Increasingly More Horrifying

So these dwarves have it pretty tough.

Remember that Minotaur? That Minotaur was no problem. They took it down without a single casualty! What they didn't notice, however, was the goblin making off with one of the children. Oops!

Some time later, a forgotten beast appeared, some sort of giant worm-like monstrosity that gave off clouds of fiery ash. I thought, "No problem! It'll have to cross the Bridge of Death to get anywhere near my dwarves!"

But of course, it could fly, so it just flew around and killed about thirty dwarves. What followed after it was miraculously slain was what's known as a "tantrum spiral" where depression and misery create a vicious cycle and dwarves are driven to suicide. It's gotten far worse than I've ever seen it, where one dwarf really lost his marbles, killed another dwarf, and then made a cage from his bones.

Razorpartners

Before this particular fortress falls, I should probably blog about it.

The idea behind this fortress is inspired by a megaproject you can find in the Bay12 forums here.

My first goal was to play around with machinery a lot more than I usually do, and what I ended up creating was a sort of vertical moat. A three-storey shaft that I can flood and drain at a moment's notice, hopefully to deter invaders and keep the fort relatively clean.

The Vertical Shaft

Here's the entrance floor. It starts with two water-wheels pumping power down into a series of gear assemblies buried in the ground. The water that gets drained into the shaft is pumped out one level above this one back into the river.

Now, one level below that, we have where the water enters from. The floodgate controls whether or not we're going to be pouring any water inside. We can also see part of the vertical axle transferring power down to an even lower level and the pump stack to the north just waiting for water.

The grates surrounding the stairs is to ensure the water really fills the entire shaft. If it was just stairs, it would take longer to drain, but at present it drains in an instant.

The next level down is where I transfer the power from the gear assemblies to the pump stack. As you can see, there are long horizontal axles and a gear assembly connecting the whole mess. Gear assemblies are necessary to control the flow of power and take a bit of power themselves, so it's always best to be as conservative as possible with them.

It's open in the image, but there's a gate that closes the shaft off to prevent undue flooding. As it's the only entrance to the fortress, I keep it open most of the time.

And finally, the bottom floor. Without removing any grates or constructed floors, this floor is inaccessible except to the water. When the shaft fills up, this is the bottom and the access point to the pump stack. This way, it ensures that the stairs will not remain wet for very long once the pumps are accessed. There's a currently-open gate that blocks the water from being pumped out immediately.

As you can see, the mud has caused fungus to start growing.

This is the floor above the entrance, showing the very top of the pump stack and the drainage pipe that dumps everything back into the river.

So far, this piece of working machinery has been utterly useless, but it works just as I intended it to. The floodgate to let water in, the gate to enter the rest of the fortress, and the gate to let the water out are all controlled from the temporary fortress. Once the main fortress can have dorfs living in it, a more permanent solution to controlling these gates will be devised.

The Bridge

I want this fortress to be hard to access by invading armies, and the vertical drain shaft is not meant to be the main line of defense. I am building a giant underground bridge that will contain three means of defense: first, the massive walkway will have a retractable bridge on either end, so I can trap invading gobbos as they march across. Second, the western wall across the gap with have fortifications carved into it, on the other side of which will be ballistas. Finally, above the bridge will be a reservoir with ten hatches that will release water onto the invaders and hopefully wash them over the edge.

Here is the reservoir directly above the bridge, currently empty but all hooked up and just waiting to be filled with liquid:

Mishaps And Toil

So far, the construction of the fortress has gone with relative ease. The population has done nothing but climb, and I can count only two real misfortunes: one was a baby that was kidnapped by a goblin before I could get any cages up, and the second was a wild horse that broke into the temporary fortress and killed our Animal Caretaker.

The reason I decided to suddenly record our unfinished progress is because of this:

A minotaur has appeared!

Our military is 19 strong, which is decent, but they are all extremely green. I recruited only migrants with some military training, but we are sorely lacking in arms and equipment. The only other combat they've seen was that horse and a goblin thief, who broke a dorf's ankle with a whip and then ran away.

So just in case this minotaur is the end of Razorpartners, this is a record of what's happened so far.

The date is 7th Malachite, 253, Mid-summer.

The Little Fortress Of Horrors

1st Timber, 256, Late Autumn

Dear god this is horrifying.

The tantrum spiral has slowed with the influx of new dwarves. The older ones are losing their minds as all their old lovers/friends/rivals keep dying on horrible ways, and the misery drives them to suicide or homicide. It affects the children the hardest as they lose parents, but then the moment they go berserk and start attacking people, they are torn apart the dogs we trained for war.

Only the dogs.

All the dogs just leap at the children, shaking them until they bleed to death.

So there's that going on.

