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[Quarque]

My outpost liaison keeps throwing tantrums, randomly attacking dwarves and toppling buildings. He has a yellow flashing exclamation mark. What could possibly be causing this?

- he's not a werewolf
- I haven't locked him up
- I never attacked the caravan
- For the first 10 years, I had my tavern set to "allow residents only", however a few years ago I changed it to "allow everyone". Could he still be mad about that?

And what can I do about it, without causing a loyalty cascade or war?

[IncompetentFortressMaker]

Your outpost liaison is severely stressed out. Emotional breakdowns will not occur when a unit is merely "stressed", only when said unit is "haggard" or "harrowed". Though if said unit is harrowed, there probably isn't much hope for said unit. You may be able to see how stressed the outpost liaison is by viewing the liaison and pressing wounds (which will also show some status things like thirsty, hungry, how stressed out if stressed out, degree of pain, that kind of thing in addition to a general severity rating of damage to particular body parts).

[Quarque]

He is "haggard". Has been so for years.

.. and now he got into a fist fight in my tavern and killed both my expedition leader and my broker. Holy shit. The expedition leader was the mother of four children, one of whom had just grown up to be a farmer.

The outpost liaison will have to die for this. Fuck the consequences.

I have never appointed a sheriff before. If you appoint a sheriff, can he punish a criminal for a crime commited earlier?

[thefinn]

I can't make head nor tail of the entire system now.

I just seem to get random dwarves going haggard and need to control them. I really wish the "been away from family and friends for too long" thing would get fixed too.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Why has the outpost liaison been at your fortress for years?
Did he arrive with the King?

[Quarque]

No, he has been returning to my fort every year. About ten years ago he first toppled a building during his visit. Ever since, he has been attacking my dwarves randomly when he was here. About five years ago I first checked his `w´ound status, and it showed Haggard. That remained the same in every visit since.

So here is what happened. Chaos ensued after his last attack in my tavern. Several dwarves were involved in the fight, and it ended with lots of blood. My expedition leader Id and the broker Kikrost were carried off to the hospital in a panic. Both of them died in their hospital beds.

After ten mostly peaceful years, a deafening silence fell over the fortress. Every dwarf had fled the tavern, except for the murderous outpost liaison. My dwarves had been far too forgiving of his foul moods.

The first thing they did was to lock the door to the tavern. Then they pulled a few levers to close off all entrances. No one would be able to get in and witness what would happen next.

Id had also been the manager, so it was a little awkward to coordinate actions, but that felt appropriate. Most of the dwarves gathered in the temple. One of them started meditating frantically about death. But a few dwarves started building coffins and slabs. Three of them. Two golden coffins for their deceased leaders, and one steel coffin. Then the oldest daughter of Id, who had just turned adult and learned to engrave, started smoothing out a room for the burial.

After all the coffins were built and the dead given a proper burial, all eyes were fixed on the locked tavern door. The animal trainers ran down to the cellar and came back with the tigers they had been breeding for years, as well as a saltwater crocodile. The door was shortly opened to let the animals in. Then an alarm rang to tell everyone to get out of the tavern. The animal trainers obeyed.. the liaison just kept staring at a well and muttering. The door was once again locked.

The dwarves returned to their temple and prayed for forgiveness.

One week later the liaison got into a fight with a tiger and killed it. Later still, he attacked the crocodile. That fight ended very quickly with a dead liaison. His coffin stood ready. After an argument, the dwarves decided that he did deserve to get a slab.

Amazingly, the text on the slab didn´t mention animals at all. It said that he had `died from an infection` after a tavern fight.

[PatrikLundell]

Unfortunately, visitors accumulate stress in the fortress and seem to have their state frozen while out of it, so when starting a new fortress you're (supposedly: I've never tried myself) getting all the tantruming exiles you've sent away as migrants, among the sane inhabitants of your former fortress.
Thus, if a trade liaison gets stressed for some reason on one visit, that carries over to the next one. In addition to that, liaisons can't get their needs to see family fulfilled, nor crafting or trinket/clothing hogging. They can socialize their butts off, as well as pray, and they can get some good thoughts from watching performances and drink booze (provided the tavern has a poisoner employed).

Killing the liaison probably doesn't have much of a consequence (apart from the risk of loyalty cascades if the killing have citizens involved).

[Quarque]

Killing the liaison probably doesn't have much of a consequence (apart from the risk of loyalty cascades if the killing have citizens involved).

You´re right. There was no loyalty cascade and one year later a new caravan arrived. The only consequence was that I couldn´t get my custom order for bitumous coal, gold and steel for a year.

A new liaison ran enthusiastically to the entrance and a dwarf quickly let him in.. only to have him splattered by the drawbridge. Woops.

[PatrikLundell]

Yes, I've seen migrants rush to where the drawbridge lowers. My fortresses have multiple entrances, however, and they're open except when there's a siege (except when I've forgotten to open them after one, or when a Titan is contained in the tunnel).