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[Felblood]

You don't start out by just swallowing a whole pinch of pure arsenic. You start with a dose of highly impure stuff, so small it has no palpable effect, and work your way up to something that gives you a buzz. Mix 5mg into your mashed potatoes, --or have somebody trying to kill you do it for you, since even tiny does like this will kill you eventually.

Once your body has become highly resistant, you can stave off the fatal effects of one dose by taking another one. However, to keep you alive, your body starts becoming resistant much faster, so you need more and more frequent doses.

The reported perks are feelings of invulnerability and godlike power. Guys on this stuff think they could take on the world with their fists and survive. Which is ironic, since your body is consuming it's muscle tissues to combat the poisons, and your digestive system shuts down completely, making you a wasted skeletal figure that can barely even stand.

Plus, it can give you cancer.

This isn't the kind of drug schoolkids get into at a party. It's a form of willful suicide that takes a few years to finish.

[Rilder]

While were on the subject how about some stuff to give our military dwarves before battle.

You know like certain Celtic warriors who stripped down and went to battle drugged to hell so they couldn't feel pain.

[Felblood]

There are plenty of much better drugs for that.

Ones that don't take months of dangerous conditioning in advance, or inevitably kill all your champions in horrible ways, involving massive muscle atrophy and chronic diarrhea. Soldiers who don't have the strength to stand tend to be ineffective in combat.

This isn't the kind of drug that might kill you. This is the kind of drug that will kill you --and quickly.

Stimulants, from Caffeine all the way up to Amphetamines, are better choices. Yeah, the really hard ones, like Meth, can also be a death sentence, and they're all pretty hard on the kidneys, but just about anything is better than arsenic.

Even if it was a viable tactic, who besides the goblins would inflict that sort of thing on their own soldiers? Why not just set a bunch of recruits on fire and send them out in a blaze of glory?

[JoshuaFH]

Even if it was a viable tactic, who besides the goblins would inflict that sort of thing on their own soldiers? Why not just set a bunch of recruits on fire and send them out in a blaze of glory?

That'd be AWESOME!

[Mel_Vixen]

Hehe give them swords an enought shrooms so they slaughter like an freaked out derwish while burning cause they dont feel Pain.

[Felblood]

Also, it will make your hair brittle and even fall out. Think of the beards, man! Think of the beards!

There's some merit (that feels like the wrong word, considering...) to dosing your soldiers with hashish or opium to eliminate their fear. Suicide bombers are often given opium, to help make sure they go through with it.

Drugs that eliminate the sensation of pain should prevent dwarves from reacting to being on fire. --not that dwarves currently react to being on fire, but when they do, they could not do it while hopped up on PCP or shrooms or whatever additives you're putting in your psycho serum. That way flaming banzai soldiers can be a measure of last resort.

Still these tactics strike a pretty disturbing chord, and might be better in the hands of the goblins. Their morale is presently pretty pathetic, to the point that killing two gobs can break a siege. They need the help, and it would make their demon overlords that much more vile.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I don't know that our dwarfs necessarily need *too* many recreational drugs. They're kind of already crazy enough... although I wonder if there's such a think as a dwarf anti-depressant?

[JoshuaFH]

I wonder if there's such a think as a dwarf anti-depressant?

Yeah, they're called Legendary Dining rooms.

[SirHoneyBadger]

The idea that a dwarf's grief at witnessing his entire family stomped to death by undead elephants, can then be alleviated by a nice mahogany dining set, is perhaps, somewhat, a problem in and of itself.

[Onlyhestands]

You could give the dwarves nutmeg, which is an extreamly low grade hallucinogen when taken in large doses. Seriously, look it up.

I can *cough* confirm this

I can see Dwarves smoking during their breaks, but maybe the ones who overdid it would lose work and waste their dwarfbucks on it.

Also imagine playing as a tripin' adventurer and fighting things which aren't really there.

[Pilsu]

The idea that a dwarf's grief at witnessing his entire family stomped to death by undead elephants, can then be alleviated by a nice mahogany dining set, is perhaps, somewhat, a problem in and of itself.

