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Author Topic: The Overseer  (Read 861 times)

recon1o6

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The Overseer
« on: July 07, 2021, 09:21:43 am »

This is a Fun Bound Codex. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality. It concerns the position of Overseer in dwarf fortresses, authored by Recon Mcwriter, the 106th in Malachite 2021. The prose is amateurish at best.

Foreword

The position of an Overseer is very peculiar in dwarven society. All fortresses ruled by dwarves has an Overseer, yet few records exist of who each overseer is, was or who will be. It does not have pay nor drinks privileges, it has huge responsibility and power, yet no accountability more often than not and no direct orders nor function in society. The king or queen could order an Overseer executed for the slightest mishap yet no royalty would dare question the order to go construct a wall with the lowliest peasant should the Overseer command.

It therefore is the most important position in dwarven society. But how did such a position come about? Why are there so many variations? All these questions and more fuel the insanity that is a Dwarf Fortress

Chapter 1: The history of the Overseer

An Overseer in its most basic definition is "One who supervises others"
This shows there must be a discrepancy between the role of the Overseer, and what it is supposed to be doing. An Overseer by definition is supposed to observe the working dwarves and make sure their tasks are being completed and give the boot up the rear to those that slack. While it is undoubtedly true almost all Overseers keep an eye on their workforce's productivity though not nearly out of concern for the workers, but more looking for the menacing spike to burst the bubble that is their idea of progress on their egotistical projects.

The position of Overseer can be traced back through scant records all the way to the first dwarven fortresses in existence to the first Overseers: Urist McToady The First Great and Urist McThreeToed. It is known that these two Overseers effectively wrote the "Code" all Overseers, regardless of morals, alignment or insanity follow out of respect, gratitude and/or historical tradition.

What is this tradition may you ask? Indeed, so old and so hidden is the code, that every overseer has their own interpretation of it. Every overseer knows of some bits of the code, yet all can divulge but fragments. Curiously no two Overseers can follow the same code and it is rumoured that Overseers periodically get updates to said code. At times these updates are supposedly minor but turn into major changes in leadership such as migration patterns being more variable to encourage a wider range of professions in each fortress and removing the time old tradition of dwarven vengeance from the list of stress inducers when it comes to dwarven !!healthcare!!

It is even rumoured that by virtue of holding the office of Overseer in later years, one would be able to learn special magic that can do wonders as spawn a cube of water or magma, speed up time or even pause it completely around a fortress.
A lot of these rumoured magical spells only came into the employ of the Overseer in more recent times. However these spells are not perfect and even the most rebellious of Overseers can or will not do certain things such as cure elves of their tree hugging ways.

In more recent times with more contact between Overseers and better record keeping, dwarvenkind has been able to pinpoint patterns throughout all of history of Overseership. Indeed, the author of this work did this in his spare time between hauling duties after witnessing one Overseer leave office.

Many Overseers seem to have standardises across time, space and various fortresses certain aspects of leadership which will be covered in their own chapters.

Naturally, the moment this work is published the author is likely to be convicted of a violation of a production order. Unless he gets himself to be the Overseer. Then this fortress may find itself relieved of a member of the nobility.
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Urist McRecon cancels make exploding booze: Interrupted by bad idea
Urist McRecon cancels bad idea: missing raw files
Urist McRecon cancels add raw files: Interrupted by fortress mode
Urist McRecon cancels play fortress mode: Needs exploding booze
Urist McRecon cancels acquire exploding booze: No materials

King Zultan

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Re: The Overseer
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2021, 03:46:55 am »

PTW
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