Making a barbarian homeland

[gnomish dwelf]

I am making a barbarian fighter whose terrain is the savannah and/or veldt, I consider that plains... (The barbarian handbook says that if a homeland combines features of different terrains, choose the dominant one, I am considering the one that is dominant here is savannah and/or veldt) His people inhabit 4 out of 21 craters transformed into oases-valleys (The crater themselves are humid pastoral paradises)... How large should those circular pastures be to hold, say, 2500 to 15000 barbarian dwarves, without changing the homeland terrain to "grassland"? What ya think? (this savannah has an area of 2700000 km²)

Their crude monetary system (Used besides service bartering and standard bartering) is something I will share in a while, but now i am more interested in the territory...

Well, as I envision it, they are dwarven barbarians who won't even farm, on occasion they trade, but usually they are just hunter gatherers, they are seminomadic, out of 21 craters in the savannah they inhabit 4, but they stay only 3 months in each crater because the craters aren't considered safe the year round, the three months they inhabit those craters they find them to be pleasant misty grasslands full of fruits and game, but most of their hunting is done in the savannah, where the zebras they ride are useful mounts...

Technological Breakthrough: Wheel (logs used as rollers, or solid disks of wood or stone).
Architecture: Hide tents, earth lodges (dome-shaped structures made of mud and stone with earth-covered roofs), stone altars, grass huts. bone houses (bones of dinosaurs or other large animals arranged to form a dome, then covered with hides).
Weapons: Bows, slings, shields.
Clothing: Skins cut into patterns, leaves, cured hides, splintered bone needles, sinew thread
Transportation: Canoes, rafts, zebra riding, sleds, walking
Artistic Expression: Cave painting, crude sculptures, storytelling, tattoos.
Suggested Character Kits: Brushrunner, Dreamwalker, Forest Lord, Plainsrider, Medicine Man/Medicine Woman, Witchman

Before writing down a summary of the concept I had this data:

they inhabit craters known as "Oasis Valley" (there are 21, they only travel to 4)
each such crater is surrounded by hilly bourders known as "Eternal Sands" because they look like sand dunes...
The whole territory is the Savannah of Slumber
in a yet uncharted order, the oasis-valleys are:
1.The oasis-valley of hearts of flame, housing djinns, eladrins, elementals, genasi, gray elves, high elves, janns, sylvan elves and wood giants, some are native, some are not, those that are not arrive here to use it as a base to explore hell valley, both to free its victims and to turn it back to normal
2.the oasis-valley of clubs of waves governed by the hermit ladies of ears (three sisters, with stats of hags and dryads and nymphs and crabmen, but the beauty of nymphs, all three are kemonomimi-therianthrope, one is based on long-tailed black-furred two-tailed versions of the Japanese bobtail cat, the other in a bunny and the other in a mousedeer, all can generate invisible crab-like pincers around their fingers for attack and they move sideways as quickly as other humanoids and demihumans move forward, moving forward with a little less grace, one is the lady of small felines, the other is the lady of lagomorphs, the other is the lady of mousedeers),
3.the oasis-valley of leaves of wind which houses the nomad dwarven barbarians during harmatan (spring)
4.the oasis-valley of cups of sand which is governed by the the carp lord and the lady of dragons (a carp-shaped avatar of a tiamat hybridized with an athasian dragon king and a carp-shaped avatar of bahamutt hybridized with an avangion, caught in perpetual struggle, the later tries to save or redeem anyone that comes in and the former tries to destroy them or corrupt them but sees them as mere pawn in its war against bahamutt),
5.the oasis-valley of talismans of flame which is dominated by the black-stripped white lion lord of the impenetrable skin (lord of large felines),
6.The oasis-valley of hearts of waves which houses djinns, eladrins, elementals, genasi, gray elves, high elves, janns, sylvan elves and wood giants, some are native, some are not, those that are not arrive here to use it as a base to explore hell valley, both to free its victims and to turn it back to normal
7.the oasis-valley of clubs of wind, which is governed by the golden fleeced lord of canines (seemingly a domesticated version of a werewolf, but with wings and horns like those of a ram and a golden fur, he says he is the hound of the wicked, in the sense that he hunts the wicked)
8.the oasis-valley of leaves of sand governed by the twin lords of rats, one is a horse tamer and taught the dwarves how to ride zebras and tame them, the other is a pugilist and taught them how to fight
9.the oasis-valley of cups of flame which is governed by the white-furred water lord of cattle (served by red-coloured ox-faced oni),
10.the oasis-valley of talismans of waves governed by the archer lord of centaurs (the healer, chiron, served by bluish green and bluish purple horse-faced oni),
11.The oasis-valley of hearts of wind housing djinns, eladrins, elementals, genasi, gray elves, high elves, janns, sylvan elves and wood giants, some are native, some are not, those that are not arrive here to use it as a base to explore hell valley, both to free its victims and to turn it back to normal
12.the oasis-valley of clubs of sand governed by the purified lady of monkeys and justice (another kemonomimi who is themed after Japanese macaques and recognizes Sun Wukong as her ex-boyfriend and the father to her children who was punished for disobedience and has not been seen since),
13.the oasis-valley of leaves of flame governed by the scorpion-tailed kenku (despite his name he is a semi-anthropomorphic version of a red junglefowl, he is like an avian version of a manscorpion with the human side being an anthropomorphic red junglefowl and the other half being a gallimorphic scorpion, he can generate a fire aura),
14.the oasis-valley of cups of waves which the nomads inhabit during the season of monsoon and fog (winter)
15.the oasis-valley of talismans of wind governed by the one-horned silver lord of goats and sheeps (despite being either a geep or a shoat, this chimeric being is part apple tree and has a fish tail with silver scales complementing its silver fur, and has just one horn, the other horn has been broken and a void that acts as a portable hole is located in the stump, it disintegrates whatever enters if it is a physical objects, spirits are sent to the negative energy planes),
16.The oasis-valley of hearts of sand houses djinns, eladrins, elementals, genasi, gray elves, high elves, janns, sylvan elves and wood giants, some are native, some are not, those that are not arrive here to use it as a base to explore hell valley, both to free its victims and to turn it back to normal
17.the oasis-valley of clubs of flames is inhabited by nomads during the season of drought, when the savannah becomes sandy and the trees barely survive (summer)
18.the oasis-valley of leaves of waves is governed by the tortoise-shelled antlered lord of swine (this wereboar lacks a human form, instead he becomes an orc, but not a normal orc, one as large as a hobgoblin or ogre, with antlers like those of a deer and a tortoise shell around his abdomen, he is the master of law and his wife abandoned him but she is said to be the mother of the lady of monkeys and justice)
19.the oasis-valley of cups of winds is governed by the water bearing warden of sea snakes (called a warden because it is neither male nor female),
20.the oasis-valley of talismans of sands is where the dwarves seek refuge and solace during the season of cyclones (autumn)
21.Hell Valley is a portion of Gehenna that has been pulled into their material plane, so the barbarian dwarves try to steer clear of it.

