Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[HandofCreation0]

Hello, HandofCreation0 here. Off and on DF player.

I usually only post here when I ever encounter strange and unusual things in Dwarf Fortress. And today was no exception.

Started out a new fortress, everything going smoothly, got plenty of booze, food and crafting going on, even got some smithing, albeit my civilization did not have coal for coke, a shame that is, when a named Giant Lion crept forth from the wilderness to cause havoc. My losses were few, only a few hens and a goat amongst my losses, my armored military dwarves cutting it down.

I get the corpses to a refuse stockpile, ready for butchering and what not, when suddenly I get a message on my screen: "Intruders! Drive them Away!" (or something like that), my dwarven Mason, who just happened to pass by the Stockpile (who was a Legendary Mason no less after a fey mood) Decided to reveal himself as a Necromancer and started raising the hen corpses as thralls! No more than a few ticks later, ANOTHER "Intruders! Drive them Away!" message. My Ranger Dwarf who was in the area ALSO revealed himself to be a Necromancer, and raised the other hens and the mangled body of the Giant Lion. My Military had a harder time cutting it and the hens down a second time, lost two of my dwarves, and the two Dwarven Necromancers managed to get away in the fighting, skedaddling off the map and into the wilds.

Anyone else had this experience or something similar?

[Torrenal]

Got any books about death?

Could be they discuss secrets best not discussed.

Then all you need is one spooked dwarf who's read it, and a nearby corpse, and blammo, insta zombie.

//Torrenal

[HandofCreation0]

Got any books about death?

Could be they discuss secrets best not discussed.

Then all you need is one spooked dwarf who's read it, and a nearby corpse, and blammo, insta zombie.

//Torrenal

No, it's a brand new Fortress, no books or libraries yet, no books show up in the stocks page either.

The only thing I have right now is a Temple that no one has come to visit yet.

EDIT: Found one book, "The Mountain Halls and The Coming Troubles" Sounds foreboding, but its not a Necro book.

The only thing I can think of is that the Necromancers had the book in their possession and it was lost when they fled the Fortress.

P.S. This isn't even my Fortresses main issue now, as a Weremammoth decided to visit, and bit a bunch of my military dwarves when attempting to fight it off, this may very well be the end of Degvutok.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

I'ts a shame you did not have the chance to experiment with were-necros, which should replicate were-zombie-dwarves.

[HandofCreation0]

It was the end of my Fortress, after my population went from 47 to 5, I decided enough was enough. Sealed my last 5 Were-Dwarves in their quarters. Let them starve to death.

[Trainzack]

I think were-creatures are immune to hunger.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Werecreatures never starve. Unless you "succumb to a siege". And then they get the "stock statement" of "starved to death".

NINJAEDIT: Yep, you're right, Trainzack.

[HandofCreation0]

Yeah I quickly noticed they weren't starving. Abandoned fort with them forever sealed inside.

But back to the Necromancer Business, is it possible to have Necromancers amongst your populous that just suddenly turn "evil" like I did?

[Killgoth]

I think I have heard of Necromancer from towers laying seige, bringing their book with them, dieing, and then books like that get into forts that way. I have never heard of anything like what you are talking about.

If the dwarves were necromancer you should be able to look them up in Legends mode and see when they became necromancers (so you know if they came to your fort incognito or found a book at your fort that converted them). If you can find out more about them please post an update because I am curious!  Also, are you using any mods?

[SyrusLD]

First necromancer siege I had in one of my older forts had two Necromancers sneak in - kind of like Werecreatures or Thieves - when they were noticed they immediatly started running and the siege started. Maybe they were not part of your fort, but rather snuck in, and as others already wrote dropped their book(s)?

Then again, what I experienced was a proper siege, not just them raising the refuse stockpile.

[Urlance Woolsbane]

I've never heard of anything quite like this.

Were they from the starting seven? Did they worship a god of death, mayhaps? I wonder if they'll found their own towers.

[omega_dwarf]

This sounds really cool, but just to be clear, the combat reports listed your dwarves specifically as being the ones who had raised the dead? There's no chance that they were just the ones who had seen other dwarven necromancers sneaking in as mentioned above and trying to raise the corpses? (The latter has happened to me several times, both as part of a siege very recently and without sieges back in 0.34 before ambushes (now fixed) were broken.) In the confusion of the sudden violence, is it possible things got mixed up? If you had to try to kill your own dwarves (who escaped? that doesn't sounds like something your own dwarves would do, even if hostile), it might have been a loyalty cascade (the sneaking necromancer dwarves having been members of your civ, been attacked, marking your dwarves as traitors, or something) that turned them hostile and kill-able. Or those could have themselves been dwarf necromancers who had sneaked in.

But that's just ruling out all other possibilities. If members of your embark were indeed necromancers, then it answers some questions people have been having for a while. Having two in your own fortress is even more interesting.

[Torrenal]

Nerotizing a fort has been done using books in 0.42.
Somewhere on the 'whats happening in your fort' thread some time not long after the release of 0.42.01, you can find a screenshot of a fort half full of necromancers, but I'm not sure what's happened after that.  They were identified on the units list as Necromancers, but the necromancers didn't animate anything simply by being near it.

[Klitri]

Nerotizing a fort has been done using books in 0.42.
Somewhere on the 'whats happening in your fort' thread some time not long after the release of 0.42.01, you can find a screenshot of a fort half full of necromancers, but I'm not sure what's happened after that.  They were identified on the units list as Necromancers, but the necromancers didn't animate anything simply by being near it.

Perhaps the new combat system makes them reserve animation for combat purposes? OP stated that "Intruders" were announced, and then corpses were raised. My 2 c :3

[thatkid]

Nerotizing a fort has been done using books in 0.42.
Somewhere on the 'whats happening in your fort' thread some time not long after the release of 0.42.01, you can find a screenshot of a fort half full of necromancers, but I'm not sure what's happened after that.  They were identified on the units list as Necromancers, but the necromancers didn't animate anything simply by being near it.

They would animate corpses whenever they entered combat, and only if they entered combat, but the zombies would be hostile to everyone including the necromancers.