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[Saiko Kila]

While designating old cages for melting I've found one dwarven body inside a copper cage. The child went missing three years earlier, and already had a memorial slab in my missing persons' corner of graveyard. But the parents were and still are oblivious to the fact that the kid is dead. Maybe they hope she lives an adventurous life of goblin captive or something. And since cages prevent corpses from rotting, no one was any smarter.

After finding the body I have assigned a coffin to bury it. But now I have some afterthoughts - maybe it would be better to drop it into the magma pool and forget about it? That way the parents won't be disillusioned and stay happy. This is was only child.

I'm curious what would be more dwarvish proper - to notify the parents (i.e. bury the body in the grave) or not (and destroy the evidence)?

BTW the kid died of starving/dehydration apparently.

[Demonic Spoon]

Inform the parents. It'll make them stronger.

[psychomantits]

Place the cage in their room, it's the only way.

[ZeroSumHappiness]

If you just put the cage in their room and never remove the child from it would they still be ignorant of his demise?

Urist McMom: "Little Urist?  He's over there, playing in his crib."
Urist McDad: "Yeah, he's been really quiet lately.  Must be really interested in that new dolomite toy anvil I gave him."

[Sabreur]

I see an excellent opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. First, place the child's body on a drawbridge. Next, bring the parents outside to see their child. Last, pull the lever and launch them all into orbit. This will provide useful scientific data on whether bridgeapults fling children farther than adults, as well as neatly resolving any negative thoughts from the parents seeing their child's body.

[Loud Whispers]

While designating old cages for melting I've found one dwarven body inside a copper cage.
...
After finding the body I have assigned a coffin to bury it. But now I have some afterthoughts - maybe it would be better to drop it into the magma pool and forget about it?
...
BTW the kid died of starving/dehydration apparently.

Proper DF protocol. Others would ask, why was the baby in a cage in the first place?
These are questions that are not needed to be understood.

[Ubiq]

Far as that goes, the kid either fell asleep on the trap or was webbed while on it.

[Saiko Kila]

I have no idea why the kid was in the cage in the first place - I haven't been using webbed cages until later (when I imprisoned a couple of web shooting FBs). And since children do not work they usually have enough time to find beds. Most probably the kid was injured by goblins and felt into a cage while retreating. A new memorial slab confirms it died of dehydration.

Putting the cage in a frequented area was not enough to "find" the body. Even dumping it was not enough, somehow the guy who was carrying it didn't notice. I have forbidden/unforbidden the body to be dumped onto the ground and it still wasn't enough. Finally I applied the usual technique of building a floodgate near the body, and the builder found it. The parents weren't amused, especially the father who lost two cats to a recent goblin ambush. Immediately after the revelation a band of zombies besieged my fortress, and killed another pet cat of the father. He's really unhappy now. I'd have tried other solutions, but I was just curious how the parents would react.

[WaffleEggnog]

I was just curious how the parents would react.

How did you think they were going to react? By being ectastic about a good dining room after their kid died? Oh wait....

[WealthyRadish]

He probably got shot by a bolt or something and passed out on a cage trap.

I almost fell out of my chair laughing a few sentences into the OP... I'm not sure if I'm a terrible person or not.

[Saiko Kila]

I was just curious how the parents would react.

How did you think they were going to react? By being ectastic about a good dining room after their kid died? Oh wait....

Basically I was curious whether they will be miserable, unhappy or fine. I like these discrepancies between an event and a reaction to it. For example one of my original seven has lost a masterful bolt due to melting (and there were 22 bolts left just fine). He was happy until the bolt was molten. After that, he went melancholic and died three weeks later. I would imagine that losing a child bears a heavier impact on morale, still these guys seem to to be doing quite well. It looks that having a penchant for cats is a risk factor, though.

[GoombaGeek]

You should make the parents new bone-encrusted beds for their rooms to make up for this horrible loss.

[Replica]

Bury the child in a wooden casket and burn the casket.

[Scruffy]

Save the cage incase you ever run into a necromancer. Funny thing, dwarves don't count zombie dorfs as being dead (or perhaps this has been fixed?). Anyway, bring it back to live, recage it and place the cage in the parents bedroom.

[DTF]

Save the cage incase you ever run into a necromancer. Funny thing, dwarves don't count zombie dorfs as being dead (or perhaps this has been fixed?). Anyway, bring it back to live, recage it and place the cage in the parents bedroom.

ROFL! Pretending nothing ever happened.
It's like when kids break something valuable, glue it back together and then act all inconspicuous.