The following started when I got bored of starting in glaciers (fun, but not Fun), taiga's (too common, too easy) and on mountains (again too easy). So I decided to find something that sounded challenging to build in, and I found it :]
Gravelevened, sounded hopeless, and was located in hell itself. (No not that hell:)). A savage biome, I think temperate marsh, with sparse trees, separated by the sabresilver river, where on the other end lies a savage desert, with no trees, plants or water.
Lots of Fun already!
The water that already existed either froze or slowly evaporated. Or had carp and tigerfish in it. I never thought about making a story of it, so I never started recording dates, and unfortunately, lost a large part of the save to a crash. (Which was just as well, at the time of the crash I only had 4 dwarves, but they were working valiantly:()
This is a story of dwarves, Armok's Herald, and GAWD DAMN BADGERS.
1409 - Age of Civilisation
After fleeing from some naked elves, the trade caravan I was in had inadvertently gotten lost, in a desert.
~Iorwarl Tuskan, human gem cutter.
1409 - Or I think it still is. We've lost track of time, we found some ruins, that should keep us plenty safe come night time. There's a few chests around here, perhaps our caravan could find some... Profitable items in here to borrow.
*In the first chest is an old, worn book*
We have brought what meagre supplies we have, and set off to forge a new fortress, Astral, for the Notched Pick!
~Alath Eribokil, 1st Miner, 1st Expedition leader.
05 - 1st Granite
~Set up the first work shops, started gathering wood and set up the farms. Dobar, the farmer appears to have some sort of fear of plump helmets, so we're deciding to set up farms above ground, growing whatever we can find. Then we'll find a doctor to examine his head.
~Alath Eribokil, 1st Miner, 1st Expedition Leader.
06 - 1st Obsidian
We just tapped into a frozen river, and saw some good of having ice in a desert! Unfortunately we were interrupted "slightly" when the river unthawed and flooded the room we were all working on. No one was hurt, but now our beards don't smell of camel intestine. Absolutely disgusting. We'll probably be able to make a resevoir out of this! On a side note, we've gotten our dwarf bridges set up, shame that won't be much use if our walls aren't built. We also had a few run ins with vicious badgers, but no one was hurt, badly.
Buzzards stole a lot of wild strawberries though.
~Alath Eribokil, 1st Miner, 1st Expedition Leader.Unknown date, but appears to have occurred shortly after this last note. I am surprised the wall inscriptions have lasted so long, let alone the writings in the books! I am surprised the dwarves even wrote of their accounts!
And there's inscriptions on the floor...
-Here lies Alath Eribokil, first dwarf of the Notched Pick to encounter the Giant Badgers. Died from blood loss and loss of torso.-
*An abnormally large badger is seen lying dead next to a dwarf, the border is surrounded by onlooking badgers*
08 - 23rd sla___*
Armok Damn BADGERS! They're everywhere now, the useless recruits sent ar______* good for nothi____* piece of___* LIKE BADGER VOMIT!
Retreat to the workshops! Guard the stair case and finish that damn wall!
~Thob Ustathesh, 2nd Expedition Leader, 1st Mason.
*There are inscriptions missing, they must not've had the same protection as being sealed in a rock chest.*Besides the chest containing the writing, there are more inscriptions*
-Here lies Thob Ustathesh, first to arrive, never to leave-
09 - 1st of Granite
The King is obssessed with sending out hopeless expeditions
exactly on this date. Ah well, at least we're only reclaiming a fortress, someone's already done the hard work for us!
I trust that the dwarves who ditched the place were kind enough to leave some copper picks and a few axes, so we're ditching that extra weight in favour of bringing dogs along, we heard tales of fearsome badgers! HA! Badgers should be no problem, we're only bringing the dogs to hunt the ones that run!
~Ezum Atheldakost, 3rd Expedition Leader, 4th miner.
09 - 2nd of Granite
The "fortress" is a mess! crumbling walls stand decripit over fields of junk! There aren't even any picks or axes! At least they left some bars, though it's a shame we're wasting iron on picks so readily, but at least we've gotten use out of our silver bars (
*Silver was used to make their hatchets and axes?). Buzzards immediately showed up thanks to the commotion we caused getting here, and took all of our above ground crops. Looks like it's prepared kitten tripe with plump helmet cookies for a year again.
