Part 45: by Mystic Mongol

Sankis posted:

You best not touch my tomb, jerk .

Mystic Mongol posted:

Don't tell me what to do. I'm the law in this pit in the ground.

Take this criminal dog. He thought no one'd notice that he had no jobs assigned? Fortunately, before he managed to starve himself to death, I told him (at crossbow point) that he was going to start work taming the fortress's hefty supply elephants. When that was done, he was to scour the fortress for burnt bits of dwarf left over from the battles with the demons many years ago. The tame elephants should help protect the dwarves from any sudden attacks that may occur.

I was quite unhappy to find out my three royal rooms were, in fact, one room. I was further angered to find out my bedroom/dining room/study was shared with all of the house representatives, the mayor, the hammerer... almost all of the nobles were crammed into a single room! Confusingly , they didn't seem to mind, or notice. Once my initial rage died down, I assigned the remaining homeless nobles to the room--no reason they couldn't crash on my dolomite couch. Still, I decided to spend some time making individual housing for at least a few of them.

Speaking of the hammerer, he spent the year in bed, adjusting the prices of goods so he could pretend he still had an affect on the fortress as a whole. He had apparently taken a goblin crossbow bolt to the foot--and none of the dwarves had bothered to remove it! My prayers go out to him.

Should he recover, he'll be able to maintain his role as hammerer. A hammerer, of course, doles out hammerings to criminals. One of the harshest practices of dwarven law, the result is almost always a skull split open like a ripe melon. As there are three criminals walking free in desperate need of a hammer to the face, including former commander Megor Grendel, his speedy recovery would set an excellent example to all dwarves who were considering crime, but valued having a skull.

You thought we had forgotten about you, didn't you, Mr. Grendel.

I go looking for wood and all I find is yet more mockery from the criminal mastermind. Apparently all the lumberjacks and carpenters are dead. While I agree wood represents a dangerous weakening of dwarven society, Boatmurdered is in SERIOUS need of some bins, and metal ones are difficult to make. Still, none of the workers can be spared (we have precious few haulers as is) so the fort goes without for a while. I can hear Sankis's laughter echoing after me wherever I go.

As you can see, I grew tired of his foul acts and arrested him on some trumped up charge or other. After two weeks tied next to a rotting kobold corpse by a silk rope, that miserable engraver learned some respect. When (and if!) he stops flinching whenever I walk past, I'm going to grab the <<=Steel Hammer=>> and dole out a little justice of my own.

I don't understand people who don't like elves. They don't like pansy gifts, made of bone or leather or wood. They only like trade goods made of stone, or better yet, metal. They're considerably more hardcore than the majority of the dwarves in Boatmurdered (myself and the Hammerer excluded, of course) and their gifts of cloth did much to alleviate the pants shortage we had been suffering from. I gave them very favorable trade conditions and sent them on their way.

I held a theme party in the jail. The theme was, "Clean up your act before I hurl you into the chasm." Jovility was forced, as it should be.

One of the dwarves approached me and said he wanted shells, two kinds of ore, three kinds of gem, a kind of cut gem, a rock, and some kind of wood. I told him I wanted to not listen to some simpering primadona bitch about his penacing mittens. Guess who got their way?

At least ONE of my predacesors had his head on straight. The humans arrived with the previous year's order of roughly three hundred units of booze. Another theme party was held in jail. Once again I gave them very favorable trading conditions and told them to bring more of the same next year, along with maybe some more animals.

Nothing has happened to the Miasma.

Another dwarf actually completed his project, and gained legendary skill... in engraving. Goddammit, we already have two legendary grade vandals. We don't need a third sketching pictures of demons laughing at mandrills on the wall. He was immediately put to use hauling.

Once winter rolled arround, I tried to activate the elephant pump the previous ruler had set up. A series of steel bridges now cross the lava flow at several points (so you should be able to leave it on now... also, having lava back there keeps all the Elephants from using it as a personal playground) and so the rich galena and platinum deposits behind the channel are now within reach.

Sadly, the elephant once released simply left the pump without triggering the floorswitches. I have serious doubts as to the ability of a series of 1 by 1 bridges to block anything... plus, maybe taming the elephant before releasing it was a bad idea.

The pump chamber is all ready to go... after taking this image, I added an access route to it, so if anyone wishes to simply tear out the bridges and plate of the elephant pump and start over fresh, they won't even have to shut off the lava. Also, I'd strongly suggest replacing the bridges with larger, 3 by 3 open left models. Of course, to block the elephant's passage, there's always lava... there's even a constantly active channel not too far away.

The year passed without military note (good, because we also lack a military) and without the Hammerer recovering. The fortress received no immigrants this year, had no births, and lost a few dwarves to war injuries or fey moods. However, huge swaths of metals have been mined out, many metal goods were made, a few encrusted with jewels, the nobles were satisfied, all of the legendary craftsdwarves were armed and armored, an engraved superhighway was added that goes almost all the way through the mountain, and overall Boatmurdered now looks much more attractive to immigrants. Which is good, because after all the horrible death it's going to be hard to get immigrants to come at all.

The elephants were peaceful, as all herbavores are. The mandrills would occasionally grab a piece of equipment left to rust by the defeated goblin armies. I suspect the challenge they pose was exagerated by the previous rulers.

When the new ruler arrives (sometime in the spring) I shall retire as Judicator, acting as the merciful hand of law and merely throwing randomly selected dwarves into jail for no good reason.

It's a hard job, but I wouldn't trade it for any other in the world.

Except maybe hammerer.



Oh, and to whoever filled the chasm with lava? While technically impressive, it leaves the soldiers without a good place to train. Next game, you might want to consider simply pouring the refuse in with a bucket and leveling up on what comes clawing out.

Edit:

TurnpikeLad posted

God, this game is fascinating. The dwarves at Boatmurdered have gone through some crazy shit.

I was exploring through the fortress in Adventure mode when I found this lovingly produced rendition of a Gneiss amulet in a tome that was lying on the floor. It looks similar to the amulet mentioned earlier in this thread?

Mystic Mongol posted:

That would be Rayseizure the Sweetness of Butchers, made by Boatmurdered's third legendary engraver. As if we needed two.