Dwarf Fortress Tier List: All Deaths Ranked

so we are back with a Dwarf Fortress tier list and today we're going to be talking about ways to die this was uh recommended by two members of the community salad and quich I'll give you another shout out in the comments there if anybody's not sure how to spell that based on my pronunciation thank you both uh it was recommended separately they said uh tier list of ways to die or postmortem causes so I said yeah that's a great idea and I started drafting of every death that I could remember in dwar Fortress so we're going to go through them all uh and it should be good let's Let's Just Jump Right In oh so let me talk a little bit about my criteria for what what is a good death what is a bad death these are very philosophical questions and the criteria is even more subjective than it was in our last tier lists about metals and usability so here are my standards uh and I'm going to I try I'm going to try to apply these fairly but I'm going to judge the best deaths as the ones that are the most heavy metal or interesting or dwarfy like you know in keeping with the fun culture of Dwarf Fortress and the way dwarfs work in this community but basically extreme interesting funny heavy metal Grizzly just especially interesting are going to be higher ranked uh we're also going to judge them by utility you know if if it achieves something great uh if it's not just a silly death uh if it achieves something then that's also going to be kept in consideration so with that in mind uh first example just to get us warmed up we're going to go with a little bit of an interesting one rained by a vampire so this is a thing in your fortresses where you will find a dwarf dead the announcement will say that they have been discovered drained of all blood so this isn't like a they didn't it wasn't a vampire biting them to turn them into a vampire the vampire went totally crazy on them and they woke up just well they they didn't wake up they woke up dead so uh we're going to put that that's a very interesting uh it doesn't achieve much it does feed the vampire arguably so it has some m utility and it's very heavy metal it's very dark and interesting as a way to die so we're just going to put that right in a rank just to get us started drain by a vampire uh you know what as I look at my list I'm already realizing so I'm I should also clarify uh I will also be ranking and taking into consideration uh how hard it is to like recover the body you know uh if it helps it's going to be very subjective I have to admit because if certain things are just very heavy metal then I'll rank them higher but you know if it's a unremarkable able death and and the corpse gets lost then you have to take those into consideration to to demonstrate this point uh let's just rank let's get him out of the way falling in lava dissolved completely in lava so obviously very brutal very uh intense very dwarfy this this happens in many dwarf fortresses um and it does not provide a body but it is more you know Dwarf Fortress quote unquote fun so I feel like that is going to have to be in a rank as well now compare that to burned alive also you know very very intense uh but I'm going to have to decide where to put that now because often when you're burning alive it's because you're fighting some fire breathing monster so it's in service of the Fortress um often dissolving in lava does not help anyone unless you are the sacrificial unless you are the sacrificial dwarf which we're going to talk about later so again a lot of these things have overlap and context it's just for fun I'm going to stop trying to explain it but so dissolved in lava versus burned alive I'm going to say burned alive is less quintessentially dwarfy so I'm going to put it a little bit lower you do still have a corpse you know remains that can be visited so it is a little bit easier for uh you as the player if they're burned alive but I'm going to say it's a little less dwarfy it's a little little less it's a little less from a dwarf's perspective it's not an excellent death as excellent a death as falling in lava and disolving completely all right so let me give you all an example of like something that I would rank as like a low ranking death like you know just not not really interesting not not dwarves living and dying their best uh I'm going to say anything with dehydration or starvation because these are situations normally it's just kind of long painful death usually they're trapped somewhere or they're injured and they can't move um and you were kind of failing as the player because either they're they've been dragged up into a tree and they're stuck there or they on your instructions they accidentally dug in a way where they can't get back up and now they're trapped or uh your hospitals are not up to Snuff and so injured dwarves are laying unconscious until they until they pass instead of being brought to the hospital and fed water uh these are not these are not neither interest interesting nor very cool nor very dwarfy so I'm going to say that's F tier CU that is kind of just you as the player in a lot of situations messing up uh you know ion maybe not even F tier because if you take Adventure Mode into