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[Klapaucius]

It's my first fortress, and everything is going fine, except for my ranger.
He started hunting immediately, and was good at it. But as time progressed he became less and less social, and now has only two friends. He stopped returning kills, no matter how I ordered him to, and he only returns to the fortress to eat and sleep. He also doesn't reload his crossbow, no matter what I tell him (and we have plenty of bolts), and uses it exclusively as a melee weapon. His personality profile read "He is starting to get used to tragedy." (Even though it is Summer of the first year.)
As time went by, he got even worse. Now he doesn't even kill his prey, he beats the tar out of them and leaves them to die slowly, covered in their own blood and vomit. His personality profile had the highest possible rating in self-consciousness, and the phrase "He is starting to get used to tragedy" has been replaced by "He doesn't care about anything anymore."

How do I remedy this situation?

[Ivefan]

Worship him! Any socialy withdrawn dwarf gets in my good grace and pelting the critters to death with a crossbow just to see them die a slow and excrucicating death is a good way to get into the shrivered black piece that suffice for a heart that exists in all us malevolent DF players - And if you think im wrong, you've simply not been exposed enough.

Anyway, if you dont intend to elevate him to the glory he deserves you could check if something is wrong with your refuse pile, butcher or your gather refuse orders. Though i doubt any of them actually are faulty due to him slowly getting more and more sadistical i suggest you make him the captain of the guard and give him a artifact crossbow for his good work... or maybe a warhammer would be better as he seems to like getting up close and bloody.

[Warlord255]

Be careful with overhunting. You can and will make all wildlife on the map go extinct at some point.

[Klapaucius]

Worship him! Any socialy withdrawn dwarf gets in my good grace and pelting the critters to death with a crossbow just to see them die a slow and excrucicating death is a good way to get into the shrivered black piece that suffice for a heart that exists in all us malevolent DF players - And if you think im wrong, you've simply not been exposed enough.

Anyway, if you dont intend to elevate him to the glory he deserves you could check if something is wrong with your refuse pile, butcher or your gather refuse orders. Though i doubt any of them actually are faulty due to him slowly getting more and more sadistical i suggest you make him the captain of the guard and give him a artifact crossbow for his good work... or maybe a warhammer would be better as he seems to like getting up close and bloody.

I never said I disapprove of his actions, I love the little guy with all of what passes for my heart, but people are getting hungry, except my hunter, because he's getting his food from some other source I don't want to know about.

I should add: During a particularly uneventful stretch of time in my fortress I left my computer to eat a sandwich. When I returned, I found the following announcements:

Rhesus Macaque has stolen a crossbow bolt!
Rhesus Macaque has stolen a crossbow bolt!
Dwarf "'Ted Nugent' Razorsplash" cancels job Drink: Interrupted by Rhesus Macaque.
I look several squares to the left of my fortress, and find a trail of blood twenty characters long, leading to the bones and skull of a rhesus macaque. The flesh is gone.

[Ivefan]

However much i want to belive that this adorable dwarf ate a raw monkey, game mechanisms makes this impossible, but i think i shall belive it anyway.
Maybe you should turn it into a hermit challenge? let the others starve and have him.. nawh, you'd get bored, i know i would.
Mod in the possibilty to use bone as construction material and make him a nice Rhesus Macaque house, containing a cellar full of skull totems.
Oh, and train his butchering skills

-edit-
Damn, malevolent ideas surging. Castle of bones, statues made of skulls.
Deforestation and wooden cities? I Shall make a kingdom out of elven bones and pave the roads with goblin skulls!

[Klapaucius]

However much i want to belive that this adorable dwarf ate a raw monkey, game mechanisms makes this impossible, but i think i shall belive it anyway.
Maybe you should turn it into a hermit challenge? let the others starve and have him.. nawh, you'd get bored, i know i would.
Mod in the possibilty to use bone as construction material and make him a nice Rhesus Macaque house, containing a cellar full of skull totems.
Oh, and train his butchering skills

Well, there's no macaque meat anywhere, not in any stockpiles or buildings (come to think of it, i didn't check his inventory) so... i know he didn't eat it, but I'm wondering where it went. I know it didn't rot in the course of roughly eight real-time minutes.
I should add: in an area roughly between the drink stockpile and the ammo stockpile I found a couple of dwarves and animals who were unharmed, but covered in blood spatters. I really wish I had been around for this battle.

Good idea on that last thing though, maybe it'll motivate him to do something with those mutilated horses.

