Spring & Summer 1054, in which a we meet the son of a vampire, the elves deliver warning to our baron, an ancient evil is heard in the deep, and a vile force of darkness arrives from the steaming jungles.

Warning from the Elves

Now that Alegate is a barony, it has become a point of diplomatic contact between nations. It is expected that the elven Druid will send a representative in the spring, and the human Law-Giver will send a delegate in the summer.

Thus it was not surprising when Sidaya, elven diplomat, arrived on the first of spring.

Alegate had prepared for this. A great audience chamber had been hollowed out in the Baron’s chambers, and polished to near-mirror smoothness. The chambers were still being outfitted with furniture, and the wall engravings were not complete, but the audience chamber was already impressive. Baron Maltose waited for his guest by the heavy cinnabar throne. He wore his best carved langur- and turkey-bone bracelets for the meeting.

Baron Maltose was prepared for a friendly greeting. He had spoken to the bards and learned that the elven diplomat was nine centuries old, and had lived most of his life as a philosopher. When the diplomat spoke, Baron Maltose heard this:

With that, Sidaya left.

Alegate has been heavily dependent on lumber. With the area’s lack of coal, furnaces have been burning day and night to produce charcoal. The charcoal is needed to bake and glaze brew pots, to smelt ore, to bake bricks and to power the forges. With the new geothermal smithing facilities atop the magma sea, the fuel is no longer needed for smelting or forging, but it is still needed in as an ingredient for steel. And now that the carpenters are busy building beds, chests, and cabinets for everybody, Alegate still needs enough wood that there is usually a woodcutter on the surface, bringing down trees.

The rich forest around Alegate grows back quickly. Every year, in addition to cutting trees for lumber, trees near the walls and just across the chasm must be cut to keep them from becoming ways to climb into the fort. The wood cutters have also been working to keep trees clear of the paths that traders’ carts must use to reach the fort.

The elven diplomat made no specific threat, nor did he say what exactly constituted “disrespect”. Perhaps next year’s visit will be more informative. For the time being, there was not war with the elves, as evidenced by the arrival of the regular caravan from elven lands.

The Forces of Darkness Arrive

On the second day of spring, Marksdwarf Dastot was in the forest southwest of Alegate. Her squad had patrol duty through the end of winter, and southwest was the direction from which kobolds always approached, and also the direction in which a goblin child-snatcher had once been spotted.

The scouts with spring duty were already on patrol, some of them with dogs. It was time to return to Alegate, and she knew there would be a festival starting when she got back. Perhaps she would make a toast to the smiths who had forged her copper helm. It still bore a dent where it had saved her from a mauling years ago.

But she had waited too long to head back.

First Encounter

Marksdwarf Îton was at the southmost part of the patrol area when the goblins arrived. They wore hyena hides and giant toad leather. Some carried crossbows or bows. Others wore primitive copper or iron armor, and carried melee weapons of every description. The leaders wore decorated helms:

Îton was surrounded in moments. He only had time to shout the alarm before a silver mace broke his leg, then smashed his hand. A swordsgoblin then ended Îton’s life with a copper scimitar. This swordsgoblin’s name was Lesserspider.

Martial Trance

Dwarves are given to slipping into mental states unknown to other races. One example is the “strange mood”, wherein they become oblivious to normal motivations, such as hunger and thirst, and become entirely focused on the creation of some object of art. The other example is the “martial trance”, which can happen at moments of extreme danger. The martial trance focuses all the dwarf’s creativity and skill on combat for a time, and nothing can distract them from assaulting their enemies until they are exhausted or run out of enemies.

That early spring day, Marksdwarf Dastot did not enter a martial trance. She saw what happened to Îton. She heard the squad leader shouting to pull back to the fort. The goblins were between her and the fort. With discipline, she moved away from the goblins (farther from the fort) while arcing crossbow bolts at the enemy squads. Her shots were accurate, but by bad luck her copper bolts struck the lead goblins’ armor, and bounced off. That bruised the goblins, but did not stop them.

Marksdwarf Kozi, who had been standing next to Dastot, did enter a martial trance. She charged a group of thirty goblins, holding her crossbow like a club. The goblins reacted with a cloud of crossbow bolts and arrows, many of them made of silver. Kozi dodged them all.

