Rogar, dwarven god of the forge - Discussion

jkason said:

I'd not gone back and read a lot of the Dwarven culture stuff, but you know, since there's this "once proud, now exiled"-ish vibe going on, would it ruin everything if Rogar USED to be a war god, but after his worshippers failed in war, he--like them--has evolved into a craftsman, using his skill at arms to craft the tools he once used in battle? And like the dwarves themselves, he still holds anger for past glories. He, like a lot of them, wants to get back to the fight, but the time is not yet come.

It might be too complicated, of course, but might likewise explain the axe / forge stuff in a way that likewise reflects the history of the dwarves.

As to the Seithr vs. everyone else stuff, I think you can make that work if you think of the Seithr as a kind of self-contained paradigm. With fewer of the other races there, and built-in resources, the Dwarves in that region did better at maintaining / rebuilding a society, though even they are still a bit at odd ends. Seithr dwarves become a kind of offshoot of general E'n dwarves, whose society is uniquely influenced by their environment.

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I quite like this explanation, and withdraw my objection.

I think it's fine if Seithr dwarves are different from deep dwarves and other dwarves. Heck, the elves in Jirago and the elves of whatever that forest kingdom is have a have a much larger cultural divide than that.

That version of Dwarven history works for me as well! Nicely done, jkason!

Aw, shucks. Thanks, guys.

Okay, since I think we've settled most objections, I'm going to go ahead and throw in my YES for Rogar as statted in DT's last post (previous page).

I'm ok with those basics except subdomains which SK has pointed out we've not listed previously. I would like to see a little more expansion of Rogar's personal story. It doesn't have to be as long or elaborate as the Transcendental Imperium but I think it would be good to fill it out a little more. How does he feel about Caridin, for example, and are their other dwarven gods in the pantheon that he has relationships with? Those sorts of things.

Here's a couple of ideas that have bounced around in my head at various times over the past few years that I haven't fully developed. Now is as good a time as any to toss them out there and see what people think.

1) The dwarves have no natural deities. They were originally immortal, fey-like creatures from the Other World and therefore had no need of deities or an afterlife nor did they fully understand the consequences of giving up their immortality. Caridin came into being in response to the restless spirits of the dwarven dead initially as a psychopomp to escort dwarven souls to appropriate gods of other races. Later Caridin became a god in his own right claiming the dwarven dead as his own. Rogar was a folk-hero of the age before the dwarves lost their strongholds and object of an ancestor cult that quickly developed into a priesthood as the dwarves mimicked the religious institutions of other races.

2) As above, the dwarves have no natural deities. When the dwarves gave up their immortality a certain group of very powerful dwaven-beings remained in the Other World making the supernaturally wondrous things the dwarves were known for. One, Rogar, kept a keen eye on the dwarves interested in how things would turn out for them. When the dwarves' enemies rose up in mass to war against them Rogar roused those near god-like beings into action in defense of their mortal kindred. Inevitably they lost but the intervention of Rogar and his allies caused the development of ancestor cults and worship that propelled those beings into the ranks of the gods.

Those two ideas could work together with Caridin coming with the first dwarven deaths, then Rogar (and allies?) when the dwarves lost their strongholds. I kinda like the idea of the dwarves being one of the oldest races on E'n but having the youngest gods.

3) Dwarves have a small pantheon and have appropriated certain non-dwarven deities. For example, Helerion, perhaps called Helgan by the dwarves, remains a sun god but is primarily a god of the forge to the dwarves (works with the changes to Rogar) and appears like an Azer. Dwarven worship is just divergent enough that he would be (mechanically) considered a different deity and could have different abilities than those specified for Helerion.

I don't like another "we were immortal and gave it up" race. It's overdone already with gnomes and elves.

Fortunately or unfortunately, it was done here with the dwarves first. My ideas above aren't really new, they are based on the background for dwarves that has been in place in LPF since the beginning. Elves are a somewhat different case and gnomes, as far as I know, don't fit that category at all.

Oh okay. I thought gnomes gave up immortality when they left the first world, but I may be confusing my worlds. I'll defer to your expertise on original histories.

I find the notion that gods only exist with a finite lifespan feels slightly off to me, since unless the dwarves were omnipotent as well as immortal, there might still be plenty of reasons for worship; just no need for a death god.

On that latter score, though, I have a question about dwarven / elven immortality: was it literally an inability to die no matter what, or was it merely the absence of natural death? i.e., could dwarves / elves be killed?

Re: Immortality. I think it was the absence of death by old age but they could still die by misadventure. The elf write-up specifically mentions that they don't age when in their border realms. I think for dwarves it was even simpler: they just didn't die of old age. No assumed invulnerability or omnipotence in either case.

If by finite lifespans you mean birth or death of a totally new divine being then you may be right but the appearance of a new god in E'n doesn't really mean the birth (or spontaneous generation) of a new divine being but the presentation of a new face by one of the seven divine archetypes. And sure, dwarves could have had deities even when they were in the Other World. It just seemed to me that powerful, immortal, single-minded fey beings focused on crafting and magic really wouldn't have a desire or need for divinity. I guess I sort of assumed a similarity to earth folklore where fey are usually antithetical to the divine.

GlassEye said:

It just seemed to me that powerful, immortal, single-minded fey beings focused on crafting and magic really wouldn't have a desire or need for divinity. I guess I sort of assumed a similarity to earth folklore where fey are usually antithetical to the divine.

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Okay, this sits better in my head with the fey / folklore analogue in place. I was only registering the immortality stuff, which I think was where it was sticking for me.

In that case, I think I probably like option 1 of the three you put forth, since it lets Rogar be a warrior (getting his axe-y-ness) when he was a folk hero, but move toward the forge as his people do the same.