The dwarven-flavored life simulator Dwarf Fortress has a surprising amount of content that will continue to shake up your stronghold, regardless of how well-versed you are in the title. From ten hours to a thousand, it’s no-frills graphical interface means that developers can spend a heft of time adding new items, mechanics, entities, and even monsters. While the battles are sure to be arduous, there is a reason to look forward to them — exotic weapons.
What are exotic weapons in Dwarf Fortress?
While some gaming hobbyists may hear the term ‘exotic’ and think of it as a legendary item, that’s actually quite removed from the idea of exotic items in DF. Exotic weapons are weapons that are non-traditional for dwarves to use — either outside of their culture, or outright unusable based on their size, such as the pike. You cannot craft these weapons, meaning you cannot maximize their stats through end-game metals and skilled crafters.
Instead, they are found from traders, or looted in the aftermath of raids. It’s worth keeping an eye out for these — proper application can make your armies terrifying. To dwarves, these weapons are literally exotic: originating in a distant foreign country. These weapons can also be interchangeably referred to as foreign weapons within the Dwarf Fortress community.
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All exotic weapons in Dwarf Fortress
Exotic weapons can pack a punch — the whip, for example, is one of the hardest-hitting weapons in the entire game, although that’s due to a long-standing bug. In Adventure Mode, players can start their journey with a few exotics which can help ease combat, considering you likely won’t end up mining and crafting yourself.
There are a total of eighteen exotic, or foreign, weapon types in Fortress Mode of Dwarf Fortress.
- Blowgun
- Boning Knife
- Bow
- Carving Fork
- Flail
- Great Axe*
- Halberd*
- Dagger
- Long Sword
- Maul
- Meat Cleaver
- Morningstar
- Pike*
- Scimitar
- Scourge
- Slicing Knife
- Stone Axe
- Two-handed weapon*
Items marked with an asterisk are large enough that dwarves struggle to handle them. They should be equipable by larger dwarves, depending on their sizing, but cannot due to a bug. Bug 5812, reported in 2012 and stemming from version 0.34.07, fails to properly check a dwarves sizing to see if they can equip specific weaponry — the marked weapons can be used by dwarves of a larger size when this bug is solved.
