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[Barnox]

Recently, my fortress has been attacked by a Forgotten Beast with the label of "Beware it's poisonous vapours!".
I set up a save, with view to scum if it manages to destroy my army. However, it was swiftly beaten down by two swordsdwarves, even before anyone else or their wardogs could turn up.
However, it was able to get off two directed poisonous breath attacks: One even before a blow was dealt.

I knew that something was going to happen to those two, and decided to wait and see what form the poison took before scumming.
With no visible wounds, my Swordsman-turned-Administrator walks straight into the hospital, and promptly rests.
I look at his wounds, and see nothing.
The other swordsman follows him in.
As well as another two dwarves who were very far from the combat.

This is when I start placing all my attention on these guys. Turns out they are spraying out miasma, despite not having any visible wounds.
Then suddenly, by chance, I Z'd on a dog. Both of it's eyes were rotten.
Went back to my other guy's thoughts screens. All have eye rot.

My chief medical examiner had surgery planned on one of them, but instead decided to climb into the bed next to them and have his eyes rot.
This is what convinced me that it is actually infectious.
It doesn't seem to have spread to my permanent hospital resident, however.

I'm simply wondering a few things.
How bad is dwarvern blindness?
Can I expect the disease to spread to the entire fort?
Will the rotten-eyed wake up without treatment, and will the rot spread to, say, the brain?

[Argonnek]

Not sure about the infection, but blind dwarves make exceptional siege operators. They can't be interrupted by what they can't see.

[Barnox]

Are they able to find their way to places, and fight?
If my fortress can be mostly functional, I can live with that.
Infact, I'd be happier with a fully functioning fortress of blind people.

More questions!
Are they annoyed by the sun when blind?
Does rot ever clear up over time?

[shlorf]

They shouldn't have any problems being blind. Rot can sometimes be removed by surgery, it doesn't seem to work for isolated rotten bits tho. Whenever i get dwarfs with rot all over their body the surgeons will start removing tissue and sometimes get rid of all rot (sometimes the syndrome is too strong / the dwarfs disease resistance or healing rate too low - they rot faster than the surgeon works then). On my current fort i have some soldiers with advanced rot to the stomach, they are still doing fine after 3 seasons and luckily don't spray miasma.
Rot never went away by itself for me.

[Girlinhat]

Actually, rot is likely to cause infection, and subsequently death, so yeah, there's that.

Standard protocol on FB with syndromes is chemical bath.  Have a bathing trench (a small channel with some water in it) for your soldiers to walk through, which puts any contaminants into the water instead of onto other dwarves.  Personally, I'd prefer to use an actual chemical shower, that drops a load of water onto them and through grates i the floor, because that just seems like a very cool thing to do.  Overall though, caverns are very dangerous, and should be treated with airlock caution.

[Barnox]

Ah, yes, the 4 pages of Forgotten Beast Extract in patient zero's inventory may have been the cause of that.

The problem with removing the rot is that all my trained medical staff currently have it.
I Therapist'd all health care onto all my dwarves.
If I can cure just one person of eye rot, then I have a fighting chance against it.

It's only been Beasts that have given me trouble. One had lung-destroying gas, and now this one. Elk birds, rutherers, gorlaks, trolls, dralthas and giant earthworms all fell to a 10 man army.

This fortress has been going a good 12 years. Got my first project ever done (a drowning chamber with flush).
If it's going to go out, it may as well be with a terrible case of eye rot.

[Girlinhat]

Actually, you may be better with quarantine.  Have some issues if everyone runs in and then Rests.

[Barnox]

Actually, you may be better with quarantine.  Have some issues if everyone runs in and then Rests.

It's a bit too late.
Half the fortress has it.
I'll let it run it's grisly end. Hopefully they all get stuck in Rest, and nobody tantrums. I want a nice quiet ending.

Although, I nearly forgot to activate the drowning chamber on the final few goblin prisoners...