LONG BLOG
Tales From the RimWorld: Torchman's Story Part 1
Welcome back! I've now compiled all my notes from my second Destructoid themed RimWorld game. This is the tale of Torchman and his adventures in space.
Torchman Begins
Torchman began his life as a medieval lordling, and pursued a life of science after leaving his homeworld. He became a very wealthy inventor. However, it felt like something was missing...
The origin story
The Landing - Winter
Torchman's drop pod hit the ground in a lush jungle on an uncharted world of the outer rim. It was winter time, but still hot as he was near the equator of the planet. He stepped out into his new life with a few week's supplies and his labrador retriever Tarragon. He immediately began work and built a small house for himself and his canine companion, and planted a simple field of some potatoes for the future.
It was only a day or two before he was surprised by a man who burst unexpectedly from the undergrowth. The man cried out "She's gonna kill me, help!" Hot on his heels was a tribal woman wielding a very large club and looking to smash his brains in. Torchman managed to wound her with his charge rifle and take her out of commission. Not wanting to simply kill this woman without knowing anything about either of the two people who had suddenly entered his life, he locked her in an extra room he had built. The man introduced himself as a blacksmith named WesLikesTacos. Wes was not very thrilled about keeping the tribal woman around, even less so when Torch announced that he was try to talk her into helping out. The two came to blows over this, but no serious harm was done to either in the scuffle.
As the winter ended, Wes and Torch had a few rooms for sleeping set up, as well as a solar panel to provide some electricity. Torch wanted to have an experience here, but didn't want to be completely without some of the comforts in life like refrigerated food and comfortable sleeping.
Spring
The season began with the tribal woman agreeing to help work on this fledgeling settlement. Her name was Pixie from the White Stream Nation, but was interested in seeing what life might be like away from more primitive ways. Wes was just going to have to suck it up and deal with it that his former foe would now be his ally.
Lots of building projects were taken care of thanks to the building skills of Torch and Wes. A kitchen, complete with an electric stove was built early on. Unfortunately, Wes built the stove before the room around it, causing it to burst into flames several times as rain poured down on it. Pixie had to rush out and cut down extra trees to get the roof completed before any further damage could be done. A warehouse was built to keep extra equipment out of the elements. Torch worked on getting a research area set up, to pursue new ideas that could be used to better the settlement. By the middle of spring, the trio had a very nice setup going, with air conditioning and electric lights. Due to this increased need for energy, Wes was able to research and build a geothermal generator, giving them an abundant source of energy.
Torchland, mid-spring
Things got considerably more exciting in the second half of the spring. It all started with a lone raider from The Suffering Company scoping out the place. Thinking it might be better if this guy didn't make it back to his friends to tell them about the small settlement, Torch opened fire, and then missed with every shot he took. Luckily the intruder was only armed with a club, otherwise it would probably have been the end of Torchman. He took some bruises in the torso and a cracked spine. Wes stepped in and stabbed the raider with a makeshift spear, killing him. The group started thinking some kind of protective wall would be a good idea in the future in case of any other hostiles in the area.
A couple days later, a naked woman bursts into Torchland, and is being hunted down by a trio of pirates from The Murderous Party led by Teddy the Pimp. She grabs the only gun lying around, and runs out to take revenge on her pursuers. She blasts one, knocking him out before being taken down by heavy SMG fire from the leader, and Teddy begins dragging her back to her previous life of slavery. The other pirate begins tossing frag grenades at the settlement's workshop, before Wes and Torch converge on him from opposite sides. Torch distracts him while Wes spears him through the skull, and they quickly set off in pursuit of the woman being dragged off by the pimp. They easily overtake him, and Torch gets several solid punches in, and the two kill him once he's down. Wes rushes the bleeding woman back to a bed in Torchland, and she tells him that her name is Amna Umen. The previously knocked out pirate had come to his senses and fled during the excitement.
Wes began to look around for Torchman, as he was the only one with any medical skills, to stop Amna's bleeding. Torch for some reason thought this was a good time to be outside cloud watching. Wes yelled for him to get his ass in gear. He ran in, and the bleeding was stopped in time to save her. Then the lights went out. The frag tossing pirate had inadvertently damaged the conduit running from the geothermal generator to the settlement. The timing couldn't be worse, as a heat wave had hit, and temperatures were rising to 53 Celsius. As the indoors were no longer a refuge without air conditioning, the oppressive jungle heat had everyone in risk of a mental breakdown. Torch and Wes worked together without sleep to get the conduit re-run in order to get the power back on. Torchman passes out from heatstroke before he can get cool, and Wes drags him to a cool room with a bed.
By this point, food had become scarce since there was so much else going on to worry about hunting. Things were so bad that Pixie attempted to eat one of the pirate corpses lying around, getting food poisoning in the process. Torch grabbed the charge rifle and managed to hunt down some beavers to keep the refrigerator stocked for a while.
The heat wave doesn't last very long, but with its end brings the arrival of three more pirates from The Murderous Party, armed with an incendiary launcher, a club, and some molotov cocktails. Allowing one from the previous group to get away might have been a grave mistake. They ended up walking right through the area where the now bloated, rotting bodies of their partners had been dumped, enraging them. Being that all the buildings were constructed out of wood, this could be a very dangerous encounter.
The new invaders passing by their dead comrades
Everyone rushes to prepare. Pixie attempts to clear some of the plants in order to have some open lines of fire. Wes and Torch attempt to get a turret and sandbags set up, but the pirates immediately head for Torchland. Torch and Amna immediately suffer from minor burns as the pirate with the incendiary launcher opens fire on them. Wes runs bravely forward with hs spear, stabbing the club armed pirate in the gut. He reaches the molotov armed pirate who manages to beat Wes down with his fists, giving him a cracked tibia. Amna finishes the fight with deadly accurate charge rifle fire. Torch spent the whole fight hitting nothing at all with the SMG he was armed with. Fires begin to rage from the weaponry of the pirates, but a well timed rainstorm arrives and douses everything. Wes is pulled to safety, and everyone tries to catch their breath.
The Murderous Party is clearly out to get the members of the settlement, as two more of their pirates show up the following morning. Both are armed with frag grenades, ready to do as much damage as possible. Torch remembers how to use a gun finally, and drops the first one with a burst of heavy SMG fire. The pirate didn't even get a chance to pull the pin on his grenade. The second turns to flee immediately, but is quickly killed as Amna shoots him in the back. Hopefully these pirates have learned to leave Torchland alone. Later that day a travelling caravan visits, and the settlers trade all the unneeded pirate gear for extra components to build electrical equipment. Spring comes to a close, with everyone wishing for a summer with far less bloodshed.
Check back soon to find out how things go in the hot jungle summer for Torchman and friends!
LOOK WHO CAME:
