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Author Topic: Do I have a Vampire?  (Read 3717 times)

Ananasii

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Do I have a Vampire?
« on: March 26, 2012, 10:18:05 am »

Ok I started a new fort today, and on my first migrant wave, I noticed one of them immediately dropped a huge pile of jewellery.

Thinking this was odd, I looked through my new migrants - a couple have 1 or 2 notable kills, and one has over 200 kills.

So thinking I have my suspect, I set them a nickname and look over the loot they dropped - not a single piece made out of human, dwarf, elf or goblin.


SO what do people think - Vampire or not?
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FoiledFencer

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2012, 10:22:52 am »

It's not unusual for ranger-ish immigrants to have a shitton of kills and jewelry from roaming the wilds. Same thing can happen with regularly baddass migrants. Check for huge but absent families, that's generally indicating the need for quarantine.
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"Lithrushâst Kúdlizat: Fetidfur, the slick notch, a grizzly bear leather loincloth. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality. It is studded with zinc, decorated with grizzly bear leather and encircled with bands of grizzly bear leather. This object menaces with spikes of grizzly bear leather."

Lexx

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2012, 10:24:26 am »

Once you have had a few bodies drained you'll likely see a pattern in accusations. Make sleeping areas only mass dormitories or barracks. You'll get plenty of witnesses to deaths that can pin the identity of any vampires easily.
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Awessum Possum

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2012, 10:26:15 am »

I once had a Great Macedwarf migrate to my fort with 174 kills. His jewelry made for great trade goods after the incident with the giant toad.
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because everyone here is OCD and ADHD, and then complain when their dwarfs act similarly in game.
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FoiledFencer

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #4 on: March 26, 2012, 10:27:21 am »

Once you have had a few bodies drained you'll likely see a pattern in accusations. Make sleeping areas only mass dormitories or barracks. You'll get plenty of witnesses to deaths that can pin the identity of any vampires easily.

Waiting that long runs the risk of losing your legendary weaponsmith though. On the other hand, I've taken to having all my vampires hammered and then assigned military positions. They are kept in a locked room, Hannibal Lecter-style, until it's time to redeem themselves in the name of the fort. I call them flayed dwarfs and they are extremely effective - especially if you make sure they train during their confinement...
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"Lithrushâst Kúdlizat: Fetidfur, the slick notch, a grizzly bear leather loincloth. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality. It is studded with zinc, decorated with grizzly bear leather and encircled with bands of grizzly bear leather. This object menaces with spikes of grizzly bear leather."

imperium3

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2012, 10:32:26 am »

Once you have had a few bodies drained you'll likely see a pattern in accusations. Make sleeping areas only mass dormitories or barracks. You'll get plenty of witnesses to deaths that can pin the identity of any vampires easily.

Or carve bedroom walls into fortifications - that way each dwarf still gets his own room.
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Lexx

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #6 on: March 26, 2012, 10:33:02 am »

Military vampires are great like that. I let mine prey freely on the forts occupants. Usually they go after migrants and children. Which is fine by me.
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jaxy15

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #7 on: March 26, 2012, 10:43:31 am »

He's a soldier, not a vampire. Know the difference.
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FoiledFencer

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #8 on: March 26, 2012, 10:45:11 am »

Once you have had a few bodies drained you'll likely see a pattern in accusations. Make sleeping areas only mass dormitories or barracks. You'll get plenty of witnesses to deaths that can pin the identity of any vampires easily.

Or carve bedroom walls into fortifications - that way each dwarf still gets his own room.

That's actually not a bad idea. Has science been done to determine the extent of line of sight when it comes to reporting crimes?
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"Lithrushâst Kúdlizat: Fetidfur, the slick notch, a grizzly bear leather loincloth. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality. It is studded with zinc, decorated with grizzly bear leather and encircled with bands of grizzly bear leather. This object menaces with spikes of grizzly bear leather."

Garath

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #9 on: March 26, 2012, 11:00:50 am »

I can report however that people just running up or down the staircase don't seem to spot very well. One of the bedrooms closest to it had the inhabitant drained.
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Kestrel

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #10 on: March 26, 2012, 11:01:37 am »

I once had a Great Macedwarf migrate to my fort with 174 kills. His jewelry made for great trade goods after the incident with the giant toad.
I had a great macedwarf with 450+ kills, and the vast majority were animal men.

It infuriated me when I had to abandon that embark.  That guy was sweet!
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Ananasii

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #11 on: March 26, 2012, 11:56:14 am »

He's a soldier, not a vampire. Know the difference.

Strangely, she had very little in the way of combat skills, but very high armoursmithing.

However, no one got drained, and the only mysterious death to occur in the next couple of years was one of my animals - then my suspected vampire gave birth
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jaxy15

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #12 on: March 26, 2012, 12:09:44 pm »

He's a soldier, not a vampire. Know the difference.

Strangely, she had very little in the way of combat skills, but very high armoursmithing.

However, no one got drained, and the only mysterious death to occur in the next couple of years was one of my animals - then my suspected vampire gave birth
Vampires are sterile, they can't give birth. Looks like she's not a vamp then.
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enizer

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #13 on: March 26, 2012, 12:16:23 pm »

to identify a vampire, look for:
no hunger or thirst
lock a suspected vampire in a room, normal dwarfs get hungry/thirsty/tired, vampires do not, if you lock someone in for a year, and they dont die of thirst or starvation, then this is your final confirmation that you have caught a vampire
(make sure to let innocents out when they approach dehydration/starvation

white hair
(i hear vampires always have white hair, and only vampires have white hair, not sure on this, though)

long lists of absent relatives, or previous forts
(i had a few with a LIST 17 lines of text long, just names, that's a dead giveaway)

vampires never mention thoughts of food or sleep
(they do mention beds they own, just specifically they don't mention sleeping)

items of human/elf/dwarf bone,
"it's normal for people to have jewelry Urist, but i dont think those dwarf bone earrings count under normal"

looking different from stated age
the "has the appearance of a x year old person" line also i believe only happens for vampires

vampires can be specific curses, if you want to read a lot of lore generated on your map

vampires always use aliases
these are not the same in all lists of names, if you suspect someone, look for them in lists, like the job list, the citizen list, and assigning a tomb list,, normal people vill show up in all three, if someone is missing from one of those lists, that's a sign you should check further
(i dont know if this has been changed recently, but this worked in 34.02)

did i forget anything?

edit: can you tell i had a world with like 20% vampires in the population at some point? :P
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jaxy15

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Re: Do I have a Vampire?
« Reply #14 on: March 26, 2012, 12:19:05 pm »

looking different from stated age
the "has the appearance of a x year old person" line also i believe only happens for vampires
Lies, I get that on worlds with very short history.
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