Dwarf Fortress - Praise Armok!

Insanity is caused by any number of things. Most likely, he was either miserable or failed a "mood".

-If he had a Strange Mood (possessed, fey, etc...) then he would've abruptly stopped whatever he was doing, barged into a workshop and claimed it. He'd then demand certain items be made available - if available, he'd take them, if not, he'd wait a while. If he goes too long without his required items, he will go insane. It depends on the kind of mood they went in the kind of insanity that occurs.
-If he was miserable for too long, he probably went mad from the strain.

Insanity:
Comes in a number of strains.
-Berserk - they become an enemy of your civilisation, and will attack anyone, including their family or children indiscriminately. This is usually easily countered by a dog or two wandering the fort, but if it's a strong/armored/weapon'd dwarf, then it becomes incredibly dangerous. If not killed immediately, they can and will slaughter anything in their way. If there is no one they can find, they eventually die of dehydration or starvation.

-Stark raving mad - They run around babbling, and strip off their clothing one by one. They do not seek death by killing others or suicide, but will die of starvation and/or dehydration eventually.

-Melancholy - They move very slowly, refuse food and water, and look for things to throw themselves into/on. If you have an open magma pit, expect them to throw themselves into it. Similarly with water, they'll make no attempts to save themselves.
Even if you have a small hill, even if it's a metre tall, they'll throw themselves off it repeatedly to try and injure themselves. If they cannot find any water/magma/hills to throw themselves into, they'll simply wander around until they starve or dehydrate.

To have a dwarf set something ablaze is impossible unless there's some intense heat - a still and alcohol are quite explosive, but they wouldn't go up without flames. The only way I think this could occur is if you have a modded game where dwarves can throw fireballs or something.
Collapses will only occur if a support is removed, but an underground fort never needs support... so your story is kinda odd.

 

Aha.

 

Yup, what I presume is going to be 0.37.01 is gonna be fun. (Invaders are still totally turtle-able, you just need to build an overhang.)

 

I'm calling it - it'll release on the 4th of July. Toady did a similar thing last release with DF2012, which was on Valentine's Day, Feb 14.

this is a very helpful post that expands exactly on what other users have said

 

Every time someone posts here my heart stops thinking IT'S HERE.

Every time I'm crushed.

Life in a nutshell.

 

This is a terrible gif of me waiting for the release


July 4th release would be fine by me though.

 

I just started playing this! Pretty cool so far. A were-porcupine mauled my only dwarven child, and when I told his parents to be the doctors and do nothing else but healthcare, one of them went on break and the other went to go harvest plants (which you can't tell them not to do apparently). He died, and they don't seem too upset about it...

I guess I should have waited a week for this update before starting? Although it looks like the update is mostly adventure mode. I think I might stick to fortress mode in the current version.

 

The healthcare industry is tough to set up, but here's what you need.

• Dwarf with a Diagnostician skill above Novice made into the noble position "Chief Medical Dwarf". Anything lower than Novice will frequently misdiagnose problems. They should probably not have any labors except Diagnose set up.
• A hospital zone, defined under the button press I from the main UI screen.
• A stockpile of soap within the hospital.
• A stockpile of cloth near or within the hospital.
• A source of water (like a well) preferably close to the hospital. This helps people fetch water faster, and clean themselves faster. Plus, washing at the well with soap gives a happy thought.
• Multiple dwarves who have skill above Novice in Bone Doctor, Wound Dresser, Surgeon or Suturer. These all have their own things they operate on, which are fairly self explanatory. You could have just the Chief Medical Dwarf do this alone, but then you've got one Super Dwarf, MD, who will only operate every now and then because he needs a Break or a Drink or a Party every now and then.
• You need idlers with Recover Wounded, Cleaning and Feed Wounded enabled in their labors. Preferably, these should be dwarves who 'enjoy helping others', as they will get a minor happy thought from rescuing injured. Dwarves who dislike helping others get an unhappy thought every time they rescue a dwarf, which can really add up when you have a bunch of injured, which is when your fort is already perilously close to a tantrum spiral.
• Beds and tables (or traction benches). These should be placed next to each other like so: bed/table bed/table bed/table - that way, the wounded won't wake from unconsciousness when they're moved onto their table or traction bench for operation. Without tables or traction benches, the dwarf simply will rely on their own healing, and minor cleaning and stuff like that to recover, but serious injuries require operation.

Here's what the doctor labors do.

• Diagnostician: Given to your Chief Medical Dwarf, these dwarves determine precisely WHAT injury has occurred, and what needs to be done. Basically, they're the ones who will issue commands to your other doctors. They can operate too, but frequently will not as they're lazy shithead nobles.
• Bone Doctor: Fairly self explanatory. They'll repair broken bones with splints, give dwarves crutches, reset broken bones and dislocated joints. I'm not sure if they remove a bone that needs to be removed, eg a necrotic bone.
• Wound Dressers: These guys just clean the area around the injury using cloth, soap and water. If you are missing any of those three, it is likely the wounded/sick will get an infection after the operation, so they're pretty important.
• Surgeon: These dwarves will do most of the nitty gritty work. Rotten tissue need debridement? Surgeon'll do it. Crushed tissue need repair? Surgeon. Bleeding needs to be stopped? Surgeon will have a go, but probably won't be able to stop it manually. :P
• Suturer: These ones are usually the last to operate - they close up a wound using whatever stitches are available, anything that comes under thread will work, so you could potentially end up having a dwarf sewn together with adamantine thread. Keep your yarn or wool thread close to the hospital to prevent expensive adamantine threads from being used.

Now, once all of the above is set up, a dwarf who is injured will be rescued by anyone with the Recover Wounded labor active, deposited in any bed (if hospital zone is not set up) or a hospital bed. The Chief Medical Dwarf will hopefully come along and diagnose the problem, which is viewable in the Health section of the z-screen.
Say little Billy comes in with mauling problems. He'd probably need a significant amount of wound dressing and cleaning. This is the order it goes in:

Chief Med Dwarf -> Diagnose problem as injuries. Needs wound dressing, cleaning, suturing, bone doctoring to fix breaks.
Wound Dresser -> Comes in and cleans the wound ready for operation.
Bone Doctor -> Moves little Billy to the table or Traction Bench to reset/repair his broken bones, apply splints and hand him a pair of crutches when he's up again.
Suturer -> Sew shut the bite marks and other open wounds using whatever thread is available.

The surgeon in this case is not needed, because there is no real need for him - there is no complex overlapping injuries (ie. a bone sticking out of a wound), no internal organ damage, and no syndrome/disease.

Hope that helped a bit.

Adventure mode is getting a HUGE update with this new version.

 

Woah! I'm just a little nubling with a 50-dwarf fort (and 30 of those just came in a single migrant wave), but this is a seriously good overview. Haven't seen much trouble yet, I'm only in the second year and there are no goblins round these parts - but I do live in an area mostly populated by wacky monster animals instead of things like raccoons. I had to tell my hunters to cool it after one of them got his foot bitten clean off by a "giant peach-faced lovebird". He's actually the father of the dwarven child that died, so if he croaks too, his wife the manager is not going to be happy.

His ankle doesn't seem to be spouting blood everywhere, but I should probably try to get that hospital set up quick... is it better to have clueless dwarves trying to fix him or no dwarves at all? The only medical talent in this fort is one surgeon. Ah, he can probably figure it out.

Thanks for the advice!

 

Yeah, set Diagnostician active on that surgeon, make him CMD, and he should hopefully diagnose properly.
(I'm not sure that low Diagnostician actually affects WHAT surgery they do, just the speed of diagnosis)...