Chaincurses - 1059 Mid Winter by Mori

DF Map Archive:

• Home
• Development / News
• Signup
• [+] Upload Map
• Browse Maps
• Browse Points of Interest
• Browse Comments
• Recent Activity
• Favourites
• [+] Upload Movie
• Browse Movies
• Movie Comments
• SL's DF Map Compressor
• CMV Movie Editor

Points of Interest

• Δ 16. Goblin Fireworks
  As mentioned previously, the goblin fortress has a surplus of animals. One particularly boring afternoon at the kennels, the Dungeon Master and a couple of his assistants were throwing a hoary marmot around the place. By some bizarre coincidence, one of the goblins failed to catch the marmot just as a woodcutter was coming out of the fortress door. The marmot flew into the fort and fell down the central shaft.
  
  The gang rushed in just in time to see a cloud of marmot blood and chunks rocket back up from the bottom where the marmot had exploded. Naturally, they found this incredibly funny. A couple of marmots and a trained chimp later, the Countess came up to see what they were doing. Rather than having the hammerer break their legs, the Countess told them to let her have a go.
  
  Now animals are thrown down the hole regularly, sometimes to mark special occasions, or mourn the loss of a good friend, or sometimes just to liven up a dull day. - Mori
• Δ 16. Goblins for the Unethical Treatment of Animals
  Goblins and animals are not the best of friends. Goblins love animals. They love catching them, they love throwing them at things, and they love eating them. Animals don't love goblins. The goblin animal stockpiles are full of all sorts of exotic creatures. Elephants, cheetahs, chimps, even some cute smaller creatures such as fluffy wamblers and fairies.
  
  All of them have been trained with the traditional goblin method of alternating between feeding them and beating them with a stick. But thus far only two pets have been sold in the fortress, a cheetah which the Countess purposely altered the price of so that she could buy it, and a giant cockroach that lives in the pocket of the Head Cook. Most of the surplus animals are eaten, but some are used for crueler things... - Mori
• Δ 16. The Central Shaft

  ( 1050 to onwards )
  An exploratory mining hole dug roughly on top of the adamantine deposits, according to the dwarven prospector's stolen map, and goblin map reading skills.
  
  A key part of the fortress, all refuse is thrown down here. Loose rocks, moldy biscuits, corpses, dead miners brained by falling rubble, you name it, it's probably down there stinking up the place. - Mori

• Δ 16. The Countryside
  When the goblins arrived here, this land was home to a beautiful forest full of a variety of thriving wildlife.
  
  After just a few short years of goblin trapping and deforestation, the surrounding area has become a desolate scrubland, where howling hot winds rip less hardy shrubs out of the dry soil, and the few animals that remain are quickly snatched up, and are fortunate to make it back to the fortress before the lucky trapper's hunger gets the best of him, due to the recent scarcity of meat. - Mori
• Δ 16. The Latest in Modern Military Technology
  One evening, Head Siege Engineer Arstruk was hit by a bolt of inspiration as he flicked fish bones at a sleeping mechanic using a piece of string stretched between his fingers. He worked through the night like a goblin possessed, and in the morning he had designs for the first goblin Ballista.
  
  It was basically a few big planks nailed together then stuck into the ground, a faithful replication of a goblin hand with a piece of string. Unlike a dwarven ballista, the goblin ballista has no fancy mechanisms, so a goblin has to pull back the arrow then release it to fire. This would be fine, only the Captain of the Guard insists on having the fortress on full combat readiness, so siege operators take it in turns to hold back the bolt.
  
  If an operator falls asleep while performing this task, then well, he wakes up a considerable distance from where he closed his eyes.
  
  If he wakes up. - Mori
• Δ 16. The Siege Workshop
  After the success of the goblin ballista in deflecting a hydra attack, a permanent siege workshop was constructed in it's own room in the hillside. Nothing new has actually been built, but Head Siege Engineer Arstruk keeps talking about his plans for a weapon that will throw rocks using the same motion that a goblin's arm makes when it hurls a cat by the tail.
  
