New Lumina

[Slywyn]

Sometimes out there in the galaxy, a planet achieves spaceflight and sets out to expand. This is the chronicle of one such expedition, a group of settlers sent, among others, to a planet on the far out reaches of the Rim.

Each of the colonists was selected to be complementary to the others, to fulfill a niche to support and help the burgeoning colony grow.

Settlers:

Victoria 'Vicky' Finley:

Victoria grew up an orphan in an industrial town, living in and out of shelters and foster homes until her late teens. She struck out on her own, eventually earning a contract to mine asteroids within her solar system. When she heard of the new colonist initiative, she struck out with her new wife, Scellia, to discover and settle a new planet to hopefully find a true home among the stars.

Gay
Careful Shooter: She never felt comfortable around guns, and always makes sure to treat them with respect when they're in her hands.
Chemical Fascination: She developed a bit of a drinking habit during her contract.

Interested in Mining
Passionate about social. She never had many friends growing up and yearns for family and friends to finally feel at home somewhere.

Industrial Orphan
Deep Space Miner


Scellia Finley

Scellia grew up in the same town as Victoria, they knew each other as acquaintances from a job that Victoria held in her teens, and they kept in touch over the years. They met up on one trip back to the planet from Victoria's mining contract by chance- Scellia had grown up as the apprentice of a metalworker and had been forging and shaping the metal that Victoria had been sending back. They struck up a friendship that soon grew into something more, and they were married shortly before the new colony initiative was announced.

Gay
Industrious: She was always taught to be a hard worker
Teetotaler: Seeing what drinking has done to her wife has always nagged at her, and it's a point of contention between them.

Crafting Passion: She thoroughly enjoyed her apprenticeship and work, and hopes to use her skills here in the new colony.

Apprentice Smith
Blacksmith
(Closest things I could find to the backstory I wanted)


Cutter Payne

Cutter Payne grew up on the farmlands that fed the towns and cities of his planet and always took pride in his work. Born to a family of farmers, he hopes to use his skills to help the colony grow and thrive. He was in charge of the barns as he grew older, and learned many tips and tricks about caring for animals over the years.

Green Thumb: He takes pride in his work, and seeing the young plants break through the soil always lifts his spirits.
Prosthophile: He has heard of the power of bionics, and always thought he could be just that little bit better than the next guy if he had a bionic arm or leg.
Trigger-Happy: Cutter grew up around guns and considers himself a crack shot with them. It helped that ammunition was plentiful on the farms.

Farm Kid
Veterinarian

Arros Drgon

Arros grew up on the outskirts of civilization, among an enclave that wished to get away from the tech and neon lights that had overtaken their planet. Such things don't last, and eventually, their land was taken and they were resettled into the suburbs of the growing cities. Arros never forgot what it was like to live on the fringes, and took the colony initiative as a chance to once again have the sense of community in the wilds that he sorely missed. Growing up he tended the fires and cooked the food that his family and friends depended on, and always felt more comfortable around the heat and food than anywhere else.

Iron-Willed: Arros was raised to be strong, even in the face of the worst kinds of situations.
Careful Shooter: Bullets were a precious commodity and hard to get, each shot needed to hit home.
Night Owl: Arros' old habits tending the fires never left him, and he's always been happier at night under the stars.

Fire Tender
Housemate


Goal:
Survive for 5 years, upon which point the next colony ships will arrive and bring the supplies and people necessary to truly resettle the planet.

Create living space and facilities capable of supporting 20+ people for when the next wave of colonists arrives.
     -Have at least 4000 units of food stored for when the colonists arrive at the end of the five years.
     -Have at least 100 medicine at the same timeframe.
     -Have enough good or above clothing stockpiled to outfit 20 colonists with appropriate gear.

Difficulty:
Phoebe Rough (May be bumped up if things feel too easy, I'm not the best at this game =p )

Supplies:

They have been provided with 500 Wood and 600 Steel. Enough to build shelter and basic tools.
They have been given a cat for pest control, and a dog(Husky) for hunting and defensive purposes.
They have been provided with a pistol, a survival rifle and a pump shotgun for defense, with enough bullets to hopefully last them until they can buy more from a trader.
They have 10 meals per colonist. Any other food must be scavenged, grown, or hunted.
They have a supply of medicine to care for aches and pains and injuries.

Restrictions:

They may not build defensive turrets. Traps, bunkers, anything else that can be devised is allowed.

They must rescue, save, or recruit as many people as they can, without angering their other colonist groups. Prisoners may not be harvested or sold into slavery. They can only be released once their health problems are taken care of. Euthanization is authorized for any prisoner who cannot walk under their own power after their best doctoring efforts are expended.

They cannot attack or be hostile to any factions, they're here to settle, not make war.

No techs with "Spacer" requirements may be researched. (No ships, nuclear reactors, etc) They may purchase, use, or scavenge items from these tech levels if able.

Mods In Use:
http://i.imgur.com/qlb7h5B.png


The Story Begins

Our Intrepid Colonists


Day 1: Journal of Victoria Finley

We touched down today at the coordinates our group was assigned. We've been given our directives, survive for five years through whatever this world can throw at us, recruit anyone we can to join our colony, maintain relations with the other groups if able, and have supplies and shelter ready for the bigger ships when they arrive in five years time.

