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Syndrome
v50.14 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF.Note that some content may still need to be updated. |
A syndrome is a disease or effect that a poor, hapless creature might get through encountering certain creatures, extracts, supernatural weather, or vindictive modders. They generally cause unpleasant and frequently fatal symptoms over a short to long period of time, but some will clear up over time or with the assistance of a doctor. A Hospital is required to diagnose and potentially treat the syndrome.
List of syndromes
| Syndrome | Venom | Acquired | Short-term Symptoms | Long-term Symptoms | Chronic Symptoms |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adder bite | adder venom (injected) | Being bitten by an adder, giant adder or adder man | Strong pain | Swelling Blisters Nausea |
|
| Bark scorpion sting | bark scorpion venom (injected) | Being stung by a bark scorpion, giant bark scorpion or bark scorpion man | Strong pain | none | none |
| Black mamba bite | black mamba venom (injected) | Being bitten by a black mamba, giant black mamba or black mamba man | Dizziness Drowsiness Strong pain Fever Unconsciousness Complete paralysis1 |
||
| Blob blisters | cave blob fluid (contact or ingested) |
Touching a cave blob | Mild pain Mild blisters |
None | None |
| Brown recluse spider bite | brown recluse spider venom (injected) | Being bitten by a brown recluse spider, giant brown recluse spider or brown recluse spider man | Nausea Fever Pain |
Severe localized necrosis | |
| Bumblebee sting | bumblebee venom (injected) | Being stung by a bumblebee worker | Pain Strong swelling |
||
| Bushmaster bite | bushmaster venom (injected) | Being bitten by a bushmaster, giant bushmaster or bushmaster man | Strong pain Mild bleeding Dizziness Nausea Unconsciousness Complete paralysis1 |
||
| Cave floater sickness | cave floater gas (inhaled or ingested) |
Expelled from cave floater | Mild nausea | Fever Strong drowsiness (delayed) Strong dizziness (delayed) |
None |
| Cave spider bite | cave spider venom (injected) |
Being bitten by a cave spider | None | None | Very mild dizziness |
| Copperhead snake bite | copperhead snake venom (injected) | Being bitten by a copperhead snake, giant copperhead snake or copperhead snake man | Pain Swelling Nausea |
||
| Giant cave spider bite | giant cave spider venom (injected) |
Being bitten by a giant cave spider | Size-dependant paralysis. | Death by asphyxiation, in small targets. Large targets are generally unhindered. | None, not that it really matters. |
| Gila monster bite | gila monster venom (injected) | Being bitten by a gila monster, giant gila monster or gila monster man | Pain Mild swelling |
||
| Gnomeblight | gnomeblight (contact, inhaled, injected, or ingested) |
Unknown. Affects gnomes only | None | Severe systemic necrosis2 | None |
| Giant desert scorpion sting | giant desert scorpion venom (injected) |
Being stung by a giant desert scorpion | Necrosis of the brain and nervous system | Certain death | None, not that it really matters. |
| Helmet snake bite | helmet snake venom (injected) |
Being bitten by a helmet snake | Minor bleeding | Fever Nausea Dizziness Localized swelling Localized oozing Localized bruising Strong pain Intense localized necrosis Possible loss of limb |
None |
| Honey bee sting | honey bee venom (injected) | Being stung by a honey bee worker | Pain Strong swelling |
||
| Iron man cough | iron man gas (inhaled) |
Expelled by iron man | Coughing blood | None | None |
| King cobra bite | king cobra venom (injected) |
Being bitten by a king cobra | Complete paralysis1 Pain, dizziness, drowsiness |
None | None |
| Phantom spider bite | phantom spider venom (injected) |
Being bitten by a phantom spider | None | Numbness and mild dizziness | None |
| Platypus sting | platypus venom (injected) |
Being kicked by a platypus, giant platypus or platypus man | Pain and swelling | Extreme pain, swelling possibly to the point of necrosis | None |
| Rattlesnake bite | rattlesnake venom (injected) |
Being bitten by a rattlesnake, giant rattlesnake or rattlesnake man | Pain, nausea, blisters, swelling, bruising | Severe localized necrosis | None |
| Serpent man bite | serpent man venom (injected) |
Being bitten by a serpent man | Complete paralysis1 | None | None |
| [evil rain] sickness3 | random | Being caught outside in freakish weather in an evil biome | random | random | random |
| [evil cloud] sickness4 | Being caught in a creeping cloud in an evil biome | ||||
| beast sickness5 | Encounters with forgotten beasts | ||||
| titan sickness5 | Encounters with titans | ||||
| demon sickness5 | Encounters with demons |
- 1. For small creatures such as humans and dwarves, paralysis tends to result in suffocation.
