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[Kogan Loloklam]

We know Toady will do something we can't even anticipate like making it out of boogyman dust, but what do you think a hill dwarf village would look like?

A small structure on the surface over a ramp, that leads down to a bunch of little 1-3 tile squares around a central space (meeting room), with several paths to a bunch of rough rooms for underground
farms.
 I think there'd be several of these "burrow meeting rooms", seperated by family. There'd also be some market burrows, with larger rooms for the shop than in family burrows. Warehouses would be like the farms that stretch out of family farmimg burrows.
For serious urban areas, farming spread would reduce. There would be a network of tunnels connecting these burrows together, though each would have a surface connection. They would only very rarely connect to deeper levels, although that chance would increase based on site population, and generally be from one of the farming burrows. If it exists it'd be a determined downward staircase or ladder.

There'd probably be random low-quality engravings throughout the structure, and rock doors on rooms and such. There might be a statue or two in the meeting room. Occasionally a "farm" or warehouse room would be a religious shrine instead, with higher quality religious orientated engravings and religious statues. There'd be occasional actual dwarf Temples sometimes in the hilldwarf areas, but that is seperate from shrines, and have it's own unique architectural style. All the walls would be smoothed.

What do you all think? Would this be something you'd expect to see adventuring through a dorf village? What is your vision of this?

[DavionFuxa]

This broughton by Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup?

Anyhow, I imagine if Toady was to think about implementing such Dwarves, that he would make Something like a regular Dwarf Fortress, but with say a 3z tile deep limit on how far the Dwarves go down, and a 20 tile x or y deep limit from the surface in regards to subterranean dwellings. These areas would mostly consist though of the Forging, Farming, Prisons, Catacombs, and Storage areas.

At the same time though, there would be a high degree of the Fortress on the surface. Here you would find the the core of the Mountain Dwarf Fortress, where the Dwarves Sleep, Eat, Craft their goods, Train with Weapons, and so forth. The Entrance to the Fortress would be to the Above ground section of the Fortress, and there would be many windows to peer out from.

Outside the Fortress Proper, you would likely find a few activities that set the Mountain Dwarves apart from their counterparts, such as Outdoor Farming for example.

[Nyan Thousand]

Hill Dwarves, huh. I got some paper and I drew this up real quick. It's called bad drawing.jpg. See for yourself:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Basically, I see hill dwarves to be carving their fortress out of the hill itself. The black squares are supposed to be entrances. Some entrances are interconnected on the outside, some aren't. Another thing I see hill dwarves would do would be above ground farming in the form of terraces. That's what the staircase things are supposed to be, by the way. Also, statues. Lots of them. The really squiggly lines all over the place are supposed to be trees.

I'm no artist, man. I'm sorry. Not pictured: blood on everything.

[Kogan Loloklam]

This broughton by Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup?

Anyhow, I imagine if Toady was to think about implementing such Dwarves, that he would make Something like a regular Dwarf Fortress, but with say a 3z tile deep limit on how far the Dwarves go down, and a 20 tile x or y deep limit from the surface in regards to subterranean dwellings. These areas would mostly consist though of the Forging, Farming, Prisons, Catacombs, and Storage areas.

At the same time though, there would be a high degree of the Fortress on the surface. Here you would find the the core of the Mountain Dwarf Fortress, where the Dwarves Sleep, Eat, Craft their goods, Train with Weapons, and so forth. The Entrance to the Fortress would be to the Above ground section of the Fortress, and there would be many windows to peer out from.

Outside the Fortress Proper, you would likely find a few activities that set the Mountain Dwarves apart from their counterparts, such as Outdoor Farming for example.

Nope, it was brought on by thinking about how fun it'll be to scatter goblin heads through their new fortress.

So what would a typical fortress look like then? You mean the old style dwarf site setup? Ick, that wouldn't be fun to explore.



I like the imagery of walking up to a bunch of stalls tucked between huge statues. That'd be a sight to see, and would certainly provide a large contrast between humans and dwarves.

