Entering the realm of the dwarves

[Bungus]

Hi there - my first post here. I signed up to help get ideas for my ongoing D&D campaign, which is 3.5E and has been ongoing for about 18 months now. (knock on wood)

The players in my campaign will likely be entering a L/G dwarven kingdom that is allied with the neighboring human kingdom that they are in the process of leaving.

One PC is a N/G dwarf and from a foreign dwarf kingdom, two players are human (a rogue and a priestess), one is a halfling and one is an elf.

What can the players expect entering the dwarven realm? I am trying to make this fairly pleasant and quick, but also want it to be a bit different than meeting a human king or two, which they have already done. The players are fairly high level, so are movers & shakers in the world and the dwarf king may want to meet with them.

Thanks for some ideas here.

 

[Charger28Alpha]

I have a couple questions about the Dwarf Kingdom

Are most of the Dwarf towns and cities above ground, below ground, or a composite of the two?

What factions, that might want to use the PCs to further their agendas exist within the Dwarf Kingdom?

 

[owlbear]

Tip 1: Look at the foreign dwarf kingdom you already have and see how you can make it different.

Tip 2: A quick way of making a kingdom interesting is taking a concept and liberally applying it. Are they super-religious? Are they always angry? Do they have oppressive sexual policies? Are they xenophobic? Do these dwarves grow much larger than others?

Tip 3: Check out "Races of Stone", a 3.5 splatbook with a lot of Dwarf fluff.

 

[Bungus]

I have a couple questions about the Dwarf Kingdom

Are most of the Dwarf towns and cities above ground, below ground, or a composite of the two?

What factions, that might want to use the PCs to further their agendas exist within the Dwarf Kingdom?

There are some towns above ground that serve as trading areas for trade with the humans, but the majority live underground.

The king hopes to use the PCs to further his agenda, (strengthening the human kingdom for mutual defense) while other factions may hope to stop them - leaving the humans to fend for themselves, figuring they are safe in their underground kingdom.

 

[Bungus]

Tip 1: Look at the foreign dwarf kingdom you already have and see how you can make it different.

Tip 2: A quick way of making a kingdom interesting is taking a concept and liberally applying it. Are they super-religious? Are they always angry? Do they have oppressive sexual policies? Are they xenophobic? Do these dwarves grow much larger than others?

Tip 3: Check out "Races of Stone", a 3.5 splatbook with a lot of Dwarf fluff.

Thanks, I'll see if I have Races of Stone, and some good ideas on tip 2 as well. #1 won't help me too much, as the other dwarf kingdom has not really been detailed.

 

[Charger28Alpha]

Life in an underground city or town is very different than a surface city or town of the same population. In order to make the dwarves not just short, industrious humans play up the cosmetic differences(tunnels instead of streets, either lots of carvings and frescoes on walls, or no decoration depending on the dwarves aesthetic feelings), and the practical differences(with no "day or night" the dwarf society would come up with some other way to divide the day, ceiling height would probably be 6-7 feet in most locations).

Depending on your groups play style you can build some great intrigue story lines by having the PCs manipulated by various factions. Whatever parts of "Owlbear's Tip 2" you do not use for the society as a whole you can use to make quick capsule summaries of the various factions.

If you are using some version of an Underdark, have the King invite PCs to his "Hunting Lodge", a small complex built on the edge of a massive cavern near the capital city, for a (Insert Mean Underdark Monster Here) Hunt. Courtly intrigue is very compelling, and often up close and personal, when away from the resources of the court.

 

[chronoplasm]

What kinds of metals and stones are these dwarves able to mine in their land?
What kinds of crops do they grow?
What kinds of animals do they hunt or domesticate?

 

[Bungus]

What kinds of metals and stones are these dwarves able to mine in their land?
What kinds of crops do they grow?
What kinds of animals do they hunt or domesticate?

Thanks - the dwarves have a virtual monopoly on iron & steel, so are quite wealthy because the human kingdom is in need of more iron & steel to help defend themselves against the mighty hobgoblin empire to their south...

They have other valuables, but the main source of wealth is the iron.

 

[Gilladian]

So they would show off that wealth. Possibly they wear iron jewelry, have iron art work on display (huge wrought iron decorative gateways at the city entrance, a cast iron throne for the king, pillars of steel supporting the throne room ceiling).

They might also display evidence of their martial strength in captured banners from ancient days hung on the throne-room walls.

Music - most dwarves have very different musical taste than humans. Have their halls ring with chanting every hour (or whatever division you decide on) or with great mechanical bells. It could be very eerie and echoing. And the dwarves just pause, wait for the noise to pass (or even join in the chant for a few seconds, mid-conversation) and then go on as if it never happened.

Food - the humans may be amazed to discover that they are served roasted mountain goat stuffed with dried fruit at the king's table, but when they stop at a tavern for a snack, they get "dwarf-tack" made from cave-grown fungus ground into flour (or dried and reconstituted puffball mushrooms; tough but tasty). Mushroom stew and roasted cave-rat might also be common menu items.

Play up the sharp contrasts - claustrophobic rooms and passages opening onto vast inner caves, defenses in 3 dimensions (pits, sudden elevations, deep shafts and elevators, steep stairs without rails over chasms, etc...) absolute darkness and sudden pools of artificial light.

Think about some other secret these dwarves may have. In my campaign world, dwarves are genderless; they are carved from stone in adult form, so there are no dwarf children, no marriage, no sex, etc... Instead they are very close to their "parent carver" and their "stone brothers" carved from the same rock and near the same time. Because they are SO different from other races, dwarves tend to keep this quiet, and don't tell outsiders. This group may have a different secret, but they could still have one.

Hope these ideas help...

 

[Thanael]

The 2E Complete Book of Dwarves had a chapter on different dwarven communities plus some tables to roll them up. It also featured lots of info on dwarven communities & life in general.