I just put up the latest entry into the Journals of Ästekkud (“Hello and Goodbye”). As I was writing it I realized that it was kinda dark. I imagine it would seem especially dark to those readers out there who might not be familiar with Dwarf Fortress, which can be a very dark game indeed. Perhaps I should add a warning to this site about the potential for graphic content? Not sure.
While I can assure you that I do intend to try to ‘lighten things up’ a bit, I actually can’t make any promises. You see, I’m attempting to tell the story, not just of a dwarf or two, but of the founding of a fortress as a whole. And the fortress is likely to outlive many of the dwarves that settle there. That means that, if I tell the story of the fortress from the perspective of a dwarf, the only possible outcome for the dwarf is eventual death.
You can get a sense of this if you read J. R. R. Tolkien’s book “The Silmarillion.” Because Tolkien is telling the history of his world over such a vast span of time, everyone dies (except certain immortal beings). Due to the “nature of the times” in the world of Middle Earth, most of the characters meet a fairly violent end. That’s just life. Well…no, it isn’t. It’s death, but you know what I mean.
So yeah, I’ll do what I can to ‘brighten things up’ a bit, but due to the nature of this type of story, and also the fact that the story is partly random without a known ending, I can’t actually promise that. Hopefully you will be able to still enjoy it. I know I am enjoying it, so perhaps some of that can rub off on both my readers.