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[jerank]

I'm running a five-year fortress game, and I've hit a problem. My military is all heavily trained, but I've yet to equip them. Plus, a forgotten beast has shown up. The first two were easy to dispatch, and this one is flesh, so it'll die fairly easily. But it has an 8x8 radius dust attack that apparently causes the nerves of anything it touches to instantly rot. Any dwarf caught in the blast will suffer yellow wounds to every part of its body and become 'numb' for several seconds before losing the ability to breath, or bleeding to death. Is there anything I can do to defeat this beast without losing my entire military? Even my crossbowdwarves get gassed by the radius. What exactly is this syndrome they're catching anyway?

[Untelligent]

Some wounds they get from the dust attack might be from being knocked around by the dust, not from a syndrome.

The upshot of this is that the FB itself can also get knocked around. If it can't fly it'll take damage too. If it doesn't have wings, try drafting some dwarves you don't care about and engage it near a cliff.

[Illanair]

Sounds like you need to trap it or kill it with fire (magma)

[Sutremaine]

FBs might all be immune to magma. But if you can get magma in there, you should be able to get water in as well.
Is there a way to reach it with a siege engine?
Is it in a place where you can ignore it?

The 'dodge off a cliff' idea is good, assuming it can't fly. Spike traps set to repeat should be enough of an incentive for it to dodge to its doom, and you can set up as many as you like.

[blizzerd]

or you can lure it into a room with a airlock of doors and then wall in the room untill you are ready to combat it/want to train your marksmen on it

[mrtspence]

FBs might all be immune to magma. But if you can get magma in there, you should be able to get water in as well.
Is there a way to reach it with a siege engine?
Is it in a place where you can ignore it?

The 'dodge off a cliff' idea is good, assuming it can't fly. Spike traps set to repeat should be enough of an incentive for it to dodge to its doom, and you can set up as many as you like.

Spike traps set to repeat are the absolute bane of forgotten beasts.

Put them in checkered pattern down a hallway, forbid the spiked squares (saves your dwarves), and set them to repeat. Will kill most things awesomely.

[blue emu]

or you can lure it into a room with a airlock of doors and then wall in the room untill you are ready to combat it/want to train your marksmen on it

That's not easy to do, since they're all building destroyers. Even a room intended to be sealed with Drawbridges needs to have the first bridge open in order for it to get in... and it can destroy that one as it crosses it.

[Deon]

Yes, you can have a pit covered with a bridge, and the beast will destroy the bridge and fall down (it happened to me).

[blue emu]

Yes, you can have a pit covered with a bridge, and the beast will destroy the bridge and fall down (it happened to me).

Cool... you could even make it a multi-level pit, with a second drawbridge (initially retracted) part-way down... so that you could seal the pit once it falls in.

[shlorf]

Dust farting beasts are the worst. I suggest the repeating spike traps, a cave-in trap or obsidianisation. Directly applied magma did at least melt some body parts on an organic forgotten beast once, but since it was more of a magma shower than being immersed the beast only suffered some bleeding and proceeded to rape my fort.
The forgotten beast syndromes are entirely random (read the syndrome page on the wiki to get an idea of the possibilities). I've seen blisters leading to severe bruising that would finally lead to suffocation, rotting of every possible body and tissue part, body swelling up to the point of gibbing the dwarf, lost vision, numbness, anything goes.
And since every item in the assaulted dwarfs inventory gets a nice coating of forgotten beast frozen extract this can lead to even more Fun when another dwarf decides to equip that shiny masterwork armor and go play outside in the rain.

[Quietust]

That's not easy to do, since they're all building destroyers. Even a room intended to be sealed with Drawbridges needs to have the first bridge open in order for it to get in... and it can destroy that one as it crosses it.

Yes, you can have a pit covered with a bridge, and the beast will destroy the bridge and fall down (it happened to me).

First I've ever heard of this - I've had dozens of building destroyers walk across retractable bridges without damaging them...

[Sutremaine]

And since every item in the assaulted dwarfs inventory gets a nice coating of forgotten beast frozen extract this can lead to even more Fun when another dwarf decides to equip that shiny masterwork armor and go play outside in the rain.

Decontamination chambers? I have a little water pit at the entrance to the armoury, and all dwarves are set to wear armour. In theory that should protect anyone who isn't set to mining or woodcutting (still haven't figured out if there's a way to get them to wear foot and hand protection at least), but at the very least it stops contaminants from building up on equipment.

They're also pretty easy to set up if you have two z-levels to spare somewhere. Make a 3x1 dip, wall off the middle tile, fill one of the tiles up to the brim, remove wall. Set traffic designations if necessary to force dwarves through it.