What do Dwarves Eat?

[the_brazenburn]

I already know the stereotypical answer: Beer, Pretzels, and Roast Beef.

But seriously, though, where do the raw materials for all that come from? Dwarves live deep underground, and as far as I know, have no or few above-ground farms to source the material from. It doesn't seem sustainable in the long term to buy all or most of their food from somewhere else, and I don't think their caverns could support much agriculture (even of fungi-based crops).

Is there something I'm missing?

[Man_Over_Game]

Here you go!

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/130459/how-do-dwarves-get-their-food/130463#130463

[Nifft]

have no or few above-ground farms to source the material from.

Where does a book say this?

[Legendairy]

Yup, that. Irrigation and even tram type systems are mentioned in a lot of places where they go to and from underground areas of agriculture and above ground “farm” lands.

[dejarnjc]

Here you go!

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/130459/how-do-dwarves-get-their-food/130463#130463

That's a great answer. I always kind of assumed they had some D&D universe specific type of underground crops and live stock too. Oh and fishes. The underdark in most D&D realms is a much more vibrant place than cavern systems in real life after all.

[Man_Over_Game]

Where does a book say this?


I'm gonna go ahead and put a quote here from the link I posted:

-------------------------------------------------

Question: How do Dwarves get their food?

Answer: From The Complete Book of Dwarves, 2nd edition, an answer comes. There's no answer to my knowledge yet from 5e.

Basically, they use hill and mountainside cattle, grow grain wheat rye and barley, supplementing this with trade by humans. Those who cannot access the surface use various carefully bred mushrooms.


Dwarves enjoy a wide variety of food, with a preference for meat. Hill, mountain, and sundered dwarves keep cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, and fowl. These animals are grazed above ground on upland meadows or plateaus. Sundered dwarves keep their livestock close to home, hill and mountain dwarves allow their stock to roam. Although meat is a staple of their diet, large quantities of grains are also consumed. When possible wheat, rye and barley are grown close to the stronghold. They are harvested and kept in underground granaries. Many who live close to humans buy large quantities of grain to supplement their own production. Dwarves who live in the deep earth substitute various types of fungi for grains. Like the giant lizards and beetles, many of these fungi have been carefully bred to produce a wide variety of flavors to excite the palate. Most are very careful about the kinds of fungi they eat. Dwarven cooking also makes use of vegetables for flavor and variety. They do not eat spicy or heavily seasoned food, and consequently dwarven cooking tastes bland to humans and elves, but the food is wholesome, consisting of thick stews served on broad slices of bread. While they are not voracious eaters, few humans or elves can eat as much as a dwarf in a single meal.

[dgnslyr]

TL, DR: Rice, taters, goats, and lamb.

I think the issue is that people double down too hard on the subterranean living part. Sure, any honest dwarf wants stone over their head, but it's a basic constraint of thermodynamics that they need to get there calories from somewhere, and for living beings that means the sun.

Let's assume that dwarves live in the mountains, and that they keep their agriculture as close to home as possible. Clearly, there isn't an abundance of flat, open space, so we can rule out a lot of space-intensive cereal grains like corn, wheat, and barley. If they're growing on a mountainside or foothill, then space is probably at a premium, so I'm thinking rice as their main cereal grain. Besides that, I'm thinking potatoes and root vegetables, which are also space-efficient.

In terms of animal husbandry, we can rule out horse and cattle, which both require an abundance of flat, open space. Goats and sheep, on the other hand, are hardy animals that are fine with rough forage on irregular terrain. Pork is a little more complicated; pigs were traditionally fed from nuts and seeds in the forest, but the hypothetical dwarven highlands are probably not abundant in deciduous green growth. However, the thing about pigs is that they're good at converting anything into animal protein, so they could conceivably be kept indoors and fed any and all organic refuse the dwarves generate.

And dwarves are known for their mercantile prowess, so they of all people should have no trouble trading for "exotic" foods like beef.

[Man_Over_Game]

What's really funny is that dgnslyr's signature is about Dwarf Fortress, and in Dwarf Fortress, you literally design your food system exactly described in my quote about the eating habits of dwarves.

You put your fortress under a big hill, you put your animals on the top of the hill, you shave off the sides of the hill so bad guys can't climb on top to get into your fortress (so it becomes more of a plateau), and you grow a variety of mushrooms for food diversity so your dwarves don't go stir crazy and kill each other.

TheMoreYouKnow!

[guachi]

Growing meat is a lot more resource/energy intensive than vegetable/nuts. So I'd assume they would grow the kinds of fruits and vegetables that grow best in hilly/mountainous terrain.

Given that hilly mountainous terrain isn't the best I'd also assume there was lots of terracing like you see in Peru or Indonesia. Dwarves may not be good at or may not like farming but they can terraform the hills to make the most of things.