Also note to self, get someone to finish that damn resevoir! We're also going to start building something... Something big. A megaproject if you will.
~Ezum Atheldakost, 3rd Expedition Leader, 4th Miner.
[A heavy obsidian door stands ahead, from which a strong draft can be heard, but you fear that the door may lead to the outside, and tails of caravans stuck outside at night are... Graphic. And it doesn't help that you're stuck in dwarven ruins, infamous for binding demons and ghosts to defend their treasures... If you believe in superstitions. Figuring that bogeymen and ghost's are just fairy tales... You shove the door open with the help of one of the caravan guards.]
A massive... Cavern drifts on into the darkness, interrupted by regular pillars. The whole place looks as if it was constructed... But that's impossible! But it still stands, and you reluctantly step forward, reassured by the glowing torches held by the guards that nothing is going to jump out of the dark. You hear a sickening crunch underfoot, and look down. Underneath your boots is a skeleton of a cat, which you casually shove aside, when you see something.
Taking one of the torches, you look closer, brushing away the thin coating of dust covering the mysterious object.
1409 - 1412 ~ Age of civilisations. Some time after we found the grand hall and its riches, we returned to the homeland with this news, and to our surprise, we were told to return to the ruins to set up a town there! The Grand Hall is full of inscriptions, and it seems ores were just left in the walls! We probably won't even need to start mining, as there are plenty of treasures just lying around the floor in neat (enough) stock piles! However the hall is still too large to explore, some people have heard noises coming from the distance.
You finish writing, and start to study the first section of one of the pillars. This one appears to depict a scene from dwarven mythology.
-An intimidating figure is seen standing atop a massive adamantium pillar, holding a hammer covered in menacing spikes. You identify this imposing character to be Armok, and for some reason you cannot focus on his image for too long. He is seen creating the first creatures, and the dwarf king is seen besting most of them, and of course the iconic moment where he gives the humans the weapons for war. In the next however, is a scene of depravity, yet triumph. The dwarves are seen standing victorious atop a mountain of corpses made of dead enemies. You start staring deep into this mound, mer people are seen decaying, sea serpents lie scared beneath the dwarves, goblins, elves and beasts you are sure no one has ever even heard of for centuries litter the mound. Something breaks your gaze, and just as well because you feel as if staring at that mound for any longer would've driven you insane.
Following the the pillar, you reach the next segment. Armok is happy that the dwarves have conquered his creations, but in the next scene Armok is depicted in the exact same scene, but with the face of a troll.
Now the scenes show Armok creating fearsome carp, with extremely sharp mouths fighting with the dwarves over the mound, but the dwarves become victorious again, and stand atop the now larger mound. Elephants climb the mound, but the mound is not won, and many elephants and dwarves are dead. The mound is awash with lava and water fighting, as the elephants and dwarves fight. Eventually the elephants and the dwarves are seen sacrificing a thousand kittens to Armok through a volcanoe, and are at last at peace. There are more scenes still, massive spiders emerging from caves to attack the dwarves turn around and attack the goblins. Then a pillar dedicated to dwarven heroes, with the most striking one's noted being a large elf, and a mighty toad. Armok is seen forging something. He is hammering the legs of the mightiest cow to have ever walked the sun to the toughest bunny known to have walked the world. And the dwarves are seen besting this new creature with new, threatening weapons. But Armok still has the face of the troll in the next scene. The dwarves are seen atop the mound again, and the new creature is present again. You note how that creature looks remarkably like a badger...
In the next scene the dwarves strike this new creature down, but there are badgers watching in the border of the pillar. The dwarves are seen fighting the badgers, with each badger being different from the last. Some are larger, some have longer claws. All are shown killing dwarves. Armok is shown holding the scales of judgement, and they are unbalanced. So Armok takes a creature, a creature the dwarves hold dear. He considers the cat, but the cat is wicked and manipulative. He considers the giant snake, but he is disgusted by their constant vanity of maintaining good skin, and turns them into maggot worms. He then sees the dog. A smart, loyal animal of well built muscle, which Armok realised would be needed to save the dwarves. And unto the dog, Armok imbued the true gaze of the carp.
The pillar ends there, at which you go to eat some lion tripe.
