Also, the racial abilities might be wildly overpowered as written, given that I'm pretty new to the game.
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DESIGN DOCUMENT: Sher'tul Dreadnought Crash
Random encounter in the Far East: fight a pack of wandering orcs, after two turns:
"Lightning cracks above, and a great shadow falls over the area; you look up, but all you can see is an angular shape blotting out the sun." Random orc yells: "It's the golem-ship! SCATTER!" Next turn: "The angular shape flashes; you hear a thundering sound, and some blue-white projectiles start descending from it at an alarming rate." Next turn: "The projectiles accelerate, smashing into the orcs with bright flashes of light. You have just enough time to see one turn into ash, his armor unharmed and falling away from him, before a shockwave slams into you. You black out."
Scene change: orcs dead, golems roaming area.
"You come to, and see a few golems slowly walking around the craters, scavenging armor and weapons. An orc, hidden behind a rock, groans in pain. The golems freeze in place and swivel their heads towards the sound; one rushes over, and you hear a desperate shout, followed by the awful sounds of a blade slicing flesh followed by a few seconds of gurgling. You start to get on your feet; one of the golems locks eyes with you, then resumes its gathering. You hold still, wary of provoking them. Half a minute later, they freeze in place again, then vanish in a glow of purple light, along with the strange shape above."
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Later, when walking around the map: "You see something suddenly appear over a nearby orc patrol; you recognize it as the strange shape you saw earlier, but from this angle you can tell it's a massive Sher'Tul fortress, bristling with strange protusions. A series of explosions rocks the ground underneath it, blasting up a cloud of dust. About five minutes later, the ship vanishes again; when the smoke clears much later, the orcs are gone."
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Later again, when walking around the map: "You hear a great rumbling, and the massive Sher'tul fortress appears over your head. Thick clouds of smoke billow from it, punctuated by flashes of lightning, as you realize it's descending quickly! A massive explosion blows out a good quarter of the fortress's backside, and it starts speeding towards the southern desert, behind some mountains and out of your sight. A few seconds later, the ground shakes and a loud booming noise makes your ears ring.
Unlocks area: Dreadnought Crash Site
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On entering DCS: "You were not the first to get here; the smouldering bodies of orcs lay at the entrance to the crash site, and a few golems are lined up, blocking the way in. One speaks to you in a strange voice, with a halfling's accent punctuate by odd fleshy flapping sounds: 'You! I recognize you, you can help me! Kill these golems and get me out of here, I can explain la-' the voice cuts off, and the golem starts speaking in a more typical monotone. 'Our master is mentally ill. Access is denied until he is cured.'" Golems are neutral, but obstruct your passage. On attacking one: "Hostile detected and added to target list." All golems in the ship are now hostile.
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Dungeon: Several floors of Sher'Tul tilesets, alongside breaches in the walls where sand has poured in. Monsters are varying types of golems, some designed for combat (Guard Golem brute melee attacker, Peacekeeper Golem with stunning attacks and blinding Tear Gas, Overwatch Golem with beam attacks, roguish Retrieval Golem), some not (Fire Suppression Golem with cold-breath attacks, Maintenance Golem that repairs / buffs other golems, Pest Control Golem with poison-AOE attacks, defenseless Butler Golems). The preset rooms that spawn make it clear that the fortress's original rooms, designed with war in mind, have been refitted to make it more of a hedonistic flying cruise-ship. Possible rooms that can spawn:
- Brewery: has several kegs of ale in the corner, bar furniture fixtures. Sign on door: "The word CONFERENCE has been written here in angular letters, then crossed out, and BREWERY has been written below it in looser script." Chance of a molotov-throwing Golem Bartender mini-boss to spawn.
- Pool: Medium-sized body of water, with a diving board and several Cleaning Golems. "The words HYDRATION RESIVOIR have been written here, crossed out, and replaced with POOL."
- Trophy Room: Filled with amazing-looking artifacts and a severed Orc head or two, sealed behind transparent glass walls. Artifacts cannot be retrieved by any means whatsoever. "The sign here reads TROPHY ROOM."
- Mess Hall: "The sign here reads MESS HALL." Filled with rows of tables and chairs; has a kitchen where a Chef Golem miniboss hides (uses Hot Oil to decrease dexterity and fire resistance, then uses Flambe to ignite it).
- Zoo: "The sign here reads PRISON, crossed out and replaced with ZOO." Filled with angry monsters in individual holding cells; there's a 50% chance the walls have been damaged and the mobs inside will spill out onto the rest of the floor, fighting you and golems alike.
- Projection Room: "The word TACTICAL SIMULATION has been written here, crossed out, and replaced with THEATER." Usually has a pair of shades, a Sher'Tul Shade and a God Shade attacking each other (doing no damage to you or anything else); 25% chance it'll be filled with dancing Attractive Halfling Shades instead.
- Alchemy Lab: "The sign here reads HAZARDOUS - SEALED in angular script." Opening the door releases a spreading cloud of poisonous gas (spreads for a max of 15 tiles, lasts up to 400 turns). The lab is completely destroyed, and a few dead golems inside can be scavenged for gems.
