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[Loud Whispers]

You know those necromancers that arrive ambushing? Well I've not had much troubles with them, with one notable exception.

I like above ground forts. This means that ambushers can show up inside my fortress from anywhere on the map.
And I didn't want to use traps on this fort, until I found some goose skin get necro'd.
19 times in a row.
No problem, tried the usual, set up cage traps in chokes to see if I could catch it alive.
No luck.
Created a new military patrol to find this necromancer and process it into a corpse.
No luck.
I convince myself that the necromancer probably got scared and ran away.

NOPE

The necromancer avoided detection for 2 entire seasons.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And walked right into my raven stockpile.


SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT

I'm confident I could take down the swarm with the 60 soldiers at my disposal, but of course they won't stay dead until I find this necromancer.
And throwing fuel at a fire could work, but I doubt it.
And I can't send out military patrols BECAUSE OF THE RAVEN SWARM EATING ALL OF MY CHILDREN.


I'm going to bunker everyone down into the booze stockpile and the central barracks (the only two places where I can even stop the ravens from reaching-I really meant everywhere). And begin the reclaiming of the surface from the ravens.
Again, 60 soldiers, armed, armoured and well trained. Why the hesitance?
It's my entire population.
If I lose my army the fort dies.
To ravens.


SOOOOOOO

Necromancer screening techniques!

1. Bait:
Got raining syndrome blood which causes unconsciousness, and found that although ambushing necromancers run away from pretty much everything, unconscious things don't scare them away, and they also attack them - revealing themself in the process. This worked the first time, can't do it again because it's not raining and there's a giant swarm of ravens everywhere.
On a related tangent, ambushing necromancers appear to be immune to the effects of weather. Can anyone confirm an ambushing creature succumbing to weather/fire/flooding?
2. Anyone know a good way to finding necros?

[Urist Da Vinci]

It might be possible to put some corpses somewhere, accessible to the outside, but hidden from view by a maze of walls. The ravens won't path in there, but the necro might be drawn to the bodies and animate them. Maybe he's drawn towards a refuse stockpile instead, so designate a few as well. The necro would have to walk over cage traps etc. , so he gets caught before he can see the pile.

[Loud Whispers]

if only there was a way of getting marksdwarves to spam bolts in random directions...

BALLISTAE ARE USEFUL NOW

[GreatWyrmGold]

Wait, raining blood...you're sure you weren't just in an evil area?

[peskyninja]

Wait, wait, wait. Why the hell do you have a raven stockpile?

[Corai]

Wait, wait, wait. Why the hell do you have a raven stockpile?

Everyone has a fetish ingame, like mine are those wonderful elves kobolds.

[Loud Whispers]

Wait, raining blood...you're sure you weren't just in an evil area?

It's part evil, the raven stockpile was kept in the savage section.

Wait, wait, wait. Why the hell do you have a raven stockpile?

Because.

1. Ravens cannot be butchered.
123. Undead ravens have a yearn to end all things living.
125591. Undead ravens know where you live.
13158568u. The ravens are without number.
1241414111◘. Moose pits do not work on ravens. Metal bolts are not cheap. Permanent death was needed.
1.589258877x10⁹⁰⁸⁹⁸⁰. The raven stockpile was a part of the much needed area of non-evil land, which ensured permanent raven death.

It might be possible to put some corpses somewhere, accessible to the outside, but hidden from view by a maze of walls. The ravens won't path in there, but the necro might be drawn to the bodies and animate them. Maybe he's drawn towards a refuse stockpile instead, so designate a few as well. The necro would have to walk over cage traps etc. , so he gets caught before he can see the pile.

I might try this, once people stop dying.

So that's sadly going to be not any time soon.

Well played wax workers.

Well played.

[Loud Whispers]

Whelp. The raven swarm was killed (multiple times), baiting the wax worker with the corpses worked, and I managed to flush it into some of the traps. Three Dwarves with critical injuries, quite a few with scratches, bruising and a few broken / lost limbs, but mostly superficial injuries. My biggest lost would have to be the amount of metal bolts - STEEL bolts lost ;(

Oh and the necromancer?

It was a Dwarf.

OORAH.

Will attempt other methods of Necro detection later.

