Bay 12 Games Forum

Well my goal is to train and infect as many in the fortress as possible.

So !!SCIENCE!! has progressed to show that uninfected dwarves can "sense" somehow a dwarf that is freshly infected, or perhaps that they themselves got infected.  From this sense they will attack said newly infected dwarf, but if they are unawares they will continue to medically treat this dwarf.  Interestingly, a full wereskink (i.e. one that has transformed) is not subject to the dwarves ire, probably because they are too scared of it to attempt to fight back.

A particular dwarf administrator has killed 3 fresh wereskink spawn on his own, which has allowed him to farm up some combat skills and severely tick me off.  I plan to instead of my big chamber where the wereskinks could just go berserk and do a huge amount of damage to the population, instead i'm going to develop chambers where the wereskink and the prospect prey can be kept in seperate rooms that are connected by an unlockable door.  Then, about halfway through the full moon i'll open the doors, allowing the wereskink to attack the new spawn alone, the wereskinks are not particularly interested in killing people (usually, there have been flukes) and the time constraint of most of the full moon being gone should lower the lethality.  After the transformation back to a dwarf completes, i'll move the dwarf to a hospital bed where he'll be fed and watered approaching his transformation.

Speaking of injured dwarves while transforming, transformation cures -all- injuries, even nerve damage that is usually considered unhealable.  In addition, any damage while taken as a wereskink is cleared as soon as they transform back, and visa-versa.  Therefore exposing a favored, but injured, dwarf to lycantrophy could be an excellent way to restore them to working order, as long as they are carefully sequestered during the full moon.

One final note is that wereskinks enjoy bloodlust while berserked and get the "Took joy in Slaughter" thought while killing there fellow friends and family.  Also, they quickly get "Doesn't care much about anything" which allows them to kill without risk of insanity.  The saddest dwarf in the fortress can still be consoled by booze, meaning that a tantrum spiral as it stands isn't particularly likely...

Suppose I wanted a "Dwarven Stasis Chamber" to turn the worthless rabble into immobile Dwarfsicles that don't need food or drink, but could be defrosted promptly when I had need of a larger workforce. How would I go about that?

I was thinking a lockable room containing a workshop with a reaction that generates gas that transforms dwarfs for a month (how many time units is that?), set on repeat. Then suspend the reaction when I need the dwarfs. Would that work?

I'm leaving for an unknown amount of time in about a week or so and, if all goes well, probably will not be coming back... for years, if I ever do return.  Please take care of yourselves.  I'm sure you can keep your heads, but as this is one of the few things I've felt I did well here, I hope it keeps on being useful.