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[Aerie]

Dwarves feel pain, and they tend to feel it at inopportune times, like when that spinning prepared cat lung chips the bone in Urist McBadass' fourth finger, left hand through his ☼adamantine left gauntlet☼.

To alleviate said pain (under the supervision of qualified dwarven torturers medical personnel), ideally, he'd need some kind of pain-killing substance.

Opium poppies contain the substance opium, which is composed partially of morphine and codeine. It was used since prehistory as an analgesic, and still is today (albeit in processed form.)

In-game, they could be grown above-ground, then processed at a farmer's workshop into an extract that could be stockpiled at hospitals to reduce the level of pain a dwarf is experiencing (since pain isn't REALLY an issue in hospitals, this could be translated into an improvement of the speed at which they recover from injury.)

Alternatively, the extract could be carried by soldiers and used should extreme pain be suffered, albeit to lesser effect than if it were administered at a hospital (though I guess you'd have to implement field medicine and first aid for this to work.)

[Itsdavyjones]

Intresting, but there should be some side affects, since morphine is addictive and if a dwarf gets addicted, they could attempt to steal it from the hospital, since it would be locked in the hospital for safety reasons.  If they get caught, then they get jail time.  No hammering because that can result in being given more of the drug if they survive, but a very long jail scentence.

[Carp McDwarfEater]

People who use opiates for recreational use get addicted very fast, but it isn't near as much of an issue for patients who need the painkiller for a surgery. Depending on ethics I guess certain civilizations could tolerate using drugs for recreational use, but in all other cases I don't think there should be addictions and what not.

[Aerie]

Yeah, that'd be interesting. While more nature-oriented and savage races like kobolds or elves would be okay with drug use, the more 'civilized' ones like humans and dwarves would shun or punish it.

[10ebbor10]

The question is, is Toady okay with it?

There have been a great many threads about opiates and other drugs (both medical and recreative), and I believe the final answer was a no. Not sure about that though.

[sackhead]

instead of giving them opium (Dwarfs are bad enough with alcohol i don't want to grow huge poppy fields just to stop them killing eachother)
why not use plants like, willow bark or aspen
Or even fictional ones like most df plants.

[Di]

The high levels of pain probably should pose a danger of mental breakdown or a severe unhappy thought or decrease the odds of surviving the operation so that painkillers would be needed at all.
And yes, we probably should have fictional substances for this. Just like any other game replaces opiates and stimulants with health and buff potions.

[Aerie]

The high levels of pain probably should pose a danger of mental breakdown or a severe unhappy thought or decrease the odds of surviving the operation so that painkillers would be needed at all.
And yes, we probably should have fictional substances for this. Just like any other game replaces opiates and stimulants with health and buff potions.

Depictions of the non-recreational usage of real-life traditional medicines can't be any worse than being able to systematically hack someone's limbs off, gouge their eyes out, cut their stomach open, tear their guts from their body and choke them to death with their own severed intestines while they vomit and bleed everywhere, but sure, what the heck. Most of DF's growable plants are fictional anyway.

[Carp McDwarfEater]

Yeah, that'd be interesting. While more nature-oriented and savage races like kobolds or elves would be okay with drug use, the more 'civilized' ones like humans and dwarves would shun or punish it.

Well, there are a some human cultures that traditionally used drugs like tobacco and marijuana in rituals. Even today, some parts of the world allow it. To be honest I think that dwarves are too ethical and self-righteous for the setting; with technology paralleling the 1400s I'd like to see ethics parallel as well to keep the immersion, which would mean that about everybody is fine with slavery and torture. But I don't want to derail the topic, so I'll stop there. The use of drugs shouldn't necessarily be misguided or punishable was my point.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'd like to note that painkillers used medicinally are mostly a fairly recent thing. In medieval Europe (which DF is least loosely based on), and in most areas before the 1400 cutoff date, there wasn't much of anything in the way of painkillers for surgery. I'm not sure if this was due to culture, availability, compatibility with contemporary medical procedures, or what, but it still doesn't seem to fit.

If we get over or around that problem, poppies or some sort of fantasy plant would work well. (Maybe golden salve is a painkiller?)

[Loud Whispers]

I'd like to note that painkillers used medicinally are mostly a fairly recent thing. In medieval Europe (which DF is least loosely based on), and in most areas before the 1400 cutoff date, there wasn't much of anything in the way of painkillers for surgery. I'm not sure if this was due to culture, availability, compatibility with contemporary medical procedures, or what, but it still doesn't seem to fit.

