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This thread is dedicated to the creation of a unique new dwarven PC race I plan to use in my homebrew CS: the Tharsśnian Dwarves. Feel free to post each and every idea this thread may inspire in you.
The Tharsūnian dwarves originate from a world immersed in eternal twilight circling beneath a sunless sky. It was a hostile place dominated by volcanos and seas of molten stone only dimly lit by the red glow of magma lakes and seas and the light of red dragons' fire. To fight their arch enemies the reds the Tharsūnian dwarves learned ways to imbue tools and weapons with magic to use them for grater efficiency against Barsarāth, (Bar-suh-rath) the red dragons.
Personality: They are a very proud (and justifiably so), reputable and dignified race of masterly artisans, powerful warriors and dedicated clergymen. Occassionally they have tremendous celebrations with a LOT of drinking, much to eat, games (eg. axe throwing, exhibition bouts, arena fights, reenactments and recitals of popular passages (read volumes) from poetical and historic works and events) and lots of other hilarious activities, but most of the time they are serious and thoughtful.
Physical Description: Very well muscled Dwarves with slightly pointed ears, stone colored skin (all shades of grey, brown, black, aso. sometimes like veined marble), and eyes the color of precious metals or amber and the like.
Alignment: All Tharsūnian dwarves whether from the kingdom of Duriath (Do-ree-ut) or that of Khazādgathul (Cu-zud-gut-ool) faithfully observe the biddings of their god, thus living orderly structured lifes woking for the welfare of the community, the clan, and the individual in exactly that order.
Dwarven Lands: The Tharsūnian dwarves live in the mountain region called Nadūtharās, the Path of Flames. The dwarves who settled down in the region of the Path of Flames which is now called the Kingdom of Duriath are strictly dedicated to the worship of their gods Orodīn (Oh-ro-deen), and his most revered avatar Ashtulūkh (Ush-too-look).
Those who founded the dwarven kingdom of Khazādgathul are masterly creators of arms, armor, and jewellery renown for their wondrous enchantments and formidable designs.
Important Sites: Tharāzarūm (tar-uh-zar-oom), The Grand Temple of Ashtulūkh in the Path of Flames is one of the most important sanctuaries in this region of the Nadūtharās. It is a vast natural dome of rock. What is special about this place is the huge lava lake on the dome's bottom, which is the reason for its name which translates Flamesea. This flamesea does actually lie inside of an inactive volcano.
Religion: The main deity is Orodīn, son of the recently deceased Tharsūn. Orodīn is a god of the crafts typically associated with dwarves (smithing, gemcutting, stone masonry). Besides the gods themselves praise his skill and from time to time visit his halls requesting him to create objects of wonder and might. Not long ago Orodīn saved the whole race of the Tharsūnian dwarves from being destroyed altogether with their homeworld.
His divine proxy on the refuge world is Ashtulūkh, the great old fire salamander (not the one from the MM).
THARSŪNIAN DDWARVEN RACIAL TRAITS
+2 Constitution, -2 Charisma: Tharsūnian dwarves are stout and tough, but tend to be quiet and thoughtful.
Medium: As Medium creatures, Tharsūnian dwarves have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Tharsūnian Dwarf base land speed is 20 feet. However, Tharsūnian dwarves can move at this speed even when wearing medium or heavy armor or when carrying a medium or heavy load (unlike other creatures, whose speed is reduced in such situations).
Low-Light Vision: A Tharsūnian dwarf can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. She retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
Clan Member: (see below).
Orodīn's Gift: +2 divine bonus to Craft checks that are related to ores or stone.
Weapon Familiarity: Tharsūnian dwarves treat dwarven weapons as martial weapons rather than exotic weapons.
Stability: As an adaption to the frequent earthquakes on their homeworld Tharsūnian dwarves are exceptionally stable on their feet. A Tharsūnian dwarf has a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, flying, riding, or otherwise not standing firmliy on the ground).
+2 racial bonus on saving throws against poison. Living in a place where volcanic activities are commonplace, this is simply another adaption to the Tharsūnian dwarves' inhospitable homeworld.
+1 racial bonus to attack rolls and +4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against red dragons and creatures descended from them (eg. creatures with the Half-Red Dragon template). This bonuses represent the centuries of experience in fighting the red dragons in order to be and stay one of the predominant races of their homeworld.
Native Outsider:The god Tharsūn formed the dwarf from the bones of the world and breathed into his nostrils the fire of life, and the dwarf became a living being.
As they are created from the substance of a world of the prime material plane the Tharsūnian Dwarves possess the unusual characteristics of being outsiders native to the material plane, not humanoids.
This has the following effects:
First, spells or effects that affect only humanoids, such as charm person or a dominate person spell, do not affect them.
