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Author Topic: Dangledmerchant: A tale still being spun  (Read 1570 times)

Jimera0

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Dangledmerchant: A tale still being spun
« on: February 16, 2021, 01:39:59 am »

Introduction:

So, I've recently started playing DF and have fallen in love with the game's potential for emergent storytelling. I’ve been wanting to share my experiences with it for a while now, and this is an opportunity for me to do just that. I’m especially looking forward to watching this story develop alongside other people. I’m only 2 years into Dangledmerchant’s history at the time of writing this, but I intend to keep updating the story as it happens over the course of time. While I intend to make all the decisions myself I’m looking forward to having other people watch the story of Danglemerchant unfold with me. Even I don’t know what twists and turn it’s going to take, so I’m very excited to see what happens!

This is my 6th fortress, so I'm still pretty new, though I know all the basics by now. This is how my previous forts have gone:

1) “name unknown” A fort I only played for like a year in order to learn the game's basics

2) “name unknown” I built my first temple 2 and a half years in and when I do half the fort stops what they're doing to pray for several months. I decide to move onto a new fort rather than try and sort this out.

3) "Cloisterbrain", my longest lived and most successful fort. I did a really easy embark on a world with minerals set to "everywhere”, so I had everything I needed. Stopped playing after a goblin invasion took out 80% of my active military dwarves due to them running out of my defenses to attack the invading force. Lesson learned, I decided to start fresh and play an embark where I didn't have literally every perk I could wish for, now that I knew what I was doing (more or less).

4) “name unknown” In the second year a werepig showed up and started an infection cascade in my fort. I managed to build containment areas for the infected units that successfully kept them isolated during a full moon. I then promptly forgot to lock them up during the next full moon and had a catastrophic event where a huge portion of my fort was infected or killed. After a few months, the only remaining dwarves were those in my small militia, which was well armed and trained and so was never threatened by the werepigs.

5) "Languagecobalt", a successful fort I set up in a tropical swamp isolated from most civilized contact, far from any enemies. I stopped playing this when 47.05 was released, partly because I didn't want to deal with any compatibility complications that might have popped up when I swapped to the new version and partially because the lack of contact with outside civilizations was making it pretty boring. I did find the “HFS” though. I was able to seal it up before it became a real problem, so the fun didn’t last long.

6) “Dangledmerchant” the current fort and subject of this story. So far I’m 2 years into it. Been keeping notes this time so I could write the story down later! Also, “later” has become now. So, without further ado, here it is!

Prologue:

513 years ago, civilization emerged in Nitharacamade, The Future Realms. Since then, Dwarves, humans, elves, kobolds and megabeasts have roamed and shaped the land. Civilizations have risen and fallen, mythical beasts born and killed. These days Goblins are the dominant race in Nitharacamade. Dwarves and humans maintain a strong presence, elves are on the decline and kobolds barely cling to existence in their smelly caves. War ravages most of the world, and our corner of it is no exception. Here the dwarven civilization of the Pages of Waxing holds off a relentless assault from two goblin civilizations, The Jackal of Nourishing and The Hate of Lucidities. The Hate of Lucidities and the Pages of Waxing have been nominally at war for over four-hundred years, but this war has mostly been a cold one.  After over 40 years of relative peace, The Hate of Lucidities once again renewed their assault on the Pages of Waxing in 511. Two years later, in the year of 513, The Jackal of Nourishing shocks the leadership of the Pages of Waxing by joining the Hate of Lucidities in their attempt at conquest, ending over 500 years of neutrality. No one knows why Ngathi, the demonic ruler of the Jackals, decided to end a half-millenia of peace with the Pages. As recently as 512 Ngathi was participating in friendly competitions hosted by the Pages, and yet suddenly he has joined with their mortal enemies in attempting to destroy them. Whatever the reason, the Pages face a crisis greater than any they have ever faced. In response to this, the recently crowned King Nil Ceilingdaubs ordered an expedition to the border of the Jackal’s lands to establish a new fortress. The location is where the front line of this war is likely to be, on the edge of the desert “The Dune of Ravens”. The area is poorly defended due to the longstanding peace with the Jackals and is in urgent need of reinforcement. Leaving from the nearby fortress of Dreamorbs in the spring of 513, Zas Ostmeng leads an expedition of 7 sturdy dwarves to the edge of the Dune of Ravens and founds the fortress of Dangledmerchant. The following is what was written in his personal journal. This is his tale, and the tale of Dangledmerchant, the hope of The Pages of Waxing.

