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PhoenixPhyre
2018-06-28, 07:44 PM
A group of PCs will be helping a group of dwarves with a "delicate matter that [they] can't trust to any of their own." I've decided that it's a result of something in the past (about 250 years, or 4-5 generations) that's raised its head now. It has to be something so shameful that a group of super traditional, super stick-up-the-rear-end dwarven elders would be willing to skirt the line of the culture's most ancient and strongest taboo. What are they so ashamed of?

A few notes about my dwarves (this culture anyway, others are different):
* They're super traditional. "Dad and grandpa did it this way, so it's what I'll do" isn't an excuse, it's a self-evidently proper way of life. The only changes allowed are incremental improvements to efficiency that do not change the essential function.
* They're a clan-based gerontocracy--the leaders are always the eldest, and respect for the old is a major part of their culture.
* They are almost inescapably pair-bonded--married for life to the degree that when one partner dies, the other is called "broken" and either withers away soon or throws themselves into more and more risky endeavors. Adventurers are the only significant exceptions, and for that they are considered deeply strange. A married pair of dwarves act as a single unit in all aspects.
* The "greatest taboo" is lying in written words. Writing is sacred, as it's the legacy of their ancestors who wielded runic magic. They do not write things they know to be false. Ever. To do so, even (especially!) for a leader, incurs the death penalty. "As if written by a dwarf" is an idiom for "the absolute truth as far as I know." Destroying written words is only done in extreme circumstances; normally dwarven histories are the most well-kept records around.
* My dwarves only live about 120-130 years.
* This particular group is an amalgam of multiple clans thrown together by a world-shaking cataclysm about 200 years ago.

tyckspoon
2018-06-28, 08:00 PM
What are they so ashamed of?

* The "greatest taboo" is lying in written words. Writing is sacred, as it's the legacy of their ancestors who wielded runic magic. They do not write things they know to be false. Ever. To do so, even (especially!) for a leader, incurs the death penalty. "As if written by a dwarf" is an idiom for "the absolute truth as far as I know." Destroying written words is only done in extreme circumstances; normally dwarven histories are the most well-kept records around.
* This particular group is an amalgam of multiple clans thrown together by a world-shaking cataclysm about 200 years ago.

The first thing that occurs to me is that their history is wrong. Sometime in the cataclysm or thereabouts a Dwarf put down a deliberate lie in the tribe histories. And not only a lie, but a lie about something they take as a fundamental truth and aspect of their culture - some great Dwarven hero was actually a rank coward (say there's an idiom like 'Walking in the boots of Urist' that currently means 'Standing firm in the face of danger' and might come to mean 'running away as fast as your feet can carry you' if the secret gets out), a cultural treasure that was supposedly awarded to them for some mighty service was actually stolen from somebody else, the rune-written magical contract that guarantees the Dwarven races' position of honor in the afterlife is actually a piece of questionably legal trickery that would not pass an ethical review board. Something that if revealed would cause the entire tribe or even Dwarf culture as a whole to need to seek a way to redeem themselves for having perpetuated the lie.. probably in massively self-destructive ways. The Elders who discovered it know the lie cannot be permitted to continue, but they also cannot reveal it publicly for fear of what it will do to their tribe. So they contract outsiders to try and figure out a way to solve the problem that the Dwarves themselves can't think of.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-06-28, 08:17 PM
The first thing that occurs to me is that their history is wrong. Sometime in the cataclysm or thereabouts a Dwarf put down a deliberate lie in the tribe histories. And not only a lie, but a lie about something they take as a fundamental truth and aspect of their culture - some great Dwarven hero was actually a rank coward (say there's an idiom like 'Walking in the boots of Urist' that currently means 'Standing firm in the face of danger' and might come to mean 'running away as fast as your feet can carry you' if the secret gets out), a cultural treasure that was supposedly awarded to them for some mighty service was actually stolen from somebody else, the rune-written magical contract that guarantees the Dwarven races' position of honor in the afterlife is actually a piece of questionably legal trickery that would not pass an ethical review board. Something that if revealed would cause the entire tribe or even Dwarf culture as a whole to need to seek a way to redeem themselves for having perpetuated the lie.. probably in massively self-destructive ways. The Elders who discovered it know the lie cannot be permitted to continue, but they also cannot reveal it publicly for fear of what it will do to their tribe. So they contract outsiders to try and figure out a way to solve the problem that the Dwarves themselves can't think of.

