Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Babylon]

i ment spartens took boys at an early age to be trained uesualy at 4-6

They left to the Agoge at 7. Interestingly enough, they left their babies in the dark and ignored their cries to make them tougher. I smell correlation here

They also believed that true love could only exist between a grown man and a teenage boy so take from that what you will....

[Loud Whispers]

They also believed that true love could only exist between a grown man and a teenage boy so take from that what you will....

Not quite. They didn't really hold onto concepts of love, but Spartan boys were assigned mentors who acted as fathers, teachers and it's pretty accepted that they were lovers.
The women were just plain scary, can't blame them :p

[wierd]

Have you seen the description pages for female dwarfs lately?

Bald.. big dangly earlobes.. wide set bulging eyeballs... full beard with double braids...

Yeah.  Clearly miss mountainhome there.

[Wurgel]

just thought about the mood-problem:

why not make it in 2 levels. lvl 1 is the normal cage with a hatch, linked to an outside levler. Under die hatch is a ramp to a 3x3 room with a craftsdwarf workshop. Over the worksho is a pit to dump in the needed items.

After the mooded child has completed his well... expression of his craziness, you flood the room with the workshop. Now the child and any animal will escape the water, moving back into the original room. When all are back, close the hatch, let the water out and make with the artefact what you want.
(Fortification to regulate the waterlevel and a forbidden door to enter the room)

X___X___X
XXXRXRXXXX
__XXXXX___X
__RXOXR___X  Z-level 1. X= Wall, R = Ramps down, _ = floor and O = Pen space to drop the items or water in
__XXXXX___X
XXXRXRXXXX
X___X___X

XXXXXXXXX
XXXRXRXXX
GFX___XFG
XXR_C_RXX  z-level 0. R = Ramps up, C = workshop, X= Wall, FG = Fortification with floodgate behind it
GFX___XFG
XXXRXRXXX
XXXXXXXXX

the Fortification/gate combo allows a regulation of the waterlevel. I would suggest to flood the room through the channel that you use to dump the items in.
This way, you just need 1 Workshop for 6 Cages, while you can let each child complete its mood (and get happy thoughts, when they see their and other artefacts after completing their mood)

[NonconsensualSurgery]

Ladies and gentledwarves, we've found an alternate solution!

Blizzard men.

You can immobilize a blizzard man with two or three dogs. An attacker will always target the head of an immobilized enemy, and an enemy with something latched on to it will always try to break the grip first before doing anything else.

Unlike most pseudoelemental creatures, Blizzard Men become tired and feel pain. Once it passes out it only ever wakes up very briefly, long enough to perform one or two actions, and when it does get a chance at revenge it wastes it by merely breaking the grip of the dogs on its head and then immediately passing out again.

This torture combat will continue until the dogs die of old age. It might even work on some other creatures.

Meanwhile, your dwarves punch it.

Err, one caveat - Blizzard Men have the slow learner tag. This means that you will eventually create an epic yeti.

[wierd]

If you can do this prior to the unfortunate deaths of any dwarves, even the tortured blizzardman could be tamed later.  It would make a great thing to chain up at the main gate.

(Oh, you think that little copper dagger will help you little kobold? I don't think so.  How about you, pedophile goblin with bags of candy? Think the promises of sugar will work on the megayeti? Didn't think so...)

[Sus]

You can't make children wear armor, which makes danger rooms ludicrously deadly for them.

Is that supposed to be a bad thing somehow? 

[EDIT] This has to be one of the most Dwarven concepts ever, right up there with merfolk concentration camps and puppyfalls.
I think I'll give it a shot.

BtW, can you assign children to burrows? 'cause restricting them to one on top of the entrance hatch would seem the easiest way to add new victims children to the "creche".

P.S. The OP should change her PREFSTRING to "sinister imagination". *salute*

[NonconsensualSurgery]

[EDIT] This has to be one of the most Dwarven concepts ever, right up there with merfolk concentration camps and puppyfalls.
I think I'll give it a shot.

BtW, can you assign children to burrows? 'cause restricting them to one on top of the entrance hatch would seem the easiest way to add new victims children to the "creche".

