So, thus ends year 3 of Bouldergloves. We teetered on the brink of a tantrum spiral there, but I think it's under control now. I think. General mood across the fortress is very happy, but I may need to lock the few remaining miserable dwarves in their own private pleasure palaces. The sooner I can get some waterfalls going the better. Nothing cheers a dwarf up like clouds of mist.
Demolishing the trade depot was a real blunder. They'll count it as theft, I think. Hopefully, the lavish over-spending in the previous years will keep them on side.
I'm also annoyed with myself for a)walling a bunch of dwarves in and b)one of them being a founding dwarf. I never got round to building tombs for the founders, so he'll get a prole's grave
Good timing that one
A rave would be tricky. There's no music system in the game (despite the dwarves having a Musical Ability trait). There's also no narcotics other than alcohol, which they already drink all day anyway. Random dwarves organising parties in the Great Hall are as ravey as it gets :-/
Dig an enormous pit next to the tower so you can throw prisoners from the top, down the hole and into the fiery magma depths. Bonus points for a plank.
An underground forest would also be cool. And a moat.
There are catapults and ballistae, but they fire stone and massive arrows respectively. They're also a bit crap - massively innacurate and manned dwarved by civilians who run away when the enemy comes near. I've never actually built one, though.
treefrog is last miserable dwarf. She is legendary miner and founding dwarf and must not be allowed to rampage. Despite no military training, she is mighty through long years of exercise and her pick is sharp. I deny her all labours and construct personal pleasure palace in museum room. Spending one night in this glorious room should bring her round to contentment.
Other few miserable dwarves are children, but children cannot do harm when having tantrum. Child Atir is one such dwarf. His blows glance off rutabowa, who bears them no notice.
3rd Granite, 131
New Bouldergloves has design flaw. Entrance is so far away from regular dwarf activity, ambush is already through gates when detected. Fisherdwarf Bakunin is startled in the golden entry hall.
He is fast enough to retreat from advancing hammer goblins, but pikeman goblin is ahead of him and blocks his path. Bakunin receives a nasty flesh wound in his arm.
Bakunin is pursued across the inner field of New Bouldergloves, while The Scratches get stuck in to the hammermen. frogwoman has brought her newborn baby into battle. If I had noted that she had birthed, I would not have ordered it. But she and xes are tremendously skilled warriors, landing many blows.
Lesser soldiers pigtails and favelado are in the thick of it, making contributions and admiring fine work of our Axelords.
Dr Jon rescues Bakunin from his chase, engaging the goblin in spear-on-spear combat in centre of granite pillar circle. The goblin is surprised by the ferocity of the speardwarf's attack. They stab at each other, but Dr Jon's superior armour and agility win through. After a brief wrestle, it is a stab to the brain that kills the goblin.
It is complete victory. Dotcommunist and frogwoman's baby has not a scratch. Novice dwarves Favelado, spirals, bi0boy, fuck-seals, Dr Jon, Clair De Lune, pigtails, Violentpanda, stuff_it, yardbird and fisherman Bakunin all gain combat experience.
10th Granite, 131
Stanley Edwards throws a party. Shippou Chan, wtfftw, pennimania and child Sibrek attend.
22nd Granite, 131
Pump stack progresses above ground. It is tedious work, organising construction, but satisfaction will be great.
6th Slate, 131
Oh no. Not again.
I order the fill tube stop lever pulled and the Great Hall begins to drain. All that handmade floor will be muddy. At least it is preventing more dwarves from attending Stanley's party, which is still ongoing.
I must drain cistern entirely this time, and remove malfunctioning pressure plate. It will let us bury those dead dwarves as well. The ghost of Hollis will have to haunt somewhere else.
Migrants. Sixteen. One highly skilled herbalist. Very useful, I'm sure.
26th Slate, 131
Maurice Picarda forbids the export of sceptres. I believe there are one or two such items in our trade goods stockpile. I will be careful when the caravan comes. IF the caravan comes.
Slate has mostly occupied my time with constructing pump stack. I cannot tell you of the tedium that vertical construction brings. Excavating from the earth is so much more easy, some might say more properly dwarven. To those I would say: You have not seen my waterfalls.
11th Felsite, 131
This WILL NOT DO. My rooms are luxurious, but other dwarves enjoy high quality rooms. MINE MUST BE THE BEST ROOMS. THIS IS MY MANDATE AS BARON! All walls in my quarters to be engraved.
MORE STATUES! WAAAAAAAH! YOU! DWARF! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!
Ah, that felt good.
14th Felsite, 131
TREEFROG! RUDE DWARF! YOU MUST NOT HAVE PALATIAL ROOM!
GET!
OUT!
16th Felsite, 131
I block cistern inlet with solid wall. Accidents cannot happen again. rich! is sent to the lowest level, to release water from the cistern. He will escape through door.
Cursed pressure plate will be removed. In future all cistern operations will be manual. No more floods in Bouldergloves. Just two more pumps are required for the stack. Now, the water will fall. Safely.
