Bloodline:Dathaecamo(Bluerobin427)

Maps
On embark After the first year After the second year

Here's the page for my incarnation of the parallel fort Dathaecamo! I'll update this as I play to add to the story. Also, maps from the end of each year will be posted on the DFMA and linked to the right.

Year One

(OOC: I don't really remember what happened this year and I wasn't playing to report month-by-month or even event-by-event, so this year's going to be really general and texty. The map on the DFMA tells a pretty good story with the PoIs though, so check that out.)

We finally arrived at what we were told was the ideal site to build a fort. It had most of the geographic bells and whistles that our cartographers and previous fort builders had encountered, all in one place! It even had a mountain for us to build into the side of. Unfortunately, our wagon decided that a great place to end the journey would be on the side of that mountain. At least it held up until we reached our site.

I suppose I should introduce our group. We were a group of seven inexperienced layabouts before we decided to start this expedition. Minkot Feblar was the leader of our troupe, but that was mainly decided because she was our source of capital. The seven of us had been friends since before we could remember and had grown quite close over the years. As we grew up we decided we didn't want the new responsibilities that age brought. Eventually when we had to pull our own weight, we ended up as errandsdwarves to those in respectable positions. With only a life of hauling in our future we decided to try our hands at establishing a fort for the honor of the mountainhomes. The leader of Okirbëmbul (The Elder Mechanism) Kib Logemonshen is known for being quite happy to let groups of dwarves embark on journeys to expand our dwarven influence. This is likely because we have only two major settlements and three minor ones, as well as the capital, to call our own. Minkot comes from a wealthy family and was able to borrow enough to purchase some supplies for our expedition, and we asked around to find out if anyone had found a good site for a fort.

We heard rumors of a site that was the ideal candidate and it seemed too good to be true. The more we heard about it, the more excited we got and we were determined to find exactly where this site was. We ended up having to ask the royal cartographers who, after we explained that we would take no other site, silently gave us a map. We then realized why no one seemed to know where it was. This site was halfway around the world. We were still determined to go to this site and make it our home and our legacy, though, so after we scraped together what we hoped would be enough supplies to get us to the site, we embarked on our journey.

Over the course of the journey, we discussed names for our fortress and our group. Many ideas were brainstormed and all of them thrown out. In the end, Minkot used her last scraps of expedition leader power to make an executive decision. We were to be called "The Guild of Lovers" and our fortress was dubbed Bisólbebmal, "The Peaceful Glen." She seemed very happy with the names, but the rest of us weren't as sure.

The first work done was to scout the area. It did indeed seem to be quite varied geographically. A tall peak rose above us and a pool of magma lay in the valley below. Fire imps played in the magma and we quickly decided we would have to be especially careful with them. We thought walling off the magma pool until we breached it for forges would be a sound decision, but put off that task until we were somewhat established in this new land. We noticed a level forested area at the western base of the mountain and decided that tunneling in there would be a good start.

That was when we realized the true extent of our lacking experience. We lived in a developing community and had therefore seen many tasks being done, but we had no idea how to do any of them ourselves! Stâkud Abanushul had a grandfather and an uncle who were miners and decided to take a pick and start mining. As he started carving our home, the rest of us gathered our supplies in a a stockpile in front of the entrance. Over the course of the season, we slowly got organized, dug out tunnels and rooms, set up workshops, and even furnished a rudimentary dining room. We were hoping caravans would be coming, but we weren't really expecting anything until news got back of our progress. We were training ourselves to be contributing members of a small society, simply because we had to.

Apparently news of our success got to the mountainhomes much faster than expected, as a small groups of migrants arrived in mid-summer to join us. They were not simply untrained layabouts as we had once been, though, these were honest, hard-working, tradesdwarves who had decided to start a new life in the Peaceful Glen. Their help was invaluable in speeding our newborn fortress along and progress was made very rapidly. A wing was dug for bedrooms, another area specifically for workshops and their products, and the farms were started. We also noticed large patches of sand as we were digging and decided that we should one day start glass production.