A goblin with a pike was the first to engage Kozi. Kozi sidestepped the pike and rained blows on the pikegoblin with the butt of her crossbow. The pikegoblin’s hides and copper chainmail absorbed the impacts, but the pikegoblin could not get in a counterattack. Soon Kozi whacked her enemy in the head. This did no damage through the helmet, but the violence of the blow was enough to snap the pikegoblin’s neck.

Kozi clubbed a crossbowgoblin in the iron chain leggings so hard that the enemy’s knee was ruined. Then Kozi tackled another pikegoblin, latched her jaws around the goblin’s gauntleted wrist, and shook the arm around around hard enough to destroy shoulder ligaments.

Kozi was surrounded. She deftly parried attacks from multiple opponents and still managed to punch a goblin in the hip solidly enough to lame him. Occasionally one of the enemy archers would send a bolt or arrow Kozi’s way, and Kozi dodged every one.

No dwarf can exert themselves like that forever. Exhaustion overcame Kozi and the martial trance expired. She was slain with a pike, a spear, and an iron whip. Kozi would not be returning to her sister in the fortress.

 

 

Alegate Mobilizes

It was fortunate that the citizens were mostly underground for the festival. Other than the scouts patrolling the forest, only a few were on the surface when the alarm sounded, and they were near the walls.

Captain Meng ordered all military to gather inside the walls. There were two squads of dwarven heavy infantry, well-eqiupped with metal armor, shields, and a mix of weapons. There was one mixed squad of goblins and humans, who wore patchy armor. There were also three squads of lightly armored marksdwarves, with members of two of those units caught outside the gate.

None of the squads were complete. There were off-duty soldiers climbing the lead stair from the lower levels, and there were soldiers still running in from the training field north of the fort. Captain Meng himself was dizzy, as he was still not used to fighting under the sun. The leader of the second heavy infantry squad was in the same condition.

The captain had a decision to make. There were two score goblins coming through the forest, organized into squads of ten. If all his soldiers were organized and ready to go, he would have a slight numbers advantage. But he had maybe half his force ready at that point. He could shut the west gate, dooming the scouts but protecting the rest of Alegate. Or he could leave that gate open, slaughter the fastest enemies as they entered the fort, and shut the gate once the scouts were in.

He chose the last option, and sent the archers up into the northwest tower. Its battlements were complete.

The Last Two Scouts

Marksdwarf Dastot made it onto the western ridge. The treetops blocked her view of the goblin army. Atop the ridge she encountered Simo, another Marksdwarf. They chose to run north along the ridge, and try to make it back to the fort before the bridge was raised.

The two lightly armored marksdwarves were able to move faster than the approaching army. As they got below the trees again, they could see several of their fellow scouts make it safely across the drawbridge. Of the scouts who still lived, Dastot and Simo were the farthest from safety. Simo was a short distance ahead of Dastot.

When the pair entered the area that had been cleared of trees, the enemy launched arrows and bolts their way. The attacks missed, and the marksdwarves shot back while running. Dastot’s bolt found its mark in belly of the nearest goblin archer.

It looked like they would make it. Ahead of Dastot, Simo was on the quartzite road, almost at the bridge. But then a speargoblin, faster than the others, caught up with Simo. At the same time, a goblin wielding a bloody scimitar caught up with Dastot and struck her. It was Lesserspider.

Dastot tried to get across the bridge, but she could not outrun Lesserspider. She was slashed from behind a second time, then a third.

Dwarves Plan, Gods Laugh

Captain Meng saw this from inside the fort. Neither of the scouts were going to make it. He was not going to send his soldiers out to fight on the bridge, where a mis-step would mean drowning, and where they would be exposed to enemy archers. He hated the idea of watching the scouts die, but he steeled himself. The best plan was to let the lead enemies cross the bridge, then raise the bridge and defeat them in detail.

But Meng had not planned on the dog.

