value. I'll probably do the same for the jeweler's workshop once I get one built. I'm not interested in decorating or encrusting ragged old socks.

Been trying to keep my miners busy so I've been expanding on the residential level. I know what you're thinking, it looks like it was designed by a madman. Well, you're not wrong.

[Lemunde]

I wasn't going to mention the elven caravan but then I saw that they brought this thing. This is very clearly a bagpipes of some sort but the blazing cloth it's made from... I've never seen something like this show up in a caravan. I knew there were exotic materials that get generated with each world but this is the first time I've ever seen one. The thought of just claiming it off of them is quite tempting, but I generally try to avoid such brash measures. We'll see if they bring it back next year and maybe I'll have enough to trade for it. I'll take that giant raven off their hands, though.

I actually got a couple of goblin visitors, one of them is a spearman who's wants to soldier for me. Well, welcome to Fatetombs, Beru Lutecreed. Apparently he's had six kills, one dwarf and five goblins. Of course that dwarf could have been one of those pressed into service by other goblins. The dwarves of Vodstakud certainly killed enough of them.

Well, I wanted some more migrants and boy did I get more migrants. I just went from a population of 11 to a population of 35. Among the new arrivals are a legendary weaponsmith, a legendary metalcrafter, a legendary stonecrafter, a legendary bonecarver, and a legendary engraver who happens to be drawn and haggard for some reason. Clearly a couple of these guys used to reside in Vodstakud. I don't have nearly enough rooms for these guys but I do have a hospital set up so they can temporarily reside there. Now that I have plenty of haulers it won't take very long to get all the rooms furnished. I am going to have to spend some time figuring out how to utilize all these guys.

[Lemunde]

The first of many, I think. Composed of vomit. Aside from the deadly dust I don't think this thing will put up much of a fight. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it tried to go for a swim and suddenly dissolved.

This, however, is a problem. It's a problem because this asshole showed up not 2 seconds after I got a migrant wave. I'm closing the gates. You guys on the outside are on your own.

That could have been worse but it could have been better. I had a human caravan at my trade depot at the time so they were more than happy to deal with the werepanda. Unfortunately it murdered my broker and horribly mangled my mason, one of the founders. There was nothing to be done for it. I wasn't going to expel him so he could come back and wreck even more havoc on my fortress, so I found him a nice little home in a nice little hole I dug out next to the lever room. Sorry, Zuglar Channelnamed. This is your life now, from now to the end of time.

I felt bad for poor Zuglar, so to commemorate him I commissioned four statues to be made in his honor and placed them in The Eater of Uniting. They all pretty much depict the same thing.

[snow dwarf]

Could I get dwarfed as Snow?

[Lemunde]

I know silver is a terrible material for axes, but that's not going to stop me from turning them into a trade good.

Did you know a bin full of lead figurines of elephants takes a reeeeally long time to haul to a trade depot? I traded for the iron ore and they're starting to bring them down to the smelting pits. I'm not going to go into too much detail of my trades unless it's something interesting I come across. Just know that I typically trade for leather, cloth, ore, ingots, and various food stuffs. Once I get a library going I'll start trading for books, scrolls, and sheets.

All kinds of small bits of fun is being visited on me at the moment. I already lost three dwarves to drunken brawls and tantrums. I'm going to need to figure out how to keep these guys in check or start banishing. I don't like the idea of banishing since it just means more angry dwarves arriving in future fortresses. As for that ghost...

He's already got his own coffin but his body isn't in there for some reason. I'm not entirely sure what happened to him. His body doesn't appear in the stocks screen so that means something happened that caused his body to vanish. Maybe he got caught in the drawbridge area during the werepanda rampage and I missed it somehow. In any case I'll need to engrave a slab to put him to rest.

Udib Tonglobster, a woodburner, was causing a lot of trouble getting into fights and injuring dwarves, so I assigned Asmel Workedwarded, a ranger, to be a sheriff. My entire fortress immediately ran to him with their grievances and Tonglobster got a savage beating. Not the best solution but I won't tolerate this kind of disorderly behavior.

Zulban has finally been put to rest. I wasn't too particular on where to put the slab so I just stuck it at the end of this hallway in the residential level. Rest well, Zulban. We hardly knew you.

I think it's about time I started focusing on some of the noble accommodations. Certainly my sheriff needs his office and dining room and so forth but I'm going to have more nobles pretty soon so my next project is going to be mining out a level for all the offices and throne rooms and such.

[Lemunde]

Could I get dwarfed as Snow?

Sure! They're probably going to start getting strange moods soon so the first one that creates an artifact will get the name.

Well that didn't take long. Not a very impressive artifact, unfortunately. Here's a few details about Snow: