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[Nyxalinth]

I have had only one failed mood happen out in an even remotely interesting way. My hunter got a mood, claimed a workshop, and didn't have turtle shell. He went beserk and ran amok, injuring a dwarf. His own hunting dogs chased him out of the fort to a pond and tore him to bits.

The others have been kind of dull: they went insane, ran around taking off their clothes and babbling, then finaly drowned themselves or died of hunger/thirst.

[Emily Murkpaddled]

Oh, I have a good one of these.

So the necessary preface is that I was building an above-ground fortress, and beyond the immediate z-level there was even some construction above that, i.e. two-story homes. The other tidbit, which some players might not be familiar with, is that Recruits are eligible for strange moods. That being said --

this was indeed a mood for a Recruit, though the Recruit in question had in his civilian life been a gem cutter/setter. I had very recently traded him into the military because he was only a Novice while I had just received an immigrant of <blank> skill level, with whom I was replacing him. The way that I had set up this fortress was such that the housing was built around the workshop; so, when the Recruit had lost his former job as a Gem Setter, he had also lost his home.

Now, though, he reclaimed his home as part of his mood. And he started making demands. And eventually he got to shell, and I couldn't help him out. I was able to get someone fishing, and fish up some turtles, but no one was interested in processing the turtles so the whole thing went to pot. The Recruit went berserk.

So, here is where all of these little threads come together. The Jeweler's Workshop and home were on the roof of another building, effectively on a small tower; this former jeweler had become a Recruit training with a crossbow, which he had already picked up before the mood struck; and, seeing as how the person who had replaced him now occupied this room as living quarters, well ...

he was the first to die.

But only the first. Because you see, I suddenly had a berserk tower sniper on my hands, and he was indiscriminately raining death onto the workers passing to-and-fro in the town square below. The sniper ran out of civilian targets pretty quickly, but had fresh foes to work with after I mobilized my military and sent them after him. Despite being untrained, the Recruit proved to be a very good shot with his crossbow! He was able to kill two speardwarves clambering up the building's staircase -- the only entrance -- before they got to him, which,

added to the three civilian kills he got, brought his spree total up to five alongside the four or so he maimed. It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

[Fossaman]

*Tower-sniper dwarf anecdote*

That's very nearly too good to be true. But oh, how I want it to be true.

I'm curious, how many did he merely injure?

[DarthRavanger]

I once had a dwarf enter a mood only to later murder two children, (who were siblings) and their mother. THe guard didn't even seem to notice the guy and I had to deploy a military unit just to get someone down there to kill him. He also beat the crap out of, and killed, a puppy. (not like I wasn't going to butcher the thing but still...) The father, who only had his daughter and one of his sons left, was ecstatic!

[silhouette]

Fun times... fun not FUN.
A child who came to the fort just got a mood when he finnaly arrived at the meeting zone. (This was the first wave of migrants so i didnt have a properly established military)
Unfortunitly i could not get the crap he was asking for as i had run out of shells (i dont get fishing :O)
So the child just sat there at the work shop till he went insane, the worst kind of insane... or rather best, bezerk.

I sent my military down there to stop him from ripping the throats out of normal civilians, but by the time they arrived there he had already beaten the crap out of the other two dwarves down there in the craft shop.
The military typically came down the staircase one by one and that was their doom...
Seems the child got some skills on those two weakling dwarves that got absolutely smashed, and proceded to ripp the hell out of the military dwarves one by one as they came down.
Now i recruited EVERYONE in my fort to go down and stop that damn child.
Same thing happens with the military, they all die one by one as they come down the stairs.
I checked his wounds now and then and he only got a few scratches and the highest dammage he was dealt was by a military dwarf who broke his arm.

And that ends the tale of that freaking awsome fort who was destroyed by a berzerker child...


And from that time on ive always named a child dwarf after him, unfortunitly its a rather pathetic name that shows up often like Urist =/.

[JoystickHero]

And from that time on ive always named a child dwarf after him, unfortunitly its a rather pathetic name that shows up often like Urist =/.