We've been outfitted with clothing and supplies to get us off the ground and on our own two feet, but they won't last forever. Along with my wife, we were assigned Cutter, a farmer, and Arros, who can apparently cook. With Scellia's crafting skills and my mining abilities, we were dropped down near a mountain that we're to dig into as best as we're able and create a working colony out of.

We were given a cat to control pests, Arros named her 'Scarcity' and made a joke about knowing how to cook cat if times got hard. At least, I hope he was joking. They also provided us with a beautiful Husky that Cutter named Pilar. He seems to have taken a liking to Arros though, and Arros doesn't seem to mind.

Some of our supplies got scattered around our landing site; we'll have to collect them when we have the time, but most of what we needed landed with us in the drop pods. We'll need to set up communications as soon as we can so we can talk to the incoming ships and the other colonist groups.

We decided to name the place 'New Lumina' after the city Scellia and I grew up in. Arros didn't seem to like it much, but from what he told us he might not like cities at all. I guess he didn't want to be reminded of it.

We're digging into the rocks now, so I guess I should go show them what I can do and get some basic shelter sorted.

[Slywyn]

Victoria's Journal


As we started looking for a good place to settle in, we found some really old ancient walls. I thought we should tear 'em down but as soon as Arros got anywhere near the wall he started yelling at everyone to stop and get away from it. He says it makes him incredibly uncomfortable to be near and that we shouldn't open it up. I'm inclined to agree with him, you never know what could be lurking in those sorts of things and I don't know what I was thinking.

We started looking at somewhere to dig out and make shelter and I found a pretty good part to start digging into the wall, nice and solid rock here that should support whatever we need. Turns out this area seems to be pretty rich in steel as well, we found two deposits just when trying to dig out some shelter. We don't have very much so far, but we've got most of our supplies indoors and we're working on some space for everyone to call their own. The best spot to dig turned out to be pretty close to that ancient wall-thing, so I hope that doesn't come back to bite us.

I hope we get some real beds soon, I'm tired of sleeping on the ground.

----

We got a couple of visitors through. Said they're from a place they're calling "Singer's Desert" about a weeks worth of travel away, they just wanted to come tell us that they made it down alright. They're one of the bigger groups, about ten people landed with them, so I guess they could spare the two to come over and tell us what was going on. Gubbins and Vargas was the name, seemed like decent enough guys.

----

We finally got enough space mined out to get a real bedroom, and wouldn't you know Cutter and Arros got together and decided that Scellia and I could have it. Scellia threw together a bed with Cutter's help and we finally got the thing installed. It's so nice to not sleep on the ground and have her by my side again. I need to make sure to get those guys some sleeping space of their own here real soon.

----

We managed to get two more bedrooms built, Scellia's working on their beds as I write this. What I really wanted to get down though is that someone from one of the other groups came in today. She didn't have very good news. Her name's 'Tomboy', at least that's the name she gave us, and she was wearing just a tattered vest and her birthday suit, carrying a chunk of rock she claims is a club. Said as soon as her group landed a bunch of pirates calling themselves 'The Skunks of Murder' showed up and started enslaving people.

They stripped her of her clothes and she just managed to grab that chunk of Slate she's carrying around to brain the guy with, then took off running. She ran into Gubbins and Vargas and they directed her here, said we could use the extra hands.



Yuuka 'Tomboy' McGuire

Yuuka grew up as an orphan in a Convent, but she didn't like the closeted and cloistered life and choose to run off as soon as she was old enough to. She was a drifter most of her adult life and signed up for the Colony initiative as soon as she heard about it. She took up odd jobs, mostly farm work or construction, to pay her way and convinced them she had the skills to be useful out on the Rim.

Prosthophobe: She saw some horrible bionics gone wrong during her convent days, and can't imagine having one of those things in her.
Chemical Interest: She got addicted to alcohol when she was younger, and even though she's got things under control these days she's always worried she's going to fall back off the wagon.

Convent Child
Drifter


It's another mouth to feed, but they're not wrong. We could use the help. Just means we'll have to dig out another bedroom, but she says she's good at building things so we'll see how useful she is.

And hopefully we can find her some clothes soon.

----

Everyone seems to be in higher spirits now that we've got some proper bedrooms and we're not sleeping on the ground. The privacy is pretty nice too- stone walls are good at muffling sound.

We need a proper kitchen soon, Arros says he can't wait to show us what he can do, and we're gonna be running out of the meals we were sent down with before too long. They're starting to get stale anyways.


Progress So Far:

[Slywyn]

Victoria's Journal

Wouldn't you know that the pirate bastards from whatever Skunk followed Tomboy down here and tried to attack us. Poor Pilar took the worst of it, all he had was a club like the one Tomboy had and as soon as he came screaming through the door the dog jumped on him and wouldn't let go. We don't have anywhere to put this guy, but he gave up after Pilar tore him up pretty bad. Not that the dog didn't come away with his own licks.

We all agreed that we can't just abandon the guy, so we're gonna dig out a room and give him some medicine and see if we can't turn him around or at least get him on his feet again. We'll protect ourselves but we're not murderers.

----

I guess it's a moot point, the guy ran off in the middle of the night. We were all so tired from the day, mining and taking care of him, that we didn't post up a guard and he just took off the first chance he got. We didn't have a room for him to stay in anyway, he probably just walked out when everyone was asleep.

At least we got Arros a kitchen built, he's pretty thankful to get cooking again, and so are the rest of us. We ran out of meals today.

