Part 1

War... war never changes.

The Hame of Severity waged war to gather slaves and wealth. The Blowing Cactus built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Sazir Searchdikes shaped a battered Sword of Owning into an economic superpower.

But war never changes.

In the first century war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired, only this time the spoils of war were also its weapons: adamantine and magma. For these resources the Doom of Flags would invade the Boat of Society, the Sword of Owning would annex the Mute Continent, and the Blanketed Nations would dissolve into quarreling, bickering nation-states bent on controlling the last remaining resources in the Realms of Enchanting. In 27 the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours, most of the world was reduced to cinders, and from the ashes of geothermal devastation a new civilization would struggle to arise.

A few were able to reach the relative safety of the large dwarven mountain halls. My family was part of that group that entered Palmlanterns. Imprisoned safely behind a large drawbridge under a mountain of stone, a generation has lived without knowledge of the outside world.

Life in Palmlanterns is about to change...





3rd Obsidian, 105: There is a problem in Palmlanterns: a big one. Our still has given up the ghost. We can't make another one with our limited supplies and the process is too complicated to make a workaround system. Simply put: we're running out of booze. No booze, no Palmlanterns. This is crucial to our survival, and the overseer thinks I and some of the others are the only hope we have. He wants us to go find the parts to build a new still. The overseer says that there are around 4 or 5 months before Palmlanterns runs out of booze and that the mountain hall needs a new still. I asked him where I'm supposed to find the parts but all I got was a nasty glare.

I strike out with SWATJester, Verviticus, Facial Butter, Moto42, LCQC, and MrGreenShirt. The harsh glare of the sun is blinding, and once our eyes adjust and once we stop vomiting all over ourselves we see nothing but wastelands. Well, at the very least everything that wasn't underground during the great magma flood of 27 has surely perished, so how dangerous can this be?



1st Granite, 106: In celebration of the new year I drank heavily. While we dwarves have livers the size of a child's head even I had a little too much of our supply of booze as we trekked across these blasted wastes. I was sitting atop the wagon leading the mules and having a grand old time. I started singing my finest rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Dwarven Republic (and all of its glorious profanity in uncensored form) and my boisterousness seemed to weird out the pack mules. They bolted, yanking their yoke off of the wagon and causing it to tumble down a hillside, breaking both wheels and toppling supplies everywhere. I then started yelling at the mules to come back, but then to my surprise a skeletal giant eagle itself swept down and slew the pack animals where they stood.

Skeletal... eagle...

There have been a lot of horrible sounding growls and groans from the surrounding countryside. I don't think the locals take too kindly to my vocal talents.

Well, forget Palmlanterns. This place looks to be as good of a spot as any to hunker down and figure out what to do.


Click here for the full 1095x66 image.

Sorry about the thumbnail. I play in a larger window normally and had forgotten about it when embarking. All the other shots will be in a more reasonable size.


Hastily scribbled journal entry: Leaping two-legged rhino lizards!



This whole valley is crawling with zombies and skeletons, and it appears the giant skeletal eagle is the welcoming party. We are stuck on this barren hillside with the horrible beast not even ten paces to our east hovering in the air. Everybody panics and scatters while the war dogs valiantly pursue the beast. Yeah uhh, dogs... it has wings... MADE FROM BONES.

I busy myself yelling at the miners telling them to stop being cowards long enough to dig a passageway into the wall to hide ourselves but MrGreenShirt and Verviticus won't have that shit and high-tail it to who-knows-where.



Luckily the dogs are the eagle's first target. The first dog it attacks manages to break off one of the monstrous creature's wings but then got torn to ribbons. The other two dogs then charged the flightless monster as Verviticus stopped panicking long enough to start carving ourselves a survival bunker. Finally, the eagle fell to pieces and stopped moving. Never underestimate a dog's hunger when he hasn't had so much as a bone to nibble on for weeks.

With that grisly business out of the way, I promote the dogs to the city guard and have them watch over our most important resource: me!



Charisma is not a dump stat. They'll see!


5th Granite, 106: As Verviticus and MrGreenShirt dig away I have the mason Moto42 construct a makeshift mason's workshop and promptly have him make as many doors as possible. Headshoots is officially in lockdown mode. LCQC doesn't seem to give a damn though and proceeds to go fishing at the local brook which I am sure flows with the black blood of the undead.




Wherever in Armok's name we are we've picked a doozy of a spot. We have two magma deposits and SWATJester swears he saw a chasm from the ridge we approached this valley from. There's also the BOTTOMLESS PIT TO NOWHERE too. Great, more nasty monsters to be our neighbors.


14th Granite, 106: Damn it LCQC...




LCQC got trapped by the skeletal fire imp at the edge of a cliff with no escape, barely having dodged two fireballs cast by the devious creature. With little choice, LCQC engaged the imp in combat! As he bravely charged, he took a fireball to the face before tumbling headlong into the skeletal fire imp. Where is the fire coming from? The thing is made of bones!

LCQC took a nasty beating and only cracked the right hand of the imp slightly before collapsing from the pain, probably from having his eye gouged out by a SKELETAL CLAW... ON FIRE. I briefly considered getting the fish he left behind (rainbow trout is hard to come by when you live in a subterranean vault) but decided to high-tail it back to the fortress. We've started to refer to the foul murdering skeletal fire imp as Landslantern.



Well... a rough start, but now with the doors locked and bolted and everybody safe behind, it can't get much worse... can it?