account dehydration starvation can be a more interesting experience to experience at you know when you're one player but it's happening to your dwarves that's neither exciting nor even particularly good gameplay so now let's talk about what I would consider consider an S tier death cuz you know we got to we got to set this gamut now you understand what I'm talking about when I talk about un uh ungood deaths the one that I would consider an s-rank death I would say definitely executed by the hammerer and so if you're not familiar with this that is when your dwarf is when your Fortress is so welldeveloped that you have a fully functional a legal system including a sheriff and a dungeon master and you're working this system so you're interrogating criminals and you're finding the criminals and they're getting sentenced punishments and in some cases they're getting sentenced to death Hammer is the noble who does the executions via Hammer so he's going to he's going to Boop your Noggin uh until it is flat and and you are dead uh and this is done only for high crimes like murder so again our metrics are how heavy metal is it how dwarfy is it and how um interesting is it how you know losing his fun Style fun is it and I would say executed by the hammer is absolutely s tier by those metrics so here's one where you can correct me in the comments if I uh don't know everything but I was thinking to myself have I ever lost a dwarf because they were eaten entirely whole where they were swallowed hole and there was no remains because they were so thoroughly eaten by a giant monster and to my knowledge I don't think that that ever has happened to me or if it has i' never noticed it maybe it does maybe it does and I just don't pay close enough attention but so for this General category just so this chart only has correct information I'm going to put swallowed hole with a question mark and then I'm going to just clarify any evisceration or messy obliteration via teeth or claws you know kind of eaten by an animal you know I could put that much simpler actually I'm going to put just eaten by an animal and the reason swallowed hole if it does occur let me know in the comments uh would probably be ranked higher but honestly from what I've seen just it's a common cause of death it's not very Noble sometimes it is because you're defending you know the the Dwarven children and uh civilians from some rampaging animal but it is a little ignoble okay believe it or not I did actually uh continue talking about how being eaten by an animal has a lot of pluses and minuses depending on the situation and I gave a very specific long explanation for why it deserves to be in d rank overall uh but my OBS kicked out and I don't remember what I said and I don't have the energy to do it again you got to trust me on that one go let's Okay that's another important one we have to talk about being the sacrificial dwarf and I alluded to this earlier what does that mean so this is truly one of the most s tier uh deaths that you can that a dwarf can possibly fulfill so to the sacrificial dwarf is in a Dwarven Mega project say involving tapping the ocean draining the ocean uh huge lava Works pumping lava up into the sky to make a lava rain um a lot of times when you're breaching some pressurized uh how do you describe it some pressurized um membrane of stone or something a lot of times you need there's often very often a safe way to do anything and you can do any work that you need to do safely without sacrificing any dwarves uh just about anything but in many many many situations it is most advantageous for one dwarf to make the breach usually be completely blasted into Smither by water pressure or lava pressure as they burn um and in the cases of in the cases of water in many cases like this because it's such a catastrophic event that they trigger by digging through you know the wall into the ocean or whatever um there are usually no remains that you can get back which is very heavy metal and they serve even more than getting executed by that hammerer uh it serves a purpose in the community uh sometimes the sacrificial dwarf will completely change the entire map for hundreds and hundreds of dwars and civilians so truly the most Noble in fact I'm going to that looks doesn't even look right being below executed by the hammerer cuz our hammerer victims are uh are basically just oh are basically just Killers who um are getting getting what they signed up for so to speak but the sacrificial dwarf is genuinely a hero so we are going to put that at that is truly the greatest purpose in death that a dwarf could hope to Aspire to all right so moving right along uh we have physically killed by a ghost now this is very cool this is very heavy metal it's all the things we liked uh but it it doesn't really contribute anything thing and it doesn't really it's uh you know it's this is another one where it's ranked lower because um you as the person who's supposed to be managing your Fortress you are not dealing with the ghosts and so you're just kind of getting Innocents killed and that's not super cool so I'm going to put it right next to burned alive uh lower than that because it's the same phenomenon but it is even