Tomboy's been showing just how good she is with a hammer and a wrench, she took some of the plans we were sent down with and built a solar panel quick as you like. Told me her name's 'Yuuki' but she's always gone by Tomboy since she was little. I'm not one to argue so that's what I'll keep callin' her.

----

A heat wave ran through, incentivized us to get some batteries running and get a few air conditioners built. We also got a freezer room cordoned off so we can start hunting and planting without worrying about things spoiling. It's getting pretty close to summer already, but I think we've done pretty well so far.

----

Whole bunch of cargo pods crashed down overnight. Oysters and head wraps, Cutter calls them 'ear bandages'. No idea who would have sent this stuff, but we threw a party and ate all the oysters to celebrate finally being self-sustaining as far as food goes. Cutter even got some plants in the ground, potatoes and corn for now, so we can supplement the meat we're getting from hunting.

Things are looking up. We just have to get this place prettied up and I think we might really be able to start calling it home.

----

Now that he's a full-time chef, Arros has started sleeping during the day and cooking all night. It works for me, means there's fresh food for us to eat every morning and he seems a little happier about it. Tomboy's starting to get upset about her continual lack of clothes- Cutter put down some cotton but it's going to be a while until we can do anything about getting her some proper stuff to wear. Most of us just do our best to ignore it while she's walking around. She did take a blanket and fashion something to cover herself up, but I can definitely understand wanting some actual clothes.

We built a wind generator to help supplement the solars we have. We're starting to run low on components but there's ruined machinery around; we've been able to dig out and fashion what we need from that. Things are still looking okay. No incidents since the pirate, though we did spot a Thrumbo wandering around. We steered well clear of it.

----

A trading caravan stopped by. Said they're a tribe that goes by the name "Red Crocodile Gorar". They wanted to sell weapons, but we didn't really have anything to give them save the club that pirate guy left behind. He gave us a whole silver piece for it, but at least it's not laying around taking up space anymore. Not much we honestly wanted from him, but we chatted while they milled around outside the colony for a couple of days. Save for Singer's Desert there's apparently nobody else that made it. Either the pirates, the elements, or the animals got to them.

Sobering thought, that only the two groups made it. We held a little candle-light vigil for the lost, one of the shamans from the tribe said a prayer or two on our behalf. It's all we could do, but at least they won't go un-mourned.

We've been digging around to try to figure out where that bad room stops. We thought we had a scare when we found another wall deeper in the mountain, but it wasn't connected to anything. We're building the colony around this ancient room, we can hear buzzing and clicking from inside of it every now and then, but nothing's come out and we haven't heard any noises. It's unsettling but we're just trying to put it out of mind for now.

We're building a workshop, putting some crafting tables and things like that in there. Start production on supplies and clothes, anything we can make on our own really. We'll be well on our way to total self-sufficiency before too long, I can taste it.


Progress So Far:

[Slywyn]

Victoria's Journal

We had a raid again earlier today. Pilar took the brunt of it again, but we sustained a few injuries ourselves. Nothing Cutter couldn't patch up, I guess him taking care of his animals back home is coming pretty in handy here, especially with how often he's got to fix the dog.

More pirates, though there were three of them this time. We heard them yelling and smashing stuff, everyone ran outside all at once, we're still cleaning up and prettying the whole place to make it presentable and a little more pleasant to live in. They went after the generators first, one of them even had Molotovs, but we were able to fend them off. Two of the pirates died. We buried them, it's only decent, the third one just turned tail and ran.

A boar must've gotten pretty upset by all the shooting and banging and fire, it came running through while we were trying to bury the dead, scratched Scellia up pretty good before we killed it. Just more food for the freezer I guess.

----

One of the damn circuits blew up this morning in the power lines, huge boom and the batteries were completely drained, we had to go put out the fire outside. I guess maybe we shouldn't have built the clear area for the wind turbine out of wood after all, about half of it was lost. Pretty unpleasant all around.

Tomboy finally has clothes. It stopped being a problem for us a while back, I almost forgot to mention it. One of the first things we built in the new workshop was a tailoring bench and even though Scellia's talents are in metalwork and weaponry she managed to fashion together a decent enough pair of clothes. She's really the only one of us who knows her way around making anything at all, so I suppose she'll have to learn.

Now that we've got enough space inside for everything we need I've become a little bit redundant. Spend most of my days hauling things back and forth or cleaning, fending off the occasional animal that goes crazy and tries to attack us. Might be something in the water, we should look into that. It's peaceful enough, I don't imagine every month will be exciting. We still hear buzzes and clicks from that ancient room, it's starting to make people antsy. I think we might have to crack it open soon and kill whatever's in there before the noise drives us crazy.

None of us are fighters, though. I still don't really know how we're going to handle it. I've heard tales of what kinds of creatures can lurk in ancient ruins like that, and I'm not too excited about the thought of cracking it open and having to face them.

----

Arros told us that he thinks he can make an oven and some dough, we'll have good fresh bread to go with our potato flapjacks and roast meat in the morning if we can get what he needs. He needs an oven and some sugar to sweeten the dough with. We've already got corn and he's making flour with that- wheat would be better, but corn's more versatile so we grew that first- we just have to get sugarcane in the ground. Cutter says he can handle it so we're trusting him to it.