[M Placeholder]

Several kilograms of Granite washed down with a keg of Lager.

[strangebloke]

The real question is the Duergar, who do live deeply enough that they can never farm.

You could of course go full discworld and give them meat mines.

I give them volcanic vent biomes. The 'farming' that the Duergar do is primarily an effort to keep the vents from poisoning them all.

[Wilb]

I am working on a campaign setting that involves this. Due to old conflicts between gods and mortals, dwarves have isolated themselves from almost everyone, living under mountain ranges, while being attacked by zombie-like orcs that come from below.

All Dwarven adventurers are actually farmers (as in the common for adventurer is dwarven for farmer), that roam the surface to find a place to work the land and feed their citadel, hoarding crops and meats to last for a couple years.

[Darth Ultron]

Of 5E, Out of the Abyss does contain a bit about Underdark food. And mentions things like Barrelstalk Mushrooms.

2E and 3E have tons of such things.

The basic idea is a mold/fungus/mushroom ecology.


And the idea that ''dwarves stay under ground 24/7" is a bit much. There is no reason for them to not have surface farms. Dwarf goat herders, for example, fit right in with the lore. And dwarves hunt birds too.


The tricky ''real world" thing is that dwarves and other Underdark folks would have altered plants for food....exactly like humans on Earth did. Set the Wayback Machine for 'long ago' and a lot of the plants humans eat....did not exist. Humans took the plants that made good food, and altered them into the modern crops of today. Corn, for example, was made the way it is by humans. And underdark races would do the same thing with their plants.

[Man_Over_Game]

Heh. Dwarves against GMOs. Makes me chuckle.

[Sigreid]

I learned in minecraft that crops grow just fine under ground if you keep a lit torch nearby. 😁

[ImproperJustice]

Ever read the Eragon series?

In it he describes a Dwarven feast, which includes some meat, potatoes, and lots and lots and lots of mushrooms.
Fried, boiled, sauteed, candied, and gravied.

[Willie the Duck]

But seriously, though, where do the raw materials for all that come from? Dwarves live deep underground, and as far as I know, have no or few above-ground farms to source the material from. It doesn't seem sustainable in the long term to buy all or most of their food from somewhere else, and I don't think their caverns could support much agriculture (even of fungi-based crops).

Is there something I'm missing?


I would say is that what you are missing (well, probably know, but aren't applying here) is that fantasy worlds only make sense so far as they answer the logical questions people feel are important. DM's rarely put privy's in castle maps until some enterprising player suggest sneaking in through the sewer (or just asks, "so were do these guys go to the bathroom?"). Dungeons have firepits in areas where there is no ventilation (heck, dungeons exist at all, often in places where it's unclear why millions of man-hours of work went into building the thing). And, yes, Dwarves (and drow, duerger, illithids... entire subterranean ecosystems exist with only as much 'how could this be?' justification as the author deems necessary.

Mike Mornard, one of the original D&D playtesters, once recounted how he* put a food court into his dungeon after a player asked how the monsters ate. That brings me to the second point--people have been asking such questions since the very beginning.
*or it might have been Gary, Dave, or M.A.R. Barker, these stories run together for me.

As others have posted, various editions have come up with attempts to explain this. I know another example is Dragonlance, where the dwarves decidedly do farm the land around their underground strongholds (and a war between hill and mountain dwarves because one didn't help the other during a famine, so obviously someone thinks about these things). Regardless, it is after-the-fact justification, and what you come up with can be just as good as what others have. I'm a little surprised that 5e doesn't have an answer (although the lack of full worldbooks might be the explanation).

[Whit]

1. Underground mushrooms
2. Lamb goats
3. Grains etc for ale bread
4. Trade metal work jewelry beer for rest
On a fun note. Pork. Lots of fried (p)orc

[VoxRationis]

Chemosynthetic invertebrates, analogous but unrelated to tube worms, living in volcanic pools. Each such pool has a very strict cap on the number of dwarves it can ultimately support, is, of course, highly centralized in location, and requires comparatively few laborers to get it to maximum capacity. This naturally leads the dwarves to a society based on isolated, high-density communities separated by large areas of wilderness, where most individuals do not work on food production, and to a highly urbanized population at a comparatively small population size.

[Sigreid]

There are spells that conjure sunlight. Any reason a cavern can't be enchanted with that spell to create farm land?

[Lunali]

Dwarves eat mushrooms, which caused them to develop poison resistance, which also caused them to resist alcohol, resulting in a massive increase in intake.

Alternately, dwarves drank so much alcohol they developed poison resistance, which allowed them to move underground and eat mushrooms.

[dgnslyr]

Dwarves eat mushrooms, which caused them to develop poison resistance, which also caused them to resist alcohol, resulting in a massive increase in intake.

Alternately, dwarves drank so much alcohol they developed poison resistance, which allowed them to move underground and eat mushrooms.

