Bay 12 Games Forum

One of my dwarves was infected with lycanthropy (were-badger).  I had him in a room in the hospital with a locked door.  For two months, he did nothing but sit on his bed.  Even when he transformed, he just sat there, so I didn't take any further steps to contain or eliminate him.  Got up to fix some lunch, but didn't pause the game.  Came back 10 minutes later.  "Why is my dining room painted red now?  What's with all these job cancellation warnings?"  I paused and found the were-badger had broken the door, then proceeded to slaughter his way through the dining hall, the workshops, and the barracks, before apparently running off of the map.  Out of 90 dwarves in my fortress, only 12 were alive and uninjured, and half of these were children.  I had over 30 injured survivors, but a quick check with DFHack confirmed my fears - all were infected.  I abandoned the fort rather than endure the inevitable tantrum spirals before werebeasts devoured the few healthy survivors.

One of my first successful fortresses.  It had it all: magma forges, legendary dining hall with mist generators, a thriving steel and gem crafting industry, everything a good dwarf could want.  I had just finished equipping and training a strong military, which guarded the fort from a granite tower, equipped with enough siege engines and bowdwarfs to repel a colossus.  The final touch was to be a moat surrounding the tower, more for the coolness of having a moat than out of necessity.  I dug a channel around the tower, then filled it by channeling to the nearby river.  Within seconds, I began getting job cancellation warnings.  I checked and found that the bottom four levels of my fort were full of water, and the rest was filling up fast.  The cause?  I had channeled the moat right across the ceiling of my dining hall.