Dedicated Dorf Dreadif the elves can have one so can we!post;interesting rules/homebrew you've come across for the mountainfokinteresting write ups on themalternative interpretations that you quite liked reference material, art or otherwiseyour dwarven table tales or just discuss them
I actually have a couple of things to start us of, found this little book on dwarven military, quite nice but quite short and basic
How thick is too thick?
>>94774394and if your in more creative mood I formatted a post from bay12 that attempts to codify the dwarven language from dwarf fortress, dictionary included, should help if you want to give places more meaningful names or just cook up exotic slurs
>>94774417I find it's all dependent on proportions
and a question to stimulate some initial discussion;how do you like to imagine a dwarven hold is laid out? I find it quite annoying when most artists just show a normal city but in a big cave completely missing the creative opportunity a subterranean city offers in terms of design that leads onto another question, how do you think dwarves carve out their holds? do they mine them out or do they more follow natural caves?
>>94774516>do they mine them out or do they more follow natural caves?probably a preference for caves starting out but as the hold grows they have the manpower to just dig more rooms and levelsreal question is where does all the mined rock go?
>>94775044probably what builds the surface hold initially, then as things progress it's processed, sold and shipped out elsewhere, a kingdom near a hold probably never needs a quarry
>>94775044Into their bread, of course.There's never enough consideration for Pratchett Dwarfs in these threads. He handed us a full civilization on a plate.
>>94774417I'd eat it.
Painting up some miners for old World, the expeditionary force. I find the whole ambusher rule funny. Thinking of getting just generic dirt for basing idk.>why are they on roundsthey were free and i guess he used them in a CoS army before the current metas
>>94774375>if the elves can have one so can we!This one sentence sums up dorfwankers so perfectly lmao
>>94775144looking good anon>>94775105>There's never enough consideration for Pratchett Dwarfs in these threads. He handed us a full civilization on a plate.I imagine the more satirical nature of his works is a turn off for some cynics here >>94775760'twas just a playful joke anon
anyone know of any campaigns based around the reclamation of a hold? any system I just want to know if they're out there
Excited to play my dorf this Sunday after over a month hiatus
I like dorfs
>>94775956As far as I can tell, no, and believe me sir, I have searched, I've been running one for over a year (the players have committed a genocide) and it's a specific kind. There's a TTRPG called Mountain Home which is more about settling a mountain, but it's a PBTA game or whatever and not really an RPG. Or good, since it does the whole "dwarves can be whatever you want, you can be a slender tall knife ear and call it a dwarf" absolute slopThere's Stoneburner which is another rules lite slopfest that's space dwarves.Otherwise I dunno, the Dwarrowdeep module for Dragonslayer..I think the general idea is that if you're a pissy leftist you basically have to try and ignore the fact that you're basically founding fantasy Israel(outcast nomadic people driven out and empire destroyed killing all the denizens to rebuild their old kingdom from ages past) and if you're not a schizophrenic asshole then there's like so many systems that typically don't necessarily make for a great RPG session, such as resource allocation, mass battles, building defenses, and so on.Most attempts are basically a board game, a typical rpg with a "spend X gold to buy houses" mechanic or whatever. tl;dr there's not much but there's a few ok video games
Back when I was still trying to fit dorfs in my world, I gave them an origin mythos claiming the gods sculpted them in a long-lost cavern, with most of the Law carved into its walls, only to pull a full on gone for milk trick and disappear before the first dorfs awoke. From the Law being obviously unfinished, dorfs inferred they were work in progress; thus there was a religious dimension to dorfen diggy hole hard-on, as they were desperately trying to find their absent gods to ask them the most important questions: "why?" and "what now?"this feeling of incomleteness permeated dorfen culture, leading to unhealthy levels of dedication to work, fanatical reverence of the Law and, in later centuries, when the holds were falling one by one and god-digging expeditions were naught by a distant memory, a strong sense of fatalism and melancholy.
