My rant about dwarves

[slipshod]

Wow, I guess you're right, 7DV.  It might have been closer to three years ago.  Ugh, I'm too young to have my life blurring together.  At least I know it's May.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Yup ... May.

[Oxidised Lizard]

It's unfortunate that the stricture against passing around IC information means that most of history gets forgotten. Maybe there should be a lore page accessible to bards, so that they can sing about these past events.

I really, really, really support some form of this ideal.

I also strongly support the idea of updating the Timeline with less signifigant events than the ones currently accounted for.

Both great ideas - lore page for bards and/or much more detailed history page.

[Cuusardo]

I agree with having a lore page for bards, with plenty of generally available knowledge to people.  This would help bards out a lot in keeping history alive, and dwarven history would be something I imagine a dwarf bard (as in the Rusarla Circle in Tuluk) would want handy.  In a culture such as this it is word of mouth that keeps history alive.  Unfortunately, people who are newer to the game were not here for a lot of historical events and therefore have issues with this kind of thing.

[Sir Diealot]

I think that the Focus is totally under developed as an idea.

A focus can be 'make a pair of shoes'.  But I've heard of (and gotten) seemingly more logical foci turned down at approval.  One such as 'Join the Guild', which, for a 'rinther Dwarf seems far more involved than making a pair of shoes was turned down.  

Dwarves need to be -seriously- looked at.  They're the red-headed stepchildren of Arm races, from what I've seen, with the least updated documentation, the most ambiguous explanation of their 'quirk', and a racial disadvantage (low starting sirihish) that makes absolutely no sense.

[jcarter]

The only thing I know about dwarven culture is that every dwarf is a warrior and the only weapon they can ever use is the club or some variation of a blunted weapon.

[Nao]

The only thing I know about dwarven culture is that every dwarf is a warrior and the only weapon they can ever use is the club or some variation of a blunted weapon.

You forgot axes for dwarves,m if you wanna go all cliche  :wink:

[LoD]

:arrow:  The race seems out of place in the world. There's no history, no reason for them to be, they have no place in society and there's no racial atmosphere. Nowhere in the world (as far as I've seen and heard) will you see something where dwarves have had an impact or influence on anything. There's no dwarven community and the only real racial quirk they seem to have is their focus. They just seem to be there because someone thought it would be fun, and replaced the occasional human NPC with a dwarf NPC and left it at that.

It may help if the documentation was revised slightly to explain that both the Clear Waters Oasis and Ironsword clans were dwarven.  This is taken from the History of Zalanthas with a very specific reference to dwarven impact and influence when these two tribes liberated the dwarven slaves at the Obsidian Mines before attacking the city-state of Allanak and beseiging it for an entire year.  No other race or group has accomplished such a feat in PC history (as far as I know).

1394
The joint forces of the Clear Waters Oasis tribe and the Ironsword clan attack Allanak's obsidian mine, managing to free the slaves. Thrain Ironsword dies in the battle along with several templars. After the attack the Clear Waters Oasis tribe, joined by a horde of former slaves, lay siege to Allanak. During this time, Tektolnes is mysteriously absent.

:arrow:  The focus, while a decent idea, just irks me. I can't think of a really good focus, and when looking for help in the documentation, I get a list of foci that looks like an 8 year old wrote them. Seriously, almost every one on that list is either way too easy or way too hard, not codedly/realistically viable, too silly, or something that noone would ever decide to make the goal of their life.

The quality of the dwarven focus and its seriousness rests squarely in the hands and imagination of the player.  Years ago I played the dwarf Thrain Ironsword, and his focus was to "Liberate the dwarven slaves from the obsidian mines of Allanak."  That focus had many smaller goals that needed to be achieved before I could ever consider completing such a lofty aspiration.  

:arrow: Recruiting and training an army of loyal dwarven supporters.
:arrow: Negotiating alliances with tribes/peoples to assist in my goal.
:arrow: Formulating and executing a plan of attack.

