Café de Nuit

i have been attempting to compile every reference in RL books and articles that refer to dwarves in RL. the purpose of this research is to flesh out the dwarven culture in the Land of Mists. Any and all assitance would be appreciated.

i have gone through the original VR Guides in the re-published compilations and some old 2E modules i have and have acquired some old 2e books and Dragon articles to start my work.

There is not much on dwarf in Ravenloft.

The only thing that pop in my brain now is the dwarven vampire (info in 2e MCs as well as in the 3e DenofD). There was one too in From the Shadows.

Almadrask’s Lighthouse, in Haunted Sites netbook, was dwarven built.

Dunkel Kralle (Crawling Claw) in Forgotten Children netbook, was a dwarf.

Silent Sheeshan, in Dragon 238, an evil dwarf thief 7th with a forked tongue.

That's about it on this very small RL population ...

Joël

There's the dwarven vampire from Children of the Night:Vampires as well as the dwarven kargat vampire Beryl Silvertress in the Requiem set - she briefly ruled over the Mountains of Misery.

Van Richten's friend Gedlan/Geddar Ironheart was a dwarf, but if you've combed the VRG's, you probably know that already.

And of course there's the Sorrow of Sithicus, Azreal Dak.

Domains of Dread described the RL Dwarf culture as Norse-inspired, IIRC.
But I love Talon's drawing of the "civilised" dwarf in a 3-piece suit in the RCS.

Joël of the Fraternity wrote: Almadrask’s Lighthouse, in Haunted Sites netbook, was dwarven built.

Dunkel Kralle (Crawling Claw) in Forgotten Children netbook, was a dwarf.

Joël

how do i get my paws on these?

Try the Kargatane site. The old Books of S_ netbooks should still be up for downloading.

a bunch of dwarves were mentioned in the VRGs.

Abordicus Slategrinder: a cleric in Lamordia. I think his first name is "Common-ized", in an effort to make a cultural name sound more Common-ish. This happened alot w/ immigrants at Ellis Island and i dont think its a stretch of the imagination for people in the Enlightened Realms of the Core to do the same to foreigners.

Torenor: dwrf rogue? traveled w/ VR to the Amber Wastes.

a few more, but i cant remember them at the moment.

I believe that I've read somewhere (Black Box or DoD?) that there were dwarven settlements in the Mountains of Misery/Old Arak, Lamordia and the Balinoks (which extend from Borca to Hazlan). VR Arsenal mentions Tombdust Hall and the Ancestors Uprising. There was a tribe of barbarian dwarves mentioned in a Dragon Magazine article about vampire-hunter weapons.

Its a shame that dwarves are so rare in the realm of the dreads

I mean a dwarven domain would be nice!

The problem with dwarves is that its hard to find something to truly scare a creature ussaly portrayed as a tough as nails bouncer that eats kobolds for breakfast, drinks like a sailor with a unlimited bar tabn and has no quams about getting tossed into athe open mouth of a dragon so long as his axe stays sharp and his beard stays unsinged.

The problem with dwarves is that its hard to find something to truly scare a creature ussaly portrayed as a tough as nails bouncer that eats kobolds for breakfast, drinks like a sailor with a unlimited bar tabn and has no quams about getting tossed into athe open mouth of a dragon so long as his axe stays sharp and his beard stays unsinged.

Magic.

Plain and simple.

It operates outside of their rules and it scares them.

I imagine that dwarves would be agoraphobic - all that open space is unnatural for them. They probably don't like forest environments, since they have little experience with the normal sounds of animal activity.

If I had to choose one thing dwarves would be scarred of, it would be birds. Birds fly and live in great open spaces, very much the opposite of subterrainian dwarves. Furthermore, birds are such spindly creatures, physically the antitheis to dwarves. Even a hardy dwarf warrior sweats at the sound of a crow caw and shivers when they stare into the black, souless eyes of a chirping horror.

IMHO, the real problem with dwarves is that most of their abilities are geared for things that you don't normally run into in RL.

For example, dwarves get bonuses vs. orcs and other goblinoids, which are pretty rare. Orcs specifically have been declared to not exist in RL, even as creatures of legend! So the dwarves don't know what an orc is, but if one ever shows up, they will know just how to fight it?!

The bonuses against giantkind are also next to useless. You've got Nabon and the giant of Nartok, and neither of them are likely to be fighting against good PC's any time soon.

Similarly, RL may have a lot of tombs, but how many dungeoncrawls do we actually have in modules? There were a few, but plenty of adventures could go by without the dwarf PC using stonecunning.

Statwise, why else do you play a dwarf? The craft skills, the exotic weapons (in 3.5) and...that's about it, right? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for playing a race because you like it, but not everyone plays that way.

[quote="DeepShadow"]IMHO, the real problem with dwarves is that most of their abilities are geared for things that you don't normally run into in RL.

For example, dwarves get bonuses vs. orcs and other goblinoids, which are pretty rare. Orcs specifically have been declared to not exist in RL, even as creatures of legend! So the dwarves don't know what an orc is, but if one ever shows up, they will know just how to fight it?!

quote]

i agree with most of this. the forgotten realms features Gold Dwarves who have combat bonuses against aberrations. After reading DoD, which mentions that dwarves are more aquainted witht he horrors that dwell beneath the surface, and the Freaks and Aberrations edition of Quoth, i think it is a reasonable adjustment to make the dwarves of RL gold in function if not in form.

They would recieve a bonus to Con and a penalty to Dex rather than Cha. everything else would be statistically the same. Gold Dwarves are darker in skin tone than Common dwarves, but this can also be accounted for in RL as the Players Guide and DoD give a range of possible skin tones, eye colors and hair colors for dwarves of the Mists.

interesting ideas on the Fears of Dwarves. Never actually thought about it before.

I also think that dwarves are a good addiiton to th land of the mist because of their greedy nature! I mean was is more easilly corruptible than a greedy man? Greedy dwraves!

Also I think dwarves are theprime candidat for madness I mean they live undergorund or they work all day at the mines, they probably often meet strange creatures!

Also a lawful good society can easilly be corrupted to be lawful evil(before knowing of ravenloft I was always creating dark homebrew and it featured a dwarven nation with caste a bit like the hindu system).

Dwarven hags would be a greta addition also I mean magic is really distrusted by those paranoid dwarves and an inquisition as worst as the one in tepest could easilly be started.

Faust wrote:I also think that dwarves are a good addiiton to th land of the mist because of their greedy nature! I mean was is more easilly corruptible than a greedy man? Greedy dwraves!

Also I think dwarves are theprime candidat for madness I mean they live undergorund or they work all day at the mines, they probably often meet strange creatures!

Dwarven hags would be a greta addition also I mean magic is really distrusted by those paranoid dwarves and an inquisition as worst as the one in tepest could easilly be started.

i once attempted to design a realm that featured a dwarven darklord who could never achieve what he wanted. his touch corrupted any precious metal that he grasped and when he wanted to close the domain, walls of gold became impenetrable.

i've written up a dwarven hag (annis) witht he Earth template as well which i plan to include in this piece although i might want to change it because of the publication of Races of Stone and its inclusion of the Mineral Warrior template.. Never thought about madness. makes sense though ... distrustful of the unknown and magic. working conditions as a prelude to madness might not work, however, as dwarves are culturally inclined to dwell in a subterranean enviornment.