We're talking about dwarves here; fungus and alcohols could be one and the same. All it takes is one exotic strain of yeast that can ferment fungal chitin into drinkable ethanol, and you've got yourself a nice mushroom wine. Although, this may call for a new classification of liquor; alcoholic drinks are defined by their main ingredient, and there isn't a human word yet for alcohol fermented from fungus.

If the word chitin sounds familiar yet out of place, it's because the same sugar that gives insect and crustacean shells their crunchiness also gives fungus their toughness. Fungi are closer to animals than plants.

It's also not necessary to develop a special resistance to fungal toxins if you cultivate fungi that lack toxins. Plenty of real species are edible and harmless, and dwarven fungiculture could certainly breed these strains for flavor and fruitfulness. Obviously, fungiculture couldn't be sustainable as a primary source of calories, since the main source of calories would still have to come from the sun, but it would be an efficient use of otherwise-useless organic waste like wood waste and cereal chaff.

[Kane0]

My dwarves cultivate slow growing, edible crystals as a staple food which they augment with fungi, meats and some rarer vegetables and herbs.

[Unoriginal]

alcoholic drinks are defined by their main ingredient, and there isn't a human word yet for alcohol fermented from fungus.

We call that "beer". Yeast is a fungus.

Also, technically, alcoholic drinks aren't only defined by their main ingredients, but by the method of alcohol production. That's why you can have wine made from grape, but also from rice and a thousand other things.


Funnily enough, the Volo's mention the Dwarves also make alcohol from the blood of giant arthropods.

[Maelynn]

We call that "beer". Yeast is a fungus.

Also, technically, alcoholic drinks aren't only defined by their main ingredients, but by the method of alcohol production. That's why you can have wine made from grape, but also from rice and a thousand other things.

That's not true. Yeast is the only fermenting organism that can reliably create alcoholic beverages (there's 1 bacteria that can do this as well, but it creates undesirable flavours and is very fickle). The main ingredient, and with beer that'd be malts/grains, is still the main determiner.

It's become a habit to call different alcoholic drinks 'wine', even when they're not made from grapes or other fruit. Rice wine is technically not a wine, because rice isn't a fruit, but since there are so many different kinds throught Asia it's been decided to stick with 'rice wine' as a common denominator. Personally I detest mead being called honey wine; to me that's just a sign of either laziness or ignorance. But I brew the stuff myself, so I'm a wee bit biased on the subject. :smallbiggrin:

[Kane0]

Cheese would presumably be quite common too.

[JellyPooga]

Personally I detest mead being called honey wine; to me that's just a sign of either laziness or ignorance. But I brew the stuff myself, so I'm a wee bit biased on the subject. :smallbiggrin:

The misnomer of calling mead "honey wine", I believe, comes from the practice of adding honey to wine to sweeten/flavour it. It's a bit like mistaking "pear cider" (a cider flavoured to taste like pear) for a true perry (a cider-like alcoholic beverage made from fermented pears). Honey wine is a thing, but it ain't mead.

[Chaosmancer]

What I find most amazing about this how so many sources came up with the same answers.

I homebrewed that dwarven food production has a big fungal element. This is also part of their alcohol production, alongside cave Fisher blood. They've domesticated cave fishers by the by and will butcher them.

Figure you've also got your underground lakes and rivers which can hold fish, crustaceans and amphibians to eat and burrowing monsters like Umber Hulks, Worms, ect which can be hunted or trapped.

Plus, we've got magic that can act as an energy start point instead of sunlight and just because you are underground doesn't mean you couldn't use mirrors to diffuse sunlight into a single chamber for farming.


As for trade, my instinct is that instead of metal, or in addition to, dwarves could probably trade salt. Maybe not every dwarfhold but some of them probably have an overabundance of the stuff cluttering their tunnels and salt is worth its weight in gold.

[Luccan]

In most games I've played in, Dwarven kingdoms at least have some surface towns and things like that, plus they tend to control the whole mountain, not just the underground. In such a case where they must subsist only on what comes from the mountain, I'd assume hunting/gathering on the surface, with some minor farming and livestock that can survive the mountainous conditions (lots of goats?) and the cultivation of edible fungus below ground (with hunting/livestock also possible underground, considering how many underground animals there are in D&D).

[Unoriginal]

From the Mordenkainen's:



First, many dwarves support the clan by working at an occupation that sustains the community-brewing ale, tending crops, and preparing food, for instance.



Clan Vocations

[...]
7: Farmer

So, Dwarves have crops and farms.

[Chaosmancer]

From the Mordenkainen's:






So, Dwarves have crops and farms.

But I think the question is more what they farm. After all a farmer IRL could do everything from apples, dirt, grass, fish, llamas, steer, algae.

Lots of farmers.