slightly Lamer is just scared to death by Ghost and actually I'm going to modify this so it's clear scared to death by by a ghost even less cool than being physically throttled by a ghost or something so that goes in C tier uh and moving right along so here's another one oh we're going to get a bunch of these out of the way while we're talking about it so lack of medical care that is also you that's your fault if you know if you're Fortress doesn't have enough buckets and hospital beds designated as such and it doesn't have enough free um hauling entities you know like people who can ha bring buckets bring fresh water tend to these uh dwarfs if you don't have a chief medical dwarf uh so that no diagnosis and treatment is taking place that's on you and it's not even very interesting so we're going to put that also in e e tier right next to DEH hydration and starvation it's the equivalent of um you're basically it's like you bought an aquarium and you're just ignoring it now and so they're dying cuz you're not watching them so shame on you in that hypothetical shame on all of us in that hypothetical it does happen it happens to all of us uh let's do a fun one oh this is one that I've actually been putting off to uh you know I'm recording this in bits and I've been putting this off because I am going to have to describe it very carefully but let's do that now I'm feeling it so there are three main types of going insane fatal a and I'm also going to classify a fourth death in here and I think it'll make sense when I explain it so when a dwarf has an idea for a legendary item but cannot receive uh what it needs to make that legendary item so it cannot realize its Grand uh fantasy it will eventually go insane in a way that kills it and maybe becomes an issue for other dwarves so there's three kinds of this kind of insanity it's called B there's they're running around babbling we're going to call that babbling Insanity uh they're so broken by despair that they stop eating and drinking and eventually die of hydration starvation you know the eer one we've already talked about uh or they will go berserk and attack other dwarves until they are struck down which can be a problem especially for other dwarves all of these are a problem for other dwarfs cuz if that dwarf had a family of course all the dwarves who were his family are going to take a negative hit they're like oh my dad went crazy that's a sad situation that's going to hurt people's moods so I mean none of them are good but berserk it specifically even if you're a stranger to that dwarf it will become your problem where you either have to strike him down or get get merked so with that said now that we broke it down I'm also going to group lethal Tantrums into berserk so the three things I described the Babbling Insanity broken by Despair and berserk these happen specifically for legendary item fails but lethal tantrum happens anytime a dwarf is in such a low mood that it's just going to flip out on everything it's going to mess up Furniture it's going to attack other dwarves um and then also probably be struck down or maybe executed by the hammerer actually interesting so I'm going to I'm going to rate dying by lethal tantrum fairly low but if you are the one who is tantruming tantrumming and you are managed to be captured uh and then executed by the hammer I stand by that so let's but let's put these down so babbling Insanity it's kind of funny they run around it's very energetic so I'm going to say and by those metrics it's a little dwarf here so I'm going to put it in C tier maybe against the wall there there we go okay babbling Insanity so broken by despair a little more depressing just not as the same thing but not as interesting and in both cases your family is sad so uh but it's not they're not even like you know making the common area more lively by running around babbling so that's D tier and then worst because you're hurting your own Fortress or the dwarf in question is hurting their own Fortress and it's not this is not one where it's like really the player's fault as much although if they're tantruming in ways you could fix then that is but this is one where a dwarf has just kind of gone Rogue and brought disgrace in a violent way to the rest of the Fortress and that's no good so we're going to put that in E tier uh berserk or lethal tantrum and oh while I'm here so you might be wondering what's going to go in F every dwarf has a rich life in Dwarf Fortress and their death is Meaningful so there's not going to be any FS except for and I did make an entry for this it is it is quite rare uh especially in the steam version and with all the help from the community with DF hack and everything it is very rare to be bugged to death somehow to be so bugged that you just die in a way that the player couldn't anticipate and doesn't even make sense in the game but it does happen so we are F tier is going to be reserved for only the things that shouldn't happen in DF Fortress we're going to call that bug to death SL unfortunate reality glitch well let's say like before you know before there were fixes in DF hack for civil war or something uh and so it it's just a bug it's it's a bad seed um in the code and it's not