[FearfulJesuit]

Hill Dwarves, I suspect, will be a Dwarven equivalent of the cottage industry.

It's interesting to see what'll work and what won't. Cottage industries are funny things. For example, most cloth industries are pretty easy and profitable to farm out to the countryside, at least until industrialization occurs; Ned Ludd and his ilk were angry village weavers in an uproar over industrialized cloth production. On the other hand, steel production, as the Chinese found out the hard way, has to occur in cities.

Jane Jacobs has a lot of interesting stuff to say about this; a nice digest can be found here.

[Starver]

Loosely reading the various descriptions brings me in mind of Hobbiton.  (Both the one in my mind's eye, and the one in the actual pictures I saw, the other day, of the NZ location for the film.)

So much so, that I do now expect the little Hill Dwarf guys to have individual 'burrow' homes and other in the sides of sloping ground, built-up buildings only being on the flatter ground around the river (e.g. a watermill, etc).  The underground tunnelling could be anything (but probably extensive, even if limited to the close vicinity of the surface except for any actual mines).

The outskirts of the settlements (and above-ground farming) could be all battlements and things (either really imposing, as a statement or disguised/Ha-Ha-like to blend in so those casually looking up into the hills are completely unaware of their settlement), but it'd be whatever kind of rural idyll a Hill Dwarf would like.  Assuming that's the thing they like[1].  But now I can't help thinking of them as (more industrious) Hobbit-variants...


[1] Another option is your basic quarry-and-caves multilevel bare-stone environment (again, with external boundary with hidden/subtle/convoluted surface-entry gateway, and unknown subterranean complexity).

[Nyan Thousand]

So I drew anothing shit drawing. It's called worse drawing.jpg and it's a pretty apt title. Anyway, I really like the idea of dwarves literally carving their living space out of the hill while blending in with the surrounding, which is why I went wild with the idea. Kinda reminds me of Grottoes and stuff, only with dwarves. I also think hill dwarves would mark their hills with a giant ass statue on top, ala Christ the Redeemer. Again, I think hill dwarves would dabble in aboveground farming, hence the terraces. Now that I think about it, I really just drew inspiration from things I see here in the Philippines. The terrace idea certainly was, and the whole concept of hill dwarves reminds me of Baguio City.

 I think I drew some sort of Hill Dwarf metropolis. It's in the forest, on a hill, or a series of hills, as it were, and it's overlooking some squares and a poorly drawn swastika formation. The main hill would have the giant statue, and there's this large road that goes from the bottom to the top. Down the hill, there would be fortifications and defenses carved in there, as well as smaller settlements. When you look inside, they'd all be connected in this sort of labyrinthine maze.

A dwarven cemetery would comprise a separate hill, and it'd be a simple affair. There's one entrance at the bottom and everything connects from there. It's like a pyramid except it's actually a hill full of dead dwarves.

It's forest everywhere. Maybe there would be a few elf retreats scattered along the way. Most likely because hill dwarves hate elves as much as their mountain cousins so they decided to set up shop right next to those tree hugging bastards so they can kill them quicker. I don't know. I just always picture hills to have forests. There could even be human towns on the hill, if it's big enough. It's not like it's a stretch. Basically, I see hill dwarves as masters of blending in with their surroundings while still retaining that characteristic dwarven touch. I also see hill dwarves to be less xenophobic, hence the prevalence of outdoor construction (something taken from the humans and shit), as opposed to mountain dwarves who just hole up in their mountains.

I've really invested too much time into this. Fuck. Anyway, here's the offending image:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Eric Blank]

Toady had stated, if I recall, that he didn't exactly want hill dwarves to be like hobbits. That's a really fuzzy recollection, though.

I'd bet that hill dwarf settlements will more resemble first-year or temporary player fortresses, given that Toady had stated he wants to make mountain halls look more like player fortresses.

