Work finally begins on the new, larger dining hall. It’s deep in stone where it belongs and it’s going to be properly smoothed and engraved with tales of our local heroes. It will also have a massive kitchen just across the hall.
The old, far inferior dining hall
New excavations are well underway
Migrants have arrived and it’s time for more beds! The group is primarily fisherdwarves, which is no surprise given our coastal location. There are also animal trainers and, best of all, one siege engineer and one beekeeper! I have no idea what to do with them but I’ll do my best to put their talents to good use.
A new year begins with a fresh outlook and a quick audit of the resident nobility that have shepherded the fort thus far. Here are some of the traits of the best among us. These are the elite few with the vision, dedication, perspicacity, and stubbornness to do what must be done for all dwarfkind!
Led Enamalath – Manager
has a quite poor focus, finds nature somewhat disturbing, doesn’t see cooperation as valuable and doesn’t particularly respect commerce, tries to keep things orderly, sometimes acts with little determination and confidence, quick to anger, doesn’t try to get things done perfectly, talks to inanimate objects when there is a lull in the conversation
As Ottarzuglar – Militia Captain
does not enjoy participating in physical confrontations, does not really value skills related to fighting
Deduk Obokbavast – Bookkeeper
doesn’t respect commerce, doesn’t feel strongly about the law
Ezum Zafalletmos – Mayor
thinks she’s fairly important in the grand scheme of things, incurious and doesn’t seek out knowledge or information, does not go out of her way to help others, tends to be passive in discussions, sees life as unfair and doesn’t mind
Or they could just be whoever we had standing around with free time on their hands when the positions needed to be filled.
In addition to Highly Effective Nobility, the fort has inherited more than 400 wooden splints, almost 100 of which are Masterworks. Confidence in our military is, perhaps, not as high as it could be. With this in mind, I’m setting out to create a hospital. The hospital will require a freshwater well and a new source of water, since we’ve settled by the sea. Excavations are already underway.
The mayor has started to demand decent accommodations, and since no dwarf worth his salt could be happy living in a room carved from sand, we started excavating new living quarters deeper in the earth, where the rock walls can be smoothed and engraved with detailed pictographs. 
the new living space is coming along nicely, and perhaps when it is done we can start moving our other operations to a deeper, more dwarfly setting. Being near the surface was convenient at first, giving us access to fish and wood, but we dream of a home cut from stone.
We continue to mass produce splints, which our envoy from the mountainhome promises will fetch a good price next autumn. Our larder is full of meat, fish, and mushrooms, and our barrels overflow with dwarven wine.
things are looking better and better each day… except for those damn kea that keep getting into our fortress. It turns out they can fly, so we may want to close off that skylight and secure the entrance to the animal pen on the surface.
The animals we purchased from the merchants don’t seem to be happy living in the cages they came in, they seem to much prefer running around outside where we keep our refuse, so we built a pen for them there with a nice little lake in the middle for the ducks to swim in.
Today our bookkeeper was fetching some gabbro down at the deepest depths of our mining operations (sometimes a good dwarf just needs to get down as deep as possible). While down there he was surprised to find a wolf and her pup roaming about. he dropped his wheelbarrow and fled back to safety. Our military squad, the Amazements of Mirroring were dispatched and took the two of them out without any injuries. Wolf steaks will be served in the dining hall this evening!
Some Kea got into the fortress and made off with some of our precious weapons and ammunition. The entrance the the fortress has been rebuilt with a few weapon traps, stonefall traps, and cage traps to stop intruders in the future. The trade depot had to be moved to a less secure location for now, but we can worry about fortifying it later. for the time being we haven’t seen any merchants yet this year, possibly because the forest has become overgrown with trees, preventing access to our depot.
Additionally we had some new migration waves. more bedrooms were constructed, the dining room expanded. A band of rangers were conscripted into military service for their skill with dodging, weapon, and armor use.
Some of us have really taken a liking to fishing, even some of the miners are angling for salmon in their downtime. Who knew grabbing fish with your bare hands could be so much fun? We’ve amassed many a barrel of raw fish, but find the creatures to be unpalatable. Lolar Vutokniles discovered that they taste a lot better when you remove the bones and scales first, so he decided to set up a fishery to start cleaning the hundreds or dead fish we collected over the past year. As fun as it it may be we’ve decided that fishing as a hobby should cease, and only a couple of designated fisherdwarfs should continue to collect more raw fish until our fishery workers can reduce the current stock. in the meantime the miners will have to occupy themselves with more traditional subterrainian, dwarfish pastimes such as drinking and fighting, etc.
Former broker Ast úshrirasmel was found dead today on the surface south of the fortress entrance, cause unknown. Clearly he had some psychological issues, so little attention is paid to this discovery. Nonetheless, we’re in the process of digging out a cemetery to honor his inconsequential memory.
A caravan from Nish Oshur has arrived. All of our crafts and gems up were brought up to the surface for trade. The traders have instructed us to build lots of toys, which will apparently fetch a high price in Mountainhome.
Our broker, Ast úshrirasmel, has somehow gotten himself stuck in a tree and can’t make it to the depot to conduct a trade. He has been fired and replaced with someone more earthbound.
We’ve managed to pick up some metal tools and weapons, a few live animals for slaughtering, and an assortment of fine cheeses for a banquet later.
