40d:Walk the Plank

The Basic Idea

If your insolent Duke likes to have every one of your (already scarce) glassmakers struck down because of the typical violation of production order, then this suicide technique might be a good choice. In my case all my fortress guards were all legendary wrestlers whom think a simple beating involves a Vulcan death grip. The only drawback is that this trap doesn't reset, in otherwords, you will have to re-build it after use.

Step-by-Step Instructions

The basic idea is to build a rock floor plank over a deep pit or magma vent (or even just lava) held up by a support and accessed by a bridge.

1. Build the support on the edge of the pit, chasm, or magma vent (or whatever)
2. Build a retractable bridge to it from solid ground one z-level above the pit
3. Build a lever at a safe location and link it to the bridge
4. Build a long floor tile plank starting from the top of the support over the pit using the bridge for access
5. Build another lever at the end of the plank and link it to both the bridge and the support
6. Set the workshop profile for the lever to the noble you would like to be rid of
7. Pull the lever

The lever will retract the bridge and blow the support at the same time leaving your block floor with nothing to hold it up and thus it will collapse with your trapped noble upon it. Although the plank, support and lever will be destroyed, you may be able to recover the mechanisms from the lost lever (I did).

Obviously you can hold off on the last two steps until your ready and that's the beauty of this trap: it's ready when you need it, and only takes a minute.

Rebuilding the Trap

To rebuild the trap, extend the bridge again using the remaining lever and then follow from step 4.

In Closing

It's really quite ironic to watch the noble pull the lever and note how he can "loose his footing for making bad choices"

Now where did I put that crystal glass aquarium...