Îton, the marksdwarf who had called the alarm and before Lesserspider struck him down, had a war dog. The dog had not been with Îton at the moment of the attack. Perhaps the dog had sensed his master’s demise and was just now arriving at the surface. Or perhaps the dog had no idea what was happening, and was simply reacting to seeing a friend attacked. Whatever the reason, that war dog shot out from the massed defenders like a crossbow bolt.

The dog raced through the western gate and across the bridge. It was charging right at the speargoblin, barking loudly. The speargoblin, who had been about to stab the marksdwarf Simo in the back, switched targets to the charging dog. The dog ran onto the spear and was wounded horribly.

Marksdwarf Simo, saved by the war dog, made it the rest of the way across the bridge. But she did not go through the gate. She stopped at the fortress end of the bridge, and began to reload her crossbow.

The Avalanche Begins

The dog was not the only one to break ranks. A wandering mercenary, who had been visiting the Drowned Langur, happened to have been leaving when the attack began. This wanderer saw enemies at the gate, and had no reason to follow the local captain’s orders. The wanderer drew a huge copper sword — it was a greatsword of human make. Only the largest of dwarves can wield such a weapon, and this wanderer was such a dwarf.

The speargoblin who had slain the war dog turned his gaze toward the fortress in search of the fleeing marksdwarf. Instead of the marksdwarf, he saw the massive wanderer, and the greatsword was already swinging. The speargoblin was able to catch the attack on his copper gauntlet. The low-quality metal of the sword was not enough to pierce the armor, and a duel ensued at the west end of the bridge.

Back in the fort, despite Meng’s commands, soldiers were starting to act on their own. Archers, on their way to the northwest tower, had to pass by the west gate. As they did, they saw the fight on the bridge, and began to shoot from inside the courtyard and forget about climbing the tower stairs. A human mercenary, wielding a greataxe, ran out to help the wanderer. Right behind him were a dwarven lasher and one of the best axedwarves, who had earned the title “axe lord”.

What had begun as a single dog crossing the bridge was becoming a general rush to do exactly what Meng had wanted to avoid — fight dangerously at the banks of the river, in full view of the enemy archers. And many of his own archers were shooting from exposed positions near the gate, instead of from the cover of the fortifications.

Caught in the Middle

Marksdwarf Dastot had not reached the bridge. She was painfully wounded, Lesserspider was right behind her, and arrows and bolts were flying in from the south. Even if, by some miracle, Lesserspider did not kill her in the next few seconds, the main body of the goblin armored infantry was about to reach her position. She did not expect to see her husband again.

But she had not been forgotten. Some of her fellow marksdwarves had made it to the northwest tower, and one of them did this:

And so Dastot got that miracle that would give her a few more seconds of life. She expected to be slain by the main force of goblins instead. But she had forgotten about the traps.

The entire south side of the road leading to the west gate was lined with cage traps. These had been put in place to catch langurs or child-snatchers. Fortunately, they work very well on goblin soldiers. The lead six attackers were all caught in cages. The dwarven lasher arrived and struck Lesserspider’s shield-arm. Lesserspider’s shield fell to the ground, next to his scimitar. Then the axehuman stomped up and lopped Lesserspider’s head clean off.

Marksdwarf Dastot looked around. Some of the goblins’ fiercest warriors were caged. The second rank of armored goblins was arriving at the road, but a growing number of human, dwarf, and goblin soldiers were arriving to defend the road. The enemy archers had stopped to the south, and were taking shots as opportunity allowed. Marksdwarves were gathering on the bridge, shooting back. Additional bolts flew at the goblins from the northwest tower.

She stopped running, loaded her crossbow, and started to return fire.

Commander Meng knew that if he did nothing, the soldiers who had run to save their comrades would be overrun, and then the rest of his force would be truly outnumbered. He ordered his troops to charge across the bridge.

Bravery on Bad Ground

It was raining arrows and bolts when Alegate’s main force crossed the bridge. Where the projectiles hit dwarven armor, they bounced off. But several hit the lightly armored marksdwarves. Simo — the marksdwarf that had been saved by the war dog — was one of those so struck. With an iron bolt in her leg, she continued to send bolts back at the enemy, until she died of blood loss.