Everyone seems to be looking to me like a leader. I don't know why. Maybe it's the journal I've been keeping, chronicling what we've been through and where we are now, I don't know. I can't say I really mind it. It's not like it's particularly difficult, everyone knows what they need to do and how to do it, I don't have to give out orders. At least I don't feel so useless when people come ask me a question or bring me a concern. They want some furniture to go in their rooms.

I guess I can see if Scellia or Tomboy knows how to make anything. Maybe it's in the plans they dropped us down here with.

----

Tomboy came down with muscle parasites. I guess we should have tried to get her some clothing sooner, I don't know. I feel really bad about it. She says she feels fine, she's just tired all the time. She still pulls her weight where she can, rests a lot when she gets tired.

We've all agreed to just... let her. She's sick and still putting in the work. She feels like one of the crew now.

----

Everyone's really pulling together to get the last of the floor smoothed out and get this place presentable. We're starting to talk about pulling some of the rough stone walls down and replacing them with smooth stone that's nicer to look at. Maybe I'll get to break down some stone again, it's been a while.



No Progress Picture this time! Very little has changed visually from this post to the last.

[Slywyn]

Victoria's Journal, 1st Summer

Another group from the tribe passed by today, Red Crocodile Gorar again. They were giving us shifty looks though, and when they left they didn't seem particularly pleased. We're working on getting a room together for guests, give them proper lodgings. Most of the time they've been hanging around in the common room and they haven't really had a good place to stay.

We're gonna install a bunch of beds, a table for them to eat if they don't want to come to the common room, maybe give them some horseshoes to play with. We want to be hospitable, try to make as many friends as possible.

----

There was a raid today. We made Pilar stay inside this time, he can't keep getting shot to pieces. Thank the gods, if they're listening, that we cobbled together some defenses. We were actually in the process of finishing them off, but the main structure was complete. Myself, Scellia, and Arros inside the bunker we built. Five attackers, one of which had a machine gun, and we managed to hold them off with only minor injuries.

We gave Cutter the machine gun, since he's been asking when he'd get his hands on the weapon the entire time we've been here. Plus he seems to like that sort of weapon. The raiders had a fair amount of bullets on them so we should be fine for a good long while, as long as we're judicious with it's use.

We made sure to finish the defenses first thing next morning.

----

Someone crashed down in a pod the other day, we heard the explosion and saw it fall when everyone was out cutting down some wood since we were running low. We made sure to go out and pick them up, get them on their feet again. Unfortunately they decided not to stay, though we did try to convince them. Not sure where they're wandering off to, but wherever it was it wasn't with us.

----

I had a moment that I'm not proud to write down here. Visitors stopped by, they loved our new guest room, and when they left they left us some beer.

I hadn't had a drink in so long, I don't know what came over me. I just couldn't stop. I don't know how many I drank, but there were a lot less beers when I was done than when I started. I had the others hide the rest of them from me so it doesn't happen again. I haven't asked where they are, though it eats at me every day to know.

----

We finally decided to figure out what was going on inside of that big room. Everyone got together and tried to figure out the best way to deal with it, and we collectively decided on a plan of action. The rustling, beeping, scraping noises from inside the walls have been driving everyone nuts. Gods help us all if this fails.

----

The plan's in motion. The traps are set. And I do mean actual traps. We dug out a hallway along the back side of the ancient room, filled it with as many traps as we could craft. We built defenses at the end so we could fire back at anything that came running out, they've worked well against raiders so far.

We're going to go open it up tomorrow.

----

Things didn't go very well. The things inside, Scythers I guess they're called, they're all dead. Cutter got an ear shot off, he was lucky the thing missed or he'd be dead right now.

Tomboy might still die.

Cutter's doing what he can, but he's said he's a veterinarian, not a doctor. She took the worst of the damage. She volunteered to go open up the wall at the end of the traps, since she's not good with a gun and she can run pretty quickly. She built most of them so she said she could get away quickly.

It wasn't fast enough.

She took a shot before she got back to the defenses, and another one climbing over the sandbags. Cutter yanked her behind the wall, and that's when he took his shot to the ear.

Everyone else hid, let the traps work, fired blind around the wall at anything that moved.

When we looked out to see what had happened when the noise stopped, damn near every trap in the hallway had been set off. At least the machines are stupid enough to fall for it.

We had to carry Tomboy to her bed. She was bleeding everywhere.

Spirits are low while we wait for her to pull through.

She's strong, she's young.

We hope she makes it.


----

Right after I finished writing our last entry, another circuit in the wiring shorted out. Big explosion. Everyone thought we'd missed something or we were under attack.

I've never been so relieved to find the front door on fire in my life.


Progress So Far:


Note the massive room of robots. The trap hall worked better than I expected, I shouldn't have put any colonists at risk at all(Save for the one opening up the wall). I have no idea how I'm going to deal with the caskets though. Maybe reset the traps and hope for the best?

[Brovahkii]

Great story so far. I would build some walls in there to fire from behind along some sandbags. There could be nothing but you never know with caskets. Good luck! Looking forward to seeing more written.))

[Slywyn]

Victoria's Journal, Mid-Fall


Tomboy's resting, Cutter thinks she'll make it. Took some big hits but she's young and she's recovering. Says one of her ribs is shattered. He pulled all the pieces out that he could, but we don't have a proper hospital or anything set up yet, so we're going to be making that a priority. We had started working on one before the room got opened up, so we should be able to continue with that plan.

