Twinklebanner - Languish Dwarf Fortress succession game

[Solmyr]

Seems like we have a sort of faction leaders now. Habbaku is leader of the nobles, Solmyr of the craftsdwarves, Jaron of military/engineers, and sbr leads the proletariat.

[Jaron]

I am the Roosevelt of Twinklebanner

[HisMajestyBOB]

That is assuming you don't end up as food yourself.

Anyway, HMBob is taking a turn?

I'll download it tonight.

[sbr]

Seems like we have a sort of faction leaders now. Habbaku is leader of the nobles, Solmyr of the craftsdwarves, Jaron of military/engineers, and sbr leads the proletariat.

I wish there was a civil war arc.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Actually I don't think I'll have enough free time to really sit down and finish a turn, so someone else can take my place.

[Solmyr]

I can have a turn but it'll have to wait until Friday or so.

[Jacob]

Looking forward to the next instalment

[Solmyr]

Quick update: hordes of goblins slaughtered by a single dwarf carrying her baby, there is a moody mason about to go berserk, and the Baroness/tax collector/hammerer have arrived, all of them female.

[Habbaku]

Quick update: hordes of goblins slaughtered by a single dwarf carrying her baby

  Yes, that would be the same girl who did most of the work in my hypothetical battle against the Goblins.  She's something else.

[Jacob]

What's going on in Twinklebanner?

[Solmyr]

I'm working on it, played up to autumn. Quite a lot of dying and noble-related annoyances.

[Solmyr]

HOLY FUCK! The winter siege has brought upon us a horde of nearly 50 goblins, some of them elite, against our army of 37, some of them wounded and others raw recruits. About to play that out. Will Twinklebanner be:

[Solmyr]

Journal of Solmyr, Guildmaster of Twinklebanner

My friend Habbaku handed over the reins of day-to-day government to me with the coming of spring, claiming that he had to spend some "quality time" in his quarters. My time was occupied with the growing industry in the recent years, so I familiarized myself with the general state of the fortress. While I have to commend Habbaku on his efficient productivity and growth, it seems to have come with its hurdles. For one, the fortress is a mess, with random clothes, crafts, barrels, and bits of food scattered everywhere. There's also a huge mechanical construction on the lower levels that seems to be some sort of water pump, but since its builder Jaron is currently lying unconscious in the barracks with a damaged spine, I won't even begin to guess its function. What's more, several craftsmen were scheduled for a prison stay for "violation of production orders", which seems to be code for not making whatever trinkets Habbaku demanded of them. Our local rabble-rouser sbr also has a pending jail sentence for "disorderly conduct" against Habbaku. Can't imagine what might have brought that on. Also, some bugger filled my room with weird pictures.

I went through our stock lists, making sure that all items that had a useful function were available and not forbidden. Haulers were instructed to collect everything that was lying loose, and a program of reserving more space for stockpiles was initiated, while existing stockpiles were cleared of rock rubble to make more space. Next I reviewed all the tasks given to dwarves. The experience was horrifying. Skilled craftsmen were assigned to hauling and some dwarves were allowed to simply idle without any tasks at all! Naturally I reassigned everyone to where their skills could be best utilized.

I must say that the fortress defenses have been organized well. I noticed that the alligator we captured a few years ago has become tame, so I ordered it to be released from its cage and placed near the entrance to help fight any invaders. The same was done with a tame wolf we got somewhere.

While I was getting the fortress into shape, Habbaku prohibited the export of battle axes.

Some snailmen and slugmen appeared and were harassing our haulers north of the fortress. Fortunately, our military quickly massacred them.

After assessing the situation further, I came to the conclusion that my predecessors relied on only one of every workshop. Frankly, I'm amazed that our productivity is at all competitive. We have six anvils just lying around in storage! Naturally, I gave immediate orders to build new production facilities wherever possible.

Jaron's machine has started to move. It seems to be propelling by force of water flow. A lever in the lower levels appears to engage the gears to pump the water out of a nearby brook, for reasons that elude me. Oh well, I'm sure Jaron had some purpose in mind. I ordered the machine turned off after a while.

Some elves arrived with a caravan soon after. They must be thrilled to see every tree in the vicinity cut down. That wouldn't occupy them for long though. As the elves were moving towards the fortress, four goblins and a human ambushed them. Much as I was tempted to leave the elves to their fate, I ordered two squads to go to their rescue. The lazy buggers did nothing of the sort, though, and the only one to answer the call was the squad captain, Mebzuth Clashmirrors the Corridors of Assembling, who singlehandedly slaughtered the invaders while carrying a baby; sadly, the baby got killed in the fighting. Seeing as Mebzuth killed most of the slugmen and snailmen earlier, she must now be the most experienced soldier of Twinklebanner. Incidentally, Mebzuth worships the dwarven goddess of happiness, rainbows, light, day, and the sun.



Unfortunately, the elf merchants were all scattered, and another ambush soon appeared, catching one of the brewers by surprise and killing him. Then a third ambush to the south! Fortunately the squads were on the ball this time and further casualties were avoided. Mebzuth scored quite a lot of kills, bringing her count to 21.