First year forts usually revolve around a food stockpile, the farms and kitchens, and some temporary/cheap dining area. Below that you'd probably see other forms of stockpiles and workshops. Hill dwarves probably wouldn't bother to dig much below the soil, and a chief industry would be to provide wood for the mountain homes. Perhaps, along with some basic workshops, you might get glass furnaces and kilns, where glass and clay furniture/crafts is produced. That would require the use of part of their wood output, though, so perhaps they'd simply be shipping clay to the mountain homes where magma furnaces can be used to make the final products. Housing would probably take the form of small stacks of cheap, 1x2 or 2x2 rooms with a bed and cabinet behind a door, as players usually do. All these underground facilities may not be interconnected aside from surface access (except those that are stacked vertically upon one-another would probably have staircases.) On the surface, you may find the settlement surrounded by simple 1-wide 1-2 high palisades/walls for a meager defense, and watchtowers where a tiny militia/guard operate from. There would also likely be a trade depot and some small stalls for small-time merchants. Other than that, pasture space for animals and possibly some small above-ground farms.

Although dwarves usually like the big and the bold, and I like to imagine it as well, hill dwarves seem to be destined to form mostly rural settlements with small labor pools; they probably wouldn't have a whole lot going on. Now, if toady gives dwarves three forms of sites (mountain halls, hill dwarf rural settlements, and hill dwarf cities) the sorts of things Nyan Thousand is suggesting would probably be the next step up for dwarves living away from the mountains.

And Nyan; stop insulting your drawings. They communicate your ideas thoroughly and are actually pretty good.

[DavionFuxa]

This broughton by Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup?

Anyhow, I imagine if Toady was to think about implementing such Dwarves, that he would make Something like a regular Dwarf Fortress, but with say a 3z tile deep limit on how far the Dwarves go down, and a 20 tile x or y deep limit from the surface in regards to subterranean dwellings. These areas would mostly consist though of the Forging, Farming, Prisons, Catacombs, and Storage areas.

At the same time though, there would be a high degree of the Fortress on the surface. Here you would find the the core of the Mountain Dwarf Fortress, where the Dwarves Sleep, Eat, Craft their goods, Train with Weapons, and so forth. The Entrance to the Fortress would be to the Above ground section of the Fortress, and there would be many windows to peer out from.

Outside the Fortress Proper, you would likely find a few activities that set the Mountain Dwarves apart from their counterparts, such as Outdoor Farming for example.

Nope, it was brought on by thinking about how fun it'll be to scatter goblin heads through their new fortress.

So what would a typical fortress look like then? You mean the old style dwarf site setup? Ick, that wouldn't be fun to explore.

Eric sort of describes what I was thinking - though it looks like Toady beat me to it in the thought process department (but at least he's thinking what I'm ideally thinking so I'm not complaining).

Anyhow, the basic premise of my idea is that it would be like exploring a Human Town and a Mountain Hall combined. You basically have a miniature town above with walls and possible a roof surrounding the establishment (kinda like a Dome or Bunker, or Bunker Dome!) and then underneath all that you have the regular Dwarfy stuff going on like Forges, Underground Farming, Storing away hoards of goodies, etc.

Outside of the walls you get your above ground crops, grazing livestock, military training area, and other stuff Dwarves probably would want outside for various reasons (can't grow above ground crops with a ceiling in the way, the Hill Dwarves might not be delving deep enough to hit the Caverns for Fungus and stuff to grow that livestock can feed on, and to avoid cave adaption) with the possibility of and outer wall that is either a wooden palisade or perhaps a metal or stone one that would serve to fence off the Hill Dwarves from the basic wild animals and other non-niceties that can be denied entry that way -Armies would obviously just charge on through, Megabeasts maybe would just walk/fly over it, and Thieves would probably scale them.

The Whole area would probably be the same size as a Human Town, but there would be less above ground structures and farming but that would be made up for with a lot of the important stuff players would want being underground (like you Troll around town trying to find a Weapon Shop, but here you know it will be underground near the Forges).

Temples and stuff like that would be either above or below ground depending on the attributes of the worship. The Noble's would likely have their quarters above the quarters of all the citizens. Below the majority of the Hill Dwarf Forges you would likely find Catacombs, Prisons, and other such things.