We fought off waves of badgers, but something horrific showed up on the horizon, gargantuan badgers, in large groups started appearing, and we thought we were too ill equipped to fight back, it was then we thought of the stories of the badgers, and only then we truly believed the torsos we found lying around were not caused by unfortunate accidents.
We hurriedly grabbed the dogs and lined them up in front of the badgers, we thought their deaths would buy us enough time to barricade ourselves underground and equip ourselves. But it was too late, and the demon badgers had already made it the front. But they did not attack. The dogs stood transfixed upon the giant badgers, but they too did not attack. We saw some of the badgers try to flank us, but we moved dogs towards them, and sure enough, the backed off. It got to the point where we simply picked up the dogs and walked towards the badgers and drove them towards the river! HA HA! THIS IS GRAVELEVENED!!!!!!
~Ezum Atheldakost, 3rd Expedition Leader, 4th Miner.You check the next pillar, and the dwarves seemed to have engraved the pillar's images in roughly chronological order. Armok is seen holding the scales of balance, and they are still not even. Armok is seen arming the dwarves with the true gaze of madness, and new deadly weapons.
We forged silver warhammers, and simple armour, and have begun a massive dog breeding program! We also found out the badgers will flee from those touched with Armok's fury, however we have found out the badgers will still fight. 2 Dwarves have died, one from an unfortunate accident (built a floor next to a floor grate, and walked onto the floor. Must've been a fat dwarf, because the floor broke off.), and the other got kicked in the brain by a camel.
On a similiar note, all camels seem to die when they step foot in Gravelevened now. Mysterious.
We've since built the great halls, and are now building a catacomb underneath it, I doubt we'll need to use it often though.
And even better news! We're planning to build a tower to house everyone, thanks to that useless resevoir we still don't have a dining room or bedrooms! And it isn't even finished yet! Despite this, everyone is still happy. We've begun building a Colosseum, where we're testing on captured Giant Badgers.
~Ezum Atheldakost, 3rd Expedition Leader, 4th Miner.There is a scene of Armok watching a cat fight a giant badger, Armok has the face of the troll again.
There is a Dwarf with the inscription Dumat Testin above it, and the dwarf is holding soap. The Dwarf is freeing the Giant Badgers with the soap. The Giant Badgers are seen killing the Dwarf with the Soap, and heading towards what looks like a small town.
___F__K_*
I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS! SOME IDIOT RELEASED THE GIANT BADGERS!
It was a massacre, 19 giant badgers in the middle of your town should be enough to make you run, but we drank our beer, ate our kittens and stormed out there battle axes and war hammers held aloft. 15 giant badgers were killed, the rest ran away. 13 dwarves died, and one went mad before being torn to pieces by his own dogs.
Currently 28 dwarves, 8 of which have the true gaze of madness. The breeding program is continuing as successfully as it was before the badgerpocalypse, 61 puppies and a dozen war dogs. I plan to get the foundations for the upcoming prison (to avoid this mess again) and new great hall before we leave this accursed place.
And we're moving over the river, and destroying the bridge.
*Note to future self, the river freezes in winter.
P.s, writing in the blood of your enemies is pretty sick.*Someone deliberately scratched out whatever was written, looks vulgar though.
There's a hastily scrawled piece of paper on the next page.
The pillar shows Dwarves and War Dogs fighting goblins and being pushed back to the North, where the badgers are waiting. The Dwarves are killing the goblins, but dying themselves. It is a scene of ragnarok.
Funny joke;
Knock knock?
WHO'S THAR?
Armok
Armok who?
RAGNARMOK 
The last clutch pillar shows Armok saddened by the death of such valiant heroes, and it is unclear what the pillar is trying to show, but the last scene of the Dwarves being given the gaze of true madness to fight the badgers is repeated...
Dwarves:
Y u do dis Armok?
Armok:
Armok: I HAD GOTTEN BORED.
Dwarves:
Armok: Fine fine, I'll return you to your realm, under one condition.
You will turn Gravelevened into valhalla. There will be no shortage of booze, and there will always be conflict. Especially with the badgers.
Dwarves: Kthxbai
*Dwarves get returned to Gravelevened*
Armok: ...
*Scratches adamantium beard*
Armok: *Trollface*
Cue dramatic music for next time in - Gravelevened, the time warp again
Author
Topic: Gravelevened- On the Origins of badgers, and dogs (Read 633 times)