Also, our old mayor finally died from melancholy, along with our legendary miner that got in a fist-fight with the brewer and caught an unfortunate blow to the temple. Soon, there won't be a single original dwarf left.

More importantly, though, I'm about to throw the switch.

The switch is connected to a system of water-wheels and windmills all powering water pumps that will pump water through a series of hallways. The water-pumping will be automated, so once it starts, I won't be able to  turn it off short of destroying the pumps.

Another switch will open a floodgate which will allow water to pour into the entrance-way of the fortress, where all the traps are. If I manage to trap enemies in there, I'll be able to dump them into the moat and watch them drown. The only downside to this system is that I won't be able to retrieve the equipment of fallen foes, but that's just being greedy.

Also, since it's a closed system, I don't know if the water pressure won't just make the whole thing explode.

Welp, time to find out!

Fracturing Sanity

26th Slate, 256, Mid-Spring

Migrants! Migrants have arrived after a lengthy dry-spell. For once, I'm, actually glad to see them. We are currently at 67 dwarves, and about half of those are in the military, meaning construction and things have slowed down considerably.

Let's see how many were fooled attracted by the promise of starting a new life here in Coalclinched.

1st Felsite, 256, Late Spring

Nineteen new faces! Among which were a couple of competent markdwarves, one competent military tactician, and one student. All of them now bolstering our military numbers.

We are at a population of 86 now. I'm going to assgin the vacant bedrooms to some of these newcomers and let the rest share the beds in the dormitory.

22nd Felsite, 256, Late Spring

An ambush!

It rarely fails: a caravan arrives and then goblins attack. I'm starting to suspect maybe the goblins follow the caravans in?

Anyway, I'm going to call for a general retreat and see how my traps and elven merchants deal with this. I'll keep the rest of the dwarves on stand-by.

26th Felsite, 256, Late Spring

We lost four dwarves to the ambush, but the traps at the front gate have proven effective.

The center is full of weapon and stone-fall traps, but goblins are adept at dodging these, so they're also lined with cage traps. This results in the goblins avoiding the traps and leaping right into the cages!

Looks like we've got plenty more fodder for our arena!

1st Hematite, 256, Early Summer

We survived the ambush, but the fortress is currently going through something of a tantrum spiral. A marksdwarf was killed in his bed by an angry hammerdwarf, and now even the militia commander has lost it! Hopefully not too much damage will be done before everyone calms down...

7th Hematite, 256, Early Summer

Although the worst of it seems to have passed, Zaneg Mengemen, the hammerdwarf-murderer, has gone completely insane and stark-raving mad. This is bad news for several reasons: first is the obvious damage this dwarf can do while mad. Second, if anyone is attached emotionally to said dwarf, they may also throw a tantrum once we put down Zaneg.

Although... no, okay, we're okay. Looks like Zaneg is only running around babbling, not actually hurting or destroying anything. I guess all the death that's surrounded her and her actions were just too much! Besides the one dwarf she accidentally killed in her fit of rage, she also has a troll to her name.

But now, there's nothing to do but wait until she dies of dehydration...

9th Hematite, 256, Early Summer

Well, it appears I may have spoken too soon!

Zaneg was standing on the only bridge out of the fortress, babbling like crazy, and I didn't think anything of it. Imagine my surprise, then, when she destroyed said bridge! Now everyone is stuck inside the fortress!

It's just lucky no one actually fell into the moat!

13th Hematite, 256, Early Summer

This tantrum spiral is never-ending! Now a woodcutter in the military has gone berserk! It was in the middle of practice, so he's surrounded by armed dwarves, but also filled with insane rage. I hope he goes down without much of a fight.

Oh crap, he's armed with a battle-axe.

This may get messy.

16th Hematite, 256, Early Summer

Okay, so he went down easy, but no one is happy about it. In the hopes to calm everyone down, I've scheduled no training for a bit. At least until everyone cheers up a little.

Maybe if I put statues in everyone's rooms...

19th Malachite, 256, Mid-Summer

This is a dark year for Coalclinched! The tantrums are still going, but diminishing in severity. Bembul, who was jailed a while ago, has been struck with melancholy and refuses to drink. Alath, a planter that was also jailed for a number of tantrum-related crimes, was accidentally killed when her sentence of a beating was carried out.

Also, those elvish merchants I mentioned during the ambush? I accidentally offered them something made from wood and they left in anger.

Through all this misery and death, a woodcutter was taken by a fey mood and constructed a most awesome throne, bearing the carving of Mosus lifting the crown he made three years earlier.

5th Galena, 256, Late Summer

The mayor has been struck with melancholy! This bodes especially bad as she was quite well-liked by many, many dwarves. Beloved by children, especially, and we even managed to meet most of her demands!