We took a peek inside while we were hauling the dead- do mechanoids even die?- robots out of the hallway, there's a bunch of cryptosleep caskets in there. We've all heard tales of what can happen if you open those up, maddened ancient humans with future-guns and bionics hopped up on the drugs they went in there with. We think we'll do what we did with the mechanoids, re-arm the traps, send someone in to open one(Not Tomboy this time), and see what comes out of them.

If there's people in there who could use our help, we don't really feel like we have any choice BUT to open the caskets up, and it can't be worse than a bunch of robots, can it?

----

While we were thinking about what to do with the caskets, both Scellia and Cutter came down with the flu. Plans for the caskets have been put on hold for now, we need to get ourselves healthy again before we even think about taking on any new people or fighting.

----

I can't even describe the cluster that just happened.

A trade convoy stopped by, and before we knew what they were doing, they followed the new hallway we dug into the ancient room and started milling about inside.

I guess they were curious about what the caskets were, they were from one of the tribes, because they pried one open before we could stop them. Some kind of alarm went off and all of them opened up, and a bunch of people piled out and started shooting.

Three of them are still alive, Cutter and Scellia are both down with the flu. We can't just leave them in there, we're hurrying to try and get new beds built so we can tend to them, but with Scellia out with the flu it's slow going. We're doing what we can, but understandably moods aren't very high at the moment.

----

Sometime in the night Cutter wandered off. We haven't seen him since dinner last night and he hasn't come back this morning. We hope he's alright.

----

One of the prisoners was sick, and with Cutter gone it was up to Scellia and Arros, the only two of us who have any idea how to treat injuries, to keep him from dying. We've moved the three cryptocasket survivors into the prison we built for the raiders that keep showing up, we're trying to convince them to join us instead of attack us. We think at least one of them might come around soon, we could really use the help.

----

Cutter came back last night, completely naked. The first thing he did was scarf down two entire meals before he would answer any questions. He said the sickness and all the death from the caravan being attacked, the bodies we had to bury, he just wanted to get away from it all. He didn't know what had happened to his clothes, but he was nearly hypothermic with winter getting close. The weather's been a lot colder.

We'll go out and look for his clothes tomorrow. For now he's wearing some older stuff we took off of some of the bodies. Kinda icky to think about.

----

One of the prisoners came around to our way of things this morning. This is the first prisoner we've taken in that didn't either die or wander away in the night. Her name's Lovegood, we didn't actually think that we were going to be able to recruit anyone, but we're now fully aware that we don't have enough beds.


Alice Lovegood

Alice was a lordling on a medieval world in her youth, but defected from the decadence of the courts when she was old enough to understand what was going on and the travesties being committed. She ended up on a ship headed for this planet long ago, but when they arrived they were put into an underground vault as part of an experiment. She said she couldn't control her actions when she awoke from the cryptocasket, which is along the lines of what the other two prisoners have said.

Hard Worker
Steadfast
Cold Tolerant

Medieval Lordling
Defector


We've put her to work, she said she's got a fair bit of experience crafting all sorts of items and she seems handy with a weapon. We think she'll make a great addition to the colony.


The other two cryposleep patients also joined us. Once we had Alice explain to them what was happening and who we were and what we were trying to do, they seemed enthusiastic to join. Both of them were apologetic for their actions, explaining much like Alice that they couldn't control themselves when they awoke. We don't have any reason to disbelieve them and we now have two new recruits. Our little colony is growing nicely.


Arthur Osborne

Story Writer
Taxonomist

Psychically Sensitive
Iron-Willed
Cold Lover

Danny Hardin

Medieval Slave
Taxonomist

Heat Tolerant
Psychically Dull


We really hope they'll be able to help us out. Danny says that he was training to be a researcher and might be able to help us discover some new technologies. He also says that our little tablets with all our designs and recipies and blueprints on them have some buried data that he can help us dig up. Maybe we'll get some new things we can build out of it.

----

Things are going pretty well. With the extra hands around there's less of a work load on everyone and we can get more production up and running, we can get more resources, more wood, more metal. Anything we need is now easier to get. Situation's starting to look up!


Progress So Far: (Note the new bedrooms! And the new store room in what used to be the ancient danger room. Kept one of the cryptosleep caskets in case someone needs to be saved and we don't have the medicine/bodyparts/etc)

[Slywyn]

Great story so far. I would build some walls in there to fire from behind along some sandbags. There could be nothing but you never know with caskets. Good luck! Looking forward to seeing more written.))

Thank you so much for the comment! I really, really appreciate it. We actually snuck the caskets open while there was a caravan in the room for some reason. We weren't going to have a better opportunity or more firepower to deal with it than that.

[Brovahkii]

Truthfully, you actually re-inspired me to get my story stories started again since I've been needing a creative outlet. And where did I start? My most recent RimWorld playthrough, of course! Still, looking forward to seeing a prolonged life for your colonists.

[Slywyn]

Victoria's Journal


Soon after we started expanding the base and planning some new rooms and areas, a huge cloud of toxic fallout rolled in over the area. We don't really know how long it's going to last, but we've got a good stockpile of food so we don't think that we're actually going to be too bad off. We will have to make sure we can defend ourselves from what comes our way, but hopefully things won't be too bad until this blows over.

We're going to lose all the crops which has Cutter a bit upset, but we salvaged and harvested what we could so we'd keep what seeds we had. I hope this doesn't last too long.

