DF Part 2. The First Year!

Well to start it's only fair to warn you that the area I've set up in has been no where near as active as I was expecting. Where there are so many biomes joining I seem to mainly be getting visitors from the western grass lands who've mainly been fairly harmless herbivores. So spoiler alert nobody dies in the first year. Boo!

We arrived and set up towards the end of Spring.

Spring 1050!

We arrive and start digging out a entrance. Mining downwards and clearing trees and foliage around the entrance. Not a great deal happens and I keep a close (and so far unneeded) eye on the local fauna. At one point a giant leopard starts getting curious and Sarigs is put on stand by. He soon gets bored and migrates out of the land without trying his luck, though he's followed by a herd of giraffes and then some warthogs.

I stop paying attention to the wildlife and take notice again after one of one of the wardogs milling around the entrance brings down a Honeybadger that charge the entrance trying to get at that lovable scamp Werit (renamed from one of the original miners).

A fledgling butchering industry is set up to take advantage of the sudden boon and our larder swells.

Summer!

Summer is almost entirely uneventful.

8 Hopeful migrants arrive. 4 of them being competent in a smattering of skills and are put to work. One of the more useless ones at least has some basic fighting skills and is recruited to Sarigs' squad of militia although at this stage I'm not bothering to equip and train them till the basics are in place.

Another one, Eral Workedmob, arrives with some basic cross-bowing skills and is set to hunt down the abundant and seemingly tame wildlife to add to the food stocks. As if in celebration of the news Elephants are seen on the horizon.

Note: Hunting is normally dangerous and unreliable and extremely time consuming. A dwarf will stock up on some ammo home in on a near by wild beastie and track them down exhausting their supply of bolts before returning for more and starting over. This leads to some irritating situation where they wing and injure a animal but then forget about it and start hunting a entirely new creature. Not the smartest of fellows. :-/

By the time I've managed to craft some bolts and a crossbow the herds already moved on leaving this fellow chasing a flock of birds about and nothing is brought back successfully. As his aims improves so should the returns. Hopefully.

Autumn!

With Autumn comes the dry season.

The various ponds and lakes around the area start to dry up although the brook continues to flow. One of the main reasons I picked the area.

Below is the same area as above but one level down and a start while later. The water is entirely gone a minute after.

The dogs breed a second generation and another migrant wave arrives. This time seemingly one guy who's dragged along his wife and two kids for the vacation!

Winter!

The food starts to run seriously low and the dwarfs are forced to drink straight from the brook as the last of the booze is used up. I order the miners to dig into a horribly exposed earthen hill at the south east corner of the map so a farm can be set up.

Farmers and gathers will have a long run back and forth through unprotected territory but there's nothing I can do about it right now.

The hunter continues to wing animals and then shuffle off after a completely different one. I'm starting to thing he's a bit of a sadist.

The hunter almost brings down a warthog before buggering off for a lie down.

Slightly concerned about the food situation I sent the militia out to try and put this beastie out of his misery and stock the kitchens but he proceeds to outrun them Benny Hill style from one end of the map to the other. Repeatedly. I give up in disgust after 5 minutes of fruitless chasing.

The same thing happens a short while later and the militia is sent out after a wounded peacock. This time Sarigs catches and frankly brutalises the bird and he's off to the pot.

At least point Eral seems to wake up after being shown up by the army and brings down a couple of warthogs and a large rodent thing in quick succession which tides us over.

Dwarven Merchants arrive and we flood them with cheaply made tatty stone crafts in exchange for food, booze and a couple more axes. They'll be back next year along with hopefully elven and human caravans of goods.

I finally get round to ordering bedrooms to be carved out and beds and doors to be constructed. This is almost always the last thing I get round to doing just ahead of making dining room but it's started now.

One of the migrants is taken by a fey mood and barricades himself into the leatherworks clutching our last piece of leather. He beavers away for a fortnight before presenting his creation to the world:

A single boot. Helpful.

Note: Dwarfs will occasionally be seized by various different moods demanding extravagant ingredients to use in their masterworks. They range from the depressingly useless and simple like Mouthsings here to decent weapons, armour, statues and thrones for display. And everything in between.

The hunter is just showing off now and brings down a giraffe with a well placed shot to the spine.

Elephants are seen once again and Eral brings one down before scaring the rest away swelling the stores of meat to bursting.

The end of winter finally draws to a near as the spring and the wet season approach again.

Just before that though a wave of 27 migrants show up as news of Masterlancer, home of the....boot spreads.

(God I hate sorting migrant waves out when they arrive!)

Here's a snap shot of Masterlancer's population!

I'll try and condense info and time for the next update hopefully someone will die .:-)