Parts:

Year 1
Year 2

« Last Edit: February 16, 2021, 01:54:47 am by Jimera0 »
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Jimera0

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Re: Dangledmerchant: A tale still being spun
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2021, 01:41:29 am »

Spring 513:

Well, we’re finally here on the edge of this blasted desert. “The Dune of Ravens” is an apt name, there seem to be no shortage of them around here. Our job is to strike the earth here and set up the essentials of a new fortress to be called “Dangledmerchant”. Not sure who came up with the name. It seems awfully grim and like a detriment to trade, but that’s above my paygrade. In any case, this will be an interesting project. We’re setting up right on the dividing line where grass gives way to sand, so as to have at least some access to the wood necessary for starting a settlement. The trees around here are scant, but there are trees, which is more than I can say for anywhere beyond here. Just one murky pool of water too; looks like the fisherdwarves will be taking up a new profession soon. That being said, the geologists back in Boulderrace say there should be a light aquifer full of water just a short ways beneath the surface here, so hopefully getting water for drinking (bleh) and cleaning won’t be a problem. Might make excavation a bit more interesting though.

Summer 513:

Well we’ve got basic living and workspaces set up now. The aquifer did make things a little interesting. Thanks to it we won’t be winning any points for neatness with how this place is laid out, but it didn’t cause us too much issue. Now we’re onto building some rudimentary defenses and proper rooms for my people to sleep in. Right now we’re all sleeping in the same room, which can be difficult. Inod snores like a thousand logs being sawn at once. I won’t be able to maintain my sanity for long if I don’t get some stone walls between us at night! Anyway, the defenses being set up consist of a simple drawbridge to cover the entrance if threats show up and a hallway lined with cage and stonefall traps to hopefully stop anyone who might try to slip in before we can close it. Not much, but the good news is that they sent another group of 7 to join us, all of whom have some combat training and one of whom, Rigoth Uzoluleng, is a renowned master weaponsmith. They didn’t arrive with any weapons or armour sadly, something about needing to travel light, but at least we have people who know how to fight and make weapons here now. Pretty important I’d think, given we’re supposed to be defending the kingdom from a demon lord and his minions and all. Equipping them properly is going to be tricky though. Not only do we need all the hands we can get to continue developing the fortress, but the only ore we’ve found here so far is tetrahedrite. Copper is workable for arms and armor but hardly ideal. At least the little bit of silver we get as a by-product can be made into fearsome blunt weapons. On top of the metal quality issues there’s the lack of fuel. No coal so far, so we’ll have to use the limited trees as fuel. That won’t be sustainable for long, so we’d better find an alternative soon. At least there’s a nice supply of green jade and bandfire opal here; that should cover our expenses when we inevitably need to import all our equipment.

Autumn 513:

Finally got a caravan of supplies from the capital, though they brought more with them than just goods. The goods were welcome; we were able to pick up a few more anvils to smith with and a large supply of cloth and leather to make clothing and equipment with. Even got us a water buffalo bull to go with the cow that helped us get here. Maybe we can get a steady supply of meat and milk by breeding them. We could certainly use it; we haven’t really had enough food to cook anything nice to eat since we got here. Now as for the other thing they brought with them, that was news. Bad news. For one, we got a short list of newly appointed nobles. Ones appointed to replace those killed by the damn Jackals. Even worse, Dreamorb, where we left from and just a stone-throw’s away from here, was attacked by the Jackal’s forces this summer. They must not know we’re here yet or we’d probably be dead already. In any case, we had better quickly prepare ourselves for their eventual arrival. I’ve already had some weapons made for those who know how to fight, so we won’t be completely helpless should the enemy show up. Probably prudently, I’m having the miners dig out catacombs for any losses we might suffer. And maybe a bit optimistically, a nice deep pit for any losses we inflict on our enemies. Ran into a minor issue when digging that pit; a bunch of sand fell on Inod and Ast as they were digging it out. No serious injuries but it sure shook them up a bit. There is some good news on our end though. We’ve put together a small farm to help provide for us long term, the bedrooms are mostly dug out and furnished, and we had 3 more dwarves join us, all of them masters of their craft. They should improve the quality and efficiency of our trade good production significantly, which will help us make up for the lack of useful resources around here. This place is still pretty rough but it’s starting to look livable now. Or maybe my standards have just gotten lower since I got here. Either way, everyone’s doing ok so I guess I should count my blessings while they last.

