Of the interesting information that I gleaned, there were a few abilities that I hadn't recorded before. One I've dubbed 'Manavore' and seems to allow a supplement of the user's diet with mana. There were two different individuals who showed up who had this perk, and both of them had similar stories that likely lead to gaining it. They were both individuals who had been purposefully skipping meals occasionally to save money so that they could enjoy using the bathhouse more frequently. I can't say that I approve of their life choices, but basically, they seem to have found a way to literally sustain themselves off trips to our bathhouse, which functions as a giant mana battery, so I've decided to let the fact they're skipping meals to save money slide.
That opens up some definite possibilities for reducing our necessary food income though. There does seem to be a passive mana recharge rate that everyone experiences, and if you aren't using your mana anyway, then this would be a way to use that existing resource further. Of course, it won't be a fun experience partially starving yourself just to gain the trait, but it's something to consider setting a program up for in the future.
The next new trait I've named 'Thick Hide'. It basically does what the name implies, granting thicker skin which provides resistance to a lot of simple attacks. The goblin that gained it was one of the city guards who would spar with the other guards a lot. He would choose different sparing partners to fight with, and as a result he seems to have been the only one to gain the ability. It sounds like a lot of glancing blows and other minor injuries granted him this ability.
The last fully new trait I learned about I've named 'Water Resistance'. I honestly couldn't come up with a better name for it, but it seems to reduce the negative effects you experience by spending large amounts of time in and around water. Many of the fishergoblins have gained it. Those with it don't experience water swelling from spending long periods of time wet, and don't get blisters from spending too long exposed to salt water. Considering the fishergoblins are the ones with it, it seems apparent that spending long periods of time in and around water is probably the cause of it.
There was a spell which I had failed to name before, but I was at least aware of. I'm calling it 'Meteor Shot'. It's the high powered throw that some of the goblins have learned which lets them throw their spears with extreme power. The ones who have it either gained it during the lizard siege or the dwarven siege. It also seems pretty apparent as to what actions leads to it being unlocked. Lots of throwing things with intent to kill.
As for other traits, quite a few goblins have picked up the carnivore trait. It seems to be that eating fish all the time lead to this. According to them, all the fishes taste better to them after gaining the trait, and they don't need to eat as much of it to feel full. It's another option that seems to reduce our overall food needs, however it does restrict them to a diet consisting mostly of meat, which has its own drawbacks.
I also gained a small insight into gaining levels. Trees and fish obviously give levels, and I've suspected that basically all living things provide some amount of levels when they're killed, especially large things. Data collected during this reporting cycle seems to support this, as it seems like even the farmers gain levels faster than the laborers. It's not that fast, but the yield in levels seems to be proportional to the length of time the plants have been growing for.
I've started to suspect that the reason for this is likely rooted in the fact that we seem to gain levels passively over time as a natural function. If that's true, then those same levels are probably released upon death, or at least a portion of them are. This is what results in old things like trees giving a decent chunk of levels, but fast growing plants don't give much. More data will be needed to confirm, but I'm going to be operating with this hypothesis moving forward.
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I've also decided to shift the schedule around for the academy, given our new calendar. The next set of classes, and all classes moving forward, will be on the first of even numbered months, which means there is a three month period in winter to spring where we don't have classes, but that should be fine. We shouldn't be summoning that many goblins over winter when we don't have crops growing. The next time I'm back in the city, I'll need to shift my focus a bit to felt and leather production, but before that, I have a mesh making room to finish.
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After spending another seven days expanding the exploratory tunnel to find more crystals, I then took another five days getting all the crystals embedded in the room to provide as much light as I wanted in the space. The next step is getting the metal items I needed made, like rollers and wire. I'll also start filtering lightstone to use as the full lever arm and sliding rails for the device.
I'd been thinking of construction projects that the construction teams could work on while I've been doing my own work. Obviously, first they can finish the last two layers of the artificial tide pool, which would maximize the total fish we would have available from that area. Then, I actually have an interesting project for them which I'll leave up to Zeb to figure out how to actually implement.
The glass project I'm working on is only as good as how much of the float vine we can actually harvest. So I'd like for there to be multiple pathways down to the ocean at low tide where individuals could go down to cut the float vine for harvest. There was quite a lot of it, but it's a little ways from the shore, and only somewhat accessible at low tide, which means it is a bit difficult to actually harvest. So I'll give Zeb those criteria and see what he comes up with. I'd suspect that we'll probably just end up with spaced out stairs going down into the water at low tide, but he might come up with a better idea.
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Between waiting for the metal to get made, assembling the whole lever mechanism, and fine tuning the whole apparatus, I ended up taking twenty days, which means I don't actually have time to make any meshes before the next cycle of classes. That also means it'll probably be a few months before I resume work on it.
One of the two construction crews began work on expanding the artificial tide pools, and Zeb said he'd look into something to help with harvesting the float vines. They're also planning on expanding some of the fields for growing crops, which means they'll be felling more forest. That will probably lead to them having more stoneshaping goblins, as there are a handful who have been working in the reservoir for a few months now.
If they keep up the construction pace, they'll probably need to expand the fields to the edge of the valley, at which point I might advise them to terraform the valley edge into terraces to help us use our available land more effectively. It might also be worth considering digging a new tunnel down by the artificial tide pool through the ridge and into the neighboring valley. That area isn't nearly as well shaped for any current expansion projects, but hypothetically we could terraform that area to have any number of new features that would help us in the long term.
An artificial dock and bay for ships would obviously improve the rate of shipping, but I'm not certain that we need that much of an improvement. I'd almost rather get a second large bay artificially made to allow more fish harvesting, or some other productive use of that land, as we already have a functional harbor.
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This next cycle of academy classes went pretty smoothly as I was only dealing with about twenty goblins. I also didn't have to deal with nearly as many reports coming in from goblins about how they evolved or prestiged. There were some interesting reports that indicated that the guards were finally getting more prestiges thanks to splitting some of the harvesting of fish with the fishergoblins.
I also finally ran into Boggs while he was in town, and he seemed quite happy with his fishing. Apparently, in some of the places he's been fishing, he's been hauling in some very large fish. The kinds that don't tend to end up trapped in our artificial tide pools. Those fish, according to him, are quite tasty, and worth a decent chunk of levels, if you can manage to get them to shore and kill them.
Unfortunately, at the time I ran into him, he was just getting ready to leave again, and I was on my way to one of the classes, so I didn't get to ask as many questions as I would have liked. I asked him to please find me next time he's in town however, as I want to hear in more detail about his fishing expeditions.