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[Albedo]

A Gremlin just showed up, year 1 - not the best sign, but better than the Troll.  He's down in some recent excavations, away from the heart of the fortress, so can't do any harm atm, and even then I don't have any really key levers or dangerous caged animals to worry about.

I'd like to catch him (to tame him as a mayor without mandates) - but how does one best do that when the target has <trapavoid>?

I'm guessing I'd need to build a floor on a pillar that can be crashed down into some cage traps - but will he still be around, or will he get bored and disappear off the map again? 

If/once I get my collapse-trap built, what's the best way to channel him? Un-armed military?

[PatrikLundell]

Haven't done it myself, but I think the construction is basically a lever on top of a support (well, a floor to put the lever on, on top of the support). The lever linked to the support, a drawbridge to get access to the lever without supporting the floor, and a ring of cage traps around the support. Gremlin pull lever. Gremlin falls, Gremlin knocked out by the dust, Gremlin caught in one of the cage traps.

Before the structure is build, the Gremlin is likely to leave unless you block the access, so you'd have to lock it into you fortress and seal it to the caverns while building, I think.
The best way to plan this is actually to herd the Gremlin into a room locked with a drawbridge and keep it locked up there while you build your trap just outside of that room (it also means you don't have to abandon cavern access during the building). Releasing the Gremlin ought to get it to fail to resist to pull that shiny lever.
How to herd the gremlin? Probably using military with station orders (non missile users), but military with scent of an enemy tend to ignore further station orders and pursue their prey (or charge an undead horde to their certain death). An alternative might be miners that you control by designating stone to be mined (cancelling the order before they've mined it).

Edit:
Another way to get a non mandate mayor is to replace the mayor with a non mandate dwarf after each election. Careful check of their preferences should allow you to find a suitable candidate). But a Gremlin mayor is cooler...

[Quietust]

For "bait", you can use either a lever or a filled cage, since gremlins love to pull levers and release caged animals. Pressure plates also work, but with those you run the risk of a random monster setting it off.

[endlessblaze]

Or you could just use webs.

[Albedo]

Turns out he simply high-tailed it for the caverns, pulled a lever for that access and out he went, off the map as fast as he could scamper. <sigh>

But if one showed, then another may as well - will set it up, thx.

Or you could just use webs.

Yeah, 3 seasons in, not quite there yet, but I ~will~ keep it in mind for down the road.

[Corona688]

Wow, gremlins that let themselves out.

[Albedo]

Well, he pissed me off, the little yellow-pantsed coward, so I went back to the saved game and tried it again. He runs around pretty much at random - sometimes up, sometimes down - but if up he doesn't seem to want to go outside. He's no match if caught/cornered by any unarmed dwarf (and most are not afraid of him), so it's a matter of trying to heard him into the tunnels before someone strangles him and bottle him up there until I can build something appropriate.

[Albedo]

Well, I did it the old fashioned way - I chased him down a dead-end mineshaft and walled it up. Give me time to come up w/ something more appropriate.

(Hardest part was keeping my dwarfs from killing him - had to keep them boggled by rapidly assigning/unassigning them to military duty. Gremlin was still battered and bruised, but looks like he'll recover.)


Now... the really hard part - seeing if I can actually domesticate the li'l bugger somehow...

[PatrikLundell]

Congratulations to the capture!
Well done!

The rest should just be a small matter of dwarven engineering and persistence