TL;DR

They inhabit
3.the oasis valley of leaves of wind, during spring (which is the harmattan season)
14.the oasis valley of cups of waves, during winter (which is the season of monsoon and fog)
17.the oasis valley of clubs of flames, during summer (which is the drought season)
20.the oasis valley of talismans of sands during autumn... (which is the cyclone season)

How large should those circular pastures be to hold, say, 2500 to 15000 barbarian dwarves, without changing the homeland terrain to "grassland"? What ya think? (this savannah has an area of 2700000 km²

I am sure I had more data on them, but I cannot find it at the moment

[Quizatzhaderac]

How large should those circular pastures be to hold, say, 2500 to 15000 barbarian dwarves, without changing the homeland terrain to "grassland"? What ya think? (this savannah has an area of 2700000 km²

If they're there only a quarter of the year, they hunt outside them (do they also graze livestock outside as well?), and the craters are especially fertile relative to the savanna? I'd say about 12 people per km².

[Mechalich]

I am making a barbarian fighter whose terrain is the savannah and/or veldt, I consider that plains... (The barbarian handbook says that if a homeland combines features of different terrains, choose the dominant one, I am considering the one that is dominant here is savannah and/or veldt) His people inhabit 4 out of 21 craters transformed into oases-valleys (The crater themselves are humid pastoral paradises)... How large should those circular pastures be to hold, say, 2500 to 15000 barbarian dwarves, without changing the homeland terrain to "grassland"? What ya think? (this savannah has an area of 2700000 km²)

What system is this that considers 'Plains' and 'Grassland' to be different things? Veldt is an imprecise term that encompasses several different biomes including both savannah, scrub, and grassland. 2.7 million kilometers is a very large area (roughly the size of Kazakhstan) to be in a single biome. It's likely the region mixes multiple environments. Is the area tropical or temperate? Temperate grassland has a significantly lower carrying capacity than tropical grasslands.

Well, as I envision it, they are dwarven barbarians who won't even farm, on occasion they trade, but usually they are just hunter gatherers, they are seminomadic, out of 21 craters in the savannah they inhabit 4, but they stay only 3 months in each crater because the craters aren't considered safe the year round, the three months they inhabit those craters they find them to be pleasant misty grasslands full of fruits and game, but most of their hunting is done in the savannah, where the zebras they ride are useful mounts...

Are they hunter-gatherers or pastoralists? Because those are two very different things and impact the population density significantly. If they ride animals that generally implies some level of pastoralism though they would need some other, smaller and faster-breeding, ruminant to serve as the primary meat and milk source (pastoralists actually get a huge portion of their calories from dairy).

[gnomish dwelf]

If they're there only a quarter of the year, they hunt outside them (do they also graze livestock outside as well?), and the craters are especially fertile relative to the savanna? I'd say about 12 people per km².

thanks!

What system is this that considers 'Plains' and 'Grassland' to be different things? Veldt is an imprecise term that encompasses several different biomes including both savannah, scrub, and grassland. 2.7 million kilometers is a very large area (roughly the size of Kazakhstan) to be in a single biome. It's likely the region mixes multiple environments. Is the area tropical or temperate? Temperate grassland has a significantly lower carrying capacity than tropical grasslands.

Are they hunter-gatherers or pastoralists? Because those are two very different things and impact the population density significantly. If they ride animals that generally implies some level of pastoralism though they would need some other, smaller and faster-breeding, ruminant to serve as the primary meat and milk source (pastoralists actually get a huge portion of their calories from dairy).

i am loving giant in the playground forums for giving me questions I didn't have addressed before...

Ok, this is what I have thought about them...

wait a second, i have to address some issues, I am still working on this... i will dig my files on the matter to solve your questions and the questions you are making me ponder. Thanks for your posts!

[InvisibleBison]

Let's start by making some assumptions. We'll assume the dwarves are camped throughout the entirety of the crater. Let's also assume the dwarves travel for 4 hours from their camp to their hunting grounds, hunt and gather for 4 hours, and return home. Thus, the crater's radius is equal to how far a zebra can walk in 4 hours. I can't find information about zebra's walking speed, but horses walk at about 6.4 kilometers per hour, so let's say zebras can do the same. Thus, the crater is 25.6 kilometers in radius, or 51.2 kilometers in diameter.

But is it possible for the dwarves to support themselves off of this land? They're hunting and gathering off a ring of land 25.6 kilometers across, with a 51.2 kilometer wide circle in the center. The area of the ring is pi(r1^2-r2^2), or 6176.62 square kilometers. If we assume the dwarves have twice the population density of the highest known hunter-gatherer population density (they don't eat as much as humans), this much land could support 102,531 people. This works in terms of space, but does it work in terms of time? The dwarves are spending 8 hours a day "commuting", after all. The data I've been able to find says that hunter-gatherers spend between 40 and 45 hours a week on acquiring, processing and cooking food. That translates to about 6 to 6.5 hours of work a day. If the 4 hours of hunting is part of that, then they're spending 8 hours traveling, 4 hours hunting, 2 to 2.5 hours processing and cooking food, for a total of 14 to 14.5 hours a day working. Since they're dwarves, a lack of sunlight isn't an issue, but that's still a rather high workload. Also, zebras can't see in the dark. Let's try to cut down on it a bit.

