Failed & successful colonies & explorations? (4-day rule applies, no on-going events)

[returner]

I'd love to hear stories about failed and successful colonization attempts! A while ago I read a note about a colonization attempt of some island and it interested me greatly.

This is probably a thread for older players to share their stories, purely because if you are currently settling an island, or currently exploring, it's going to be a forum rule breach to share it so please do not share any current or recent stories (ideally stories should be 500 - 1000 days old to be safe), or anything that may influence current players. To this end, please be vague if it may lead to players using the information in-character.

I have a couple I could share from the 2000's, but I'll see how this thread goes first!

Long-form is preferred as there's probably a bit of a tale to tell - I figure, if you don't tell your failed colony/exploration stories here, they may never be revealed, so feel free to go in-depth!

[Wolfsong]

There's a ship called Blackfish hanging around with a description of having a carved hull. It started out in Siom as... What was it... Turkauz or something. Then it was liberated and sailed along the coast in a random direction, no maps, for a few years, and only sighted a lighthouse around 93% starvation. It ended up hitting the coast of Fu near Port Gallagher (character was 98% starvation then and the harbour was locked, talk about tense) and basically circled the entire island before I let my account lapse, carving a story into the hull as it went. And now it's somewhere along Treefeather I think. Made me happy seeing it again. Most fun I've had exploring though.

This was my second account, so a year or so ago, maybe two?

[hyrle]

On a side note:
I actually remember the "liberation" of the Turkuaz and all the stories and craziness that spawned. It was a very fun part of my early game experience. My character witnessed the boat being liberated (might have even helped.. cna't remember) and later liberated a boat of his own. Emporer Kody of Zuzi (now long-dead) questioned him over the disappearance of the Turkuaz, but had no idea that my character's boat was stolen either. He just knew my character's boat wasn't the Turkuaz.

My character also met the Turkuaz's original owner a few IG years later (maybe 1-3 RL months after Kody's questioning) and shared the story with him - long after the Turkuaz had gone and disappeared from everyone's radars.

Back to the original topic:
Most of my homebodies have been too busy being homebodies to settle elsewhere, and most of my travelers have been too restless to stay in one place, but I do have 3 settlement stories.

I had a character in a small island chain that went with a group of 5 characters in a longboat and settled a town on the other end of their spawn island. My character had a mental breakdown and ended up committing suicide. The colony was still there about a month ago (one of my trader characters visited), with one of the original 5 characters now leading, but apparently is the last one alive. I won't name names since it's still going, but that was my first colonization attempt.

I had another character who accompanied two other characters of the same language and we settled in an abandoned area on another part of the large continent island we're on. A fourth character joined us later. While our little town has struggled over the decades, it's become rather booming for a remote outpost. We get a fair number of newspawns because of the remote location, but a lot of them die. (Newspawns gonna die, amirite?) I won't name names since it's still going, but that was my second colony.

I had a character who settled a mountain town with gold. My character had no desire to really settle there, but his lover wanted to. His lover fell into a deep sleep and her dream died with her. He buried her, left, and the place was abandoned. That was my third.

[Tiamo]

Once upon a time this tall redhead character spawned in a remote little town. He wasn't happy with what he saw, so he decided to start a life in the wilderness.
Unfortunately he happened to be a weak, lousy hunter, living amongst rather fierce animals ten times his size. He struggled, but survived.

Soon he realized he would never be able to make iron in the area where he lived. Going back to the town was not an option, in his mind. So he decided to build a simple boat and cross the sea. The sea proved to be an ocean and the crossing might well have turned into a journey of a lifetime (literally) if he hadn't found a deserted raker by the weird name of "Young spangled purple splat seed trader" floating in the middle of nowhere. He eventually did make it to another island.

What became of him, well, the story doesn't tell. He might even still be alive today, though he would be a very, very old man if he is.

[amatorfati]

Had a newspawn thief run off with nothing special from a sleepy forest town on Cantr isle. Ending up convincing the young woman who ran after him to join him in adventure, and they fell in love as partners in crime, looting their way to a harbor and up the coast. They stopped at another desolate town full of a few sleepers who never once woke as they robbed the town clean. At that point, realizing these sleepers would never wake, and probably held all the keys to tons of great loot right on their zombie bodies, they decided to start murdering the sleepers. But alas, suddenly a lone Spanish lady awoke, horrified that they were stabbing her lover to death. A long battle ensued and the two lovers ended up imprisoned in separate chambers, and killed without any chance to respond. And so the reconquest of the coast failed. I do wonder what ever happened to that lone Spanish outpost. Did any of the sleepers ever wake up, or was the woman left alone to live out her days in solitude? Did the Spanish presence die out entirely or did it ever spring back? Was the town ever retaken by the English?


Another character started out as a lowly thief as well on a far-off English island and stole a raker. Moving swiftly and cleverly, making daring maneuvers to avoid capture from faster ships that pursued him, he eventually outran his enemies and sailed to another nearby island. He briefly hopped from port to port trading goods and gossip with the locals until finally meeting the captain of a galleon with a small crew who agreed to take him aboard along with his beloved raker. After that it was an honest life for him, with none of his friends ever knowing he was a pirate in the first place. Alas, he died of too much sleep. I always wondered what they did with his body and his ship, or what became of the rest of that crew.

[SekoETC]

I saw the purple splat ship not that long ago. I thought the name was very funny.

One of my Finnish characters started a new town in a forest that had hematite and limestone. They could make charcoal out of wood and were able to produce iron. However they found out it was impossible to produce steel without coal or propane. I think most people automatically assume that if someone is able to make iron, they can also make steel, but this isn't the case. Eventually they traveled to a new location that had coal. Originally they were just going to do resource runs to the coal place but soon discovered it was more profitable to settle the coal place and make resource runs for magnetite. So no one lives in the first colony anymore, but some people do live in the second colony.

[Shedevil]

A young married couple tried to settle on a small one town mountain island. Things were great at first, lots of visitors for their resources. No real threat from the wildlife but no way to support newspawns with clothing and shields at first so most left with visitors. The husband died and then the wife ended up leaving, not wanting to live alone though unsure of where she would end up.