In these dark times, King Golud Thebilstetar has sent out several parties to begin scouring the lands for new viable mining settlements. This is the story of The Light of Dawn, a group of seven volunteers from the homeland Coupledye, searching out new resources in the king's name. It has been some months since they set out on their journey, and now, with supplies running low, the expedition leader Virtue has called for the party to set up camp. I'll let her tell the story herself. But first, here's the seven starting ponies:
(Left to right in cover art)
Ashwood (Male Pegasus) (Taken: Heavy Weapons Pony) - Woodcutter - Sociable, nervous, modest.
Saw Dust (Male Earth Pony) (Taken: WolfeyS) - Carpenter / Mason - Open minded, a bit reserved, dutiful.
Longshot (Male Pegasus) (Taken: ansontan2000) - Hunter - Self conscious, non confrontational, enjoys thrills.
Virtue (Female Earth Pony) (Taken: Telgin) - Expedition Leader - Slow to anger, assertive, but doesn't handle stress well
Harvest Moon (Male Pegasus) (Taken: Nyxalinth) - Farmer - Very self confident, open minded, slow to trust others
Panacea (Female Pegasus) (Taken: UnHerpers) - Doctor - Very calm demeanor, unassertive, likes helping others
Halberd (Male Earth Pony) (Taken: The Master) - Axe Pony armed escort - Confident under pressure, avoids crowds, often discouraged
Authors Note: This is a transcription of a Community Game from Dwarf Fortress. I am unable to claim any responsibility for the storyline itself, or any of the Pictures, as I attempted to join right at the end (Page 141 out of 143 at 25 posts per page). Had a pony picked out and everything.
Note by Telgin, The OP of Dawnpick, on the fort's chronology:
I'm also borrowing a bit from KingStrongbeard's backstory (hope he doesn't mind!) in that this would presumably take place quite some time before the events of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Celestia and Luna probably aren't born yet, and Discord (among other bad things) still runs rampant across the land.
The original thread can be found here.
A sequal, named Duskfields, can be found here.
A wiki for Dawnpick and it's fellow Dwarf Fortress Pony Mod Community Fort Glitterglen exists here. Please contribute if you have the time and energy.
Transcription has reached page 115 of 144.
From the OP:
As of today, June 9th, 2013, this game has been over for almost a year. For anyone interested, I hereby grant permission to use the world of Dawnpick and any content produced by me in relation to it in the use of any further stories, games, artwork or any other media.
(Roleplay ran 11/19/11 to 2/8/13)
Well.
Largly going to be copy-pasting from the thread, but there are large parts that will require... Assembly. Luckly, formatting and editing can be kept to a minimum.
As much as I love Dwarf Fortress, (but have yet to try the pony mod) I don't think that this was the best way to go about a crossover - as the Let's Plays of DF are often done, in journal form, and of a succession game. Perhaps you should do a combination of journals and regular story prose, somehow. (As shown at the top of this chapter, from Halberd to Longshot.)
Further, out of character statements are made. The telling exposition (rather than showing) is very jarring and pulls me right out of the story's atmosphere, as the OOC statements do. The offenders are
and anything Telgin says.
Might want to work around those in the future.
After all, you're writing this as we read it here, so why not make some adjustments, add some spice of your own? The people of Fimfiction are more used to seeing stories with more details and slower pacing, so why not insert some conversations and such? You can probably talk to your fellows and figure something out.
Speaking as someone that is reasonably familiar with the thread that you are transcribing, I would like to say good job so far, but the beginning is the easy bit. The posts well written and cohesive for the first few in-game years, but as more and more people joined the thread (especially ones with less stellar writting skills) the story became to cluttered and unwieldy for me to enjoy. I hope you will be able to turn it into something that is enjoyable to read through to the end, but it is likely to take you a lot of work.
I advise you to think of yourself as an editor rather than simply a transcriber. If you have read the whole thing (and you really should have if you are trying something like this), then you know ahead of time what twists the story will take and which plotlines will not lead anywhere. Don't be afraid to erase posts that don't add anything, or even edit out entire events if you feel they are taking away from the rest of the story. Remember that in time there will be far more ponies than any reasonable person can keep track of. It might be worth selecting a smaller number of ponies to focus on, and only mention events that happen among the others in passing.
Good Luck.
It... Does get confusing eventually... Events that happen years prior to the one described in the privious post... Scenes interupting other scenes... At least I'm not working on Glitterglen. And yes, I have read the whole thing. I even tried to join in! Dont give any spoilers please!
Ah, Bay12...is there anywhere I can escape thee?
Thumbs up for encouragement, and I'll be keeping an eye on this as a way of reading Dawnpick. I missed this one entirely, unfortunately, but it seems fairly well-known.
Lot of the same people as in Glitterglen beleive it or not. The OP's even joined each others threads. And FYI, their's a new sequal to Dawnpick up called Duskfields. Alerady pretty interesting, and it's only on page 5.
Anybody else unable to view the pitcure, or it just me? No clue why It's doing that.
