Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[BRC]

So...the why aren't dwarves raiders and marauders was really just a joke about movement speed.

But with all of the other conversation in the thread going towards broad accusations and counter-accusations, projections and assumptions, and all of that other, I put forth this:

Dwarves could be an interesting and complex "always evil" race.

If we approach this from a D&D adjacent standard, and say the following actions map to evil (I find it likely to be a consensus): Disregard for life; Disregard for property rights of others; Rule via strength of arms; Fierce territoriality. This is not an isolated city, or one faction of this race in this setting. It is all of them, perhaps spread across a smaller range than other races might have. Communities can communicate with one another. They can trade with one another. And of course, they can war with one another.

No Evulz, no puppy-kicking or kitten-eating. No bad God on high saying "stab down upon the elf with vindictive stabbings". A reasonable, though likely not desirable, pathway to a cultural mindset that blankets the entire race in such a way that standard "high fantasy" worlds would view as definitely evil. Individually the dwarves might not be "bad", but their world places an indelible stamp on them that the rightness of "murder" (as defined by the high-fantasy world norms), theft, depraved indifference, "oppressive regime" (again as defined by the high fantasy terms), and even forms of cannibalism are valued cultural truths. We avoid at least two very common Evil Tropes here, and hold to those exclusions, because they are hamfisted and crappy in game, and [redacted] out of game.

Now, of course it is the nature of our stories that in time evolution will occur and this race will likely either assimilate other cultural truths - over many generations - or be pushed into extinction (or reduced so far as to be effectively extinct). But for the centuries-wide window of this RPG world, dwarves = "always evil".

Scarcity and isolation are heavy drivers of the story, stagnation propagating and uploading the established "tradition". Intense drive to protect dwarfkind. Intrusion of others "exploring" new areas. Decisions all predicated on survival of the species, all leading to an "always evil" race that would be a playable faction as well as a hated in-world threat. Dangerous raiders and killers all.

This takes much of dwarfiness that appeals to me, maintains it, but puts a significantly different spin on those same hallmarks. Survivors. Traditionalists. Artisans. They don't care about the outsiders' perspectives on their culture. They don't care what the Orc/Human/Elf/Gnome High Priest Dingleberry says the Gods say about their actions. They will survive.

Can you imagine the conditions that would lead to such a culture, and find it a reasonable exploration of the [human] condition, if such things are important to you?

Can you agree that such a culture, while clearly savage and immoral by modern standards (you know, within the last few millennia), could be internally consistent, give rise to interesting and potentially heroic characters, and hold a valuable place in an RPG (or fantasy fiction) setting?

Or is it just me?

- M

Hrmm, I'd be tempted to mix in some notes from Discworld Dwarves, or at least the Deep Downers.

Spiritually, culturally, the Dwarves view reality as something that occurs below the surface. The Sky is ever-changing, but the Stone remembers. The ultimate truth is that which is etched in the stone of a dwarf-hold. Anything less than that is questionable, is rumor. If the Truth is not recorded, then history stops, and in a metaphorical, but very real way, the world ends. If all you can trust is that which is etched in stone, then a gap in the record, in the chain of cause and effect, will unmoor you from the past. Even if the Record resumes, it cannot be trusted because that gap could contain crucial context.


So, the histories must be recorded. They must specifically be etched in the great slabs of the Dwarf-Holds (the only thing that can be trusted to remain intact. Anything less is an unacceptable risk). Which means the Dwarf-holds must be occupied. Dwarves must live there to record the history, which means they must be defended, which means the warriors must be armed, which means the forges must be fed, which means the Mines must be worked. Or else, they risk the End of History.

And all of those Dwarves must be fed.

Anything above ground isn't recorded, and therefore isn't real to the Dwarves. Dwarves don't like spending time above ground. The more of their life spent under the transient sky, the less real that Dwarf is. Dwarves can and do trade for food, but culturally speaking, large-scale mercantile commerce isn't especially common. You trade away real things, the crafts of the dwarf-holds, to the dreams and figments of the surface world. Besides, if you are reliant on trade for survival, you're vulnerable to the whims of surface dwellers, who, see above, are not real.


So the Dwarves become a slaver-empire. The people of the surface are not real, nothing up there matters. Dwarven warriors raid and pillage freely (it doesn't matter. The people they're taking from could lose everything to some other threat tomorrow, and are not in the records anyway. Life aboveground is so unstable that it's not worth respecting). They take slaves to work their fields, to feed the dwarf-holds (that's the only way to ensure History Does not End while subjecting the minimum number of Dwarves to a disgraceful life above ground). Crimes they commit are forgotten, but any trespass that has effect on life in the dwarf-holds is recorded and eternally remembered.


If you speak to a Dwarf, they do not revel in Cruelty. They care about protecting their people and traditions. If you didn't know what they do, then their obsession with keeping the records would come across as an interesting cultural quirk. "Dwarves view the records not being kept as an Apocalyptic scenario, huh, isn't that funny". But they commit numerous atrocities in the name of that goal.