Dwarf Fortress Succession: Beigeknife, or "Waterburned, the Spinoff"

1st of Spring, New Settlement of Fort Beige Knife 126

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Finally we have arrived at someplace that is not gods’ thrice damned Water Burned or The Swamps of Cascading Fecund Materials. If I had not lived the events at water burned and then at the short lived settlement in the vile swamp I would have to wonder why it took us so long to find a new settlement site.

I should recount what has happened for posterity in the event I go insane or die my like recently departed relative at water burned. Count Dorku and I successfully completed our secret escape tunnel leading us to freedom from the Rotpar mired insanity that is or hopefully was Water Burned. Why the home land had originally chosen that site for our fortress is beyond me. According to the sparse writings of my dead relative that I managed to copy down, water burned should have been nearly ideal. However there were some fatal flaws. Somehow the survey teams had missed a few facts. THEY MUST HAVE BEEN GROKKING BLIND AND DEAF!

Water Burned was situated on a plain near two patches of ocean. One is pretty much perpetually frozen. The other is fairly normal. The tide comes in the tide goes out there is no way for us to explain it. But thankfully the horror of that benighted place does not come from the sea. It comes from the sky instead. I will never forget the first time I saw the Evil Gloom descend from the heavens and embrace a dwarf in its’ dire fog. She started screaming almost immediately. The screams were very quickly replaced by a panicked gurgling as she thrashed and stumbled out of the gloom, blood was pouring from her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and likely other places it is not good to have lots of blood gush from and weeping in torrents from her pores. She thrashed on the ground for long seconds gurgling before blood loss mercifully ended her.

This was just one of many of these foul weathers. It killed anything it touched if even for a second. This was amply proven by the array of bizarre wild life. Giant lice, thrips, thrips men, and other various strange creatures roamed the landscape. Our hunters who managed to avoid the deadly glooms brought back strange meats and hides or the creatures got caught in cage traps and used for experiments and trade. Our nearest trading partners are the Elves. The tree licking plant lovers actually proved useful if annoying as usual. Our fort suffered losses at the hands of the gloom which descended at random in various areas of the landscape. The best we could hope to do was urge everyone inside and shut up the fort to avoid the deadly clouds. Water Burned still suffered disaster when glooms descended on the fort directly killing several instantly. Many children were left without parents and several went absolutely mad with the grief. This would not be the last time there would be tragedy.

Somewhere along the line the Madman, cultist, and dumbass known as Rotpar the thrice damned came to lead the fort. He would open up the gates to hell in a foolish attempt to appease Armok. A feat all dwarves know to be impossible. The fort would spend the next several tragic years in a futile war against the minions of hell. Hundreds would die against the hell spawn. Finally Dorku managed to fight the monsters back and seal off the underworld once more.

Dorku then passed control of the fort over and we started our escape plans. A few more dire events would transpire before we escaped that hell hole of a fort. A few incidents that will remain secret between me and Dorku occurred during his last tenure and in the time after it. Chiefly into how we procured our supplies for our escape.

We soon found ourselves on a trader caravan back to the home kingdom. We wouldn’t stay long though. Once we found out how little they cared about their fellow dwarves we decided it was time to go into business for ourselves. We started small. A few illicit stills and craft shops. We attracted the home holdings dregs and cast outs. We used “methods of callous persuasion” and “a few dwarves believed to have dived into the magma” to keep any rivals in our pocket. We soon had a tidy business running. We started bribing guards and military and even a few nobles. Our little enterprise was however soon halted. Turns out the royalty became royalty by doing exactly what we were doing. They did not tolerate competition very well.

Since we had some dirt that could make their lives rough and leave them ripe for the picking we were offered a chance to resettle a new fort. We were assured it was a prime location. Should have seen that coming a mile off. We get to the new settlement and despite it being a fetid swamp decided it was not Water Burned. Not long after we had dug into some promising sandy loam cliffs did reality of the noble’s treachery set in.

It started raining rotten shit. I could not make this up. It was like Armok had dumped the contents of his outhouse onto the landscape. Shit raining from the sky. We waited huddled under spattered glumprong trees or squatting in the fort interior. The work needed doing but no one wanted to do it amid piles of rotting shit falling from the sky. When it wasn’t directly spattering shit into the fetid ponds and all over the soggy ground outside the immediate area of the fort we worked. After a week of constant literal shit storms we decided we were going to hijack the first trade caravan from the home holds and get back in and let the nobles know exactly what we thought of them.

