hobbygamers ~ View topic - FLUFF TEAM PROJECT: The Dwarves & Halflings

Okay, my first assignment to the Fluff Team:

Dwarves and Halflings!

I have absolutely no idea what to do with these guys. How do we make them distinct, or how do we make them fit in existing archetypes of dwarves and halflings in gaming literature? Culture copies?

I've mentioned before that I'm trying to avoid Celtic/Nordic/Germanic dwarves, but not necessarily. If we do go down that road, then how do we make them distinct from all other celt/nord/german dwarves?

Brainstorm. Propose. What happened to their gods? What role did they play in the Godfall War? Dump ideas out, and we'll work through them for what we can use.

I'm just thinking a post-apocalyptic setting would be good for Dwarves, in the sense that their chief trades are both rather important in our setting. Mining means they'll find a good share of the godstones, while Metalworking is even more important in our low-tech setting. That said, maybe Dwarves could be mostly part of the "elite" of our world, many of them choosing to be powerful religious or political leaders as well as being rather wealthy.

Halflings... well they thrived in forests and stuff, right? Which have all been destroyed? So now they're trauma victims. Half of them generally were really devastated and have a legitimate reason for depression or whatever, while the other half used their wit and cunning to play the "abused minority" card as much as possible. Laughing

I'm not part of the fluff team, but I'll just throw my ideas.

How about Russian dwarves? lol

And halfling.. hmm..
they've always been chaotic.. wait, this is 4ed.. let me rephrase that..
they've always been unaligned,(lol better) so I think nothing much should change to them, except those who really are benevolent to their previous god.

Hobbits thrived in forests, not halflings.

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

You want to turn the Dwarves upside down? Turn them into nomads. When you think Dwarves you think caves etc. Think up some curse that keeps them from settling in one place for long...

Dwarves that live on boat! More later.

We should avoid culture copies as much as possible, ie, we can derive ideas from RL races, but we can't take too much, or else it will violate the GSL, especially if we plan on having each "culture race" fight another. Blame the GSL for wanting to be politically correct.

To that end, the seafaring dwarves are a possibility. We still need to expand on it, however. Dwarves are tied to the earth, though. That means that "archetypically", they'll sink in water and take some tme to travel, like the rocks from whence they came.

RL Races?

Admittedly, I used the term "RL Races" because I was in a hurry.

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

Okay...my idea for the Dwarves in bullet points! I'm willing to do fluff writing but only if it gets approved... x_X;;

Okay Dwarf Wanderer Proposal

-During the waning years of the Godfall war, a woman seeks refuge with the Dwarves in their mountain holdfasts. The Dwarves during the conflict were neutral and their cities were havens for the displaced.
-The woman is the Goddess of the Earth who reveals it to the Dwarf protecting her.
-Her cover is blown when the Dwarf gets drunk one day and boasts it out thoughtlessly (or some equally pointless and avoidable betrayal.)
-Dwarves sympathetic to the liberator cause kill the goddess and she curses the Dwarves to wander forever, never taking complete root anywhere again. They can only stay in one place for two months and then travel again for two months so on and so forth.
-They are further forced to carry the corpse of the goddess of the Earth and whenever the time for the Dwarves to wander arrive, the Earth shakes along with the moving of the corpse. This also automatically gives Dwarves a godstone although it does not stop them from attaching themselves to another one.
-Though Dwarves cannot stay long in a city, they do stop in their old mountains and in other cities as well.
-Most Dwarves wander together though some choose to wander out as adventurer's. Silently suffering from their curse alone.

I love the idea, may want to play around a bit more on exactly what form the stone takes. What happens to a dwarf if he/she doesn't get their ass in gear once their 2 months are up?

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

The thought is unthinkable. They simply have to do it. They get restless and they move as one when the time comes. There's no pain involve except maybe from the earthquakes, I'm thinking. This is a Goddess with enough humility to seek supplication from a mortal race and although she punished them with her dying breath, I think she'd consider their eternal weariness penitence enough.

Can they go back to the previous place they just left?

For example, for now they live in mountains. 2 months later they go to the seaside (about miles away or so). After 2 months again, can they go back to the same mountains which they stayed before?

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

I'd say only about once a year. They can take a long circular route so that once a year, Dwarves suddenly sprout in a certain city and they have that much time to perform worthwhile activities like digging up Ioun.

Ideas for dwarves:

Dwarves and Godfall war:
Vondock Marthilio, a heretic banished from dwarven society for crimes against the gods, returned with a vengeance. Buried since the end of the primordial war, a material similar to the present time's godstones was found. This material was laced with divine energy, and was masterfully crafted into a Godslayer. The rest is history(aka, that's all I have on that issue, feel free to expand).

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

Love the name... XD

Just a couple of things:
-Wasn't the godslayer created by the Liberators? I assume then that the creation was a joint ventures of sorts?
-Would he have created the first godslayer then? May I suggest that the first godslayers created were a pair of twins--one of whom ends up in Uriah's hands.
-Which particular god has wronged him?

---

Anyways...on my proposal...

On the problem to do with hiding a godstone: Yes, a race can't hide it but a family can. AKA the family responsible for the whole mess in the first place. My idea for the corpse would be something like a heart and it's only after the Mandrakori figure out the power of the first godstone that the Earth goddess godstone is revealed to the race as a whole.

Dwarf wanderer idea is cool. We could have different kinds of traveling dwarves.

Sea dwarves - vikings
Air dwarves - possibility with air kobolds
and classic earth dwarves...