What is his name?

[silhouette]

And from that time on ive always named a child dwarf after him, unfortunitly its a rather pathetic name that shows up often like Urist =/.

What is his name?

Mebzuth

It may not be common to others but it certainly is for me =/, serriously, like 1 out of ever 4 dwarves is named that in my games.

[Mipe]

Glassmaker on sandless map. Enuff said. Friggin' immigrants.

Anyway, he went melancholic after sitting in the glass workshop for months. Afterwards, he just limped around slowly, whimpering quietly to himself. None of the bustle around him caught his attention.

What caught my attention was that whenever a dwarf would go sleep, the melancholic glassmaker would SLOWLY walk into their room, right up their bed, watch them sleep and then wander off.

Creepy.

[Retro]

Generally I lock up workshops without materials, channel a hole above, and station a marksdwarf beside it. Dwarf goes berserk, pow pow pow, berserker has been struck down. Pretty simple.

This one I forgot about though. Quite a while ago now, on one of my first forts, I was trying to make each workshop have its own personal room with input below and output above - naturally this didn't work so well, but I've learned since then as one can imagine. Anyways, Urist McMiner goes nuts and I just leave him locked in, assuming he'll starve to death or what have you. A while later I unlock the room, having forgotten the whole thing, and send a new fledgling mason in on block-making duty. He promptly dies. I'm a little confused - I didn't get the "OMFG CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL HE IS SO CRAZY" message flood, so I zoom to his corpse and I see nothing suggesting his death method. Strange, but so is the game. I forget this incident.

A while later I wonder why I've got this locked off workshop and send in another guy to train up on blocks. He dies too, right as I head off to manage something else, and I'm starting to get rather perturbed. I declare the room to be haunted and send in another dwarf (stupidly, not the military), watching him closely. As soon as he starts working, the berserk guys rushes down from the output stairs and KOs the bugger in one hit - as a legendary miner, he's still got his bismuth bronze pick.

Apparently rather than running off, he had ran upstairs to the small 5x5 output room and just... sat there, I don't know. Maybe being murderously insane is tiring or something. DF pathfinding is weird. He was perfectly content to squat up there and run down to butcher anyone who stumbled in. It was the DF equivalent of a bad horror movie. It was hilarious, though; I ended up permanently sealing the room and let it be haunted. Whatshisname will live on in children's bedtime horror stories forever.

[RavingManiac]

On one of my previous fortresses, a smith got a fey mood before I had set up a magma forge. Without a proper workshop, he hid in his bedroom for a month before going berserk. As I had yet to set up a proper military, I locked the bedroom and drafted an idle hunter to take him out.

Turns out the hunter was idle because I had disabled his hunting labor, because he was my starting hunter who had gotten his eyes torn out by a leopard, and could not work due to fainting from the pain every few steps. I only realized this when he was locked in combat with the berserk smith while checking his wounds list, by which time he was already unconscious and getting the crap beaten out of him. Cue my mayor to the rescue, followed by her swarm of personally-trained war dogs.

The hunter lived, albeit with every limb broken and/or mangled.

[JoystickHero]

Generally I lock up workshops without materials, channel a hole above, and station a marksdwarf beside it. Dwarf goes berserk, pow pow pow, berserker has been struck down. Pretty simple.

This one I forgot about though. Quite a while ago now, on one of my first forts, I was trying to make each workshop have its own personal room with input below and output above - naturally this didn't work so well, but I've learned since then as one can imagine. Anyways, Urist McMiner goes nuts and I just leave him locked in, assuming he'll starve to death or what have you. A while later I unlock the room, having forgotten the whole thing, and send a new fledgling mason in on block-making duty. He promptly dies. I'm a little confused - I didn't get the "OMFG CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL HE IS SO CRAZY" message flood, so I zoom to his corpse and I see nothing suggesting his death method. Strange, but so is the game. I forget this incident.

