Alternative Dwarves
February 6, 2010 at 8:21 pm (Role Playing, The Entertainment Center) (dwarves, fantasy, world building)
I know, the worldbuilding section has been pretty quiet as of late. But! I have been toying with some ideas, and want to toss one of them out there. Not really something for this specific world, but an example of how you can play around with races to change the stereotypes. For example… dwarves.
Dwarves. AKA Short Scotsmen. C’mon, we all know it’s true – 99% of dwarves are played as ugly, stereotypical Scotsmen – surly, angry, drunk, bearded, and willing to chop you off at the knees. Oh, and greedy.
Yeah. Let’s change them up a bit, shall we? But without going full-blown comical, or parody. I’m not saying the dwarves should be hippies, or something like that – I’m saying they should be a logical race for growing up underground.
Primary crops? Mushrooms and mosses. Particularly mushrooms – they replace wheat, basically. Mushroom flour, mushroom beer, all sorts of things that use various varieties of mushrooms. Indeed, some varieties of beer are potent hallucinogens to non-dwarves, if not poisonous (and the ones that *are* hallucinogenic to the dwarves, largely restricted to religious ceremonies, are downright dangerous outside of dwarven systems.)
Primary duties? Let’s stick with the mining, but work on it a bit. Dwarves are miners, largely – miners, smiths, and mushroom farmers. They live underground, and their entire economy is built around digging on one level or another. Axes aren’t a good weapon for them – so let’s scrap that. Why do you need axes? Now *picks* you’ll need… and hammers. So the main weapons would be large hammers, and the occasional repurposed warpick – the last thing somebody in heavy armor wants to see on the battlefield is a dwarf.
In the interests of giving us an intriguing, dwarf-specific weapon, let’s even combine the two. Yes, the dreaded double-weapon… but not the Urgrosh (axe-spear) that we see in the standard rulebook. No, that’s a combination of weapons that aren’t likely to be adopted by dwarves, at least not ones who really do live mostly underground. Instead, the Dwarven Flail.
Dwarven Flail, M Exotic Double-weapon (Martial for Dwarves). 1d8/1d6, x3/x4. The Dwarven Flail is a unique double-weapon comprised of two common dwarven tools – the pickaxe and the hammer – joined by a length of chain. The Dwarven Flail can be used as a double-weapon, or the grip can be shortened and either end of the weapon can be used as a single weapon with 10′ Reach. Like the Spiked Chain, the Dwarven Flail can be used at 5′ without penalty even when being used for reach, and it can be used for Trip attempts at a +2 bonus.
Now, that’s all d20 terminology, but I’m sticking with it. Ranged weapons aren’t something the dwarves would use much – they’re underground, in the dark, and can’t see foes that far out. Further, in cramped tunnels, ranged weapons aren’t that handy. Crossbows and slings are good enough for their purposes However, sometimes you want to be able to hit a charging foe before they reach you, and being able to switch your grip and use your weapon at a longer reach is a handy trick – and a suitable one.
Visually, the dwarven flail is like a really, really long nunchaku – a long length of chain with a heavy mallet on one end, and a pick on the other. It’s basically a weaponized version of an ancient dwarven tool, used in mining. When you’re in the mines, you have a use for both of them – and you really don’t want to be able to drop things and lose them too easily, when you might have a sudden drop turn up in a natural cavern. So, since you’re usually not using your hammer and pick at the same time, tying them together becomes a handy way to let you keep one on your belt while you use the other, so if you accidentally drop it down a crevasse, you can pull it up. And, when the Underground Nasties come around to attack… well, the miners and warriors of the dwarves figured out how to use them as nasty little weapons against them.
Primary animals? Here’s where we’re *really* going to digress from Dwarves as Scotsmen. I’m actually going to go to Australia as an example here. Why?
One word. Wombats.
Wombats are fairly cute, incredibly hardy little burrowing critters that range from docile enough to let kids roam their tunnels to hellacious fighters that’ll chew your face off if you give them too much trouble. And, perhaps oddly, from behind they’re almost impossible to hurt – there’s a thick later of muscle, fur, skin, and fat there that serves as natural armor.
Natural mounts and stock-animals for dwarves. Some of them are trained to be haulers. Others are trained to be mining-animals, digging tunnels that the dwarves can clear out and search for precious metals. Others are trained as herd animals. And you don’t *want* to hear what an overworld architect has to say about dwarven battle-wombats tunelling under a castle.
