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[decev]

In my last evil fort, giant wolverine corpses were a regular occurrence. Those things were FAST. They probably averaged about 4 or 5 kills before my good soldiers could arrive on the scene.

[christehchris]

Winged/Sauropod Clowns.

[JJtoocool]

1: Flying
2: Unkillable
2b: REALLY unkillable.
3: Walks right into walls.
4: Instantly kills anything.

The most deadly of all creatures is: Sadistic Ghost.
Not even modded in invincible things can withstand being scared to death.

Then try that fort in adventure mode! 

[Loud Whispers]

- They can and will build things for stupid reason.

Dorfy reason

- When sufficently agitated they enter a martial trance and turn into an embodiment of "Go fuck yourselves!" as they begin killing everything around them that isn't friendly.

The duck scared them :/

- They're stupid enough to weaponize ANYTHING. Or die in the attempt.

And smart enough to succeed...

- They'll provoke wars for fun.

Well that one is really caused by the overseer...

- They can bounce back from things that would leave a human being emotionally shattered.

Booze glorious booooze...

- You can chop their leg and an arm off, pop out their guts and damage their skull and they'll be fine with some stiches, dressings, and a crutch.

Possible long term consequences though.

- In relation to item 1, they may build something incredibly pointless with the express intent of killing things with it.

The humans would do it too if they had the tools >:|

- They'll maul friends and family if they see Urist McNobody die.

*Ahem*
By that point they've been driven to the brink of insanity, that was just the straw the broke the camel's mind.

- Can become so frightening some FBs will hesitate to attack the fortress.

AND THEY SAID BUILDING A GIANT MINECART THAT SHOOTS MINECARTS AT MINECARTS WAS A BAD IDEA!!

- Instead of ostricizing or killing vampires, they'll drill them to perfection skill wise and unleash them on thier foes.

Hey that's all down to the overseer's actions, the Dwarves are ok with the vampires until they kill someone, by then they at least try to execute them. Vampires will always be night creatures and enemies of the civ :|
(Were-creatures are totally ok though).

- If it exists, they'll figure out a way to either kill it or weaponize it.

*Inevitably

And above all, dwarves have us, the players, The Jesters of Armok and his guiding hand, leading them. This reason alone can be considered why they're the most dangerous thing in Dwarf Fortress.

NUH UH THEY LURVE YUUUUUUUUU
_{Even when you send them to their deaths}

[Miuramir]

Hooves themselves aren't actually lethal, contrary to what you might expect. Giving dwarves hooves, for example, doesn't make them any deadlier than their non-hooved counterparts in melee combat. What cows, horses, yaks and camels have going for them is their size. A cow, in case you've never looked, is exactly ten times the weight of a dwarf. Assuming the average human body weight to be roughly (very roughly) around 150 lbs, and a dwarf to be 6/7 the weight of a human, what this comes out to is a 1300 pound cow. This is actually a lot more than real-life cows, which weigh anywhere from 600 to 1000 pounds. Dwarf Fortress cows are huge.

Not an expert, but some quick checking around shows real-life cows come loosely in "small" breeds (Dexter, Jersey, etc.; 600 to 1000 lbs); "medium" breeds (Hereford, Angus, Shorthorn, etc.;  1000 to 2000 lbs); and "large" breeds (Charolais, Marchigiana, Belgian Blue, Chianina, etc.; 1400 to 2500 lbs).  Bulls will add a few hundred pounds more than that; "British bulls like Angus and Hereford can weigh as little as 2000 lbs (907 kg) to as much as 3000 lbs (1361 kg)", and "Chianina bulls can weigh up to 3300 lbs (~1500 kg)". 

Wikipedia gives a very rough average weight for all cattle at 1660 lbs; if DF cattle are only 1300 lbs, that's actually a bit on the *low* side of average.  Don't disrespect the cow

[vadia]

Hooves themselves aren't actually lethal, contrary to what you might expect. Giving dwarves hooves, for example, doesn't make them any deadlier than their non-hooved counterparts in melee combat. What cows, horses, yaks and camels have going for them is their size. A cow, in case you've never looked, is exactly ten times the weight of a dwarf. Assuming the average human body weight to be roughly (very roughly) around 150 lbs, and a dwarf to be 6/7 the weight of a human, what this comes out to is a 1300 pound cow. This is actually a lot more than real-life cows, which weigh anywhere from 600 to 1000 pounds. Dwarf Fortress cows are huge.

Not an expert, but some quick checking around shows real-life cows come loosely in "small" breeds (Dexter, Jersey, etc.; 600 to 1000 lbs); "medium" breeds (Hereford, Angus, Shorthorn, etc.;  1000 to 2000 lbs); and "large" breeds (Charolais, Marchigiana, Belgian Blue, Chianina, etc.; 1400 to 2500 lbs).  Bulls will add a few hundred pounds more than that; "British bulls like Angus and Hereford can weigh as little as 2000 lbs (907 kg) to as much as 3000 lbs (1361 kg)", and "Chianina bulls can weigh up to 3300 lbs (~1500 kg)". 