No, dwarves hating flies so much they commit suicide after seeing some is the problem. The highest mood could use a rename too to make it seem.. less over the top

Perhaps a Depressed debuff akin to nausea that inhibits work speed and makes them occasionally mope in their room while capping their max mood to unhappy? Moping would of course have to replace tantrums for those affected or it'd inevitably cause a tantrum spiral. Also, insanity would only result from very unhappy or lower so it'd still be salvageable. Having friends comfort the dwarf could lower it's duration, giving a happy/unhappy thought to the person depending on whether he likes listening to whining he's altruistic. It'd still last quite a while

I'd say depressive dwarves might get it spontaneously but let's face it, that would make most people filter out the emos from the migrants and kill them. Probably a better idea to make it control how easily the dwarf gets depressed. It shouldn't be random chance, just.. say, really depressive dwarves start moping when they lose a sibling/parent, somewhat depressive ones go emo when they lose a friend and the rest cry when losing kids/their last kid all the way to spouse only or not caring at all. Could have another Grieving status that caps their mood to fine for the rest. It'd slow workspeed less than being outright Depressed and they wouldn't mope about

[Fensfield]

Here's a relevant suggestion, which I don't Think's come up...

Given the time at which this is set, why not include, just for interest factor, 'city killer' drugs?  A real world example would, I guess, be Spider's Web Opium, which was used as a means of controlling, and in some cases, destroying settlements in the past.

It's a kind of drug whereby it's cheap, and easy to produce, relatively low potency, but with an unbelievably high addiction factor.  'Figured it might be interesting to have the capacity for that sort of inter-settlement warfare - instead of sending out your army to directly attack an enemy settlement, you could send a merchant to discretely introduce some unbelievably addictive Dwarven narcotic among the lower orders, then watch as the city becomes reliant on you to supply it, draining them of resources and then denying the drug and watching as the settlement descends into anarchy and destroys itself, as a result.

[Vattic]

Fensfield that is certainly an interesting idea, slightly less extreme but similar idea I just had, you could get a civilisation addicted to a drug you produce and then trade it to them further for a nice profit, the demand is unlikely to drop.

Even if it was a viable tactic, who besides the goblins would inflict that sort of thing on their own soldiers?

Funny you mention that as us humans have been at it for a long time, in some of the most "advanced" countries in the world they give soldiers on guard duty stimulants to keep them frosty, oh and pilots. Funny thing is these same drugs are illegal otherwise.

[Felblood]

Well yeah, but like I said, even hard stims with serious side effects are a marked improvement over arsenic. How frosty are your guards going to be with chronic diarrhea?

East India style drug trading would be an interesting mechanic, as would gifting infected blankets from the plague quarantine. However, I wonder if they really fit the tone of DF.

As for the rubber bouncing between Ecstatic and Depressed, I'd like to see those two states further apart. Many of my drarves hover above ecstatic, but can still drop down to unhappy or miserable over a fairly minor thing. I often find myself wondering how ecstatic my ecstatic dwarf is, and counting up his happy and unhappy thoughts to make a rough estimate myself. Making the ranges wider, so that some currently ecstatic dwarves become quite consent, and a small number of unhappy dwarves read as miserable, would make it easier to tell how close to the edge a specific dwarf is.

Right now, anything other than ecstatic is "unsafe" and ecstatic is "possibly safe, but how would you know?" It doesn't make for a particularly useful gauge of dwarven sanity.

Also, why do dwarves have to freak out if they lose a loved one? People aren't normally happy about losing loved ones, but most people can cope with the loss, without torturing animals. Maybe that's just dwarves, but I'd like to see more responses to sadness than violence. Moping is a good start, along with stealing and career changes (No more carving wood for the man! Life's too short for that! I'm going to follow my dream and become an architect!).

[Granite26]

As for the rubber bouncing between Ecstatic and Depressed,

I think that's a part of dwarven personality having high imoderation and emotionality in the raws