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[infinityc0mplex]

Okay I'm having an issue that pops up every now and then when I have traders show up because I swear that one of them is a necromancer. Traders come in (I have a lot of civs so I actually get two traders at the time this happens) and then dead stuff rises up. Not that it isn't fun to see everyone freak out like that every year but it makes it quite difficult to work on outdoor projects.

I know this isn't an isolated incident since this has happened more than once and has happened with the same traders and there was no alert saying anything about the fort being attacked or an outsider popping up (especially since there was one time when a necromancer actively did attack the fort... well more like he walked up then ran away when my militia starting to run at him.)

I'm not sure how to handle this though. I can't even identify who the necromancer is since searching the unit list doesn't show who it is (it might be because the name and title is too long so it just doesn't show up due to running out of space), and the necromancer is clearly not hostile since he hasn't attacked any of my dwarfs, he just raises the corpses for a few laughs. A totally understandable reason, but annoying none the less. Especially since he ended up also raising the corpse of a giant that I had my militia kill recently.

Any way I can identify the necromancer and deal with him without pissing off whatever civ he's with?

[AutomataKittay]

Are you playing a mod?

I imagine the fastest way to stop it is to put a door on your refuse stockpile and lock it whenever the traders shows up, and watch it. Necromancers can show up as ambushers, so a few cage traps in front of the door will catch them if you missed those.

[infinityc0mplex]

Playing Genesis. Will work on boxing the dump up. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Oaktree]

Have your traders enter the map via a "tunnel".  Raised bridges to block the five tiles coming in from an edge.  Then ramp downward and a tunnel running to your Trade Depot location.  Wall in around the ramp and then roof the whole thing.

Wagons enter and exit that way.  Pack animals and guards enter that way, but will leave via other exits.

Thieves and siege attackers might "find" the entrance now and then, so have niches with guard animals and other standard defenses constructed for defending the tunnel as necessary.  (Though remember that wagons cannot cross traps and so forth.)

[Findulidas]

I usually wall in my refuse and the surface farms, rope reed and sun berries are too good to be without. On masterwork theres also trees, ironwood and oaksteel all growable only in sunlight on farms.

[Eoganachta]

I usually wall in my refuse and the surface farms, rope reed and sun berries are too good to be without. On masterwork there's also trees, ironwood and oaksteel all growable only in sunlight on farms.

I just channel a hole where I want farms and build them underground after the tile has been exposed to sunlight, then roof it over. This is easier to do as you don't need to wall off a portion of the surface to protect it and/or roof it so flying enemies can't get in. Once you've exposed it to sunlight it functions as an aboveground tile and you can grow those delicious sunberries in complete darkness.

[Anathema]

You do realize necromancers can behave like goblin ambushes, arriving secretly (no announcement) and just sneaking around raising corpses until they get spotted? They're a pain to deal with, you have to actively hunt them down with military patrols on the surface.

I'm not saying your traders aren't secretly necromancers (stranger things have happened..), but it seems a far simpler explanation that you have a stealthed necromancer who coincidentally arrives at the same time as some perfectly normal traders. Occam's razor and all that, ya know. It certainly wouldn't hurt to test it by isolating the traders, locked in a room with a depot where they can't possibly raise corpses (line of sight is needed), and see if corpses are still mysteriously raising - then you definitely have a stealthed necromancer somewhere.

[infinityc0mplex]

You do realize necromancers can behave like goblin ambushes, arriving secretly (no announcement) and just sneaking around raising corpses until they get spotted? They're a pain to deal with, you have to actively hunt them down with military patrols on the surface.

I'm not saying your traders aren't secretly necromancers (stranger things have happened..), but it seems a far simpler explanation that you have a stealthed necromancer who coincidentally arrives at the same time as some perfectly normal traders. Occam's razor and all that, ya know. It certainly wouldn't hurt to test it by isolating the traders, locked in a room with a depot where they can't possibly raise corpses (line of sight is needed), and see if corpses are still mysteriously raising - then you definitely have a stealthed necromancer somewhere.

Well I'm admittedly new and not quite accustomed to the game so I've yet to experience a lot of things (most of my fortresses are run into the ground pretty early since I suck at this game) so I actually have never had stealthed enemies other than the occasional thief who is usually spotted well before they can even snag something.

I was pretty sure it was the traders though since the necromancer came and went with the traders... until recently. After making the original post zombies have kept rising up long after the traders have left so I now know for sure that there is a necromancer sneaking around. Doesn't help that I am in the middle of my first siege ever so all of my enemies, and anything else that's dead is getting up over and over. The corpse of the giant and its extremities are the worst though.

