Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Mystery Fracture of the Salt Man  (Read 2243 times)

Raphite1

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • Beards and Brimstone
Mystery Fracture of the Salt Man
« on: March 20, 2012, 03:06:53 pm »

Second year, a FB showed up in my first cavern. A humanoid made of salt, with some stylish antennae and deadly dust. I *thought* that it had no access to my fort proper, and it didn't seem to be in a hurry to do anything, so I went about other business.

I went to check on its status a few minutes later, and it was dead. It's corpse was near an emergency well platform I had made on the cavern lake, which I hadn't realized was just barely connected to the rest of the cavern via a near-vertical series of ramps. A couple of dwarfs had just arrived to haul it off to the refuse stockpile.

What had killed it? Beasties in the dark?

I checked the combat reports, and there were only two lines for the FB: Something impacting its upper body, and then its lower body getting taking some other impact. Nothing else. No combat reports for other cavern dwellers, and none in view. No combat reports for any dwarf.

I spend time time checking the kill lists of any dwarf that was working nearby (this was very, very far from my main workshop/stockpile areas; just a few haulers, miners, and well-drinkers), and the FB didn't show up for anyone.

Any ideas on what may have happened to Salt Man?

Schizotek

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Mystery Fracture of the Salt Man
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2012, 03:12:56 pm »

Well.....was "salt man", known from here on out as Lot, in a blacked out area of the caverns? Or was Lot on the edge of one? Cuz I'm almost halfway sure you don't see reports from critters on blacked out zones. Offscreen blowgunner?
Logged
Imagine the will it took to create a fortress like this. And what have you elves built? Nothing. You can only loot and break. You're not dwarves!! You're just termites at Versailles.

It's not that I don't suffer, it's that I know the unimportance of suffering, I know that pain is to be fought and thrown aside, not to be accepted as part of one's soul and as a permanent scar across one's view of existence.

Sphalerite

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • Drew's Robots and stuff
Re: Mystery Fracture of the Salt Man
« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2012, 03:18:04 pm »

Salt is incredibly fragile in DF, and creatures made of salt tend to die on the first impact.

Creatures with undirected deadly dust attacks tend to blast themselves into walls.

It probably triggered its undirected dust attack, blasted itself into a wall, and died.
Logged
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Stoup

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Mystery Fracture of the Salt Man
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2012, 03:19:52 pm »

Salt is incredibly fragile in DF, and creatures made of salt tend to die on the first impact.

Creatures with undirected deadly dust attacks tend to blast themselves into walls.

It probably triggered its undirected dust attack, blasted itself into a wall, and died.
"Achoo!"
Salt humanoid forgotten beast has blown apart after colliding with an obstacle!
Logged

Raphite1

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • Beards and Brimstone
Re: Mystery Fracture of the Salt Man
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2012, 03:30:48 pm »

Old Lot may indeed have passed through a dark area on his way to the well. I like the theory that he dusted himself into a wall and shattered - I remember thinking the last line of the combat report read like he had gotten knocked into an obstacle

Maybe a hidden colony of something-men triggered the blast, and he knocked himself down to the well area.

Loud Whispers

  • Bay Watcher
  • They said we have to aim higher, so we dug deeper.
    • View Profile
    • I APPLAUD YOU SIRRAH
Re: Mystery Fracture of the Salt Man
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2012, 03:52:01 pm »

Salt is incredibly fragile in DF, and creatures made of salt tend to die on the first impact.

Creatures with undirected deadly dust attacks tend to blast themselves into walls.

It probably triggered its undirected dust attack, blasted itself into a wall, and died.
"Achoo!"
Salt humanoid forgotten beast has blown apart after colliding with an obstacle!
Now we need a pepper forgotten beast...

wierd

  • Bay Watcher
  • I like to eat small children.
    • View Profile
Re: Mystery Fracture of the Salt Man
« Reply #6 on: March 20, 2012, 03:59:35 pm »

The game didn't specify what kind of salt the saltman was made of.

He does have deadly dust, so I would presume a less than edible kind... like lead chromate.

What color does the creature description give for good ol lot?
Logged

Raphite1

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • Beards and Brimstone
Re: Mystery Fracture of the Salt Man
« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2012, 04:28:33 pm »

I believe he had no color description. He was represented by a white "H".

kaijyuu

  • Bay Watcher
  • Hrm...
    • View Profile
Re: Mystery Fracture of the Salt Man
« Reply #8 on: March 20, 2012, 04:44:27 pm »

One of your dwarves got the jump on him, tried to hit him, he dodged, fell, and died.
Logged
Quote from: Chesterton
For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

runlvlzero

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Mystery Fracture of the Salt Man
« Reply #9 on: March 20, 2012, 09:00:04 pm »

Probably can test it easily in the arena enough...
Logged
I voted for BANANA!