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Author Topic: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside  (Read 2167 times)

strider24seven

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Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« on: December 24, 2013, 10:28:12 pm »

Greetings and Merry Almost-Christmas, fellow Bay Watchers!  Long-time lurker, first-time poster.
I've been playing DF since 40d and now have reason to post - I have finally had an intriguing development in my latest fortress. 

Recently, my fortress Unoldeler, "Soulsteel," became a Mountainhome, calling the vampire queen Ineth Foldedpaddles to the fortress along with her necromancer consort Id Sculptbolted.  While this would normally call for celebrations throughout the new Mountainhomes, the royal couple behaved rather strangely upon arrival.

Namely, the queen promptly flew into a rage and proceeded to beat her husband to death on the mountainside.  Her husband fought back valiantly, and the vampire queen died of her wounds moments later. 

I find this passing strange, as dwarves tend only to fly into a rage when near enemies.  I have had vampire kings/queens before without issue, so does being a necromancer automatically make a dwarf an enemy to the fort?

I have a save approximately one month prior to the incident, so naturally I attempted to reproduce it, and have done so twice.  Both times the queen arrives first, without issue, followed by her consort, who is promptly attack by the queen... but no other dwarves - not other migrants, not my own military.  However, once the first blow is struck between the two of them, the other dwarves promptly engage on the consort, without causing a loyalty cascade.  Every time the queen and consort both die in their struggle, but take no one else with them.

I am thoroughly perplexed by this incident, and have decided to publicize it to you all to see if you guys (and gals) to figure out what is going on.  I'd like to salvage both queen and consort if possible - I have looked up the queen in legends viewer and she is quite the figure, with over 2500 kills in her 200 years in the world.  The consort is less exciting, but is a necromancer nonetheless - I'd like to stick him in a tower outside the fort and use him as a defense against the incoming baby liberators goblin baby snatchers. 

N.B.  I have dwarves modded to have PRONE_TO_RAGE:100 - would removing this tag make a difference here?
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PDF urist master

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2013, 10:30:31 pm »

prone to rage only affects the dwarf's likelihood to go berserk.

idk what happened but it must be awesome. I can imagine the two arguing over who's the better undead.
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Thormgrim

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2013, 11:32:58 pm »

Custody Dispute?
They work about like that in the real world, too.
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smjjames

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2013, 11:45:21 pm »

Yeah, custody over the kingdom.

My guess is that the necromancer becomes an enemy of the civ, but since the vampire isn't, there isn't a loyalty cascade when the consort gets attacked.
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Girlinhat

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #4 on: December 25, 2013, 12:57:07 am »

prone to rage only affects the dwarf's likelihood to go berserk.
Specifically, it reflects their tendency to attack an enemy blindly rather than flee, as this is the behavior of badgers.

As to the issue itself, I want to see the save file.  There's surely some interesting legends going on here...

Oh, and there's no such thing as an uneventful loyalty cascade.  They're time bombs.  Eventually, years later, they might start bashing each other.

strider24seven

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #5 on: December 25, 2013, 12:40:26 pm »

You can get the save here:
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=8238

The save was taken ~1-2 months prior to the queen's arrival. 
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Maolagin

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #6 on: December 25, 2013, 01:04:18 pm »

I'd like to salvage both queen and consort if possible - I have looked up the queen in legends viewer and she is quite the figure, with over 2500 kills in her 200 years in the world.  The consort is less exciting, but is a necromancer nonetheless - I'd like to stick him in a tower outside the fort and use him as a defense against the incoming baby liberators goblin baby snatchers. 

Do they reliably show up in the same part of the map? Does the queen get at least a few steps before the consort shows up? First thing that comes to mind is to build something near where they arrive that prevents them from ever seeing /pathing to each other. Could be as simple as coaxing the first through a door that you lock, or a complex pressure-plate driven dwarf sorter.

In the latter case you could use the pressure plates to quickly figure out whether your traps consider them both members of your civ or enemies. If the consort is considered an enemy, maybe a cage trap would catch him?
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strider24seven

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #7 on: December 25, 2013, 02:12:42 pm »

As far as I can tell there is no set location for them to arrive:
1.  They originally arrived in the SE corner of the map, within a few tiles of the migrant wave's arrival.
2.  The first replay the queen and her entourage arrived on the west side of the map, and the migrants on SE side
3.  The second replay the queen arrived on the SW corner, the migrants in the SE corner

In all the events, the queen arrived first, took 2-4 steps, and was followed immediately by her consort, and then by the remainder of her entourage:  3-6 military dwarves.  The other migrants consistently appeared on the SE side, though perhaps not in the exact same tile... I wasn't thorough when it came to the rabble.

I'm not intimately familiar with all of the details of a monarch's arrival other than what is on the wiki - does his/her arrival always coincide with a migrant wave?   

I thought about building some kind of contraption to separate the consort from the rest of the entourage, but the save is only 1-2 months prior to the queen's arrival, so I don't know if I have the time to build an effective device to do that.

Edit:  The device would have to be fairly precise, as the queen begins assaulting her consort within a few frames after he arrives - a window of only a few seconds.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2013, 02:14:30 pm by strider24seven »
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Lich180

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #8 on: December 25, 2013, 04:00:38 pm »

A few walls and doors should do the trick... Just depends on how many random haulers and masons you have available
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misko27

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #9 on: December 25, 2013, 05:24:44 pm »

I have to put my guess behind Necromancers attracting special rage. I'm not sure why they always succeed in killing each other, but I suspect they are evenly matched undead.

Just another instance of something being logical to the game at a abstract, but insane in it's realizations.
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Blastbeard

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #10 on: December 25, 2013, 06:04:45 pm »

Id Sculpbolted cancels marriage: Interrupted by domestic violence.
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strider24seven

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #11 on: December 25, 2013, 07:25:00 pm »

Are necromancers always considered hostile in dwarf mode?  I thought that the hostility necromancers attracted was due to some sort of atrocity they committed during worldgen.  Looking into the consort, it appears that he was suspected of being ageless, but never committed any murders or anything. 

I tried to sneak the queen into the fortress at least, but she was too quick - she jumped her consort before my military could squash him.  She was quite thorough, breaking both of his legs before my hammerdwarf smashed his skull open... not before he broke her upper spine though.  The two are remarkably evenly matched - I have yet to have one of them come out of this ordeal alive.
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Blastbeard

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #12 on: December 25, 2013, 07:30:20 pm »

Maybe it's some kind of dwarven suicide pact?
Dwarves can't self-terminate, so maybe they agreed to kill each other at some point in world gen. And since they need to be at the the fortress to technically exist in dwarf mode, you get to see it happen as soon as they arrive.

More likely, The queen caught her husband raising corpses right near the end of history gen, and for the same reasons as above has to wait till they spawn at the fort to do him in.
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wierd

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #13 on: December 25, 2013, 09:18:16 pm »

You would think that a necromancer/vampire duo would be GREAT pals-- Vampire makes corpses, Necromancer raises corpses. Vampire blames corpses for deaths!

Really, this is the very first time I have EVER seen a necromancer that was married though.
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strider24seven

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Re: Queen beats Consort to death on the Mountainside
« Reply #14 on: December 26, 2013, 12:02:21 am »

I think the only reason he showed up as a member of my civ at all was because he was married to the queen before he even became a necromancer.
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