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[DuniteOlivine]

Blowguns with a few reworks could be an interesting addition to the Dwarven arsenal.

Blowguns and blowdarts are made craftable. Wooden and bone blowguns can be made at the bowyer's workshop using the bowyer skill, metal blowguns are made at the metalsmith's forge using the weaponsmith skill. Wooden and bone blowdarts are crafted at the craftsdwarf's workshop with their respective skills, and metal blowdarts are crafted at the metalsmith's forge. Blowdarts are crafted in stack batches of 40, opposed to bolts which are crafted in batches of 25, making them more resource efficient.

The bowyer's workshop gets the new task Apply venom to blowdarts, which will take a 20 blowdarts and apply them all with the effects of one glass vial of venom. This would make blowguns in some cases compete with crossbows, but venom is too inaccessible. So the farmer's workshop gets the new task Milk venom from animal which will send a dwarf to extract venom from a living caged venom-producing creature using a glass vial without killing the creature, creating a renewable source for venom. The venom-milker skill is important because similar to gelding, a low-skill venom milker may sustain injuries during the venom-milking process potentially making it the most dangerous workshop task. Best to train dwarves by starting them milking weak venom animals and moving up to stronger venom when they become skilled if possible.

Venom application to weapons should be limited to blowdarts to maintain balance. Logically this is also explained through venom mostly dripping off weapons, whereas darts have a special compartment and channel to deliver venom effectively. Also certain creatures like lizardmen should be immune to venom. Blowguns and blowdarts can also be used in weapon traps.

[FantasticDorf]

Vermin venom can already be extracted by using vials at a butcher with the (extract from dead animal, targeted towards phantom spiders, bark scorpions or cave spiders, theoretically bees if able to be grabbed) job on animal traps, but i otherwise agree that blowdarts should have a component that stores venom permanently done via tokens on the ammunition, while other things dipped in venom have only a temporary coating without being coated over/washed off with blood/water, same for separating the milking job.

You can also get blowdarts off the cavern tribals, so it seems a little unnessecary to add blowdarts to the vanilla dwarf-civ just to dispense venom. The irritated waves of invaders attacking your fortress would make them less scarce, or whatever inter-tribal (or subterrenean civ) interaction can happen in future fortresses.

Much much older forms of IRL powdered venom like the infamous assassins venom is actually made out of mouse remains, stung by various different venomous animals, so maybe a seperate <Poisoned Hamster Remains> could be created from vermin that is bitten by cave spiders naturally etc, or by introducing two vermin in the small vermin workshop to bite each other that have been ground up in a quern into poisonous powder.

[Azerty]

It might be the occasion to have plants having poisonous extracts to be used for this.

[DuniteOlivine]

Vermin venom can already be extracted by using vials at a butcher with the (extract from dead animal, targeted towards phantom spiders, bark scorpions or cave spiders, theoretically bees if able to be grabbed) job on animal traps, but i otherwise agree that blowdarts should have a component that stores venom permanently done via tokens on the ammunition, while other things dipped in venom have only a temporary coating without being coated over/washed off with blood/water, same for separating the milking job.

You can also get blowdarts off the cavern tribals, so it seems a little unnessecary to add blowdarts to the vanilla dwarf-civ just to dispense venom. The irritated waves of invaders attacking your fortress would make them less scarce, or whatever inter-tribal (or subterrenean civ) interaction can happen in future fortresses.

Much much older forms of IRL powdered venom like the infamous assassins venom is actually made out of mouse remains, stung by various different venomous animals, so maybe a seperate <Poisoned Hamster Remains> could be created from vermin that is bitten by cave spiders naturally etc, or by introducing two vermin in the small vermin workshop to bite each other that have been ground up in a quern into poisonous powder.

I want a method to extract venom from a non-vermin animal and a way to extract venom without butchering the animal. Which are to my knowledge not possible currently, which is important because many of the most powerful venom are found in non-vermin creatures. If Dwarves unlocked the ability to venom-tip blowdarts I think it's necessary to add some reliable way to obtain blowdarts and blowguns to vanilla dwarf-civ, hoping for tribal animal people to randomly show up to offer a limited supply of said items upon death is simply not a supply you can build an army on without luck, especially because you also need the luck of having highly venomous creatures spawn too, without the venom blowdarts are just worse crossbows. If you don't think crafting would be fitting, I suppose a novel alternative would be to introduce tribal trading and diplomacy with animal people.

Your suggestion of using vermin to house the venom and be turned into venom powder is cool.

It might be the occasion to have plants having poisonous extracts to be used for this.

That would be a logical extension of the idea, but one reason I liked the venom milking from live animals was the risk involved. Perhaps poisonous plants could be a hazard in the sense that occasionally children and pets will accidentally eat stored poisonous plants. So to safely utilize the plants you will need to build a secure stockpile with 2 layers of doors to manually prevent children and animals from accessing the dangerous plants.

[Eric Blank]

I like this idea. Though i feel there may not be a need for another separate skill, milkers or animal caretakers should be able to handle the job. The animal also shouldn't have to be caged if fully tamed, as opposed to trained, and tamed animals should be significantly less dangerous to milk than trained wild animals.

I would argue that Dwarves should absolutely be able to make blowguns, and also make them out of glass. This should be possible for their use in traps, using a leather bag or waterskin with a blow gun to create a deadly version of a bagpipes, set in a trap in the walls or floor, the darts to which can be poisoned. Obviously a pressure plate compresses the bag to launch the darts.

I do feel that blowgun darts should hold a higher quantity of venom than other weapons, not necessarily last longer. I.e. a blowgun dart should be able to deliver 3 to 5 times as much poison/venom as other forms of weapons, but the decay of the toxins over time should be the same (if it's a set units lost/month, then obviously blowgun darts would last longer) washing items with water should remove the contaminant from the item and spread it into the water.

I would even go so far as to beg for a task designation to allow us to designate any item to be coated with any liquid, including plain water. Items already installed as part of furniture should absolutely be possible to target, such as weapons and trap components installed in traps. That's a feature we've been waiting to see for a long time now. Like, 10-15 years. It'll probably be a while yet.

I would also add magma+water powered steam pressure generators for a new type of mechanism that can activate traps, raise/lower bridges, power machinery and of course fire blowguns. Even blowgun siege weapons based off ballista arrows and pipes, but that deserves a separate thread as it's way beyond the initial scope of this suggestion.

[YashaAstora]

Honestly this should be expanded into letting your dwarves make any weapon. There's no reason they can't learn to make stuff like bows or blowguns or mauls, even if just to outfit visitors/mercenaries of other races.