A while later I wonder why I've got this locked off workshop and send in another guy to train up on blocks. He dies too, right as I head off to manage something else, and I'm starting to get rather perturbed. I declare the room to be haunted and send in another dwarf (stupidly, not the military), watching him closely. As soon as he starts working, the berserk guys rushes down from the output stairs and KOs the bugger in one hit - as a legendary miner, he's still got his bismuth bronze pick.

Apparently rather than running off, he had ran upstairs to the small 5x5 output room and just... sat there, I don't know. Maybe being murderously insane is tiring or something. DF pathfinding is weird. He was perfectly content to squat up there and run down to butcher anyone who stumbled in. It was the DF equivalent of a bad horror movie. It was hilarious, though; I ended up permanently sealing the room and let it be haunted. Whatshisname will live on in children's bedtime horror stories forever.

Oh dear Armok, that is hillarious. I wish there was something quotable in that story, I'd sig it so hard.

[A-chana]

My second fey mood was a clothier demanding severeal pieces of silk cloth. Up until then, I had always said "nuts to that" to all cloth, silk or plant, that the merchants offered me, and the map was devoid of anything that produced silk. You can imagine how well this went over with the clothier.

So I sat there watching him for a season. I imagine he went beggar-like on everyone who passed by to go the the parties taking place twenty feet away in the dining room, never thinking to just tear up his shirt or pants or dress to get the needed materials. He finally broke sometime in winter, and as I had predicted (his traits said he was very quick to anger), he went berserk.

The only war dog immediately ran over and mauled him. This was, of course, no Fun at all. I wanted to make the most of this mood, given that this dwarf was named after a favorite (albeit also prone to bouts of anger, insanity, and angry insanity) character for the theme I was going with. What follows after I restarted is best summed up as this, in rather poorly-done script format (funnier than the straight-up description I could do, I think, but I don't know if I could pull off narrative in the right mood. I can try later.), complete with links to images:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sedriss McCrazy: silk plz
Viper McSlacker: lol no. PARTY TIME!
*A third of the fort switches to "Attend Party"*
Kooks McMayor: yeah no. Hey, I feel an inexplicable urge to cut trees, as if someone was controlling my actions!
Sedriss McCrazy: silk plz
Kooks McMayor: Wanna join me, Cog?
Cog the dog: Oh boy, do I ever! Bye guys, leaving you with a known unstable individual who can't complete his artifact!
*Cog and Kooks leave.*
Viper McSlacker: lol k. PARTY TI--
*Sedriss McCrazy cancels Strange Mood: Went insane.*
Sedriss McCrazy: ....siiiilllkkflkjhjkdfJKGEDHJFDGFD
*Fort cancels Attend Party/Be Productive: Interrupted by clothier.*
Fort: OH, WOE, FOR THERE IS A SINGLE ATTACKER! INSTEAD OF MOBBING HIM, WE SHALL ALL RUN ABOUT IN A BLIND PANIC!
Martin McFounder: Calm down everyone and evacuate in a single-file li--
Sedriss McCrazy: SILK HERE? *punches Martin*
Martin McFounder: ow what the hell man that's not cool *punches Sedriss hard enough to break him*
Sedriss McCrazy: ...okay yeah attacking you was a terrible idea. You win this round, but the war is mine!
*He flings himself at a migrant who hasn't been renamed yet.*
Generic McMigrant: hello good sir how can I help you--
*Generic McMigrant has been struck down in two blows.*
*Sedriss smacks a few others around but only deals minor injuries.*
P-shi McRedshirt: hey calm your ass down already man stop killing everyone-- OH ARMOK MY ARM
Sedriss McCrazy: Your bones aren't arranged right. Too straight. Let me fix them for you!
*P-shi McRedshirt has bled to death.*
Sedriss McCrazy: what awwww i didn't even ask if she had silk. I should ask that miller! Really hard.
*Atropos McMiller has been struck down.*
Nido McHeartless: okay seriously cut this out before I call over a hunter or miner and--
*He stops suddenly, and slowly looks down at himself. Sedriss has punched straight into Nido's chest, and he's now gripping his heart and pulling it out to look at it.*
Sedriss McCrazy: ...that's not silk at all.
Cog the dog: WONDER DOG TO THE RESCUE
Sedriss McCrazy: OMG WTF
*Blood ensues. Sedriss McCrazy has been struck down!*
Kooks McMayor: wtf dog you tore off his hand, leg, and lower body
Cog the dog: Dwarf chunks are the favored meal of all canines! Just ask the wolves!
Viper McSlacker: Someone should do something about this wounded peas--
*Nido McHeartless has bled to death.*
Viper McSlacker: --this corpse.
Tsu' McDumbass: yeah whatever. The crazy's dead, so we should celebrate!
Martin McFounder: But we lost five dwarves, corpses and body parts are strewn about, and blood paints the walls and floor.
Tsu' McDumbass: ...PARTY TIME
*Half the fort parties the winter away.*