  He has no idea what to call it though. - Mori
• Δ 16. Trade Depot and Manager's Office
  Every so long traders from the goblin homelands arrive and frantic haggling for worthless knick-knacks ensues.
  
  Sometimes some worryingly intelligent skeletons stop by and trade their logs for meat. What they do with the meat considering they don't eat is probably not something worth contemplating for too long. - Mori
• Δ 15. Kitchens and Stills
  The Dwarven expedition leader told the goblins, after much poking with a sharp stick, that the lifeblood of a successful fortress is booze. Unfortunately, drunk goblins are prone to falling down holes and sleeping in all the wrong places. To counter this, 90% of their food is made out of sweet pod syrup, which makes them alert, jumpy and paranoid. Pretty much business as usual for goblins. - Mori
• Δ 15. The Demonic Disaster Part 3
  They needed to rescue the adamantine. They needed it for reasons they didn't quite understand, but they still needed it.
  
  After questioning some traumatised miners, and some very bored soldiers, the Expedition Leader established the nature of the demons. They were living flames, who also look a lot like Asno Spreadmalign's dead grandmother.
  
  Water puts out fire, right?
  
  The decision was made to flood the chamber with water. A tunnel was dug into chamber and water from the drinking channel was poured into it. Nothing really happened. The chamber was flooding very very slowly and there were no howls of dying demons to be heard either.
  
  Until one day, a great gout of steam shot out of the tunnel the water was pouring into. A fire spirit had flown up into the water spout and come out of the top. He was very angry. Several goblins were turned to ashes as they sat at the dining table. The soldiers came rushing and managed to pretty effectively kill the demon. A pump was constructed to divert water from the channel so that the tunnel could be sealed. It still pumps to this day. - Mori
• Δ 15. The Food Hole
  An ever-expanding, ever-rotting cavern full of food. The Bookkeeper's calculations always state that they'll need to work extra hard to produce enough food to last the winter.
  
  In reality, the goblins always produce more food than they could possibly eat. They could survive the winter on the clouds of flies that haunt the stockpile. The Bookkeeper just can't count higher than 10. - Mori
• Δ 15. The Old Barracks and Dining Hall
  When the fort was just starting, these barracks and the dining hall were dug out for the original 7 (There were 8, but he took a pickaxe to the face when their dwarven advisor tried to escape) to live and eat in.
  
  The barracks are now full of rocks, for unspecified reasons, and nobody really eats in the dining hall anymore. - Mori
• Δ 14. The Sweatshops
  The busy and cluttered production centre of the fortress. Goblins here work night and day to fill ludicrous production quotas, build shiny things for the nobles, and keep the military supplied with the crossbow bolts they need. - Mori
• Δ 13. Manager's Mistake
  The art of storing things in bins is a relatively new one in Chaincurses. The enthusiastic and rather dense Manager saw the increase in stockpile efficiency, and decided to make the Countess' totem decorations more efficient too.
  
  He was later arrested and beaten up for a completely unrelated production order violation. - Mori
• Δ 13. The Chasm of the Condemned
  With the arrival of the Countess came the Hammerer. A terrifying creature, he towers over the other goblins and wields a hammer as big as a child. When he arrived, there was no real justice system in the fortress. There were no production orders to violate, and threats of violence kept pretty much everyone in line.
  
  It was decided that a jail should be built, if only to keep the hammerer as far away from the rest of the fortress as possible. It was located in the upper levels of the underground chasm, a crude set of iron cages built into the walls, and an unstable stone walkway with chains attatched to it. The hammerer would drag people here, usually with a barrel of sewer brew (possibly as a last drink for the condemned, as he usually leaves the barrel behind). Then they would never be seen again.
  
  If the sheriff locked someone up here, they would usually come back alive, or just about, with stories of horrible peckings by giant cave swallows and other prisoners being dragged away by bat men.
  
