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[Derpy Dev]

I think being a necromancer removes the living tag from a unit.

I you go into a necromancer tower as a necromancer, the zombies don't attack you. So I think it does work like that.

[pikachu17]

I think being a necromancer removes the living tag from a unit.

yeah it does. Keep your necromancers, and only allow them near bodies after all dwarves are necromancers. See the goblins fall to your zombie goblins!

[Rethi-Eli]

This just gets better and better

[hun]

Ok, done with my turn, will write report and upload save tomorrow.

We are half-way to the prosperous necro-fortress, gentlemen. Cursecheck tells me 48 (not all of them are dwarves or even citizens though).

[pikachu17]

The wiki seems to indicate that dwarves with a 0 in Reader can't read.  Its a skill you can train on embarking dwarves, but therapist doesn't list it, least i can't figure out how to make it.

I believe that is only for adventure mode.

Also it is probably the case that fortress dwarf necromancers make uncontrolled undead when they animate things, which is probably bad.  They'd get into combat, panic and animate things, and those things would attack them, making them panic and animate more things, and so on. 

Maybe it doesn't though.  I've never played with fortress dwarf necromancers so do some science and figure this stuff out.

I once did. I don't believe the undead attacked the necromancers, and I'm not sure that the undead attacked even the non-undead  dwarves.

[Derpy Dev]

Ok, done with my turn, will write report and upload save tomorrow.

We are half-way to the prosperous necro-fortress, gentlemen. Cursecheck tells me 48 (not all of them are dwarves or even citizens though).

Am I necro yet, out of curiosity?

[hun]

Ok, done with my turn, will write report and upload save tomorrow.

We are half-way to the prosperous necro-fortress, gentlemen. Cursecheck tells me 48 (not all of them are dwarves or even citizens though).

Am I necro yet, out of curiosity?

Except zazq, everyone's dorfings are necro by now.

[hun]

Back to work, huh? It was a nice nap...  So good to awaken in such a nice room! Yes, it is respectable to be the mayor in Flamehorses... Wait. What? I am the mayor? Wow, what crazy chain of events must have occured here for that to happen? Khm, anyway, nothing to complain about. Let's see, what we can do for that damned fortress.

And "damned" is a very suitable word now for Flamehorses.

After the short period of doubts and hesitations, necromancy is no longer banned nor despised. The book was released back into the public library, all existent necromancers were allowed to go back to their daily lives. Soon, however, I created the first squad of war necromancers, and made barracks for them, near the place where they were locked:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I decided that they should be armed with crossbows, shooting from behind of the wall of undeads during the battle, so they have a room for archery practice. Puppyguard got the position on top of them. Although I would prefer to place Sodel there, but he is not necromancer yet. Big McHugeLarge was also attached to the squad temporarily to teach them the mastery of war.

I removed category-tag "Necromancer", since the game very nicely shows it itself, and more importantly, we all are going to be necromancers soon!

The elven caravan was attacked again without mercy, the first military use of the undeads in the history of Flamehorses! Turns out that an undead turkey is a better warrior than an elf.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our first experimenter, however, was killed by his own minion later

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Lesson for today: be careful with squad orders, necromancers seem to be OK with killing someone, reviving it, and then continuing to punch it.

It seems that converting all fort into necromancers is easier and safer than I thought. I can confirm that all necromancers are undead: they do not demand drinks nor food. Moreover, dwarves do not need Reading skill for actual reading: many dwarves with 0 Reading turned into necro. But everyone is way too busy, number of hauling and other labors is just insane these days. To facilitate converting, I burrowed a few times 2-3 dwarves to the library, so they could have a greater chance of starting reading.

Many of guests and residents are already necromancers as well. One visiting scholar was so excited about the book, that apparently he wanted to show it to his wife and friends.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I waited politely for about a month in hope that he would change his mind, but to no avail. After that, I ordered our military to teach the guy manners

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sorry for the mess in your library, zazq.

I have stopped throwing corpses into lava, we need to increase our stocks of the corpse resources for future undead hordes. I also placed a small building right next to the refuse stockpile, so necromancers can come and raise skeletons through the fortifications (the building has also one lower floor). We need to think how to make them to do that without a direct nearby danger though.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In addition, probably it is a good idea to create a huge underground corpse vault, the corpse treasury of Flamehorses.

You can see also a couple of unicorn skeletons there, as well as about 10 goblins. The latter tried to siege us, but they were wiped out by our brave military faster than I had time to press 'print screen'.

On the side of industry, I set up several additional manager scripts

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

First of all, it should manage automatically steel production. Charcoal production is incredibly slow: I planned to have steel armor during my turn, but we have barely started steel bars production. Would be good to open more magma-woodburners, or to place additional wood stockpiles nearby the ovens.

Some additional workshops:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've made some soap for the hospital and general hygiene improvements: we are not going to be a bunch of filthy undeads, we are going to be the respectable masters of death, with the style and good perfume. For the same reason, I have advanced the textile industry further: two textile specialist have been added, 'Weaver-Dyer' with self-explaining tasks, and 'Talior' with clothmaking and dyeing on. I placed the stockpiles for dyes and lye, the farm also have started to grow dimple cup, blade weed and hide roots, which can be readily milled nearby the stockpiles into the dyes.

By the way, the hospital contains a guy who desperately eager for the traction bench. Not sure if he is worth heretical creation of a mechanism though.

