How do I deal with necromancers among my dwarves?

[Raccoon]

I noticed a few necromancers joined my fortress and I'm sure there's something I should know about them before it's too late. Anything comes to mind?

[Erei]

Necromancers are not evil per their nature. Those dwarves are almost regular citizen. With a few caveats.
They are undead (don't drink or eat). Which can create mood issue (it did in classic), since they can't drink booze, and a dwarf without alcohol is sad
On the bright side, they don't need to breath and such.

The biggest issue are the resurection capabilities. When they are spooked, necromancers resurect nearby corpse and body parts. Either they come back as intelligent undead and it's nice to see Urist back to his friend and family. Even though he will never feel anything anymore (like Steven Seagall range of acting).
But the issue in the more common resurection, non intelligent undead. Those are aggressive to all life. Which mean only undead can be nearby, they'll attack everyone else. Like your dwarves.

Also, they can write the secret of life and death if they are assigned to a library. Which will turn any reader in a necromancer.

You can keep them and make sure they are never spooked, unless on purpose (that power can be useful).
Or you can banish them (the red button thing, top right corner of their information pannel), or straight up kill them.

[Raccoon]

Originally posted by Erei:

Necromancers are not evil per their nature. Those dwarves are almost regular citizen. With a few caveats.
They are undead (don't drink or eat). Which can create mood issue (it did in classic), since they can't drink booze, and a dwarf without alcohol is sad
On the bright side, they don't need to breath and such.

The biggest issue are the resurection capabilities. When they are spooked, necromancers resurect nearby corpse and body parts. Either they come back as intelligent undead and it's nice to see Urist back to his friend and family. Even though he will never feel anything anymore (like Steven Seagall range of acting).
But the issue in the more common resurection, non intelligent undead. Those are aggressive to all life. Which mean only undead can be nearby, they'll attack everyone else. Like your dwarves.

Also, they can write the secret of life and death if they are assigned to a library. Which will turn any reader in a necromancer.

You can keep them and make sure they are never spooked, unless on purpose (that power can be useful).
Or you can banish them (the red button thing, top right corner of their information pannel), or straight up kill them.

That's very interesting. The options are all cool, I could even pretty much turn the whole fort into a necromancer community. Though I reckon trying to keep them non spooked might be the best thing to do. That or banish them.

[Erei]

You can. Although I don't know the odd of them making a necromancer book. The best way would be to pillage necromancer tower for books.

[Sudo Modding]

You probably should at least keep one of them.
The option to turn your old soldiers into "immortal" super soldiers, is invaluable.
For it, the best is to have some kind of set up, to spook/stop spooking your necromancer on demand, you can find that on internet

[Raccoon]

Originally posted by Sudo Modding:

You probably should at least keep one of them.
The option to turn your old soldiers into "immortal" super soldiers, is invaluable.
For it, the best is to have some kind of set up, to spook/stop spooking your necromancer on demand, you can find that on internet

Oh man, that sounds brilliant.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Erei:

Necromancers are not evil per their nature. Those dwarves are almost regular citizen. With a few caveats.
They are undead (don't drink or eat). Which can create mood issue (it did in classic), since they can't drink booze, and a dwarf without alcohol is sad
On the bright side, they don't need to breath and such.

I read, or heard, somewhere that if they go to a Tavern that has a Tavernkeeper, the Tavernkeeper can force them to Drink. T/F? I dunno.. The only Necros I've had were tavern Visitors from other factions that didn't have benevolent intentions...

[Erei]

Yes. Tavern keeper serve drinks to people in the tavern. Whether they are thirsty or not.
The trick is to get a necro to a tavern, and a tavern keeper that will serve them drinks :D

We had a bug a few years back when tavern keeper never stopped giving drink, even when the guy was lying unconscious for over consumption of alcohol. Eventually killing dwarves from alcohol poisoning. While arguably the best way to go for a dwarf, it was still a problem.

[Shiranai]

I made a burrow to keep them clear from corpses and assigned them jobs that don't need to go outside.

[VoiD]

I suppose you could try living dangerously and even create a controlled enviroment where they get to attempt to raise some of your own dead dwarves to see if any of them can come back as intelligent undead, while safely dealing with the others, I'd try that.

But it also sounds quite dangerous, undead are much stronger than the living, I had this 2 headed ettin attack me once, he was quickly dealt with by a caravan, then some idiot necromancer guest went out, got attacked by a raven and revived a dozen of giant ravens, and some body parts, and some children, and the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ettin, which proceeded to murder my entire fort by itself. Axe dwarves stood no chance.

[Sudo Modding]

The idea is to create a close to 100% controlled environment.
Simply leave a necromancer on a 1x1 tile, in some room of your fort, underground.
By default, you raise a bridge to shut the vision of your necromancer on the room.
Between the bridge and your necromancer, you can put some bars to always block his movements, even when the bridge is raised.
Then on the opposite side of the room, you use the same set up with an enemy.
WNMBXXXBMEW
W wall, N necromancer, M metal bars, B bridge, X empty space (the room), E enemy
From the top of my head this is the set up.

So when one of your dwarf dies, you bring his corpse in the room, lower the bridge of the necromancer and the enemy, the necromancer is scared, resurrect your dwarf into an intelligent undead, hopefully.
When it's done, raise the bridges again.

With this set up it greatly limits things that can go wrong.

[Tunsafun]

lock them in a room with all your levers and make them the lever puller.

[ccwscott]

The obvious solution is just to exile then murder.

What I've been doing lately is giving them wooden swords and sending them on single person raids. They have so far always come back in one piece and with an artifact.

[Raccoon]

Originally posted by Sudo Modding:

The idea is to create a close to 100% controlled environment.
Simply leave a necromancer on a 1x1 tile, in some room of your fort, underground.
By default, you raise a bridge to shut the vision of your necromancer on the room.
Between the bridge and your necromancer, you can put some bars to always block his movements, even when the bridge is raised.
Then on the opposite side of the room, you use the same set up with an enemy.
WNMBXXXBMEW
W wall, N necromancer, M metal bars, B bridge, X empty space (the room), E enemy
From the top of my head this is the set up.

So when one of your dwarf dies, you bring his corpse in the room, lower the bridge of the necromancer and the enemy, the necromancer is scared, resurrect your dwarf into an intelligent undead, hopefully.
When it's done, raise the bridges again.

With this set up it greatly limits things that can go wrong.

Wouldn't this make the necromancer depressed over time, go insane and so on?

[Rainbow Jeremy]

Originally posted by Brain Salad:

Wouldn't this make the necromancer depressed over time, go insane and so on?

The trick is to only use necromancers who already were insane.

[Raccoon]

Originally posted by Rainbow Jeremy:

Originally posted by Brain Salad:

Wouldn't this make the necromancer depressed over time, go insane and so on?

The trick is to only use necromancers who already were insane.

Well fair enough then