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[Lordhermitcrab]

My fortress has recently attracted a plethora of interesting visitors, mostly one wereass that ripped through 17 people (after it transformed into a human, my dwarves punched it into a pond and it drowned), another wereass (which turned my expedition leader into a wereass too), 26 zombies invaded.

I had no way to actually kill these things so I just got them all in cage traps. So now I have 26 immortal zombies in cages at my whim.

Any cool ideas for these? I could make a zoo or something regarding the death of nobles, but I'm looking for some cool use of these.

Also, the expedition leader conveniently got trapped in a cage too.

[SebasMarolo]

how did you get zombies? evil weather or necro tower? If the later, you could set up a pretty wicked training room for your militia. instead of "live" training, UNliving training!

If you catch a necro, you could have him raise your training dummies for as long as you need.

Also, I read that a dwarf's sanity is greatly affected from fighting the undead, so with careful and well measured training you may get them to have that "doesn't care for anything anymore" thing-y that I've read many many players want their dwarfs to have.



Or you could go for the conventional and chain them to your entrance. Chained things wont attack your dwarfs. If you go for this route, I've read that first you have to build they cage they're in near the chain, to minimize the time the zombie/BC/sea serpent is outside the cage.

[Fleeting Frames]

I believe the training dummies, not decorative undead garden, are the conventional route.

Though, won't they dodge off the chain?

For the weremason, doubled physical stats would make him a very good crafter if he wouldn't start trying to destroy everything in the middle of making them.

At the very least, he will not need to eat nor drink (though he can and should drink if he is to do jobs). As for buildingless jobs, he can act as a clock(use citizen-triggered pressure plate) and perhaps collect clay, sand, plants or fish (beware, wereasses can climb and swim). Potentially ride minecarts to spy for visitors - transforming into a zombie makes a corpse escape the container, but it is presently unknown whether transforming into a werebeast would make dwarf get of the endless ride.

However, being your expedition leader, he must be able to conduct meetings. I'm not sure dwarves can do that through fortifications, but perhaps you can chain him up (by either convicting of a crime or perhaps while in wereass form). Unless chains extend to z-levels above and below he might have the interesting reskilling to miller/presser with the 1-tile workshops of quern and screw press. You'd get to test whether chained BDs destroy buildings!

(Of course, you could just appoint someone else as expedition leader, if you have something else in mind for him.)

[gunpowdertea]

I believe the training dummies, not decorative undead garden, are the conventional route.

agreed, and I do find the garden more... fun

Though, won't they dodge off the chain?

That used to be the case. Chained units could in principle break free (or be broken free).

For the weremason, doubled physical stats would make him a very good crafter if he wouldn't start trying to destroy everything in the middle of making them.

At the very least, he will not need to eat nor drink (though he can and should drink if he is to do jobs). As for buildingless jobs, he can act as a clock(use citizen-triggered pressure plate) and perhaps collect clay, sand, plants or fish (beware, wereasses can climb and swim). Potentially ride minecarts to spy for visitors - transforming into a zombie makes a corpse escape the container, but it is presently unknown whether transforming into a werebeast would make dwarf get of the endless ride.

I actually had that in a fortress: The... carpenter I think... was in a special set of rooms that were not accessible except through a hatch, which was used to deliver a minecart full of raw materials down. The hatch (actually: two hatches) were controlled by pressure plates that were triggered by the minecart, one for dropping it down and one where the (accelerated by impulse ramps) mine cart would pass over and then be shot up into the upper part of the fortress. It worked quite well.
The werecarpenter actually did not have to drink, as the counter will be reset (at least in earlier versions) each full moon at transformation. It was an elaborate setup and my first (and up to now: only) really useful piece of minecart engineering.
One annoying thing: you have to rebuild the workshop each month....

[FantasticDorf]

Zombies, and even fragments of larger animal zombies (skin etc) count as immortal zoo exhibits (a cage room not set to justice that now in 43.05 performers can prance around and perform within the neutral room zones) and give relevant happy thoughts to dwarves that like that particular kind of animal. Keeping them in a cage rather than a chain also means that they don't contribute FPS.

[Fleeting Frames]

Would they spot intruders or get in combat with caravan guards this way, though?

[FantasticDorf]

Would they spot intruders or get in combat with caravan guards this way, though?

No because they aren't members of your fortress. If they were zombies raised by your own necromancer (immigrant) they'd be part of your entity/fortress and spot for you (zombies have meager extra-vision to compensate for often rotting eyes, so you could probably just pit or burrow your tame necro-zombies above a place and they'd spot through surfaces and between z levels)

Hmm thats a idea, deliberately re-animate tame domesticated livestock by forcing a necromancer to cast like a reverse GCS silk farm in order to have infinite lifespan and strength gain livestock since the tags are carried through.

If they are in a cage they can't spook or hurt anybody, on a leash they could probably bait enemies (so short range chained up guard dogs in a network of thin corridors sounds good) long enough to distract until help arrives (due to being physically un-alive) at the risk of fragmenting into smaller pieces.

Ooor you could sell them for pet value at the trader? Put them in a swanky metal, gem encrusted/decorated cage and hey presto you can make a pretty profit and get them off the map asap. Reminds me of vermin spider farms (lots of vermin spiders all thrown into a sunk in hatch entrance only room) or even hamster farms (same concept but its stationed ontop of a trapper burrow to weed out and catch to sell)

Worst case scenario is that a zombie with 'can learn' busts the cage on the depot transfer and freaks everyone out ruining the trade agreement.

[Fleeting Frames]

I've certainly had wild armadillos spook resident titans in ambush, so being member of your fort is not necessary.

[Feathermind]

Zombie arena!  That's what I did last time I embarked next to a tower. drop them into barred holding cells, station your military at the arena gates (with marksmen on the upper fortifications) and pull the lever!

If you lack a military for the job, you can always put something else to combat in the other holding cells, or design a trap gauntlet, which the zombies could either run or be part of the traps (say, sealed behind a pressure-plate activated floodgate.)

[Dunamisdeos]

[Thuellai]

Drop them into the deep caverns/the circus with no way out.

See what they find down there.

[Lordhermitcrab]

Ok, what I've decided to do is make an arena and let my two were-beasts fight the undead.

[Dunamisdeos]

Yesssss

[Lordhermitcrab]

Welllllllll, so what happened was I let Mr. Were-Mason go berserk and morph, and let him out against an elf-lasher corpse. The elf-lasher corpse killed him pretty much instantly. I don't know if this is because zombies are OP, or whips are OP, or a mixture of both. I could probably do some mindless science here or something, if I wanted to.

But, now, another 40 zombies invaded and I got another 40 caged zombies. More test subjects, I supppose.

But now, I tried to sell them all to a passing human caravan and whenever I set a guy to bring a cage zombie to the depot, the zombie got out and got instantly shut down by my militia.

Any ideas on how to sell these guys?

[Fleeting Frames]

You can't sell hostiles in a cage*. They don't belong to you, and dwarven ethics frown on slavery besides (ignore the goblin repeaters in player fortresses).

*I wonder if dwarves would unpack cage from a minecart (inside a minecart)?

PS: Weremason sounds awesome. By day, he may be just a peasant...But by moonlight, he becomes the ultimate thronecrafter, the legendar-*whipped*.