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[Pirate Santa]

So one of my legendary axelords was imprisoned for failing to produce something for the Founding Administrator/Duke/King.

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That's fine, standard noble behavior, he can rejoin his fellows when he's released.
And it would have been, except he went stark raving mad while chained up in the prison under the tower of justice.

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Now I was expecting him to die within a few months, so imagine my surprise when a solid 4-6 months later he's still around.
(Not sure exact time sorry, but he went mad in summer and it's winter now)
Now when he went mad he was still chained up, and he didn't break out. His sentence has finished, but no one has released him. In fact they appear to be still caring for him.

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He's a bit drowsy but otherwise his survival needs are being met. According to the Food page of the wiki he should have starved or dehydrated after 2-3 months.
I have yet to catch anyone in the act but I have observed there being no bucket next to him, and then later on there is.
So has anyone ever seen this before? Or have I managed to invent the dwarven mental asylum?

[Shonai_Dweller]

Dorfs who can't move (presumably being chained up counts) get given food and water by other dorfs. They'd probably avoid the area if he weren't chained up. Or wander in then run away crying.

[Pirate Santa]

Yeah I've seen that plenty of times with patients and prisoners, but it's my first time I've ever seen someone who has gone insane be cared for, normally they drop dead within 2-3 months when their thirst/hunger meter gets too high.
I'm most interested in seeing how long I can keep him alive in his "asylum".

[Shonai_Dweller]

Yeah I've seen that plenty of times with patients and prisoners, but it's my first time I've ever seen someone who has gone insane be cared for, normally they drop dead within 2-3 months when their thirst/hunger meter gets too high.
I'm most interested in seeing how long I can keep him alive in his "asylum".

I guess it's a rare case as if he'd already gone mad, chain jobs would get cancelled when anyone got near him. Hard to replicate though. Blame all crimes on the dorfs closest to mental breakdown? That might work. 

[Pirate Santa]

Haha man I'd love to.
For the moment though this guy is all I have, he's currently survived a year of theoretically life ending insanity, I'm starting to think about ways I could help get him rehabilitated.
Engrave the walls with pictures of cows?
Somehow get a cow down there with him?
Install a mist generator?
Moss opal encrusted trifle pewter tables?
That prison pit is a bit depressing at the moment.

Update: Surrounded the poor guy with high quality engravings of cows and a superior quality trifle pewter table but he still feels terrible about not being able to appreciate art. I'm afraid he might be beyond the ability to feel positive reactions to things other than receiving food and water.
Weirdly though his stress is at -93000. 

[anewaname]

I have an unfortunate axedwarf that was accidentally caged in a fight, was hauled into a stockpile of animated dwarf flesh and went insane before being noticed. They have been getting water and maybe food for a couple of years now. They cannot be assigned to restraints so I am guessing he will starve to death if freed.

[PatrikLundell]

The dwarven asylum has been operating for years. The inmates are called "Bay watchers", and most of them are too far gone to even realize they're locked up...

[Fearless Son]

My guess is he finally snapped after he got too stressed from his confinement.  I doubt madness can be "cure". 

The confinement itself could have been a little less stressful though.  Surrounding the chain you could have a bed, a one-tile stockpile with a barrel of booze another one-tile stockpile with stack of prepared food, plus a table and chair to eat at.  Getting jailed for a while is stressful for a dwarf just on the face of it, having unpleasant conditions just compounds it. 

[Urist McVoyager]

It takes time. Usually they don't survive this long, but I swear I can remember reading that it IS possible to rehab them. At least to recover the depressed ones if you get to them before the breaking point. Not sure if it's possible to undo what yours is going through.

Definitely look into make future cells into more pleasant places. And rig them with deathtraps in case you get ones like this.

ETA: Scratch that. According to the wiki, insanity is permanent. It's just possible to reverse course before you get there if you know what you're doing.

[TheFlame52]

If you want to be a dirty cheater, get DFhack and use gui/gm-editor to remove his insanity.

[muldrake]

ETA: Scratch that. According to the wiki, insanity is permanent. It's just possible to reverse course before you get there if you know what you're doing.

It seems like the vast majority of dwarves don't go insane almost no matter what happens.  I think the whole system has been nerfed to avoid tantrum spirals.  However, there seem to be some naturally unhappy dwarves who go insane almost no matter what, even if you give them luxuriant quarters made out of their favorite materials, give them their own dining room with stockpiles that only take their favorite foods, keep them out of evil rains, etc.

[Urist McVoyager]

I don't remember if the "Missing family members" bug was patched out or not. The one where a migrant with family in another fortress will just miss them to the point of depression even though there should be a logical fix of them coming to the fortress. If only we could target our own civ with artifact retrieval missions. We might see some emergent thing of someone coming back from a family member's town with a happy note in their thoughts page about visiting family, if we could. I mean, a family home could be a logical place to bunk down for a headquarters when searching the area.

On a later pass, like a bugfix for this one, it might be nice to see extra "missions" appear like vacation and whatnot.

[TheFlame52]

I don't remember if the "Missing family members" bug was patched out or not. The one where a migrant with family in another fortress will just miss them to the point of depression even though there should be a logical fix of them coming to the fortress.

Actually, they're missing relatives that were kidnapped by goblins.

[Pirate Santa]

I'm fully aware he is forever doomed, so the nice things I do for him will just be roleplay.