Obok's Outrage!

In Dwarf Fortress, each individual dwarf has a stress level, which is constantly changed by thoughts. Thoughts may come from events directly observed or experienced, such as fighting or worshiping, or from memories of such events, which makes dwarves really hard to recover and very bouncy in their moods (can come from stress free to a pile of nerves in days). When dwarves become really stressed they can throw tantrums, in which they become violent, scream and throw objects, start fights and can even kill.

In the fort of Wheelsvault, since its early years, many guests were given permanent residency in the fort in exchange of protection, given to the fort by slaying monsters and dangerous wild creatures in the area. But the fort didn't have many luxuries or good accommodations to offer, only the occasional free food, drink and clothing, which pushed many of these non-civilian residents into high stress level, especially, Vispol Doñassorus, a human lay consort that has been one of the first non-dwarf to be given residency in the fort. She quickly became highly stressed even though she wasn't doing much slaying (no kills whatsoever while in the fort) as she had a high standard of living and hasn't found such luxuries in the fort. In one of her first tantrums, when the justice system of the fort hadn't been established yet, she punched one of the fort's llamas, injuring the animal's tail. The event went unnoticed until the justice system was established.

Vispol wasn't done with her transgressions, she went to jail twice receiving severe beatings in both times due to starting fist fights in the local tavern, in her second time there she was convicted for killing one of the cats of the fort, the pet of one of the dwarves (which makes the issue especially worse). But, rarely jail time helps, she only got worse by going to jail, never better, so in a way of avoiding sentencing for such a minor crime as the llama punching episode, I've convicted a dead cave crocodile of the crime, it wasn't any crocodile though, it had killed a monster slayer before and was feared, as such have being given a name, Mobmulaspar.

Well, Vispol ended up going nuts one day and got into a battle frenesi in the forges, she was put down without much trouble but badly injured a child in the process, now her body rests in the fort as many of the other slayers that came seeking for glory but she will be remembered more for her trouble making and tragic end. Also, she serves as a lesson of the effects of incarceration, it clearly doesn't seem to help, but I will give more chances to the process and also it's important to mention that the affected parties of any misconduct usually react to the justice offered, so if you ignore, they may get angry and if you do something you may loose the offending party, it's a tough spot.

Anyway, what about the whole Obok's outrage? That name didn't even come up in the story. Right, that's how this game works, unexpected stuff happens in unexpected places. A completely unrelated dwarf, Obok, currently undergoing stress treatment in my wrestling camp (it's kind of a spa for the dwarves, they love it), while watching a dodging demonstration decided to get pissed and had a stressing thought related to the llama's case (yes, not with the llama, with the case). Obok was outraged! He couldn't dwell well upon the fact that an Animal was convicted of a crime! YES! Obok, a virtual, completely non-existing being, reached a very philosophical conclusion regarding Morality, that animals can't be subject to it, they are not moral agents and as such can't be imposed a moral judgement, yes the crocodile could have hurt someone but he cannot be held guilty of any transgression as he had no ability to conform to those rules.

So that's it, for today's Dwarf Fortress moment, we have Obok's outrage, where a plot of diverting guilty from a troublesome party to a non-moral agent resulted in a furious dwarf that doesn't accept such nonsense.

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Title image from: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/420382946438802648/