- 2. Necrosis of the brain will eventually result in death once the brain rots away completely.
- 3. Evil rain typically only causes minor symptoms such as blisters, bruising, coughing blood, dizziness, fever, nausea, oozing, and pain.
- 4. Evil clouds either cause major symptoms (as with beast/titan/demon sicknesses) or permanently transform creatures into zombie-like forms.
- 5. Titans, forgotten beasts, and demons have a chance to have a randomized syndrome. These range from pointless (mild blisters from inhaling boiling blood) to instantly fatal (severe necrosis from a contact poison attached to a breath weapon/creature made of blood).
The anatomy of a syndrome
Mechanically, syndromes are bundles of tokens attached to a material - they're confined to creature materials in vanilla DF, but it's a simple matter to add them to inorganic materials. When the material is injected, touched, inhaled, or ingested (depending on the syndrome), the creature suffers the predations of a nasty disease or poison. Here's an example syndrome, taken from the Giant Cave Spider raws.
If you are having troubles getting the syndromes to work (i.e., in combat reports, getting "supersnake n/a splatters~etc"), then simply throw the venom template into the actual creature's raw, which is what the LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT actually calls on; the venom being in the same file.
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:POISON:CREATURE_EXTRACT_TEMPLATE]
[STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:frozen giant cave spider venom]
[STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:frozen giant cave spider venom]
[STATE_NAME:LIQUID:giant cave spider venom]
[STATE_ADJ:LIQUID:giant cave spider venom]
[STATE_NAME:GAS:boiling giant cave spider venom]
[STATE_ADJ:GAS:boiling giant cave spider venom]
[PREFIX:NONE]
[ENTERS_BLOOD]
[SYNDROME]
[SYN_NAME:giant cave spider bite]
[SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
[SYN_IMMUNE_CREATURE:SPIDER_CAVE:ALL]
[SYN_INJECTED]
[CE_PARALYSIS:SEV:100:PROB:100:RESISTABLE:SIZE_DILUTES:START:5:PEAK:10:END:20]
The first line, USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE, is creating a new material, called POISON, using the CREATURE_EXTRACT_TEMPLATE as the basis. After this, the STATE_NAME and STATE_ADJ tokens are used to define the names and adjectives assigned to different states of the material - GAS, LIQUID and ALL_SOLID, in this case, though ALL is also a valid token. At this stage, you can use any material tags like MAT_FIXED_TEMP or similar to set further material properties, though this usually isn't necessary.
ENTERS_BLOOD
This tag determines whether a poison enters the blood or not. If it is not included, the poison will splatter (if liquid) or flow (if gas) over the affected body part instead when injected. If you're using a contact poison, leave this out. Necessary for injected poisons.
SYNDROME
This tag ends the material details and begins the definition of the actual syndrome.
SYN_NAME
This one is self-explanatory - the name of the syndrome as it will appear in-game.
SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS
This token defines what CREATURE_CLASS will be affected by the syndrome. Most creatures are classed under GENERAL_POISON. Multiple tokens can be used in a single syndrome.
SYN_IMMUNE_CLASS
As above, but makes class immune.
SYN_IMMUNE_CREATURE
This token defines which creatures CANNOT be affected by the syndrome - useful for addressing specific instances within a population, such as a specific caste or an individual creature that falls under GENERAL_POISON. Syntax is [SYN_IMMUNE_CREATURE:creature:caste]. ALL can be used for the caste.
SYN_AFFECTED_CREATURE
As above, but makes creature or caste susceptible.
SYN_CLASS
This tag sets a class for the syndrome that can be used in interactions.
SYN_INJECTED, SYN_CONTACT, SYN_INHALED, SYN_INGESTED
This token determines the method of infection - injected syndromes must be injected via a creature attack, while contact syndromes result from any contamination of a creature by material splatter (such as blood), inhaled syndromes must be inhaled in gaseous form (such as from boiling or a creature breath attack), and ingestion syndromes must be eaten or drunk. Any combination of these tags can be used. A fun variation on the usual creature injection routine is to create a material with a SYN_CONTACT syndrome and have a creature use it for blood - this tends to end poorly for any predator that chooses to attack them.
