Part 31: by StarkRavingMad

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Astronautonomicron posted:

Sorry I failed to schedule my DF time properly.

Nothing really important happened during the seasons I played anyway so someone might have better luck with interesting updates.

[Editor's note: At this point, Astronautonomicron became unable to complete his turn. The fortress was reverted to the end of Sankis' turn and was handed over to Unknowing as if Astro's turns had not happened. In the resulting downtime, StarkRavingMad went on an exploration of an alternate universe Boatmurdered in Adventure mode, to check out the detail on the artwork our dwarves had created thus far.]

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StarkRavingMad posted:

INTERMISSION


Journal of Ushav Birtarenal, human archeologist

Entry 1:
After long searching, I believe I have finally found the ruins of the Dwarven fortress that was hypothesized to have been in the Smooth Points of Pride. According to the ancient journals we found, it was called Koganusan in the Dwarven tongue, which roughly translates to "Boatmurdered." It is unknown from what that name derives. How excited the guild will be! We have been looking for this outpost for some time now, as it may shed some light into the historical events of the time period around 1050. Perhaps I can find some old records or journals in here which will be instructive.

I will proceed immediately into the cavern and see if this is indeed the remnants of the fortress.

Entry 2:
It is better than I could have hoped! The fortress is truly grand, this must have been an outpost of great value to the Dwarvish kingdom. I cannot yet tell how deep into the mountain it goes, but it appears to be quite vast. And even more importantly, the Dwarves preserved their history, not in books, but in the stone of the fortress itself! Many of the surfaces are engraved with depictions of the historical events of the time. I will endeavor to determine what some of these pictures mean, and document them via descriptions and charcoal rubbings to take back to the guild for entry into the Great Histories.

I cannot imagine why no one has documented this before!

Entry 3:
It appears that the people of Boatmurdered encountered great sorrow. Apparently they had enormous amounts of trouble with the local pachyderms:

These are just a representative sample. There are dozens and dozens of engravings of dwarves being struck down by an seemingly-endless herd of legendary named elephants. The slaughter must have been unimaginable. I cannot conceive of what they must have done to engender this much hatred from the elephants.

It seems they did fight back, and eventually triumph against the elephants, however.

So the great elephant attacks do not provide a clear reason why Boatmurdered was eventually lost. Their numbers were probably weakened by these elephant attacks however. And it seems some dwarves died from their wounds or from starvation or dehydration while wounded:

Entry 4:
Apparently, the Mandrill was the official symbol of the Dwarvish civilization.

The dwarves of Boatmurdered were capable of great feats of artistry and craftsmanship (or should I say craftsdwarfship, ha ha). There are engravings of great artifacts being crafted:

I found some old coins, also of great artistry, depicting trade relations between Boatmurdered and other Dwarven locations:

Entry 5:
Wait, I hear sounds from deeper within the fortress! Perhaps some remnant of the ancient civilization lives yet! Could the dwarves merely have retreated deeper into the mountain and cut off their ties with the outside world? This is fascinating! I will go see what is making these noises immediately.