really anybody's fault but the dwarves do all murder each other in a situation where they procedurally as the game intends they shouldn't that would be bug to death or an unfortunate reality glitch and that is going to be the only thing we put in F tier just for the record all right so moving right along let's see tantrum spiral you know what since we just talked about that so tantrum spiral is really it's not uh a civil war so it's not them fighting for no reason but it's that the conditions have become so poor that um one foul mooded dwarf is going to smack another across the mouth and that's going to make that other one so angry that they're going to fight back and smack somebody else it's just like in any comedy movie you've ever seen where a fight breaks out cuz one guy hits one guy and the second guy tries to hit back but hits the third guy that's a tantrum spiral that is a real thing that happens uh if your dwars aren't happy it is a little bit higher up than these other ones where the player is just not really paying too close attention uh because it is more interesting and how the procedural you know engine makes this happen and you will sometimes have like survivors where like one family that keeps to themselves is still kind of okay at the end so that can be very interesting procedurally we're going to put it in D although it is is again a failing of the player uh to handle things but it is pretty heavy metal and it is pretty brutal because it is basically a town deciding to tear itself apart with brutal violence uh here's another one that's just kind of generic a random one uh but being crushed or pulped in any way we also haven't talked about falling damage or drowning we're going to get into a lot of the mundane ones we're going to just fill them out towards the end uh so but crushing or pulping is like something fell on you and you went totally Splat like a pancake um that's pretty Looney Tunes and for that reason I'm going to give it a solid C let's see if we can get it past this image not quite thank you for joining me everybody crushing or pulping goes in C uh because it can be pretty cool if like a giant monster does it or something uh you know if they died bradely in combat or if it's something very dwarfy or a huge section of Cavern just Splats a bunch of workers below uh that is very much what this game is about so you know nothing wrong with that uh one is unexplained where you will just find a dwarf Dead uh often usually it'll report that they are scared to death or that they've been drained of blood or something but a lot of times they're just found dead and there were not enough witnesses to corroborate anything about it so I'll put that in D you know it's usually eaten by an animal basically it's usually a subset of like they wandered off they got merked and nobody knows what happened now we're actually there is one more s tier one that I am going to give s TI for sure and that is thralled or husked or zombified and so this is going to tie into one more thing we're going to talk about called freakish weather or in some cases necromancers or some other kind of dark magic that's applied but this is where in death the dwarf becomes a or the dead unit becomes a zombie I don't know how else to say it becomes a you know thr is like someone who is magically um completely hypnotized so they're completely controlled uh and you know all of these mean kind of the same thing depending on the scenario but basically your dwarf is going to come back with extra strength become unkillable and also have an unquenchable thirst for chaos and uh hatred for the living and so that is the most death metal thing that I could possibly ever imagine and sorry if you're a style nerd like me you're noticing that I'm making a lot of mistakes I got different casing going going on uh let's just try to move past it cuz I can't fix it now or I could but I don't want to but so being thred or husk or zombified is an incredibly brutal and dwarfy and like Dark Fantasy thing and it provides extra challenge just like uh being executed by the hammerer or the sacrificial dwarf it if you're seeing this it means that you're playing Dwarf Fortress at a very high level and you're really engaging a lot of the mechanisms and some really really cool messed up stuff is happening so good for you that's an S tier death for me next up is fall damage uh it's very much a part of Dwarven life and the gameplay in general uh but it is often it is often player error in many cases however there are also many normal procedural ways that it can occur and it's very dwarfy and it can be very brutal in metal uh Slash hypothetically comically interesting if you know if this was all just a scenario in a video game and nobody was getting hurt you might find it funny hypothetically uh but so we'll put that in D above the ones where it's just your fault as the player but you know not too interesting uh drowning I guess I got to go in the same tier for the same reasons um but I do have a note here that says bonus if bones are unreclaimed because that is very heavy metal and I like that a lot honestly uh is a lot of times someone will drown in one of my fortresses and the other dwarves can't get to their