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[Thanshin]

craft->stake: Already implemented.
build->stake: Build it as an upright stake. No trap.
q->stake: Assign a refuse item, a corpse or a jailed creature.

Falling on a stake causes damage and if kills, leaves the corpse staked.

[El-Ravager]

Obviously it should be possible to cause fear in creatures in this way ,e.g. if the attacking goblins see the heads of previous military leaders in a neat row at your fortress entrance. It should also give happy thoguhts to military as their kills are displayed and to a lesser extent to other dwarves who should feel saver.

[The Architect]

I like the idea of spikes being used the way you suggest. If you would like to create heads-on-spikes in the current version, dump a head/skull on retracted spikes and pull the lever. Eventually the head will be "in" the building, in other words impaled.

[Thanshin]

I like the idea of spikes being used the way you suggest. If you would like to create heads-on-spikes in the current version, dump a head/skull on retracted spikes and pull the lever. Eventually the head will be "in" the building, in other words impaled.

And you can surround the spike with walls, mark it as pit, drop a jailed goblin inside and repeatedly impale him until he dies and stays impaled. Then you can remove the walls and you'll have impaled goblin corpses on your main entrance.
 
However it would be much more convenient and a minor change to add the possibility of simply querying the upright spike and assign a corpse or jailed creature to it.

[CobaltKobold]

quick reminder: dwarves do not possess tag [ABUSE_BODIES] like goblins do. And, if you look at legends, they already do this sort of thing.

Though, why it's not a full-blown ethic, I'm unsure.

[Mel_Vixen]

And it is even with modded ethics not doable as stated by toady. So its currently a "worldgen only" feature.

[Footkerchief]

And it is even with modded ethics not doable as stated by toady. So its currently a "worldgen only" feature.

That said, any worldgen-only feature is very likely to make its way into main gameplay at some point.

[CobaltKobold]

And it is even with modded ethics not doable as stated by toady. So its currently a "worldgen only" feature.

That said, any worldgen-only feature is very likely to make its way into main gameplay at some point.

except...see sapient butchery.

[Footkerchief]

Not sure what you're getting at.  I said "at some point."

[snaggles]

Wait what
Putting the skull/head of a killed goblin is considered abusing their body/butchering sapients?

[CobaltKobold]

snaggles: yes, spiking the heads over the gate, etc. would be considered abusing the body, I think. Pretty sure that's what the [ABUSE_BODIES] tag does/is required for.

No, it's not butchering sapients-I brought that up as an ethics-governed thing that...

Not sure what you're getting at.  I said "at some point."

got taken out irrespective of ethics when it was in before, appearing to indicate the opposite direction to 'eventually' being put in.

I'd love to be mistaken on this.

[Footkerchief]

got taken out irrespective of ethics when it was in before, appearing to indicate the opposite direction to 'eventually' being put in.

I'd love to be mistaken on this.

I don't see any reason to think it was a deliberate decision on Toady's part -- when he transitions from one way of doing things (BUTCHERABLE_NONSTANDARD) to another (ethics), he often takes a while to re-implement the functionality that was possible under the old system.  There are tons of features like this: guilds, magic, wilderness repopulation, ruins, etc.  In this case, he probably just didn't take the time to provide Fortress Mode support for a behavior only accessible through modding, which also happens a lot.

The closest thing I could find for a specific quote:

I haven't put a lot of work into [ethics] since the whole system is likely to become more detailed with some more inputs and splits (aka gutted).  [...] this is all subject-to-change-as-fuck.

[The_Kakaze]

Couldn't you add in a reaction in the craftshop to do this pretty easily already?  Inputs are one stake and one skull, outputs are one stake/skull.  Dunno about keeping the associated entity values (like who's skull it actually was) but a simple spike skull decoration shouldn't be hard.

[Safe-Keeper]

Hmmm, yes, the heads of the previous Elven merchants on stakes should deter any "once a beautiful tree, now a..." BS from future caravans. Me likes.

Edit: That was a joke.

[CobaltKobold]

Maybe, but could you then build it?

Safe-Keeper: Nah, that you can prevent purely through caution.