C. Zircon

The population of Mightymountains is around 85 now (it's been fluctuating a lot) and things are getting rough. Today we got attacked by a cyclops and a goblin siege (of five guys). The cyclops was actually kind of a pushover, although we did lose a dwarven child. When the goblins showed up, I put everybody in a burrow and closed the entrance to the fort, although then I realized that the goblins were going to kill the livestock, which was not ideal, so I opened back up and sent the whole military after them. It took a bit of chasing them around, but the dwarves took them out without too much trouble. Still, that strategy's not going to work when they send them in greater numbers. I think I need to start looking into setting up some traps.

The biggest threat continues to be the damn giant sparrows. They've killed more of my dwarves than anything else by far. One miner was fighting one and somehow got stuck in a tree. I didn't know how to get him out, so I just chopped the tree down; he seemed fine.

The mayor mandated the production of amulets, so we started churning out amulets. They're all made of bone since we had so many skeletons lying around outside. Then the mayor forbade the export of amulets. So we're sitting on a lot of amulets. I wish I could make her a throne out of amulets.

We had our first encounter with goblins: three baby snatchers arrived. Unlike the kobold thieves, they did not run away after being spotted. It was a good opportunity to test the drawbridge that I set up to block intruders from getting into the fortress entrance. It worked and managed to keep out two of them, but one was quick enough to get in, whereupon he was promptly demolished by dwarves. So that wasn't much of a problem, but I'm sure they'll be back in greater numbers. I'm not looking forward to it. I definitely haven't invested enough in defenses.

Also, another dwarf got into a strange mood. I watched her haul several materials to the workshop and settle in there. I checked the workshop details and it said she was drawing pictures of the forest or something. I didn't realize that that meant she needed more materials; I thought she'd already started working. So I just left her there and eventually she was stricken by melancholy. That's no good... I guess it can't be helped. I'll know better next time.

Things took a turn for the worse in Mightymountains (the name of my fortress, presumably chosen by some irony-poisoned hipster dwarf because the fortress is in the middle of a big flat plain with no mountains in sight). The agitated animal attacks continued and the deaths are piling up (not literally; they're all in separate coffins). I found out that because I had been cutting down trees directly above the fortress, it was leaving holes in the ground that allowed animals to get in. So I patched those up, and also built a canopy over the stairs leading from the surface into the fortress, in the hopes that the giant wrens and sparrows wouldn't be able to see in from the sky and would be less likely to try to get in (I don't know if that's how it works). But dwarves still occasionally get attacked when they're wandering around on the surface; I don't know what I can do about that other than try to keep them underground as much as possible.

I also finally got my hospital working. I'm not sure exactly what made it work, but I think it's because I had to go into the details for the hospital and assign dwarves to each job (diagnostician, surgeon, etc.) rather than expecting the chief medical dwarf to do it. It seems like all the chief medical dwarf does is carry injured dwarves to the hospital. This is pretty different from what's described on the wiki. I guess they changed it. Or it's a bug.

I need to expand my fortress further downward. Right now most of it is in the soil. I've been mining the lower layers but haven't been building much there. The whole thing is pretty ramshackle because I started out by just doing what the tutorial told me to do, without any sort of plan.

For whatever reason, I just got a huge influx of migrants, for which I was not at all prepared. My population basically doubled overnight. They immediately elected a mayor, and then the rangers formed a guild and demanded a guildhall. I built the guildhall and smoothed all the walls and floors and then engraved them, and that seemed to satisfy them. I bet the mayor will want a fancy room too, so I guess I'll work on that next, as well as digging out a bunch of new bedrooms for all the new arrivals.

Oh, and a few more kobold thieves showed up. That's been happening from time to time and they still haven't successfully stolen anything, but this time one of them killed a stray cat, which pissed me off, so I sent my whole military after him. They chased him all over the map and eventually caught and compromised him to a permanent end. The other thief escaped, but hopefully he'll tell his buddies the tale. I guess building up my military should probably be a priority now that I have a bunch of new cannon fodder.

One problem: my corpse/refuse stockpile has filled up. That seems like a good opportunity to use a garbage dump so I can just throw them all into one tile. So I designated a garbage dump zone and then marked all the stuff in the stockpile for dumping, but nobody's dumping it and I don't know why not. Can you not dump stuff that's in a stockpile or something? Seems weird.

I keep getting attacked by things and then I look them up on the Dwarf Fortress wiki and it says that they're unlikely to pose any danger to your fortress. First it was giant wrens, now it's panda men. They're all agitated, which I guess is why they're attacking, but I don't know why they're agitated. At least my dwarves finally managed to kill the named agitated giant wren that had been terrorizing them. But at what cost?

Between the wrens, boars, and panda men, several dwarves sustained serious injuries. I built a hospital, but I only had one bed ready at first, so they all piled into that one, and now they're all just sitting there waiting for a diagnosis, but I can't figure out how to get my chief medical dwarf to diagnose them. He's just going about his business, eating and brewing drinks. Maybe I just need to wait and he'll eventually get around to it, like a real doctor.