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[Saiko Kila]

I've captured a FB toad with noxious secretions, boiling at room temperature. Such secretions work even when the beast is caged, so it's a near perfect bioweapon. Handling dwarves would be affected, so before capturing I was observing the beast, when it came near a band of troglodytes. They were nauseous, but recovered. To be sure, after capture, I dropped two laboratory cats to the corridor with the beast. One of them was incapacitated and covered the corridor with vomit, but also recovered. Then the gobbos attacked, and zombies, and I had much fun observing them chasing merchants and stuff. When I returned to the lab cats, the second one was dead and in a cage - apparently he was incapacitated so much that he triggered cage trap. After that I dropped other laboratory animals, like pigs and birds. None died, only vomited. Death of the lab cat remains mystery.

If it was a combat, I would get a detailed description of what happened and how. But it wasn't a combat, and there are no reports of vomiting or sickness or collapsing or anything. This limits usefulness of other research. I've built a whole biocontainment facility, crossed with arena, training centre, incinerator and obsidian caster, but I'm unable to test the effects of FBs syndromes easily, due to the mentioned limit. Is there any way I can enable combat-type reports for non-combat events? After all the only difference is the method of initiation. In combat it is initiated by something attacking something else. In syndromes, it is environment which attacks.

[Friendstrange]

I had an horned olm-like FB with noxious secretions that came through the underground lake once. The entire lake was contaminated and the FB made it his home. My marksdwarfs could only rarely reach it and it healed too fast to be put down.


Anyway, death due to vomit-inducing dehydration is possible. Maybe the cat died due to vomit suffocation.
I do believe Runesmith can be used to check active syndromes and what they do.

[Saiko Kila]

Thankfully secretions of my FB do not leave residues, probably because they do boil too fast. So basically it's a portable and "clean" chemical weapon, which discharges every 40 ticks.

It turns out is still more dangerous than I thought. Normal dwarves and animals are nauseous first, and vomit heavily. They do recover after couple of days if they run away in time. But if they spent too much time in the mist, they are paralysed and lose breathing, grasping and standing ability. I think inability to breathe probably killed the animals, unless it was really too much vomiting.

I've found a way to weaponise it though. I've built a containment facility with raised bridges, near a spot which is frequented by gremlins. Then I released my vampire-king and asked him to move the container cage there. He was able to move it 7 or 8 steps before he was too injured to continue. But the secretions are less than lethal for him: he  does not have any nausea (so no first warning sign, but it's irrelevant here, most importantly there are no vomits all over the place), isn't paralysed, but he cannot breathe and cannot stand/grasp. He can crawl away though. He recovers after 7 days, so it took some time to complete. Lesson learned: vampires do not need hazmat suits

[misko27]

Thankfully secretions of my FB do not leave residues, probably because they do boil too fast. So basically it's a portable and "clean" chemical weapon, which discharges every 40 ticks.

It turns out is still more dangerous than I thought. Normal dwarves and animals are nauseous first, and vomit heavily. They do recover after couple of days if they run away in time. But if they spent too much time in the mist, they are paralysed and lose breathing, grasping and standing ability. I think inability to breathe probably killed the animals, unless it was really too much vomiting.

I've found a way to weaponise it though. I've built a containment facility with raised bridges, near a spot which is frequented by gremlins. Then I released my vampire-king and asked him to move the container cage there. He was able to move it 7 or 8 steps before he was too injured to continue. But the secretions are less than lethal for him: he  does not have any nausea (so no first warning sign, but it's irrelevant here, most importantly there are no vomits all over the place), isn't paralysed, but he cannot breathe and cannot stand/grasp. He can crawl away though. He recovers after 7 days, so it took some time to complete. Lesson learned: vampires do not need hazmat suits

This is fascinating. I wish I had a FB that would do this. The only significant FB syndrome I have is only killing mass-killing cats . Somehow, has gotten into the mist-generator . I can only really hope to make a bioweapon for naked gobbos being executioned,

[Saiko Kila]

This is fascinating. I wish I had a FB that would do this. The only significant FB syndrome I have is only killing mass-killing cats . Somehow, has gotten into the mist-generator . I can only really hope to make a bioweapon for naked gobbos being executioned,

Maybe your fortress is too young for interesting FBs to come, or they were killed accidentally. I have several FBs captured, several still roaming, and some killed, and this is the first one which can be used practically. Apart from science. I don't want to have cat-killing syndrome, because cats are too useful for scouting, but any species specific syndrome would be interesting. Though I think that most probably the cats are just very small and thus more heavily affected in your case.

Anyway, I use FBs not for killing, but for experiments on goblins. Of course, the subjects must be destroyed after the experiments, no matter whether they are alive or not. But this is only a Good Laboratory Practice. Death of the goblins (and FBs)  is just a by-product of experiments. Sad, but necessary. I recompense for any harm done by memorialising them by my best stonecrafters.

By the way I did some experiments on the naked, injured gobbos, covered with bushmaster or rattlesnake venom. They were not affected, which suggests that stripping goblins naked is only useful for contact poisons.