I was thinking about what deity would fit our fortress well as the head of the pantheon. That one defenitely would be the best option:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

but unfortunately, it seems to be a human deity.

So, among the other, this one seems suitable for me:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I should think of a project for the majestic temple of Udil while waiting my next turn. Maybe it should be a great tower in shape of cross?

But for now, it is a good time to fall asleep again...

SAVE: http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=12916

[MrLurkety]

So.... Even though I'm just a kid, I was put in charge of the fortress.
Yay.
This will go well. Totally.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Anyway, we have too much animals, so I ordered them butchered. I hope the hides don't come back to life, since there are so many necromancers all around; my mother once told me that a necromancer once doomed a fort by reanimating a hide. It was invincible, and the dwarves could not eat nor drink from the fear of it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I also ordered an area smoothed:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I doubt the engravers will like me; I'm trying to smooth the whole fort.


(Meta: Can't play it in one go, so I'll just have to dot these about until my turn is finished.)

[zazq]

This is rare science right here.  We need documentation.  So what you are telling me is that:

Fortress Dwarf Necromancers (FDNs) don't animate corpses any time they see them or simply by being around them.
Do civilian FDNs run away from threats without animating? or do they animate and run away? or do they charge into glorious battle?
Do military FDNs animate corpses all over the place?
Do animated corpses attack either military or civilian FDNs and under what circumstances do they attack?
Can you butcher zombie chickens? is the meat edible?  do they lay eggs?
How can you easily use military FDNs?  Do you give them a move command into a pile of enemies and they will automatically animate zombies and not attack friendly zombies?
Because our FDNs are of the same lineage as the tower we are at war with, do the sieging zombies not attack our FDNs?
Is the downside of not getting good thoughts for food and drink too severe?  Is there a necromancer specific good thought for animating things?

PROTIP:  We need to scribe copies of the necromancer book so that if a wandering scholar walks off with it we don't get screwed.

Are you telling me that mad librarian zaz quell is nearly the only one who isn't a necromancer?

[Derpy Dev]

So... the fortress seems to have progressed farther than my level of skill. I might end up skipping the majority of my turns because of this. Oh well.

Out of curiosity, have there been other necromancer succession forts?

[hun]

This is rare science right here.  We need documentation.  So what you are telling me is that:

Fortress Dwarf Necromancers (FDNs) don't animate corpses any time they see them or simply by being around them.
Do civilian FDNs run away from threats without animating? or do they animate and run away? or do they charge into glorious battle?
Do military FDNs animate corpses all over the place?
Do animated corpses attack either military or civilian FDNs and under what circumstances do they attack?
Can you butcher zombie chickens? is the meat edible?  do they lay eggs?
How can you easily use military FDNs?  Do you give them a move command into a pile of enemies and they will automatically animate zombies and not attack friendly zombies?
Because our FDNs are of the same lineage as the tower we are at war with, do the sieging zombies not attack our FDNs?
Is the downside of not getting good thoughts for food and drink too severe?  Is there a necromancer specific good thought for animating things?

PROTIP:  We need to scribe copies of the necromancer book so that if a wandering scholar walks off with it we don't get screwed.

Are you telling me that mad librarian zaz quell is nearly the only one who isn't a necromancer?

Good comments, zazq. Many of the questions are still unclear for me as well, since I didn't do THAT much of science.
The only experiment I tried is to give an order to a military necro to kill an elf. After that he immediately reanimated nearby corpse (and then started to attack the target himself). I'm not sure if he would reanimate all possible corpses, or just one, or certain limited number - requires further science!
All undeads are edible after death putting to rest. Both reanimated chicken and merchants' yak had refilled our food stocks later. Not sure if you can butcher an actual undead animal though (most likely, no) - but more science needed!
An undead defenitely attacks FDN when it was attacked by him. Everything else requires further science.

I have seen few necromancers being distracted, but most of them seem to be OK.
It is interesting to check if they do not eat or drink at all, or they just don't need to, but can do that occasionaly just for fun. Having extremely slow, all-time sober dwarves would be probably the worst disadvantage of a necro fort.

I have actually assigned a scribe specialist (named 'McPencil') for the purpose of copying the necro book. But as a general rule in all my fortresses, I never can make those guys copy things (number of copies set to 5, and he has a plenty of time). Maybe other Overseers know better how to make this work properly.

At the end of my turn we had more than a half of the fortress not necro yet, so you are not the only one. I think reading books somehow clashes with being scholar, maybe your dorfing just need to take a rest from the science.

[MrLurkety]

Those elephants wandering around freak me out, and I want to see how well our necrotic warriors do, so I sent them to kill them.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wait, you aren't doing work because your WRIST is hurt? You've been there for quite a while, I would think the blood would stop after a few weeks.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All you do is jewelry, hauling, and engineering! Just use one hand! And it's your wrist thats bleeding, not your hand!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh, glad my orders are being followed.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Anyway, the necromancers are just drinking instead of fighting. GO AND KILL THEM, IT'S BEEN 3 DAYS.
Now they're going... Taking forever to get halfway there, and then deciding to get another drink. Great.

[hun]

Now they're going... Taking forever to get halfway there, and then deciding to get another drink. Great.

Probably they do not have flasks, they typically help to prevent waste of time of that sort.

[LordBrassroast]

LoudWhispers NecroBacon experiments prove that undead animals are safe to eat, and since zombies gain muscle mass, they provide more meat than non-zomibes do.