Sure, it sounds a little silly… but that’s something we’ve attached to it. Otherwise, it makes perfect sense. And, in a way, the Australian culture as it existed early on – heavy on opal mining and hard living – is very much in keeping with dwarven culture as it’s usually portrayed. Also, you have long distances where sound carries very well that you need to communicate over… the didgeridoo (or something similar) is a perfectly sensible instrument for dwarves to use. The low-toned sounds could carry for miles, sending messages over long distances through the rock, particularly given dwarven sensitivity to rock and vibrations.
Now, let’s take a brief look at beards. I could see dwarven miners having thick, luxurious beards – the thicker the better, and the better kept the better. But dwarven smiths? No way in hell would they have beards. Do you want a fire hazard on your face WHEN YOU’RE SLAVING OVER A HOT FORGE?!? I don’t think so!
Dwarven deities and a pantheon can be worked on more gradually, but you’d probably have a creator-deity based around smithing and craftsmanship, as well as deities dedicated to mining, to community, to the animals and nature, to earthquakes and fire (a major concern when you live underground), and several other things. And, of course, your typical gods interested in love (probably a counterpart to the community one, to base it off of the Norse pantheon), death, and similar “common” elements that need to be explained/controlled. But this is a good start, I think.
Play around with your races – take them out of the standard stereotypes. Your game world will thank you for it!
Worldbuilding – The Little Things
November 14, 2009 at 3:32 pm (Role Playing) (fantasy, role playing advice, role playing games, sci-fi, world building, writing)
So, you’re running an RPG – or playing in one. I’m going to assume you’re not in one set in the modern day; building a modern-day world for your game is pretty simple, in a lot of ways, though I’ll go into it more in a later post.
No, for our purposes, you’re running sci-fi or fantasy – and you need a world. Now, there are many worlds available for you to borrow from game companies – everything from the classic, Tolkien-esque fantasy of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms (albeit much more magically pumped up), to the “low” fantasy of Lankhmar and Iron Heroes, to the science fiction settings of Justifiers (if you can find a copy), Hero Games’ Terran Empire, and the venerable Traveller.
But let’s say you’re trying to create your own world, for whatever reason. And, more importantly, you don’t want it to come off as just another Tolkien or Heinlein ripoff. How do you pull that off – especially if you’re using a rules system that has races straight out of Tolkien?
Well, this is where it’s the little things that count. Lord of the Rings was so basic in the tone of its world that it’s almost impossible to make a high fantasy world that doesn’t feel like it’s ripping it off, especially since it’s so well known (ironically – D&D wasn’t originally a Tolkien ripoff, it was based more off the works of Vance, but those didn’t have nearly the same popularity in the long run, so….)
However, one of the reasons Tolkien doesn’t really feel generic is because it was rife with small cultural elements – things that made the people unique. That’s the key behind making any fantastic world feel different from the others in its genre – you have to have small details, elements that you don’t normally see. These can range from purely cosmetic all the way to minor social details – but they’re the sort of things you need to think about. So! With that in mind, let’s look at a few examples.
Races
Elves, Dwarves, etc are so common as to be cliche, these days. And yet, they’re what we’ve got rules for. This poses a problem, if the GM wants to drop the standard races and still have his rules. So, what do I do?
Well, several of my friends are furries – they like playing anthropomorphic animal characters. So, for the sake of simplicity, I just throw out the names, and replace them with new ones.
Dwarves become Badgers, halflings become Mice, gnomes become Squirrels or Chipmunks, elves become Foxes, half-elves, humans, and half-orcs become… well, pretty much anything you want to tack the stats onto. You don’t change the rules, but you do change the visuals, which is a pretty big step right there.
Of course, you don’t have to use furries – that’s just a handy example for me. You can tack the stats onto whatever you want, it’s just a matter of coming up with new names and a few other things to make them more than name-swapped Tolkien-races.
Cultural Elements
Here’s where things get a bit more involved, and a bit more fun. One of the big things that makes any world unique is the culture you use… and you should start getting away from the idea of a homogenous culture, too. Not all dwarves will be honor-obsessed, greedy, horse-and-elf-hating SOB’s. Heck, establish a group of dwarves that’s got great relationships going with the elves. Establish one that mines as a holy purpose, rather than as an industry. Or establish one that doesn’t mine at all – they could be traders, or they could even have nothing to do with money and trade at all. Remember Moria? Well, what if we have a colony of Dwarves that *did* mine too deep… and has since become a holy order of monks, defending the world from the horrors they nearly unleashed, and becoming ascetics in penance for the greed that nearly released the demons?
