40d:Tantrum

Dwarves are fickle creatures, and when pressed to the breaking point of their happiness, they will tantrum. A tantruming dwarf may attack people and animals, destroy buildings, or throw things. The dwarf will receive happy thoughts from doing this. Those acts are generally considered a crime.

Dwarves will tantrum if they are at the "very unhappy" level of happiness or worse. If a dwarf has created a small number of masterpiece-level items, they can become quite unhappy if any of them are destroyed or stolen - a dwarf who creates hundreds of masterpieces will only be mildly annoyed if one happens to be lost. Masterpiece engravings can be destroyed by miners digging out walls or floors, angering the engraver who made them. Dwarves will also become unhappy if a masterpiece building is destroyed (possibly by another dwarf throwing a tantrum), but not if it is deconstructed.

Beware that it is very much possible for a tantruming dwarf to destroy the bridge he is standing on (and potentially drown or simply fall to his death).

A tantrum describes the actions of a dwarf who momentarily goes out of control, throwing things, breaking things, punching nearby dwarfs, and generally causing trouble. In unlucky cases, this can cause the loss of valued items, or the injury or death of bystanders. Justice will often fall upon a dwarf who has caused damage to body or property.

A tantrum is usually due to, in that dwarf's opinion, the environment being personally unacceptable. This can be due to a long series of substandard food, drink, shelter, and general living conditions, or a sudden and acute change brought on by the death of a friend, family member, or favourite pet, the loss of a masterpiece, or other extreme, negative experience.

Viewing a dwarf's profile ( v, p, z, Enter ), their thoughts will usually spell out their grievances in the form of good/bad thoughts.

A leader can often talk a dwarf down from the ledge with a meeting. If an unhappy dwarf is seeking a meeting (which is always with the leader), it's recommended to temporarily turn off all labor designations on the leader until the meeting is concluded.

A tantrum from one dwarf can often trigger tantrums in others - this is known as a tantrum chain, or, especially if it grows out of control and threatens the fortress as a whole, a tantrum spiral. If any dwarf throws a tantrum that cannot be explained by a personal loss, it should be taken as a warning. When this happens, it often signifies that the other dwarves are unhappy--and if they aren't already, they probably/possibly will be soon.

In more mature fortresses, tantrums have been known to have particularly nasty results. In extreme cases, a chain of tantrums can bring a fortress to its metaphorical knees. Chains don't occur particularly often, but when they do, they are extraordinarily hard to stop.

They generally play out something like this:

Dwarf A throws a tantrum, and punches Dwarf B.

A recovers happily, but B throws a tantrum and smashes the butcher's workshop to bits.

The butcher, C, tantrums and destroys the table of the closest noble, D.

D tantrums, starting fights with three other dwarves--A, C, and E.

All of them tantrum, and C is taken into custody.

E gets busy and smacks B. Meanwhile, C is killed by the hammerdwarf, accidentally or otherwise.

C's friends, F, G, H, I, J, and K, all tantrum and do other nasty things.

Everybody eventually tantrums and the fortress production grinds to a halt.

Everybody starves, throws themselves into a volcano, or otherwise dies.

• Ways to check a dwarf's happiness