Times are tough.

27th Galena, 256, Late Summer

Wow, things just got really dark. One of the many children of the fortress just went berserk, flying into a violent rage.

I'm not sure if I should just let it run its course or take it down.

28th Galena, 256, Late Summer

Ouch.

Dark Days

7th Obsidian, 255, Late Winter

This year has been both good and bad. Traders have returned and survived to tell the tale of Coalclinched. With the previous demise of other trade caravans, migrants feared the worst and none of them showed up this year. This allowed a bit of relief in pressure on the resources, but our numbers are also dwindling. We are down to 66 dwarves. 91 was the height of our population.

Since the last slaughter of our military, I've recruited whoever I could to train in defense. There's the main squad, now led by a hunter ever since the untimely death of Zon's replacement, Rith. It was a rather embarrassing death and could have been avoided entirely.

You see, we have an arena where we take captives and fire down at them from the safety of a balcony. I had loaded up the arena with four goblins and two trolls and let the marksdwarves have at it. Unfortunately, one of the Trolls managed to break through the floodgate that normally keeps them safely trapped within and bore down on poor Rith. The troll was taken down as well, but not before it inflicted mortal wounds on the new Captain of the Guard.

As such, not everyone is happy to be in the military. The most extreme example of this is Bembul Isulzefon, who just recently threw a tantrum from being so unhappy. In her rage, she threw a rock at a dog and then hit a guy in the head with her shield, killing him almost instantly. She was quickly kicked out of her squad and the Captain of the Guard grabbed her, kicking and screaming, and dragged her all the way to our jail.

There she will remain for 255 days.

A Great One Passes

7th Limestone, 254, Late Autumn

The years are getting harder, but we're fighting on.

Earlier this year, we were attacked by goblins riding all manner of things. Giant Olms, Cave Crawlers, Giant Alligators... and they were accompanied by a whole squad of Trolls. We managed to fight them off with the help of a human caravan, but we took some losses. Zon remains alive and in charge of the military, but we're going to have to replenish our numbers soon.

In the meantime, we have a bit of a textile industry going. This means there's a dwarf going down into the caverns below to collect spider silk. During one of these forays, a downward passage was discovered into some dark, unknown cave.

I'm tempted to explore it, but I'm afraid of what  I might find down there...

17th Moonstone, 254, Early Winter

My cavern explorations were interrupted by a force of vile darkness. It struck as we were far too unprepared. We managed to fight them back, but the battle cost us Zon who had given birth to yet another little girl. It's now up to her husband to raise the three kids.

I believe in her honour, and the fall of the entire other military squad, I am going to instigate a training regiment that will include the entire fortress. Every dwarf will be available for defense next time there's a siege. This will affect productivity, sure, but it'll ensure there'll be a "next time".

WAR

16th Timber, 253, Late Autumn

A vile force of darkness has appeared! And this, only days after Zon, my captain of the guard, has given birth to a girl!Congratulations!

Over the horizon, it appears that the force is a group of axe-wielding goblins, one of which is riding an elk bird. This shouldn't pose too much of a threat against my sniper squad, but we'll see how it goes.

First things first: everyone back to base before I close up the drawbridge! Next, get the military in position. The squadron known as the Glee of Lashes is made up of migrants that had some experience with combat before they showed up, while the Tombs of Stilling are the snipers. The Tombs will be positioned on the second floor of the outer tower while the Lashes are going to wait inside, just in case.

The bridge goes up before any invaders are able to reach it and my military gets into position. With no clear path into my fortress, the invaders appear confused and unsure. Time to adopt an old tactic: lift the bridge up-and-down constantly to lure them forward.

28th Timber, 253, Late Autumn

We've broken the siege!

It went flawlessly. They weren't taking the bait with the bridge, so I left it down to let them come at us. They charge forward and were met with a hail of bolts which tore through their numbers. Bolstered by this, my melee squad rushed out and met them head-on.

We scattered them almost immediately as they continued to be peppered with bolts. We destroyed them completely and didn't take a single casualty, though we're not without wounded.

Time to lick our wounds and grab the spoils of war!

12th Moonstone, 253, Early Winter

Two dwarves are in the hospital for leg-related injuries they sustained in the siege, but otherwise all seems well.

Zon has earned herself the title of "Authoredclasp the Enchanted Brigand" and currently has over 21 kills to her name. Thirteen of those are due mostly to her time as a hunter before being placed in charge of the military, but the other nine are all goblins.

In addition to this, she remains happily married to Nish Sengetur, a mechanic, and together they have two children: the daughter Zon gave birth to just before the siege and a son who is a gifted boncarver. And by gifted, I mean Legendary. They also have a pet cat.