Bay 12 Games Forum

Here is an insight into the brain of a super unhappy tantruming dwarf. It just does not compute, pretty much all good thoughts, and yet, Limul Besmarlinem, Tavern Keeper is throwing a tantrum! Stress level 34018 (negative thoughts highlighted). I guess this crybaby just wants to throw tantrums.

She has become haggard and drawn due to the tremendous stresses placed on her and is throwing a tantrum.
She feels euphoric due to inebriation.
Within the last season, she felt lonely after being away from family for too long.
She felt lonely after being away from friends for too long.
She felt self-pity after a lack of abstract thinking for too long.
She felt satisfied while yelling at a priest. She felt satisfied while crying on a priest.
She felt wonder remembering communing with Istrath.
She was content after eating a pretty decent meal.
She felt satisfied at work.
She was delighted remembering putting on a truly splendid item.
She felt satisfied at work.
She felt satisfied after crying on a priest.
She felt satisfied after teaching dodging.
She was interested after learning about striking.
She felt euphoric die to inebriation.
She was uneasy dwelling upon seeing a goblin's dead body.
She didn't feel anything after seeing a giant wolverine's dead body.
She was blissful after sleeping in a fantastic bedroom.
She felt satisfied remembering the acceptance of a petition for a temple for The Order of Silver.
She felt satisfied upon improving discipline.
She didn't feel anything after seeing a wolverine's dead body.
She felt satisfied upon improving observation.
She was interested after watching a performance.
She was delighted after putting on an exceptional item.
She felt pleasure after a satisfying acquisition.
She felt pleasure remembering a sparring session.

It turns out it is a vampire curse. When he was cursed, he was still in his tantrum. Now a combat log message appeared: Vucar Nkutkûbuk, Dwarf Macedwarf vampire has calmed down.. He is now listed as Vampire in my units list.

My plan is to wall him in with a stockpile for one pick, make him a miner and let him breach to the second level cavern. He will explore it until he meets his destiny.

I have to take my statement back. Relieving him of his post as a militia commander did not help in the long term. He is regularly slipping into depression, complaining about the lack of decent meals and being away from family, unable to acquire, always reliving experiencing the trauma she had when the military killed the invading minotaur in second year of the fortress. He hasn't recovered in two years of pampering.

A lost case. I wish there were a possibility of dwarves just to emigrate. You're not happy in my fortress? You're free to go try find a better place, anytime!

To my knowledge no amount of pampering will help once a dwarf gets one of those killer personality traits.

This is the "lost cases" PatrikLundell was talking about, I presume. I have about six of them in my 120 Dwarf fort, after four years.

I have given up with them and now I'm just sending depressed dwarves on conquer missions against enemy sites. My moping goth army has so far been very successful, and of course the fort is happier!

I was thinking the same, establishing a "moping goth" squad and assigning them to "mission impossible". Let's see what happens.

I've just had a laugh. The first siege came and my military has dealt with it rather easily. Just one dead, few minor injuries. After the battle, a few dwarves who can't handle stress fell into depression or threw a tantrum. One particular dwarf who can't handle stress at all went back into the battle field and stood there for a few days just looking over the dead bodies and bodyparts of goblins, trolls, beakdogs. After he was done he said "I'm feeling great!" and went back to work, no longer overcome by depression (but still pretty stressed). One recruit, on the other left the barracks, went to the battlefield just to eat his provisions. My gatherers are busy picking bilberries from between the corpses.

all cavern layers spawn webs. 
This means if you breach the caverns, then mine out huge areas of the same layers the caverns are in, all of those mined out areas in those layers will have silk appear in them.
That makes it very easy and safe to collect typically far more webs/silk thread than you ever need, especially if you start it immediately after embark.
Then the FB's and Blind Cave Ogres can play in the rest of the caverns without interruption.

Excellent suggestion! In the wiki it goes. I will try this.

I find the stress level indicator of DFHack extremely useful it makes you anticipate mental troubles long time ahead. I have a three year old fort and while my militia commander seemed to be doing well the first years, he recently became extremely stressed and started throwing tantrums, despite eating and sleeping greatly, and putting on great clothing. I called him the fortress's crybaby until I read his thoughts more carefully: he has changed attitude towards war: He personally believes that the idea of war is utterly repellent and would have peace at all costs (due to a new romance in 125) ... He dreams of creating a great work of art..

I let him focus on crafting stuff and picked another militia commander. His stress level has been dropping (raw DFHack value raising) significantly ever since.