In my most recent fortress (Greatbeer) I took it upon myself to take on a forgotten beast who was lurking in my caves and had found one of the doors. Aril Ngethackitew was a giant hairy crocodile with mandibles, beware it's deadly dust! Disregarding the fact that my first succesful fortress (The Impervious Fortress of Doom) had succumed to a FB syndrome in which deadly blood spread through the entire population causing them to rot from their feet up I sent both of my military groups (a mix of archers and foot soldiers equipped with steel armor and weapons) deep into the cave system to take on Aril.
As soon as they engaged the monster he emitted an opaque blast of dust which stunned and numbed anyone who tried to approach him. Luckily he seemed to be hitting himself with the toxins as well. Occasionally one of the group of 17 militia would manage to break out of the daze caused by the inhaled dust and manage a hit on him. I decided to check on their wounds, fearing the worst, and to my horror the men were covered in blisters and their pancreas was rotting. I decided I had to break off the attack and cancelled the kill order on the beast. Three brave dwarves had perished, as Aril had managed to toss them around like ragdolls while they were stunned. Fortunately they were relatively new recruits to the second recently comissioned squad, so I hadn't lost anyone legendary.
Nine of the dwarves stumbled out of the caves and made their way upstairs, two had been too badly crippled by the forgotten beast and were left inside to perish. One of the dwarves, Kosoth, who's legs had been badly mangled managed to lift his steel battle axe one last time over the vulnerable neck of the wounded beast before bringing it down like a guillotine and ending Aril Ngethackitew's reign of terror. My attention now turned to the hospital, where the beds quickly filled up with patients. Luckily the doctors were in a mood to do some diagnosing and the blistered dwarves were promptly cared for. I watched the bed of the first squad's militia commander Cog Birdsarrow the Trusted Griffon, a Legendary Swordsdwarf and Fighter with 48 kills to his name. To my surprise, following his diagnosis his blisters almost instaneously cleared up. He sprung up out of his bed and headed to the barracks to continue training. I noticed however that his pancreas remains in a state of Advanced Rot and several other militia men are experiencing it. Fortunately it does not appear to be contagious.
This brings me to a simple question, will the loss of the pancreas cause any particular problems for the dwarves? They seem to be okay for now, several of them continuing to fight as goblin ambushes test the fortress for weaknesses, but I didn't know if this was going to lead to some kind of dwarven diabetes or something. The slayer of Aril has been promoted to captain of a new squad and given new quarters, though the doctor's doubt he will ever walk again (I have a sneaking suspicion they missed some classes in medical school).
Anyway, I'm new here and just want to add that this seems like a great forum and praise Toady for such a fun game that inspires some pretty cool stories.
-Dave (manicmoose)
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Topic: Rotting pancreas? (Read 5598 times)