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[Klekavian]

So my fort has a... situation.

I have a diplomat visiting my fort. She is the law-giver for a powerful human civ, who happens to be a dwarf, and also happens to be a vampire. I know this because I perused the legends before starting my game.

I also have a human caravan from the same civ at the fort at the moment, and the guild rep also happens to be a vampire. I know this because she was announced as such.

I was hoping I could wait their visits out without any deaths, because I don't want to start a war with the humans. Their civ is pretty dominant, and mine is quite weak - in fact, I'm in the nascent stages of a dwarven repopulation project in my current world. Also I'm already at war with elves and goblins, and I just got through a pretty insane elven ambush, followed immediately by a goblin siege (there were so many bodies...), so the whole fort is already pretty on edge and I'm trying to stave off an all-out tantrum spiral as it is.

But now a child has turned up dead. One of these two bloodsucking diplomats has killed a child, and I demand justice.

My obstacles are many, though. First, I don't know which one to convict. Second, I don't know how to do so without having them scuttle the caravan and possibly start a war over the theft of its goods. Third, I don't know if arresting a foreign diplomat is itself something that would start a war. Fourth, both of these creatures are currently in the middle of a crowded tavern, surrounded by guards, and since my fort is already pretty stressed, I'd like to minimize casualties and cleanup if I can.

It's quite the situation. Ideas? Opinions? Suggestions?

[Splint]

Murder only has two punishment among dwarf kind - a very, very long stay in prison, or a trip to the hammering block.And these particular visitors can't simply be locked in, which means direct force is needed.

All that can be done is to brace for the storm if justice is dispensed - do without trade when the enemy comes, or enact mandatory military service for all adults to help sweep them off quickly. If you can provide a steady enough stream of ammo, masses of marksdwarves can be trained up, though making ammo is the limiting factor there for how many you can round up at any given time.

If you're up for it, bring magma up to the surface not necessarily to weaponize, but to dump and start fires to incinerate the dead/dump on corpse stockpiles for the same use - leave those who aren't your own to rot where they fall out of sight for the most part if possible otherwise. Grinder halls and cage traps also work to automate the slaughter to a degree or for catch and release if you'd rather go for minimal losses all around. The other two hostile civs will probably grind up your civ's sites regardless of a third piling on or not.

As both are vampires and both are guilty of some murder or another, I vote have the militia deal with them, since they're probably unarmed anyway and a few deadbeat bodyguards won't be much of an obstacle if your soldiers are worth have a diseased crundle toe. I'm fairly certain killing them won't make the caravan hostile, though they'll probably bail if I had to guess.

[Saiko Kila]

I would wait (*), they are bound to visit again. But there is also a possibility that none of them is the culprit - that you have your own vampires. It seems strange to me that they would be able to kill someone so quickly. Normally vampires need some time before they are thirsty after arrival, about three months.



*)Actually, I would check who was the murderer with dfhack first, before deciding on course of action. But this may be anticlimatic.

[Klekavian]

All that can be done is to brace for the storm if justice is dispensed[...]

As both are vampires and both are guilty of some murder or another, I vote have the militia deal with them[...]

I would wait (*), they are bound to visit again. But there is also a possibility that none of them is the culprit - that you have your own vampires. It seems strange to me that they would be able to kill someone so quickly. Normally vampires need some time before they are thirsty after arrival, about three months.

Well those are pretty drastically different suggestions, aren't they ! One vote to kill 'em both and brace for the fallout, and one vote to be extra-cautious and confirm that it's even one of the two visiting vampires.

Splint, it's very tempting, but it would be strictly last-resort since I'd really like to avoid war with the humans if at all possible. Though I see your point about killing them both regardless of which killed the child. If I do kill one outright I might as well kill both. I'd still like to convict the right one in the justice screen if possible, though.

On that matter, Saiko Kila, I'd say your point about taking some time to find a victim probably points to the law-giver, since she's been there since last season and the guild rep has only been there for under a month. I guess it might be possible that there's a vampire among my own, but I haven't gotten migrants since autumn and it's summer now, so I'd have expected to find a body sooner than this (well, I've found bodies, but not from vampires  ). Maybe one of the scholars or performers I've gotten lately is also a vampire, but I don't see any other vampires looking back through the announcements.

I'm starting to think I should wait them out, convict the law-giver in absentia, retire the fort once it's stable again, hunt them down in adventure mode to slay them both, then retire my adventurer in the fort and unretire the fort. It would be a fun little quest-driven adventure, probably. Is it even possible to convict visitors that are no longer on-site, though?

Also, general question, are there any actual consequences for unsolved murders in forts? Bad thoughts about it from relatives maybe? I don't see anything in the wiki about downsides of not convicting for crimes.

[Splint]

Well, if you're already at war with two other civs with a declining one, it's going to rest on your fort to cull the herd regardless (basically it'll be up to you to bleed them both until they don't want to fight anymore or run out of guys.) One more dog pile isn't really going to make the situation that much worse for your side, and the humans might declare war on you anyway for some other reason - wars don't need us to act to start anymore post world-gen.

I had an entirely unrelated elf civ go out of its way to attack my civ in a story fort for example (crossing a zombie infested mountain range to do so going by legends veiwer, entirely  unrelated to the wars I started myself to help the humans who were getting trounced by the elves I had picked those fights with.) Hell, you're in a position I'd love to have as far as combat goes, since it's one of the main draws of the game for me.

