I have been offered a position to lead an enterprising colony that is just starting up in The Helmed Green Towers of Clobbering. The weather's pretty nice, and although I am slightly concerned by the surrounding wildlife, I have been reassured that it is actually less than terrifying. I set out next week for Blizzardcloisters.
We arrive with two proficient Miners, two proficient growers, a novice mason, carpenter, and woodcutter. A breeding pair of dogs accompany us, and will (hopefully) serve to produce a litter of vicious warpuppies in the future. One of my farmers has expressed doubts about inbreeding the dogs, but I'm sure we'll get some material for the gene pool when migrants arrive... if you know what I mean.
We soon arrive, and immediately start digging. An initial survey of our surroundings by our woodcutter show they are more hospital than I dared to hope for - zombie and skeletal groundhogs, yes, but still naught but groundhogs. Perhaps this place isn't that bad after all.
While digging in, one of our miners struck an underground river, which proceeded to flood the entire tunnel. Miraculously, both of the miners managed to evacuate before they drowned, and as a nice bonus, the wet ground was ideal for planting crops. The dig continued, and a bridge was quickly constructed to get us over to the other side.
As the founder of this outpost, one of my foremost priorities is to lay down the groundwork for a solid fortress. My first priority was to establish an irrigation system, for planting on the muddied ground would not sustain us forever. As the rooms and channels were being dug out, however, one of the miners encountered a minor mishap...
The idiot for reasons unknown, decided to construct the entire channel first, then connect it to the river, instead of slowly extending it. As the water rushed in, he was quickly swallowed up, and he splashed about uselessly and washed ashore by mere chance. We managed to save his life by digging him out with the other miner.
Our first immigrant, a metalsmith arrived with an anvil late summer. We still haven't gotten around to constructing a forge yet, since we haven't even the most basic workshops up and running yet. Apparently this region is home to more than groundhogs - while out cutting down trees, out woodcutter ran into an undead macaque. Quite an aggressive one at that - it chased him all the way back to the outpost, where, fortunately, two dogs quickly dispatched it.
Our miner yet AGAIN managed to moat himself in while constructing a floodgate for the irrigation system. It's official - dwarves do not mix well with any liquids aside from alcohol. I shudder to think what will happen when we breach the lava float.
Man, you stupid piece of-
Right before winter, we received our first batch of immigrants. Nothing exciting, really. Two masons, so I told one to practice engraving until the entire fortress was smoothed. Among them was a trapper, eager to prove his worth, who set out to bring home some meat. After bringing down a groundhog or two, he decided he really wanted a trophy and went after a cougar. A skeletal cougar, no less. We didn't even know this area had cougars at all. He somehow managed to bring it down by hammering it with his crossbow, but suffered a mangled limb in the process and had to be carried back. He went without water for several days, since nobody had the foresight to build any buckets and apparently barrels were too heavy to haul around. He now rests in the temporary communal bedroom.
The bones from the cougar kill were never retrieved.
The miners kept digging deeper and deeper - they hit the chasm, bridged it, then finally hit lava. Thankfully they exercised a bit more discretion than they did with the water.
The makeshift bridge over the chasm was torn down in order to make space for a larger one that would accommodate heavier traffic in the future. Unfortunately, one miner was stranded on the other end of chasm. A mason was quickly assigned to construct a bridge to allow the hungry and thirsty miner to cross, but halfway through the construction, the mason decided he wanted to take a nap and wandered off. The miner was so fed up he decided to build the bridge on his own and barely made it back, with a critically high percentage of blood in his alcohol stream and starved.
More expansions were built, and temporary workshops were torn down as they were relocated to a more permanent and strategic location. The irrigation system was finally completed, after our clueless mechanics managed to screw up the linkage several times. My time is up, but I feel that this has been a productive year - no casualties, and we can look forward to the new year with a plenty of room to expand and barrels stuffed with food.
Overview
Edit: Whoops, I forgot to include the save file. It's
here
Notes for my successor:
The center large room would make a great location for a barracks. Carve some fortifications, stick in a few ballista/cataputs/marksdwarves, and build a drawbridge.
The top lever controls the inner floodgate, and the bottom one controls the outer floodgate. Or was it the other way around?
