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[The Dog Delusion]

So, as of right now, my fort is about 8 years old. Everyone is ecstatic, the industries thrive, and in general, life is good.

It was not always so.

In the first winter of the fort, one of my crafters entered a strange mood (secretive), and took hold of a crafter's workshop. He gathered items for several days, and finally stopped, and simply drew pictures of shells. I knew I had embarked with at least a few turtles for this very purpose, but somehow, for some reason, said turtles were nowhere to be found - to this day, I'm not sure what happened to them (cooked? lost? stolen?  ).

Dwelling on the opportunity for an easy legendary dwarf (as well as a much-needed boost to fortress wealth), I thought hard about possible solutions, and decided that it would be best to send some of the recent migrant peasants to the nearby stream to fish for turtles. Even a quick glance at the stream showed at least half a dozen turtles walking around, just waiting to be turned into menacing spikes of shell with images of shell. So I sent off several peasants to fish.

Yet, for the entire season, not a single turtle was caught. In fact, at the precise moment that my poor crafter finally snapped and tore his clothes off in a lunatic rage, there was one peasant fishing, standing on the stream, surrounded by Motherf***ing turtles. In my anger at his ineptitude at fishing, I gave him the nickname "Turtle," out of spite.

In the years that followed, turtles and lobsters were bought from caravans, the fishing industry was quickly replaced (again) by farming, and many moods have come and gone, almost all ending with success. Life has moved on...except for one dwarf. Turtle, as his punishment for being in the wrong place at the wrong time when I was angry, has been the lone dwarf to retain the "fishing" labor activated. At first, I figured he'd provide me with fish and eventually become a decent fisherdwarf, and yet nearly a decade of fishing has not yielded more than a dozen individual fish, and he only recently (after more than 6 years!) graduated from "peasant" to "fisherdwarf." After my hopes of having a quasi-steady income of fish was crushed, I began to think that all was not lost, and that perhaps turtle would be massacred during a siege or an ambush...but between the talents of my champions and absolutely freakish luck, Turtle has survived the years utterly un-scathed.

And here I am, years after the fact, with an empty stream and a dwarf that needs more punishment. I'm at a loss. What can I do to punish Turtle, yet keep him providing some sort of menial (and hopefully dangerous) service for the fort? I want him to live to regret his mistake...and yet I also want to see him die some sort of spectacular and humiliating death, or to suffer some sort of horrible injury that can serve as a reminder to all of my dwarves that when Armok says "go fishing," he means it.

Ideas?

[LostxInxThought]

  if you have any goblin prisoners, you can give him the task of releasing them from their cages into an arena for your military to practice on?

do you have any large dangerous wild life on your map? weapon-free hunter is always a nice way to get rid of someone while still making them semi useful (let him wrestle raccoons until he runs out then laugh as he runs into a wolf pack wearing only a -Pig tail sock- ).

 Maybe you could have him test a drowning chamber? (use the water he was supposed to be pulling turtles from as the source  )

  you could always use him as goblin bait, station him at the end of a line of traps, locked out of the fortress, to attract invaders into the traps, sooner or later one of the goblins will probably shoot him, but until then he keeps your more important dwarves out of the goblins minds.

[mal7690]

Automated water-boarding?
Have a room attached to a cistern and a pumping system with two pressure plates in it, one set to trigger at 0-2 water for the fill and the other set to trigger at 6-7 water for the drain.

Lock Turtle in there until he is starving or thirsty let him out to eat/drink, then lock in back in with a lever only he can pull.

[LostxInxThought]

Automated water-boarding?
Have a room attached to a cistern and a pumping system with two pressure plates in it, one set to trigger at 0-2 water for the fill and the other set to trigger at 6-7 water for the drain.

Lock Turtle in there until he is starving or thirsty let him out to eat/drink, then lock in back in with a lever only he can pull.

 Why let him out at all? just channel out a hole in the top of the chamber and dump food in, then unforbid it once it lands.  this way he doesn't get a chance to use a bed, or interact with his friends or family, or eat in a grand dining hall, etc..

[jokermatt999]

I was originally thinking "carp bait", but I have a better idea. Seal him in with the river, a fishery, and nothing more. Force him to survive by fishing, and provide him with no booze.

[Azkanan]

You did tell a fishery to process the turtles, yes?

[expwnent]

I like the basic poetic justice idea. This is a very specific crime, so it merits a very specific punishment.

Carve a turtle-shaped prison for him. Preferably out of turtle/fish bones. Periodically toss in tallow and lye (and food) and have him make soap for the rest of his life. Or rock blocks. Something menial. Have him dump out the results into a collection chamber underneath the prison so you can get the stuff back.

It would take a small amount of micromanagement to dump and reclaim the stuff if you want to have him keep working the rest of his life, or you could just leave him in his turtle prison.