We can reduce travel time by saying that the dwarves live around the outer portions of the crater, instead of occupying all of it. If we don't want any dwarf to live more than an hour's travel beyond the edge of the crater, then the crater has a radius of 6.4 + x kilometers, and the outer edge of the ring where the dwarves gather food has a radius of 12.8 + x kilometers. Thus, the outer ring has an area of 12.8πx + 122.88π. If we keep the area of the outer ring the same as the first example, x = 144 and thus the craters are about 300 kilometers across. This would result in the dwares being spread across a fairly large area, though, so it might not be acceptable if you imagined them as forming a single community.

TL;DR: A crater 25.6 kilometers across would provide enough space to support the population you've described, but they'd be doing a lot of travelling to and from hunting grounds. A crater 300 kilometers across allows for a more leisurely life, at the cost of being far more spread out.

[gnomish dwelf]

Let's start by making some assumptions. We'll assume the dwarves are camped throughout the entirety of the crater. Let's also assume the dwarves travel for 4 hours from their camp to their hunting grounds, hunt and gather for 4 hours, and return home. Thus, the crater's radius is equal to how far a zebra can walk in 4 hours. I can't find information about zebra's walking speed, but horses walk at about 6.4 kilometers per hour, so let's say zebras can do the same. Thus, the crater is 25.6 kilometers in radius, or 51.2 kilometers in diameter.

But is it possible for the dwarves to support themselves off of this land? They're hunting and gathering off a ring of land 25.6 kilometers across, with a 51.2 kilometer wide circle in the center. The area of the ring is pi(r1^2-r2^2), or 6176.62 square kilometers. If we assume the dwarves have twice the population density of the highest known hunter-gatherer population density (they don't eat as much as humans), this much land could support 102,531 people. This works in terms of space, but does it work in terms of time? The dwarves are spending 8 hours a day "commuting", after all. The data I've been able to find says that hunter-gatherers spend between 40 and 45 hours a week on acquiring, processing and cooking food. That translates to about 6 to 6.5 hours of work a day. If the 4 hours of hunting is part of that, then they're spending 8 hours traveling, 4 hours hunting, 2 to 2.5 hours processing and cooking food, for a total of 14 to 14.5 hours a day working. Since they're dwarves, a lack of sunlight isn't an issue, but that's still a rather high workload. Also, zebras can't see in the dark. Let's try to cut down on it a bit.

We can reduce travel time by saying that the dwarves live around the outer portions of the crater, instead of occupying all of it. If we don't want any dwarf to live more than an hour's travel beyond the edge of the crater, then the crater has a radius of 6.4 + x kilometers, and the outer edge of the ring where the dwarves gather food has a radius of 12.8 + x kilometers. Thus, the outer ring has an area of 12.8πx + 122.88π. If we keep the area of the outer ring the same as the first example, x = 144 and thus the craters are about 300 kilometers across. This would result in the dwares being spread across a fairly large area, though, so it might not be acceptable if you imagined them as forming a single community.

fantastic educated guesstimates that write the plot! just how I work! as for them being a single community, well, they are more like a federation but without the trappings of a civilized bureacracy being involved, more loose loyalty based on clanship feelings and the feeling that each community is a branch of the same tree with no community claiming the role of trunk... But the breed of zebra they ride will have infravision... there are elven dogs and elven cats and elven hawks and dwarven oxes, so... why not dwarven zebras? which ironically are a group of breeds where the largest are large for zebra standards and considered heavy war zebras.

TL;DR: A crater 25.6 kilometers across would provide enough space to support the population you've described, but they'd be doing a lot of travelling to and from hunting grounds. A crater 300 kilometers across allows for a more leisurely life, at the cost of being far more spread out.

I was building the tribes around this one character, but I cannot find a word file or excel spreadsheet with the character's info, I know its there, but I dont know where, your elegant solution determines stuff i may have not imagined but which I can retcon into it. You sir have really helped me, thanks! I still wish I could address the questions made 'though.

[brian 333]

Specialization of tasks is a thing, even among hunter/gatherers. Toolmakers do their thing right at home, as do child care specialists. Cooks and hide-processors and other specialists have shops or quarries or whatever and live near them no matter which crater they are in at the time. Children and elderly can gather and hunt close to home. It is only the specialized hunters who have to range far, amd they only have to return when their carrying capacity is full. So they can travel 8 hours, work 8 hour days, and return home with a week's worth of gatherings for the specialists to preserve and prepare while they rest before heading out again.

Daily travel time is not a huge impact on hours worked per day.

[gnomish dwelf]

What system is this that considers 'Plains' and 'Grassland' to be different things? Veldt is an imprecise term that encompasses several different biomes including both savannah, scrub, and grassland. 2.7 million kilometers is a very large area (roughly the size of Kazakhstan) to be in a single biome. It's likely the region mixes multiple environments. Is the area tropical or temperate? Temperate grassland has a significantly lower carrying capacity than tropical grasslands.