One of the dwarven heavy infantry did fall from the bridge. As he charged across, an incoming bolt was headed straight for him. He deftly sidestepped … right off the bridge. The soldier was stunned upon landing in the river, and spent much of the battle drowning there. He eventually came to and managed to drag himself to the shore.

That brave wanderer with the greatsword fought a mob of goblins west of the road. At one point, the sword was struck from his hands. This did not stop the large dwarf, who took shield from one of his assailants, and used that as a weapon. Exhaustion caught up with him before the defenders of Alegate, though, and he was struck down.

The axehuman who led the lasher and axe lord across the bridge fought bravely, but died with a silver spear in his liver.

A dwarven lasher who had crossed the bridge with the axehuman won especial honors in this battle. He waded into the mass of goblins near the wanderer and personally slayed six of the armored enemies with his iron whip.  Once the armored goblins were cleared from the road, this lasher was the first to charge the massed goblin archers. He was struck by a great many arrows, but as he was a member of the heavy infantry, most of the arrows were deflected. Eventually, though, three arrows bit into his hip and legs, and he was no longer able to walk. He crawled onward, taking more arrows. Before he could reach the archers, he was hit again in the gauntlet. That shot did not pierce the armor, but the trauma was such that he could no longer hold his weapon. He had already done his part, though — the rest of Alegate’s infantry arrived, and finished off the archers. After the battle, Chief Medical Dwarf Fark personally carried this lasher to the hospital.

 

 

 

Captain Meng’s Hindsights

• Axes are excellent for lopping parts off of unarmored targets, but blades in general do not do well against armor.
• Hammers deliver their smashing damage through armor very well.
• A dwarf with a short sword, facing unarmored archers, severed a number of limbs and was able to inflict deep, organ-piercing wounds with thrusts.
• One dwarf was swinging a morning star. It pierced armor very well, but tended to get stuck in opponents. That dwarf spent as much time detaching his weapon from opponents as he did swinging his weapon.
• Having scouts far afield when an army arrives is a problem. Perhaps lookouts can be stationed in towers instead.
• That soldiers can not move around the courtyard without seeing out the gates is a problem. The infantry could have been stationed below ground to avoid this problem, but archers making their way to the tower must pass by the gates. As soon as they saw enemies, they engaged instead of reaching a safer position first. Perhaps a barbican or other arrangement can be made.
• So far, all kobold and goblin threats have come from the southwest. All friendly visitors have arrived from the northeast.
• The cage traps were extremely effective.
• Armor makes a huge difference. Now that there is a battle field full of low-quality but serviceable armor imported from The Flighty Hex, all soldiers will be ordered to wear metal armor. The new steel armor being produced in the magma forges will be issued to the existing heavy infantry.
• One of the scout squads had been left without a squad leader since the werebison attack. Captain Meng promoted Marksdwarf Dastot to fill that role.

Evacuation

After the battle, citizens flooded to the surface to assist the wounded. The axehuman, the wanderer, and five marksdwarves had already died, but many more were injured. Some wounded were able to walk to the hospital on their own. Others had to be carried. It was a slow process, as the citizens tended to become queasy in the sun. By the time the wounded were carried from the field, there was much vomit mixed with the blood on the ground.

It upset many of the citizens to see the death and gore. But the citizens got the job done.

 

 

Fark authorized his two nurses to perform any medical service the patients required, including surgery. Volunteers came forward from among the citizenry, supplying the wounded with food and drink. Thornbeard himself was seen carrying a load of raspberries to the patients, before going to the temple to pray.

There were shortages of crutches and splints, but some were purchased from elven merchants, and Alegate’s carpenters got busy creating a surplus. When Fark and the nurses were done, no one who had been alive at the end of the battle had died. There were many who would need time to fully heal, including one marksdwarf who had taken an arrow to her throat and still had trouble breathing six months later.

As for the caged prisoners, five of them were still alive at the end of the battle. One had died of wounds. The five prisoner cages were taken to the zoo, pending the council’s decision on what to do with them. Until then, they will remain next to the caged langurs and ravens.

Highway To The Deeps

The world can be thought of as having five layers. The surface, the shallow caverns, the middle caverns, the deep caverns, and the magma sea. It is best not to think about places deeper than the magma sea.

