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[wierd]

Male dwarves appear to be incompatible hosts for the parasitic stage of dwarven development. Seperated from the host, the infant usually perishes quickly from lack of material sustenance.

Dwarves do not appear to lactate, as they do not appear to have any mammary tissues defined in the raws to substantiate the production of this nutritional source. This clearly indicates a more direct parasitical relationship, which explains why female dwarves are able to "hold" their infant while having both hands engaged in brutal combat, or otherwise occupied.

Once the offspring reach 1 year of age, the parastic phase ends, and the ambulatory menace stage begins, and persists for another 11 years.

After this 1 year point, mothers need to be monitored, as they have been sensitized to their reproductive partner's sprorulent emissions, and will continue to bear offspring as long as the male counterpart remains alive. (The spores are very tenacious things, by all accounts. Levels of separation capable of containing even forgotten beast deadly dust syndrome infections are no match for dwarven reproductive spores.) Additionally, some appear to be more strongly sensitized than others, and will bear many times as many offspring within any given sample interval given enough time to measure and establish trends.

While some overseers consider the parasitical stage dwarf offspring to be a valuable "Added layer of protection", others consider this practice abhorrent, and callous.  Your mileage may vary.

Why hasn't toady implemented temporary sterility on an ingested syndrome for some surface plant types yet? This would resolve the issue nicely.

[Max™]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That reminds me of a joke I had in final fantasy xi, as I played a taru male with the messy grey moptop hair I used to tell people that it wasn't actually hair, what they see is covered in spores, which are how tarutaru reproduce. After disturbing the fibers and getting some of the spores on the skin or ingested, they begin to develop, eventually becoming localized in fleshy tissues adjacent fatty deposits where the tarulings grow. After reaching the size of a golf-ball the teeth finish developing and they eat their way out of the host, drop to the ground, and roll into the underbrush to feed.

Generally anyone around while this discussion going on is kinda sitting there going "...wtf Max?!?!" so I add 'What, you didn't think taru gave live birth did you? Never mind how disturbingly... stretchy... the females would need to be, they'd get their guts dragged out in the process, though I've seen some suggest they might lay eggs, which seems plausible until you notice that nobody has ever seen a taru nest, and well, most who discover the truth aren't eager to talk about it afterwards.'

If a dorf female-host becomes physically infertile the beard suspiciously thick head hair will attempt to extricate itself and seek a new host. This process removes most of the brain, leaving them... slightly inconvienced at the inability to wear caps normally, while a similar process with male dorfs destroys the jaw and throat, leading to suffocation of the host.

Why did Toady make beardless females the default?

[Quartz_Mace]

Well, Dwarf men and women would look exactly the same otherwise. Humans would not be able to tell them apart because that is the ONLY visible difference. Of course, Dwarf women are also different in that they recieve the spores and bear the children, but that can't always be seen. As far as the babies survival, Dwarves may produce milk to feed their young. From what we have seen, Dwarves are mammals and there are animals whose mothers can provide milk for young without having extremely large specialized external organs, or their organs are only changed when preparing for child birth, so that would probably not be coded in, at least at this stage.

NOTE: Dwarven mothers could also possibly have an ability to regurgitate food that males cannot to feed young. It's possible.

How do any Dwarves survive when DF players take care of them?

[Max™]

We can't be everywhere at once dammit, we try our best, but noooo, just because a few happen to live happy lives without being maimed horribly, it's our fault now?

What do the caravans do with what must be fourty tons of large serrated discs that I've sold them, rather than the items they suggest, because dammit I forgot what any of it was and checking the civ screen to see is just annoying, so here's another five or six exceptional to masterful silver discs... anyways, is there just like a huge pile of them at the mountainhome?

[Aslandus]

Large serrated disk tossing is a hot new [strike]death[/strike] game sweeping the mountainhome. Toss the disk to your buddy and watch him [strike]get horribly maimed[/strike] catch it and throw it back

Why does mountainhome keep making import orders for food and medical equipment?

[Baffler]

To care for the victims of the dangerous new trend among teenagers in the mountainhome known as 'serrated disk tossing.'

Why don't the humans or elves send a liaison to make trade agreements?

[pisskop]

They dont have the authority to.  See, when the mountainhomes makes 'trade agreements' its more of a 'veiled mandate' than an option.  Toady hasnt coded in the punishment yet (no migrants) because most players would see it as a boon.  But the mountainhomes does send bad migrants as punsihment.        Why do plants only take ~27 days to grow?

[Aslandus]

Dwarves have low standards for plants as food, just like how they will eat absolutely every part of an animal as long as it isn't actively rotting

Why do wombats enter the map alone?

[taptap]

Why do I have natural bee colonies in an embark stripped of any above-ground vegetation and completely covered in pools of horrid slush with laces of vomit?

[pisskop]

Why do I have natural bee colonies in an embark stripped of any above-ground vegetation and completely covered in pools of horrid slush with laces of vomit?

you sir, have never been to a children's outdoor party in the summer.  Bees LOVE vomit.
But for future reference, please answer the question above before asking your own.  Otherwise we'd (almost) never get answers

Why do wombats enter the map alone?

[wierd]

Wombats enter the map alone, because it costs too much for the whole family to fly from the Australian continent to a typical Dwarf Fortress world.  Inter-dimensional travel costs have exploded in recent years, what with the energy crisis and all.

How exactly do the kobolds manage to get so many copper daggers?

[Aslandus]

They steal them off human dinner tables

Why doesn't anyone use plates of any sort?

[Max™]

Funny story, there was a dwarf who tried to invent a convenient and portable item to eat off of, and the end result was the large serrated disc... we'll miss ole' Nothumbs McBleedingout, that's for sure.

What would possess a pair of blind cave ogres to leave their nice dank caverns and try to scale the inside of an empty volcano (50+ z levels), only to be beaten to death by a bunch of unarmed dorfs at the top? How did they even climb that far without being able to see?

[wierd]

(asking two questions is cheating! I will answer both questions in a single answer!)

The blind cave ogres could not handle the horridly loud and boisterous laughter coming from said dwarves on the rim of said volcano, as the blind cave ogres have fully adapted to the near complete darkness and deadly silence of the deep caverns, and utilize echo location to find their way. They just wanted to come up and ask politely that the new neighbors "please keep it down", but your dwarves being what they are,  chopped first and asked questions later-- blind cave ogres scaling the inside of a volcano to come after them and all.

How many dwarves does it take to get to the center of the candy cane?

[blazing glory]

Just one, he drops it into a barrel of booze, waits a while, and then drinks the dissolved result, center and all.

How does the overseer have the ability to be completely isolated in [REDACTED] and still manage to see almost everything happening in the Dwarf Fortress?