The Manual: Dwarven Justice
How to Get Here
If you have a sheriff or captain of the guard, press
z from the main view, scroll to "Justice" and press
ENTER.
Description
Here you can view a list of all of the fortress's criminals.
Use
8
2
9
3 to scroll.
At the top right, you can see a list of how many justice buildings you have. These are cages and chains that have the justice status turned on.
Rooms (More on Cages and Chains Here)
For each criminal, you'll see a list of crimes, and possibly a sentence and an assigned officer.
Possible punishments include incarceration in a justice building, being beaten or receiving a fixed number of strokes from the hammer.
Dwarven Justice and You
Many crimes are committed by dwarves throwing tantrums. However, crimes can occur when you break a mandate. When a mandate is broken, the
offended noble blames a related dwarf. So if you fail to make metal goods, a metalsmith is charged with violation of a production order. If you
export a prohibited item, the dwarf that brought it to the trade depot is charged.
Dwarven justice can be very harsh, especially if the offended noble has a high rank. It is therefore very important to obey mandates given out
by the nobles, lest your prized metalsmith be subjected to five hammerstrikes.
The Hammerer
Hammering is the ultimate form of dwarven punishment. The criminal is brought to a justice chain by the Hammerer and restrained.
The location of the hammerstrikes is calculated by the Hammerer, determined by an ancient formula. Dwarves do not gather and spectate at such events.
Given such a sentence, death is not uncommon. The Hammerer is not swayed by the
pleas of a friend or even his or her own spouse at the time of the punishment, although the Hammerer is not immune to later anguish and can sink into bitter depression.
Particularly egregious crimes are punished by execution. Typically, an execution is a sentence of 50 to 100 hammerstrikes. If the condemned dwarf somehow
survives, no further punishment is carried out and the dwarf can rejoin society to the extent that they are able.
This is never known to have occurred.