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23a:Children
| This article is about an older version of DF. |
Dwarves are considered children for their first twelve years. They learn how to become a dwarf through living in and participating in dwarven society with no formal schools, apprenticeships or other formal learning; even parenting seems quite minimal.
In fortress mode, some migrant dwarves are married and may bring children. Children who immigrate to your fortress might be any age from 2 to 12, and there is no way to determine the age of a child. "Resident" dwarves may also give birth to children. Unlike in later versions, there is no "child cap" configuration option - the only way to save your fortress from drowning in children is to eliminate married couples. Dwarves even can have miscarriages if they get too hungry or thirsty, which causes an unhappy thought for the mother but not for the father. Due to a bug, however, the "too thirsty" condition is broken and instead checks against hunger a second time, meaning that simply becoming "Hungry" will trigger a miscarriage.
Children are listed last among dwarves on the units list, and appear as a dark red dwarf:
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Children |
Babies
When children are born, they are looked after by their parents, who will continue working, leaving the baby in the workshop if they go to get materials. It is thought that babies sharing a tile with their parents always lie down, not the parent. Babies do not have to be born in beds, but are born wherever the mother happens to be; the birth will interrupt the mother's current action. If the mother is sleeping, however, the birth may not wake her, and the baby will go about business as if it were a child. Often this means crawling to the dining hall. Still the game may report the message "...cancels sleep: seeking infant."
If the mother dies, the baby will likely attempt to kill itself unless it manages to grow to become a child. Orphans are never adopted by other dwarves.
Labor
Children may not be assigned any labors, but perform some activities without any intervention:
- socialising, through arranging parties in meeting halls
- harvesting crops, if the 'All dwarves harvest' order is on
- filling designated ponds[Verify]
- eating, drinking, and sleeping as necessary
Diet
Children seem to eat and drink with similar preferences to adult dwarves, including a preference for alcohol over plain water.
Kidnapping
Children are also the target of goblin snatchers, who will sneak into your fortress and try to kidnap young dwarves by stuffing one in a sack and hightailing it out of there. Like stolen objects, children who are removed from the map are lost forever.
Moods
Strange moods affect children in the same way as adults, though a lack of any skill will always result in an artifact craft made of stone, wood, or bone; unless the child was possessed, the result is a legendary stone crafter, wood crafter, or bone carver (depending on the artifact made) once the child grows up.
If one of your dwarves gives birth while in a strange mood, she will completely ignore her baby and focus completely on finishing her project. The baby will think that its mother is dead so it will attempt to end its life, but if the mother finishes creating the artifact before that happens, she will seek her child and they will behave normally (at least by dwarven standards, anyway).
Adulthood
At the age of twelve, children become adult dwarves. While most then become unskilled peasants, those who have successfully completed a strange mood other than possession will become legendary Craftsdwarves; those who help in harvesting plants throughout childhood may have built up sufficient experience points in the grower skill to become Farmers, although it will list them as peasants until they skill up.
Dwarven parenthood
As an oversight in programming, children's parents can become so preoccupied with finding their children that they can die of thirst.
Military Children
Although possibly not a bug, children with military mothers will be carried joyfully into battle and usually slaughtered wholesale. Deactivating the mother's military commission may be the best idea to keep the children alive and the parents from throwing tantrums when a stray bolt hits the child. However, if the dwarven parent in question can be kept happy, dwarven babies make excellent combat armor.