The whole world is arranged this way. The ecosystems of the cavern layers are as complex as those of the surface. There are places in the world where a connecting shaft naturally links two of these layers, but those places are rare. Thus, if dwarves delve in a way that connects two of these layers, that connection will become a point of interest for the people, monsters and animals who wish to prey on the aliens of other layers.

There is a lot of rock between these layers. Since Alegate exists mostly between the surface and shallow caverns, it is a long climb to reach the geothermal facilities near the magma sea. There was talk among the citizens of digging a chute so that stone can be dropped to the magma smelters instantly. There was also talk of a mine cart system that would allow one dwarf to deliver a cartload of weapons and armor to the surface, instead of carrying them one at a time. But for now, the miners simply widened the stairwell. The carpenters also made a fleet of wheelbarrows to make the hauling of ore a little bit faster.

That widening project had an unexpected side effect: we breached the deep caverns. The original shaft had missed these living caverns by just a few feet.

There is a cacophony of colors in the deep caverns. Great, woody tree-equivalents grow here. They can be chopped and used as wood, but their colors are very different from surface lumber. Here is a catalog of what is visible from the stairwell breach:

• Tunnel tube – curving and violet.
• Blood thorn – crimson and dense, almost as heavy as stone.
• Goblin cap – bright red giant mushrooms
• Spore tree – teal with raining spores
• Nether cap – a dark indigo wood that preternaturally stays at the freezing point of water. It can not make water around it freeze, but things made of this will not be destroyed by magma.

Bizarre creatures were also spotted:

• creepy crawlers, which are like starfish made of fingers. They are small vermin, like rats.
• A large pack creeping eyes, which have four clawed hands and one large, glowing eye. They have no mouth and are said to feed on evil. They are about the size of a medium dog.

Like the middle caverns, the deep caverns are completely free of cave spider webs.

We will have to decide whether to seal the deep caverns or use them.

Spider Silk

Bathru (that’s the weaver named “Bathru”, not the Queen’s representative) was seen at the spinning wheel with a big pot of spider webs in his lap. He was spinning silk. The fort’s cloth had been coming from trade, wool, or plant fibers. The silk was new.

It turns out he had made a discovery in the mines. Back when the temple was being built, gold was needed for some of the statues. To that end, gold was mined from a vein near the spider-infested upper caverns. Once the statues were made, the mine was abandoned.

The mine remained abandoned for a year. At some point during that year, tiny cave spiders found their way into the mine. Cave spiders rarely bite dwarves, but when they do, the dwarf can wind up with a condition which causes them experience distracting moments of dizzyness on and off for the rest of their lives.

Bathru, discovering the source of silk, braved the danger and set himself to work making fine silk clothing for Alegate.

 

 

The Law Giver

In the summer, a white-maned human arrived from the northeast. He was clad in octopus and manta ray leather, and was flanked by two shark leather armored soldiers bearing iron whips. The bards knew this man: Suril, Law-Giver of the Vigorous Confederacy. They also knew his strange tale, which is told elsewhere.

Word of Alegate’s elevation from outpost to barony had reached the Vigorous Confederacy, and the Law-Giver himself had come to visit Baron Maltose. Perhaps he had made the long journey from the eastern shores for this sole purpose. Perhaps he was returning with his armies from the war upon the elves in the west. He did not say. He simply arrived, unexpected, with the large caravan from the human lands.

 

The Baron received the Law Giver in the great audience chamber of Alegate. The Law Giver was friendly and open with information. Baron Maltose learned:

• The Confederacy had reclaimed the abandoned coastal settlements that had belonged to The Imprisoned Empire — a human nation that was wiped out nearly nine centuries ago by elves. Combined with the taking of the northern goblin nation and the Confederacy’s recent conquests in in the west, this meant that both of the dwarf-inhabited mountain ranges were now islands within the human empire.
• The Confederacy had launched expeditions to a number of uninhabited dwarven halls. These places had been empty since the dragon or other monsters drove away the inhabitants. The expeditions were successful so far, and the halls were now inhabited by citizens of the Confederacy.
• While the Confederacy’s armies were fighting in the west, there was trouble in the Confederacy homeland. There is a tower there where a necromancer has dwelled for the past five centuries. In that tower, the necromancer and his disciples have practiced dark arts, but mostly kept to themselves. Recently, though, the necromancer accused the people of a nearby town of godlessness, and sent his lieutenants with small bands of armed humans to sack the town.  This conflict is ongoing.