tl;dr Clothier ran around with a broken lower body, turned one person into a mangled mess, played Operation with the heart of another, and then a war dog bisected him.

[Retro]

Generic McMigrant: hello good sir how can I help you--
Generic McMigrant has been struck down.

Definitely my favourite part. Ah, rampages are fun.

[smjjames]

I usually just lock away the dwarf when I don't want the mood that they are doing, but anyways, here are two somewhat hilarious ones.

In one fort where I was trying to remove and replace parts from the body raws to fix up some injured dwarves, I had a forgeworker in the middle of a mood. So, when I decided to go and remove both arms, said forgeworker went beserk and started going nuts. I went back to a previous save since I was messing around with things. It was still funny though.

In one of my two current forts (I got bored with one and decided to do another in a diff world, but kept that one) I had some peasant who went beserk from a failed mood (damn woodcrafting moods) and while the guy was still beserk, a kid struck a mood. Since it was going to be one of the crafting moods, I thought 'If he wants to go and get torn apart, fine'. I let him into the locked craftsworkshop area and as expected, Urist McBeserko went after the kid. BUT, right as he went onto the same tile as the kid, he fell dead from dehydration.

[qoonpooka]

None of my failed moods led to anything fun, except last night.  This mood never got to fail, but holy crap was it hilarious that it got stuck.

I was doing pretty well for myself on my first chasm (first HFS I knew about, to boot).

Then in early winter of my first year both of my miners drop moods in rapid succession.  Both succeed, but they grabbed the highest level materials I had (including stuff I'd bought off the first caravan ).  I wound up with a 24k Quern, and then a 40k mcguffin of some sort.  At this point my wealth creation was like, 20k.  I'd been having trouble keeping my foodstocks high as I usually hunt and gather in my first year while I search for farming soil.  I had just discovered decent farming soil but hadn't yet brought it up to speed.  The chasm was making gathering hard and hunting out of the question.

Two seasons of 24-dwarf immigration later, it was all over but for the screaming.  Out of desperation I used the Quern to start milling sweet pods into sugar (I had a miller) while I cranked pig tale into booze to cook.  To no avail.  Starvation became rampant, two dwarves went berserk from hunger and then the tantrum spiral started.

Five minutes into the Fun, my tanner suddenly goes Fell on me.  At this point I'm grateful for the population reduction.  He grabs some random immigrant (perhaps out of revenge for them eating all the food - the fell guy is one of my original founders) and hauls him to the butchery.  He has to kick out the butcher who is busying himself with my emergency "puppies and kittens" rationing orders.  This delays food production just a little bit longer.  He murders the immigrant, but doesn't begin his construction...

Instead he runs for the fortress just as someone else goes berserk.  I have no idea why or what he was looking for.  He gets into the residential halls and then just stops moving, standing there and flashing !.

I suspect he wanted another victim, but the victim died from berserk before he got there.  I have no idea what else might've done this.  The tantrum spiral passed the commit threshold about ten minutes later and he (arguably) never got to go nuts.  It was 3AM and I needed to go to bed so I just pushed the 'succumb to spiral' button.

Sometimes a failed mood is a blessing,  y'all.