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[Jigowah]

Today I learned the !fun! of pet ownership.

I was 1.5 years into an amazing volcano embark.  Our first violent visitor was a were-turtle, so I quickly mobilized the army and raised the main gate leaving the grazing animals to their fates.

No big deal I thought.  We'll eat the animals after this rampage is over.  I was wrong and found out instantly when the were-turtle killed my top miner's pet goat.  Then the story plays out kinda like John Wick.

The miner was just chilling out with the alerted civilians in the main hall when he snapped.   With his trusty copper pick, he almost instantly gibbed and/or dismembered TEN nearby dwarves.  For ten pages of text, he raged against his fellows.  No dwarf in range of his madness was spared, not even the babies.  In the end, he was killed by another miner who finally put his own pick to use for justice on the suspect.

On top of it all,  at least 3 members of the military got bit.  It is probably time to see how well a were-turtle fort will work and then pull the magma plug on the whole damn thing.

Lessons learned: 
1.  Discourage pet ownership whenever possible, and protect pets if you are stuck with them!
2.  Build an outer wall for the animal pen, possibly with a roof, until you can indoor graze animals on moss.
3.  The dwarven mining pick is utterly devastating in the right/wrong hands.
4.  Weaponize lava SOONER.

Unexpected fun is my favorite kind!

[ImagoDeo]

1. Did you save a screenshot/readout of his personality?
2. What was his stress level when his pet was killed and immediately afterwards?
3. What the Boatmurdered?!

[Klitri]

Pets that go missing haven't caused trouble in my fort. My computer is medium strength and so I have to crush a lot of garbage, especially migrants who think pets are allowed to roam free in my fort. Never causes issues.

[Jigowah]

1.  No, before I could even react to the melee in the main hall he was dead.  It took a bit of log reading to piece the tale together actually. One moment everyone was safe.  The next, a bloodbath.

2.  I play pure vanilla, so I don't have any science worthy data.

3.  Boatmurdered indeed.  The power of love is so strong that despite 20x layers of stone, Urist knew the moment Little Sabastiano was dead, and the only real response was to become a raving maniac.

After a number of were-turtle incidents the fort seems to be getting back to normal.  Graves were dug for the worthy, every non-pet animal that isn't laying eggs is dead, and work has begun on the lava defenses. 

I haven't found fresh water, so injuries are often fatal. 

In the sealed off lower cavern a forgotten beast feathered poison toad is SLAUGHTERING TROLLS LIKE MAD.

I like this fort.

[Jigowah]

I think I burried an emissary...are emissaries ever miners?  The maniac had a really long name.  Maybe killing the pet of an emissary is part of why he went pure hostile?

[ImagoDeo]

You could still find his profile through the relationships links in the relationships pages of other dwarves. See if he had any friends, dead or alive. You might have to navigate through several dead dwarves to find him, and when you do his upper body will be marked missing to signify that he's dead. But you'll get a full readout on his personality and tendencies.

It may also list his final thoughts before he died.

[Naryar]

A single dead pet send a dwarf into berserk ? Are you playing an old version ?

[§k]

I don't think dwarves care about their pet any more. They don't even care about their friend and family. A dead spouse is as horrifying as a dead grey langur man, as far as I can see from their thoughts.


edit: the berserking miner is probably caused by some were-creature related loyalty cascade bug.

[Loud Whispers]

It's for the best that you throw pets down a pit.

[Jigowah]

I'll try and find his profile because I am genuinely curious as to why he flipped out.

This is on the current version of DF btw. 

[Jigowah]

No dice on looking through old relationships.  All it tells me is that this dwarf was obese and female, and that her torso is missing.  No more information seems available.

Thanks for all the comments folks!

[Callista]

I bet the miner was already pretty close to snapping. Sometimes small things can push them over the edge. Even in a peaceful fortress.

Like so:
Miner is annoyed because she's seen hated vermin and got too tired to make it to her bed, so she slept in the dirt, and woke up to take a hauling job that took her outside, where she was sickened by the sun. She caught a glimpse of the horrible scary wereturtle before she made it into the burrow. When the goat died she went into tantrum mode and felt like punching somebody; only since she happened to be holding the pick, she killed said somebody instead of just bloodying their nose. Now she's witnessed (sentient, dwarven) death, possibly of a friend or family member, and her stress level gets even worse, and she continues to tantrum until she actually flips out and goes properly insane. Cue bloody rampage.

Moral? Make sure your dwarves are nice and happy before you kill their pets, redecorate their noble chambers, send them into the sun, invite them to watch your arena deathmatches, or similarly tax their sanity.