I've taken steps to seperate the productive members of society from the rioting masses but if this keeps escalating I see no other choice but to initiate mass-drownings.
In the latest icy aquifer fort I've been working on, I didn't have to initiate them. The ice melted, a miner who had been iced in floated in the water, the next thing I know, there's a mass drowning happening right there FOR me. Soon the only dwarf left was a walled-in weregiraffe Chief Medical Dwarf. The migrants arrived, they were fine when it was icy, the moment the water melted again, they saw the drowned dwarfs in the ice mine, and they initiated a second mass drowning. They didn't even KNOW the first lot! But in they all went, and they all drowned. {facedesk}
Chief medical dwarf is still walled in, but I'm getting tired of this.
...do not drink the kool-aid in my little chunk of the taiga...
This is some horror story shit.
Imagine, a group of migrants finds an abandoned town. There's no sign of the previous population. The beds are made, personal belongings are neatly stored, and the food stockpile is full. Hell, the fields had even been furrowed and the first crop of the season planted! It was like everyone had just stepped out one day an never returned, but nobody could figure out why.
There were other mysteries. A large portion of the mines appeared to have been flooded at some point during the past, and flooded over. But that was no matter; a skilled miner could easily dig a new mineshaft. That was no reason to abandon the fortress.
More disturbing was the Room. Nobody knew why it had been sealed off. The door-frame had been replaced with a rather hastily constructed barrier. Once, a child pressed their ear up against it. They swore they heard scratching, and bestial screams. Since then, the dwarves avoided that section of the fort altogether.
So the dwarves persists. Despite the unease they all feel, this place is a golden opportunity, and the dwarves are happy to exploit it. It was a historical chance: a pre-established dwarven utopia, and it was all theirs!
Then came the thaw. One by one, the dwarves came down to bear witness. The flooded mines, heated by some unseen force. The bloated bodies, dozens - maybe even a hundred of them - floating to the surface, their features scarred by the ice. The mute horror.
For weeks afterwards an almost supernatural terror grows. Then the madness starts. One by one, the dwarves disappear. All assume that the others are lashing out in their panic, and paranoia reigns. Some decide that the others must be killed before they can kill them - but nobody ever finds a body. Eventually there is but one child left. He does not know where his family has gone - he only knows its far too frightening for him to stay in the once inhabited section of the town. So he flees deeper into the fortress, seeking a place the adults never went. He sees a curious, bricked-over door-frame. He presses his ear to it.
He hears sobbing.
Before he knows it, the child finds himself at the mineshaft. His friends, his family, stare up at him from below the surface of the waters.
He closes his eyes and steps into the freezing murk.