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[Snake Oil Salesman]

About a year ago, the great eye-lid-lacking serpent, Aste Odsenentol Dosta urer attacked my fort. Fortunately, my rag-tag military team was quickly able to stab poor aste in the brain with a barrage of not-so-finely-crafted copper spears. However, the tricky serpent had a few tricks up his sleeve, and several times before his death spewed out horrible vapors, leaving extract everywhere and leaving my poor military with a case of instantaneous full-necrosis. Only one of the original victims managed to survive, but died some time later, presumably tripping into a pool of extract. However, while the majority of the carnage seems to make sense, every month or so, I notice the dreaded purple clouds of miasma billowing out of my infirmary before another dwarf is rendered nothing more than a rotten pile of meat and bone. My question is, how come my dwarves keep dying? I've managed to clean what I believe to be every pool and puddle of extract, and I cant tell if theres any more via the stock menu. As a side note, it turned out that there was an explicit lack of shoes in my fortress, which I am currently addressing, but a military recruit was just taken down wearing what I believe to be only socks (do they help?). There seems to be no pattern, other than the fact that the majority of the dwarves seem to be from my military (even those who came recently). As another side note, the only time I've caught someone getting infected was when a hapless siege engineer attempted to do something to the last remaining exposed dwarf from the initial fight (presumable clean), and then walked away with a bar of soap before canceling his "clean himself" labor, falling unconscious, and rotting away. Is there Anything I can do to stop this? (Yet another side note, his blood still coats a section of my stairwell, but as I mentioned before, he had poisonous gas, not blood).

[i2amroy]

It's possible that there could still be some extract on clothes that the military used. Next time one dies check their clothing individually for spatters of the extract. In a worst case scenario (on that's not so much fun) you could use a utility like dfclean to help out. Its also possible that the actual syndrome doesn't take effect for a longer period of time then instantly and that the reason it happened so quickly to the military dwarves was because they were infected many times over. If this is the case its just a matter of time before it stops, but I'd still check the clothes of the next dwarf to die to make sure they aren't spattered with the poison.

[Snake Oil Salesman]

It's possible that there could still be some extract on clothes that the military used. Next time one dies check their clothing individually for spatters of the extract. In a worst case scenario (on that's not so much fun) you could use a utility like dfclean to help out. Its also possible that the actual syndrome doesn't take effect for a longer period of time then instantly and that the reason it happened so quickly to the military dwarves was because they were infected many times over. If this is the case its just a matter of time before it stops, but I'd still check the clothes of the next dwarf to die to make sure they aren't spattered with the poison.

I thought about that, and checked not only the clothes, but the weapons, beds, and even the pets. However, I'll check again.

UPDATE: As it turns out, those little thieves were claiming the poisonous clothes faster than I could look at them. To make things even more fun, my fortress is  supported by a textile industry; I literally have thousands of articles of clothing. I've already found about ten compromised articles. Are these safe to dump, or will they insist on getting the toxin on themselves?

[i2amroy]

I'm pretty sure they are safe but in a worst case I'd think of it as [10 haulers<50 innocent dwarves]. I'd still suggest running a dwarven bathtub or something to clean off the haulers though.

[Snake Oil Salesman]

I'm pretty sure they are safe but in a worst case I'd think of it as [10 haulers<50 innocent dwarves]. I'd still suggest running a dwarven bathtub or something to clean off the haulers though.

as an experiment, I tried disposing of a single contaminated article (a goose leather quiver). The hauler seems fine, as the poison has immediate effects, however, he was wearing gloves (yet they have now extract on them now). I'll find space to build a bath, and see what other nasty stuff I can find.

[i2amroy]

I find one of the best ways of dealing with contaminants is to combine a single mist generator with a dwarven bathtub. The result takes a fair amount of planning and is hard to integrate into fortresses if it wasn't originally planned, but if the two are placed vertically over each other

Code: [Select]

M=mist generation spot/bathtub
B=bathtub

M
B
B
MYou can create a dwarven bathtub that is self-cleaning, cleaning your dwarves and then purging any contaminants so that even the ones with nigh-instant effects can be eliminated totally.