>>94776984ooh that is a nice angle, might nick some of that myself
>>94774375Has anyone run a "retake an ancient dwarf city" campaign? How did it go? Its my next campaign i want to run.I imagine it to be more open ended and sandbox. Players decided what buildings to retake first then establishing fortifications
>>94776327>tl;dr there's not much but there's a few ok video gamesgrim, you'd think with Tolkien's popularity there'd be mountains (heh) of them
>>94777227I've got da: origins and sir terry pratchett to thank for smacking me over the head with the idea of actually flavouring the bog-standard, both settings' portrayal of dorfs managed to be amazingly fresh just by fine use of detail
>>94777227Actually, if you'd also want to spice it up with a conflict in the heart of dorfen society, let me introduce you to Ogandyrg, the god of arts and innovation, who may or may not have been responsible for dorfen gods' disappearance:name: Ogandyrgtitles: Orza Barum (daunting change)alignment: chaotic neutralportfolio: beauty, art, innovation, mechanics, time, chaosdomain: time, chaosphysical appearance: Ogandyrg is represented as a tall, lanky humanoid (all gods whose names were found are represented as tall and lanky, that's just dorfen artstyle) with half of his body meticulously constructed of mechanical gears and cogs, the other barely marked with impressionistic strokesmythology: Amazing and full of wonders were the palaces of the gods, but even in the midst of such grandeur, the halls of Ogandyrg stood out for the beauty and audacity with which they challenged the immutable laws of physics. Openwork galleries of feather-light pumice stretched above platforms of sapphire thinner than a fingernail, creating a breathtakingly alien paradise where water flowed uphill and mechanical birds sang complex melodies with pulses of absolute silence. As Ogandyrg worked, however, reality became increasingly distorted and curved, causing ripples in the perfect order of the universe. If the followers of the god of beauty - sculptors and mechanics - are to be believed, when Ogandyrg invited the other gods to show them his latest creations, the entire palace fell out of the cogs of the cosmic machine and now exists somewhere outside of time, and the lost deities can only be reached by following in His footsteps.As his followers are mostly indispensable artisans and mechanics who cannot really all be shunned or assigned to penal legions, they are free to question dorfen traditions; however, it doesn't prevent the lawkeepers from inciting traditionalists to violence against them at any chance.
>>94777742My friend played an Ogandyrgian engineer-priest as one would an Adeptus Mechanicus with the morality of a Socialist-Revolutionary from the Russian Civil War and it was glorious
>>94774417If we're going Warhammer rules, you get an amount of gold equal to your wife's weight as a dowry. Man those harpoons.
Posted my dorf in a few other threads, but would be a shame to miss this one.This is Halthor Axe-Breaker. He studies goblin histories and tribal dialects so he can be even more racist towards them.
>>94774417a female dwarf who does NOT feature the 'hartmann hips hourglass' and tits that individually are each as large as her head, with a big round MUSCLED ass you can BOUNCE a throwing axe off of, if her hair doesn't weigh as much as the rest of her, she is considered Unwomanly and mannish.its the dwarven men who are barrels of stone and metal on legs, with beards.
>>94774375but what of the noldor, the deep elves?
>>94774463grossI fucking hate that stupid art style
>>94774516>I find it quite annoying when most artists just show a normal city but in a big caveYeah it's the worst>how do you think dwarves carve out their holds? do they mine them out or do they more follow natural caves?I'd say a dwarf settlement starts with them either finding a large-but not gigantic-cave that acts as the main plaza and they carve their houses around which leads to a rather cramped place. When it turns into a large and wealthy hold, they begin plans to rebuild the plaza to showcase their wealth, skills and craftsmanship.Kinda like Rome and Paris under Augustus and Napoleon III "I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble"
>>94774375So you think he's natty?
>>94774516>how do you like to imagine a dwarven hold is laid out?>surface citadel, main defence against the outside world, may or may not have a surface city depending on what's available/needed from the outside>entrance, glorified gatehouse, customs office and gallery, big stairway or ramp down into the hold proper >first floor plaza, vast open area to welcome people into the hold, from here it branches off into varies quarters, halls and stairwells beyond those it's entirely dependent on the history, needs and location of the hold
>>94782498I wonder, do dwarf nobles prefer to be in the upper hold? given it's the oldest part of the city
>>94782586given most of the presented wealth will be there one can assume, or at the very least the stairs to their personal palace quarters will be there
to add to the hold talk I like to think think housing is primarily based around courtyards and multi-generational homesat least for more middle class dorfs
>>94784109that's actually a really nice idea anon, you've inspired me
>>94780648He snorts crystal dust for sure
>>94784109>>94784265certainly beats the usual basic room that most people go with (I blame colony sims)
>>94784304probably better suited for slums and work residents near the mines
>>94784109>>94784265>have to listen to granddwarf play the dwarven equivalent of mahjong all night with his mates
>>94788045>metal and stone pieces >against the metal and stone table >they're all drunk so they're howling at the top of their lungs>pretty sure your nephew has been chipping away at the wall again >have to get up at 4 tomorrow for your apprenticeship with quartzbeardthe gods are testing you Urist
>>94784109>>94784265I always thought that's how'd they'd live. In large multi generational holds that are interconnected to large communal areas like markets and workshops.
