From the journal of Az "Bloodreaper" Zonsolon, leader of the Fallen Hammers expedition.
1st of Granite, Year 602.
This is the place. Here, in the shadow of The Just Torch, we will build a city to show the world. Those who doubted our will, or tried to undermine our efforts will now see themselves for the fools they are! Strike the Earth, for here we founded Bonecrush the Fortune of Hammerers!
PS: The guidebooks warn about lions and other dangerous wildlife, but all we've sen are a herd of harmless elephants. Clearly they were simply trying to discourage us.
10th granite: We sank a massive spiral stair strait into the ground, and almost instantly hit a massive cave system (I knew this was here, because I cheated a bit, but that's how I found it in the test game too, so it balances out a bit. I had to know the site was viable, right?).
There's a deep shaft with magma in it, that we can use as a heat source, and the main cave system is full of mud and water that we can use for farming. The caves go on further than we can explore (off the edges of the map) and there could be considerable creature populations living back there.
PS: Sure are a lot of spider webs down here. Some groups look like one big web, but I've never seen a spider large enough to spin a web like that.
17th Granite: Cave Troll! We sighted a cave troll down in the magma shaft. It looks like he can reach this level from via a ramp. I intend to remove this ramp, as soon as he goes back into the caves. Also, there are a lot of cave swallows living down here, eating the subterranean shrubs.
22 Granite: There's a rainstorm going on, and none of us are even slightly melted. I knew those stories were just to scare potential travelers. We are awfully wet though. I'd like to put a skylight over the main stairwell, but first we need to get some proper homes dug.
4th slate: Our woodcutter, Sibrek Zimkadol, has been tasked with collecting webs for silk. After all, he has the only axe, and you never know what might be living in there. He reports finding dead animals and birds in the webs, larger than a normal web should be able to catch. This should be valuable silk indeed, if it is that strong.
12th Slate: Our head miner, Rakust, has a cat. He says the beast is for keeping vermin away from our food, but it leaves vermin corpses all over the dig site. It's disgusting and unsanitary.
Anyway, I've chosen the site for our trade depot.
21 Slate: Due to the need to dig wells, and designate a garbage dump (for Rakust's dead vermin) the trade depot is still not ready. I doubt we'll get summer or spring caravans this far south, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared.
22 Slate: Awoke this morning from a terrible dream. I was watching several dwarves be killed by a giant monster toad, and shouting one of their names, but now that I'm awake, I'm certain I've never met any of those dwarves.
Additionally, I have several times today been accosted by Deja'vu. If we had a medical professional, I would have myself examined. (The game crashed, and I had to load the save. We weren't winning anyway.)
11 Felsite: Elephants wandered fearfully close to the logging camp today. This has turned my mind to the matter of how we can defend ourselves from hostile wildlife.
6 Hematite: Summer is here, and it starts with a rainstorm. It sure is wet here in the jungle.
16 hematite: Got some crude bedrooms done near the magma pit. These will someday serve as
quarters for forge drudges, but for now, they will do for the mining staff.
8 Malachite: Some migrants have arrived. For some reason, I feel very relieved to see them, even though we've never met. At the same time, the sight of them makes me strangely apprehensive, as though know I'll watch them die someday.
9 Malachite:
Immigrant Kikrost Craftbristle did a week long course as a militia pikeman in the Mountainhomes.
I have made her High Commander of our military forces (herself and nobody else) in honor of her having the most formal military training out of all of us. A practice spear is being fashioned for her to drill with, as our arms stockpile is presently a suite of wooden swords.
Kikrost Windjoined has some experience training animals, and proposes to teach our guard dogs how to hunt game or fight more effectively. He also plans to try to build some traps, to protect us from elephants, trolls and whatever is leaving these huge spiderwebs everywhere.
Speaking of spiderwebs, the silk cloth Sibrek's been making may prove useful, as a tailor was present among the new initiates. It will be some time before we get his workshop set up.
We also have a blacksmith and a charcoal maker, who should be able to produce tools from the excess of iron, lead and copper ores we've found. Neither knows the first thing about making a military pike, but once Commander Craftbristle has got his practice up, I intend to have them try their hand at it.
11 Malachite: Giant Rats have invaded the farming area. Fat lot of good this stupid cat is going to do against that! We've everyone to the surface, to discuss what to do.
Supplemental: The Rats took some of our food ,and returned to the depths of the caves. We need a stronger military force, to protect from future raids.
5th Galena: We've built a guardpost for the commander, near the farms. He can practice in there, and be ready to protect our supplies at a moment's notice.
1st Limestone: Autumn is here, not that it makes any difference in the land of green and damp, and my sense of dread grows by the day. To ease my fears, I drafted a househusband to serve as the commander's sparring partner.
9 Limestone: Housing is not being produced fast enough, so I ordered a small dormitory set up near the future residential district. This should give our workers a place to sleep, until their own homes are ready.
1 Sandstone: I have diverted all mining operations to the offices on the executive level. The state of our record keeping is simply unacceptable, and I won't stand for it any longer. No-one gets an apartment, until I have a desk. It's not as though they haven't been putting this off, just to aggravate me. This sort of "humor" will not be tolerated.
