It is common for players to breed dogs for the purpose of war, hunting, or as pets. Dogs will inevitably die as they cross paths with enemies or, rarely, of old age. Players may also be incentivized to kill their own dogs to prevent lag, as if you have too many dogs on screen it can negatively affect your FPS. The best way to avoid encountering dog death is to not embark with or purchase dogs.
Dwarves may become "insane" if their stress level is too high for too long. One of the ways this can manifest is becoming "stark raving mad", which results in them behaving erratically and wandering around at random, seemingly disconnected from reality. It can also manifest as dwarves becoming "Catatonic", which is self-explanatory.
it is not particularly common, but children can be left by their parents under certain circumstances, such as if they panic when combat happens or if they are driven mad by a failed Strange Mood. Children also tend to entertain themselves after a certain point and perform various chores around your fortress, leaving them potentially on their own for prolonged periods of time.
There is no intentional child abuse, but there are currently several bugs involving this, such as a mother accidentally placing her newborn child on the ground and leaving it there.
Through incompetence or malice, players may cause undue suffering to their livestock and pets. Animals can be left inside to starve, or left outside during an invasion to be killed.
A dragon may attack your fortress when you have accumulated 100,000 units worth of wealth, or a population of 80 dwarves. In the end, it's you or them. Dragons also die during worldgen.
"Giant" versions and benign version of several spider species, even fictional ones, exist. "Giant Cave Spiders" are a notorious creature within the community, and have been given sprites as with every other creature with the Steam release. Mods exist to replace the Giant Cave Spiders with silkworms, for example.
There are various insects, including giant variations and many kinds of insect people, however, the vanilla game is entirely in Ascii and uses letters to represent them
Since v50, most humanoids are only considered adults, and thus able to procreate and marry and do all labors, at 18 years of age. Before v50, the standard was 12, which is far lower than the age of majority across the world.
it is possible if combat takes place in a wet environment for an injured party to fall to the ground and subsequently drown, but generally if drowning occurs it is either an accident or caused by a player-built trap, and while it is possible for someone in combat to strangle someone on the ground in wet conditions, this is simply random chance rather than purposeful
It is possible for creatures who have their lungs severely damaged to spend a few in-game ticks struggling to breathe, and non-aquatic or non-amphibious creatures can also suffocate if they stay underneath water above neck-length for too long if they do not know how to/cannot swim
Sentient creatures from Elven civilizations will eat the bodies of sapient creatures they kill in war, regardless of whether they are also Elves or not
Creatures can be covered in a monster's extract, which can cause their flesh to rot away while they're still alive. There are "Night Creatures", sentient creatures that have been warped into twisted experiments by necromancers. You can encounter zombies who will continue to persist with missing body parts. Necromancers are able to reanimate severed body parts, so dwarves can be attacked by intestines and severed arms.
Creatures are described as having "lower legs" and "feet", but nothing more detailed than that. You will never read a description of your dwarve's Achilles Tendon specifically being injured, though their feet may be severed or rendered useless.
Due to the in-depth combat system, eye mutilation is always a possibility. This is never visually represented, however, as the ASCII display consists of, well. ASCII characters. The premium version's sprites only change to reflect equipment.
in the new versions of dwarf fortress intestines being outside of the body can be seen in the graphics, since things are no longer ascii only, but these injuries are relatively rare. In addition to this there are sprites for generalized and specific organs from creatures that can be butchered in fortress mode.
Goblins may appear in the form of "snatchers," and try to steal dwarven children for the purpose of slave labor. They're less likely to succeed in kidnapping actual infants though, as they are carried and protected by their mothers for some time.
Most deaths in combat can be construed as a dwarf sacrificing themself for the good of their fort. You may also be put in positions where it is wise to sacrifice a dwarf to wall in a monster or stop a flood.
dwarves can now both be married to an individual and have one or more lovers, but whether this constitutes cheating or if it is part of an open relationship is not fully clear in game.
The community speaks in a sort of code to avoid spoiling late-game content, and will use terms like "clown" and "circus" to avoid spoiling the true content of the late game. For the sake of those with clown phobias: there are not actually clowns, and there is no circus.