how do you like your dwarven religions? shared with the surface races? separate pantheon? ancestor worship?I feel ancestor worship works best thematically but it usually just turns into a pantheon by any other name and I'm never quite sure how to fit it into the faith systems of the popular systems
>>94789113Worship of the Earth/Mountains as their God(s) + worship of their ancestors as saints.>it usually just turns into a pantheon by any other name I'm not sure what you mean. If you treat them more like saints instead of gods they can have overlapping "domains". Just like we probably have 50 protectors of the poors you can have 50 saints of blacksmithing who ascended by forging legendary shit. All more or less prominent.
MANLETS LMAO
>>94789113Dwarves in my setting venerate the written teachings of a progenitor dwarf. Carved in ancient dwarven runes on stone tablets he laid down everything it means to be a dwarf. Sadly the original tablets are long lost and only copied translations are left. The rune keepers never disagreed on the translation or the interpretation/intent of the tablets until recently (for a dwarf). This has caused alot of strife in dwarven society as sever different "true" interpretations exist now. Most dwarves follow what they have always followed but others have adopted new ways and some have twisted it to their benefit.
This is the only good piece of art of female dwarves with beards that Ive seen and it's quite clever
>>94789113I kinda like the idea that they go off of an animism system. They view the mountain as a living organism, and themselves as symbiotic with it. They thank the mountain for its flesh (stone and ore), ans in turn build their structures in a way to support the stability of the mountain. Mix in some anscestor worship, a vague creator diety, and them having their own names for the mountain that they live in which is used in gratefulness rituals but is consisered either rude or weirdly formal to use in any other context.
>>94790071comfy
Rune magic: Key dwarf motif or overused trope?
>>94784304>2x3 >wardrobe AND cofferA mansion fit for a nobledwarf
>>94774516>>94789113Got me some janky uplifted pseudo-sapients who can emulate orc, hobbit or dwarf phenotypes depending on context. In the case of subterranean ones their usually mongrel mix of hallucinogenic symbiote fungi is isolated into specific cave-gardens associated with discrete family units rather than the whole horde on the move.Rather than a brutal, flexible Dark Lord tulpa arising from the masses to master them the "dwarves" stay put cultivating eccentricity in their own garden's ecology (the texture of their addled thought along with it) and carving information their puny memories can't process into stone / long-winded saga. Thus rather than a Dark Lord there are the Ancestors, a set of recurring identities mantled one after the other through the generations. Faith and self are sorta inseparable as even on nootropic entheogens a Grog at most apes sapience as a bicameral mind.That said abstract philosophy and "the cultivation of self" is a matter of engineering and infrastructure. The nucleus of civilisation is >>94784109 on steroids with the courtyard garden being synonymous with the family itself. They have a more complicated relationship with forging than regular dwarves since the pollutants don't disperse so easy underground and to profane the garden is unthinkable. That said fungi prevent heavy metal build up and the sedentary, well-chronicled lives dwarves lead make them far better crafters than the orcs or hobbits. Given how finnicky their style of existence is they badly need that edge.>>94790071If they're too deep for ventilation I wonder how they dump waste heat? Subterranean rivers might be an option but then as water'd be gold dust you may just be starting a feud with the dudes downstream who don't want EVEN MORE heat flowing into their halls...>>94790350"Maggots in the primal titan" has always had a nice ring to it!
>>94792452I like it, gives them a unique flavour of magic and leans into their thing as craftsmen any systems that have a nice rune magic system? any good homebrew adaptions? I've been wanting to play a grumbling runesmith for some time now
>>94792452>>94793178>bumpfag slinks into a thread to talk about magic systems againthank you for the chuckle
>>94793185???did I miss something happening elsewhere?