Aggragrauth had to be a combination of desert rider and plainsrider with properties of athasian's runnning warriors, when I thought what terrain he favours, I imagined him to be equally at home in an athasian-zakharan kind of desert and in a lush grassland like those of Ireland... Aggragrauth's crater homes are a piece of Ireland's humid lively grasslands stuck in a place thrice as large as the largest African savannah (the savannah of slumber is based on the serengeti or some other savannah that apeared high on my searches). The savannah of slumber stretches longer from north to south than from east to west and is a buffer zone between a rainforest on one end and an uninhabited wasteland in the other (a true arid desert). The barbarian dwarves avoid the rainforest home to gray elves attuned to nature in a wood elf degree. The savannah of slumber is home to everything and anything you could find living in Africa's savanahs (buffer zones between the sahara desert or similar deserts and its forested regions) but also to pleistocene mammals taken from the real world's ice age. The later only differ from the real world equivalents in that none of them is covered in wooly fur, with their fur being much shorter. North of the savannah a wasteland that could have been taken from Dune's Arrakhis stands all the way north and south between the barbarians and the outworlders. This desert is home to the same fauna and flora found in Athas and in Zahakkara, besides cacti and stuff one could see in Ica, Peru, although these living inhabitants occupy only a small portion of the wasteland, toward's the desert's center two facts make the only natives be undead from a forgotten civilization (their settlement is a legendary necropolis). The fact is that a portion of the paraelemental plane of magma is aflight in this region like a flying island, but of pure paraelemental magma that never falls on the sand below. The efreeti have Al-Darad, the city of gold nearby, a floating city that makes the city of brass seem unimportant and small. The other fact is that the region occupied by the wasteland is an arid desert 5 times as large as, take your pic, Sahara, Gobi, Atacama, Sonora or some other similar place, and the average temperature ranges from 54 °C to 57.8 °C (21 °C of standard deviation and no liquid water save for a few oases and, way at the north, some nile-like rivers with seasonal flooding). Again this place is longer from north to south than from west to east, probably in the same proportion that the Sahara seems to be longer from eat to west than from north to south. Thus it makes the land inhabited by Aggragrauth's barbarian folks extremely remote and an unexpected treasure at the other end of a hellish terrain... Back to the savannah of slumber..... The craters it have are the remains of magical explosions, there is no native megafauna, but it has fog banks, green grasses, edible myconids, edible land snails with beautiful shells, and all sorts of fruits and honey, which is why the barbarian gatherers work inside the craters and barbarian hunters commute to the hostile savannah outside. Each crater has a ring of lithofied dunes in the perimeter, this circumference of sterile sandstone hills stretch as walls between paradisial refuges and a harsh land. These "walls" are known as "eternal sands".

I am making a barbarian fighter whose terrain is the savannah and/or veldt, I consider that plains... (The barbarian handbook says that if a homeland combines features of different terrains, choose the dominant one, I am considering the one that is dominant here is savannah and/or veldt) His people inhabit 4 out of 21 craters transformed into oases-valleys (The crater themselves are humid pastoral paradises)... How large should those circular pastures be to hold, say, 2500 to 15000 barbarian dwarves, without changing the homeland terrain to "grassland"? What ya think? (this savannah has an area of 2700000 km²)

By grassland I mean a lush humid Irish-like Scottish-like grassland. I want the craters to still be exception rather than ruling terrain there.

Specialization of tasks is a thing, even among hunter/gatherers. Toolmakers do their thing right at home, as do child care specialists. Cooks and hide-processors and other specialists have shops or quarries or whatever and live near them no matter which crater they are in at the time. Children and elderly can gather and hunt close to home. It is only the specialized hunters who have to range far, and they only have to return when their carrying capacity is full. So they can travel 8 hours, work 8 hour days, and return home with a week's worth of gatherings for the specialists to preserve and prepare while they rest before heading out again.

Aggragrauth and his homies consider hunting inside the craters to be sacrilegious, and they eat only myconids who have voluntered their corpses for post-mortem treatment ceremonies in ritualistic fests. That is, myconids volunteer their dead by giving them to the sullen dwarves to dispose of them by eating them.

