Madness Possibilities

I'd like to suggest that in addition to the currently ppanned madness effects of random violence and marching into the sea never to return that there also be the possibilities 0f DF-like sttrange moods and the possibility of marching into the sea and returning as a Deep One or posessed by a monster.

Extreme obsessions and catatonia would also make decent (if a tad less interesting) possibilities.

 

I can see them adding phobias of inane things. Maybe the berrypicker is utterly terrified of barrels and has panic attacks whenever he goes to deposit his berries.

 

They mentioned something similar not long ago and I cannot for the life of remember what it was, but it was definitely a citizen afraid of things that would seem ordinary.

I can just see it now: random citizens running around town, screaming their lungs out because of the coming of the Barrels!

 

What, like Ashton from Star Ocean 2?

 

I one of the recent interviews it mentioned that madness does not only inflict people, but objects as well. If an insane person builds or manufactures something then that object will have an associated madness. If this is the case, I feel a snowball effect may occur in the late game.

A chair maker has his house accidentally explode and grows a bit mad. He then begins to make chairs with inherent madness. The town begins to use these chairs and become more mad. A farmer begins to grow mad crops, people eat these insane crops and grow more incoherent.. so on and so forth. A very interesting mechanic if this is the case.

 

@muddyhawk

I confused, so if I get what you're saying a architect/builder that's afraid of logs will build a house only out of stone and anyone that lives in that house will potentially become slightly afraid of logs themselves?

Also aren't opium products, booze, and other medications (also parks, luxury goods and other pleasant things) supposed to alleviate the maddness? If so that would be fun if your colony completely consumed by madness, eldrich architecture and fish people walking down the streets amongst them only to still be happy due to their Laudanum addiction. Then the Opium farm suddenly has a bad harvest....

 

I'd like it if they could also resort to drugging the actual eldritch abominations themselves like at the end of the Star Trek episode Wolf in the Fold

 

Sorry, I didn't explain that very well. When I said madness I'm imagining it as an absolute value, as opposed to a phobia directed to a specific object. I don't know how it would conflict with things that give positives to prevent madness. Perhaps alcohol that normally gives +5 value to prevent madness only gives +4 when made by a slightly insane Brewer. I'm just throwing around speculation of course.

 

I think they mentioned that sometimes for instance a builder could go mad and become obsessed with building bricks, I assume these bricks would spread madness to people who worked in that building.

 

So you're all saying madness is like an infectious disease?

Imagine the potential...

To be honest, I have mixed feelings on that despite how Fun it sounds.
Will there be a way to cure madness? Are psychologists doctors and therapy medicine?
Or is the only way to stop the spread of the disease to remove the infected colonists, permanently?

 

Once a colonist develops a madness-cure-related madness and infects the colony, that's it

The material for a Sparta joke is here, but I can't quite put it together

 

Well you're playing a ticking time bomb. The madness WILL destroy your colony if something doesn't beforehand.

 

As long as my mad architect makes buildings out of meat i'll be happy.

"Welcome to the Baron Tisslemouse Memorial Factory, what can we do for you?"
"Hello I... did that wall just twitch?"
"No."
"It did! I saw it. It just groaned too!"
"Nothing of the sort happen."
"What are you people making here?!"
"Despair."

 

I'm just hoping for clearly insane aristocrats to start requesting peculiar objects (see candelabras, robes, 72 human fingernails etc etc.) Also I wonder if your bureaucrat can go insane, or if the cripplingly depressing life of the frontier has already taken it's tole on him/her.

 

Here is the interview I was referring to. I would definitely imagine there being many things to counter madness and bad thoughts.

Look at dwarf fortress. Many bad things can accumulate to madness: death, hunger, shitty sleeping arrangements, shitty environment. On the other side if you supply them with sufficient things to make them happy (see booze), then things are quite sustainable. It's only when something crazy happens like a big Cyclops going on a murderous rampage that can swing things off balance. But that stuff is what makes it awesome.

It just seems with madness being inherent in objects, it can create a much bigger potential to snowball out of control. Depending how this is implemented, this can be really awesome. Once again, this is all speculation.

 

Well it´s all speculation so far. We don´t even know if madness is directly linked to phobias or if those are two sepperate systems. For example someone could be mad and afraid of nothing, while others could have phobias of mines (cause a relative died in one) without being mad.

 

I was literally thinking "being afraid of something that can explode you to death isn't irrational" before I realized you were talking about the other kind of mines

 

Granted, the mines are in no way a safe place what with all the dangerous gasses, cave ins, cosmic artifacts, etc

 

How dare you suggest that the Queen would provide such dangerous working environments for her loyal servants!

 

presumable madness could lead to phobias and vice versa.