Previous years:
TL;DR:
New Population: 131
-No dwarf deaths
-Bedroom situation stable (?)
-Security overall improved
-Mood boosters in place, nice dining room, library, and guildhalls established.
-Clothing, farming, food, and drink production all comfortably automated for the intermediate term
File here: Strike the Earth!
My Thoughts On Roomtheaters
Weight: <1 Value: Debatable
This is a dingo leather bound codex. The written portion consists of a 200 page chronicle entitled My Thoughts On Roomtheaters, authored by Sakzul 'Doubledy' Keskaldegel. It concerns The Square Gates in the year 103. The writing is quite self-indulgent, yet it has a very serious tone. Overall, the prose is amateurish at best.
"The year began somewhat inauspiciously, as I realized during a regular inventory update that the manager had been allowing the chef to cook most of the alcohol into various stews. Residents began complaining about drinking stagnant water and vomit (?!?) and making long walks to the river to drink, which of course demanded immediate remedy. New lines of communication between the bookkeeper's office and the manager need to be established, this much is clear.
As part of Mayor Itebirid's 5-year-modernization-plan I was assigned the task of streamlining the production orders and addressing outdated procedures. Once the kitchen was addressed and a hasty collection of surface plants refilled our drink supply, I quickly reformed the child volunteer system to eliminate 'yucky' jobs. Hopefully by years' end the industrial planning can be rationalized...
... midway through Granite the elves returned with a small caravan. We had very little set aside for trade, but I was able to collect up some jugs, a few cut gems, and old tattered clothing they evidently wanted to encourage peaceful cooperation between our societies. We were able to get a decent amount of exotic foodstuffs that could be brewed to bolster our reserves, as well as toys for the children, whose mood is still somewhat worrisome.
While trade was conducted the militia was marshaled to repel an invader! A large, warty tarantula, the dreaded Sluste!
Unfortunately the beast descended quickly on an isolated fisherdwarf, and an order to engrave a memorial was nearly dispatched before it was clear that this fisher was more prepared than it first appeared.
Unorthodox fighting methods, perhaps, but no one can say they are ineffective. After beating the titan to death with fists and feet he returned to fishing...
...and as the elf caravan left it was clear we had no plan for trading with the mountainhomes come autumn. Taking stock of our available workforce, it was decided that mussel shell crafts might be a viable trade good, and several crafters' stands were set up to catch up on production before their planned arrival.
Construction on a new entrance began after the mayor approved the design, a long tunnel coming from the north and down, with several narrow foot-bridges cutting over a chasm, and the longer wagon track winding around it. This should encourage hostile forces to attack over the bridges, which we can cover with traps to force them to either dodge and perhaps fall or take attrition on the approach to our depot.
During consultation the mayor repeatedly mumbled '...bridges, more bridges, bigger bridges' and was persuaded to approve the plan when a large jet bridge was added to the entryway.
14th of Slate- A weaponsmith was suddenly taken by a strange mood. Grabbing a bar of platinum they retreated to the forges, and several days later reemerged with a masterful platinum axe! This might be put to good use given to a champion or other high ranking military officer perhaps?
In addition to the now mostly-completed new defensive corridor, a plan was devised to pasture the livestock more safely and limit access to the fort from other directions. After expanding the mining workforce a series of excavations was conducted to create an artificial plateau with sides too steep to climb. Most of the pastured animals were brought to the top of it before the old depot and gates were dismantled and sealed off with stone walls. I, for one, have had enough of cleaning dingo vomit off of my jabberer-leather shoes for one lifetime....
...With the arrival of the new season came migrants, bumping the official registry list to 114. Things are getting crowded, and while we are working on plans to expand housing an immediate stopgap measure is required. To that end the mayor approved the construction of a large dormitory, hopefully large enough to handle future migrant waves while more housing is constructed.
An addition was also planned for the tavern, to have a proper dining facility. This will also allow us to clear more area for dances and performances which should increase merriment levels an estimated 45% over previous rates.
To rationalize the storage of written work (i.e. get the books off the dang tavern floor) a small library was added near the lobby. We will have to ask for more paper and written works from the next caravan.
The larger populace has created more demand for civic institutions, and several guilds have begun petitioning for official recognition. To that end we have begun a guildhall district near the main lobby, with room to expand. We unfortunately have relatively few and low quality engravers, so a temporary guild has been established in the dining hall in the hope that regular demonstrations might improve the quality of engraving available to future projects.
A farmer's guild and ranger's guild were completed before the end of summer. The latter was even gifted a newly-created legendary bone crossbow, which seemed like an appropriate decoration (and the only way to bump the value up in a reasonable amount of time).
To address the deteriorating clothing situation, and add more to our industrial output, we have begun experimenting with hemp and rope reed cultivation on the surface plateau. An interconnected series of work orders allows a small but consistent output of replacement clothing year round, which might also give us surplus to trade with the elves, since they do not like our mussel-shell crafts.