Winter 513:

You’d hardly know the seasons were passing here; winter is supposedly here but this place is as hot and dry as ever. In any case, we’ve been busy making crafts from the local stone to sell to any traders that show up next year and looking for an alternate fuel source. Well, the rest of them have; I’ve been busy working what little wood we have available to us into essentials: Beds, barrels, bins, wheelbarrows. The stuff you need to keep light if you want a fort to run smoothly. The search for a non-wood-based fuel source has gone poorly so far. Inod and Ast have dug really deep by now, but there’s still no sign of coal or magma. They did find a lush underground cavern though, full of fungal life that could help alleviate our problems with food and fuel. Unfortunately, said caverns are also full of hostile creatures we’re ill-equipped to fight off at the moment, so I had them seal the entrance until we can get a proper militia running. Right now, no one has time to train and half the armor we have is made from bone. I suppose the fact we have bone is a good thing, since it means we’ve managed to hunt down a camel for some of its meat. Unfortunately, we were so busy that no one got around to bringing in the other 3 camels Vabok and her dog brought down inside before they rotted in the desert sun. Such a waste. We really need more hands here. I hope they send us a good number of people come spring or this place is never going to be ready to defend itself, let alone the kingdom.
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Jimera0

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Re: Dangledmerchant: A tale still being spun
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2021, 01:48:31 am »

Spring 514:

The weather might be the same as ever but I’m feeling invigorated this spring all the same! Things have finally been going well for once. For one, some elves somehow found us and traded us a bunch of wooden goods that we are desperately in need of. We were able to stock up on food and clothing too. Our population was more than doubled when nineteen more dwarves arrived in Slate. Makes me glad I used the winter to prepare a bunch of new bedrooms to accommodate newcomers. To my surprise, among the new arrivals was the eldest son of the Baron of Boulderrace, Udib Udibamkin. Unfortunately, shortly after he arrived so did news of his father’s untimely death on the end of a goblin spear. So, now this hole in the ground is housing the baron of one of the most important sites in the kingdom. Had to hastily prepare appropriate quarters for him; hope he likes silver because that’s what he’s getting. More welcome among the arrivals were a number of hunters which promptly killed all the camels in the area, bringing our food supply to an all time high! On top of that Dakost, our mechanic, had the idea to erect a bunch of cage traps outside to catch wildlife to train and breed, and it worked! We’ve got ourselves a two-humped camel now. Hopefully, we can get a mate for him soon. Another good thing is that we’ve got enough people now that we can spare some for military duty and training. The problem there is that between the lack of fuel and how busy we’ve been we still don’t have their gear put together yet. We do have a potential solution to that lack of fuel issue now though. Inod and Ast finally managed to find magma to power our forges and furnaces with. The problem is that it’s deep. REALLY deep. 130 z-levels beneath the deepest level of our fort deep. Not going to stop us from setting up shop above it though. We’ll definitely need to find a way to bring it closer to the surface though; the time it takes to transport stuff to and from there is just far too long right now. Dakost has a wild plan involving an enormous stack of screw pumps that will supposedly do the job, but it’ll be one hell of a project and cost us almost all of the wood we have available to us. Probably worth it though; we’ll never be a functioning military base with the rate we’re producing equipment at right now. The Pages are counting on us, and if that means we have to pump magma half a mile to the surface that’s just what we’ll do. In the meantime, we’ve made a small moat utilizing that aquifer and walled off the entrance to the fort, so we have some defense should the Jackals attack before we’re ready. Oh, one more thing. Dodok, our master gem-cutter, produced the most amazing citrine gem I’ve ever seen. He even named it; “Boarobscure the Slippery Homage”. Not sure what’s so slippery about it, seeing as it’s covered with citrine spikes, but he assures me the name has good meaning behind it. In any case it should fetch us a lot of supplies should I be able to convince him to part with it the next time some traders show up.