[Ivefan]

Maybe the rangers ideology spread to the other dwarves and they was rolling around in the gore for fun.
Its hard to say what might have happened to the meat, and by the way you do have a butcherer's built, right? But after re-reading something just struck me as odd; a bloody trail leading to, not the corpse of a monkey but the skull and bones? never heard of a blunt weapon causing organic separation, maybe he bashed so hard the skeleton flew out?

oh and take a look on section 4 of the link, might help
http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Hunter

[Klapaucius]

Maybe the rangers ideology spread to the other dwarves and they was rolling around in the gore for fun.
Its hard to say what might have happened to the meat, and by the way you do have a butcherer's built, right? But after re-reading something just struck me as odd; a bloody trail leading to, not the corpse of a monkey but the skull and bones? never heard of a blunt weapon causing organic separation, maybe he bashed so hard the skeleton flew out?

oh and take a look on section 4 of the link, might help
http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Hunter

And the horses felt the same way? I have a butcher's shop, but I've only ever butchered the corpse of a groundhog that happened to crawl there and die (you could tell by the little trail of blood leading to the corpse.)
I can only say "perhaps". Could the monkey have exploded into chunks, letting the dwarf gather up the chunks, and spirit them to some undiscovered location?

[Bromor Neckbeard]

Make sure that in your orders menu, "Dwarves collect refuse from outside" is turned on, and that you have a big-enough refuse stockpile.  I use two refuse stockpiles right next to each other, at least 20 spaces each.  Set one to accept ONLY bones, skulls, and shells, and the other to accept everything EXCEPT bones, skulls, and shells.

In my experience, if your refuse stockpile is full, hunters won't return kills, they'll just let them rot instead of taking them directly to the Butcher's Workshop.

The "He doesn't care about anything anymore" is actually a good trait for a hunter, it means he won't get a negative thought for "witnessing death" or whatever.

[Ivefan]

Then you would have had monkey pieces filling up your refuse pile. And although im not that experienced in the Adventure mode nor tend to give my dwarves blunt weaponry, i think the corpse needs to hit an obstacle to explode, which is completly possible as i have no cluse how the combat zone looks like.
Anyway. a butcherer needs to process the rangers victims for the cook to make it into some edible, and the dwarves need to have the order to gather outside refuse to fetch any corpses lying around.

And yes, the horses felt the same way because the ranger is influencing everything so they are now turning into evil flesheating horselike things... oh i forgot, thats unicorns.

-edit- awh crud, i got swept aside by a completly relevant, and sensefull post lacking any hint of any malevolent humor.
Although the "dosent care" trait wont matter for a hunter because he aint got any friends anyways and the only corpses he's going to see are of his victims.

[Klapaucius]

Make sure that in your orders menu, "Dwarves collect refuse from outside" is turned on, and that you have a big-enough refuse stockpile.  I use two refuse stockpiles right next to each other, at least 20 spaces each.  Set one to accept ONLY bones, skulls, and shells, and the other to accept everything EXCEPT bones, skulls, and shells.

In my experience, if your refuse stockpile is full, hunters won't return kills, they'll just let them rot instead of taking them directly to the Butcher's Workshop.

The "He doesn't care about anything anymore" is actually a good trait for a hunter, it means he won't get a negative thought for "witnessing death" or whatever.

Good advice.

I should explain, however, that he doesn't actually "witness death" anymore, he just maims the animal and leaves it there to bleed, throw up, pass out, bleed, wake up, throw up, bleed, pass out, wake up, crawl a few spaces in a desperate attempt to reach its little groundhog hole, throw up, and bleed to death. He can't return anything that isn't dead, as far as I can tell, though it still shows up under his kill list.

Then you would have had monkey pieces filling up your refuse pile. And although im not that experienced in the Adventure mode nor tend to give my dwarves blunt weaponry, i think the corpse needs to hit an obstacle to explode, which is completly possible as i have no cluse how the combat zone looks like.
Anyway. a butcherer needs to process the rangers victims for the cook to make it into some edible, and the dwarves need to have the order to gather outside refuse to fetch any corpses lying around.

In Adventurer mode, I once had a guard play golf with me.

He chopped off all my limbs save one only because another guard was holding me by it, and swung his hammer so hard that I ripped off of my arm and was sent flying an entire screen north into a plain, where my body exploded.
There's no possible way this could happen, as far as I could tell, but it does at least prove the the ground is, in fact, an obstacle.

[Ivefan]

As Bromor said, setup 2 refuse piles, one outside other one inside. the one inside accepts only bone and shells cause skulls are completly worthless.
The thoughts from witnessing death only applies to friendles as far as i know so he wouldnt care the least even if he weren't so badass.
This trait usually appears with soldiers when a lot of their friends die and they dont tantrum.

[Bromor Neckbeard]

I wouldn't say skulls are completely worthless.  They can be made into totems, which can sell for a decent amount, and I make it a point to line the road to my fortress with goblin, kobold, and elf skull totems on pillars so the little pukes have a fair chance to see what their reward will be before they pit themselves against my military.

[Klapaucius]

As Bromor said, setup 2 refuse piles, one outside other one inside. the one inside accepts only bone and shells cause skulls are completly worthless.
The thoughts from witnessing death only applies to friendles as far as i know so he wouldnt care the least even if he weren't so badass.
This trait usually appears with soldiers when a lot of their friends die and they dont tantrum.

I haven't had a single dwarf casualty yet, where did he get that trait?

[Tormy]

Ohhh, this is a good hunter, you shouldn't complain about him. He is alive at least. My hunters are always very short lived -> useless.