Aggragrauth, the sullen dwarf
Barbarian Fighter
Lawful/Neutral Good
Sullen dwarves are the most goth of the dwarven races. Lacking any trust in others they make virtues of looking fright inspiring, being aggressive and passive-aggressive, having combat capability (even their thieves are thugs and cannot take other kits unless they are similar), and prepotence with non-dwarves. They live in abandoned stronghold, human villages, old mines and caves, abandoned houses of larger towns and cities, or even as unwanted pests in the houses of giants. Barbarian sullen dwarves live in stolen yurts, improvised hide tents, abandoned earth lodges (dome-shaped structures made of mud and stone with earth-covered roofs), stone altars, improvised grass huts. abandoned bone houses (bones of dinosaurs or other large animals arranged to form a dome, then covered with hides) Elves try not to tolerate their jerkass behaviour, but even they fail to get rid of them. An average sullen dwarf is 4 feet and weighs only 100 pounds but is much more stout due to different body density than hill dwarves and mountain dwarves who look more slender than the sullen dwarf. It is a status symbol for a sullen dwarf to have a muscular body for it displays their skill as scavenger and their strength.
Skin ranges in color from olive brown to light yellow reminescent of old parchment. It is oftenhard to determine a sullen dwarf's skin color , however, because of the thick layers of black clothes and red and orange and green war paint they love to use at all times in public. giving themselves a frightening demeanor. Their beards and hair range from strawberry blonde to a dull, indeterminate color. Female sullen dwarves have thorny cheeks, but no crawlers have been known to turn up their tentacles rather than eat a sullen dwarf.
Where do they come from? Other dwarves claim they are a cruel punishment done by the gods on a stronghold of dwarves that sold weapons to derro, duergar, hill dwarves and mountain dwarves while the four races where in a two versus two war. Perhaps they are a cross between dwarves and lower plane larvas. They may even have been the result of a vile experiment by an evil wizard. No one knows for sure, least of all the sullen dwarves themselves.
They are always treated with resentment, distrust and, mostly, fear. And they thrive on it. Enclaves of sullen dwarves could exist in most strongholds where they would be little better than criminals.
Sullen dwarves may seem chaotic neutral but they actually tend to be lawful neutral, with their laws being designed with devotion to other suleln dwarves and a strong pecking order, but this diverse peple may be of any alignment.
Sullen dwarves are furious. At what they are furious? Not even they themselves know, but they have several examples of wrongdoings against them, real or imagined, and not just one hypothesis but millions of them about how they ended needing anger management therapy and their clan was forced to life in the cities of succesful non-dwarven surface dwellers like humans, half elves and even pure elves. They are master scavengers and have raised intimidation to an art form. Besides they fight somewhat effectively when they manage to put their wrath under control, which isn't as often as they had wanted to. Players should fear these restrictions in mind when considering a sullen dwarf character.
Ability score adjustments: The initial ability scores are modified by a -2 to wisdom and +1 bonuses to Dexterity and Strength
Languages: Sullen Dwarf, common, gnome, orc, goblin, halfling
Infravision: 60 feet
Special advantages: Instead of the usual +1 bonus to hit orcs, half-orcs, goblins and hobgoblins they get a +2 bonus. If the campaign background makes it possible this bonus may be changed. instead the object of their hatred may be any other monster. The character may come from a stronghold which has never fought orcs, but does have a long history of warfare against drow and duergar. In that case, give the +2 attack bonus against drow and duergar instead. If this option is used, bonuses gained from character kits are added to it.
A sullen dwarf may sometimes be too angry to hold steady in a dangerous situation, adrenaline activates their flight or fight response as well as their deep seated hatred of what they feel is a world that persecutes them. Since they reject undignified undwarven behaviour like groveling they prefer to take a violent fear inspiring demeanor. This causes their opponents to make a saving throw versus spells. If they are successful they may attack the sullen dwarf. If they fail they may not attack the dwarf for 1d6 rounds, but they may run past them, run in the opposite direction or continuing fighting against the allies of the dwarf. The saving throw is modified by the sullen dwarf's level as shown in the Intimidation Table.
Intimidation Table:
Level 1 to 4, Modifier 0
Level 5 to 8, Modifier -2
Level 9 to 12, Modifier -3
Level 13 or more, Modifier -5
If a sullen dwarf gets the intimidation proficiency or some similar proficiency, they use their charisma or their wisdom to employ it, depending on which is higher at the moment.
Special Disadvantages: Sullen dwarves are pessimistic and prone to anger. A player character sullen dwarf is an exception to the rule, being superior to others of his kind by virtue of their patience. However, players should not abuse this ability and allow their characters to avoid rage quiting or doing some other typical wrathful displays of ire-driven passion. Wisdom checks may be requested to see if the character can actually resist the frustration at failure or getting offended at others' insults. This ill disposition is claimed to "darken" their aura and curse their karma, thus the chance of a magical item failing in the hands of a sullen dwarf is increased from 20% to 30%.
In encounter reactions a sullen dwarf uses their wisdom instead of their charisma if they have less wisdom than charisma, in most cases where high charisma is necessary they are allowed to use their charisma only if they are trying to intimidate, if they are trying to get someone to appreciate they roll with whichever is lower, their wisdom or their charisma, and it usually is their wisdom. The exception is when they try it with another sullen dwarves, regardless of class they will get their maximum number of henchemen using their wisdom if its lower than their charisma, but if they can get other sullen dwarves as henchemen they are allowed to get as many henchemen as their charisma allows, with the difference +50% being composed of other sullen dwarves.
Racial Enmities: Ogres, trolls, ogre magi, giants, and titans suffer a - 3 penalty to hit sullen dwarves.
Additional Experience Cost: None.
Life Expectancy: 250 years.
Sullen Dwarves: 40/38+2d6 inches, 80/65+4d10 pounds
Starting age: 30+2d12
Middle Age: 100
Old Age: 134
Venerable age: 200
Maximum age: +5d20
Barbarian fighter; Races Allowed, Human, dwarf, mul
Alignments Allowed * Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Neutral, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good
Barbarian fighters are described in the barbarian's handbook and I cant picture how to summarize what they are capable of in a way to explain it

They will sleep on the opposite side of the river, just in case the mage spontaneously turns into some undead during the night.
No more does he burns the remains of a mage’s meal, to purify it. Nor his waste, hair clippings or fingernail clippings
Oasis Valley (there are 21, they only travel to 4)
surrounded by
Eternal Sands
Savannah of Slumber
A tuni is ceremonial knife made of bone, clay or wood, whose handle is shaped like a dwarf, wearing an axe-like obsidian headdress and large ruby earrings, the blade rises from the soles of the feet of the dwarf and proceeds forward one and a half the distance between the dwarf's feet and the dwarf's head.
A yugert is a non-portable version of the yurt, a miniyugert is a sculpture, of bone, clay or wood, that represents a yugert but is no larger than an adult dwarf's head.
A "pikla" is a spear whose spearhead comes out of an orb, with both orb and spearhead connected to each other by an elaborate bone ring, with several smaller bone rings bound by each loop in the main bone ring. The minipikla is a small replica of it, made of bone, clay or wood
While they consider gold and white pearls worthless (and consider white pearls to be the embodiment of evil), their snail shell buys in his homeworld what 2 gp buys in the outworld, however the snail shells themselves are valued on just 1 copper piece each by outworlders.
Arrowdarts are arrow-shaped 2 inches long darts
Snail shell of value are orange, pinkish orange like a peach, pinkish red, orangish red or any in-between, besides their spiny cover contains an outer of iron sulfides and the middle layer of their shell is iron-mineralised scleritome. These snails have jagged overlapping spines, almost arborescent here and there, but not by much. (based on the spondylus but for land snails)
Aggragrauth starts with 4 miniyugerts, a blanket, canteen, dried fruit, dried meat, sack, hide armor, loincloth and an atlatl with fifteen javelins, each has obisidian heads and bone shafts
1 lion pelt and 1 pound of elephant tusk
Aggragrauth speaks a unique language
Eventually he gets:
Aide: 4th level barbarian fighter (with leather armor, club, 1-2 javelins or sling)
50 First level barbarian fighters (all with mount, war zebras, and hide armor, 25 with spear and javelin, 25 with hand axe and short bow)

