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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8345429" data-attributes="member: 6801228">This is one of the things I would love to do with dwarves. That and them being crafted by their parents. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------When I went to rewrite some dwarven stuff for my setting, I started pretty simple. I looked to the gods, and to what the stereotypes might mean. So, I ended up with Moradin and Berronar. Moradin crafting the First Born dwarves to attract the beautiful and mercurial goddess, and her marrying him and adopting the "children". All other Dwarven gods/goddesses were not actually deities, but saints. I tried to take a very Roman Catholic type of feel, giving them long lists of saints for various deeds. I even took some saints of sins, who had reached "divinity" but for foul purposes. Like Abbathor. This had a pretty subtle effect though, in that dwarves would often reference the Saints instead of the Gods. I then followed that up by deciding that Dwarves didn't have "mountain homes" they have a single Mountain home. The City of Harth was the birthplace of the dwarves and they carved the mountain out so that all dwarves could live in it. I had them displaced once by the Goblins (who are terrifying in my world) but in general, it wasn't a huge change... except. I got to thinking about the stereotypes. What is the stereotypically dwarf? A blacksmith or miner who his also a warrior, male, and likes to get drunk. Well, I made the getting drunk just a by-product of fetid mountain cave water, and the blacksmithing would clearly be a sacred thing, with all the dwarves making items to give to Moradin, which were kept in a single massive vault when they were no longered owned by the family, or someone wanted to donate them. But what about the warrior thing? So, I decided that the dwarves, due to have so many threats surrounding their homes (goblins, orcs, also didn't trust humans or elves, and have underdark monsters) required a 10 year military service from all men. And the men would patrol the borders, and do the fighting. Which got me thinking... what about the women? What do they do with a bunch of drunken warriors on their days off? That's when a bit of inspiration struck. The women stayed home and enforced the laws. I came up with the "bellringers" who were patrols of women cops who had heavy batons for dealing with rowdy soldiers. The judges where usually women. I first thought about them staying home because of pregnancy, but then I started expanding it a bit too. Because the Dwarves NEVER wanted to abandon Harth again. So the dwarven women were the last line of defense for their sacred homes,  and they knew it. So they trained three times harder and were far more fearsome warriors than the men. Male dwarves might fight for glory. If a female dwarf is fighting it is for the survival of her people, and she isn't going to fight fair or hold back. Or she is bludgeoning a male dwarf who started a drunken brawl in the city, and is dragging them to the courts to get sobered up and punished. I never really finished building the culture out. I had various clans who held various positions, a council of three who advised the rules, with the "King" was the male general of the armies, while the "Queen" was the Supreme Judge, and the two were basically never married because "King and Queen" was just the best way humans could translate their real positions and authority. It was a fun little bit. Again though, dying and turning to stone and being born of stone are some great concepts to help make dwarves just a bit cooler.</blockquote>

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