----

Every now and then we can hear an explosion off in the distance. Boomalopes and Boomrats exploding, I guess. It's unsettling, but we did send out a few small expeditions to collect some of the dead animals for food to help keep us from using too much of our saved supplies. Cooking the meat gets the toxins out, and they mostly attack the brain and lungs anyway.

Short trips are safe as long as you make sure to stay inside for a day or two afterward. We're taking turns, but the animals won't last too long out in the weather and rain before they're rotten.

----

As far as we can tell, the worst of the toxins have settled down. A combat supplier came by the other day, so we're assuming it's safe to go outside. We sold them some of the maces and weapons that we've gotten from the attacks, I myself upgraded to an assault rifle we got off of the patients from the cryptosleep caskets that died. We don't have very many bullets for them, but we bought some off of the trader. The extra firepower will be wonderful for defense in the future.


Scellia's Journal


Tomboy's missing a hand. Vicky's in the hospital. Arros is missing his nose, he's in the hospital. Cutter's in the hospital. Pilar is dead. I'm writing this between treating anyone I can, but this isn't what I'm good at. This isn't what I trained to do.

A massive raid of tribals came in, surprised us. We were trying to build new power since we were running low. The first thing we heard of them was the screaming coming over the hills. There were so many of them. Cutter fell, Arros fell, Tomboy fell, everyone was bleeding.

There's blood all over the halls.


Victoria's Journal


Arros is dead.

With everyone so injured, we ran out of medicine. I nearly died. Infection set in, there was nothing we could do. I was unconscious for two days. Cutter told me he considered amputating my hand, but the infection cleared up before it got to that point.

Arros had an infection in his torso, and we tried, but we just couldn't save him.

We're holding the burial tomorrow.

I don't want to write anymore.

----

We built a sarcophagus for Arros and buried him outside. He always wanted to be under the stars, so we wanted to leave him there, where he would have wanted to be.

Tomboy lost a hand, but she managed to carve a beautiful nature scene, a small town like he used to talk about when he would share things about his past, into his coffin for him.

We held a small vigil for him, everyone gathered outside for a while. We didn't really know what to say.

We need to figure out who can cook to replace him.

I hate this.


Progress So Far: (Note the aftermath of the raid still scattered around)

[Slywyn]

Victoria's Journal


We're still cleaning up from the raid. The whole colony smells like blood, we've been leaving the doors open to try to air it out.

We came together and decided that Arros would have wanted Pilar to be buried near him, so we built another sarcophagus for his loyal dog. Tomboy carved the two of them together on the sides so even when the bodies inside are long gone, they'll be able to remain at each other's side.

Everyone's been stressed since the recent attack. We found Cutter wandering in the freezer, crying about his friend.

We found out that Arros and Lovegood had struck up a relationship but hadn't told anyone. They hadn't even been able to spend a night together yet.

----

We're building more defenses out front, and our researcher says that he thinks he can build something that will help with the attacks, especially massed attacks like the tribals throw together. We're going to see what he has to say.

We're not fighters. At least, I don't think we are. It might not be the truth anymore. We might have to be fighters to survive here.

----

Cutter was able to attach a prosthetic hook hand to Tomboy's wrist to give her a bit of functionality back. We're looking into possibly making her something better in the future, but for now it's all we can do.

We built more defenses, and a few more are under construction. We'll need to try to figure out what we can do that's better than what we already have, but we might just need more people. More guns.

We're growing healroot more aggressively now. I don't want to lose anyone else to infection.

----

I just realized that we've been here an entire year already. It's very nearly the first of summer again.

So much has changed, and we lost so many of our own. We're past the 'getting established' stage now, and we need to seriously start considering our directives, especially medicine. Healroot will serve in a pinch but we need to consider getting actual medicine production up and running.


No Progress picture today! Very little changed between this and the last picture other than cleaning up the blood and adding more traps + walls around the outside of the base.

I think I'm going to have to start making an album for the uploads, the base is too big to get in one screenshot now.

[Slywyn]

Victoria's Journal


Not much has been happening the last few days. Building defenses, consoling everyone who's still upset over Arros. I'm still sad about it too, but we have to try to put it behind us and move on to continuing to manage the colony. Lovegood has been hit particularly hard, they only just managed to get him to open up to her before he died.

We're running low on steel, but I found some deposits out in the hills that we can mine, so we should be fine. Building defenses are expensive.

----

A slaver from one of the tribes stopped by today. We couldn't stand by and let them carry on with their slaves if there was something we could do about it. We traded over all of our weapons and all of our silver, but we managed to haggle the price down to buy the two slaves they had with them, Reika, and Val. Val's a little older, but both of them were incredibly happy to be free with us.

We gave them the option to leave if they wanted once the caravan took off, but they told us they'd love to stay and help us out. We're more than glad to have new faces around to distract us from the last few seasons.


Reika Collier

Shelter Child
Factory Worker

Psychically Sensitive
Bloodlust

Valentin 'Val' Anastasi

Mad Scientist
War Chief

Abrasive
Hard Worker



Since we're so low on money after buying Reika and Val off of the slavers, we've decided to start building and selling furniture. It's one of the few things we can reliably produce without causing a detriment to the colony. What prompted the conversation about how we can support ourselves and pay for supplies we need was the fact that we've hit another milestone- We finally got a comms console up and running.

