Year 1

2nd Limestone, 1876

To: The Royal Archeology Society

From: Albert Butterfield, Airship Captain, HMS Falcon

I am writing to you today about an interesting find we made during a recent mineralogical survey. We were passing over a brook called “The Brushed Horns” in the Hills of Broiling, and we stopped to take some samples. Several of the crew took advantage of the stop to stretch their legs and were poking around a large mound near a bend in the brook, and discovered several stone structures mostly buried in the mud. At first we thought that they were perhaps the ruins of an old separatist enclave, but upon further inspection we deemed them to be far older than we first believed. In fact our ship’s mage tested some of the stone and has determined that they are well over 1500 years in age. (See attached package for additional samples for your own testing.)

Once the approximate age of the ruins was determined, we immediately marked the location and stopped all digging in the area. I have sent in an attached package the samples we gathered as well as a map showing the longitude and latitude of the ruins. I know little of archeology, but I’ve never heard of ruins that old in that area, so perhaps they will be of some small interest to you.

Your servant,

Albert Butterfield, Cpt., HMS Falcon

8th Felsite, 1878

To: The Royal Archeology Society

From: William Aaron Smith, Doctor of Archeology, Wessenfeld-Smith Expedition

Esteemed members of the Royal Archeology Society, I would like to report that this site has been even more fruitful than we ever could have imagined. The expedition arrived here two weeks ago via airship, and both Dr. Wessenfeld and I thought it was time we sent the Society an update. What Captain Butterfield stumbled across here is nothing less than extraordinary!

At first we found the ruins to be somewhat ordinary, as they seemed to be nothing more than a walled enclave with a handful of buildings and some old pottery shards. Interesting, but not earth shattering. Then we found what has been dubbed “The Stairwell.” In the center of the largest building we’ve found so far, we uncovered stairs leading down into the ground. It’s amazing the stairs have survived being covered in mud and dirt as they themselves appear to have been build out of dirt. It has been quite a task to uncover them without destroying them in the process. To date, we have uncovered dozens of levels worth of tunnels connected to this stairwell, many of which were filled in with debris, dirt, and in several cases - water.

However, what has truly been the find of the century has been the catacombs. We realized early on that something was amiss because everything seemed a little smaller than it should have been. Not much, but it was if everything was just slightly scaled down. But Gentlemen, the catacombs! The inhabitants of this fortress, yes fortress, it is no mere enclave, were not human. Let me repeat that again, these halls were inhabited by creatures that were not human. Furthermore, much of our language and script seems to derive from their own! We have been able to translate many of their writings so far, and have managed to piece together a picture of the first year of the fortress using maps we’ve found, as well as various journals and engravings.

All in all, this is a momentous find and it is the first, to my knowledge, proof that Dwarves existed! For years we have mocked those poor deranged fools who claimed that the land was once full of many intelligent creatures, Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, and so many others. We shall never hear the end of it now that at least one of those things has been proven to be real. There are, as you shall see in the following explanation of the Fortress’s first year, also references to Elves. Whether or not they are real, or just legends of these Dwarves remains to be seen. Further research into the site will hopefully grant us more knowledge.

Respectfully yours,

Dr. William A. Smith

The following are translations of excerpts from various sources within the fortress. Together with the maps we’ve found, they paint a picture of the first year of the Fortress’s operation. Note, many of these journal entries seem to have been written by different Dwarves. Sadly, no single journal seems to have survived intact.

15th of Granite, year 1

Minkot Delerlosis, our expedition leader, has chosen to build out new home at the bend of a brook. She declared that we should call the place Geshud, or fortress. I guess she wasn’t feeling very creative when she decided to name the place. I will say that she did lead by example though, as she immediately grabbed a pick and started digging, cajoling our miner to join her.

Ber Logembubnus, our mason, declared herself to be an “architectural genius.” I’m pretty sure I hate her already.

Dishmab Stizasherib, our carpenter, grabbed an axe and started cutting down every tree in sight. None of us are elves, so nobody cried over that.

Rimtar Uniblektad and Onul Tunral wandered off and started collecting edible plants. I hope some of it can be turned into booze.

27th of Granite

They finished digging out a temporary food stockpile today. Mainly because our planter and farmer said they needed a place to start storing all the plants they were finding. They seemed confident that many of them could be fermented. I look forward to trying some of the new wines.

Ber Logembubnus finished building a trading depot. She’s so stuck up. Just because she designed the thing herself does not mean she’s some sort of genius of architecture. She’s the worst.

Dishmab Stizasherib has starting calling himself a woodworker, but we convinced him that even woodworkers needed to help us carry all the plants we were finding. It’s a good thing too, he was just sitting around doing nothing after cutting down most of the trees in the area.

6th of Slate

Excellent! We’ve found some Limonite while digging out the stairwell, looks like I choose a good location for our fortress. We’ll be rolling in iron by the end of the year! I’ve also decided that since we’ve finally started hitting stone we’ll set up the main workshop area of our fortress on level 7.

10th of Slate

I have to hand it to Minkot, she sure did pick us a great location for this fortress. Right here on the main level they’ve been finding bituminous coal all over the place! On the other hand she also decided that we didn’t have enough work to keep us busy so she told us to build a roof over the entry pit.

Rimtar Uniblektad has brought up the fact that we brought several sheep and turkeys with us, and gets told to build them a pen. She sets to building a pen for the sheep, but decides to ignore the turkeys until later.