As fall arrived, we were slightly surprised to see a caravan arrive. Luckily we had prepared, just in case, and traded for some basics to bolster our reserves. The caravan leader assured us that news of our fort was reaching our home and that they would be returning next year to trade again. This was an additional happy surprise that was only reinforced when another group of migrants joined us in mid-winter. Fortunately the site of the Peaceful Glen is in a warm region that does not freeze during the winter, so they arrived in a pleasantly cool period.

This is when we decided that it would be a good idea to wall off the magma pool to contain the fire imps. Our mason and one of our original seven, Rith Rakusttusung, assured us that he could build the wall without incident. However, as he left the fort to start construction, one of the imps left the magma and climbed the mountain. When the wall was about half-built, the imp made its way back down the mountain and started attacking poor Rith. He fought bravely, but eventually sustained too many burns, and fell unconscious. The fire imp continued attacking and by the time help arrived to kill it, Rith had passed away.

We had no time to mourn, however, as the imp's last fireballs caught the brush aflame. We rushed back to the fort with Rith's corpse, as well as the imp's, and sealed the gates. Now, as winter passes into spring, the wildfire continues to rage and we are digging out a burial area that we were all hoping would not be necessary.

Year Two

This was a relatively slow and easy year, so I'll report some highlights and move on. Firstly, the mason who attempted to finish walling off the magma pool was attacked, which was the last straw. I gathered the few troops that we have (two wrestlers and a marksdwarf reported) and set out to rid our fortress of the imps. One of the three imps had wandered away from the pool, so we rushed up and took him down. The other two were standing by the edge of the pool, so I let the marksdwarf have some target practice. He took out one of them and the other ran up a ramp onto the hill nearby. The marksdwarf chased him down and the wrestlers joined in the fight to finish the imp off. If I had realized it was going to be that easy to kill the imps we probably would have just done it instead of trying to wall them off. I just hope more aren't attracted my our magma.

With the safety of the pool (hopefully) secure, tunnels were dug for forges.

When the tunnels were finished, the wall between the the tunnels and the pool were channeled out from above to avoid the need to have a dwarf in the tunnels. Unfortunately a miner that came with a recent wave of immigrants decided that he liked the tunnels and wanted to stay down there as they filled with magma. An emergency staircase was carved at the last minute, but he had remained too close to the source of the magma and died of heat exposure. His steel pick will forever remain in the tunnels under magma five hands deep.

The forges have been set up, and there is plenty of space for more. This should give our industry a jump start.

Also, we got tired of kobolds and goblins sneaking their way in to our fortress, so we chained up some dogs at the entrance. Hopefully the dogs will catch these vermin before they make their way inside in the future.

Finally, some other quick updates. We started mining exploratory shafts and tunnels in an attempt to locate the underground river that was rumored to pass through this land. No success in finding the river yet, but we have come across numerous veins of valuable metals and gems. With our new magma forges we've smelted most of the ore into more manageable bars. Much of the metal we discovered was silver, so we decided to begin construction on a silver road to welcome visitors. Our current silver reserves will be depleted before construction is complete, but I have no doubts that we will find enough to finish.

Year Three

The year started out very uneventfully. Construction on more bedrooms was started and digging continued on the exploratory tunnels. A human caravan visited in late spring and we stocked up on meat and cheese. We have plant in abundance in this place, but meat is a bit tough to come by. Then finally, in early summer, the underground river was discovered!

It's really more of an underground stream, but hopefully it will still work for our plans. With the news that the river was discovered, a large mining operation at the top of the mountain was started. This operation will yield more iron than we will be able to use in the near future, which will be hopefully be enough to finish our plans as well as create armor and weapons for our military dwarves.

By winter we had enough iron smelted that weapons for our group of 5 marksdwarves and 6 macedwarves had weapons (the macedwarves actually had 2 maces each) and most of their armor was made. The project was well underway, although our architects are largely untrained, so the going is slow. The underground river has been made safe by our marksdwarves, so further work should go unhindered.