Mansionpaints - The mayor is dead - 206 Early Winter by Sairait

Map Description:

The mayor is .. soon to be dead :(

He got ambushed by gobblins while laying our first road to the civilization and ran in the mountains, where a second group of goblins was hiding. Now, he's a Legendary dwarf, unbelievably tough and agile. But he got so freaked out the second time the goblins jumped on him, that he fell down from a cliff above the fortress moat. He's down there, stunned and drowning, as we speak and there's no way we can save him in time ...

I think we should start looking for a new mayor to take over, anyone up for the task ? :)

/Sairait

>---

A bit of backstory as quoted from the Mayor's logs and fortress blueprints sent to the Mountainhome in a report by the Mansionpaints Captain of the Guard, Mafol Vabokelis:

We have arrived to this valley in the middle of effing nowhere six years ago. There has been a steep mountain range on its western side and a small brook flowing on the east side. The valley was fairly flat, with plenty of trees and some wild animals living there too. One peculiar feature, which immediately caught our eyes, was this 20 stories high peak in the middle of the valley, separated from the rest of the mountain range by a several yards wide gorge. The peak was full of metal, we soon found magnetite and hematite, and even gold and platinum on the surface, so we decided to dig in and see what this place has to give us.

The first year was fairly hard, with noone knowing we're here - we obviously had no immigrants. Not that we expected anything else, but then we also sometimes observed the caravans passing in the distance from the top of our new home, so we knew there is some civilization nearby. We have soon started underground farms on the mountain base level, and brewing/cooking business to keep us healthy and running. We also had a carpenter making beds and barrels all the time and we cleaned a secure perimeter around the mountain from the trees. The furnace, smeltery and forge have been also built right away as we needed to forge some more picks a weapons from the metal we brought with us. We had also the masoners / mechanic / crafting business started on the first floor, as there was plenty of stone (including marble) to process.

When the first caravan arrived in the autumn, we had the dining hall and related facilities on the -1 floor, and first sleeping quarters four stories below underground (all of the floors were interconnected by the central 2x2 stairway leading from the top of the mountain down to the deepest levels). We traded in some gold goblets and prepared food we have mass produced for a lot of good stuff - more seeds, animals, cages, barrels and food.

At this point, we knew this was a good place to stay for at least a couple of years, so after the caravan left, we started building a reasonable defense perimeter - a moat around the mountain (filled from the nearby spring), a guard tower in front and above the main gate, and yet another moat around it - all this to create a single point of access to the whole fortress where we would lay some traps. We initially thought that we would build some outdoor fields on the slopes of our peak surrounded by some few storied high wall, but later we decided that the fields were unnecessary since we've been already now overproducing all kinds of underground plants. There were also some other projects that we had to focus on - our storage space was starting to be cluttered and we had just a few sleeping rooms, so we had to dig and furnish some more space.

The second spring, first 20 (!) immigrants arrived and were quickly assigned different jobs on the next big projects - first exploratory shafts on the -10th level, poking for the marble veins we knew will be out there (and the gems within them too), large meeting hall on -5th level and noble quarters on the same floor for our first two legendary dwarves ...

We had the mason disappear for a few weeks with a bit of hematite and wood during the first year, but everybody was so busy that we almost didn't notice before he came out with an artifact cabinet. The second year, there were much more problems ... One of the new guys was a fisherman, and he claimed crafts workshop few months after the arrival. He scooped some random items and then stopped and kept babbling about shells. Now where the hell are we supposed to get shells in the mountains ? But we've been lucky once more, as turtles have been spotted in the moat just a few days later, we caught some, forced one of the newbies to eat it raw and delivered the shelves to the crazy fisherman. Something similar happened a year later, when some other crazy dwarf required silk for his project, when we all worn pigtail rags ... we had to wait for the next caravan and then bought everything silky they had in stock.

That was the last caravan we've ever seen, too, as they have been ambushed by the gobbling on their way out, and one of the wagons got destroyed there. But the immigrants kept on coming, and we had enough of different stuff for our fellow fey dwarves, so it didn't matter that much in the end.

After six years, we now have a ten stories high marble wall around the peak (which is now also some ten stories lower, as we mined away the yummy metal top) and pretty decent defense perimeter. There are sufficient sleeping quarters and noble facilities for everyone (120 dwarves), and most of the business chains could go massproducing non-stop if required (which it's not) - bar the metalcrafting as there is no magma and we have to rely on wood and lignite, so it's happening only rarely.

The economy had been introduced 2 year ago with the arrival of the Baron (who has been since then promoted to Count and moved to the new noble-lair), but we never bothered to mince the coins. The dwarves just started building a new main avenue towards the main mountain range the last year, and we plan to build some shops and other venues there. There is a large tomb being expanded and fitted out on -6th and -7th floor (with a hidden passage leading to the Count's house), even though we have been pretty lucky and lost only a few dwarves during all those years - mostly to the goblin ambushes. Now - goblins and their sieges were never really a problem, as they usually just suicided one squad into the cage traps and seldom got farther than to the second stone trap row before scattering ... we have plenty of passive defense measures.

But the frequency of the goblin attack has been increasing in the last few years, and we had almost ceased the wood-based businesses, as we no longer want to expose the dwarves too much. We have started a first regular marksdwarf squad two years ago - consisting of our former hunters and rangers (who have hunted out the region clean), but since the insecure baron was complaining about lack of the royal guard a year ago, and mayor hastily agreed to convert the combat squad - we haven't seen those guys outside the throne hall or sober, ever. A few months ago, a squad of 6 legendary dwarves with good predispositions has been drafted into a close-range axe/hammer/sword squad. Some of the fresh newbies have been drafted to the fortress guard. Today, there are two of the rookie guys fainting in the halls because of the pierced lung, which doesn't seem to heal. Both royal and fortress guard stopped showing up in the barracks (in the entrance guard-tower) and only the legendary dwarves keep on occasional sparring ... The army could sure use some more focus in the future.

All in all, this is a pretty rich place, with plenty of space to explore and spread to. The lack of magma makes the mass production of metal goods improbable, but there should be enough wood to cover production of anything the fortress requires (unless it's the lay pewter items constantly demanded by the Countess, while we are yet to found an ore to produce that). Speaking of nobles, the Count has been ecstatic lately, and doesn't interfere with the fortress operations much - except occasional price change on some useless item. He's much more concerned with his tomb and he's been seen dragging various stuff there (including a bed).

The Mayor had a few visions about how to improve the defense of the place even more - one plan was to split the surrounding flatland into sectors divided by the water moats, with bottlenecks layed out with traps ... which would give use usually more time in sticky situations, as the ambush would be spotted earlier, and would make it safer for the woodcutters and plant gatherers. The other plan was to build a water-pump tower on the side of the walled mountain, which would fill the space between the mountain and the walls by a huge water pond, thus protecting the fortress from the attacks from above, and also possibly serving as a source of waterfall along one of the walls or some giant water-trap. The tower should have been automated and powered by a dozen of windmills built on its top.

However, since the Mayor's gone now, we have no-one to organize the future projects, and thus would like to ask Your Majesty to appoint an experienced dwarf for the position.

Yours truly,

Mafol Vabokelis
Captain of the Guard
Mansionpaints

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