The populace evidently approves of the way Mayor Itebirid has been running things, as he was handily reelected to his post on a platform of 'no exporting high boots under any circumstances.'
... did not say so to their faces, of course, but I was not impressed with the quantity and variety of goods brought from the mountainhomes by the caravan this year. Of course they have to haul these things across the literal length of the earth, I understand this, but still. Hopefully by giving away a large surplus of mussel shell crafts we can entice them to come better stocked next year.
Still it was not a complete waste of time. We were able to buy a variety of musical instruments, cheese, foodstuffs and lye, which we swiftly converted into soap for the hospital. Finally a productive use for dingo.
We will want to continue production at high levels, because we asked for a lot of materials to come next year. I put in special requests for ores (hopefully we can turn this copper into armor-grade bronze!), leather, writing supplies, and trap components to finish the preparations on the footbridges. I also asked for cats, since we appear to have forgotten to bring a breeding pair with us. Vermin may be a problem unless we want to devote some workers to trapping.
After tripping on a hunk of rock salt for the hundredth time, Mayor Itebirid ordered the construction of a more rational storage and production district. The final plan was a series of trap doors leading down to discrete workshops, with an open storage area on the floor above. This should allow us to contain particularly moody dwarfs in the event of unmeetable demands before they can go berserk over the entire fort. The design is also able to be scaled up as needed with limited effort.
The farms and clothing industry also got an upgrade to their facilities to allow faster processing of material as it comes in. Extra capacity never hurt, especially not with the dozens of turkey poults we hatched and caged, hopefully a sustainable operation can continue into the future once they reach adulthood.
The Housing Plan took nearly half a year to draft, but it's finally ready to be built. 108 new units, to be furnished with beds and chests. Not as large as some of the previous constructions, but I think this project can be dug, smoothed and furnished before the year ends, which has a certain appeal of its own. We also included a few larger units that might be used for future officials and their staff.
We regrettably have an update on the children: While most of them have seen improvement from not being required to haul corpses and clean gore from the tunnels, poor Zulban has been on the verge of an acute psychological incident all year and has finally begun acting out. Fortunately this has mostly been aimed at bookshelves and other inanimate objects, but if the situation cannot be addressed this could become a long running issue. Children cannot be subjected to the legal system so our avenues of addressing this are limited. For now we will temporarily keep all children from doing chores, and see if this gives Zulban the space needed to improve.
... and as our famously mild winter settled upon us we were joined by what I expect to be the final immigrants of the year. Our total population has officially passed 130, a testament to the steady hand of the mayor and the hard work of the planning committee. The extra help is timely as well, since we needed to clear-cut a surprising number of trees to rush the furniture to completion before spring. Fortunately we have so many, cutting down all these trees will surely have no repercussions whatsoever going forward.
With only a few days to spare we were able to finish the project, and I am pleased to report a year with no deaths (besides a dog) and with our food, drink, and clothing supplies taken care of for the foreseeable future. The streamlined production order appears to be working with few kinks, the security situation is (to my mind at least) much improved and the population can now take advantage of modestly expanded amenities."
Recommendations for the next committee chairdwarf:
-I think I've gotten a lot of the basic necessities to a point where you can more or less ignore them, so you should have a lot of leeway to explore or delve or whatever.
-The military needs some attention. I didn't want to use steel on armor given how relatively scarce it is, so we have weapons and I expanded the squad, but it will need armor. Next fall we should get materials for bismuth bronze, but you might not want to wait that long. We have very high quality armor and weaponsmiths, I assigned the best I had to each forge so use the correct one and you should get quality products out consistently. Honestly though, I don't think we have any big military threats likely in the near term.
-Related, I was having issues getting the marksdwarfs to carry ammo? I didn't fiddle with it much though, just heads up if you decide to send them into a dangerous situation.
-The elves will probably be mad at us for all the trees we cut down, if we aren't careful they could become an active threat.
-Bedrooms have been addressed, at least for now. I've not been putting cabinets in, hoping that that clears out old clothes rather than letting these guys hoard them in a very egoist way. Further expansion, or plans to do so, is probably warranted though.
-Zulban is going to be a problem. I didn't have the heart to like, imprison a child until it dehydrates, if you also can't do that creative solutions will be necessary.
-We are getting more artifacts, and I haven't done anything to secure them. A vault or something might be good, especially since we're letting all these visitors in more or less unimpeded.
-I expect we'll be getting more nobility and demands.
-The entry footbridges have cage traps but need weapon traps to really do damage.
-We may want to tap the stream for a water reservoir we can contain in the fort.
-Choose a dwarf to nickname for yourself!
-Dig! (preferably down, I mostly dug large areas near the surface. Sorry)
Fisherdwarf with the "I would simply not get hit" mindset
I dunno if the fact the beast didn't have eyes actually made any difference or what.
I appreciated going to the effort to retrieve your weapon only to turn around and bite your assailant. Just needed it for emotional support I guess.