[SPECIALATTACK_INJECT_EXTRACT:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:VENOM:LIQUID:100:100]
This is one method for getting a poison into a creature. If [ENTERS_BLOOD] is applied, it will be injected into the bloodstream. Otherwise, it will just splatter over the area. Put this on a creature attack. Substance type (gas, liquid, solid) does not appear to have an effect. The numbers on the end are minimum and maximum.
CE_X, or creature effect tokens, are the real meat and bones of your syndrome. They're detailed below.
Creature effect tokens
Each and every syndrome has a number of creature effect tokens, represented by CE_X - these lovely little beauties determine exactly how the poor creature suffering from the syndrome is affected. An example CE token is as follows:
[CE_NECROSIS:SEV:100:PROB:100:LOCALIZED:VASCULAR_ONLY:RESISTABLE:START:50:PEAK:1000:END:2000]
In this example, we have an effect that will always cause severe necrosis in whichever bodypart it touches, so long as that bodypart is vascular and that the creature is not able to resist it in some manner. The effect begins shortly after the syndrome is contracted, peaks 1000 time units afterwards, and finally ceases another 1000 time units later.
As a general rule of thumb, so long as CE_X starts the string and START/(PEAK/END) end it, the order of the intervening tokens isn't important. PEAK and END aren't required.
- CE_X
The effect type. This can be a number of different tokens, as detailed in the table below this list.
- SEV:X
The severity of the effect. Higher values appear to be worse, with SEV:1000 CE_NECROSIS causing a part to near-instantly become rotten.
- PROB:X
The probability of the effect actually manifesting in the victim, as a percentage. 100 means always, 1 means a 1 in 100 chance.
- LOCALIZED (Overwrites BP tokens)
This tag causes an effect to ignore all BP tokens and then forces the game to attempt to apply the effect to the limb that came into contact with the contagion - i.e. the part that was bitten by the creature injecting the syndrome material, or the one that was splattered by a contact contagion. If an effect can not be applied to the contacted limb (such as IMPAIR_FUNCTION on a non-organ) then this token makes the syndrome have no effect. This token also makes inhaled syndromes have no effect.
- BP:BODY_PART:TISSUE (Overwritten by LOCALIZED)
Specifies which body parts and tissues are to be affected by the syndrome. BODY_PART can be BY_CATEGORY:x to target body parts with a matching [CATEGORY:x] body token (or ALL to affect everything), BY_TYPE:x to target body parts having a particular type (UPPERBODY, LOWERBODY, HEAD, GRASP, or STANCE), or BY_TOKEN:x to target individual body parts by their ID (as specified in the [BP] token). For example, if you wanted to target the lungs of a creature, you would use BP:BY_CATEGORY:LUNG:ALL. The syndrome would act on all bodyparts within the creature with the CATEGORY tag LUNG and affect all tissue layers. For another example, say you wanted to cause the skin to rot off a creature - you could use BP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:SKIN, targeting the SKIN tissue on all bodyparts. Multiple targets can be given in one syndrome by placing the BP tokens end to end. This is one of the most powerful and useful aspects of the syndrome system, as it allows you to selectively target bodyparts relevant to the contagion, like lungs for coal dust inhalation, or the eyes for exposure to an acid gas. Not everything takes a target!
- VASCULAR_ONLY (Optional)
This syndrome only affects tissue layers with the VASCULAR token.
- MUSCULAR_ONLY (Optional)
This syndrome only affects tissue layers with the MUSCULAR token. Are you seeing a trend here?
- SIZE_DILUTES (Optional)
This token presumably causes the effects of the syndrome to scale with the size of the creature compared to the size of the dose of contagion they received, but has yet to be extensively tested.
- SIZE_DELAYS (Optional)
As above, this token has yet to be tested but presumably delays the onset of a syndrome according to the size of the victim.
The details of this table are still being thrashed out by modders, so if you have anything to add, please don't hesitate to hit the edit button!
