Excerpts from the journal of Darzh Greyhammer, dwarf foreman:
Twenty-First of Obsidian, Year 200: The booze shortage has been ravaging the Mountainhomes. The last drops of alcohol around are being hoarded and sold- at exorbiant prices- by oppourtunists, and muggings are on the rise. It's taking the best the Fortress Guard has to keep civil unrest down, and even they're fed up. Dwarves are unsuited to sobriety.
Twenty-Second of Obsidian, Year 200: Met some guy named Urist today. He said he was a brewer, so I wasn't surprised he was distraught; he looked like he'd seen a demon. It turns out he'd seen the King, which, given the circumstances, was close enough. Anyway, he was ordered to assemble a team of dwarves to head out and construct a great dwarven brewery to solve the alcohol problem. I told him he'd come to the right dwarf- I've overseen the construction of fortifications, and a brewery that'd last a year out there's going to need to be built like a fortress.
That thought put a gleam in our eyes: Don't just build a brewery; construct a massive fortress dedicated to the production of alcohol! It'll act as a shield to keep goblins and orcs out of the mountains (Urist says the King told him to build it out in the swamp), solve all of our unemployment issues, and provide booze to the mountainhomes in their time of need! No- everyone! (well, not the greenskins of the hippies, but you get the idea) A giant stone and iron monolith gushing glorious brew for all dwarves, everywhere! We'd be heroes!
With that as our moniker (Booze For All!), we started packing for the trip: I have a wagon, and he'd get the supplies (such as was available). In addition, he'd already got together a few recruits: Hex (short for Hexedmagica, I'm told); she's an eccentric- but experienced- miner, Plank; the proprietor of a local bar (some theorize: "She's called Plank 'cos she's flat as a board!", but these people no longer frequent her establishment), and Elaine Barrel-Axe, a a skilled axedwarf and cooper from a long line of axedwarves and coopers (for some reason that I cannot fathom, when most of the dwarves around here hear "Cooper", they think about raccoons. Therefore, allow me to eludicate: Cooperage is the high art of barrel-making).
We hope to embark on our journey tomorrow, as it's late. Shouldn't be hard to recruit a couple more sturdy lads.
Twenty-Third of Obsidian, Year 200: Had to tempt Fate, didn't I? The first riots started out today, and all Hell has been busily breaking loose.
We finished packing up were about to haul ass when the Captain of the Guard intercepted us with a message from the King, emphasizing the urgency of the situation and detailing our quota (load the caravans with as much booze as dwarvenly possible), as well as the final note "-and we don't want any of that prissy elven 'whine' crap!". No matter how desperate we are, we're still dwarves, and we still have standards.
Also, I spotted the Hammerer snooping around the wagon for some reason. We're moving out.
A little down the road, we found a caravan. One of ours, it seems, and loaded with barrels, to boot. Unfortunately, wrecked by orc raiders. Or at least, that's what it looks like, but Hex thinks there's something fishy about it, and I agree.
Some good news, though: we found a survivor! Even better news; it's Bomrek Floyd, a national hero by account of his talent for brewing and cooking. It turns out that he had hopped on the caravan bound for our Mountainhome in the hopes that the booze crisis was less severe than in the poorer outposts; the caravan itself was loaded with brew, having traded with the humans to try and bring some relief. When the orcs hit, he managed to hide under an upturned wagon with a few barrels and waited until they moved off. When we told him about the state of the Mountainhomes, he decided to join up with us.
Being a legendary alchoholic, of course, he'd just finished off his stash when we found him. It's funny, though (and not in a funny way, mind you); when he got a good look around the rest of the caravan, he noted that most of the booze had been stolen, and the remaining barrels were empty. He insists that's he's been under that wagon for hours, and Elaine says orcs don't care for alcohol (though how she knows this I don't know, and haven't dared ask).
Twenty-Fifth of Obsidian, Year 200: Mostly uneventful today. At the edge of the swamp, we found one "Grubbles", an herbalist from the Mountainhomes whom had been sent out to "get plants". He's clearly not very bright; due, I'd imagine, to non-specific nature of his orders, he's spent the past few days trying to figure out how to move the entire swamp back home en masse. We're taking him with us, as he'd probably die if we left him much longer on his own.
We also found out why the Hammerer had been poking around our wagons back home; we discovered another dwarf hiding amongst our supplies. His name's Astus, and apparently he hid there to evade King Cilob's general oppression of soapers. We were about to throw him out, but apparently he's a competent mechanic too, which may be useful.
Twenty-Seventh of Obsidian, Year 200: Tragedy struck today. We woke up to discover most of our supplies gone, and Urist dead. We might not have had any idea what happened, but Grubbles has a surprisingly good eye; he noticed some tracks nearby that the rest of us had missed. Astus says they're dwarves' boots, and Plank thinks she knows who: Urist was the only one among us who had boots like that, as part of his Brewer's Guild uniform.
There's something amiss here, we can all feel it.
(Next post, actual gameplay! Hope I didn't misrepresent anyone too badly.)
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Topic: Ucatonol, Dwarven Brewery (Community Fort) (Read 4933 times)