Second, spells and effects that target extraplanar creatures may affect Tharsūnian Dwarves. A spell that drives outsiders back to their home planes does not affect Tharsūnian Dwarves, but banishment - a spell that removes an outsider from the caster's plane without specifying a return to the outsider's native plane - would work just fine.
Finally, since they are formed from the substances of their homeworld, the prime material is considered their native plane. This means that Tharsūnian Dwarves can be raised or resurrected normally, whereas most outsiders cannot be brought back from the dead without the use of a miracle or wish spell.
Fire Subtype: A Tharsūnian dwarf has immunity to fire. He has vulnerability to cold, which means he takes half again as much (+50%) damage as normal from cold, regardless of whether a saving throw is allowed, or if the save is a success or failure.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CLAN MEMBER
At 1st level a Tharsūnian Dwarf may choose a trade representing the profession of his Clan. Craft checks (eg blacksmithing, stonemasonry, or gemcutting) relating to the Clan's trade are made with a +2 racial bonus.
This racial trait represents the dwarf's training in her Clan's trade as well as the possession of inherited masterwork artisan tools*.
The bonus granted by this racial trait does stack with bonuses from corresponding skills taken as a class or cross-class skill as well with the bonuses from the Skill Focus feat and Orodīns gift.
THE SOULSTONE
The high priest of the Order of Orodīn is the keeper of an ancient artifact The Word of Orodīn, which is said to be a gift of the god given to Durin, the progenitor of all dwarves of Tharsūn and founder of the Order himself. The Word contains mighty spells and instructions for holy rituals and is passed on from high priest to high priest.One of the rituals described in The Word is the Rite of Suthurzurul .[Soo-toor-zoo-rule] the Rite of the Soulstone.
When a new dwarf is born to a Clan, all Clan members gather and celebrate. Each adult dwarf gives a present to the newborn [ ] The main event of the celebration is the Rite of Suthurzurul in the course of which the newborn dwarfs soulstone, a semi corporeal manifestation of its life force materializes (see semi manifestation). As such it is not destructible by any physical means, its light going out only in the case of its owners death. Soulstones glow in a warm red light symbolizing the strength of their owners life force. The closest family members gather around the neonate and support the manifestation process with their own soulstones infusing it with small portions of their own life forces thus forming a deep connection of each family member. The role of the soulstones in everyday life, in religious as well as mundane ceremonies is multifarious. They are used on weddings (both mates touching their house insignia, their house stone or some other centre of the new founded house thus infusing it with a portion of their merged life forces to symbolize their bond?), [ ]The theft of a soulstone is regarded a dishonourable act. The delinquent, deprived of both his honour and soulstone is sentenced to lifelong banishment from the dwarven kingdoms which is considered a fate more terrible than execution.
SEMI MANIFESTATION
A semi manifested object is a manifestation of a bodiless energy effect which virtually has established a physical component. It cannot be damaged by neither corporeal nor incorporeal means, thus being immune to all magical an nonmagical attack forms, except for attack forms that affect the energy component of the object. A semi manifested object has no hit points or hardness scores, in spite of the fact that it feels solid to the touch. Therefore it cannot enter or pass through solid objects, as it is semi manifestedquality only implies that half of the object is not corporeal but an energy effect of some form, while the other half is counted as physically condensed energy.
In the case of the soulstone/soulfire gem this means the object is composed of the energy of the dwarf's soul and life force. Additionally it is not a semi manifestation of an energy effect of its own but a split off part of the dwarf's soul and life force which still is linked to its source. Therefore the soulstone/soulfire gem is only affected by attacks and effects which have an impact on the dwarf and its soul and life force. So an attack which somehow influences the soul and life force of the dwarf only has a rather indirect effect on the soulstone/soulfire gem. Since the Tharsūnian dwarves do not have the ability to cast fireballs their soulstones/ soulfire gems should not be able to do so, too.
Any ideas about dwarven clerics and religion concerning fire aso.?
SOULSTONES I see many uses of the soulstone concept one of which are prestige classes.
I imagine these soulstones should grant some abilities similar to a scrying sensor with regard to the connection between it and its owner. It should be possible for the dwarfs closest family members (eg parents, mate, children and the like) or a priest to learn some details about his current state of health (eg if he is injured, dying aso) and similar.
I would love to have the soulstones of the closest family as well as those members having some kind of connection to each other in the form of a weak empathic bond for example, symbolizing the shared life force of a families respectively clans members.
Tharsūnian dwarves should have some empathic connection as they all are, more or less, connected to eachother through their merged life forces.