[Snake Oil Salesman]

I find one of the best ways of dealing with contaminants is to combine a single mist generator with a dwarven bathtub. The result takes a fair amount of planning and is hard to integrate into fortresses if it wasn't originally planned, but if the two are placed vertically over each other

Code: [Select]

M=mist generation spot/bathtub
B=bathtub

M
B
B
MYou can create a dwarven bathtub that is self-cleaning, cleaning your dwarves and then purging any contaminants so that even the ones with nigh-instant effects can be eliminated totally.

Sounds great, however, a new complication has arisen. There are currently several Dwarves who think it is a good idea to wear an extract covered helmet on their head I've already forbidden the helmet, and he seems to be wearing a hood underneath it, but there is no way for me to tell whether or not he will eventually fall ill, as a random furnace operator, who months ago was diagnosed with Beast Sickness, just turned into a putrid Dwarven porridge, with no contaminated articles of clothing. would having dwarves walk through the bath/mist clean it off the items they are holding?

UPDATE: a child has just rotted away. I can't see what he's wearing though.

UPDATE: two children, and another soldier, who seems to have it on his foot (thats lacking a shoe).

[i2amroy]

Mists and baths help clean everything that goes into them (mist will also clean the tiles that it hits) by replacing them with a 'water covering' that then quickly evaporates. Baths are cool since they do the same thing but very rarely they will contaminate dwarves for an instant with the spatters inside the water, which isn't a problem with most things but with something like this could be deadly.

[Triaxx2]

Yeah, sounds like what's happening is the dead dwarves have something nasty on their clothes, and the burial squad is getting rotted. And continuing the chain.

Try magma-cleaning the hospital. (Removing doctors is of course optional.)

[Jacos]

My advice: Hide a small group of infected, with years worth of supplies in a vault, and then seal it off from the world. After years of hiding, allow them to finally walk into out of your vault (dubbed Vault 101), into the rotting wasteland, and fight to reclaim the fort from the various new inhabitants.

Of course, you could just flood the fort to clean everybody but have a way for the water to escape on the lower levels, and have a way to cut the water entering as soon as it's done. It'd clean all the tiles, people, pets, clothing, and whatnot! Do you have a major river near you?

[Snake Oil Salesman]

My advice: Hide a small group of infected, with years worth of supplies in a vault, and then seal it off from the world. After years of hiding, allow them to finally walk into out of your vault (dubbed Vault 101), into the rotting wasteland, and fight to reclaim the fort from the various new inhabitants.

Of course, you could just flood the fort to clean everybody but have a way for the water to escape on the lower levels, and have a way to cut the water entering as soon as it's done. It'd clean all the tiles, people, pets, clothing, and whatnot! Do you have a major river near you?

I do have a major river near me, however, It is nearly impossible to tell who has the beast sickness before they are stricken down, and most likely, they'd just rot in the chamber anyways. I do have a river, however, so something like that seems pretty nice, although, I think the water will spread the toxin all over the fort, and I'm almost sure that the number one cause of death for the stupid citizens of my fortress is a lack of socks, shoes, and gloves.

Yeah, sounds like what's happening is the dead dwarves have something nasty on their clothes, and the burial squad is getting rotted. And continuing the chain.

Try magma-cleaning the hospital. (Removing doctors is of course optional.)

The corpse haulers seem to never get infected, except for two children, whom I'm pretty sure were running around stark naked (I could not see their inventory, and thus couldn't see any extract, is this s bug?). As I said before, most who come down with the infection aren't wearing clothes. The latest notable casualty only had a right shoe, nothing on the left. As a matter of fact, the majority of the fortress probably lacks proper footwear. I suppose my real question is how the contaminant actually spreads, what causes it to get on the body? Putting on a contaminated article of clothing? stepping in a puddle of extract without proper footwear? As of now, my plan is to forbid the contaminated items. However, My fortress economy was supported entirely by the sale of textiles. I literally have thousands of items to check 

UPDATE another one bites the dust. I'm probably going to flood my stockpile rooms now, but how do I get the dwarves to clean whatever spreads?

[Snake Oil Salesman]

Another update/bump. managed to make a bath (sans mist generator), in its early stages, it managed to take out a huge chunk of the pet population, which I suppose isnt that bad, however, three more have already fallen. The common denominator here seems to be a lack of shoes. Is there any way to force these guys  to wear some?

[Tierre]

only if you get everybody in the army and force unifrom.

[Leonidas]

Thanks for posting this, Snakeoil. I'm now re-designing my combat area so that combat with Forgotten Beasts and their ilk will take place in a giant bathtub. Maybe that'll help.