Unique native language
Bizarre appearance (ape-like, elaborate tattoos, gaudy body paint)
Hostile attitude (growls, clenches fists, grinds teeth)

A skilled horseman and master of the bow, Aggragrauth roams the wilderness in search of war. He achieves status through combat, honoring the spirits of his ancestors by killing his enemies. He shuns armor in favor of garish body paint, wears a feather headdress over his flowing hair, and terrorizes his enemies with blood-curling war cries.
Homeland terrain: Required: Desert or plains<----both in a sense
Plainsriders are described in the barbarian's handbook and desert riders, are from al qadim, their combination and limited to zebras as mounts, zebras that only serve dwarves, gnomes and halflings, with elves, half-elves, humans and muls being too tall for them.
Believes in
Ancestor spirit to all sullen dwarves-(Ancestral spirit)
Protector spirit to all sullen dwarves-(Ancestral spirit) Semitranslucent at a full moon at dusk, at noon when the sky is clear, when exposed to the sunset
Father Earth-(Nature spirit)
Hellflame Hound-(Supernatural spirit)

Technological Breakthrough: Wheel (logs used as rollers, or solid disks of wood or stone).
Architecture: Hide tents, earth lodges (dome-shaped structures made of mud and stone with earth-covered roofs), stone altars, grass huts. bone houses (bones of dinosaurs or other large animals arranged to form a dome, then covered with hides).
Weapons: Bows, slings, shields.
Clothing: Skins cut into patterns, leaves, cured hides, splintered bone needles, sinew thread
Transportation: Canoes, rafts, horse riding, sleds, walking
Artistic Expression: Cave painting, crude sculptures, storytelling, tattoos.
Suggested Character Kits: Brushrunner, Dreamwalker, Forest Lord, Plainsrider, Medicine Man/Medicine Woman, Witchman

crude currency:

TL; DR
listen to blackened folk metal or to crossover thrash metal or to a cross of viking metal and either Death 'n' roll, or Deathcore or Death-doom, now imagine a movie that uses that music as its score. The movie is a Conan The Barbarian meets Tarzan of the Apes homage, with dwarves instead of humans. Now you have a grasp of what Aggragrauth and his Barbarians are about.

EDIT:

If they're there only a quarter of the year, they hunt outside them (do they also graze livestock outside as well?), and the craters are especially fertile relative to the savanna?

the craters are especially fertile relative to the savannah indeed... They definitely graze livestock inside the craters, without the sapience of the dwarves the zebras wouldn't manage to enter the crater in the first place, so these domesticated zebras thrive on this mutualism...

I'd say about 12 people per km².

208 to 1250 km square... Times 21... 4375 to 26250 square kilometers, out of 2700000 km², that is 0.16% to 0.97%, great, even if low population density these barbarians' craters are few and far between for the savannah. and very small. So your equation seems to work superbly..

Also the columns depicted above in the crude currency is one of the currency's most common, the other tokens, shown only in the rows, are avaialable for completeness but they range from uncommon to very rare in frequency.

[LibraryOgre]

So, looking at a few modern countries with a lot of semi-nomadic peoples, they run around 2-3 people per square km, so if you've got 15k dwarves, you're looking at about 5k-7.5k km2... so, each being about the same size as Delaware.

[gnomish dwelf]

So, looking at a few modern countries with a lot of semi-nomadic peoples, they run around 2-3 people per square km, so if you've got 15k dwarves, you're looking at about 5k-7.5k km2... so, each being about the same size as Delaware.

so the savannah could be the size of the USA, as you can easily fit 21 delawares in the USA and have them be few and far between

[LibraryOgre]

so the savannah could be the size of the USA, as you can easily fit 21 delawares in the USA and have them be few and far between

And quite varied!

Your initial 2.700.000 million km2 is about the size of Argentina or Kazakhstan. At 7.5k km2, you have easily enough for 21, with lots of space between. The US is 2-3 times that.

[gnomish dwelf]

And quite varied!

Your initial 2.700.000 million km2 is about the size of Argentina or Kazakhstan. At 7.5k km2, you have easily enough for 21, with lots of space between. The US is 2-3 times that.

i wont fall in a one biome planet trope, but making oversized biomes is also hard, how can it be justified requires me to think outside of my area of expertise.

[LibraryOgre]

i wont fall in a one biome planet trope, but making oversized biomes is also hard, how can it be justified requires me to think outside of my area of expertise.

So, the big thing you're going to want to look at is what is "downwind" of your prevailing winds (on Earth, prevailing winds in the tropics are east to west). In Africa, where you have savannah, you don't have much to the west of those winds, so the precipitation just keeps going. In Brasil, the winds hit the Andes, dump their water, and that water all rolls back to the sea (this is HUGELY simplified, of course). You see the same thing in the US's Pacific Northwest, where you have the mountains scraping the water off the sky; they're just far enough north that the ocean is in the west. Get past the mountains, and you have desert.

So, if you want an eastern ocean, you're looking at the tropics, which will fit in with your "really hot" part.

[gnomish dwelf]

So, the big thing you're going to want to look at is what is "downwind" of your prevailing winds (on Earth, prevailing winds in the tropics are east to west). In Africa, where you have savannah, you don't have much to the west of those winds, so the precipitation just keeps going. In Brasil, the winds hit the Andes, dump their water, and that water all rolls back to the sea (this is HUGELY simplified, of course). You see the same thing in the US's Pacific Northwest, where you have the mountains scraping the water off the sky; they're just far enough north that the ocean is in the west. Get past the mountains, and you have desert.

So, if you want an eastern ocean, you're looking at the tropics, which will fit in with your "really hot" part.

The plot thickens, I need to make up my mind of the make up of the world, i have some ideas on the different ecoregions of Fatacor and their location but I haven't take into account hydrology and winds

[LibraryOgre]

The plot thickens, I need to make up my mind of the make up of the world, i have some ideas on the different ecoregions of Fatacor and their location but I haven't take into account hydrology and winds

Unless you're playing with a geographer, get basic. You don't need to go in heavy detail, but I find it helps with verisimilitude.