Maybe it could be possible to cast heal or cure spells, and even enchantment, transmutation, or divination spells through it thus directly affecting the dwarf. If this was possible I see the drawback of the soulstones in being a perfect target for necromancers an similar beings casting not helpful but harmful spells on the stones owner.
After the death of a Tharsūnian dwarf his soulstone should not simply cease to exist. It should be a noteworthy event. In fact it should play some important role in the funeral rites. I visualize the lately deceased dwarf lying on some kind of altar with his soulstone on his chest or forehead. The priests start a deep voiced, mourning chant and the soulstone starts to levitate above its dead owner. Its extinct light starts to glow again brightening more and more until both it and the deceased dwarf seem to burn in a clear white fire finally culminating into a burst of pure white light. As the light fades away the decedents body has turned to stone (all energy left the dwarf`s physical form, thus petrifying it), while his soul has been sent on his way to Orodīns Halls in the afterlife. The petrified body is is then taken to the temple of his faith and community to join his ancestors. Since Tharsūnian dwarves have a particular low rate of birth and are not that numerous in general, there should be be more than enough space in the vast realms of the dwarves, for dwarves both dead and alive.
On special occassions deceased dwarves (especially great heroes of legends) have been known to return in the body of an Earth Elemental to execute Orodīns will as his divine delegates. Since those creatures carry the soulstone of the reincarnate a dwarf who encounters such a creature instantly realizes its true nature.
Actually I am using a kind of modified Khuzdul for most of the names so the accents only seem random. The names of the gods are a different thing, they are proper names given by prophets and divine messengers.
Maybe you could help me out a little by suggesting how to write the pronunciation for long vowels (ā, ź, ī, ō, ū)?
Actually I am using a kind of modified Khuzdul for most of the names so the accents only seem random. The names of the gods are a different thing, they are proper names given by prophets and divine messengers.
Maybe you could help me out a little by suggesting how to write the pronunciation for long vowels (ā, ź, ī, ō, ū)?
a - there's not really a good way to write an English long a. I suggest leaving it as "a", while writing short a as "ah" [edit] I suppose this doesn't work if you are going for a short "a" as in "apple"...
e - don't quite remember if short e in Khuzdul is pronounced like short e in English. If so, I'd write short e "eh" or just "e" and write long e "ee"
i - This is one that is a bit clumsy, but you could use "eye" for long i.
o - long o "oh", short o leave as "o"
u - from what I remember of Khuzdul, short u and long u are like oo in took and moon respectively. This is one that I can't think of a good way for English speakers to see it and know which is which. But sticking to one method or another ("oo" for long u, and "u" for short u or vice versa) would at least tell the reader that the two sound differently, if not exactly how each sounds.
I don't remember Khuzdul having diphthongs, so that should pretty much be it. Although Khuzdul wasn't a very explored language, so it's possible that we just don't know about the diphthongs.
As a curiosity, are you using the Semitic-style word roots from Khuzdul? Like KH_Z_D and D_N are the roots of Khazad-dun and depending on what vowels you put in, you get something different?
Also, if you are at all interested, I designed a loosely inspired Khuzdul style language. I did quite a bit of research on it, starting with Tolkien then moving to real-life linguistics and philology. It may spark some ideas.
Last edited by reanjr; 8th August 2004 at 02:35 PM..
Most of the long vowels are already noted to be pronounced as you suggest, but after these posts it may be a little clearer for native speakers where the difference between long and short vowels is. Another problem is that all of the names are pronounced like in German so it is a little tricky to find a clear way to do a simple written pronunciation guide.
I kinda use the roots system to create names so (as you statet) the same root will have different meaning by inserting different vowels and such.
Since I am generally very interested in languages I would love to see what a fellow gamer did with those fragments we inherited from Tolkien or 'The Prof' as I like to refer to him
Last edited by Sylvaroth; 8th August 2004 at 02:49 PM..
Aries_Omega - If you are interested in more from my very own homebrew campaign setting feel free to visit my Aerlhśn thread and those on the WotC message boards.
I won't reveal everything at a time about neither the dwarves nor any other aspect of my CS, but I am always looking for people to discuss some ideas with and that usually does not happen without me giving hints and clues and (as you see above) whole paragraphs from my notes.
Now that EN world is back up again I would like to have some statements and maybe critic about the Tharsūnian Dwarves your idea of them and what you think about them. Any suggestions are appreciated.
Now that EN world is back up again I would like to have some statements and maybe critic about the Tharsūnian Dwarves your idea of them and what you think about them. Any suggestions are appreciated.
Maybe we could start with the LA.
Is it LA+0 by now and if not what could be changed?
__________________ -Sylvaroth
Last edited by Sylvaroth; 20th August 2004 at 11:55 AM..
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