There is an entire Justice system built into the game, and by default, dwarves see failure to meet production demands as a punishable offence served by jailtime. Capital and corporal punishment are also meted out by dwarf society and the player will see these unfold if they hire a Hammerer and Sheriff/Captain of the Guard. Authoritative characters (e.g. nobles) will get unhappy thoughts if there are not enough prison cells on hand.
One of a kind, procedurally-generated artifacts can be created over the course of the game, but also stolen, or outright destroyed or lost by accident or incident. The Legends mode will detail some artifact holders destroying/abandoning artifacts over the course of their world's history. The player can also engage in the act of destroying artifacts willingly.
Arguably yes. There is an "insanity" system in the game where after becoming stressed, a creature becomes permanently stuck in an extreme emotional state. One is beserk, which leads to dwarves indiscriminately fighting and potentially killing anyone they possibly can, with no exceptions. Again, this does not wear off, the implication being that your dwarf has "snapped" irrevocably.
Dwarves may become struck by melancholy, which will cause them to seek a way to commit suicide. They also stop eating/drinking, so if they cannot find a good enough way to die, they simply die of dehydration/starvation.
There is not much noise in the game apart from music, ambient noise, and alerts. I doubt that it would have misophonia triggers. The classic version of the game also had no audio except for some optional music; if you wanted to, you could completely mute the game without issue.
If a dwarf with a high anxiety propensity is very mentally unhealthy, they can go "stark raving mad". They will run around babbling incoherently, drop all their items, and eventually run into a hazard and die, or simply starve to death. This condition cannot be cured.
A lot of the game is based around carving out a fortress underground, so small rooms and tunnels are common. Fortunately, the graphics are very basic and so, at least in my case, claustrophobia is generally not triggered.
Espionage including stalking is detailed in Legends mode and has its place in Dwarf Fortress mode. "Moles" can be hired by frequent visitors to the player's own fortress to keep a tab on artifacts they intend to steal, for example. The player tends not to realize this unless someone confesses during questioning.
Dwarves can become pregnant, but that essentially just sets a timer for them to give birth in 9 months. If a pregnant dwarf dies, you likely wouldn't even know that they were pregnant.
There are dwarves of various sexualities in game and no homophobia present.
Same sex marriages are both legal and treated as normal (making dwarf society significantly more progressive than my home country).
Some of the physical descriptions of fat dwarves can be very colorful or somewhat harsh, such as "He has a broad body made broader still by no shortage of surrounding lard"
Almost all creatures capable of speech will worship something. Churches will form around deities as the world generates. The player has to interact with these churches over the course of the dwarf fortress mode, as they will demand their priesthood recognized once they have a sufficient following. In Adventure mode, temples can be visited.
Characters can lose their clothing in various ways causing them disstress and eventually this will happen in every fortress. Yet, all creatures in game are represented by ASCII letters and symbols that do not reflect their looks.
While romantic relationships are not possible between direct relatives such as siblings, there is nothing to prevent more distant relatives such as cousins from getting married and even having children.
Dwarves will procreate and have lovers, and one of their stats is how lustful they are. Dancers in taverns may also arouse their audience. Nothing is shown on screen, or becomes more graphic than that.
Rarely, poisonings or magical means like the forgotten beasts' "deadly dust" can inflict dwarves with an incurable affliction and lead to fatality. Terminal injuries are also portrayed - Infected wounds typically cannot be treated, and nerve damage is permanent.
In adventure mode, you can be presented with extremely rudimentary back-and-forth one-line debates with NPCs about values and ethics that can dip into existential topics like death, and the meaning of things like family, all depending on the cultural values of the speaker. Treatises on philosophical topics also exist within the game world, but are broad, and likewise described with no more complexity than a single sentence synopsis.
Losing is fun! (But in seriousness: both Fortress and Adventure modes are open-ended sandboxes. There is no 'win' condition, but plenty of ways to die.)
Non-aquatic/Non-amphibious creatures can drown if they spend too much time underwater or do not have any swimming skill and spend too much time in high water
Blood and Gore is shown both in the simple Ascii art when Creatures are injured and also described in great medical detail when looking into combat logs