Summer 514:

A human caravan from the Confederation of Cremations arrived, bringing goods and news with them. The news was even delivered by one of their dwarven diplomats. Courteous of them. Good to know that not ALL our neighbors are trying to kill us. Shame the news that they were delivering was so grim; more attacks, refugees flooding the places that haven’t been hit yet, the king of our kingdom dying during a raid. Not very heartening stuff. Shortly after they showed up we had 7 more immigrants arrive, including a master blacksmith. Once we have metal to spare to make things other than weapons and armor, they’ll be nice to have around. Speaking of that, we’ve resorted to making equipment from our leather supplies so we can get our militia up and running. The goblins have to have noticed us by now. It’s only a matter of time before they attack so we can’t wait on our laurels just because we don’t have proper equipment. Should have a couple squads ready to go by autumn. Hopefully, we have that much time. On a lighter note, the humans brought a number of books and scrolls with them and we were able to procure a few of them. We’ve set up a small library so that everyone here can stimulate their brains a little bit. Or, maybe just distract themselves from the heat and constant stream of stress and work. Hopefully, Dakost’s magma pumping plan will reduce the load a bit once its complete. We’ve got it all planned out now and have started digging the tunnel for it as well as manufacturing components. Still, looks like it’s going to be a long time before its ready. Could take a year or more to finish it. Hopefully we haven’t been overrun by goblins before then.

Autumn 514:

The yearly supply train from Boulderrace has arrived and brought with it metal and wood, which is what we desperately need. They also had a surplus of leather we were happy to take off their hands, and some more water buffalo to give our breeding program a boost. Less happily, they also brought more bad news. Even more attacks, more important nobles and leaders dying, more refugees fleeing. I’m starting to get paranoid as to why the Jackals haven’t come for us yet. Surely by now they’ve noticed us digging right on their doorstep, right? I’m terrified to think of what they’ll do if they learn the current baron of Boulderrace is here. Starting to really wish he wasn’t; he keeps making demands and him just being here is putting us all in even greater danger than we were already in before. At least the demands he’s making are reasonable. We can definitely use more battleaxes. We’ve got enough equipment to start training some dwarves for the militia but we need more still.  More dwarves keep showing up and we’re running out of things for them to do due to the resource shortages. Kind of ironic considering how busy we all were in the winter, but there weren’t 52 of us back then. At least one of them was very nice to see though; a properly trained glassmaker. The only material we can make pump components out of that can withstand magma is glass, and we need a lot of pump parts. Oh, work on that project is going well so far. Hit a couple minor snags with the design and hit another cavern we didn’t know about, but Dakost was able to work around it and it’s coming along smoothly. Still, 130 screw pumps and 43 windmills are going to take a while to install, so I’m expecting my metal and glassworkers will have to be making the long trip to and from the magma sea for a while yet. Other interesting tidbit, our broker Adil showed me a mitten that one of the dwarves we’ve drafted into out militia made when in a strange mood. It’s an impressive piece of work, and Adil tells me it’s worth over ten thousand Urists. Which is kind of crazy to me because it’s just one mitten! I mean it’s nice and all, but what are you going to do with just one mitten? Oh well, I guess I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if that horse comes bearing a single fancy mitten for some reason.

Winter 514:

The winter months were mostly uneventful this year.  Digging on the pump project is nearing completion with no major problems so far. We’ll have to see if it stays that way once we start actually building the thing though. In other news, Vabok has taken to hunting camels with her teeth, imitating her hunting dog. Not sure what to make of that. Another oddity, one of the haulers got possessed by something and put together an incredible barrel encrusted with emeralds that Adil says is worth a whopping 55 thousand Urists. I’m just waiting for some absent-minded idiot to fill it full of tripe or tallow or something and ruin its value. I doubt I can get him to sell this one so it’s just one more thing on my mind. More than anything else though, I find myself wondering where the Jackals are. I mean, I know where they are, but why aren’t they making any moves towards us? We’re seeing visitors to our library and temple on the regular these days, there’s no way they’re unaware of us. Maybe they know we’re under-equipped and don’t see us as a threat? No, I don’t think so, that’s not a goblin way of thinking. If they see weak prey, they’re inclined to take it. They must be up to something. I just can’t think of what.
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delphonso

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Re: Dangledmerchant: A tale still being spun
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2021, 08:19:46 am »

PTW - I'll have more to say when I read everything here.

recon1o6

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Re: Dangledmerchant: A tale still being spun
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2021, 06:24:57 am »

interesting so far
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