How to get rid of unwanted children without making the dwarves unhappy

dwarf-fortress

I am experimenting a lot with the game right now and one thing I have noticed is that child dwarves are extremely useless. They just throw parties and interrupt others.

It's obvious they need to be sent to a better place.

My current solution is to dig a 2x2x8 well with a bridge on top, use a burrow to get the children onto the bridge and then just pull the lever. Most of them immediately die, some of them need a few months to meet their demise.

The problem is cleaning up the bodies and putting them into coffins. This creates a lot of unhappy thoughts but I do it to avoid ghosts being spawned.

So what is the most clean way to get rid of children while creating the fewest unhappy thoughts in my dwarves?

Best Answer

Your elaborate child death trap should work just fine - you can erect a memorial to put a spirit to rest without needing to retrieve the body.

A few caveats:

  • Children do actually help out on their own accord, including harvesting crops and storing items.
  • As you'd pointed out, being haunted by a child produces unhappy thoughts, however the death of a child will cause this as well. You should be careful with how many children you slaughter as this can spark a tantrum spiral (Dwarfs getting upset causing other dwarfs to get upset, etc.)
  • Your bridge plan will work ok (in a sadistic sense), but if you want to make it humane, you can build a bridge on the ground, lift the bridge, corral the kiddies where the bridge goes down, then smash them into oblivion.
  • If you want to be as inhumane as possible (Praise Armok), I'd suggest this.
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