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With regard to Out-Of-Character statements, I would suggest that they be turned into footnotes rather than interrupting the story to explain what is happening.
I love fanfic crossovers that we don't see everyday, and this seems like it will be great.
In short: What is this, and how do I inject it into my bloodstream.
In long:Yeeeeesssssss(x14)
And thus I persue with fire in my eyes, keep going author!
It should be pretty obvious that I have some high hopes for this fic. Hell, just look at my avatar.
Thing is, I'm looking forward to this, but I haven't seen any of the comedic sociopathy that normally comes with a succession fort.
I am willing to wait for a bit though.
Hah! Read this one on the forums, as it was happening. At least for a bit.
Not quite the same level of !!!FUN!!! as some succession forts. And the sheer amount of RPing made it essentially impossible to follow for people not involved in it after the opening few pages. Telgin(?) managed to make it pretty ponyish though. Really dwelling hard on the deaths and the DF senseless violence and such.
I just looked at the tags and realised that you don't have the Dark tag selected. What the hell? It might be a pony mod, but this is still from Dwarf Fortress.
2235892 Ran out of space for tags...
I understand you are mostly copying the thread, but Jaxlers' parts stand out like a sore thumb due to the horrible grammar. Could you please consider fixing them?
According to Microsoft Word, It should be all fixed now.
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Jaxler is a fething maniac when it comes to Grammar. Trust me, as one of the players, it was worse during the game than reading it afterwards.
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Hey Dsarker, nice to see you. Yes, his grammer could be better, but at least it's understandable. Working on a new chapter right now. While playing Dwarf Fortress. The Pony Mod too.
Edit: Atcually, his journal entries are pretty good. Maybe he just typed fast during RP?
Pro-tip for future succession games: Don't wait 'til you've got steel before you start making armour, it's better to have something in the interim and it also means your smiths can get a bit of practice in with the less valuable metal.
Chapter order modified.
I was just thinking of looking for ponified DF fic, and this shows up on the front page.
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Funny how that works sometimes.
And thus begins the flooding of useless migrants.
2204135 Abit late on the response, yes, but I too am unable to see the picture. However I am on a mobile device.
Oh man, Halbeard is shaping up to be a true badass.
WHAT? Plants into wood?!
Arctic bases here I come!
Guh, I can make a fortress with giant farming operations, and keep everybody living quite comfortably... but when it comes to the military, I have next to no fuckin idea how to set it up.
So I keep winding up with lotsa dead or dying dwarves once the nearest goblin company catches wind of my dwarves pleasant living conditions... and traps can only do so much...
Oh yes, you may think you can stomach the nobles needless requests for now, but that shall change in due time...
Let me just say that seeing them still give rememberance to Brook made me laugh. When I set out a fortress, one of our tree cutting dwarves went to a tree by a drained lake, and the ground gave way, where he ended up breaking one of his legs, trapping him. He starved while I tried getting my retarded dwarves to help the poor bastard. He finally died by drowning after a particularly long rainstorm, filling the lake back up. And after being reminded (I'd given up after 2 weeks of ingame button smashing) about it by a message telling me of a ghostly woodsman, well, I just stopped giving a damn on individual dwarven lives.
So seeing them still be sad over that one pony, well it's a pretty big contrast to how I run things. Maybe ponies are just naturally more compassionate.
They must be such glorious maps. But this damned nook cannot show them, curse it's inferior electronics! Oh, but it has no problem showing a picture of Falcata.
D'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw
Can't wait to see more of this. Stiletto's polygamy is interesting. Hope it doesn't cause problems.
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Well, techticley it's Polyamory, but close enough.
............what?!
Round goes to jaxler
I almost want to make a Dungeons and Dragons campaign out of this
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Well, it was played out in the Dwarf Fortress Pony Mod, so that's already been done in a way... But feel free! Telgin has released the rights.
First,(being a TF2 FiMFic lover) I think this is a TF2 crossover....then(without reading the whole description, just the top bit, nor reading the comments) I manage to figure out this had something to do with Dwarf Fortress. I search Dawnpick, voila I manage to find the thread. Good job Silver, you deserve a medal for your detective skills....not.
Time to favorite and continue reading....I still could never get the hang of that game...
Daaaw
this was one of the most fun scenes to play. I can see how it could be a pain to edit.
You know, it kept bothering me to this day how Nightmare Moon existed before Luna was born.
oh i remember reading this years ago on the Dwarf Fortress site, such nostalgia
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Polygamy is 'multiple marriages'. As in, you marry multiple people. Polyamory is merely 'multiple lovers'. No marriage, necessarily.
Oh gosh I always get so lucky that a dragon nearly every time sets fire to halve my inmates... I mean proud volunteers and migrants
keep working on it!
STRIKE THE EARTH!!!
What a cheerful little ditty there is here!
Jaxler is a prick.
I'm confused. Is she a vampire, or not?
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Not really. She just likes the taste of blood.
I bet going to the circus will be fun.
Everybody likes clowns.
5492547 Actually, sorry to disappoint, but they never even touch the candy.
Well, touch as in mine.