And, well, there's always cheating. ;-) When I was working on a couple things, I'd find a place with the climate I wanted (or similar geography) and shamelessly copy. The entire climate of Thybaj is based off Cluj Napoca, Romania. Wikipedia is your friend.

[Mechalich]

By grassland I mean a lush humid Irish-like Scottish-like grassland. I want the craters to still be exception rather than ruling terrain there.

Ah, well, a lot of the 'grassland' in Ireland and Scotland is cleared forest, not natural grassland. The British Isles - with the exception of the Scottish Highlands (which edges into Taiga and even Tundra) - are part of the Temperate Broadleaf Forest biome. Natural patches of grassland do exist within this regime, of course, as they generally do in forest regions due to factors such as soil regime (especially serpentine soils), disturbance (most commonly fire, but also wind action, flooding, and so forth), and in some cases natural grazing pressure, but the area is predominantly forest.

[gnomish dwelf]

Unless you're playing with a geographer, get basic. You don't need to go in heavy detail, but I find it helps with verisimilitude.

And, well, there's always cheating. ;-) When I was working on a couple things, I'd find a place with the climate I wanted (or similar geography) and shamelessly copy. The entire climate of Thybaj is based off Cluj Napoca, Romania. Wikipedia is your friend.

I do take from real life places, but only to know fauna and flora, for instance this savannah is the serengeti times 3, why the serengeti times 3? the serengeti came up high in my searches when looking for largest savannah... x3 is a good number to make it noticieably larger.

Ah, well, a lot of the 'grassland' in Ireland and Scotland is cleared forest, not natural grassland. The British Isles - with the exception of the Scottish Highlands (which edges into Taiga and even Tundra) - are part of the Temperate Broadleaf Forest biome. Natural patches of grassland do exist within this regime, of course, as they generally do in forest regions due to factors such as soil regime (especially serpentine soils), disturbance (most commonly fire, but also wind action, flooding, and so forth), and in some cases natural grazing pressure, but the area is predominantly forest.

so my idea is temperate broadleaf forest clearing biome?

[Mechalich]

so my idea is temperate broadleaf forest clearing biome?

Well, your idea works if the dwarves initially moved into the area, cut all the trees down - probably to feed that fun dwarven desire to forge lots of metals, the iron industry is ruthlessly consumptive of fuels - underwent a civilizational collapse due to the loss of forest-related ecosystem services (if you have Netflix, watch The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind for an example of this in action), and then shifted to pastoralism afterward to take advantage of the resource - grass - that emerged in its place. Heavy grazing pressure can maintain grassland cover and prevent successional processes from taking place, which is what generally happens in Ireland and Scotland in the historical period. All those lovely green hills are grazed by sheep. Though with the low population density the dwarves probably supplement grazing pressure with a deliberately fostered fire regime (this is an extremely common practice by pastoralist cultures) in order to maintain and restore pasturage (this also helps to prevent the accumulation of unpalatable or potentially toxic forbs, if you visit a large sheep pasture in Ireland today you'll often see grass grazed down to golf green levels but fully grown thistles everywhere).

Botanically, one of the big differences is that the grasses that grow up in wetter, cooler environments and provide that lush green British hillside look tend to be C3 grasses, while the warmer, more arid steppe or savannah grasses tend to be C4 dominated. See this figure for comparison.

[gnomish dwelf]

Well, your idea works if the dwarves initially moved into the area, cut all the trees down - probably to feed that fun dwarven desire to forge lots of metals, the iron industry is ruthlessly consumptive of fuels - underwent a civilizational collapse due to the loss of forest-related ecosystem services (if you have Netflix, watch The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind for an example of this in action), and then shifted to pastoralism afterward to take advantage of the resource - grass - that emerged in its place. Heavy grazing pressure can maintain grassland cover and prevent successional processes from taking place, which is what generally happens in Ireland and Scotland in the historical period. All those lovely green hills are grazed by sheep. Though with the low population density the dwarves probably supplement grazing pressure with a deliberately fostered fire regime (this is an extremely common practice by pastoralist cultures) in order to maintain and restore pasturage (this also helps to prevent the accumulation of unpalatable or potentially toxic forbs, if you visit a large sheep pasture in Ireland today you'll often see grass grazed down to golf green levels but fully grown thistles everywhere).

Botanically, one of the big differences is that the grasses that grow up in wetter, cooler environments and provide that lush green British hillside look tend to be C3 grasses, while the warmer, more arid steppe or savannah grasses tend to be C4 dominated. See this figure for comparison.

I use irish grasslands as a worldwidely known reference pool, but i am also influenced by the look of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomas in the wet season

Unless you're playing with a geographer

I want to use my playtime in this campaign as backdrop for my novels, Aggragrauth for instance is more relevant to my novels than to my playtime... Novels always find a Neil T de Grysson to criticise one's lack of verosimilitude.

[brian 333]

The funny thing about critics is that they have seldom written anything worth reading. If a real author offers advice, listen. If a person who has no writing credits criticizes, ignore.

Your story is your story. Write it the way you want it to be, and the readers that like that kind of story will like it no matter what Neil and Bob think.

Besides, verisimilitude went out of the window with zebra-riding dwarfs. Their legs aren't long enough to grip the horse, so they would bounce off!

(Did you ignore my criticism? Good! Write on my friend!)

[gnomish dwelf]

The funny thing about critics is that they have seldom written anything worth reading. If a real author offers advice, listen. If a person who has no writing credits criticizes, ignore.

I wasn't thinking of literary criticism 'though, but thanks for the advice.

Your story is your story. Write it the way you want it to be, and the readers that like that kind of story will like it no matter what Neil and Bob think.

I actually wish I could have Neil in my payroll to force him to solve my issues on verosimilitude using what he knows, I believe in "like reality unless noted" (which the giant, for instance, does not seem to care about, but he is writing comedy, and I am writing hard sci fantasy).

