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[Cathar]

Elk birds are actually fairly strong creatures, they are the underground equivalent of beak dogs afaik

(I know because I googled "elk bird" with the intent of making another muscle bird picture joke)

[Splint]

They're also pretty respectable in size, being significantly bigger than a dwarf. Nothing to write home about, sure, but more than enough to maul untrained civilians and poorly armed, undertrained militiadorfs if they have a mind to.

[Kagus]

Elkbirds. All the power of an elk, all the asshole of a bird.

[Pvt. Pirate]

some crazyass dorf liason showed up asking me to name some possible candidates for position of baron.
i put the newly arrived "trader" who showed many qualities in social skills. i hope this isn't going anywhere bad.
in other news, my fort grew so big, i can barely organize anything anymore. it just grew above my head within an ingame year.
"migrants showed up, create more room for them"
*creates more room* = *creates more wealth*
"migrants showed up, create more room for them"
*facepalm*

[Sver]

some crazyass dorf liason showed up asking me to name some possible candidates for position of baron.
i put the newly arrived "trader" who showed many qualities in social skills. i hope this isn't going anywhere bad.
in other news, my fort grew so big, i can barely organize anything anymore. it just grew above my head within an ingame year.
"migrants showed up, create more room for them"
*creates more room* = *creates more wealth*
"migrants showed up, create more room for them"
*facepalm*

Unless something really bad is happening inside or outside the fort map, migrants tend to just pour and pour in no matter what, until the population cap is filled. Oftentimes it's easier and more narratively sound to set the cap to something relatively low at first and increase it as the need arises.

[weiserthanyou]

I retired a save of a fort to visit it as an adventurer. While it's practically unplayable now that I'm 30 minutes into my fort, the general action rate is one step every 20 seconds. Yeah...
But the surprising thing was when we visited the tavern keeper (who was the second most badass person in the fort, after the ex-champion (until my fort stopped having champions and royalty and such because of civil war) and Captain of the Guard until I realized every beating he gave was lethal). I'm not sure exactly what happened but the head of an elf who's been decomposing in the front driveway for 10 years (with a dump order for ten years) "misses Momuz Mengidok, Taven Keeper!". Then one of my companions just jumped in behind the dude and did roughly what Obi-wan did to Vader on Mustafar: hacking off three limbs and smashing the neck.
Just like that, a copper-armored human who had in one alternate attempt been killed in three hits by a cave crawler killed the second-most-badass dwarf my greatest fort ever had, and then shot me repeatedly alongside some other human mercenary until I died.

Adventure mode is WACK.

[weiserthanyou]

They're also pretty respectable in size, being significantly bigger than a dwarf. Nothing to write home about, sure, but more than enough to maul untrained civilians and poorly armed, undertrained militiadorfs if they have a mind to.

Huh. I suppose I should give the miner that killed two elk birds before the cage traps at the entrance to the cavern were finished. Too late to relocate the body (killed by a GCS later on) to a better tomb but still in time for mental remembrance.

[Cryoshakespeare]

Had 15 dwarves going in my nice budding fort. One had died in a bridge skirmish with a giant bird over a river, he fell. Incidentally, my secured river bunker has a floor grate to fish in that can see the body, so my fisherdwarf keeps getting bad thoughts from that.. but, I just had a single migrant wave of 27 people! Insane, but this is one of my only really successful forts and I feel I have finally developed a competency with the game to keep these guys alive (never even experienced a goblin siege before) so it will be cool to keep this going.

I recognize this is a tireless, age old question of the DF forums, but, what to do with all the unskilled migrant laborers?

[anewaname]

...
I recognize this is a tireless, age old question of the DF forums, but, what to do with all the unskilled migrant laborers?

Axedwarfs....You will need to learn how to craft weapons and armor, create and assign a uniform, and set up a barracks and a training schedule.

[Dunamisdeos]

Farmers, draw from that population for military. IMO

[Sver]

Hauling, cleaning, construction and every job that does not affect quality of outcome (furnace operating and most of the farming jobs); this allows you to absolve your more important dwarves from these tasks. As others have pointed out, these are the kind of dwarves that are getting drafted first.

[Cryoshakespeare]

Well, after many more migrant waves in short succession, I was at a stage where I had 71 dwarves, 53 of whom were unemployed with no skilled labors..

So, while these are nice suggestions and all, I decided to take the coward's way out and order a mass expulsion, 40 dwarves were sent to the surface and ordered to go find a home somewhere else.

Now I feel bad, so I might just retire this fort and admit my failure. I need to plan for these suggestions and lay more groundwork early on. It was a learning experience at least, onwards!

[weiserthanyou]

Farmers, draw from that population for military. IMO

yeah. Set up farms to secure food and booze then have half of the farmers in active squads at any one time. During fights sic like 3/4 of your fortress on the invaders because woodcutters and miners are also pretty dangerous if armoured and skilled.

[anewaname]

Do you see the lack of social skills and the combat skills of this migrant?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Some migrants have arrived.
An exile is among them!

[weiserthanyou]

Back when conquering was still new, I accidentally lost many of my best dwarves because they remained as administrators of backwaters. I was really, really miffed.
I retired that fort because it was prospering and just set up a new one in the same civ so I can follow through on destroying the Elves on a different continent.
My first migrant wave included 3 of those legendary dwarves.
And, for some reason, a legendary wood burner, legendary grower, legendary metalcrafter, and legendary fisherdwarf. Everyone has at least one legendary attribute.
UPDATE: at least one of them somehow has depression from events that happened in my old fort 3 years ago. Despite the fact that they've had like 4 blissful thoughts and only 2 cases of wallowing in self-pity recently.

LATE EDIT: turns out the depressed dwarf had a miscarriage. I only bring it up because of the potential to carve a giant Loss into my fort. Should I?