[FritzPL]

It was a Dwarf.

nodwarfy expects the necromantic spy service

[Loud Whispers]

find one that is alive despite masses of rotting and stick him in the military.

100% military recruitment to population ratio. Plus I don't think Necromancers can be zombies, and quite a few of my Dwarves happen to carry a lot of rotten flesh about them already...

nodwarfy expects the necromantic spy service

HERESY!

[FritzPL]

HERESY!

I love you so much.

[Blizzlord]

HERESY!

I love you so much.

+1 forever.

[Loud Whispers]

I was going to put off unnecessarily bumping this thread...

But this happened.

I noticed one of my unhappy Dwarf soldiers just hanging out around one of my gardens (all of the statues depicting Dwarves getting killed by or killing zombies/megabeasts, they love it), and thought nothing of it - besides wondering why he wasn't out training.
B.M. Captain Id Mörulurol. One of my very few combat miners - armed with nothing but a candy pick and a short sword of the same make. Apparently his two squad members didn't mind his disappearance, and felt it best to leave him alone whilst he was particularly anger-prone, and swinging about the pick of course.

Not being able to chain the Dwarf necromancer to the booze stockpile with a brass chain, I felt it would be fitting to give the Dwarf a tower, in honour for the skill and bravery it showed in infiltrating my fortress.
(Didn't want to put it with the other captured humans, were creatures and necromancer - it would've been an insult to the brave Dwarf).
When the Dwarf caravan arrived - and I found I was able to bring the Dwarf cage to the depot, I wanted to see if I could... Send the Dwarf to the mountain home.

A few minutes later, I get an announcement, someone got interrupted by the Dwarf necromancer. I immediately feared that the Dwarf had escaped and found the new raven stockpile, and checked the combat logs.

And I just witnessed the first report that actually made me cringe...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He immediately went for the liver.
Then the legs, stopping the necromancer from escaping.
He then began striking and punching, as the necromancer instinctively raised his right arm defensively - causing severe injury.
Captain Id, seeing the necromancer defend himself immobilized the other arm immediately afterwards with a swift blow from his pick, and once he was defenseless, ripped his left foot off with his teeth. He hasn't let go of that foot.
He then completely tore the liver apart, inflicting a definite mortal wound to the Dwarf - but the ordeal would not end there.
Id proceeded to stab, yank and tear the Dwarf limb from limb, aiming for the joints and ligaments, pulling each limb outward in an increasingly large pool of blood. Easier than digging through stone.
He even ripped the necromancer's guts out with his pick.
What followed was what remained of the Dwarf getting stomped on by Id, torn even more before Id finally embedded his pick in the Dwarf's face... And swung hard. The head landing nearby at the feet of the only doctor and one of the only two children in the fort.
He calmly then walked away, still covered in blood, to begin drilling his squad on how to use the sword efficiently.

Captain Id's wife was one of the 3 critically injured Dwarves. Who got discharged from the hospital after that exact day, by the doctor mentioned. Might've been a friendly reminder to go help his wife, might've been revenge.
I don't know why it was particularly brutal to me, maybe it's because I've so far treated worthy prisoners well. Or that he was defenseless. Might've been the fact that I was going to give that Dwarf a special place in my fortress, and it felt bad seeing my efforts squandered.
Or maybe it's because the Dwarf got turned into 8 pieces of body parts, and was conscious throughout the entire ordeal. And Id could've made a clean kill from the very first hit...

"Mutilated corpse."

BIG UNDERSTATEMENT RNG.

On the bright side, Captain Id shall be one of the lucky few Dwarves who's corpse will not be placed in the cursed tombs.

*FUTURE EDIT

Turns out As was the former king of a Dwarven civilization.

Wow.

[Xantalos]

DAMN

[krenshala]

Emergent behaviour can be a wonderful thing, can it not?

I've seen a similar combat report, where the hammer dwarf would smash his victims hands and feet then leave the prone body to the tender mercies of the dabbling and novice spear dwarves he was the captain of.  In one case I could swear he was torturing the elf, as he started at the hands and feet, then lower arms/legs, then upper arms/legs, then upper/lower body, but never the head.

Oh, and Fetch the Comfy Chair!