Non-targeted syndromes will ignore any BP tokens and LOCALIZED tokens.
| Token | Accepts Target | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CE_BLEEDING | Yes | Causes the targeted bodypart to start bleeding, with heavy enough bleeding resulting in the death of the sufferer. Some conditions seem to cause bleeding to be fatal no matter how weak. |
| CE_BLISTERS | Yes | Covers the targeted bodypart with blisters. |
| CE_BRUISING | Yes | Causes the targeted bodypart to undergo bruising. |
| CE_IMPAIR_FUNCTION | Yes | An organ afflicted with this CE is rendered inoperable - for example, if both lungs are impaired the creature can't breathe and will suffocate. This token only affects organs, not limbs. Note that this effect is currently bugged, and will not "turn off" until the creature receives a wound to cause its body parts to update. |
| CE_NECROSIS | Yes | Causes the targeted bodypart to rot, with associated tissue damage and miasma. Badly necrotic limbs will require amputation and heavy rot will eventually result in bleeding. Necrosis has some strange behavior involving bleeding to death that isn't fully understood; a 100% necrotic creature can survive fine with no non-yellow bodyparts but will die of bleeding as soon as they end a round of combat, even if they never take a hit. Because of this, fairly useless unless targeting the lungs or eyes. |
| CE_NUMBNESS | Yes | Causes numbness in the affected body part, blocking pain. Extreme numbness may lead to sensory nerve damage. |
| CE_OOZING | Yes | Causes pus to ooze from the afflicted bodypart. |
| CE_PAIN | Yes | Afflicts the targeted bodypart with intense pain. |
| CE_PARALYSIS | No | Causes paralysis. Paralysis is complete paralysis and will cause suffocation in smaller creatures. |
| CE_SWELLING | Yes | Causes the targeted bodypart to swell up. Extreme swelling may lead to necrosis. |
| CE_COUGH_BLOOD | No | This effect results in the sufferer periodically coughing blood, which stains the tile they're on and requires cleanup. It doesn't appear to be lethal, but may cause minor bleeding damage. |
| CE_DIZZINESS | No | Inflicts the Dizziness condition, occasional fainting and a general slowdown in movement and work speed. |
| CE_DROWSINESS | No | Causes the Drowsiness condition. |
| CE_FEVER | No | Causes the Fever condition. |
| CE_NAUSEA | No | Causes the Nausea condition, and heavy vomiting. Can eventually lead to dehydration and death. |
| CE_UNCONSCIOUSNESS | No | Renders unconscious. |
| CE_VOMIT_BLOOD | No | This effect results in the sufferer periodically vomiting blood, which stains the tile they're on and requires cleanup. It doesn't appear to be lethal, but may cause minor bleeding damage. |
Special Effects
Several special syndrome effects take different arguments than the above. These are used for generated interactions in unmodded games, but may be used as well for any substance or custom interaction.
| Token | Accepts Target | Arguments | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| CE_ADD_TAG | No | tags | Adds a tag to the affected creature. Many arguments can be used sequentially within one syndrome token. See the Interaction token IT_REQUIRES for valid tags. |
| CE_REMOVE_TAG | No | tags | Removes a tag from a creature. Supported arguments are the same as CE_ADD_TAG. |
| CE_DISPLAY_TILE | No | TILE:tile number:colour | The creature displays the specified tile and colour instead of its normal one. |
| CE_DISPLAY_NAME | No | NAME:singular:plural:adjective | Attaches a specified name to the creature's normal name. |
| CE_FLASH_TILE | No | TILE:tile number:colour:FREQUENCY:ticks default tile:ticks syndrome tile | The creature flashes between its normal tile and the one specified here. |
| CE_PHYS_ATT_CHANGE | No | Attribute:percentage:fixed boost(?) | Alters the physical attributes of a creature. |
| CE_MENT_ATT_CHANGE | No | Attribute:percentage:fixed boost(?) | Alters the mental attributes of a creature. |
| CE_CHANGE_PERSONALITY | No | FACET:facet token:modifier | Alters the personality of a creature. |
| CE_BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER | No | APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT/LENGTH/BROADNESS:percentage(?) | Alters the size of the creature. |
| CE_BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER | Yes | body part:APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:attribute:number] | Alters the characteristics (height, width etc.) of a body part. |
| CE_MATERIAL_FORCE_MULTIPLIER | No | MAT_MULT:material:A:B | Makes creature affected by materials more or less by a factor of A/B. If A is 3 and B is 2, the creature will be 1.5x weaker to the defined material (can be NONE:NONE for all); if 2:3, the creature will be 1.5 times stronger. |
| CE_BODY_MAT_INTERACTION | No | Causes one of the creature's materials to trigger an interaction, generally when ingested. Several additional tokens may be specified after this:
| |
| CE_SPEED_CHANGE | No | speed modifier:number | Changes the speed of a creature.
