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[Mungrul]

I somehow ended up with a couple of necromancers joining the fortress.

They're pretty chill for the most part, but my fortress went through a deeply aggressive adolescent phase.
It was during that inevitable mid-game phase where some part of the production chain gets screwed up (in my case, not assigning materials to work orders and a couple of jobs unknowingly flipped to "Nobody does this").
During the "Troubles", I had quite a few people die, only to be brought back by my friendly necromancers as "Ruined Ones".
For the most part, they are now model citizens, performing their tasks with nary a grumble, and being a lot more psychologically stable than the rest of the sociopathic boozehounds roaming my fortress (seriously, I've got a couple of 6 year olds that regularly throw tantrums and somehow someone always ends up dead, and it's always the same kids).

Only thing is, it seems to be completely random whether I can assign them to squads or not. Some I have been able to assign, no problem. But some just don't appear in the list of potential recruits, despite appearing in the assignable labour lists.

Any ideas what I could be missing?


Here are some of the worst offenders I've found for psychopathic children, all of whom have been convicted, but Dwarf Juvie doesn't seem to be a thing, as the little shits are still wandering around scott-free, wreaking havoc as is their wont:







Were kids always this lethal?!?


Otherwise, very much enjoying this version, although my FPS is beginning to tank now.

[Bumber]

I had one of my kids kill a demon, though I think it was a flimsy blob.

[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

They probably will be good soldiers when they grow up!

[Mungrul]

I kinda wanted to keep this about the initial question, what determines whether a Ruined One can be recruited or not, but I swear, kids are the new carp.
I would go so far as to say that the vast majority of deaths in my fortress have been caused by kids throwing a strop. I just lost my Baroness to one, and I've even had a fully steel-armoured soldier be killed by one.

I think there must be something wrong here, where I fear the whims and tantrums of pre-teens more than the last hoard or darkness (which my army handily wiped out without a single loss or injury). This army consisted of those twisted shadow creatures, including some sort of giant black worm, some nasty looking black spiders and some giant toothy buggers.
All in all, probably thirty of them, and not a scratch to my army. Yet at the same time as that battle was going one, some brat managed to murder two of my nobles and several other bystanders.

It's getting to the point where I'm seriously starting to consider how best to segregate children from the main fortress, or even whether I should start drowning babies again.

[Salmeuk]

might have something to do with the fact children are 'children' for an additional 6 years (iirc) and are stuck with their psychology yet unable to do anything about it. basically grumpy teenagers with a penchant for unprovoked, cathartic violence

[Ward]

Children, certain officials, and perhaps a few other exceptions do not face the dwarven justice system when convicted, they are simply listed as a criminal with no punishment pending.

[dirkdragonslayer]

Intelligent Undead (in your case they are called Ruined Ones) can become soldiers a year or two after they are raised. You will get a petition; "Urist McUndead wants to become a citizen," and if you approve their citizenship then you can draft them. Basically when they are raised from the dead they are treated like a Bard who had applied for temporary citizenship to entertain residents, and you need to wait for them to become full citizens.

A few notes though from my fort that had an intelligent undead military.

• They don't seem to heal. Doctors will sew their wounds shut, and try to patch them up, but severe injuries can't be fixed. Sometimes this will put them in an infinite loop of being stuck at the hospital, diagnosed, cleaned, diagnosed, cleaned, forever. If one gets a mangled leg, just exile them.
• You cannot send them on assignments off map, like raids or invasions. From what I can tell they will be treated as "dead" the second they leave the map and I have never had an undead soldier return. I have lost 20-30 undead that way, so make sure you have a squad of mortal soldiers if you have ambitions outside your fortress.
• Their undead magic is random, and they won't necessarily use it smartly. It took me 2 years to learn my undead could make things dizzy and unable to fight because they fought off goblin sieges while only using fog powers.
• Make sure your necromancers write books early on, preferably before the undead army to minimize sadness. I had two necromancers that I put to work writing books in hopes to get a tome for raising undead. One died, raised as intelligent undead (still a necromancer) but afterword he refused to write any more books. Then the other necromancer started to refuse to write months after, I think because she was very unhappy and her inability to eat/drink/sleep was keeping her depressed.
• Don't keep your necromancers in Frontline combat. Enemy intelligent undead are still enemies, and it can cause an infinite cycle of resurrecting enemies and killing them until your necromancer dies of exhaustion and an undying goblin opponent. This is how one of my necromancers became an intelligent undead. I have also had non-intelligent undead attack my necromancers in this version of the game, causing huge bad moods for my necromancer. Keep them in their own military squad to move them around, but have a proper lab with an enemy behind fortifications and a draw bridge to revive the undead.

[Mungrul]

Ooooo, that's all really useful, thanks dirkdragonslayer!