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[Derakon]

A traditional murder hole is simply a small hole in the wall or ceiling that allows defenders to attack the opposing force while they're forced to move through a narrow passageway. The dwarven version simply makes certain that the attackers have to stay put and can't effectively fire back, while allowing for subsets of the opposing enemy to be looted while other groups are still being killed.


This is the secondary entrance to my fortress. Of course, attackers must go through my barracks and any resident traders before they can get to the rest of the fort. More importantly, they have to go over a series of drawbridges that are hooked up to that lever southwest of the depot. Note: the 'X's west of my soldiers are archery targets, not stairs.


Here's the lower level in civilian mode. Enemies get dropped into the southernmost chambers. The drawbridges are connected to the levers on the right; both bridges for each set are connected to the same lever. This ensures that if I want to train a marksdwarf, he'll keep his distance from the enemy. The lower set of "walls" consists of wall gratings, while the upper set is fortifications; thus, even if I do drop down enemy archers, they'll have to shoot through the fortifications, while receiving no such defense themselves (fortifications are harder to shoot through the further away they are from you).


And here's the murder holes in action. It's really rather absurd; I trained a marksdwarf up to Talented (from no skill) on the rightmost set, and the axelord there is still uninjured.

A couple more things to consider in the design:
 * You should forbid the doors when enemies are in the killzone. Otherwise, haulers walking by may try to dodge through the doors to get around other haulers, at which point they'll see an enemy and drop what they're carrying, jamming the door open. You can of course mitigate this by widening your corridors, too.
 * Have a refuse pile nearby, or make the bridges in the first image be outdoors. Making your still-living enemies choke on the miasma of the ones that have died is nice and all, but your dwarves will have to smell that too once the lockdown ends.
 * Yes, this is very cheap. Why do you ask? I plan to mine the orcs for enough steel to kit out my own soldiers (the only ore on this map is a little copper, and the HFS, which I'm not about to mine), and then start taking them out in melee.
 * Edit: just discovered that the archery targets are impassable by wagons. So much for that, then. It's not like I need them to train marksdwarves anyway...

[KenboCalrissian]

I have trouble calling this a murderhole, but it's an ingenious idea nonetheless.  I'd consider leaving a gap between the bridges with some pressure plates to trigger the bridges.  Some will fall into the lower chambers automatically, while the others on the gaps find themselves stranded on islands between each bridge.  Set up some fortifications nearby and you can fire on the stranded ones.