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[gorge]

I was quite attached to Dastotmadush Swordpears the Absolute Blockaded Modesty, a Legendary +3 Axe Lord.  Then he disappeared.  I had just finished destroying a 60+ goblin/troll invasion and my last command to my squads was to chase the remnants of the goblin army off the map. 

Immediately after that was complete, I started paging through my troops seeing who got which kills.  I left my premier pair of dwarves for last because they'd been training together since the first year of the fort.  Using the two dwarf per squad training method, they'd advanced to legendary +3 in 4.5 years.  I looked at their squad, and one of them was missing.  I was stunned, at Legendary +3 Axe and Legendary +5 fighter, in a mishmash of steel and iron (no iron map, only goblinite) I thought he was basically unkillable. 

I paged through his combat logs, zooming to the locations of all the events.  In the main fighting he kills 3 goblins.  Then he kills 3 more while chasing the routed goblins to the edge of the map.  The last entry is him spilling the guts of a crossbow goblin, then he stands up (another dwarf got the killing blow).  No other entries after that.  The location of this event is one map west of my fort entrance which was as expected, in the trail of the routed goblin army. 

The Axe Lord was no longer in my unit list, so he must be dead?  I started tracking down his weapon and shield from the combat logs.  I find his equipment and his corpse one map east of my fort entrance.  There's no blood on his corpse or equipment (which is a little weird because he just killed 6 goblins) and the ground around him is clean (I haven't used dfhacks clean in quite a while).  It is snowing.  There's no corpses anywhere on this side of the fort other than his.  A day or two has passed since the last goblin left the map. 

Comparing this to a hunter, who didn't make it inside the fort in time,  there's blood everywhere around his corpse and some on his equipment. 

So how did he die?  If he would have died gloriously in combat, I wouldn't mind but this wandering off and falling over dead just bugs me.  What happened?  Other than combat logs, is there any way to tell how a dwarf died?  Why was he even over there?  Once the fighting was over he would have defaulted back to his permanent training regimen inside the fort. 

There are currently no vampires in my fort and even if I'm wrong, it's unlikely the Axe Lord would have gone to sleep out in the middle of the forest.

I've never had a dwarf die of old age but could that be it?  I reloaded an old save and he was 163.  I have a good number of dwarves older then that in my fort.  Heart attack from the excitement of the fight?  Can that happen?

Weird FB syndrome?  It's been almost a month since the last FB fight but no other dwarf or animal is showing any symptoms.  This dwarf did participate in that fight along with 2 others.  No dwarf got hurt in that short fight.  I don't know the effect of that FB but I have baths and am normally very cautious about killing FBs. 

[psychologicalshock]

Don't know if it helps but I have had dwarfs die of vampire bites in the middle of a crowded dining room while their corpse was reported at some weird location like your's. It then takes forever for someone to "discover" the corpse, you might have the same problem.

[Naryar]

163 ? Looks like old age to me.

[RAKninja]

infection?

[Mitchewawa]

More people should've posted in this thread so people could see it.

[gorge]

What's the standard life span on a dwarf?  Shouldn't I get a message indicating a death by old age?  I think I remember some farm animal dieing that way but I got a message. 

Pretty sure it wasn't a vampire.  I've killed 5 of them and know how to detect them, mostly the silly amount of bling.  I also nickname all my dwarves in Dwarf Therapist which is a pretty clear way to identify them. 

I'll try slabbing him tomorrow to see what happens.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I too vote infection. it happens to the mightiest dwarves. Now that we can make soap, we should

[Nil Eyeglazed]

Yay, I never played Dwarven Autopsy before.

Old age happens only at season changes-- unlikely in this situation.

I'm going to guess broken upper spine, suffocation.  Can happen without blood loss.  Takes a while sometimes.

[Garath]

More people should've posted in this thread so people could see it.

more people should use the "known vampire facts" thread in order to collect all knowledge in one place and bump that thread so more people can see it instead of constantly making new threads.

[gorge]

Slabbing was a good suggestion:
This is an exceptional diorite memorial ...  Born 92 / Died peacefully in the year 256

So old Age?

I got no messages but he did die in the middle of a forest where no one would go.  Because no one was around, no one saw him die and therefore I didn't get a message?  There could be some fun vampire paranoia because of old age deaths like this. 

So do dwarves have the same instincts as some animals where they go hide when they know they're going to die?

[Flying Dice]

Sounds like old age.

[gorge]

To prove this, I reload the game before the fight.  I fought the whole fight again and then tracked the Axe Lord.  His last swing of the fight was on the 25th of Obsidian.  On the 28th of Obsidian, he dies of old age.  And this time I got a "xxx has died of old age" announcement, probably because he was standing right next to someone when it happened. 

So he did get to have one last glorious battle before he keeled over from a heart attack.

[Loud Whispers]

Sounds like old age.

Ohgodeveryonerun

[acetech09]

So he did get to have one last glorious battle before he keeled over from a heart attack.

Build the fortress in his honor. How many kills did he have?

[Flying Dice]

Sounds like old age.

Ohgodeveryonerun

Old age: The deadliest killer in the multiverse. Responsible for uncountable sextillions of deaths. Flee, for Old҉͝҉ ̢̡́͘͢A̴̕g̵e̷̡͜͡ ̵̸̴̧͟c̵̨͠͡o͏̷̶͘̕m̡͠͏é̴̢͠s͘҉!!