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[The_Jester]

First time embarking near a tower, doing well so far. Fought off one undead siege already, all the dead and refuse piles are stored in my fort where no necromancer can get to them (I think).

So I opened my artifacts screen and was surprised to find "The Truth About the Tower, a nickel silver bound book" about building a tower in my artifacts list. While I couldn't find a way to zoom in on it to see where it was, I was able to use the follow hotkey to follow this invisible book around my screen for a moment. I assume that this means that I have a necromancer ambush wandering around my map, right?

Is this a common way to discover a necromancer or am I just super lucky that I wanted to look at my artifacts when there was a wandering necromancer hanging around? Is this a bug that I can see the book he is carrying around even though I can't see him, or just a happenstance that I got lucky enough to find?

[GreatWyrmGold]

That is a necromancer carrying around the manuscript for a book, and you are lucky. It makes sense that that could happen, though.
Keep an eye on the book!

[The_Jester]

Update: I sent my two military squads out and corralled and sat on the invisible floating book, but never found or revealed a necromancer. I followed the book around with my squads for a while, but couldn't get my dwarves to find the necro. Is it not possible to reveal a necro with soldiers, or are my squads just blind?

[GreatWyrmGold]

...That is a good question. You should have seen them, maybe the necromancer is a good hider?

[Gaybarowner]

i dont believe you can use it in fortress mode but if you are to visit your fortress in adventure mode with 1 on reading you can become a necromancer

[GreatWyrmGold]

They have no use in fortress mode except putting them somewhere an adventurer can get them.

[The_Jester]

I gave up looking for him, and then one of my miner/macedwarves randomly ran into him and took him out with a copper pick because the dwarf was inactive.

Another question: is it normal for a necro's body to raise after he dies? Im not sure if that means there is another necro or if it was the result of him losing a limb, raising the limb right before he died, and the limb raising his corpse. I thought I read on the wiki that zombies raise parts and bodies right next to them. Time to send my hammer and mace squads out to take care of them without more bits and pieces coming off...

[wuphonsreach]

Check the combat logs carefully, there's probably a 2nd necro.

[The_Jester]

Yep, second necro. I became suspicious when I realized that the book wasn't on this necro's body, so I checked the artifacts list again. Still wandering around, and he was definitely close enough to raise the dead necro's body and arm. Finished off the parts and got them carted inside to my indoor refuse system. Thinking about crafting a quick trap system to trap the necro my dwarves can't seem to discover.

[The_Jester]

Questioning whether this is actually a necromancer wandering around or just some really weird bug. The invisible floating artifact book is now wandering around inside my fortress, moving through my most heavily crowded fortress areas. Still no one seeing him.

EDIT: Never mind. Went to the extreme of building cage traps in the corridors around where he was and caught myself two necros. So far that is Me: 3, Necro: 0. Odd that as long as you take care to contain refuse piles safely necros are even less harmful than a rat running around your fort.

[Tirion]

Questioning whether this is actually a necromancer wandering around or just some really weird bug. The invisible floating artifact book is now wandering around inside my fortress, moving through my most heavily crowded fortress areas. Still no one seeing him.

EDIT: Never mind. Went to the extreme of building cage traps in the corridors around where he was and caught myself two necros. So far that is Me: 3, Necro: 0. Odd that as long as you take care to contain refuse piles safely necros are even less harmful than a rat running around your fort.

Just wait for the more massive undead sieges. Or until one of them finds something dead which is too big for drawbridges.

[wuphonsreach]

You should always have cage traps spread around inside the fort on major thoroughfares.  It not only works on necros, but other things that may have gotten inside, or berserk'd dwarves.

A major task for me in my current embark (near 2 towers) has been keeping the area around my gates clear of remains.  This has meant I had to:

- Create a *lot* more tombs then normal.  I normally get by with maybe 20-some coffins for the first 2-3 years.  In this fort, I have (5) 11x5 rooms filled to the brim with coffins.  That's 275 coffins so far.  And I'll probably need another half dozen rooms of the same size before I abandon after 20-30 years.

- Create a quantum stockpile for refuse near the front gate, using a minecart and track stop.  It's out of sight behind a wall and connected to the minecart track network.  Surrounded by cheap wood spiked ball weapon traps and you have to cross over a few cage traps to get sight line on it.

- Shuttle the remains deep within the fort to another quantum stockpile by my butcher / tanner shop.

- All refuse stockpiles and butcher / tanner shops are surrounded by at least 1 layer of cheap weapon traps, with more weapon traps in the corridors near those rooms.

Some of my undead sieges at the gates were powered by 1-2 necros raising everything in sight.  They managed to have 200+ zombies walking around at one point because I hadn't been able to clean up in a while.

[Tirion]

Watch out for kobold corpses. They might be [TRAPAVOID]. Same goes for Titans.

[wuphonsreach]

Watch out for kobold corpses. They might be [TRAPAVOID]. Same goes for Titans.

Yes, Kobold corpses, when reanimated get the trap-avoid tag.

Which is why in addition to the cage/weapon traps I have guarding the entrance, every peasant is armed with crossbows. The archery targets are on catwalks above the entrance area, so there's always a handful of dwarves up above who can take potshots at anything that gets past the entrance traps.