DF Devlog News (9/16)

 For any who hadn't seen it, here's the latest developments straight from the DF website. VERY exciting developments!

  "Relationships are quite a bit more fluid now, and I managed to scrunch the data down so that the historical figure legends display shows all of their various dalliances, which was a concern for a bit, as there is a lot of activity. I also made every battle a historical figure participates in, even as a regular soldier, part of the figure's chronology now, which helps reconstruct narratives such as the one to follow.

In a smaller island I ran for 150 years, I picked out the first human I found with a second marriage to start digging. This was Zicab, a ranger in her youth who quickly decided to pursue a life of poetry. Her first relationship, with a fishery worker named Innah, lasted for three years. They didn't get married, but Zicab had a daughter, Nulce, before they broke it off. Right after the breakup, Zicab became involved with Innah's childhood friend, Rabin the monster slayer, and after four years they got married.

During the marriage, Zicab began a poetry apprenticeship under Kifino the elf, a member of the Maligned Whispers, a performance troupe which operated out of goblin territory. This didn't stop Zicab, and she moved off to the pits to study, leaving Rabin back in town. They'd periodically see each other at the big annual foot race for the Celebration of Purifying (everybody in this story seems to compete in the foot race and spear throwing competition), but it wasn't meant to last - Rabin was killed by Shedim Murkyurns the hag of twilight, a constant menace, often attacking the children of the city (Zicab and Innah included), leaving Zicab a widow. The next year, Zicab met the high priest Rozmo of the Pungent Coven, worshipper of Pastro, goddess of misery and torture, and they were married before long. After producing three notable poems, Zicab was murdered by a goblin armorer in the pits (who was later devoured by a giant lion, so that has a happy ending.)

Zicab's daughter Nulce also had a rough time of it. After the apparent rite of passage of being attacked by Shedim as a toddler, Nulce joined the Pungent Coven and became a farmer. The elves were often attacking these communities, and Nulce proved herself in the Clash of Growling, becoming the General of the human civilization, the Union of Creatures, a few years later. The elves attacked again, lead by the immortal tactician and notorious tamer of giant mosquitos Princess Salo Larkfires, and during the defense of the outlying town of Goodbinds, Nulce was struck down by an elven elephant, and later put to rest in the Tomb of Shields.

Before the tumult, Nulce had been involved with a poet and local lord named Uthal, and together they had two sons, Urwa and Kammat, and a daughter Artuk. Uthal died alongside Nulce in the defense of Goodbinds, but the children survived, the oldest seven years old at the time, safe for the time at the Pungent Coven's town of Snugglemerged. (and, yes, Shedim tried to kill both Urwa and Kammat as children.) Urwa became a bandit after being played by a goblin spy, and Kammat also took up a life of crime, but Artuk became a farmer and Pungent Coven member like her mother, and also fought in the elf wars, where she formed a close friendship with a woman Athrab, who would later marry her widower step-father Rozmo the priest. Artuk soon gave up on fighting, and became a poet like her father and grandmother, moving again to the goblin pits, where apparently all poetry in this world is written.

Artuk's life of poetry went on for a decade, which saw the writing of 'The Sun Sets on Devourers' and her superstitous worship of a rampaging swamp titan. Then Salo Larkfires and the elves came again, in 105, this time attacking the goblin cities with giant great horned owls and badger people. As a performer, Artuk didn't participate in the defense, but she ended up being pressed into elven service for the next attack, fighting in several assaults on goblin pits, even striking up a war buddy relationship with an elf, Ditari (notable for multiple simultaneous lovers and affairs, which isn't all that common right now.) Under elven rule in the pits, the threat of being murdered like her grandmother passed, and Artuk died of old age around the end of world gen in 144. She left behind her long-time lover Ip and their four surviving children (the two youngest being swamp titan worshippers with elven childhood friends), as well as an elven apprentice of her own.

As for the child-hunting hag Shedim, after turning the tables on seven monster slayers, she finally met her match in the slayer elf Nemile Shellsfair, a veteran of every battle of the elf wars, who was only outdone herself when she challenged the bronze colossus (joining 209 other notables, and two cities.) The elf warleader Salo Larkfires, born a few years after the world was created, is still alive. She never had a romantic relationship, but had three close childhood friends: Yonali Cobrasalve, slayer, killed by a giantess in 43, Ameli Glenpicks, veteran and tavern keeper (survived), and Yawo, who died as a teenager fighting in the Attack of Claws in 17, where Salo's predecessor Cimathi Wasprifts was also shot and killed, paving the way for Salo's rise and her eventual conquest of the known world over the following century."