Each of these steps have many steps within themselves.  Recruiting and training an army is likely a lifetime achievement in itself.  The issues at hand doesn't seem to be a problem with the idea of a dwarf's focus, but rather with the lack of imagination and/or dedication on the part of the players, and perhaps the documentation.

Why do dwarves seem like strong humans?

It was stated that you believe the dwarves you've met seem like humans who just wanted a higher strrength.  Playing a dwarf is hard.  It's not something everyone has the capacity to do because it's almost like having a second job.  Dwarves are so entirely focused on their objective that they have little time for frivolity, relaxation, procrastination, or a myriad of personality traits that should set them apart from your regular human.  The issue is that most people play this game as an "escape" and want to have "fun".  And not many would consider playing a true dwarf "fun".

I do.  I enjoy task oriented, business minded, serious characters that have short term and long term goals they can follow.  I enjoy the no nonsense approach of the dwarf because it's a better fit for my style of play, which usually does not include a heavy focus on romantic relationships, mudsex, indulgences (spice and alcohol), etc...  The dwarven mindset and drive fits me well, and I can imagine why they are difficult for other people to play if they aren't interested in the same things.

If you want to see some dwarven presence in either of the cities, why don't you create a dwarf and work to make it so?  How about a focus of carving out a niche of territory for your dwarven brethren?  Establishing a predominantly dwarven community within one of the city-states?  Convincing the entire dwarven population to move to new territory so they can place 100% focus on their projects instead of having to deal with listless and lazy humans, thieving elves, and troublesome politics?  There are plenty of great focii available and avenues to pursue.

Many have yet to learn that their individual actions can change the face of the gameworld and have a profound effect.  I invite you to take that step and see the world in a different light.

-LoD

[Hymwen]

If you want to see some dwarven presence in either of the cities, why don't you create a dwarf and work to make it so? How about a focus of carving out a niche of territory for your dwarven brethren? Establishing a predominantly dwarven community within one of the city-states? Convincing the entire dwarven population to move to new territory so they can place 100% focus on their projects instead of having to deal with listless and lazy humans, thieving elves, and troublesome politics? There are plenty of great focii available and avenues to pursue.

You know, I think I might. Yeah. I will!

[Ritley]

Dwarves are my favourite type of race to play.

[Bebop]

:arrow:  The race seems out of place in the world. There's no history, no reason for them to be, they have no place in society and there's no racial atmosphere. Nowhere in the world (as far as I've seen and heard) will you see something where dwarves have had an impact or influence on anything. There's no dwarven community and the only real racial quirk they seem to have is their focus. They just seem to be there because someone thought it would be fun, and replaced the occasional human NPC with a dwarf NPC and left it at that.

I agree, basically the only quirk dwarves have is their focus and some differently coded strengths based on their physical make up.  To me it seems there is almost more culture, chatter and rumor surroundings muls then there are actual dwarves.  While I know there is a dwarven history, there is no dwarven niche in games and it doesn't really say anything about dwarves interaction with others simply that if you play a dwarf you basically must be obsessive compulsive about a single thing within your life.  Kind of vauge, and simple it seems to me.  Humans are humans and half-elves and elves have their quirks, and there are even docs on the differences between city and desert elves, which I have always seen as pretty indepth with room for variation and societal influences for those behaviors.  For some reason dwarves have one quirk and it's just there like a wide spread mental illness.

:arrow:  The fact that dwarves start out with ridiculously bad sirihish. Like I said above, there's nothing that indicates that they shouldn't be speaking sirihish, because there's no dwarven quarter, no part of any city where dwarves are dominant and there's no inside culture among dwarves the way there is for city elves. So giving dwarves a starting sirihish so poor that you practically can't understand them doesn't make any sense to me, and is a major annoyance and one of the reasons I still haven't gotten around to playing one.

