D&D General Dwarven Vikings

[AlViking]

My dad always roots for the Vikings football team.

Yep, the team that had the record of losing the most Super Bowls when I was a kid. They haven't made the championship game since ... umm ... the 70s? As far as I'm concerned still hold the record because they've never actually won and consistently lost by more than the Buffalo Bills. At least the Patriots and Broncos have won some.

And that's pretty much my sum of knowledge of pro football any more, I gave up on them a while back. At least they still have your dad rooting for them!

 

[Sorinth]

Lumber/wood is used a lot in mining for supporting the tunnels so in my mind Dwarves would quite naturally use wood, and it's actually part of the the whole elf vs dwarf dislike/conflict comes from because the dwarves will come to a forest and start clearing it for lumber.

So no problem with wooden ships, though ironclad type ships do also make sense.

Id love to see Fjord dwarfs who have strongholds carved into high, deep cliffs that plunge down into the sea. The entrances are connected by rope bridges and verticle cable networks.
The land is rugged, mountainous and cold Not suitable for farming which forces the Fjord dwarfs to rely on the bounty of the sea. Fishing and hunting with harpoons and steel mesh nets their catch includes fish, seals, whale and giant sea serpents. Whale bone, walrus tusk, serpent hides, giant carapace, miners iron and steel are the major building materials, wood is scarce.

Each clan owns its own ironclad ship, etched with runes, powered by steam and equipped with harpoons and processing capacity. The Fjord dwarfs view the sea as an anvil that tempers the hearts and minds of its sea-hunters as they face storm, wave and massive beasts. The Fjord Dwarf Harpooners are celebrated hunters while Fjord dwarf warriors are shield marines, wielding heavy axes and oval shields that double as small rafts or floatation devices. They practice "anchor war" tactics—dropping ship-chains to halt enemy vessels, boarding with hooks and nets. Some elite units tame and ride sea rams, massive tusked seals that the dwarfs have domesticated as symbols of status...

For some more inspiration check out Porto Flavia

Porto Flavia: where wilderness meets design - ONE Only Natural Energy

“This is not a coal mine but a sea harbour,” this is how the Sardinian Geopark guides typically introduce Porto Flavia to tourists and visitors....

www.onlynaturalenergy.com

 

[AlViking]

Just a side note on dwarves and particularly ships. If you don't want to iron ships because of rust issues and what-not there is a company developing what they call super wood. Basically they treat normal wood and then "remove most of its lignin and then compressing the material to strengthen the hydrogen bonds between cellulose molecules." It makes a material stronger than steel and better yet it doesn't corrode or rot. MSN

It's similar to something (except I just made it up, this stuff is entering production soon) I've had dwarves use for a while in my campaign. Of course it has other issues like elves think the dwarves are "corrupting the integrity" of wood. Not sacrilege per se, just something they dislike. Anyway I just remembered the article, thought it was cool and might be an interesting way to build very sturdy ships.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

Just a side note on dwarves and particularly ships. If you don't want to iron ships because of rust issues and what-not there is a company developing what they call super wood. Basically they treat normal wood and then "remove most of its lignin and then compressing the material to strengthen the hydrogen bonds between cellulose molecules." It makes a material stronger than steel and better yet it doesn't corrode or rot. MSN

It's similar to something (except I just made it up, this stuff is entering production soon) I've had dwarves use for a while in my campaign. Of course it has other issues like elves think the dwarves are "corrupting the integrity" of wood. Not sacrilege per se, just something they dislike. Anyway I just remembered the article, thought it was cool and might be an interesting way to build very sturdy ships.

There are also places like Járnviðr (Iron-Wood) and ironwood in D&D, so whether by nature or by processing something similar could happen. Of course, the processing causing another elf-dwarf issue is interesting.

 

[Yaarel]

Of course, the processing causing another elf-dwarf issue is interesting.

The Norse Alfar are patterns of sunlight.

The British Faerie are fertile soil, and strongly correlate plants, especially thickets of trees. So British Elves strongly correlate trees. But Norse Alfar, notsomuch.

The Alfar are sunlight, and yes, plants need sunlight, and farmers need good summer sunny weather. The Alfar are skyey, where the sunlight is.

Alfar and Dvergar are like polarizations of a same species. Both are fates, both personify magic, both craft magic items, but they are opposites. Sky versus Land, Sunlight versus Darkness, Blessed Fate versus Cursed Fate, and so on, are part of their mutual contrasts.

The Eddas describe Alfheimr as existing 'in the sky' (himninum), the upper sky above the clouds. The home of the Alfar is a huge 'hall' (salr), a longhouse whose floor is the clouds and whose walls and roof are the skydome. The sun illuminates their skyey home. There are upper layers of the sky, including the cloud level itself (himinn), the cloudless bright stratosphere (andlangr), and finally outer space, the 'wide lustrous-black' (vídbláinn). Gimlé is in this outer sky, beyond the land and clouds. This outer sky seems identical with ginnungahiminn. The Alfar inhabit all of these skyey regions.

Norse Alfar = Sunlight Sky ≠ Trees