Speed modifier contains one or both:
The minimum and maximum speeds able to be created by CE_SPEED_CHANGE are 99 and 10,000 respectively. |
| CE_CAN_DO_INTERACTION | No | Makes the creature able to perform an interaction. See Interaction token. To specify the interaction, use the argument:
| |
| CE_BODY_TRANSFORMATION | No | PROB:percentage:START:time:END:time | Transforms into another creature. PROB and END arguments optional. The target creature is specified with:
Note that any wounds the creature has suffered will instantly heal upon transforming, both into and out of the target form. Undead limbs of a creature with this token will grow into a full instance of that creature. |
| CE_SKILL_ROLL_ADJUST | No | PERC:percentage:PERC_ON:percentage | Alters the skill level of a creature. The argument PERC specifies a percentage of the creature's current skill, and PERC_ON the probability of the effect being applied on a particular roll. |
| CE_SENSE_CREATURE_CLASS | No | CLASS:creature class:tile:color | Allows creature to see other creatures with given class through walls. Vampires, for example, have CLASS:GENERAL_POISON:15:4:0:1. |
All creature effect tokens take START, END and PROB numbers, and can be followed by [CE:PERIODIC] and/or [CE:COUNTER_TRIGGER] to restrict when they actually take effect.
- PERIODIC:period_type:min_value:max_value
- COUNTER_TRIGGER:counter_name:min_value:max_value:REQUIRED
Currently, the only valid period type is MOON_PHASE.
Counter Triggers
Valid counter values are below:
| Counter | Description |
|---|---|
| ALCOHOLIC | How long it's been (in time units) since the creature last had a drink of alcohol. Only present on creatures who need alcohol to get through the working day.
|
| MOUNTAIN | How much the creature minds being outdoors. Low values are known to decrease the severity of certain unhappy thoughts.
|
| TIME_SINCE_BREAK | How long it's been (in time units) since the creature last went on break. Creatures generally go at least a year (100800 time units) between breaks unless the economy is active (which never happens). |
| ON_BREAK | How long (in time units) the creature has been on break. Once it reaches 15000 (about 12.5 days), the creature should get back to work. |
| CAVE_ADAPT | How cave-adapted the creature is. Increases by 1 for every time unit spent underground, to a maximum of 800000.
|
| PARTIED_OUT | How long before the creature will decide to attend another party. Starts at 3+ months and counts down to zero. |
| MILK_COUNTER | How long before the creature can be milked again. Starts at the creature's MILK frequency and counts down to zero. |
| EGG_SPENT | How long before the creature can lay more eggs. Starts at 3 months and counts down to zero. |
| GROUNDED_ANIMAL_ANGER | How angry (and likely to attack) an animal is from being over-crowded. Increases when over-crowded and otherwise counts down to zero. |
| TIME_SINCE_SUCKED_BLOOD | How long it's been (in time units) since the creature last sucked somebody's blood. |
| DRINKING_BLOOD | How much longer the creature will be drinking somebody's blood. Starts at 2.4 days and counts down to zero. |
Inorganic syndromes and you!
It's perfectly possible - and quite simple - to add a nasty syndrome to a type of rock or metal - you simply add the syndrome tokens to the material definition in the same manner that you would add them to a creature material definition. The only catch is that since your hapless dwarves will only normally encounter the material in metal, gem or boulder form, a bit of creativity must be used to actually get them inside your citizens - that is, you need to make them 'explosively boil' as soon as they're mined or produced. This has the sad side effect of destroying the actual item - sorry, no highly radioactive uranium this release.
The easiest way to accomplish this is to assign the material a low boiling point, usually just under room temperature, and make sure its temperature is fixed to a point above it.
[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:9001] [BOILING_POINT:9000]
Now, as soon as this substance hits the open air - by being mined, smelted or reaction-produced at a custom workshop - it will EXPLOSIVELY BOIL, flooding a small area with delicious syndrome-rich gas. Creatures who inhale the gas will be immediately hit with the syndrome you thoughtfully attached to the material definition earlier!
There are a number of other tokens you can use to control the colour and naming conventions of your syndrome material, referred to as MATERIAL tokens.