This conversation was had in the spirit of friendly nations sharing information, and no requests were made of either side. It would be improper, after all, for a baron to make requests of a foreign monarch, or vice versa. Furthermore, the Queen’s mandate was that Alegate secure the river crossing, and to send resources away from the crossing would exceed that mandate.

Once the official meeting was complete, Law-Giver Suril remarked that he had heard of The Drowned Langur, and would like to visit it. Baron Maltose showed the octopus-clad human to the legendary tavern, and for the next weeks the ruler of the most powerful nation in the north enjoyed the hospitality of Alegate.

Setu Scabroushogs the Chaos of Starving

In the deep parts of the world, there are great monsters which are not like other creatures. They are bizarre, mutated things the size of two elephants, and some times have bizarre powers. No two are alike. They have been known to turn dwarven fortresses into empty places of corpses and lost treasure. Scholars call them the “forgotten beasts”.

This summer, thundering was heard in the middle caverns, greater than the noise of the fight between the giant bat and the giant toad. A forgotten beast had arrived. The noise was the sound of this creature taking on every living thing it could find in the middle caverns.

The passage to the middle caverns is now blocked, but through peep holes, the forgotten beast was seen. Seventy five of these beasts have been described by scholars, and this one is listed in that roll. “A great one-eyed monitor. It has three short horns and it squirms and fidgets. Beware its deadly blood!”

It was seen taking on a pair of blind cave ogres, then a troll, then a giant olm, and then a giant cave swallow. It defeated them all. It disappeared into obscured areas of the cavern for a while and could be heard killing a group of what sounded like a tribe of speaking creatures. It later came back into view. It is now weakened, covered head to toe in injuries.

For now, there is no route from the middle cavern into Alegate.

The Littered Field

By summer, our wounded were healing and our dead were entombed in lead sarcophagi.

Out in the western field, colorful flowers were growing among the detritus of battle. The enemy dead, and all the armor, clothing, ammunition, weapons, and personal effects they had carried up from the south needed to be dealt with.

Some of that had been taken care of already. Individuals had already picked over the battle field for items that interested them. The troll fur clothing was of particular interest. Baron Maltose now wore a troll fur glove, and Broker Argus sported a troll fur hood. One of the soldiers traded his pike for an iron scourge.

Weapon and armor stockpiles were designated inside the fort, and the low-quality but plentiful gear was hauled underground. Ammunition was collected and stockpiled inside the towers.

No one wanted to dig graves for the enemies. There was thought of dumping the bodies into the chasm, but no one was certain whether the bodies would wash away, or if that just meant we would be dining on fish that grew up eating goblin corpses.

And so a charnel pit was dug — a ramp leading into the earth, west of the fort, to an underground chamber. In the west of the underground chamber, Hana built a trash compacting mechanism.

 

For months, laborers have been picking body parts and ruined clothes out of the flowers and dumping them in the pit. Someone even had to go clean up that goblin archer’s tongue.

An unexpected phenomenon: creepy crawlers from the deepest caverns have found their way to the battle field, and are lurking in the gore, making everything grosser. The cats think this is great. What’s more fun than hunting scrambling prey that’s made of fingers? Thus the field west of Alegate has an increasing number of mangled, dead creepy crawler corpses hidden in the flowers.

The clean up job is still ongoing.

The Mayoral Election

From time to time, a mayoral election is held. The main requirement for a mayor is social skills, as the mayor is the official that common visitors look for when they wish to negotiate a working or citizenship agreement. The mayor is also expected to be able to calm down any citizen who is so upset that they are becoming a danger to the fort or to themselves.

For the first four years of Alegate, Argus was always elected to this position. He was a skilled intimidator when he arrived, and he had developed other skills in negotiation with merchants.