I like this. I may have it more local than the entire race. This city has control of an ancient Rune Forge, one of the few remaining pieces dating back to their Titan ancestors. Maybe they acquired it in a contract that they haven't fulfilled, or involved a bit of "creative", fingers-crossed dealing?

A thought I had was that there was a contract written back then that was unconscionable for the modern dwarves, and it's now coming due. Do they break the contract (thus violating their honor), do they try to weasel out of it, or do they go through with it (at the cost of selling their children into slavery, as that was the terms I was thinking of)?

Keltest
2018-06-28, 08:30 PM
Perhaps the original founders of the clan were actually criminals and exiles from other clans? And they got around the taboo by reciting fake oral history to their children while the clanhold was being constructed, and the children then recorded it as fact once there were actual libraries and lore centers to record it in and they had taken over.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-06-28, 08:35 PM
Perhaps the original founders of the clan were actually criminals and exiles from other clans? And they got around the taboo by reciting fake oral history to their children while the clanhold was being constructed, and the children then recorded it as fact once there were actual libraries and lore centers to record it in and they had taken over.

Maybe the very oldest, but that runs into a few problems.

The original clan-hold at this location is old (~1000 years), but was minor until very recently. The rest of the clans immigrated more recently, but only in bits and pieces (fragments of multiple clans fleeing the end of the world as they knew it and the presumed loss of their clan holds, bringing only some of their records with them). So this particular dwarven culture is an amalgam of a bunch of different clans.

For reasons too complex to go into here, I'd like to pin the date of the shameful event about 50 years before the cataclysm, not thousands of years before. I'd also like (but this is less important) an excuse to send the party to one of those "abandoned" holds, as I have this image of finding descendants of those that didn't flee, enslaved somehow. It's a low level party, so no fire giants or full-on dragons as enslavers, though.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-06-28, 08:54 PM
Ooh, maybe some of those clans that fled knowingly left people behind selfishly, basically selling them into slavery to help them escape. And then fluffed it as a noble, willing sacrifice. They locked the true history away in the deep archives, but now someone found it and is threatening to spread the news. That would cause near civil war if not handled well.

WindStruck
2018-06-28, 10:05 PM
300 years ago, the dwarves dug too deeply and unleashed an evil so great, that their only chance for survival, and the wellbeing of the world was to enlist the help of unlikely allies: the elves.

Now, with the last of their ancestors' great grandchildren on death's doorstep, the time for the final obligations of their contract is to be fulfilled. Once he dies, something happens... whether they give up half of all their treasure and forged goods, or .. something.

Basically the contract could be written as, "When the last of our great grand children passes away, we will do X."

Maybe you'd like to take it on that kind of an approach, since the two races usually don't get along that well? :smallbiggrin:

Pleh
2018-06-29, 07:26 AM
Feels a bit cliche, not that that's always a bad thing, but it makes me want to add a layer of complexity to make it more intriguing.

Take a current head of house for the clan who is revered among the clans for valor and heroic conduct. He's old and sick and we're not sure if he'll pull through, so ceremonies are being prepared to fashion his tomb, which includes inscribing his great life accomplishments inside the tomb.

On what could be his deathbed, through his feverish ranting, relatives caring for him begin to piece together that he is tormented by sins from his youth. At first, they think he's hallucinating, but some of the shrewder members of the family begin discreetly investigating the confessions and find them to be true (I picture his crime to be something akin to taking credit for wiping out the goblins in the mountain, when he actually failed to flee the battle, negotiated for his life, and betrayed the goblins after the fact by collapsing the tunnels so they had to go around the long way to reach the dwarves). If the truth got out, the family reputation would be utterly torn apart. Before they can risk writing the story of his life they now know to be false, they have to erase any evidence of it.

Who is better at creating large swaths of chaos, death, and collateral destruction than adventurers? They come up with a quest to entice an adventuring party's assistance which happens to send the heroes on a mission to destroy evidence of their leader's misconduct, without entrusting the heroes to keep their secret. Maybe they send the heroes to investigate an area where the surviving goblins are finally pushing through, hoping that the murderhobos in their bloodlust finish the work their patriarch claimed all those years ago.

It builds up that epic moment where the heroes, finishing off the last goblin, hears one of the dying giving his last words by cursing the dwarves and their broken promises. Turns out the goblins, in their twisted sense of humor, had forced their captive dwarf to sign a contract securing his release in exchange for betraying his people. They hadn't expected him to break his written word instead (dwarven signature reputation was that strong). The goblin leader still has the original contract, as they were intending to deliver it to the dwarves after sacking the city to further break their morale.