This has always bothered me to.  There are dwarves that run some mining shops which seem kind of cliche to other fantasy and odd to me that a race that used to be slaves of mining would continue mining maybe it's that obsessive compulsive thing but you really don't see a varierty of dwarves in game or even NPCs, and there are no little niches, elves have an outpost, places in the rinth, even a Bard house that takes non-humans, and half elves have the wild and they are looked down on for mixed blood, halflings, even mantis are mentioned more in history then dwarves.  They just seem like obsessive, stupid, broad little humans.  The point is I don't see a place where they would be so surrounded by the dwarven tongue that they would not know how to speak sirihish.  To me it seems more likely that the dwarven language would have faded out by now.

Even when they were in slavery - they would have had to speak sirihish for their slave owners!

Also I would like to know where dwarves come from BEFORE they were slaved.

:arrow:  The focus, while a decent idea, just irks me. I can't think of a really good focus, and when looking for help in the documentation, I get a list of foci that looks like an 8 year old wrote them. Seriously, almost every one on that list is either way too easy or way too hard, not codedly/realistically viable, too silly, or something that noone would ever decide to make the goal of their life. Let me take 10 random foci from the list:

50. Breed 'fighting erdlus' and get them introduced into the arena
51. Educate a half-giant
52. Figure out what those damn Drovians do all day
53. Tunnel to the center of the earth
54. Find and eat a piece of metal
55. Become a templar
56. Learn to burrow like an sand-demon
57. Bring back Luir
58. Learn to predict the weather
59. Make a pair of pants
60. Make a pair of shoes

The list looks like one big joke, and if a new player sits down and looks at it in hopes that it'll help them find a good, realistically possible and viable focus, they'll most likely either be discouraged or end up making a dwarf with a totally wacky focus. Unless I got it all wrong, a focus is something that a dwarf gets because something in their life has given them an incredibly good reason to do this specific thing. I can't really think of anything that would give a dwarf an irresistable urge to "27: Teach a kank to count".

I agree, some of this foci are ridiculous.

Should something be added to dwarves?

I definitely think so, where did dwarves come from before they were slaves, how did they break out of slavery, what did they do immediately?  Did they form their own villages, did they go back to the city that enslaved them?  Did they wonder aimlessly until becoming obsessive with certain goals?  Why are ALL dwarves obsessive like this?  Is it some kind of natural mental disorder or is it firmly taught to them by other dwarven influence?  It's like lots of people call half elves manic, bi polar etc, and I think for the most part the conclusion has been reached it's mostly a sociatal influence.  Half elves are made fun of etc. Alot of things are learned, like stay away from the people that are disgusted by you.  Is it really fair to just assume that all dwarves have this obsessive behavior just because?  I think dwarves really need some more indepth documentation and a look over.

The result, from what I've seen, is that 9 out of 10 dwarves I've met are played exactly like humans. I've met a handful of good, well-played dwarves and an army of dwarves that seemed like someone just wanted a higher strength and endurance so they picked a dwarf. I think that if the race is fleshed out and the suggested foci is made something other than a list of jokes, we'll see less dwarves who are played just like humans who can't pronounce their own names.

I have drawn this conclusion often times with my experience as well.  Or I've played other things, might as well play a dwarf, which would be why I would try it out.  (Pretty much the only reason.)

[Anonymous kank with wings]

Why not create a dwarf character and make it her foci to establish a dwarven stronghold?

[Yokunama]

Third, dwarves (as far as I know) never existed in isolation.  They've been living right alongside humans for as long as anyone can remember.  They don't deserve any special mention in Zalanthan history any more than erdlus or chaltons deserve special mention, because they aren't really exceptional.  They are, and always have been (again, as far as I know) commonplace.

If this statement is true, why is it that dwarves have little to no understanding of Sirihish? I really do not see any real reason why dwarves should not have a great or full understanding of the language.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone submitted any documentation at all for something like this?