We called the other surviving colonists at Singer's Desert, just to see if they were doing alright. Said they were glad to hear from us and they were sad about what happened to Arros. They said things have been about the same for them, fending off attacks constantly.

----

When we woke up this morning there was a horrible psychic drone going on. Apparently only women could hear it, Cutter and the other men were fine. Thankfully it didn't last through the entire day, but for a while there it was difficult to think.

----

Some of the expansion to the base is complete, but there's always more to do. We're going to build more bedrooms, start making space. Only three years left, really, until the others are going to arrive.

So much to do so little time.

----

Something horrible crashed nearby. Nobody has any idea what it is, but it's putting out a drone like a few days ago, but for everyone. It's not as bad, but we can only imagine it's going to get worse. Snow is even starting to spread around it, but we have no idea how it's doing that. We're going to build defenses around it and see what happens, try to get rid of this thing.

----

Right as we were readying to attack the crashed ship, it emitted some kind of pulse that drove animals nearby crazy. Luckily we had assault rifles and a shotgun to fend off angry rabbits, but it was enough to put everyone on edge.

I am proud to say that the traps and our weapons managed to destroy the ship and the mechanoids that came out of it without even a single injury on our part. Not a one of us was hit.

I would owe our victory mostly to the traps, though. Two of the mechanoids that came out, a scyther and a centipede, were immediately killed as they came piling out of the ship by traps snapping shut upon them or crashing chunks of metal down upon their heads. The other two were easy pickings for us once we focus fired down upon them.

More mechanoid corpses to throw on the pile, though our researcher says we might be able to dissasemble them for resources if we get the right sort of equipment. I'm all for it.

I'm tired of looking at dead robots on our front lawn.


Progress So Far: Album this time!
http://imgur.com/a/usuY4

[Slywyn]

Victoria's Journal


A caravan came through today that were interested in the furniture we've been building as well as some of the clothes that we've been creating. I'm actually quite pleased that the plan seems to have worked and we're able to keep making money this way. We got a fair amount of silver from the traders, so we've definitely got the ability to keep trading for supplies we need. Mostly right now it's medicine.

We're still low, but we've managed to get some healroot plants growing and herbal medicine is better than none. We've also been thinking about trying to get the ingredients put together in order to make it into real medicine, but we'll need more production facilities for that.

There was a huge flash storm the other day that set a ton of the wilderness outside on fire, but we managed to get it under control, and now there's a convenient fire break between our base and the rest of the forest outside.

----

Thank goodness for the other colonists. A group from Singer's Desert came by to visit, and they brought us some gifts. Along with a bit of food- which we don't really need, but is fine, we enjoy gifts and the good will that they bring- they left us some medicine. Which conveniently coincided with a drop pod crashing down outside that also left us some proper medicine. We now feel much more secure in our position should someone get sick.

Which is great, because Osborne just came down with malaria and needs regular treatments. We should be completely able to deal with it now, however.

----

The good things just keep coming. I'm starting to worry that we're about be hit HARD by something, but I'm going to try not to look a gift muffalo in the mouth. One of the colonists from Singer's Desert, Christobal, heard that we'd saved his brother from slavery and made the trip out here and requested to join us so he could be with his brother again. Obviously we whole-heartedly accepted, bringing the family back together has raised the spirit of everyone here.

Amazing how that worked out for us.


Christobal Anastasi

Music Lover
Geologist

Abrasive
Night Owl


We found an ear bandage which we've given to Cutter for him to wear. It helps keep people from looking at his damaged ear and he says it helps keep it clean, so it's good all around. His mood seems to have improved a bit because of it, as well, which is wonderful.

----

Of all the rotten luck. I knew something terrible was going to happen, our luck's been too good recently. Another of those terrible ships crashed down. We put out the initial fires once we figured out where it was, and we've begun to install traps and defenses around it like we've done before. We're hoping that we can get as good luck this time as we did last time.

----

Well, the luck wasn't great. This entry's a few days later than I would have wanted to write it, but I spent most of that time in the hospital. Thank the gods that we didn't sustain any major injuries. We ended up fighting one of those monsters that had a massive cannon that shot fire and flame everywhere. We weren't ready for it and it really caught us off guard. I guess we'll have to figure out some way to deal with that when the next ship crashes down.

----

The last few weeks haven't been very eventful. No disasters, no diseases. We did have a crop blight that killed off most of what we had planted, but we've stored up enough seeds that it's just a setback at this point, rather than an emergency.

We're using the peaceful time to help reinforce the base, build, ramp up production, and search for more resources within the mountain.

We can't help feeling like something big is going to happen soon, though.

----

We'll have been here for two years come next spring. It really feels like it hasn't been that long, but we've come a long way from our humble beginnings. Only three years left until the end.

----

Would you believe that another ship crashed down right before the new year? We're going to celebrate the new year with gunfire, apparently.

Hopefully we make it to the next year safely.


Progress So Far:

Not much has changed since the last pictures! Just larger numbers of resources. It's been a quiet couple of seasons, and I'm considering turning up the difficulty or switching to another storyteller.

[Slywyn]

Victoria's Journal

More raiders attacked today, but this time it was pirates. Our bunkers and traps worked excellently, the only injury came when a raider attempted to storm one of our bunkers and cracked me pretty hard in the jaw.