If we get over or around that problem, poppies or some sort of fantasy plant would work well. (Maybe golden salve is a painkiller?)

Quite so. Painkillers like opium have been recorded to have been used as far back as 1550 BCE, or even further to 3400 BCE by the Sumerians. Drugs, medicine and recreational drugs have been pretty imbued in human history for a long while.

I could think of some ways that this could be implemented rather effectively:

• Randomly generated plants (that may or may not come with syndromes attached). These syndromes could range from causing pain (chili, poisons and such), numbness (painkillers - could cause nerve damage, addiction or death in extremes) to the more fantastic things like immunity to certain things (moly), healing effects or body modifications, or maybe some tags added (eat this and you get [AQUATIC] for example).

This would give the alchemy skill something to do; inexperienced alchemists could produce medicines just as likely to kill you as save you.

• Stock plants in the raws wouldn't be that bad of an idea either. How each civilization views them + the individual person's will/indulgence factored in would be very important as well.
• Certain recreational drugs may inhibit your Dwarves' working ability or fighting shape, overseers may want to stamp out growing addictions or the usage of them altogether.

How would this be implemented in a non-tedious way that could give potential rewards or potential Fun?



I propose that if they were to be implemented, that they not be farmed crops. If they're only gathering-specific, it makes for the importance of region specific plants (including imports) whilst allowing the easy opportunity for their effects to take hold, without turning it into Drug Fortress. It'd be there, but it'd never be a pillar from which the game relies on.

Well, there are a some human cultures that traditionally used drugs like tobacco and marijuana in rituals. Even today, some parts of the world allow it. To be honest I think that dwarves are too ethical and self-righteous for the setting; with technology paralleling the 1400s I'd like to see ethics parallel as well to keep the immersion, which would mean that about everybody is fine with slavery and torture. But I don't want to derail the topic, so I'll stop there. The use of drugs shouldn't necessarily be misguided or punishable was my point.

I'd agree with the Dwarves being too self-righteous for recreational usage. Water is the Dwarves' equivalent of alcohol, and they avoid the hell out of it!

Depictions of the non-recreational usage of real-life traditional medicines can't be any worse than being able to systematically hack someone's limbs off, gouge their eyes out, cut their stomach open, tear their guts from their body and choke them to death with their own severed intestines while they vomit and bleed everywhere, but sure, what the heck. Most of DF's growable plants are fictional anyway.

You're comparing the literal worst things achievable in DF to drugs. Not sure why really, but it is not a terribly useful comparison.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Huh, I didn't know that. Maybe it was more widespread/affordable/whatever stuff, or anesthetics rather than painkillers in general?

I'd like to question why a plant would be unable to be farmed. Inefficient? Perhaps. Impossible? No. A farm is basically a person choosing where to grow something and then nurturing it. That's. It. It's pretty much identical to the conditions found in the wild.

[Loud Whispers]

I'd like to question why a plant would be unable to be farmed.

I have no idea.
Dorf potatoes can't be farmed. Don't know what these are but they can't be farmed. Nor this and its shrouded history. But those reasons exist.

[zwei]

Intresting, but there should be some side affects, since morphine is addictive and if a dwarf gets addicted, they could attempt to steal it from the hospital, since it would be locked in the hospital for safety reasons.  If they get caught, then they get jail time.  No hammering because that can result in being given more of the drug if they survive, but a very long jail scentence.

"since it would be locked in the hospital for safety reason"

Why would it be unsafe to keep them accessible or crime to take them?

It seems that it would be just crime for sake of crime. (just like drug laws in most of the world nowadays)

[10ebbor10]

Intresting, but there should be some side affects, since morphine is addictive and if a dwarf gets addicted, they could attempt to steal it from the hospital, since it would be locked in the hospital for safety reasons.  If they get caught, then they get jail time.  No hammering because that can result in being given more of the drug if they survive, but a very long jail scentence.

"since it would be locked in the hospital for safety reason"

Why would it be unsafe to keep them accessible or crime to take them?

It seems that it would be just crime for sake of crime. (just like drug laws in most of the world nowadays)

1. Because it's rather rare and precious
2. Because it's addictive
3. Because it's incapacitating
4. Because having half your dwarfes stoned all the time would not make for a fun game. Not for you, that is.

Oh, and I have a feeling this is once more derailing to be a political argument.