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[AWdeV]

The situation is this; I have a fort on some fabulously flat land. There is a brook running through the land.

I dislike brooks. They're not proper rivers and the fact you can cross them easily and build on them sits ill with me. So I did the only logical thing and started channeling inside the brook, to turn it into a proper body of water. Unfortunately, I did so in a very stupid manner. There was a cave-in (yes, in the brook. The upper level crashed into the lower level), which resulted in my legendary miner working at the spot to fall in, fall unconcious, wake up, swim in the wrong direction and drown. Tragic, not in the least because he'd just become my expedition leaders' lover.

Now, to do the decent thing I want to recover his now rotten and bloated ghastly corpse. (and the pickaxe) I do not know how to.

It is a standard brook with a channeled out part of 3 by 5. There are ramps all around, but unfortunately the corpse isn't lying on it. I have a deep ditch nearby (5 z-levels with the top-level being 2 squares wide, it goes all the way around the fort, except on the edge where the brook is. It's a work in progress). I had the luminous idea of simply flushing the corpse into my moat and then rig up some sort of drainage to let the water out but keep the corpse in and allowing acces to some dwarves to recover everything.

I placed a floodgate at a good spot, rigged it up, opened the brook and let the water flow. Unfortunately, the corpse wouldn't budge.

Does anyone have an idea for recovering the dearly departed or do I simply leave it there to rot and decay? I've placed a coffin and it is supposedly/symbolically his last resting place, but if the corpse isn't there, would it still count as a proper burial from the point of view of his friends and his lover?

My apologies if I've put the thread in the wrong place (only board I've seriously lurked so far) and also my apologies for its length. Brevity goes out the window after midnight.

[ohgoditburns]

If you can't get the body, build a slab, then engrave the slab at a mason's workshop. Then build the slab at a suitable gravesite. This will keep you from any haunting guilt.

If you want to get the body, you will probably have to divert the stream somehow. You could either dig out a new path for the river, and hope that enough of the water goes that way, or you could dig a path down to the caverns, and then breach the river from below so that it flows into the caverns.

[AWdeV]

That's partially what I was trying to do by sending the water into the ditch, but the water level in the channeled area didn't seem to lower enough to either block the flow or to dry it up enough to reach the body. Because it's a brook I don't even know which way it flows. I'm sure there are clues, but I haven't figured it out yet.

[Oaktree]

I lost a dwarf into a river once.  Waited for it to freeze in the winter and then went and dug the corpse out of the ice.  I would think the same would work for an excavated section of brook.

[AWdeV]

Naw, won't work. This is giant tiger, giraffe, honey badger and elephant country. :/ Plenty of meat but a lack of ice. Heh, I'm fairly sure winter didn't even replenish the grass after last years' summerly drought.

If it was a colder climate then I'd know how to handle the flow of water. Freezing is grand if you want to reroute rivers and the like.

[!!crundle!!]

Possibly, you could use pumps to build a Moses machine, draining the water faster than it can flow in, making a stairway in, and getting the body. It could also let you build a dam there.

[AWdeV]

I was afraid that was going to be the only option. I'll either make a seperate basin-flowy-away-y-thingy for it or I'll dump it in the ditch, which'll need widening.

[Megaman3321]

I was afraid that was going to be the only option. I'll either make a seperate basin-flowy-away-y-thingy for it or I'll dump it in the ditch, which'll need widening.

Might I suggest you do what I did and abuse the pressure mechanics to make a basin simultaneously above and below ground?

[gtmattz]

try pumping the water from the brook off the map at the source, or you could drain it off the map by dropping a constructed floor through the bottom of the brook into a pre-dug chamber which is connected to some drains off the edge of the map.

OR, you could download DFHack, and use the dfautodump tool to depost the corpse and pick somewhere that your dwarves can get to.

[AWdeV]

Allright then. Thanks, I'll fiddle around a bit in game. Maybe start pumping and such.