[Jeraa]

There are spells that conjure sunlight. Any reason a cavern can't be enchanted with that spell to create farm land?

It takes a good deal of farmland to grow crops for a settlement, so you would need massive caverns, with a decent source of water. Then there is the pollination issue. Some crops can do without (they self-pollinate), but others need the wind or insect help. Honeybees can do some pollinating (and also provide a source of honey for mead). Other crops may require other sorts of bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, and so on.

o it can be done. But it is going to take more than just creating an artificial sun. It is likely easier to just build terraces into the outside of the mountain.

[Unoriginal]

But I think the question is more what they farm. After all a farmer IRL could do everything from apples, dirt, grass, fish, llamas, steer, algae.

Lots of farmers.

I don't see any reason why they wouldn't farm everything that their circumstances allow.

The llamas of Clan Helmbright are famous among all wool enthusiast, I'll have you know.

[Moredhel24]

Rice wine is technically not a wine, because rice isn't a fruit, but since there are so many different kinds throught Asia it's been decided to stick with 'rice wine' as a common denominator.

Also wine typically has 5 - 20% while rice "wine" has 18-25% alcohol. Remember an episode of No Reservation's where Bourdain was drinking rice wine and asked what the alcohol content was and was told it was over 20%. His reply "that's not wine, that's f'ing liquor."

IMO the dwarven diet would consist of potatoes (vodka)/other root vegetables, fungi, goats, pigs, subterranean insects and vermin, cave fish, any other cave dwelling/underdark flaura and fauna. Also remember the following in Tolkien's the children of hurin, Earth-bread was an edible root known only to the Dwarves. It was white and fleshy and after boiling was good to eat and similar to bread. Its name in the dwarf-tongue is unknown.[1]

When Túrin and his outlaw band encountered Mîm and his sons, the Petty-dwarves were carrying sacks of the plants.[2] Later, at the hideout of Bar-en-Danwedh, Mîm contributed his earth-bread to the food supply of the outlaws, although he refused to share with Ulrad, who had insulted him.[3]

References

↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Children of Húrin, "Of Mîm the Dwarf", p. 134
↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Children of Húrin, "Of Mîm the Dwarf", p. 123
↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Children of Húrin, "Of Mîm the Dwarf", pp. 134-135 whick kind of sounds like potatoes

[sambojin]

They farm. Like normal, but underground. Continual Flame provides the light. Magma provides the nutrients (exactly the same as volcanic lands often having great soil) as well as the silly amount of rock dust they have stockpiled for other essential soil components.
Sure there are mushrooms (ala plump helmets from DF). But they have whatever amount of light they need after a certain amount of casting days. No concentration required.

The sole reason for Continual Flame to exist is for underground civs. Makes light, forever'ish, doesn't use oxygen, won't bake you alive. Problem solved.

[Darth Ultron]

it can be done. But it is going to take more than just creating an artificial sun. It is likely easier to just build terraces into the outside of the mountain.

My point is that they would have done so for thousands of years. The same way humans on Earth did. Cows, corn, chickens and wheat were all made by humans into their modern 'food' forms we know today.

So you'd get the same thing in the game world pre history.

And even without magic, there are things like giant creatures that never existed on Earth. Plenty of giant vermin and animals, including ones that can live in caves and underground. Giant cave fish, giant bats, giant cave crickets, giant beetles, giant cockroaches, and so on.

The books are full of bits like, The Assassin Vine: Since they could not make energy from the sun, they required a source of thermal energy and would usually generate enough offal to also support colonies of subterranean fungi in a symbiotic relationship and the fruit of an assassin vine was tough and bitter, but it could be turned into a strong wine.


And that is all before pure ''magic".

[Ajadea]

I've always thought that to sustain something as complex as the Underdark, there would have to be some sort of primary-chemoautotroph producer type creatures. Think deep sea vents. Cave ponds full of bacterial films and strange tubeworms. Magical fungi that break down the walls of the Underdark itself for sustenance. Any of which could be eaten directly, or eaten by some more palatable domesticated beast. I would imagine in general, as one descends deeper into the Underdark, the more meat-and-fungus based the diet gets.

[Legendairy]

In a few of the old underdark stuff and maybe even OotA, they again mention how the drow do it and one big supplement for meat is the Rothé, they are like underdark bison. Also mushroom farming is big in the deep underdark places.

[Kane0]

Enough to bother Myconids, at the very least.

[Zanthy1]

On the Discworld there is a thing called Dwarven Bread. And the saying goes, "No one goes hungry when there is Dwarven Bread around."

[Unoriginal]

On the Discworld there is a thing called Dwarven Bread. And the saying goes, "No one goes hungry when there is Dwarven Bread around."

Mostly because it can be used as weapon to acquire food.

[Zanthy1]

Mostly because it can be used as weapon to acquire food.

That, and no one is ever That hungry that they'd attempt to eat it