P.S. The OP should change her PREFSTRING to "sinister imagination". *salute*

Yes and no. Older children will (mostly) respect burrows, but infants will generally stay with their mothers no matter what you do.

[Alhash]

Reading this, all I could think was of the Janissary of the Ottomans. Hm... dwarven Janissaries - now that's f*cking scary.

[Elifre]

I'm almost ready to begin testing in my fortress dedicated to Project SPARTAN. So far I have eight 5x5 smoothed and engraved chambers dug out, each of which will contain twenty high-quality encrusted gold statues, a high quality encrusted bed, table, and chair, a quantum stockpile of food and booze, and a nest box.

I'm planning on putting in two or three turkey hens each, with an above level that can be used to resupply it as needed. The above level also serves as a workshop area in case of moods, and uses an airlock system of bridges and doors to ensure containment. It'll probably take a year or so to reach critical mass of turkeys, but after that there should be a good number of them at all times.

The bed, table, and chair have their room size chosen before statues are added, so the statues do not restrict them. Each of these are assigned to the test subject, along with a statue garden to ensure maximum happiness. A private tomb is also given to each subject to tick off the nobles. ^^

The subject is given yearly doctor visits as needed (in an isolated hospital, of course), and stays in the hospital until fully recovered. There's also a well there, so they get a chance to bathe. This should help to combat the risk of infection which I anticipate as being one of the more likely causes of death (the other being lucky kicks to the head).

I'll post an update once I get children and / or babies.

[Elifre]

Unfortunately, there still aren't any children in my fortress yet. However, I just took a look at the engravings for one of the chambers, and they're mostly of trees, blue jays (local government symbol), dwarven gods contemplating and weeping (associated with compassion, and war + fortresses respectively), the expedition leader being elected, weapons, and elves killing dwarves. Most of the statues I have made so far are of elves killing dwarves.

I get the feeling that my dwarves are seriously messed up. 

EDIT: On the plus side, the subject is almost certainly going to have a fanatical loyalty to the fortress and absolutely loathe elves. ^^

[zombat]

Its like palestinian anti-semetic propaganda, except here the satan incarnate really does eat you

[Elifre]

Hmm... I imagine some of those statues are of dwarves being eaten by elves after they're killed, so that sounds about right.

This is going to make the success of this project even more vital. We need soldiers that will kill elves on sight and wipe out the pointy eared scourge once and for all!

Blood for Armok! Death to elves!

[Elifre]

We finally have a test subject! (For my fortress, that is).

She just arrived here at Minegrip today at the age of two years old, which is absolutely perfect. I'm going to be supplying her with 240 Urists of booze and 120 Urists of food to keep her fed and drunk for up to fifteen years, and most of the booze will be Dwarven Beer (her favourite).

What's great is that she's starting out with green physical attributes and no red ones, plus her mental attributes are complete carp. I predict that after she is released she will lack the ability to speak, and will destroy anything that isn't a dwarf. Most of what she likes is related to weaponry, as it's all flux, metal, bone, and spears, though she also likes alpacas for being small llama-like creatures. Unfortunately, she absolutely detests lizards and not elves, but I figure I can change that with conditioning.

She is quick to anger (good), often feels discouraged (military training'll fix that ^^), appreciates art and natural beauty (useless), rarely completes tasks due to distractions (no distractions in a turkey filled hell hole, so she'll be fine ), slouches when she's bored (meh), and cracks her knuckles when she's nervous (could be intimidating, so good).

I don't quite have all of the statues ready, and I've yet to set up a hospital, so I'm going to have to work on getting that done before sealing the room. Alternatively, I could just make a bunch of rock statues for the first subject.

I'll provide yearly updates for this project, or whenever I feel like doing so.

EDIT: I pastured three turkey hens in the chamber to help ensure their survival. Also, I decided to mostly use the statues of turkeys that my weaponsmith made. Fitting, no? ^^

[Loud Whispers]

You should totally pit a merchant in her room, and order her to kill the merchant when the time is right.

Then she will become the outcast to Dorf society, attacking them all on sight.