bones so their bones will be a permanent Memorial it won't function as a memorial in the game I'll have to make a slab or something to make their ghost happy but their unclaimed bones will remind me for the rest of the game play until I can actually recover them that somebody drowned there so that's really metal the more I describe it the more I don't want to put it at the bottom of D I want to put it like I'm going to have to you know what I got to I got to clear this guy's legs I don't want to do it but I go to I got to move this guy's legs a little bit go like that and we'll go like this cuz I need more space in C tier this is an important ranking system I can't just cheat and put it in a different tier cuz I ran out of space okay all right and we're wrapping up if you made it this far thank you so much for joining me um don't forget to like And subscribe and leave a comment if you can do any of those it helps build this Channel and it's important to me your buddy from the internet so I appreciate it uh but we are wrapping up we I have let's see six more so let's just finish up strong bleed out very common I'm going to put it right in D tier along with falling damage you know another one where it just kind of it happens it's a shame when it happens to you but um you know it's not very remarkable it's also not necessarily the player's fault cuz that happens a lot in combat and stuff even if you have a nice Hospital uh there's like a Game of Thrones line or something about you know how if you nick the right artery in fantasy times you're done so it's a shame and it is what it is I'm a little squeamish about that stuff too so I'll move right on poison gases from creatures a lot of Forgotten beasts will have you know some kind of poison gas attack uh and that's a common way to get get merked so I'm going to say and the ones who do are usually bravely defending against the giant crazy creature so I will go ahead and say let's see can I get it over here poison gases from Creature goes in B tier and uh that just kind of is what it is it's cool you know it's about as epic as being burned alive or physically killed by a ghost it's kind of crazy it makes for a crazy sentence but it it is kind of also just going through the meat grinder so it's not amazing either uh next one is freakish weather which I do have to rank highly because that is how we get that's a major source of the S tier death of thralled or husked or zombified dwarves death by freakish weather is uh very very interesting very nasty and gross and cool and and and death metal and everything we talked about very dwarfy uh I'm actually playing on a another haunted Beach cuz I'm looking for my Undead whale my giant uh albino Undead whale uh which again I'm not I'm not really finding but we do have freakish weather it's not deadly it just rains repulsive slime all the time it's slime time all the time and my dwars are honestly getting used to it it's not much of a problem but freakish weather if you can die to it uh it must have been pretty freakish indeed and it often leads to zombie scenarios so that definitely gets an a tier on its own it's pretty cool pretty unique to Dwarf Fortress uh we're down we got three left so accidentally killed by a moving part or trap this is another one where the player it might be something interesting in proceed that happens but it also might be and I'm going to give you a little hint about what rank I'm going to put it in as I prepare D tier to have space for this uh but it's it's not totally player negligence and it's not totally uninteresting either sometimes it happens in a procedural way which is really cool but it is also a symptom of your Fortress maybe not being up to Snuff or or just stuff happening that could have been avoided uh and it's not that interesting so that's going to go in DET tier along with it buddies of other things where you're just kind of losing control of the Fortress and it's not that interesting on its own uh last do I have killed in a Siege again that's just kind of like defending the Fortress it's doing you know being a brave dwarf uh doing the needful um and so I'm going to cover up this guy a little bit so I can make some space in C tier and we're going to put that right in C tier and I think that's going to make enough room for my next one which I'm also spoiler plan put in C tier so the last one we're going to wrap up with a c tier which is killed by a crazy monster pretty much the same as being killed by a Siege uh I think I saved it for last because it's just not that interesting but there we have it gang that is our complete death that's every death in Dwarf Fortress I could possibly think of and I have ranked them according to my own preferences and I would love it I would sincerely love it if you would all argue in the comments about this um CU that helps engagement and and I like that I like when people watch my videos and talk about it so thank you for joining me I hope this has been informative in some way and I will catch everybody in the next one

Channel: SSBU Replay Depository

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Id: TGGWJGUXtIA

Length: 26min 8sec (1568 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 28 2023