24th Felsite, 131
With cistern empty, bodies are accessible. They are hauled quickly to graves. The restless spirits that haunted the water are now at rest.
Nobles can get very upset if they feel that any other dwarves are getting better treatment. I thought it was because the Mayor's rooms were higher quality, so I pimped up Crispy's. That didn't work. Then I remembered that treefrog was getting cheered up in her pleasure palace, so I kicked her out. That didn't work. Crispy was on the verge of going insane from inferiority, when I realised that he owned both his new palatial apartment *and* his old 3-tile bedroom. It was *that* room he was complaining about. So I de-allocated it and bam, happiness started to go back up. Phew.
You can carve memorials on slabs for dead dwarves with inaccessible bodies btw, which puts ghosts to rest. Not that I should be telling you this. I should be haunting you in your fancy-pants bedroom.
I have save scummed. I fucked up the game and reloaded from an earlier save. I wouldn't normally, and the practice is frowned on. The whole point of the game is to attempt the balancing of countless spinning plates. Eventually, they come crashing down. But the mistake I made was so stupid, and the consequences so brutal, I just couldn't live with myself.
I ordered the cistern drained but didn't forbid access to its bottom level. I also neglected to dismantle the auto-refill mechanism. So, what happened was, the cistern drained very quickly, dwarves ran inside to gather the skeletons, and then got soaked by the cistern filling back up. The torrent of water swept them out of the cistern and into the drain, falling 30 levels straight down to a messy death. But now the skeletons were entered in the "corpse hauling" schedule, dwarves kept trying to get in to pick them up, but got swept away and down the drain. I was busy at the top of the sky tower doing some fiddly designations and wasn't paying attention to the alerts at the bottom. I only began to notice when my construction designations were taking longer and longer to fulfill. It turns out 3/4 of the whole fortress had merrily marched into the drain of death and there was an enormous pile of dwarves and dwarf body parts in the caverns. I *wish* I'd taken a screenshot.
It would have been a crummy way to end the story. So I went back and did it right.
I was quite prepared to let the Crispy dwarf go insane after that, and carry on writing from some other dwarf's POV, but I pulled it back from the brink. Just.
You can carve memorials on slabs for dead dwarves with inaccessible bodies btw, which puts ghosts to rest. Not that I should be telling you this. I should be haunting you in your fancy-pants bedroom.
Feeling happier now I have best rooms in Bouldergloves. Do not want to recall mental state of last few weeks; it is painful to think how close I came to madness.
5th Malachite, 131
Migrants. Ten. Total population of Bouldergloves is now one hundred fifty three adult dwarves, forty one children, twenty one babies, for a total of two hundred thirteen.
I have the Max Population setting at 200, which is the number over which I will not get any more migration waves. This *should* be the last of them then, barring any mass die-offs.
11th Malachite, 131
This could be great opportunity. If Mrs Magpie produces artifact armour, then soldiers of Bouldergloves will be indestuctrable, as well as unstoppable. She claims a magma forge. She gathers adamantine among many other items. We wait with baited breath.
14th Malachite, 131
It is complete. Finest engineering achievement of The Lean Rim. Wonder of Bouldergloves. Dispenser of Happy Thoughts. It is The Waterfaller. It consists of three parts.
First, the power source. The cistern input has a wide branch now, which leads to the Turbine Hall. A bank of water wheels will be spun by the flow. The input gate is controlled by a remote lever.
Second, the pump stack, which rises beside the Sky Tower. Input to stack is from upper level of cistern and rises 15 levels from input to output.
Third, the Fall itself, which drops through grates at top of Sky Tower. It falls 13 levels before arriving in the center of the Great Hall, where further grates capture the water for return to the cistern.
20th Malachite, 131
Everything is prepared. Water routes are checked and double checked. No dwarves are in path of flow. Activation of the waterfaller proceeds step by step. Levers are arranged in control room. Remember which lever is which, dwarves!
Step One: Fill the Cistern
The water rushes in, but the lever operator is on standby to shut off inlet before further flooding. This is a safe operation now.
Step Two: Open the Sky Tower Floor
A great clanging echoes around the Great Hall as the petalled chert roof retracts to the edges of the tower above. Now the ceiling of the hall reaches 15 levels high. Awe is inspired.
Step Three: Engage Turbines
The sound of smooth flowing water whistles through the drain system. Shortly after, the rumble and grind of wheels and gears. Machinery of Bouldergloves awakes!
Now we await first pumping. Progress is rapid and water soon reaches Sky Tower summit.
In Great Hall, fuck-seals, weepiper, Old Gergl, Chrisfilter, Favelado and dotcommunist are among dwarves who witness first falling water. Happy thoughts are countless and Bouldergloves reaches new level of civilised society.
26th Malachite, 131
As celebration of Waterfaller activation, Mrs. Magpie creates a magnificent artifact. It is named Voidseige, highly decorated and studded with gems. It will go to dotcommunist. Unfortunately, Mrs Magpie receives no blessing of legendary skill. She will continue to be merely an adequate armoursmith.