I just sent in a dwarven ghetto area that will at least solve the "how come I can't speak sirihish perfectly" problem for one city...

But if anyone would like to work on other docs (and hasn't already), and wants a collaborator, I guess I'm in. Especially if you think you've got It on how dwarves think/work.

[Bebop]

Why not create a dwarf character and make it her foci to establish a dwarven stronghold?

Because for reasons I expressed in my post there should already be one especially if dwarves are so confined they would not know how to speak sirihish properly.

[Xygax]

Code Select Expand

think Man, I can't believe I just accomplished my focus.  I wonder what I should focus on next...?

think There's really no good place for dwarves to live, is there....  maybe I should make it my focus to establish some sort of stronghold.

think Nah...  there oughtta be one of those already, I'll focus on something else.

think I know...  whores!!!

And thus, in the history of dwarves, no dwarf has ever managed to focus on creating a dwarven stronghold.

Alas.

-- Xygax

[Anonymous]

lol!

That's so going to be my next book:
Afro Whores: The Downfall of Zalanthan Dwarvendom.

[Intrepid]

If the imms are willing to change things around a little, we could have a dwarven
district in each city--maybe even whole villages where the dwarves are segregated.

It would provide some subtle racism between humans and dwarves that is, sadly,
lacking for the moment.

How would you react to someone who appears to have no focus in life?  No goals and
no motivation?  (dwarves toward humans)

Or, from the opposite point of view, how do you react to someone who appears, by
all rights, to have an obsessive/compulsive personality and cannot seem to be
reasoned with?

The two above instances are horribly generalized, but they're examples of the type
of misunderstandings that should be occuring between the two races.  It becomes
even more severe when you examine how any potential comrade views the dwarf's
focus; if the human approves and is supportive, the dwarf may like the human despite
any extreme manipulation.  If the human/other is at odds with the focus, regardless
of how otherwise nice the individual might be, these two will always be at odds until
that changes.

The kind of situations that this would create between the races should create more
racial tension than we're currently seeing.  Elves are dishonest, yes, but dwarves
seem to skirt the edge of sanity itself.  A few of them are downright useful to the ends
of human ambitions.  The rest, though?  They seem to be self-centered and obsessive.

Just something to chew on there the next time you interact with a dwarf.

[Anonymous]

I never thought about the human or elven side of interaction with a dwarf. As a slaver, dwarves are just handy. But you have to make sure their focus becomes what you want it to be, or else it could be months before you get that little effer back on task.

From the dwarven perspective, though, I always figured that the dwarves would be wary about trusting anyone who is not a dwarf, like, at all, because everyone else is, well, mercurial in comparison.  Dwarves are too practical, they don't really think about lying to get what they want.

The key, in my mind, was coming up with good reasons for the dwarves to bother interacting with non-dwarves to begin with. And that was a little harder because of the nature of the focus.

Suppose you base your focus on something that should take you an IRL week to achieve.  What can this be that you don't need staff involvement to do, appeals to the desire for the tangible that dwarves have, takes into consideration the concept that humans, elves, and even half-giants are pretty alien in comparison to a staunchly dwarven mindset, is meaningful enough to warrant the dwarven focus to achieve, AND requires you to interact with these other people?

That's a little challenging sometimes.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I am currently working on a vast project involving dwarves.

It includes a location, cultural difinitions centering around focus, NPCs, items, tattooes, etc. If you have input, feel free to email me with ideas and concerns. I am not terribly interested in sharing the work that I have done so far, so as to preserve IC suprise and the like, but rest assured that I will glean good ideas from dross and credit the presenter when this project is finished.

[Intrepid]

At one point, I had actually written up a dwarven clan that was basically a mass cult
of Nilazi with similar or duplicate foci.  They had different ways of approaching it,
but they were meant to be utterly terrifying as a group because they were all on the
same side and they were all completely obsessed.

