Suicide booth

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A suicide booth is a tiny room used to dispose of unwanted dwarves or pets, be they filthy migrants, obnoxious nobles, or crippled soldiers. Suicide booths usually come with two levers; one which triggers a fast and painless death, and one which triggers a slow and horrible death. Make sure to have a manager nearby, so that he can announce the dwarf's death and give him his receipt.

Be aware that dwarves who lose friends or pets will receive a very strong bad thought that may trigger a tantrum.

The basic booth

The booth is a tiny room containing some sort of trap connected to a lever, and possibly sealed with a door. The victim is lured to the booth, and locked in if necessary. A lever is pulled, and the trap activates.

The victim enters the trap

For most dwarves, you can draft the victim into the military, and station him inside the booth.

For nobles, who cannot be drafted, a lever must be installed in the room for them to pull, restricted via workshop profile so that other dwarves will not touch it. Since a simple trap and a lever cannot be in the same square, the room must be at least 2 tiles big, and the trap builder must consider that the victim may be standing on either tile.

For pets, one method is to assign them to a pasture inside the room and wait until a dwarf takes them there. Another is to station the owner inside the room until the pets follow, then station them outside the room and lock the door before the pets have a chance to react.

The trap

This can be a simple upright spear (i.e. menacing spike), a drawbridge, or some more complex device involving retracting bridges and long falls, water to drown the victim or magma for a flashier end.

If crippling, rather than killing, is desired (as often preferred with Hammerers), a wooden/glass menacing spike or a fall of no more than a few z-levels is often recommended. If it doesn't achieve the desired results the first time, you can always do it again.

The trigger

As mentioned above, a lever needs to be pulled, either by a second dwarf, or by the victim once inside the room. If the target is not on the desired square, the "Pull" command for the lever can be set on repeat, in the hopes that the target will walk onto the trap - they never see it coming.

Slow option

A simpler (but less entertaining) approach is just to lock the dwarf in a room, perhaps either a workshop that is not needed or a bedroom, wait for the dwarf to die of dehydration or starvation. Obviously, this does not work for pets.