Dungeons, often described as 'prisons often kept underground' for a authentic dank & dark medieval setting are a fitting place to exact dwarven justice and jails are often overlooked in the existing game for being fiddly and over-punishing to fortress populations given the draconic dwarven laws, and there is some interest by Toady at-least seen in future of the fortress replies to represent more locations so this thread is to hopefully help offer them some inspiration on how to exact it.
How dungeons work
A successfully kept prison will keep intruders & the occasional vampire mass murderer contained and processed, they dont rehabilitate dwarves who have fallen into the depths of insanity (except maybe contain them if they get caught in cage traps because they'll never yield) but generate positive thoughts for dwarves that justice is being carried out as a expansion of the existing system
All intelligent prisoners can be transferred into a long term residency dungeon room, where the door will be especially locked except when prison officers & wardens stand 1 tile away from it and drop deliveries through the door onto the adjacent side without opening, or in rare instance enter to collect & haul a prisoner to and from the cell.
Metal or firm stone doors are advised if the prisoner is unhappy with their conditions or has any particularly destructive creature tags like [LOCKPICKING], the warden will periodically check on each individual cell and make a assessment on who is supposed to be inside it, their room requirements and criminal histories.
- with a obvious target for vandalism, prisoners will be punished for attacking their bed or any other furniture put inside dungeon rooms but cannot actually destroy their bed their cell is centred around, only be punished for attempting to damage it on their criminal record
> Jails are removed, but dungeon locations attached to meeting zones will expect restraints and cages and automatically tie up convicts there instead, to fulfill their regular sentences or be transferred into cell rooms, the warden will check on these too to see if prisoners have pressing needs to sleep, eat or drink and let the player know if there are no prison guards currently tasked to dealing with needs.
> A dungeon attached to a pit zone is a type of punishment that can be applied by the justice system, with the player marking the area as deadly as to automatically filter death penalty prisoners into, where they become hostiles, be it militia squads, traps, steep falls or wild animals waiting there to kill them since they were marked for execution.
[Demands] - Particularly important prisoners, perhaps site rulers from another civilisation or people with pre-existing room requirements will demand that they have larger & more luxurious cell rooms than prisoners of lower status, and also still follow precedence ladder with a 1/4 of their room bedroom requirements taken off. Not fufilling these demands may make them upset and commit more criminal behavior from within the cell and upset your dwarves and the civ they are from for their eventual expected exchange.
Location labour workers
A dungeon cannot work without a static force of dwarves to guard and look after the dungeon, however, civilian dwarves cannot be entrusted to do this task safely due to the aggressive nature of some of the occupants such as goblins, animal people and literally blood-thirsty dwarves, so a new noble and mangerie of special prison guards do the regular activities of feeding & hauling prisoners instead.
Warden - Like the captain of the guard responsible for security & public order, this person has a unlimited number of squad mates but more squads cannot be made through the military screen and they are entered through application to the locations screen, their prison officer squad can't be used from the (s) squads screen, but may interfere with conflicts nearby where their zones are.
Wardens personally escort prisoners out of their cells to certain arrangements and make assessments, keeping up to date on the criminal history (which is a new screen) of the inmates, they are the equal diagnosticians of public safety and restraint of criminals and they need to be physical with good memories, ex-wrestlers & soldiers would be suitable, similar for other dungeon staff.
Prison guards
Prison guards are a type militia squad subordinate which the warden of assigned to look after and crucially restrain & put down escaping inmates who will not yield, as well as run around catering to needs rather than relying on regular dwarves. Barracks like a regular squad can be assigned to host their sleeping arrangements, though a training room may serve as particularly distracting when they're supposed to be watching prisoners.
- Prison guards are expected to beat prisoners into yielding and submission if they at all break the grasp of the prison guard transferring them so that they can be dragged back to the prison, else-wise beating them to death, and apply minor punishments like beatings themselves. Its is probable that goblin prison guards enjoy this, and the 'perks' of being responsible to exact tortures
By popular community demand, the obligatory animal-people/civilian integration method may also mean you have former captured naked Dingo-men or Gorlaks one day in turn end up guarding the prisons they were originally incarcerated in before earning their freedom from you the player.Petitions - Animal-people, wild neutrals and certain civilisation members after enough time in your dungeon rooms rather than small cages & restraints may want to join your civilisation, and a warden will escort them to the mayor's office to conduct a meeting, if the petition is denied they will be returned to their cell. Killing them may be less maintenance if you are not willing to wait.
Slavery - Slavery is a forced petition irregardless of whether the subject consents or not and typically in world generation civilisations will collect and kidnap citizens first and wait a period of time before making them slaves, where any crime is dealt by a slave it is dealt with as treason often delivering the slave back to the dungeon with a serious incarceration penalty or to a quick and/or immediate death.
Both of these are marked on the Warden's security assessments as events that happened, so past slaves will be marked in criminal history if they are a civilian at your fortress or a petition appeal
Further actions that can be done with Dungeons
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[Torture] - Dwarves abhor torture, and if this was contrary to change to a [ONLY_IF_SANCTIONED] activity, it would be a valuable way at risk to the prisoners health & happiness to find out whatever the player needs to know. Including a influx of rumors by queuing up a certain prisoner to be interrogated appropriate to the current list of ethics.
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[Ransoms & exchanges] - By kidnapping important people in raids and assaults, you may make a request of tribute equal to the perceived worth of the person that you are currently holding. This may be contrary to the crimes against your civilisation that they are charged with, like being at fault for instigating a war against you or sending agents to steal your objects, which may make your dwarves upset at a miscarriage of justice for just instead sending them to the hammerer's block.
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[Bounty Hunters] - Automatic prisoner collectors & off map escapee prisoner executioners who can be sent out to collect criminals to bring back to your fortress; they are hired like monster hunters when a dungeon is available, and will ensure that you always have a somewhat steady supply by finding criminals in the surrounding location to capture. It is also a profession & mission type in adventure mode, where you will be rewarded for turning in criminals to the authorities who have yielded to you and join your party.
This came out a much larger suggestion thread than i thought it would be, but i hope that it was concise and informative for my vision of how the new dungeons, penal colonies or prisons might turn out. Im aware if any of these mirror the development goal candidates, and i've built this thread deliberately to try and help explain a way forward for them
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Topic: Dungeon location - Hostages, petitions & torture. (Read 2237 times)