Six years ago we struck the earth, here in the Jungle just by sea. And now our grand projects are at last complete.
Not the fortress, although there is a fortress it's nothing to speak of, it's just like any other you might find throughout our kingdom, the Lustrous Spear, although we have deliberately come quite far from the reach of King Zasit.
Since a time before time it has been said amongst the wisest dwarves that water is a curse from the gods, only there to drown us and burn our throats when booze cannot be had.
Therefore the ocean is truly a cursed place, water as far as the eye can see and a sickening open horizon that causes the plump helmet roast to rise from the stomach of even the best adapted dwarf. Nonetheless, dwarves are not known to shy away from cursed places, and so, our ambitions coming here were:
One: Construct a drydock in which we could construct a seaworthy vessel before the dread salt-water surrounded it
Two: Construct such a ship
Three: Set sail and raid every town near the sea from the mired tundra in the south, to the Entrancing forest in the north for loot and glory, striking fear in all in our path
And we have almost completed steps one
and two already:
Above is pictured the main deck of our ship, sitting in drydock, very nearly complete. As you can see we are still in the process of removing the scaffoldings that were necessary for construction, in the south is the enormous marble floodgate that will allow the water in. This ship will be well armed, with the finest in dwarven technology, the mighty ballista, ready to fire on enemies in any direction. Also on this deck you can see the galley, the only stone part of the ship, including metal forges. The aftercastle in the north houses a fully functional hospital and library on this level.
Going up first:
The three masts visible here go up several levels and include a fighting top (for shooting down with crossbows on any boarders) and a crow's nest. In the south there's an archery range, as I'm sure crossbows will be very important in our travels.
You might also notice the lack of a figurehead, but we'll get to that later!
Moving back down:
The wisest of dwarven scholars claim that coating the exterior of a ship in copper will prevent the decay of the wood within, and that the ship can indeed still float if constructed so. Putting our faith in dwarven scholarship we have constructed all exterior walls below deck out of copper (interior walls and floors are all wood still though)
We have also installed many gem windows through which we might peer out and glimpse the horrors that lie in the deep. On this level from north to south we have some workshops, a taven/dining room and food storage, more workshops, barracks, weapon/armor storage and a temple complex.
In the top right is a well that leads down to our water storage, pump on this deck for purification, some excess bedrooms and a dormitory if necessary, some rooms for pastures (I had plans for pigs but my boar was killed by some pestilential undead Invaders, but I'll get more suitable animals if I can).
Down here is most of our other storage, some chains for criminals, and in the north water tanks for saltwater to be purified to drinking water. (also a bonus ghost making an appearance)
So now you've seen her surely you agree she's the finest dwarven sailing ship you've ever seen?
What's that? You haven't seen any others? Well what about Bellsmaw? Although they do say that's only a legend.
In any case, if you agree she's a fine ship I'm sure you'll agree she needs a fine name, and I'm open to suggestions, and also what to mount as a figurehead, (we have access to gold, silver, copper and brass for a statue) we have mounted a gold statue of a pond grabber on the crow's nest to give the proper idea of what's about to happen to anyone who spots this ship.
More than a figurehead and a name though, we need a crew! Sign up here if you want to join us on our adventures, with a name, profession, and an indication if you would like to participate in raids or not (which will increase chance of death!), although all hands will be expected to defend the ship in the case of boarders.
So I'm sure most of you reading this are aware you can't actually make the ship move and go raid other sites, but not to worry, I plan to simulate all sorts of fun times, from moving the ship about the ocean, to raiding targets on the shore, to fighting other ships and more!
As mentioned there is a conventional fortress which was necessary for the dwarves while building the drydock/ship, and the plan when the ship is ready is to leave some dwarves in the fort, never again to meet, to construct the ship/dock or whatever and then lock themselves in when invaders come. I also plan to have the ship be completely self sufficient, aside from trading with caravans (resupplying at friendly ports if you like)
Some difficulties I encountered:
The aquifer (which I expected) was suprisingly easy to deal with. People today don't know what they used to be like heh
I was fortunate to find an embark with enough copper but coating the entire exterior was still a bit of an effort.
This picture hopefully gives you an idea how much wood was needed, it was all solid forest to begin with (and remember over SIX YEARS it was constantly growing back too)
constantly hauling logs without a break makes dwarves pretty unhappy, and the nearby necromancers were quite aggressive (not to mention werebeasts), when we set sail I'll show how many dwarves were buried beneath the fort to make it happen.
I thought space would be tight but it seems I have everything I need, and the third deck is pretty much empty. Should I make more bedrooms to take more dwarves? Don't want too many to avoid too much burden on our food/drink supplies. Any suggestions for something I'm missing would be appreciated
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Topic: SeaMenace, A community Ship - Back to raiding (Read 22983 times)