While I still am sticking to the "necromantic trader" explanation for the previous cases, I am pretty sure that the current situation is a lot worse. I simply can't get anything done. Between the guys attacking my fort (very poorly might I add) and the zombies who keep rising from the corpses that are literally everywhere around my fort, I have no idea how I'm supposed to take any measures to prevent the necromancer from screwing with me when my dwarves all get distracted from whatever I have them do because of the countless zombies popping up.

I know its not sticking with the original plight but I really am unsure of how to handle this situation.

[Anathema]

Well, civilians are a timid bunch, they interrupt their tasks and run in fear at the sight of zombies, goblins, random harmless wild animals, you name it. You can handle this by keeping them safely separated from anything threatening - keeping them indoors, with your only entrance accessible only by a drawbridge, is the simplest solution. If anything gets inside, sick your military on it before it can disrupt your civilians too much. Letting any civilian outside the fortress onto the surface is risky, his chances aren't good if a siege/ambush shows up.. you may be forced to close the drawbridge and leave any civilians on the surface to die. So, try to keep them indoors as much as possible - burrows/alerts are very effective for this, although a bit of a pain to set up.

If zombies get inside your fort and keep rising again, it gets a little trickier. You want to make a garbage chute, a tall shaft with an inaccessible room at the bottom (wall it off after you dig it out) and a hatch on top, designate the hatch and a few tiles surrounding it as a garbage dump. Then have your military kill any zombies that make it inside, and immediately flag the corpse for dumping, hopefully your civilians get it to the garbage chute before it rises again. But continually rising zombies inside your fort should only happen if you're in an evil biome (not recommended for new players), or somehow the necromancer sneaks inside - post a guard dog at your entrance to prevent this from happening. Again, the critical thing is keeping your civilians safely inside the fort and the necromancers/zombies/goblins/etc. safely outside, with a well guarded entrance between them.

[martinuzz]

1) cover the entire surface in magma. This will kill your necromancer.
2) kill zombies, now that there's no more necromancer to re-raise them
3) abandon fort, you just killed your !!FUN!!

[infinityc0mplex]

Dear god, I've heard a lot about how stupid dwarves are, hell I've seen it first hand, but not like this. Even though we are being besieged (by invaders and zombies) and the fact that I told all of my dwarves to go the the safety of the burrow, there was still a handful of dwarves who all decided they wanted to enjoy the beautiful fucking day by just casually hanging around outside doing nothing, some of them being attacked yet still not running to the fort.

But at least nothing within the base is raising up now that I closed the base up but I regret having to lock out some very fine animals and very expensive equipment in the process. The dwarfs outside can rot, reanimate, and die (not necessarily in that order) for all I care.

Will the necromancer ever just leave on his own or will I just have to ignore the zombie apocalypse going on outside of my walls? I am not sending out any of the "sane" dwarfs who listened to me to stay the hell inside just so they can die while looking for the necromancer.

[Deon]

I have no races with necro abilities. It must have been necros all along. Are you sure you do not have evil biome? Those may raise soulbound, husks and zombies from corpses. Look for gray cairns, ash grass and the like.

[infinityc0mplex]

I have no races with necro abilities. It must have been necros all along. Are you sure you do not have evil biome? Those may raise soulbound, husks and zombies from corpses. Look for gray cairns, ash grass and the like.

Yeah, I settled in a calm biome but I "think" I might have a necromancer tower nearby, they popped up a lot when I generated the world. I did eventually find a necromancer though, for some reason she was in my fort, good thing too since I she wasn't near any corpses though I'm still fighting off remaining zombies. Not sure yet if I can claim all the necros are dead though.

Edit: God damn it, as I thought there's still something raising zombies. Doesn't help there's bones and corpses scattered through the hills what with all the fighting.

[AutomataKittay]

Put cage traps in front of door to refuse stockpiles! A lot of them, Necros, by default DF standard, aren't trapavoid, but are ambushers so they sneaks around.

[infinityc0mplex]

Can I do that while there are zombies literally walking around everywhere? Wouldn't they scare off anyone trying to lay traps? Also, my dwarves won't pull the levers to raise the bridges... why won't they pull the levers? Dear god why aren't they pulling the levers? There's a dwarf taking a break right in front of them too, he'd save the whole damn fort if he just took the time to pull them.