Candidate for adoption fail.....but why?

[Highland Laddie]

So, it's happened to me several times; this most recent time several in a row!
But, I keep getting asked to accept characters for adoption, and when I do, it tells me a message that they didn't get the message fast enough and were slain.

Is there something I'm missing that affects whether the adoption process is successful, or is this just random, or is it a bug?

[webba84]

Random/bug afaik. Happens a lot if you get a man of the hour in a battle where you took a lot of casualties. For some reason sometimes the game decides that the guy in question died in the battle.

[Wambat]

Are these random adoptions, or are these promotions from field battles? I believe I have had this happen to me once, but could not remember if it was a promotion or not. It would make sense if the lieutenant died in the battle, as that is who would have warranted the promotion.

[Highland Laddie]

I've had it happen in both circumstances. But in the case of the field promotion (I think it's called "Man of the Hour"), my lieutenant didn't die in the battle.

I've also had it occur randomly when I load up a saved game and it is the first message that appears.