I imagine a group focus is the only way you could have a functioning dwarven village
or civilization--but it sure is possible to do once you get the ball rolling.

[MorganChaos]

At one point, I had actually written up a dwarven clan that was basically a mass cult
of Nilazi with similar or duplicate foci.  They had different ways of approaching it,
but they were meant to be utterly terrifying as a group because they were all on the
same side and they were all completely obsessed.

I imagine a group focus is the only way you could have a functioning dwarven village
or civilization--but it sure is possible to do once you get the ball rolling.

Well, no, not really.

About a year back a friend of mine was talking to me about a dwarven tribe (possibly the one a lot of players were involved in), and there were no duplicate foci, but they were very carefully coordinated to make a functioning village.

[Bebop]

Code Select Expand

think Man, I can't believe I just accomplished my focus.  I wonder what I should focus on next...?

think There's really no good place for dwarves to live, is there....  maybe I should make it my focus to establish some sort of stronghold.

think Nah...  there oughtta be one of those already, I'll focus on something else.

think I know...  whores!!!

And thus, in the history of dwarves, no dwarf has ever managed to focus on creating a dwarven stronghold.

Alas.

-- Xygax

You guys are -focusing- heh heh.  To much on this stronghold while I think someone could establish one and it would be cool for someone to do this IG, I think there should already be more culture surrounding dwarves and an IG reason that they are obsessive and can't speak proper sirihish.

[X-D]

Heh, All my dwarves have actually trusted other dwarves LESS then any other race.

Why, because he KNOWS that other dwarves also have foci and will stop at nothing to achieve it.
Sadly, this is because of the way the current rather sparse docs are set up and the fact that currently the docs state that dwarves feel no actual kinship with each other. Something I disagree with but still play along with.

I also made a tribal dwarf. Virtual tribe of course, but My own notes on the subject of the virtual tribe included certain tribal rules. These rules, when applied to the dwarf mindset were, unbreakable. It simply would never even enter into the dwarfs mind that it was possible to break these few simple rules. So, another dwarf of the same tribe was completly trust worthy on a few points.

Things like. A dwarf of the same tribe would never knowingly interfer with another tribemates focus in a negative manner.

A dwarf's focus would never affect a tribe mate or his focus in a negative manner.

And All the dwarves in the tribe have what I call a Meta-focus. And that is to protect and advance the tribe. No personaly focus can go against that and if the meta-focus was in danger then the personal focus was set aside until the meta-focus was stable.

Kinda like Asimov's three laws of robotics, this is the three laws of dwarf tribes.

(edited to clarify a point)

[Malken]

Okay, let's all be realistic here.. Ironsword and Thrain happened, what, about 10 years ago or so? (Wow, I've been playing for -way- too long, heh). That's a -very- long time ago, and we need to stop dropping references to Ironsword each time someone mentions changing something about the dwarves, because, frankly, after Thrain, I don't remember much happening that's been dwarf-related.

Here's my idea: Why instead of everyone raising their hands and saying, "I'll do it, I'll bring the dwarves back into history, I'll raise to the top and be the leader of a powerful tribe once again".. Why not ask the admins if they'd be willing to open up a forum for just this type of thing, changes related to dwarves..

Everyone interested in bringing changes and some type of dwarven tribe back to the game could have access to the forum, we could draft ideas about the history, the background, what they do, what they strive for, what are their long term goals.. Everyone pitches in..

Then when everyone agrees about a draft, we ask the staff if it would be possible to do something like that, and if they do agree, we start pitching in for npc descs, buildings, etc..

So instead of everyone going their own ways, everyone would be working together, this way, if one important PC dies while trying to get the tribe started, then it doesn't crumble down the way it did when Thrain died. This way we also help the staff instead of asking for this and for that. And this way, no one's orchestring something with their buddies via OOC either, the staff would see it being developed from the ground up.

Any thoughts? Good idea, bad?