There are three types of creative moods, Fey, Secretive and Possessed. Unfortunately, possessed moods don't result in the instant max-out of the skill being mooded. No legendary sets of armour for Bouldergloves just yet...
New Bouldergloves paving progresses. Great Circle around Great Hall. Training of militia squads continues alongside. In future, all squads will have own barracks and training space.
That training will have to be put into practice, as the goblins return for a second siege. They approach from three sides, Pikemen from the North led by an Axe Lord. Hammermen from the East led by a Spearmaster and from Southwest comes their general, Tode Craftedspiders who leads lashers on ratback. They are supported by eleven war cave dragons from East and West, which approach unaccompanied.
I order the north gate closed and muster all military dwarves within its gatehouse. There they will be out of sight of approaching enemy and will not attack without orders.
A cave dragon is first to test defences.
It is immediately caged.
As hammers and pikes jostle around perimeter wall, more dragons enter via traps. One is skilled dodger, avoiding moving blades, but it dodges into cage trap and is caught.
Next three dragons have mixed fortunes. One is caged. One receives deep leg wound but comes through, trailing blood. One is decapitated. Spearmaster of hammer squad leads goblins into maw of traps.
I order The Staves to intercept the wounded dragon. It is powerful enough to destroy doors and heads for pasture access.
Oversight! Access to pump construction area was left unroofed! Dragons locate hole in floor and enter backstage Bouldergloves, where they begin destroying pumps.
They are one level away from Great Hall full of civilians and children. I order blocking wall constructed and The Scratches to attend. If wall is not built, then dragons must be prevented access to tender organs of Bouldergloves.
Meanwhile on surface, spearmaster goblin evades all traps. His troops are less agile and find difficulty in spinning serrated discs and stabbing blades. Bi0boy is first recruit to join battle with wounded dragon. No wounds are made in initial contact, as dragon dodges and dwarf armour deflects.
First dragon reaches level of Great Hall. But Barking_Mad has dabbling masonry skill and manages to construct wall in time. Now invading dragons may move freely within cistern system, but no further.
Dragon damage means no supply for pump stack. Waterfaller begins to run dry. Cave dragons cannot fly, so they cannot destroy stack itself, but turbine hall and cistern extract are fair game.
The pavement of New Bouldergloves stains red with blood. Dragon is brought down in hail of crossbow bolts. Spirals bravely attempts combat with two of the beasts. She receives some wounds, but inflicts none. This battle requires greater skill. I order The Scratches forward.
A goblin pikeman joins in the torture of poor Spirals. He jabs his spear at her left hand, but the blow is dulled by her steel armour. A dragon inflicts a greater wound by removing her foot.
frogwoman strikes the first blow of revenge, disabling the dragon in one strike of her fabled steel axe. However, as soon as it drops spirals, its partner wastes no time in crushing her head in its jaws. Spirals is first casualty of siege.
Frogwoman and dotcommunist exhibit their skill together. They have brought their baby again, thinking that they can protect it, but this time their enemies are too many and it is soon brought down.
While brave dwarves do battle with dragons, the main body of the invasion approaches the traps.
But the goblin axelord is imprisoned by a cage trap, which breaks the resolve of the remaining goblin army. Before they can even threaten Bouldergloves, they are turned away at the gates in fear.
Only two goblin pikemen made it through the traps. They are no match for The Scratches.
Old Gergl swings his hammer with great effect, making a one strike kill of a goblin pikeman. The second goblin manages to wrestle him to the ground. Old Gergl is quickly on his feet again and makes repeated blows to the head without pause.
Final two invaders of Bouldergloves are war dragons. Heavily wounded by traps, they bleed to death near the South gate. Bouldergloves is safe once more. All is quiet.
Too quiet.
Victorious peace is ruined by sudden emergence of four dragons. Bored of destroying pumps, they pour out of hole in ground. They are unwounded, and in a playful mood. All military dwarves are ordered into the scrum.
The fight is chaotic and body parts fly in many arcs. Favelado makes a clean decapitation with his sword. Sasaferrato has his leg broken. bi0boy stabs dragon clean through the head with his sword. Crossbowdwarves provide valuable support. Sasaferrato has his head clawed off. Pigtails makes final kill, driving spear point into dragon brain.
Two goblins lie crippled outside the gates. I order recruits to finish them off. It will be valuable experience.
yardbird and Titansound make torture of goblin with their hammers, breaking many bones.
fractonman swiftly finishes both goblins off with his axe. It is done. The second great battle of Bouldergloves. We count our wounded and sing praises of the fallen. Summer is past and now we look to Autumn. It will bring much surgery and trade.
Demons, Vampires, Night Creatures, Forgotten Beasts, Titans, Rocs, Dragons (proper dragons, not the wimpy cave sort), Necromancers and their legions of undead, Bronze Colossi, Stupidity, Despair, Magma.
Attacks by megabeasts have been suspiciously infrequent so far...
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