28th of Slate

Dishmab Stizasherib finally got permission to build a carpentry shop. As soon as he finished it he began refusing to work anywhere else. Everyone wants beds, and the farmers have been begging him for more barrels. He probably thought he was going to get out of work by refusing to do anything else, but I bet he’ll do more work than anybody.

25th of Felsite

The roof I ordered built over the entry pit has been using up more wood than I expected. I must remember to drag Dishmab Stizasherib out of his workshop and make him go chop down more trees. I doubt anyone will mind though, it’s not like we’re elves.

6th of Hematite

By Dakon Mothweb’s Everlasting MAZE! I’ve been sent to slave over a workbench creating cheap chert crafts. Minkot said she anticipated a caravan from the mountainhome in a few months and that we had to have something to show for ourselves in trade. I hate my life.

13 of Hematite

We finally finished the roof over the entry pit today. It would have looked better in stone, but I suppose it was faster to build with wood, and we were short on stone when we started it. Minkot declared that the temporary food stockpile was “good enough” and told our miner to begin expanding the first level of the fortress to accommodate more food service buildings. Poor Onul Tunral, who got stuck making crafts, suggested we also set up a stockpile adjacent to the trade depot for his crafts. I think he just doesn’t want to get stuck dragging giant bins of crafts up 7 flights of stairs to the depot when the caravan arrives.

28th of Hematite

The refuse pile has suddenly acquired a large number of gazelle teeth. Minkot has begun accusing some of us of being “tooth fairies”, and I’m beginning to question her sanity.

3rd of Malachite

The main level is starting to shape up nicely, so it looks like it’s time to start expanding so we can have room for a sleeping area. I think 4 levels down from the main floor will work nicely, we’ll start digging down tomorrow. We had 2 migrants arrive today, we spent some time waiting for the rest to arrive, but they said it was just them. I can’t believe so few came, surely they should be hearing of all the minerals we’re starting to find here back in the mountainhome.

On the upside it looks like none of our residents are secret tooth fairies. It turns out that a herd of gazelle was attacked by our dogs. I’m still not sure who collected the teeth though, so maybe someone still might not be what they seemed. Also, we should make sure that we feed the dogs more often, as I suspect they attacked the gazelle because they hadn’t been fed in some time.

11th of Malachite

The miners found tetrahedtrite where the sleeping quarters are planned. In celebration we opened several barrels of beer!

Dishmab Stizasherib started calling himself a carpenter again. I really wish he'd just pick a title and stick to it. This is what, the third time he's changed his mind. Besides, woodworker, carpenter, what's the difference? It's not like he's working with something important like stones!

18th of Malachite

It seems that no one remembered to build a still, and the party we had when we found the tetrahedtrite used up almost all of the remaining booze. Everyone’s blaming everyone else. Especially our miner, who pointed out that he dug out a space for one well over a month ago. While everyone else was bickering, I went and built one and started working on turning all the plants we’ve collected into something worthwhile. At least now I won’t have to make crafts anymore, although I do feel bad that Kumil Rigothallas got stuck with that duty. He doesn’t know any more about making crafts than I did when I started.

7th of Galena

The wagon we came here in is full of termites. Everyone agrees that we need a proper meeting hall, so I’ve decreed that we’ll dig down another 5 levels and dig one out on level 17.

14th of Limestone

The caravan from the mountainhome finally arrived, along with our outpost liason. However there seems to be a conspiracy among the residents to refuse to collect all the crafts into bins. Very well, they can carry them one by one to the trade depot.

28th of Limestone

Minkot managed to trade some of our crafts for a barrel of beer and a dog. Maybe we should have someone else do our trading…

5th of Sandstone

Minkot did a little better this time. I guess she just needed to have confidence in herself. She managed to get us several barrels of beer, ale, and rum. She also picked out a bag of cave wheat seeds and an extra copper pick. I hope she knows what she’s doing.

20th of Sandstone

Finally, we had a whole group of migrants arrive. We now number 17. One of our new residents was a fisherman. I hate fish, so I asked him not to go fishing.

Now that I hold several titles, maybe I should have an office dug out for myself…

25th of Timber

Two days after getting her office, Minkot disappeared inside muttering something about “counting everything”. Maybe she’ll stay in there for a while and we won’t have to deal with her delusions of grandeur.

18th of Moonstone

Minkot finally came out of her office today. She claims that “everything has been counted”, but I have no idea how that could be since she never left her office to actually count anything. At least we got almost a month of no one telling us what to do.

10th of Opal

We finally finished building a wall around the entry pit and pastures. We also started building a small guard tower at the entrance. Reg Nubamnish started producing charcoal as well, which we hope to use to turn the coal into coke. I’m really looking forward to having some new metal stuff, maybe a nice warhammer or something.

15th of Opal

No one can figure out how to get the dog Minkot purchased out of its cage. She told me I was our new mechanic and that I needed to “figure it out, or else.” I don’t know anything about mechanics!

18th of Opal

I don’t know what Avuz Shorastison did with that dog, but it’s gone. He claims he doesn’t know what happened to it either, but he looks a little fatter to me. Maybe he just got hungry…

16th of Obsidian

I got my own room today! I can’t wait to move all of my stuff out of the dormitory! Everyone is moving out now that they finished digging out all of the personal rooms. They’re small, but they’ll do for now, the privacy is great!

Note from Dr. James Wessenfeld

The following, are a series of maps that show what we believe the fortress looked like at the end of it's first year.