Besides, verisimilitude went out of the window with zebra-riding dwarfs. Their legs aren't long enough to grip the horse, so they would bounce off!

AD&D has stablished that dwarves can ride ponies. Real life has determined that zebras cannot be mounts for humans because of their size and proportions. I say zebra but I mean "unique set of equine breeds with black and white stripped bodies", these zebras are zebras only in name and are small enough for dwarves to ride them without their legs bouncing off :D

(Did you ignore my criticism? Good! Write on my friend!)

Didn't ignore it, but I know now that I have to address it. Thanks :D

The funny thing about critics is that they have seldom written anything worth reading. If a real author offers advice, listen. If a person who has no writing credits criticizes, ignore.

Also I believe I shouldn't shoot the messenger or go ad hominem on who tells me what, I take what I am told worthy of taking into account in its own merit, not on the merit of who is telling me about it. So if critics made a good point about my work sucking for this reason or that, to the point I could agree with them, I would address it in reprints, but to mw what matters is that they persuaded me, not who they are or who they aren¿t or what they wanted when they criticized me. that is why i am getting bored that my short stories in the art section are getting views but no one is considering them worthy of comment, either to criticize or flatter. Of course I prefer constructive criticism that people just telling me I suck.

[LibraryOgre]

I want to use my playtime in this campaign as backdrop for my novels, Aggragrauth for instance is more relevant to my novels than to my playtime... Novels always find a Neil T de Grysson to criticise one's lack of verosimilitude.

Sure, there's always going to be that guy, which is why you research. However, if you can have a basic, college intro, understanding of what you're talking about, it keeps all but the most determined nitpickers out of your hair.

[gnomish dwelf]

Sure, there's always going to be that guy, which is why you research. However, if you can have a basic, college intro, understanding of what you're talking about, it keeps all but the most determined nitpickers out of your hair.

My college experience was philosophy and then political science, neither gives me a basic college intro on the matter :'( In high school I found geography and geology to be boring and limited to studying rocks and the like, the inanimate, while I prefered studies of living animals and cultures.

[LibraryOgre]

My college experience was philosophy and then political science, neither gives me a basic college intro on the matter :'( In high school I found geography and geology to be boring and limited to studying rocks and the like, the inanimate, while I prefered studies of living animals and cultures.

You can always pick up the college basics; heck, Wikipedia will give you a decent handle on a lot of things like this, even if you're not ready to get credit.

As for cultures, geography has a lot of links to anthropology... the wheres always shape the whos and the hows.

[gnomish dwelf]

You can always pick up the college basics; heck, Wikipedia will give you a decent handle on a lot of things like this, even if you're not ready to get credit.

As for cultures, geography has a lot of links to anthropology... the wheres always shape the whos and the hows.

It depends on the teacher, my teacher, Mister Bromley, was the most boring geologist.

I feel challenged by the difficulty I have in understanding the issue, I understand that features should be impacted by each other's relative position as well as their position in relationship to the goldilock zone, but when I try to make it make sense I get headaches, I am calling out because I think others can understand what I know and make use of it better than what I can learn from there over forums. I really feel ditzy in this.

[LibraryOgre]

It depends on the teacher, my teacher, Mister Bromley, was the most boring geologist.

I feel challenged by the difficulty I have in understanding the issue, I understand that features should be impacted by each other's relative position as well as their position in relationship to the goldilock zone, but when I try to make it make sense I get headaches, I am calling out because I think others can understand what I know and make use of it better than what I can learn from there over forums. I really feel ditzy in this.

EDIT: Need to run some errands so I am heading out, gonna check when I am back

Bah, don't worry about it. A big part of casual research is asking folks for help. I like talking about it, so I doubt you'll get any complaints.

[Quizatzhaderac]

So the biome closest to what you have is the Eurasian_Steppe.

I'm guessing you don't want "silk road" levels of sophistication from your barbarians. Maybe one of the other cultures on the plains ranges further on worse territory, but trades on either end. The dwarves niche being their craters.

So, looking at a few modern countries with a lot of semi-nomadic peoples, they run around 2-3 people per square km, so if you've got 15k dwarves, you're looking at about 5k-7.5k km2... so, each being about the same size as Delaware.

Remember that the dwarves territory isn't one of these craters, it's four craters and some surrounding territory. So a crater isn't that 5k-7.5k km², it's that number, divided by four and then divided again because they're hunting outside of it.

[gnomish dwelf]

Bah, don't worry about it. A big part of casual research is asking folks for help. I like talking about it, so I doubt you'll get any complaints.

Thanks, :D

So the biome closest to what you have is the Eurasian_Steppe.

I'm guessing you don't want "silk road" levels of sophistication from your barbarians. Maybe one of the other cultures on the plains ranges further on worse territory, but trades on either end. The dwarves niche being their craters.

Remember that the dwarves territory isn't one of these craters, it's four craters and some surrounding territory. So a crater isn't that 5k-7.5k km², it's that number, divided by four and then divided again because they're hunting outside of it.

Could the Eurasian Steppe be an appropriate home for african megafauna and pleistocene mammals?

(Thanks)

I will add data on the other regions when I manage to organize the content of my spreadsheet

[Quizatzhaderac]

Could the Eurasian Steppe be an appropriate home for african megafauna and pleistocene mammals?

To be clear, I was thinking that it was closest in term of size (it's friggin huge), but it's also a generally interesting and well understood case of climate determining social structure.

It's a bit too cold for African animals, but analogues lived there (mammoths instead of elephants).

[gnomish dwelf]

To be clear, I was thinking that it was closest in term of size (it's friggin huge), but it's also a generally interesting and well understood case of climate determining social structure.

It's a bit too cold for African animals, but analogues lived there (mammoths instead of elephants).

oh no, I am thinking of a place that is warm, one that is a buffer zone between wooded region and arid desert.