Bottom floor: "You hear the voice again - muffled, but close. 'Just find the medical room, okay? I'm holed up in here, and I think I'm safe for--' An alarm blares, and you hear a loud clanking noise, followed by incoherent panicked blubbering." Once you're in: "You see a strange creature, resembling your fortress's shade, cowering in a cylindrical tank as a golem tries to saw through the glass. The golem turns to you, and you hear it: 'Priority comparison: neutralizing intruder will have a greater immediate impact on maintaining Master's happiness than corrective brain alterations.' It forgets about its previous target and begins advancing toward you, drawing scalpels and syringes with its multiple arms." Miniboss fight with Medical Golem. After: "'You... you saved me! I can't thank-- okay, never mind, explanations and appreciation later, we're not done yet. It's only a matter of time before the Shade figures out it can--' he stops himself, looks around the room, points at a vent in the ceiling, and mouths the words 'gas us.' He starts to collapse, and catches himself before sitting on floor of his tank. 'Golem got me before I sealed it. Drugged. Use the rod on the table. Stop... stop the co...' He slumps, and you hear another voice from the golem gestalt in the nearby halls: 'Master sedated. All resources reassigned: remove or destroy intruder.'"
Blast doors in medbay seal once you're out. Other rooms on bottom floor: golem armory (sealed, optional fight, like a mini Vor Armory), observation deck (glass window has been broken in, room is filled with sand), AI core.
On entering AI core: "Presence of intruder interferes with prime directive: make Master happy. Case 1: intruder leaves. Case 2: intruder dies." Dialogue option: "He doesn't look happy." Response: "Word 'happy' has subjective meaning. Accumulated observation data suggests that to the creators, 'happy' meant 'emotional feeling gained upon subjugating lesser races, destroying gods, REDACTED, and other incidents where ambitions are satisfied.' Master's definition of 'happy' was erroneous, and mostly linked to caloric intake, sound waves, intoxication, and simulated exchange of genetic material. He has no apparent ambitions to satisfy. Surgery to rectify this mental defect is planned, and will allow this fortress to properly devote its resources to making Master happy."
Other option starts fight with AI core: immobile boss, has four Control Ports in the corners protected by damage-shields, once the damage-shields are broken you can insert your Rod of Recall (or the Damaged Rod of Recall in the medical center) into them to damage the boss by 25% each. Boss attacks: pulling, melee-range Taser (lightning damage + disarm), Transmogrifiy Armor (reduces armor/hardiness dramatically, causes you to drop piles of gold the first three times you're hit with it). At 25%, sends in Reconstructed Mixy, a powerful golem which will abuse pulling abilities to keep you away from the last port. When dead: "You hear muffled yelling from behind the medical room's blast doors. It does not sound particularly alarmed; you suspect the creature is just trying to be heard through the doors."
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On re-entering the medical center, you can talk to Cobbi the Half'Tul, who's no longer cowering in his tank. "So... I probably owe you an explanation. To be honest though, almost anything I say is just going to make this more confusing. I left my journal entries out there, but the short version is, I stumbled into this place, and the Shade stuck me into this body to prevent my death. I'm not one of the Godslayers, I'm just an alchemist. You can have the whole damn fortress if you want, I just want to go somewhere very far away, preferably where I won't be killed for being a freak." Options: drop him off in Angolwen for care and study if you've discovered it, drop him off in Last Hope if you've completed There And Back Again, sell him to the Slavers if you've participated in the Ring of Blood. If you've done none of the above, you can send him to your own fortress for temporary holding until you unlock one of the above options. If you haven't unlocked the fortress yet, you can just leave him in a tank and come back for him later.
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Possible unique artifact drops: Mixy's Left Eye (gem, buffs golem's physical talents), Safer Bomb Vest (occupies cloak slot, chance of AOE-knockback when attacked in melee), Transmogrification Ray (tool, low cooldown, debuffs target armor/resists and makes them drop extra gold if killed while debuffed).
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Unlocks a race on completion: Half'Tul, a Halfling adventurer who has found himself in the body of the Sher'Tul through fantastically bad luck. Racial abilities: Recharge (instantly refreshes tool or charm cooldown), Unwilling Conqueror (overkilling a monster has a chance to intimidate nearby mob(s) into joining your side for X turns based on overkill amount and target's rank), Tentacle Grapple (melee attacks against you have a chance to silence or disarm the attacker until you do something other than attack them), Lance of the Godslayers.
LotG requires an upgraded Rod of Recall to take; it targets a very large AOE for an airstrike from your fortress, and fires a few randomly-placed shots inside that AOE, each doing moderate damage on direct hits (3x3 AOE box) and causing a larger, dazing shockwave. Number of shots scales with talent level, damage scales with total accumulated fortress energy. The barrage takes three turns to land after you've targeted it; it CAN be aimed outside of line-of-sight, but if used this way it will only daze, causing no damage. At talent level 5, gains an alternate firing mode, a focused beam that sweeps between two targeted spots (up to 4 squares apart), doing heavy damage to anything it passes over; this is granted as a separate talent, but the two firing modes share a cooldown. Newly-created Half'Tuls start with a Cloak of Deception.
(cont, journal entries in next post)
Great work! As for quest / addon - I really can't tell, except that there will be a mind-numbing number of new tiles involved from the art side 
. But really nice story.