9 Sandstone: More migrants have arrived. I hoped to expand the military, but many of them are simply to useful to spare from their chosen professions.
A real weaponsmith, a real armorsmith and a real record keeper.
Now the fact that we have no office in which to do record keeping can be his problem!
12 Sandstone: Young Catten already has his office. Mine is still incomplete. I see what's going on here, and I do not approve!
16 Sandstone: A giant Toad has entered the facility! We're trying to evacuate, but he's on the main stairwell. This is all frighteningly familiar. The dream must have been a warning from the gods, that I did not heed. Doom has come upon us all!
To make matters worse, Lokum, the carpernter has been taken by a fey mood, and is trying to craft an item. Thankfully his workshop hasn't yet been moved down into the mines, and there is ample cut wood, right here.
18 sandstone: A tangle with a war dog has left the toad bleeding and unconcious. Time to send
in the troops.
(took me a while to find (S)quads > Squad (A) > (K)ill > [Giant Toad])
The Beast is dead! With no real weapons, the team attacked the downed creature with their bare
hands. Kikrost's Leutentant, Erib, crushed the creature's ribcage with a solid punch that pulped the liver and peirced both lungs. Then he went to bed and left the gasping monster to the ministrations of his war dogs. Remind me to never speak ill to that dwarf.
28 Sandstone: Lokum, our carpenter, has finally finished his artifact. He calls it, Gan Othil, or the Dish of Weakness. It is actually a sturdy banded door of mango wood, so I don't get it.
Perhaps I'm just not poetic enough to understand the symbolism of the picture of a window he carved into it. Either way, it's going on my new office.
5th Timber: Troll! Sibrek's been followed back from the silk tunnels by a fierce looking troll.
A gangling, horned giant, with black skin and bristly gray fur, stalks the halls with it's fishy, wide set eyes. It thirsts for our blood!
6th Timber: The mines are evacuated, and the war dogs are chasing the monster though the farming levels. I am tempted to send the military down to aid them, but then there would be no-one to defend the civilians.
I'm going to do it. We can't wait here in the sun, until we starve.
8 Timber: The Troll is dead, felled by the gigantic war dog, Dodek. Her injuries are pretty
serious, but I intend to see her given medical treatment. Not only did she save the city, her
potential offspring would make excellent guard dogs for future generations. Did I mention this
dog is enourmous? --because she's huge, and she chased down a troll and shook it to death. Grade
A breeding stock, even if she has a crippled paw.
13 Timber: Oops. It seems that the brewery has taken my orders to brew drinks continuously too
seriously. Our entire food supply has been brewed up. We'll need to wait at least a week, until
more mushrooms are ready to harvest.
18 timber: The caravan has arrived! Here's hoping they have foodto sell, and an interest in our
goods. Perhaps we can interest them in cut gems and spider silk.
24 timber: Purchased various fish meat and cheese products in exchange for bolts of our finer
silks. For a lumberjack, Sibrek has gotten quite good at this, and we have other woodcutters. I
have tried to persuade him to change careers, but it seems his heart belongs to the chopping of
trees. Pity, really. He would make a wonderful ambassitor to the elven lands.
1 Moonstone: Winter is here, not that you would know it, by the weather. It's still hot and damp
out in the jungle, and hotter and damper down in the caverns, with the lava. Winter coats are
not a priority, I suppose, then.
All I have to do is make it through the winter, with my ample supplies, and I'll be ready to
retire, leaving the future to someone else. We should be able to grow mushrooms, even in winter
down here, with the heat and the damp.
11 moonstone: Another rainstorm. They never seem to let up, regardless of the season.
10th opal: The mining foreman has been killed by a cave crocodile. The civilians are being
evacuated, until we can deal with the threat. This is a bitter blow, as he represents half ofd
our ability to expand the fortress.
With the mighty Erib gravely wounded (his hip and his spine are both badly wounded) the militia
is down to one able bodied dwarf. The crocodile has some pickaxe wounds, but I don't like his
odds.
15th Moonstone: Kikrost slew the beast with his fallen comrade's pickaxe. Why he didn't use the
spear I had made for him, I do not know. Still the beast is dead, and we can move on the the
grim task of burring the man who built our homes.
To Rakust Bistokzuglar, miner and noble friend. We have named the beast that slew you crudeburials, but you funeral shall be the finest we can muster.
1st obsidian: This is the final month of my reign, and I pause to reflect on how much I'm leaving undone. I had hoped to find a glazier, and to put up a glass roof over the central stairwell. Likewise, I wanted to build a much larger system of traps, to reduce the strain on our military.
24 Obsidian: It seems I'll be leaving on a tragic note. The Commander has died from her crocodile wounds. I should have set up a better hospital or something. Another mighty hero leaves us, and now we are defenseless.
I shall take up the practice of arms myself, to defend the people, until a better warrior comes to our city. It is the least I can do, to honor the good dwarves who died under my command.
1st of Granite, Year 602: There is still a lot left to do, like build tombs for the dwarves who died this last month, and produce crafts for next year's caravan.
--but, I'm too busy hunting this crocodile skeleton to care. (This is probably a bug, and should resolve once I realize the target of my squad's kill order was already dead when I joined the military...
Probably.)