  The jail fell out of use after one of the Countess' five sons followed the hammerer there, and in a freak accident was knocked into the abyss by the spinning corpse of one of the condemned. - Mori
• Δ 13. The Hive
  An overcrowded, hot and smelly cavern where crude beds have been jammed into small alcoves in the rock. There are tables and chairs on each corner for goblins to eat at. This means piles of bones and shells tend to accumulate around the place, which enterprising goblins snatch up and eat before anyone else finds them and uses them for something worthwhile. - Mori
• Δ 13. The Klepto Countess
  The Countess is a devout worshipper of Uslot, and more than a little crazy, so her room is cluttered with idols. Every chest and cabinet is crammed with little stone Uslots. She makes yearly mandates that more idols be produced, and they all end up in her room.
  
  Her husband is the same, only his room is full of bracelets. - Mori
• Δ 12. Little Green Monks
  To save on cloth, the goblins only produce sandals, loincloths and robes with hoods. This results in everyone dressing like a monk, once their original clothes rot off. - Mori
• Δ 12. Stockpile Central
  Stockpile central is where goods go to die. Furniture that will never be used, clothes that will never be worn, and metal bars that will never be made into anything. The fortress produces more goods than it can possibly use, so it is stuffed in barrels and bins and left down here. - Mori
• Δ 11. The Goblin War Machine
  This is the heart of the goblin war machine. There are weapon and armour stockpiles, two archery ranges and two wrestling practice rooms. Any goblin without skills is drafted into the military, and then beaten up by bigger, tougher goblins until they learn how to fight and defend themselves. Then they are given some armour and a weapon, usually a crossbow or a battleaxe, assuming they survive for that long.
  
  Despite being fairly comical, cowardly creatures, the brutal training and mercenary nature of goblin society means that the goblin military is a force to be reckoned with, and the many ruined dwarf mountain halls around the world are a testament to this. - Mori
• Δ 10. Barrels of Fun
  This big empty hall is the result of some fairy cocky calculation of where the adamantine would be. It wasn't here, so now the place is used to store barrels and bins. - Mori
• Δ 9. Still no Adamantine
  Another failed set of calculations pointed to this as the likely location of the adamantine. To make the increasingly depressed leader feel better, the miners stored the adamantine here when they did find it. When the leader gets depressed, the leader gets drunk. When the leader gets drunk, beds get thrown at children. - Mori
• Δ 8. Goblin Mart
  This level of the mine was the first to find adamantine. In the spirit of prosperity, a capitalist economy was started in the fortress. Unfortunately, only nobles could afford to own a shop, so now the lower class goblins have their goods sold back to them at a higher price. It's the thought that counts. - Mori
• Δ 8. The Goblin Economy
  The goblin economy runs on coins.
  
  Or rather, it should run on coins, but the Countess amd her husband constantly argue over whether the coins should have a picture of Uslot or a picture of a bracelet on them.
  
  Nobody has told them that there are two sides to a coin, in order to avoid actually having to make any.
  
  As a result, the goblin economy runs on credit. The problem with this is that with few exceptions, no goblin can count above twelve (10, 11, 12, Twelvety, A whole lot). This means that they have no real way of keeping track of credit and therefore can spend whatever they like. Luckily, the economy is kept afloat by the fact that goblins automatically assume that someone will steal their stuff, so they limit their spending to what they can fit in their pockets, or hide under their bed. - Mori
• Δ 8. Totems, what's the deal with them?
  There are a lot of totems in Chaincurses. They're used where a dwarf would use statues, and they're sold in the shops. Goblins like totems because they combine two of their favourite things, pointy sticks and skulls. They serve as proof that a goblin managed to kill something bigger than itself. They make a cool rattling sound when shaken. They range from simple skulls on a stick, to large, ornate totems with many decorated and carved skulls along with other bones.
  
  The fortress' favourite totem fits into the latter category, it's a huge ornate hydra skull totem, with all 7 heads of the hydra stacked on top of eachother, each carved to tell the story of how the goblins defeated it. - Mori
• Δ 7. The Point of it all
  These bins contain hundreds of adamantine bars. The fortress was founded in order to locate the adamantine and refine it. There were no further orders, so the priceless metal now sits in these bins.
  
