Plot hooks for Dwarves (stay out Halivar)

[Ravilah]

Okay, I'm running a homebrew campaign (still in the early levels). A new player has just joined us, and he's playing a special dwarven cleric/fighter kind of class. This guy is really into dwarves; his character will, by default, take actions that favor his people.

My world is pretty well-developed, so I give my players a lot of room to just go where they want and fight for whatever causes they like best (I have an overarching story, but there are many different ways of encountering it and dealing with it). Well, now that this dwarf is in the party, it has become immediately obvious that the campaign will be dealing a lot more with dwarves. (For instance, the party has just uncovered an important secret, and his character insists that the Dwarves are the ones they need to share it with).

Problem: I have never really done much with Dwarves, so I'm pretty clueless as to what to do with them.

Anyway, that's the long-winded way of asking for plots hook that involve dwarves or things of dwarven interest. This guy isn't much of a gold-greedy dwarf, but more of a "dwarves are the most honorable of races" kind.

Much thanks in advance!

Ravilah

 

[shilsen]

First thing to do when dealing with dwarves - read Terry Pratchett's "The Fifth Elephant." That should give you not just a great working picture of a dwarven culture but also at least half a dozen plots to steal.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

What about the old "only survivor of his clan" thing? Then he has to go avenge them. But let them all die by a naturally occuring cave-in. He has to hack at stones for all eternity.


Now, whenever someone takes the moral high ground for some race, saying that they were better than everything else (about 80-85% of these cases were about dwarves, the rest was shared between Gold/Grey Elves), I get the urge to show them the nasty side of that race (them dealing with the lowest scum, backstabbing each other, being anything but honourable/courageous, and so on). Sometimes I gave in to that urge. I don't know whether that applies here (you were saying that he thinks dwarves are the most honourable of races), but I'd see whether he gets on the other players' nerves with that attitude and act accordingly.

It could also be a plot hook: He encounters that not all dwarves are honourable. In fact, some of the most important/ influential ones are real bastards. He then is contacted by the Dwarven Rebellion, who want to restore a worthy ruler to their throne, but they have difficulties because obedience is hard-wired into the dwarven ideology.

There's also things like finding the tomb of an ancient dwarven hero, finding some dwarven relic (usually axe-shaped), investigating the surcease of communication from another clan. Think Moria (Lord of the Rings), with hordes of orcs and some terrors from the deep, although they could also just be gone - the whole clanhold empty of life, without signs of struggle, looking like they all just went away all of a sudden - doors left unlocked, half-eaten meals, untended fires and forges and all that. Now what would make them just get up and go like that. Did it have a reason? Or were they disappeared by some sinister force?

When the same happens to a sizable forest city of the Elves, and then a human town or even city, things get real spooky!

 

[diaglo]

a long lived race of lawful... mostly good... monsters.

they live for community. each is a part and adds to the sum of the whole.

every other dwarf is a brother or sister. they are not over abundant. so each birth is sacred. each is hoped to build on the legacy of their ancestors.

they have secrets. no to each other. but to the outside races. the other races label them as greedy and such because of their stubborn nature not to reveal these secrets.

but the secrets are ancestral. to give them up. may cause a dwarf great shame. it may cause him to lose contact with his ancestral home or forge.

 

[Krug]

Recovering a famed barrel of ale from a tribe of goblins/orcs/drow.
A secret blacksmithing plan that needs to be recovered.
An old century-old grudge to be resolved.
A lost mining troupe, whose cries can still be heard in the echoes of caverns.
Finding out why Flimgor Flint's beard no longer grows.
Searching for a vein of rare metal/source of pure water.

 

[Kurashu]

In an ongoing campaign that's on haitus (DM's at college about 80 miles away), mine and another player's characters are brother dwarves sent to retrieve an exiled clansman. Of course he was our brother who had done dealings with a necromancer (which we, as characters, didn't know and didn't accept). We got him back, kicked the necrolich's butt, went home.

Fast forward at most a year, we're clanheads (yey!), bro's getting married, and the necrolich is back. However, he tricked us through a gnome into going into some contest that none of us had heard about before (d'oh!). While we were off, the necrolich took over our clan. We got stuck in the middle of a desert about 2000 miles from home. We're pretty adamant about destroying him and making sure he stays dead.

 

[Ravilah]

Cool. This stuff is great. I really like that low-birth-rate-so-every-birth-is-sacred idea. And I'n definitely going to sneak in that Famed Keg of Sacred Ale.

I've already established that some of the city-dwelling dwarves have gotten rather fat, lazy, and humanish--so that should get his blood boiling!

Thanks for the help (please feel free to keep posting).

R

 

[Kae'Yoss]

they have secrets. no to each other.

One part I liked about Races of Stone was the explanation of why dwarves are so sparing of words:

Down in the dwarven halls, space is at a premium. You can't just build another hut out of a couple of logs, like humans do - you have to dig another piece of cave, while being careful to keep the structural integrity intact, and not to dig into parts you should stay out of - like enclosed gasses, or living places of vicious monsters.

So few dwarves have their own room. There's communal sleeping... "caves" where the sleeping cots might be separated by curtains, but privacy as we know it isn't really an option.

The dwarves' privacy is more a mental one than a physical one: They don't freely share their thoughts with others. This sort of secrecy is more intense with outsiders, of course, but they have a sort of secrets even from their clanmates.

 

[Ravilah]

Would Races of Stone be worth picking up?

 

[lazarus1020]

One way to get him more involved into the campaign would be to create a dwarven villian of unspeakable evil. This dwarf could be from the same clan and the character might feel obligated to go along with the party in an attempt to get at this evil kinsman.

In my campaign world, Dwarves are a sophisticated race with a great deal more knowledge of science and technology than the other races. Dwarfs are a race of extremely capable warriors who have never lost the home. The have use of steam and limited use of black powder.