Wikipedia gives a very rough average weight for all cattle at 1660 lbs; if DF cattle are only 1300 lbs, that's actually a bit on the *low* side of average.  Don't disrespect the cow

Cows have generally been bred to be smaller, so assuming similar breeding schedules DF cattle are pretty tiny.

[Crashmaster]

there's the hypothetical vanilla woolly mammoth-man were-woolly mammoth which should be fairly dangerous at least size-wise.

[Starver]

(@Vadia) Are you contradicting Wikipedia, there?  (How could you!!  Everyone knows Wikipedia is infallible!! )

Anyway, milk or beef cattle differ, generally.  Beef cattle are going to be particularly large.  Because you want a whole lot of beef.  It's in the name.  (A beef bull is a sight to behold.  At a safe distance, or behind a barrier you actually trust.)

Dairy cattle may be smaller because of various other selective pressures.  But, while I haven't weighed any dairy cows recently (or even tried to tip them) they're still big.  I can believe the weights quoted.

I was actually in a field of cows a few weeks ago[1][2], and I think I can guarantee that they were in no way small.  And these were hill-raised cattle, smaller than even a good milker, as seen elsewhere.


I may have photos to share.  Although I doubt any of them would convey scale (let alone the product of volume and density, required to convey the weight).  And somewhere I've got one of a sheep that looks like a cow.  Really, it did.  Only smaller.  (Shortly after that, I nearly got caught in a sheep-stampede, which is bad enough.  But nothing like a cow stampede could be.)


[1] One field amongst several, through whose open gates they openly wandered.  Never mind why I was in there, it's largely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, save that I made sure I had a reasonable chance of getting to, and over, a nearby fence if any that were wandering through looked like they might take exception to my presence.  With the privilege of a fence betwixt me and them, I even managed to pat one on the shoulder.

[2] Wait, I was also in a field of cattle last week!  How could I forget.  This was a much more hilly field, with very long grasses, and I think the cattle were of the smaller kind, more capable over hilly ground, but I kept an eye on the herd at the other end of the field, for much the same purpose as with footnote-1, of course.  I had no doubt they'd come charging through the vegetation faster than I could run, should they have been so inclined.  (I was trusting that they weren't going to be so devious as to send a separate unit of attackers through the gate into the next field, should they attack, that next field being my only practical "over the fence" option until I got back to the farm-track at the bottom of the slope.)

[Hammerstar]

My grandparents have cattle. I still get a call about twice a year to go out and help them brand the new calves. But yeah, this whole argument about size and weight seems silly. They've got a bull out there that is AT LEAST a ton, and he's still fairly young. He's just old enough to actually be breeding.

This 1300 lbs of in-game cattle, that's tiny. Makes me picture them as nothing but skin and bones now. Or maybe some kind of miniature. But if someone thinks that 1300 lbs of DF is comparable to real-life cattle weights, it makes me think they've never actually seen a cow in person in their lives, or have only seen them at a great distance.

[vadia]

I was neither agreeing nor disagreeing with current facts, but when bulls were used as the force for a plow a big bull was best -- who cares about anything else.

When milk/meat is the purpose of a cow -- a cow as tall as a human (feet to head) is pointlessly dangerous and eats too much for the milk/meat ratio.

With the tech levels in dorf society cows would have [hypothetically] been used for plows and big ones preferred.

[Sus]

And above all, dwarves have us, the players, The Jesters of Armok and his guiding hand, leading them. This reason alone can be considered why they're the most dangerous thing in Dwarf Fortress.

Well, if you're going to get all meta, then I'd say the most terrifying creature in Dwarf Fortress is the Bay 12'er.
(see: Dwarven... child care, merfolk farming.)

[Splint]

I consider us as to be an extension of the dwarf. Our actions are thier actions.

And I just accidently insulted my own intelligence with that statement.

[BFEL]

Fluffy Wamblers. They can kill bronze colossi

[Starver]

...it makes me think they've never actually seen a cow in person in their lives, or have only seen them at a great distance.

Brings to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=25N-4zrk390#t=31s


(Darn initial adverts.  I don't pay Youtube to get adverts!  Well, Ok, so I don't pay Youtube at all.)

[reality.auditor]

Thralls/husks. Anything larger than housepet is practically unikllable by standard means. They will fight almost everything, including each other. Opposed to living, after all*. I do not know if they will actively seek fighting standard undeads - when husks/thralls appear, things usually go very south.

* This suggests that husks/thralls counts as something... living.