As to justice, I'm not sure if there is any negatives, but a successful conviction boosts the mood of the victim's friends and family which it sounds like your fort needs, and the trip to the hammering block will probably kill the law-giver regardless if you have any silver hammers of decent quality laying around and find yourself a nice strong hammerer, as well as probably start a war regardless since the next time they visit the guards will probably/possibly seize them and strap them down for thier due punishment (or beat the dogshit out of them in lieu of a place to conduct the hammering, which with one good punch to the head may still kill them all the same.)

[Fleeting Frames]

It's possible that one of your autumn migrants was a vampire, and sucked somebody really tough - vamp bites don't always kill (in adv mode it depends on how thristy you are at the moment). That said, law-giver is really cushy position for vamps, so...

You could trap the law-giver with doors/hatches when you next see him - even if he's already in a tavern, you can temporarily place the tavern elsewhere.

If there's too much crime in the fort, dwarves will start to feel unsafe.

[PatrikLundell]

As far as I understand, it takes quite a lot of prodding to start wars using pre raiding methods. I'd expect the caravan to bolt if you kill their vampire, and I'd expect them to get grumpy at the losses of the the "seized" goods they dumped, but I'd also expect them to return the next year, possibly with a smaller caravan. I believe people have seized elven caravans for years and deliberately flaunted elven tree quotas and counter insulted their demanders and still have had trouble to get a war declaration.

I'd definitely either convict one of them (I never use the injustice system, but my current fortress accidentally got saddled with one), or kill them both, in which case I'd try to use door trapping to keep each bugger contained: vamps don't tire, so they just keep running around.

How you'd deal with it depends on your play style, though.

[Saiko Kila]

On that matter, Saiko Kila, I'd say your point about taking some time to find a victim probably points to the law-giver, since she's been there since last season and the guild rep has only been there for under a month. I guess it might be possible that there's a vampire among my own, but I haven't gotten migrants since autumn and it's summer now, so I'd have expected to find a body sooner than this (well, I've found bodies, but not from vampires  ). Maybe one of the scholars or performers I've gotten lately is also a vampire, but I don't see any other vampires looking back through the announcements.

Vampires not always kill. If they suck the child they will kill, because the child is a small critter and has not much blood. But someone big can survive being drained - it's partially random, because vampires drink not only till their are sated or the victim is dead, but also for a certain amount of time, which in my experiments varied from equivalent of about 5 litres to 15 litres of blood (they drink 50 ml per tick). Since some dwarves have 6 or even above 7 L, they can survive, if they are lucky. Even with a single unit of blood they are merely "Pale" and this can be missed.

Still, it is probably law-giver, because they have high chance of being vampires for some reason. But even then I would plan my revenge coldly.

I have attacked a visitor to the tavern once,  he was carrying my book or artefact. I surrounded the guy with marksmen, and ordered fire. Visiting tavern goers started attacking him, and it was one of them who delivered the final blow (I actually ordered my people to retreat before that). This had no lasting repercussions. But he wasn't a law-giver of foreign nation...

Also, general question, are there any actual consequences for unsolved murders in forts? Bad thoughts about it from relatives maybe? I don't see anything in the wiki about downsides of not convicting for crimes.

Yes, there are bad thoughts, but from my very little experience with this "injustice" system (I really used it only on one occasion, though I save scummed to see different results a couple of times) you can safely convict someone who's dead (a gobbo preferably, but not an animal, since it will give very bad thoughts! I went for the gobbo finally and had no problems with it), not the real culprit. You can then take time to find the murderer on your own, and prepare more sophisticated revenge.

[Dunamisdeos]

Kill them both, let Armok sort them out. That is, if he sorts blood. I don't know his system.

You are unlikely to start a war. If you want, lead them into a fight with a neutral party, such as a FB.

[Hiarhu]

You could try driving them insane. Once they go insane they lose their nobility position and will be replaced by someone else from the civilization. Last time I had a diplomat vampire I built a long 1 tile wide corridor filled with doors with retracting bridges as the floors. Make it so this is the only way in and out of your fort and burrow your dwarves inside whenever the diplomat is ready to leave, lock the doors once it gets in the corridor and open the bridge it's standing on to drop it into a collection pit. Then you can steal their blood, toss in vermin and corpses whatever you can think of really and sooner or later they'll most likely go insane. When I did this on a human law-giver I suffered no negative consequences aside from the melancholy vampire getting stuck in the bottom of a reactor trying to drown itself. A replacement diplomat arrived in the fall with the traders and no hostile action was taken against my fort.

[Dunamisdeos]

My wife is emotionally involved in my dorfs so if a child gets killed there will be terrible vengeance.

[TheEqualsE]

I have a few thoughts on this.

If your guys find the dead body right away, and you have one level that your bedrooms are on, the vampire closest to bedrooms is probably your culprit.  If the justice screen doesn't have any witnesses but one of the vampires is still on a bedroom level that's the one who did it.  In the past I have saved some of my dwarves when a known vampire was heading to the bedroom level for suspicious reasons by locking them in their own bedrooms.

You could convict one you'd probably have a fifty fifty chance of being right.

But as for arresting them - I'm not sure killing them outright would put you at war with their civilization.  I had a human diplomat get killed in my fort seemingly when they and their guards started a fight in my tavern.  I didn't give orders to kill anyone, but it was people in my fort that killed them.  I'm not sure the game has a way of detecting or dealing with this situation.  There may have been diplomatic consequences, but it wasn't war.  If they stopped sending caravans some other humans started, it's hard to say.  It's possible it didn't have any affect at all.  If you don't want to arrest them you could arrange an accident when it's time to leave all the doors are locked except the ones leading out into caverns.  Maybe ones with trolls in them.

How are you repopulating the dwarves, by the way?