  Recently however, to the dismay of the Manager, the Countess has demanded that the adamantine be removed from the barrels, so that she can see it better. - Mori
• Δ 5. The Demonic Disaster
  During the adamantine mining operation, two of the miners happened upon a strange chamber in the mountain. One goblin noticed some spooky carvings and ran out. His friend bursting into flames and exploding didn't help matters.He quickly built a crude wall to seal the chamber off, then told the expedition leader about it.
  
  The leader, being a miner himself, decided that if they pierced the chamber from above, they could have a look inside without releasing any scary monsters.
  
  This square, now sealed by a gneiss floor tile, is where they dug the first hole. They were somewhat surprised when spirits of living hellfire flew out of the hole and burned them to death. The leader escaped, and ordered that the entire level of the mine be sealed off from the central shaft. - Mori
• Δ 5. The Demonic Disaster Finale
  The fortifications worked well, the goblin crossbowmen could shoot at the demons, but the demons couldn't throw fireballs at them. The problem was that the demons were hiding behind the walls of the mine, and refused to come out. The solution was cruel yet simple. A team of 10 non-essential (read: useless) goblins was assembled and given picks. They were then walled up in a section of the demon defense outpost, and told to mine through the other wall, into the demon chamber, or starve.
  
  Once they were through, they were to mine out the walls between the hole the demons were escaping from, and the place the crossbowmen were stationed. The smell of goblin flesh drew the demons out, and suddenly the miners were being pursued around the mine, like a scene from scooby-doo, but with more burning flesh and less nonthreatening rock music from the past.
  
  This chase provided the crossbowmen with chances to shoot at the demons as they ran out of their cover to chase the miners. Eventually there were 3 or 4 goblins left being chased by a couple of crippled fire spirits. They managed to mine out the designated wall, allowing the crossbowmen to provide covering fire as one of the furnace operators-turned-hero sealed the hole. The adamantine was saved, at the cost of just a few horrible burning deaths. - Mori
• Δ 5. The Demonic Disaster Part 2
  The problem with sealing the level off was the large amount of raw adamantine that had been left in there. A military outpost was dug into the rock near the main shaft. Arrow slits were dug into the walls to allow the goblin crossbowmen to fire out at whatever lurked in there among the adamantine ore. - Mori
• Δ 4. It's The Pits
  Pretty shortly after the demonic invasion was dealt with, the Countess and her entourage of nobles arrived. She claimed that Uslot had sent her to watch over the fortress. There was no actual proof of this, or of her being of noble birth, but nobody really questioned it because she had a large and scary goblin wearing a hood and wielding a very big hammer.
  
  For the first year or so she didn't do much beyond sit in her room, demand more idols, and make occasional poorly thought out speeches to her people.
  
  Then, one Autumn, she demanded that they reopen the demon pits to claim the priceless treasures that surely lay within, despite reports from one of the miners who originally found the pits that the only treasures within were A) death and B) the smell of burnt meat. Upon hearing this the Countess immediately offered a share of the burnt meat to whoever would brave the horrors of the chamber.
  
  Almost immediately a crack team of soldiers, miners and masons gathered before the chamber, despite protests from the expedition leader. Traps were assembled, and the team was sealed in by an elaborate floodgate setup. The pit wall was pierced and the goblins readied their crossbows. - Mori
• Δ 4. The Reek of Putrefaction
  The unique smell of the fortress is generated by the large amounts of rotting organic matter that is thrown down the central shaft. Everything is thrown down here eventually. Goblins who are new to the fortress often wonder why it smells so bad, usually as they are hurling something down here. By the time it starts to smell, they have usually forgotten that they threw something down there and caused it, so the cycle continues. - Mori
• Δ 1. The Temple of The Damned
  Probably a very poor idea. Will finish description later. - Mori

Related Maps:

Chaincurses

• 1059 Mid Winter [R]

[+] Add a map to this series.

No related entries found.

Map details:

• Fortress Name: Chaincurses
• Map Year: 1059 Mid Winter
• Author: Mori
• Submitted by: Mori
• Date Added: 25/03/2008