[hermes]

Hill Dwarves, I suspect, will be a Dwarven equivalent of the cottage industry.
...
Jane Jacobs has a lot of interesting stuff to say about this; a nice digest can be found here.

I never really thought about Hill Dwarves, but this is a cool idea.  I like the economic reasoning for why they perhaps couldn't thrive to found their own fortress.
Nyan's drawings are really good and, combined with the economic thing, conjured up the image of Pazu's mining village in Laputa (which was itself inspired by old mining villages from Wales)...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(For those who know the film, Pomu-jiisan is very dwarf like).  So, kind of homely, resource based communities who's precarious economic welfare revolves around the mining of a single resource, like tin, slate, gold or candy.  Would be cool then if your fortress's demand for certain metals would then have real effects on their condition.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I imagine that hill dwarves would be dwarves that got sick of the hustle and bustle and claustrophobia and crowdedness of the mountainhomes. Therefore, they would probably build either spacious homes underground or large houses aboveground from stone blocks, probably with a wall around it for protection. The founders might have chosen an industry to specialize in and then import everything else, or they might try to be self-sufficient and go xenophobic.

[Nyan Thousand]

And Nyan; stop insulting your drawings. They communicate your ideas thoroughly and are actually pretty good.

It's called fishing for compliments. You know how girls say they're so ugly when they're actually not and they're just waiting for guys to say "Oh, you're not ugly. You're beautiful."? Yep. :p But really, they're doodles more than anything. Anyway.

I think, economically, hill dwarves would focus more on agriculture and, like what someone else said, cottage industries. Small things that each dwarven family could make. Maybe pastoral. Trade would also be important, of course, but it's not nearly at the level of the mountainhomes. Hill dwarves would definitely be more rural than their mountain counterparts, and even the largest hill dwarf city still has this rural feel to it. Larger industries, like metal and well the only example I can think of is metal, would be largely import based.

[Starver]

Toady had stated, if I recall, that he didn't exactly want hill dwarves to be like hobbits. That's a really fuzzy recollection, though

It'ss not a quote I'm aware of, but perfectly understandable.

But in that case I shall retreat to my "multi-terraced quarry" version, rather than the more (pre-Sharkey or significantly post-Scouring) Hobbiton-like one (that just seemed to spring to mind when reading the start of the thread, but now I'll try to banish the images entirely).

[Kogan Loloklam]

My reference to hill dwarves is not as  a seperate species, but as in the hamlets that collect around dwarven mountainhomes and fortresses. It's where we will raise our armies of global domination from.

I don't see them doing surface farming, because that stuff isn't available in an embark. The giant quarry might be fun to explore too.

As for them looking like a player fortress, how would that translate? Player fortresses are all different. They usually share a 2x3 space for living quarters rooms, and usually have a meeting hall, but besides that, what else do players always have? I have elaberate entry halls on all of mine, while some people have none. Some people have industries I never use. Some people don't build walls on the surface. Some won't chop a tree or dig one scrap more than nessessary on the surface in fact to make it "secret". There's more fortress designs than people who've seen Dwarf Fortress. So what is typical? What is it you think the dwarven Hamlet would be? Or just what would be wickedly awesome to adventure through. Some players don't even make meeting rooms.

Spoiler: Some engage in some truely undwarfly behavior. Warning:not for the faint of heart (click to show/hide)

They don't farm any belowground crops for the dwarven brewery and drink sunberries instead!

It'd also be neat if they were just towns that were in the cavern layer too.

[GreatWyrmGold]

If they lived in caverns, they'd be cave dwarves.

I imagine that hill dwarves might decide to try some of these juicy red berries their kids keep telling them about, or learn the uses of longland grass from humans, and decide to supplement their plump helmets and rock nuts with longland flour and strawberries. And that's assuming they don't discover sunshine, which would swiftly become a luxury export, especially once supply and demand come into play.