On 25th Granite, the miner Edem Besmaronul was taken by a strange mood. He claimed a mason's workshop and began sketching some pictures. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, he was unable to find whatever materials he wanted, which I suspect included cut sardonyx.

In mid-spring, word came from the mountainhomes that Twinklebanner was now a barony. The Baroness, her consort, the tax collector and the hammerer soon arrived with some immigrants. The worst part? All of them were women, which means their private rooms will need to be constructed post-haste. The miners were ordered to begin carving out the new space in the nobles' quarters and craftsmen were put to work building the necessary furniture. With the Baroness here, our fortress has fully moved on to market economy and orders were placed for minting coins. We seem to be low on silver and have no gold at all, so that's something to order from the next caravan. I've ordered to build a guarded vault for our coins.

Before long, the Baroness ordered the crafting of some billon items. Fortunately, we had some billon on hand, but that's another material we may need to get from caravans if her mightiness becomes too demanding. And of course, right afterwards, the cursed tax collector has to demand gold items. With no gold anywhere in sight, we are screwed.

Like nothing was even happening, Habbaku organized a party. Taking away workdwarves for idle pleasures!

The miner Edem Besmaronul, still in his strange mood and still unable to get whatever materials he wanted, went berserk! Leaving the mason's workshop, he applied his pick to a passing horse, which happened to be the pet of our herbalist. With one strike of his pick, Edem penetrated the horse's left front leg and stomach, puncturing its spleen and left kidney and hitting its pancreas and lower spine. The poor horse went down like a sack of horse manure. Fortunately a couple of soldiers were passing by and kicked Edem so hard that he flew right into the stone-fall trap behind him and got whacked.

With the coming of summer, the fortress looked like it was getting in order. It was then that we received word that a goblin siege force was approaching. Initial reports indicated 7 goblin crossbowmen and 9 goblin wrestlers coming. As the civilians were running towards the fortress, our squads formed a battle position on the entrance bridge. However, it soon became apparent that the goblins were too scared to approach the fortress. So our brave soldiers sallied forth, attacking the cowards.



The battle was joined to the east of our gates, near a dried-out lake. Our brave champion Mebzuth charged forward first, but soon fell dead pierced by many goblin bolts! It was a hard battle, costing us five more soldiers, but in the end the goblins broke and ran, most of them struck down.



Just as the battle ended, a human diplomat arrived. He was quickly ushered to meet with the Baroness. The meeting seemed to consist of little else than exchanging pleasantries, and the human quickly left.

With our military weakened by the goblins, new potential recruits were drafted and squads reformed to use better weapons and armor.

In mid-summer, Aban, a child of one of the guards, withdrew from society, claiming a craftsdwarf's workshop. This time we managed to find all the materials for him. Finally the kid managed to create Tradedreams, a turtle shell idol, which was pretty unexciting all in all, except for the spikes. It looks fairly valuable though, and we know what the kid will be doing when he grows up.

Autumn came without further incidents, and soon a caravan and a liaison from the mountainhomes arrived. We traded away a lot of crafts and goblin crap for some fine steel weapons. Unfortunately, Habbaku decided he preferred hauling bins to the depot instead of actually trading in it, so some other guy had to take up the trade. While it went fine at first, the merchants got tired eventually and left. Still, the liaison left a list of items he wanted from us next year, assuming anyone actually pays attention to this.



One of our hunters was killed by a sasquatch while out hunting. Our soldiers were duly sent out to kill the beast.

In late autumn, some new migrants arrived. Nobody very significant.

As our smithing and smelting industry progressed, we found ourselves with an acute shortage of coal. As the only readily available way of getting any is to burn the local trees to make charcoal, I should make a note to get some coal from the traders.

As winter arrived, we built our first shop. Habbaku soon bought it and turned it into a clothing store, where he soon began selling rotten, vomit-stained rags. Other than that we spent time beautifying the fortress, smoothing walls, etc.

A month into the winter, a new goblin army was spotted approaching the fortress. We counted an elite crossbowman, twenty-four wrestlers, two axe lords, six swordsmen, nine pikemen, and six bowmen. Upon hearing this, I knew we were fucked. I ordered every available soldier to take a stand in front of the entrance bridge and hope for the best.



The battle was bloody. Many fine dwarves died that day, but they also took many goblins with them. One of the goblin axe lords, Bax Stolensilence the Blowing Humor of Thorns, took many dwarven lives but was finally shot on his right hand and chased off by the hammer lord Iton Glazesqueeze - the cowardly goblin fled the area too fast.



With their leaders dead or driven off, the rest of the goblins soon followed. But the price was heavy - sixteen soldiers, many of them skilled veterans, lay dead on the field before the gate. Their sacrifice saved Twinklebanner, but more goblins would soon follow.



On 20th Opal, Baroness Nish Steamswords gave birth to a baby girl, who was named Rakust Claspedgrizzles.

As spring arrived, the dwarves are busy cleaning up and storing all the gear left from the battle. With this I end my term as Overseer. May the next one have less goblin problems.

The save file is here: http://www.mediafire.com/?zyjx2gzygno

[Jaron]

Wow! What a glorious battle! Is poor Jaron's spine healed yet?

Who is next? sbr?

[sbr]

What a bloody fight.

Who's next?