[ein]

You did tell a fishery to process the turtles, yes?

This.

The first time I had a fisherman, I was wondering why I wasn't getting any fish.
Also, you need somebody else to have the fish cleaning job.
Fishing has a higher priority than just about everything.
I haven't checked how it compares to hunting yet.

[personofshadow]

Make him gather plants so he continues to remain outside where (hopefully) he might be killed, or better, just horribly maimed!

[Stargrasper]

And next on our tour, this poor soul, Urist McFisher, is enduring terrible and ironic punishment due the whims of that great power that seemingly forces all of us to do horrendously stupid things.  His crime was to be the only one of several actually doing his job, albeit poorly, at the time Urist McMoody went insane.  Oddly, he was the only one punished for this when it really would have made more sense to reward him for being the only one actually doing his job at the time of the tragedy.  The great power is cruel and unjust... but it controls us all.  Hail to the great power!

[Azkanan]

You did tell a fishery to process the turtles, yes?

This.

The first time I had a fisherman, I was wondering why I wasn't getting any fish.
Also, you need somebody else to have the fish cleaning job.
Fishing has a higher priority than just about everything.
I haven't checked how it compares to hunting yet.

Hunting is profitable, but dangerous. I've lost a good few hunters from random encounters with nasty monsters.

Fishing = Food + Shells
Farming = Food + Drink + Clothes + Rope + etc
Hunting = Food + Armour + Craftables + Renderable Fat

You need a combination, really.

Fishing takes 2 peoples - Fisherman, Fish Cleaner.
Farming takes 2 peoples - one for planting constantly, one for brewing + cooking constantly.
Hunting takes 3 peoples - hunter + butcher + tanner.

[Imp]

Unrelated to the punishment of your miscreant - I usually have a few dwarves working on trapping live land animals from either butcher shops or kennels...

They often catch turtles.

I don't understand how or why, but they do.  Could this help solve a similar problem for you in the future, especially if you see turtles around?

[Retro]

I was originally thinking "carp bait", but I have a better idea. Seal him in with the river, a fishery, and nothing more. Force him to survive by fishing, and provide him with no booze.

As I'm guessing you don't have any creature-fish on the map such as sharks, etc, I'm gonna go with this. It's like 'Saw XLd.'

[silhouette]

somehow, for some reason, said turtles were nowhere to be found - to this day, I'm not sure what happened to them (cooked? lost? stolen?  ).

they were eaten and their shells and bones left on the ground outside.
If you made a refuse area INSIDE then the shells and bones in the refuse area will stay for  ETERNITY.
But if theyre left outside they will be spirited away at the end of the season.

[The Dog Delusion]

You did tell a fishery to process the turtles, yes?

Yes - the problem was that I didn't have any turtles to begin with...they were either (foolishly) cooked, or lost in some other fashion. Hell, I could have even convinced myself that I bought some pre-embark and actually didn't. Either way, someone dropped the ball, and this dwarf is getting the blame for it. 

they were eaten and their shells and bones left on the ground outside.
If you made a refuse area INSIDE then the shells and bones in the refuse area will stay for  ETERNITY.
But if theyre left outside they will be spirited away at the end of the season.

They often catch turtles.

If this BBS had a facepalm smiley, I'd be using it here (in both cases) - in reply to my own failure to consider this option, and my failure to remember/know that bones left outside (and not in a pile) will turn to dust. Indeed, many of the turtles were on land (and thus, not "fishable"). In fact, I think all of them always are. It's one of those brooks with the "forcefield" on top, which means that any non-fish seem to be "floating" above the water - many turtles included. This tells me that the turtles that I was seeing were in fact "land" turtles - if such a distinction exists. Basically, I wasn't seeing any in the water, but inferred from the abundance of above-water turtles that fishing would be the proper skill to catch some. From what you just told me, that was my problem... Either that, or that STUPID peasant just wasn't trying hard enough. Yeah... Let's go with that...


Regarding the ideas that have been put out there regarding turtle's punishment...I'm thinking of the "gladiator pit" approach. Basically, after a couple of gobbos have been caged and disarmed, I'll give Turtle some armor and a weapon (preferably one he doesn't know how to use) and then task him with slaying the panicking/fleeing goblins as they are uncaged (via lever, perhaps). Although it doesn't directly benefit the fort (other than than disposing of un-needed prisoners of war), it will amuse me, and in the end, isn't that really all that matters?

Alternately, I'd love to find a way to permanently cage the miscreant, and I could put him on display somewhere...perhaps next to the tomb of the very crafter that HE got killed. Any tips on caging a dwarf?


[Edit]: Azkanan - I am diggin' that avatar. I'm a big fan of Sharaku, and actually saw an exhibit of prints just a month of two ago at KNM (kyushuu National Museum). But I digress. Let's kill this dwarf.