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[TrombonistAndrew]

Skulls wouldn't do much damamge at all. Too much drag, and they're hollow.

[Aquillion]

On a more serious note, I think being able to laucn prisoners as bombs would be even more effective-can you imagine the damage to morale from seeing your civilization's greatest warrior ever screaming like a little girl as he is launched to his doom from a catapult?

I doubt most people would be able to recognize who it was in such a short time, given the distances likely involved.

[Byakugan01]

Actually, their voices would tell them who it was-and those close enough might even be able to see them as they are loaded onto the 'pult. Regardless, they would be identified after impact, and the psychological impact would then kick in. Since the badass warriors tend to have somewhat decorated armor, weapons etc, these might also induce identification.

[Blargityblarg]

I reckon skull totems should be buildable as buildings. Line your depot with them. And the dining room. AND EVERYTHING ELSE!

[Murphy]

Well, at some medieval time, launching dead bodies from catapults was actually practiced, but its main purpose was to spread disease inside a besieged fortress, not to demoralize an invading army.

Dwarves have enough deathtraps. We need more insults!

Didn't you play some old-school MUD or interactive fiction? You'd know for sure that there is never enough deathtraps.
Also, dwarves are honorable people, they probably aren't into insulting their enemy in such a way.

I reckon skull totems should be buildable as buildings. Line your depot with them. And the dining room. AND EVERYTHING ELSE!

Sure, but only if your playing race happens to have [ABUSE_BODIES] in their raws entry. Otherwise, no way, not even with animal skulls. Same with skull thrones or whatever.

[CobaltKobold]

Well, at some medieval time, launching dead bodies from catapults was actually practiced, but its main purpose was to spread disease inside a besieged fortress, not to demoralize an invading army.

So, goblins should be doing this at dwarves then.

to not doublepost:

Dwarves have enough deathtraps. We need more insults!

I'm reminded of the "practice weapons" mod that made all melee weapons use insults for ammunition, incidentally allowing them to be made of wood.

[chucks]

Well, at some medieval time, launching dead bodies from catapults was actually practiced, but its main purpose was to spread disease inside a besieged fortress, not to demoralize an invading army.

So, goblins should be doing this at dwarves then.

Goblins are foul creatures of legendary vicousness and violent.  They should catapult nastier stuff at dwarves.  I'm thinking chocolate rain.  Some dwarves stay dry while others feel the pain.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I'm reminded of the excellent decision not to include fecal matter in the game. 

[Byakugan01]

I'm reminded of the excellent decision not to include fecal matter in the game. 

Not as solid matter, at any rate (full agreement there now). And no army would carry that with them anyway when they can carry rations and damaging ammunition instead.

[chucks]

I'm reminded of the excellent decision not to include fecal matter in the game. 

Not as solid matter, at any rate (full agreement there now). And no army would carry that with them anyway when they can carry rations and damaging ammunition instead.

Heh, the ammunition is procured on site.  Any army camping outside a beseiged fortress is bound to generate quite a bit of the foul substance.

[Byakugan01]

Simple argument against it: highly concentrated source of infectious diseases for your OWN men. Just because the bacteria live in the gut doesn't mean they're harmless if they get into the body outside of that area. And fecal material is mostly bacterial matter by mass. Corpses much less so.  So while corpses are viable psychological warfare material, fecal material is NOT.

[charl]

Yeah and corpses are much easier to fire from a catapult. They keep together as a single mass until impact, while excrement is basically fluid (depending on diet) and will fall apart in air and probably fall short of the intended target.

[Silverionmox]

The Scythians dipped their arrows in excrement, the Romans turned their swords in offal and excrement, the Vietcong made booby traps with wooden spikes, smeared with it. Let's say dwarves use it if they want to use poison, and there is no  better available. Goblins, on the other hand might do it as a matter of course.

[Tradanbattlan]

...or as a last-resort attack out of fear.

[Byakugan01]

Make a good point...but whether excrement should be included for the purposes of warfare isn't really the purpose of this thread-it's to discuss the potential of using corpses/severed heads as morale-damaging ammunition by a sieging army-or possibly a defending force. Which I think would be interesting especially if you're one of those people (like me) who end up building a "boning" room where enemy corpses are collected and left to rot (then turned into bolts and decorations).

Which, as an aide, it might interesting if at least "evil" siegers/defenders carved their symbol into the face of their victim, in order to damage morale even further.