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[Default Settings]

I am not entirely sure if this is a bug, a bizarre hazing ritual among guards of if my fortress is simply haunted, but does anybody know how to prevent this?

I occasionally get a message that somebody collided with something and died. If I look what happened I find another dead dwarf at the bottom of my haunted well. It's a nice, popular well (5 levels deep) near my barracks that took three lifes so far. Apparently it only eats guards and the other dwarfs don't seem to mind the taste of decomposing bodies in their drinking water, but this is getting ridiculous. I walled off the area and ordered the engraver to put up some warning signs near the other wells.
(The first two deaths happened in 33b, the last one in 33c.)

[ November 28, 2007: Message edited by: Default Settings ]

[Sean Mirrsen]

Try stationing regular military near the well(s), and set them to carry water. If they fall too, when refilling their waterskins, then there's your problem. If only guards do that, then it's a more complicated bug.

[Default Settings]

The regular guys do just fine, a hammerdwarf who filled a bucket also had no problem. I have yet to catch a guard drinking, but given that the well has been there for roughly three years now I assume that they survive drinking most of the time.

[Densor]

If it is right next to your barracks, it's possible that the guards are sparring and accidentally throwing their opponent (another guard) onto the well (or something), which might be considered empty space for purposes of supporting a dwarf.  The result would be dead guards at the bottom of your well.

[Hypcso]

That's pretty funny actually. I wonder if the water tastes weird.

[Default Settings]

quote:Originally posted by Densor:
<STRONG>If it is right next to your barracks, it's possible that the guards are sparring and accidentally throwing their opponent (another guard) onto the well (or something), which might be considered empty space for purposes of supporting a dwarf.  The result would be dead guards at the bottom of your well.</STRONG>

That could be the it. The well is at the end of a narrow hallway that is actually part of the barracks area, I've seen dwarfs sparring right next to the well. Although this doesn't explain why all of them fell into the well and not into the open space right next to it(a well shaft to the higher levels), but this may be just a coincidence.

code:

███████████    O Well
█████████.█    . open space
█         █
█ ███████O█
█ █████████
█ Barracks█

[ November 29, 2007: Message edited by: Default Settings ]

[ November 29, 2007: Message edited by: Default Settings ]

[valcon]

Aww, they died ...

I know, make the well shaft shorter, that way little timmy will just get stuck and you can assign some guys to lower down crab cakes

[ November 29, 2007: Message edited by: valcon ]

[Javis]

I can confirm that this was due to sparring.  In my fortress, a soldier who had been sparring with another wrestler fell into the well which was part of the barracks.  Luckily, the channel for the well was only one z-level down and the design allowed the dwarf to easily escape.  The water source was a surface pond, so he had not counter current and built in ramps.

This is what the design looked like:

code:

Top view of the barracks and pond at level z
.....X  . = floor
.....X  o = well
.....X  ~ = water
.....X  X = wall
.....X  
.....X
.....X XXXXX
..o..X X>~~~
XXXXXX XX~~~
Top view of the water channel at level z-1
XXXXXXXXXXX
XX~~~~~~<XX
XXXXXXXXXXX

He climbed up the stairs at the end of the channel into the surface level pond, then climbed up the ramp at the side.  Without hesitation he walked back into the entrance to the fort and continued sparring.  I resized the barracks room so that it didn't include the well and this has not occurred again.

[DuncanFrost]

Odd. My miner just fell down a well. He's not a soldier or anything. It got him up to Talented Swimmer before he died, though. Maybe one of those rhesus macques knocked him down.