Editing Setting:Unified Setting/Secrets of Everoc (section)

===Madness===

Everyone knows that a dwarf is as solid as the rock they mine. Practical, level-headed, and blunt the dwarven character is so widely known they are frequent comic-foils in theater and puppet shows.

Except in Everoc, their homeland. Dwarves already live under conditions of unspeakable stress. Tight confines, back-breaking labor in confined, lightless conditions and the constant danger of cave-ins or explosive gas. That's nothing. The dwarves can handle that.

But in Everoc dwarves can crack. They drink more alcohol, they obsess over work more, they are gruffer and more abrasive. Moodiness, withdrawal, suicide and outbursts of berserk frenzy are constant plagues. In terrible cases these emotional disturbances can spiral out of control, and more than one fortress has fallen to insanity and murder spreading like wildfire. 

It is a subject the dwarves prefer not to discuss, saying only that the unfortunate individual or fortress lacked iron. Iron in this case is not a metaphor, but the actual chemical element with atomic number 26.