Of course, it’s not just the races you need to – or can – tweak with. The Dark Sun setting was notorious for alternate takes on all the races. Dwarves were enslaved craftsmen, halflings were cannibals, elves were xenophobic, holier-than-thou savages… they did all sorts of things to go with a fantasy world that was now a harsh, unforgiving wasteland. But they also tweaked the classes, making wizards into Defilers and Preservers, bards into canny Assassins, paladins into Templars upholding the will of the wicked God-Kings, and clerics into nature worshippers.
The culture of a setting is often its heart, and it doesn’t have to be obvious things like those mentioned above. When you’re changing culture around, there are a few areas you can look at that can lead into all sorts of changes… and not all of them have to be addressed in big, thudding terms.
Food Supply
So, you’re a dwarf, or other mountain-dweller. You live underground. You can’t farm, not traditionally. Your hunting options are somewhat limited, since you can’t really use a bow that well underground. What do you eat?
Probably a lot of mushrooms, cave fish, and mosses – things that don’t need light to grow, and that don’t need to be harvested at a distance. You might even find other types of meat largely unpalateable… or, alternately, you might love them. When you’re at a tavern, you might find yourself ordering all sorts of ‘exotic’ foods that, to everybody else, are perfectly normal. But to you, beef is something that only the very wealthy can afford – potatoes are fairly common, but bread made from wheat or rye? Cheese and butter? Those are rarities for you – rarities that you might take the chance to savor, even as everybody from the upper world is getting knocked off their chairs by the potent beers and ales your people brew from mushroom spores (possibly ones that are slightly hallucinogenic.) The very concept of seasons might be alien to the dwarves, since their realms are always climate-controlled by the earth itself – snow might be a terrifying idea, or it might be something that invites a childlike sense of wonder. All of these are things that most people wouldn’t even think of introducing – Tolkien certainly didn’t bother – and can be introduced easily as a brief character scene.
Elves live in the forest. Well, they have much more in the way of options – they might be vegetarians, they might be carnivores, either way they’ve got plenty they can eat, and nature’s bounty ensures that they never have to worry about getting bored with a particular food. Every season brings them new options – sweet, ripe berries, fat elk and deer, plump winter-birds… variety itself could be monotonous, in a way. An elf wandering the world might still enjoy a variety, something new that he couldn’t get in the woods… but at the same time, he might delight in doing things until they bore him, instead of until nature decides to change its tune. He might eat the exact same thing every chance he has, until he finally reaches the point where he understands monotony. He might overeat, never having had the chance when his people had to be noble guardians of the forest. There are all sorts of responses he might have – and these sort of things are small enough that a player can do them, instead of counting on the GM to do it.
Death Rituals
Ah, the funeral… something so often neglected, unless it’s to commit a noble hero to the skies in a funeral pyre. But who says that the only two options are funeral pyres and burial?
Maybe the Dwarves gild their fallen heroes in precious gems and metals, leaving them as statues encased in the precious bounty of the earth that they spent their lives gathering and defending?
Maybe Elves send their dead off to the distant land they all hope to one day see, sending them off across the see, trusting to nature to see them through to a suitable destination and fate?
Maybe Halflings (AKA Hobbits) bake the deceased into special pies to be served at the funeral?
Yeah, I’ll bet you did a double-take when you read that one, but funereal cannibalism is a time-honored tradition in some parts of the world, a way to keep the deceased with you, make them a part of you. And since the deceased is… well… deceased, what’s so horrible about it?
Indeed, for a culture in a harsh environment, cannibalism might be viewed as an honorable way to be sent along – giving the fallen one last chance to serve their friends and family. In a culture like this one, a dire insult might sound very odd indeed to outsiders.
After all – who in their right mind would be offended when they’re told that somebody wouldn’t eat the brains out of their head? And that brings us to….
Insults and Curses
Again, these are a very personal thing, though something that’s seen more often in fiction. After all – what the heck does Conan mean when he’s bellowing “By Krom”? Well, we all know. But as mentioned above, insults can become stranger over different cultures – sometimes downright baffling.
In a culture that views cannibalism as an honorable send-off, a sign of being loved and valued by the community, being told that even the most nutritious (kind of) meat in your body isn’t worth eating would be a harsh statement indeed.
For dwarves, maybe it’s not so much stereotypical cracks about beards that get them riled, but calling them a chasm-jumper – somebody who pays so little attention to what he’s doing that he could dig straight into a chasm and not realize it before he was falling in.
Even apparent compliments can be insults – telling a warrior that he’s princely might earn you a fight, as he lashes out at somebody who’s calling him soft and unable to defend himself. That the intent might be entirely different doesn’t matter – that sort of thing happens all the time in our world, so why not in your game world?
At any rate, I hope that gives you a few things to think about. Any other ideas for how to make your characters and cultures more unique?
