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[Art]

So I have encountered my first murder while playing DF. A ranger mason was found dead in his bed. I have read that vampires could be the cause. Are there any other possibilities? How is the best way to go about solving this?

[AutomataKittay]

Tantrum, justice system... I think that's it for other sources of murders. I know justice system can register beating gone bad as murder because I have a cold case from that. Tantrums tend to be noticible.

Can't really help with weeding out vampires though

[Astrid]

Dead in bed is a Vampires fault in most if not all cases.

[HavingPhun]

There also might be an announcement similar to "urist mcnoble has been found drained of his blood!" in the case of a vampire.

[Larix]

If a dwarf is found dead in bed, there are two likely reasons. If the corpse was found "drained of blood", that's the work of a vampire. If the notice just says "found dead", it's usually the much more deadly justice system - a 'beating' was administered, and since those use the same code as deadly combat _and_ bare-handed punches which are bugged to be ridiculously effective against brains and spinal cords specifically, a beating aimed at a sleeping dwarf is practically a guaranteed death (and, reasonably enough, still counts as a murder).
If your dwarf was justiced to death, this should have generated a combat report. Look at the announcements and see whether you can find an "Urist McFortressGuard is fighting." report.

If your dwarf was drained, you're in for the much more amusing spot-the-vampire game. One word of warning: don't nominate your vampire for baron. A justice-immune bloodsucker is just annoying, you can't even hammer them for their crimes.

[Art]

Thanks for the help. Oddly he was found as a partial skeleton, by his wife. She must have not come to bed for a loooong time.

[Bumber]

Thanks for the help. Oddly he was found as a partial skeleton, by his wife. She must have not come to bed for a loooong time.

If it was that long ago he could have died of thirst, due to negligence while injured.

[Sutremaine]

A justice-immune bloodsucker is just annoying, you can't even hammer them for their crimes.

Yeah, the added vampire tags mean that you have to get GCS or other webbers involved if you want to hit them with a weapon trap full of hammers. It may be more efficient to put them in a 1x1 pit and set up a minecart stockpile to semi-automatically introduce the hammers to the pit.

Serrated discs or lethal architecture would be even more efficient, but don't involve hammers at all and are therefore unsatisfactory. Perhaps you could mod in giant hammer trap components and add whichever tag allows manual operation via lever. This would have to be done post-gen, unless you're not bothered by goblins impaling their enemies upon upright hammers.

Edit: Wait, the [IS_SPIKE] tag doesn't do that.

Edit again: No, I was right the first time.

[hiroshi42]

Shouldn't a slab reveal the cause of death in most if not all cases?

[Solon64]

Side note to the thread here:

Fists aren't ridiculously effective against spines and brains, the dorf skeletal system is ridiculously ineffective against them. Go check the tags, by default I believe the dwarven skull is size 50, which by the way is extremely small. Large-ish blunt object vs. thin, small skull bone = skull shattering blows to the head most of the time. Change the tags so the skull is bigger and you'll find fists to the skull mostly just bruise.

They still get brainings. I like to imagine Urist McBruceLee is pushing his fist through Urist McNorris' face to erupt messily out the back in those situations. Fatality!

[itg]

If it wasn't a vampire, the next most likely causes are non-violent deaths. Has he been injured in the past year or so? It might have been an infection, even if he seemed to make a full recovery. Was he old, and is it springtime? Maybe he died of old age.

[Art]

Interesting thought about injury, I hadn't considered it. If he died like that, should it say murder in the justice system? It says it was a murder. I had not had any violent events prior to his death that I noted. Some kobolds, but they got chased off or killed. Even so, I had a fully stocked hospital with a diagnoser medical dwarf. And a clean well nearby +buckets.

And actually he was a mason. His wife, who discovered him, was a ranger. I misread the first time.

[enolate]

Murder means vampire, and the reason "drained of blood" was unmentioned is probably the state of remains.

[AutomataKittay]

Interesting thought about injury, I hadn't considered it. If he died like that, should it say murder in the justice system? It says it was a murder. I had not had any violent events prior to his death that I noted. Some kobolds, but they got chased off or killed. Even so, I had a fully stocked hospital with a diagnoser medical dwarf. And a clean well nearby +buckets.

And actually he was a mason. His wife, who discovered him, was a ranger. I misread the first time.

Murder could still be tantrum, vampire or botched justice, it's not caused by natural death, dehydration, starvation, falling, invaders or thieves. I've noticed dwarves are surprisingly bad at 'finding' dead bodies. And being a ranger would explain why nobody found him before then, they like to sleep outside!

If justice's not enabled, then it's not the system. If you've never had a tantrummer, then it's vampire.

[Art]

Shouldn't a slab reveal the cause of death in most if not all cases?

Can I make a slab if I have already buried him in a coffin?