The Dwarven Cold War

[HeavenShallBurn]

I'm fleshing out parts of a homebrew setting and one of the ideas that I'll be covering I just had to find out if anybody else had ever come up with anything similar. I was kind of influenced by the Eberron dwarves who were so mercantilist.

Anyway so I've got the majority of the dwarves as very stable and reactionary socially in this culture of competition that views commerce and production of goods as a sort of quasi-religious measure of worth and fierce competition between clans to produce the most and accumulate the most wealth to glorify both clan and god. Leading to huge but largely covert conflicts between the clans.

Then there's this other faction. They broke away and formed an independent city with a more than vaguely communist society. The two groups hate each other, but haven't gone to war, at least openly. Because their chief god REALLY frowns on dwarves killing their blood relatives they can't go to war since the splinter group is after all still their kin even if they don't like them.

So instead each group is determined to simply outlast the other and undermine their opponents society until the "wayward hasty dupes" on -insert opposing faction here- realize they made a mistake and change their ways. So each group has these spies constantly working to infiltrate and oppose the goals of the other faction. To the dwarves these are untraceable troublemakers that they never can seem to catch -on either side-. Of course to anybody but dwarves the spies are painfully obvious, after all dwarves are about as subtle as a boot stamping on your face. But the dwarves refuse to acknowledge anything is out of the ordinary, don't admit to being anything but good relatives of the other faction to all the outsiders. And so on, with this if not blatant certainly not well hidden, never ending low level cold war that they all deny exists to non-dwarves but is obvious to pretty much all the kind of NPCs PCs will associate with. Not very important to them, but there's the dichotomy of the Dwarves who are convinced that they're keeping it all totally secret while all the other races are pretty well aware of it at the appropriate levels but aren't that interested because it doesn't really affect them to any appreciable degree.

 

[painandgreed]

I like that. I might have to *yoink* it.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

I had a significant update that covered more I was posting but I lost it. D**n Windows. Anyway when I recover or retype it I'll post it here

probably about a page or two of background detail when I retype it

 

[Starglim]

Dwarves would be brilliant as communists.

Their underground realms work well also to provide a claustrophobic setting where escape is difficult, which would help greatly to set up a Cold War game.

 

[Dirigible]

The dwarves in Chainmail (the Sundered Empire setting) had a communist-ish society, from what I've read.

You, uh, seem to be writing your dwarves as very, very stoopid. Any reason for that?

 

[domino]

I don't see it as stupid, more like willfull disbelief. "I refuse to accept that my fellow dwarves are trying to disassemble our one bridge out of town. Even though I saw them doing it."

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Some clarifications needed?

My first post was rather short and not very informative, now that I look at it wasn't written very well either.

I had a much longer post prepared that went in depth on the social mentalities, history, reasoning and mechanics of the conflict. All in all it probably added up to several pages but I lost it on the post and have to reconstruct it from notes scattered in scraps of other things.

I didn't mean to imply that the dwarves deny to each other that a conflict is occuring. The dwarves understand and foster the conflict through their actions and social practices. They simply refuse to acknowledge anything at all is out of the ordinary to any non-dwarf whatso-ever. In the vein of -"Nothing to see here folks, nothing at all, move along now" *guard fingers edge of large dwarven war axe*-.

As far as tearing down bridges and such, infiltration and subversion when done properly are seldom that obvious. They aren't inept, and aren't blind to what's going on. They're totally rapt up in their own little feud with each other. Traditionalist and communist each so committed and stubborn, and I figure a dwarven TRUE BELIEVER to be about the most stubborn thing in existence, that neither gains an edge. The damage is done, but the other side just sucks it up, stubborns things out and rebuilds. Seeing everything they endure as another proof that they are right and the other side is wrong

EDIT: The spies on either side are not inept by dwarven standards. But I figure dwarves as being so stubborn that they can frequently blinker themselves to ignore what they're certain "can't possibly be true". The spies aren't comical, generic hickfarmer commoner #7 in town isn't going to be able to easily ferret out the "insidious plots". But people you'd expect to have some political connection or aptitude with other races are going to be able to see through their cover because they make mistakes peculiar to the dwarven mindset. Things dwarves have a racial tendency to overlook but others with the right aptitudes notice. Rogues, aristocrats, those involved in the black market, etc. will tend to be able to spot them because of these things that other dwarves would simply not notice.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's pretty cool, but this:

Of course to anybody but dwarves the spies are painfully obvious, after all dwarves are about as subtle as a boot stamping on your face.

I'd disabuse myself of this notion pretty fast. Dwarves don't have a Dex penalty and actually make pretty fine rogues and the like, if they don't have to worry about social skills. They can pump up their Hide/Move Silently/Spot/Listen ranks as high as any Human.

In fact, come to think of it, they'd make pretty unexpected assassins.....neat idear.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Espionage isn't about hiding physically

"I'd disabuse myself of this notion pretty fast. Dwarves don't have a Dex penalty and actually make pretty fine rogues and the like, if they don't have to worry about social skills. They can pump up their Hide/Move Silently/Spot/Listen ranks as high as any Human."
-Kamikaze Midget

Espionage isn't a physical so much as a cultural thing. I didn't really handle that with the initial post but hit the subject with the edit of my update. They're not inept at the mechanics of infiltration or gathering information or sabotage. And among dwarves they're skilled at subverting the enemy. It's the social aspect where I see them slipping up with the precense of non-dwarves. In being so focused on their own dispute and particular mindset they don't realize that they don't quite fit in. Other dwarves don't see it because of shared social blinders that hinder both sides. But to the outsiders of another race those little mistakes add up to make them stand out as not normal because they aren't seeing things from the same angle.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Ya, that makes perfect sense.

Dwarves can be subtle with actions, but with words, they're all thumbs.