>>94793185I think you're actually deranged at this point man. I posted that when it the thread was like on page 3. Step away from the computer.
>>94789113In my setting, the gods who created the dwarves are dead, and the dwarves are aware of this. Traditionally, dwarves practice a form of ancestor worship. Dwarves can imbue their greatest creations with a fragment of their own souls. These creations have incredible longevity and they are treated as holy objects, though perhaps not in the way a human or elf might expect (the dwarves' reverence for these objects naturally includes using them for their intended purpose; leaving them on a pedestal to collect dust would be disrespectful). So the current generation of dwarves are watched over and assisted by the past generations in a very real sense. A few groups of dwarves have assimilated into the setting's dominant religion, which worships a pantheon ruled by a god of light. The god of light's religion considers any practice that involves mortals tampering with souls (even their own) to be a grave sin; this belief inherently conflicts with dwarven tradition, so many dwarves are resistant to it. Even so, dwarf culture is slowly but surely becoming torn between the old ways and the demands of the gods.
>>94789225love this idea, big temples for the gods, smaller public shrines for saints, big cathedrals for the whole pantheon and small familiar shrines on the homes to honoring the ancestors, probably in the central yard like >>94784109 & >>94784265 said. maybe the dwarven houses are like roman insulae and several generations of a clan live within the same household
>>94793178I know Pathfinder 1e has the forgemaster cleric, but you are trading channel energy for a bunch of effects that I'm not sure is worth itin terms of homebrew solutions all I could find was this redditor shilling his book, not so sure about the balance though https://old.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/kryhzh/ancestral_runes_dwarvish_enhance_your_weapons/https://old.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/c216mb/runestones_enhance_your_weapons_and_armor_with/
>>94792452I like it. It fits into my dwarves obsession with history and recording everything.
I need gimmick hold ideas because I love the conceptone place I've got is a hold whose entire industry is focused around textiles because they made an ancient pact with a spider broodmother so now they have a nigh infinite supply of spider silk and the broodmother herself weaves tapestries that fetch a king's ransomnot sure how monstrous I want her though, having a horrific looking but otherwise well spoken and polite monster is nice but I do find the idea of never knowing how truly trustworthy this creature is appealing
>>94797668just nick from Anbennar, pretty much all of their holds have some sort of theming or purpose https://anbennar.fandom.com/wiki/Dwarven_Holds
>>94797668>an ancient pactgiven how long the whole deal has been going for she's probably at least amicable towards the dwarves and I'm sure they respect her as an elder and craftspider, you can probably have her sitting in on a comically large chair/cushion/web during council meetings
>>94774394an osprey publishing book on fantasy armies is interesting but this is really bare bones, more like the notes for a more comprehensive bookand the art, save the cover, is nowhere near as good as their usual stuff
>>94789113I don't like racial gods. These are the gods of my setting, everybody who worships an actual god (and not just some demon or other entity that doesnt grant cleric powers) worships one of these. Dwarves are LG, so naturally they prefer the top two.
>>94797668library hold, so the dwarves can have a burning of Alexandria moment to slow their advancement down
>>94799876would make for a decent adventure, your party delving into the remains to salvage ancient dwarven knowledge
>>94798983>abadar worshippersso, bankers and devil apologists
>>94801202nopeI might be using names from other settings, but Im not using all the deities as-is
>>94775760I for one think they should be friends.
>>94775760Dorfs and elves are friends.
>>94801640they're like brother and sisterthey squabble, but one will come to the defense of the other if they are threatened
>>94774375I made a dwarven god for my Mystara campaign.His name is Splendarr, god of wild partying, drunkenness and folly. Became an Immortal after saving Odin in battle. Also wrote a legend about his encounter with a dragon.https://files.catbox.moe/l1ojp8.pdf
>>94774463nice, I love this brilliant art style.
Why are the classic herohammer Chaos Dwarfs so underused? Total War: Warhammer 3 has shown what an awesome and compelling concept they really are. TRINAZ FA ZHARR NAGGRUND!
>>94803058because everything past the world edge mountains was treated as background filler lord, hopefully with The Old World that'll change but who knows with GW