The heroes return to find the family has more or less put their elder out to pasture discreetly (either pillow to the face or just taking him off life support) and are moving to officially crown the next eldest to be their leader. I would let the players choose if they wanted to confromt the family privately or publicly or just turn the information over to authorities.

It gives the players something more interactive in the narrative than just discovering the truth. It gives them a morality quandry and the opportunity to pick sides.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-06-29, 08:07 AM
Pleh, that's a great scenario but doesn't really fit the world very well for a range of reasons.

My current thinking (having evolved as I went to bed last night) was:

Back about 250-300 years ago, there were two clans living near each other in the now-"destroyed" north. Call them clan A and clan B (names to come later). Clan A had a Rune Anvil in their possession, a major artifact of great historical and cultural (as well as technological) significance.

At the Cataclysm (210 years ago), clan B brought the Rune Anvil south with them as they fled the destruction. Clan A did not come south. Clan B is now one of the dominant clans in the local scene, in part due to their monopoly of the Anvil.

Official History
Clans A and B were close allies. A greedy enemy G attacked A, besieging their clan-hold to get their hands on the Rune Anvil. A runner got away and alerted clan B, who rallied to clan A's aid. Sadly, they arrived just as G broke through the defenses and slaughtered clan A with only a few survivors. Clan B managed to keep them from getting away with the Rune Anvil, and accepted it in trust for the remains of clan A, who blended in with B.

Real History
Clan B was subordinate to clan A, and strongly resented that fact. Outwardly they were allies, but had signed a peace/cooperation treaty. A group of elders of clan B secretly coordinated with enemy G to attack clan A's hold, promising betrayal in exchange for coordination. They also worked with a dragon-sorcerer (dragons and dwarves have a long history of enmity), gaining a device to teleport them back home. The elders gained entry to clan A's hold under false pretenses. There they opened the gates to G, creating a distraction where some of them were able to sneak to the forge and steal/teleport out with the Rune Anvil to a secure location. They then sent forces from clan B to double-cross G and set up the official record of events. They also wrote down the truth (because dwarves) and hid it in the deep archives.

Edit: Note that this makes the official record true, but utterly misleading. The best kind of lie.

Present Day
A group of radicals, wanting to show that the traditions shouldn't need to be followed, uncovered this secret in the deep archives and are preparing to spread the word that the whole clan structure is corrupt and should be overthrown. Doing this would make a serious mess of the whole multi-racial nation of which the dwarves are an integral part. It would probably spark a civil war, or at least shatter the nation into fragments as groups took sides.

They are aided by a small sub-set of the present-day elders who, knowing the truth, can't stomach it any more and believe the truth has to come out. The elders want to do it with a bit more prep work, the radicals want maximum upheaval. Some of the elders may have ulterior motives (they're mostly from the clans that were originally in this area, not clan B and want to see clan B humbled).

Dramatic Questions
1) Who does the party side with? The mainstream (security, peace, false history), the dissident elders ("managed" upheaval, personal gain), or the radicals (truth, an unrighteous mess)? A 4th way that I haven't foresee?
2) How do they manage the conflict once they've taken sides? Talk it out? Assassinations? Etc.
3) A twist: there is evidence that clan A wasn't destroyed at all in the assault, but was enslaved. All the other parties (due to their tradition/anti-tradition blinders) have ignored this evidence. Will the party bring it up? How, if at all, will it change the situation?

Coventry
2018-06-29, 07:33 PM
A slightly different take ...

One of the "Great Dwarven Heroes" did not start life as a dwarf. The hero was actually born a orc, but died and was reincarnated, ending up a Dwarf. He original tribe tossed him out, of course. The first dwarven clan he tried to join figured out that he was not what he appeared to be, and tossed him out. He changed his name, and lasted little longer before the second dwarven tribe tossed him out. He kept changing his name, and learning to be the best dwarf he could be, before he finally found a clan that accepted him.

The first dwarven clan has an oft-repeated campfire story about the imposter ... and pictures of that imposter.

The last clan ASSURES everyone that, despite the nearly identical facial features, that imposter simply WAS NOT related to their hero. In fact, that actually proves how evil that imposter was that the imposter tried so hard to look like their hero.

Because of that, the hero's soul is stuck, unable to proceed to his final rest due to the perpetuated lies about him.