I manned up and killed my first noble recently!
Stupid Tax Collector likes... adamantine. And I embarked on a map without HFS. He had to go before one of my legendary armor/weaponsmiths got killed. Poor Lolor has been in the clapper far too many times.
So I built a platform extending onto a murky pond...
~~~~,,
~~LI,,
~~~~,,
The I is a support holding up a floor. The L is a lever.
The plan was, and will be if I do it again, for the noble to pull the lever, destroying the support. The floor falls down, and crashes through the floor the support was under.
This severs the floor the lever was on, causing the noble to fall into the pool and drown.
Of course, I had to savescum to get it right, since the support was built on a floor built on top of a staircase, which was not destroyed by the collapse. Ironically, I put it there to protect AGAINST people drowning if they fall in. So the Taxman was knocked into the water by the cave-in, but had time to wake up and get out.
So I drafted a mason, stationed her near the platform, and when the noble pulled the lever, paused the game and undrafted her and ordered a floor built over the staircase. Worked liked a charm.
Same fortress, I also came up with the idea of giving everybody compulsory military service. Everybody gets exceptional+ steel armor and a base-quality silver hammer or mace. They spar until they're Skilled, then I deactivate them - but first, I turn on Hunting so they keep their equipment. (The only animals left on the map are a magma man and the occasional squad of rhesus macaques every year or so.)
The first squad of 12 legendaries is well on its way.