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[foop]

I'm having fun in a haunted embark with re-animating zombie everything.  Apart from one thing: moods.

I'm getting a lot of moods.  Every damn mood wants bones and leather.  But I'm in a haunted embark so I'm not really awash with animals to butcher, even if I could butcher them without reanimated hair bursting out of the refuse pile every five minutes.  I can't just let the moody dwarves go mad as that has its own problems, not least that I only have 20 adults and 9 children.

Any suggestions gratefully received.  I'm not averse to using dfhack to cheat my way out of this - I embarked here to play with ways of dealing with the zombiepocalypse, not to spend half the time micro-managing moods.

[Larix]

You could simply go into d_init.txt and set
[ARTIFACTS:NO]
and upon next starting the game, moods ought to be impossible. I think - never having felt the need to toggle this option.

[foop]

You could simply go into d_init.txt and set
[ARTIFACTS:NO]

Well, now I feel like an idiot.  I've edited the init files so many times and never noticed that.

Thank you.

[Sutremaine]

Doing it in-game...

Leather: get it from a caravan, or the caravan's remains. You can dig an up stair beneath the tile the leather is on, then channel that tile (make sure that there's no above-ground access to the tile). The goods will fall down onto the up stairs tile, not harming the miner. From there you can channel the up stairs tile to quickly clear it of caravan items, leaving an empty space for a sealing wall to be constructed.

Bones: I haven't tested this idea, but try feeding large hostile creatures into a battery of serrated disc traps. Sooner or later you'll get a severed part that does not reanimate and is made of only bone and rottable tissue, and hopefully that will decay into bones. From there you might need to store it in a workshop to keep it from vanishing. I don't know whether it's natural rot or gnawing by vermin, but I've had (forbidden) bone stacks go mysteriously missing.

[foop]

Thanks for the ideas.

You can dig an up stair beneath the tile the leather is on, then channel that tile (make sure that there's no above-ground access to the tile).

I had some success with this, but after several moods the only leather was above-ground in the middle of the mess left by a goblin ambush meeting a pack of skeletal ravens and badgers.  No matter how quickly I tried to seal up access after getting the leather there was always some collateral zombie-entry.

I dealt with that mood in the end by finding a siamang in a cage dropped by an elven caravan near the edge of the map.  I managed to drop this underground by tunnelling and seal up before anything too awful happened.

Bones: I haven't tested this idea, but try feeding large hostile creatures into a battery of serrated disc traps. Sooner or later you'll get a severed part that does not reanimate and is made of only bone and rottable tissue, and hopefully that will decay into bones.

That sort of works, but zombies and serrated disc traps produce a thick mulch of severed body parts flopping around and trying feebly to attack people.  Micromanaging the collection of bits that will rot down to just bones gave me a headache.

Reanimating haunted embarks really are tricky.

[Astrid]

Do it like a real Dwarf and wall those moody morons in if they want something you dont have.

[Sutremaine]

No matter how quickly I tried to seal up access after getting the leather there was always some collateral zombie-entry.

Any undead, or just fliers?

I dealt with that mood in the end by finding a siamang in a cage dropped by an elven caravan near the edge of the map.  I managed to drop this underground by tunnelling and seal up before anything too awful happened.

That sort of works, but zombies and serrated disc traps produce a thick mulch of severed body parts flopping around and trying feebly to attack people.

Nah, keep the trap area sealed until you see bones in there. Then let the undead out so you can destroy them permanently, and harvest the bones before introducing a new batch of undead.

[Laserhead]

Butchering small things like cats can avoid the hair problem. Set up a tanners shop right next to the butcher shop, and enable tanning for all dwarfs. Alternately build both right next to a dump zone into magma to quickly incinerate any problem remains.

[Mimidormi]

You can also set hair/wool and raw hides to be discarded in the 'o'rders menu -> 'r'efuse orders. They'll bring any of those automatically to the nearest designed dump zone, which you can set near a pit or magma or a trapped room or whatever.

[peregarrett]

Archers patroling the workshop area. A single bolt is enought to knock the hair or skin down for a while. Archers are great againist all undeads - compared with melee fighters.
And skilled tanners to tan skins into leather before they reanimated again. Also, avoid yaks, water buffalos and such large creatures. Their skins clutter the workshop and greatly reduce the speed of producing.

Apart from that - nothing really impossible. But painful as a thorn in the ass!

[Randy Gnoman]

Hair can also be spun into thread at a farmer's workshop.   Hair from non-shearable animals can't be woven into cloth, but it's still useful for suturing and stops reanimating once's it's converted to thread.

You just need a dwarf with the 'spinning' labor enabled.

[Sutremaine]

Also, avoid yaks, water buffalos and such large creatures. Their skins clutter the workshop and greatly reduce the speed of producing.

I haven't seen that lately, even for FB skins. I think it was fixed quite a while back.

But I'd still rather fight a dog skin than a buffalo skin.

[KalLaba]

I normally end up putting butcher shop near to a dump site, behind several doors and traps. and then if there is an outbreak , lock all the doors and open it up again when I have a millitary up. I always try to bring two turkeys for moods and food.

[Nixonitus]

You could always wall up the mad folk and use them as cannon fodder for whenever something breaks into your fort.

[EBannion]

Also, avoid yaks, water buffalos and such large creatures. Their skins clutter the workshop and greatly reduce the speed of producing.

I haven't seen that lately, even for FB skins. I think it was fixed quite a while back.

But I'd still rather fight a dog skin than a buffalo skin.

All this two of killer skins is reminding me of an encounter in my last D&D campaign where a necromancer caused a group of people to die by way of heir skeletons ripping out of their flesh and then both the skeletons and he flesh sacks attacked he party.