 

Argus had been a busy dwarf. As mayor, he had been busy formalizing mercenary contracts, negotiating with long-term employees who wanted to become citizens, and meeting the Queen’s representative. As the designated broker of Alegate, he was responsible for negotiating all trades with caravans. He was also an active bone carver, and had produced much of the jewelry that citizens wear as well as artwork for trade. Even with all this, he found time to go to the training yard and practice with his steel war hammer.

Thornbeard, recently, was spending most of time at the tavern, being social.

And so it was that the people gave Thornbeard, for the time being, the mayoral title and responsibilities. He also gained use of the polished mayoral chambers, with the silver throne. The mayoral chambers were just across the hall from his old, rough-hewn, personal chamber.

Argus remains bone carver, broker, and martial arts enthusiast. The difference is that now he will be interrupted less often to run off to meetings.

Miscellany of Note

• Around the end of spring, 28 puppies were counted, traveling in packs through the fortress and generally slowing traffic. The day after the count was made, another litter was born. In the next year, we are going to have a lot of war dogs to train.
• There were more kobold and langur raids. Alegate has become so proficient at this that there is no real threat. The only injury to a dwarf was a fisherdwarf who ran after a langur and wound up with a bruise. Ultimately, the kobolds were chased off and the langurs were turned into yummy food. Unless something of note happens in the future, these raids will stop being documented.
• There are now 40 furnished dwellings for citizens. Families share a dwelling, and many of the migrants arrived as families, so more than a quarter of Alegate now has personal space. Twenty more dwellings were being prepared at the end of summer.
• Alegate now has a cat lady. Onra is expert with a hammer, and has earned the title “Hammer Lord”. During the siege, she personally slayed four enemies. Afterward, four cats adopted her. Are the events connected? Perhaps. One hopes she doesn’t mind finding dead creepy crawlers in her quarters.
• The siege did not discourage mercenaries. Since the battle, six more mercenaries have signed up.
• Though we are not hiring new poets and bards, 4 who had been living with us for over a year joined as citizens. These are all friends of those who spend their time in the Drowned Langur. Poets, bards, and other visitors are welcome to visit, of course — we simply are not offering rooms for long term stays.
• Last year, there was not a single drop of rain. The drought broke this spring. The pond inside the walls is now about half full. Much of the blood and filth of the battle was washed away by the gentle rain.

Notes To The Players

• I tried to stay very close to the combat reports, choosing things to point out so that it would make interesting reading. I avoided making anything up. For example, Marksdwarf Dastot really did go through all those things, and she really is the one who was saved from a nasty head wound by her copper helm back on turn 4.
• In addition to various caged animals, upon which the zookeepers are practicing their animal training skills, we now have five goblin soldiers from the geko-demon’s realm. At the moment, they still have their armor, but that can be removed. They are not likely to escape as long as they are caged. Keeping the prisoners fed and watered is not a significant burden. Goblins do not age, so they can stay in those cages for generations. Some of the things we can do with these prisoners include:
  • Make them our emissaries; set up the cages outside the walls so that they can tell the next set of invaders what a bad idea it is to attack Alegate.
  • Leave them in the zoo, stacked in the corner and out of the way.
  • Set them around the walls of the Baron’s audience chamber, as a conversation piece for the next diplomatic visit.
  • Take their stuff and toss them in the river. Or the magma sea.
  • Take their stuff and release them to return with news of their defeat.
  • Build an arena and use them as target practice.
  • Toss them into the caverns, with or without equipment.
• There’s a word dwarves use for the equipment brought by attackers: “goblinite”. For now, we’re just stockpiling it, and whoever wants to use it can go grab some. But there are other options:
  • melt it down and make better items. Not weapons or armor, though; we have steel for that.
  • melt it down and forge goblinite statues of those who fell defending Alegate. Perhaps lining the road, perhaps where they fell, or perhaps atop a monument somewhere.
• Now that we’ve seen what defending against a siege is like, perhaps we can think of a way to improve the defenses, especially against the southwest. We can build, dig, and even reroute rivers to do this.
• Baron Maltose made an impressive speech, proposing we mine the godmetal. I recommend reading it!