Nearly a full damn year. We waited almost a full year before a caravan showed up. We invited them inside to shelter from the never ceasing shit rains. It rained shit nearly year round. The guards were slipped something as were the rest of the caravan. While they slept off the drink we traded places with them. We left them in the shit swamps and made for the capital in the purloined trade caravan. Before our departure we left the shit swamp with a parting shot. We had found many barrels with various oils from the press works of the home hold in the caravan. We applied judicious use of hammers and spikes to tap the barrels. We upended the contents into the fort entrance where we had quickly walled up the members of the caravan. Now I would feel guilty if it weren’t for a set of hastily penned orders wrapped in greased leather that indicated they were to do to us what we were about to do to them. A few barrels of oil were poured down a slope up against holes cut into the wall fill the inside with oil. We placed a cask with rags stuffed into holes punched into the barrel. We then left a trail of thick oil spattered all around the foul pools. For the first time in months the shit had stopped raining long enough for us to get this ready. We created a trail the swamps edge and ran out of oil to pour.

I am not sure who tossed the torch but the fire raced along the greasy trail that was riding on the top of the water drenched soil. Soon the swamp was burning. The shit covered trees, the pools of foul water, the shit puddles, and of course the fort mouth itself was ablaze. A bright fire ball and warm flash signaled the large cask of oil had gone up and our would be assassins silenced. It is time to remind the nobles that they didn’t hold all the cards and that we fully intended to get our promised deal.

We arrived back at the home hold that had launched the Water Burned settlement. We couldn’t take the trade wagon in so we ditched itin the woods and set it on fire. While the local guards and militia were investigating we snuck back in through a smugglers tunnel. I asked Dorku to tap some of our stored ill gotten wealth and we arranged for a message. The King had an experiment where he was trying to breed an elephant with a cavy FOR SCIENCE! Anyone should know Elephants and Cavy’s don’t splice. Since they were both prized animals we decided they would make excellent examples. The king and his consort found a cavy head and Elephants’ (blacked out by several quill scratches) on their bed. The king got the message. We got a good map from the surveyor the next morning and set out. The new region is in a desert with no signs of horrifying or terrible weather. The region is however untamed and wild. The river nearby should provide ample shell fish as well as a good source of water for crops. There are several wild animal species in the river including the dreaded angry giant sponges. It is rumored that there are lions and other creatures roaming around. We will worry about them later. For now I have directed the miners to dig into the stone cliffs nearby, the wood cutter to harvest the local trees and for the herbalist to find us food to keep us going until we can get the farms running.

The oddly apt name of the fort is Beige Knife. Seemingly bland and ordinary but still highly dangerous.

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3rd Month 12th 126 With the interior of the fort started I have ordered the digging of a pit. The plan is to dig the pit then cover it with a bridge. We will later get a mechanic to connect it to a lever allowing us to drop our foes to their untimely doom. I have also dug out a work shop area to house our first workshops, a dorm, and a dining hall. We have started digging out the stockpile area and then will deposit the large stones in a pile for later use.

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5th Month 23rd 126 ROTPAR DAMNED FOOLS! We received some new migrants from the home fort. They tried to have me killed. While helping haul materials to the new food stock pile the migrants assigned to rock hauling duty pelted me violently with stones. My lower arm is broken and I was knocked unconscious. Thankfully Dorku intervened and stopped the work. I got up infuriated. They will pay a hefty price for their crimes. Their corpses will be in the river before next spring I swear it. We have finished building the bridge over the start of the pit I was bombarded in. The remainder of the large stones were deposited in a stone dump outside. I will likely have them moved to a corner of the stock pile room for use in our workshops later.

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28th Lime Stone 126

I have been pestered by a future book keeper to start using proper dates for easier tracking of events. I preferred my more simple methods but I will consent to it since they will be keeping the books soon.

More sodding migrants. While we need the warm bodies for work around the fort I need to know there will not be a repeat of the earlier assassination attempt. I am thinking I need to have a “disciplinary display” to make the new comers understand that the survivors of Water Burned are not to be trifled with.

Thankfully one of the migrants has agreed to be our mechanic. If he displeases me he will be the first demonstration of crossing us.

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20th Moonstone 126

I have picked the spot to make our “display of discipline” Once it is set up the two dwarves who tried to kill me will get what’s coming to them. I have built a trade depot and a caravan arrived shortly after. I have bribed the guards and menaced the traders into “donating their load of goods”. In the mean time the mountain home representative was of course bribed and we promised to actually trade some goods in the next caravan.

Our fisher dwarves who have been crucial in providing us with shells for crafts as well as various water borne critters for food are being harassed from the waters edge by the giant sponges. I am not quite sure how to deal with theses menaces as they just sit there in the water and menace you. There is something malevolent about their shaking. Like they have nothing but pent up rage and blood thirst boiling inside them. Even worse news is that the local anthropomorphic tribes have taken to harassing us. Wolverine People have been trying to chase down and kill dwarves while Kea People are trying to steal from us. I have ordered the setting up of cage traps to secure them. We will then decide what to do with them after we catch a few. If I have to we will make an example of them as well.

On the plus side I have started a guarded water flow into the fort and used it irrigate a section of fort for our farms. I will also make arrangements for access to water. Before I surrender my tenure as overseer I will have started the diggings for proper quarters and the start of our mines.

Ok, so "dump" means "violently throw at dumpsite" then?