We managed to capture one of them but she's proving resistant toward joining the colony. We're considering releasing her since she seems unhappy in imprisonment, but we know that if we do she might just go back to her pirate friends and we're not really comfortable with the idea.

----

Bunch of Alphabeavers showed up today. Rather than let them eat all the trees, we tried out these new 'Charge Rifles' that we got from some of the dead pirates. They're pretty interesting, beyond anything we can build ourselves, but they seem really sturdy.

----

A pirate merchant passed by overhead, and we were able to get him on the comms. We managed to get it out of him that he was carrying two prisoners aboard! We spoke to them and they told us that if we paid for their release, they'd gladly join our colony. True to the ideals we've held so far, we paid over the silver, nearly bankrupting ourselves, but with all the extra clothing and things we've gotten from the raids we were able to make a deal happen.

He offered to buy our prisoner off of us but we couldn't stomach it, so we told him no.

Can't imagine what the other colonists would have thought if we'd gone through with it.


Tamara Peluso

Child Spy
Pit Brawler

Brawler
Slowpoke
Neurotic

Nikolay Wright
Story Writer
Space Pirate

Cold Tolerant
Brawler
Bloodlust


A trader came through from the tribals again, and since we were missing Pilar and wanted to get a new dog for the colony, we bought a Labrador off of them named Navajo. We think he'll make a wonderful addition, and spirits are already up from having a dog around again. I think people missed Pilar more than they were letting on.

----

Near on to fall now, and we heard some odd chittering and other nonsense from the mines we dug. We sent someone to go check it out and there were massive insects inside. They came screaming out and everyone else ran over to go help, we ended up destroying them and killing the big hives they had built. No idea how long they were down there, but dealing with it in the dark and dust down there wasn't fun for anyone.

They left a bunch of jelly stuff behind, no idea what it is but we think we're just going to sell it to a trader rather than risk whatever disease or horrible thing might befall someone who eats it.

----

Lynx finally decided to join us today, after being imprisoned for a month or two. I guess she just didn't want to be locked up anymore and figured we were better than her pirate friends.


Rebecca 'Lynx' Edwards

Spoiled Child
Test Subject

Psychically Dull
Heat Tolerant
Neurotic


We're glad to have the extra hand around. We're turning into a proper workshop here, too. Lots of crafting going on, we even managed to pick up some robots from a trader in exchange for furniture and other items we had in the colony, they've been a huge help. We have more hands available for more important tasks now that the robots are hauling and cleaning. Less for us to worry about.

We've even started to produce some weapons, just to be sure we have the firepower around if we need it. No telling when the next pirate raid or robot ship is going to crash down.

----

It's coming on winter soon and we're stockpiling food and supplies to make it through to next spring. We hope this new year doesn't have to be rung in with a bang like last year. Maybe the pirates will let us celebrate in peace.


Progress So Far:
http://imgur.com/a/zFPQc another album! Base is getting bigger and rooms for new colonists are being actively prepared.

[Slywyn]

Victoria's Journal


I'm not even sure which winter this is. The fourth? Third? I think it's the fourth winter. We've been dealing with semi-regular raids, but either we're just getting better at killing or our defenses are continuing to prove to be effective, as we've fought back the last four raids, pirates, then more pirates, then tribals, then more pirates, without sustaining even a single injury.

We've only managed to capture one pirate who goes by the name of Bradley, whose arm was shot off in the raid. When we promised him a new prosthetic arm if he joined us, he signed up right away and he's been invaluable in fighting off the other raids since. We've met most of the requirements for our directives, we have enough rooms built, we have enough clothing.

But blights keep destroying our crops, and we don't have the power for hydroponics. We're running out of steel, we've mined just about everything we can find, and traders just don't bring enough. We bought plans for something called a 'Core Drill' that would promise nearly-infinite metals, but we weren't able to scrape together enough plasteel to get it built before we ran out.

We have enough clothes and we have enough rooms, we have enough food, but we don't have enough medicine. We can't buy enough and we can't trade enough, and our plants keep getting blighted.

We might fall short of our goals, which is unfortunate.

What also tends to be worrying is that we're getting so good at killing other humans. We're so efficient at it, we've done nothing but capture weapons and bury corpses from the raids that keep showing up.

I worry what's going to happen to us.


I think I'm going to call this now, unfortunately. The goals, given what keeps happening to the colony, are just out of reach.

We were very nearly at the medicine we needed, and we were hit with: raids, gut worms, parasites, malaria, multiple botched operations(When people have 15+ medicine), until we went from almost 90 medicine to none at all.

The goals didn't seem like they'd be too difficult, but getting the medicine goal in the last year that they'd have on the colony just doesn't appear to be within reach. Even if I called a bulk trader from the two factions who like me every single day and buy all the medicine, I'd either run out or have to use it.

It doesn't help that the colony's getting to the point that it's so big that it's not as fun to manage it anymore.

The relationship system in the game has caused me no end of grief, from constant mental breaks due to male colonists hitting on the two gay female colonists constantly, to male colonists hitting on every single female colonist in rapid succession until they have permanent -30 mood because of it. It's just ridiculous.

I eventually tried to separate them into male/female where the guys were all awake at night and the women were all awake during the day just to attempt to deal with it, but they still managed to find time to get upset at each other.

It's just not as fun anymore as I thought it'd be.

I think if I do another colony I'd try to keep it smaller and also do something harder, which might help prevent some of these problems.

I hope you've enjoyed though!