The catastrophe of Towerhill

The fortress of Towerhill grew very quickly to a population of around 50. This was by design, as all other migrants were turned away for the sake of sanity to the manager. There were no further beds, and keeping fifty dwarves busy was becoming a larger hassle every day.

After a few winters of low food and alcohol resources, the manager of Towerhill designed a great project, designed to give water to every room of Towerhill. No less than four legendary miners carved out a large plumbing system, leaving only a few mechanisms to be made before completion.

Then, in the late winter of the year 1065, catastrophe struck. A band of goblin raiders ambushed a squad of sparring dwarves. “No worries” they thought, for no less than two full squads have been training for this exact moment. The alarm sounded and the squads rushed to the main gate. They swung their well-practiced weapons at the goblins… only too late to realize that they were swinging wooden axes which could not even pierce cloth. A few of them had silver war hammers, but these were not their favored weapons, and so they thrashed a sliced to very little effect.

The manager of Towerhill panicked, immediately replenishing the fallen recruits with young, untrained dwarves. They fell just as quickly. Soon the manager recalled hearing about miners, and their sharp picks perhaps being ideal for slaying goblins. With such skilled miners, surely they would provide a worthy resistance of the dwarves? He sounded the alarm and sent a runner, gathering his miners and drafting them into them military. They also provided no resistance. The manager, no unnamed, dies before any more can be arranged.

Two dwarves remain behind as the goblins slaughter animals in the main hallway.

Olin Atheltumam, a wounded recruit, and Sarves a trapped miner. Trapped? oh yes, during her ventures carving out tunnels, she trapped herself next to a wall and two holes. She shortly realized she should carve herself through the wall, at which point she sprinted to the food stocks. Her baby, always on her back, also ate.

It didn’t take long for Sarvesh to become aware of the goblins, and visa versa. She ran at them, screaming and waving her iron pick. The goblins struck first, but their effort was easily parried. The pick swung fast, furiously, quickly severing several chunks of goblin across the floor.

In her furiosity, she nearly forgot about her baby. The baby nearly slipped from her arm several times, With one hand holding a baby and the other furiously swinging an iron pick, she fended off the whole of the goblins. They fled, realizing their attack was at an end.

Sarvesh looked at the carnage around her, realizing for the first time the devastation that was wrought. The entire hallway was littered with bodies, even more outside. Dwarves, donkey’s, dogs, cats, the goblins spared none.

She started working, stockpiling the dead bodies in a pile outside. It wasn’t long before she just snapped though. The bodies… the death… being trapped, starving and thirsty…

The first victim was the baby, who in her berserker rage was strangled. Then a horse (who provided too much resistance), and then a cat. The animals, in defense, killed her.

And thus nearly ended Towerhill, save one wounded dwarf left to tell the story.



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2 thoughts on “The catastrophe of Towerhill

  1. Any reason to use training weapons in d2010? I’ve never used them, and never had a dwarf injured while sparring. Not even when using adamantine weapons vs. steel armor.

  2. Try using iron/bronze/steel weapons while unarmored. Plus, you can get training weapons quicker, cheaper, and easier than making metal weapons and armor (so can be used earlier in a fortress). I also assume that the skill of your dwarves determines the likelihood of injury, so 2 mediocre-skilled dwarves are more likely to hurt each other than any I would grace with adamantine weapons.

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