All exotic weapons in Dwarf Fortress

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.

Related: What are Werebeasts in Dwarf Fortress? Answered

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.