Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Uristsonsonson]

While working on the language overhaul project I mentioned in http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133998.0 I came to the realization that I'm not exactly sure what it even sounds like. How is a c any different than a k in Dwarven, and what are all of those funny vowel diacritics about? How DO you pronounce Urist? Reflecting on those questions led me to the further realization that I'm not really even sure how Dwarven psychology would work. I don't recall ever seeing anything about it beyond the raws for their values in the next release. Would the prototypical dorf be a mad craftsman-warrior who could go off at the slightest trigger? A tradition worshipping craftsman? I notice the lack of any family oriented behavior let alone stereotypical clan-based society. The same questions about the other races are almost as interesting...

Dear Forum, I ask your opinions.
-How do you read Dwarven? Exactly what does it sound like in your own opinion?
-How does the dorfy mind work, and what would you consider to be the stereotypical DF dorf?
-What will dorfen society be like in 1.0?
-Just as an afterthought, exactly what is cave adaptation and what benefits will it confer in the future? Right now it's purely negative, which one would think isn't really an adaptation at all...

[Urist McAxedwarf]

Well, I read dwarven/ish in a very typical fantasy way. I pronounce Urist as YOOR IST, Bembul as BEM BOOL. Deduk as DE DOOK. Lots of OOs basically. Human for me is just standard English. Goblins because of the NG and NZ and MG beginnings sound very Tribal and elves, well, I don't care, I never let them live long enough to get their names'.

Dwarves are typically tough, very enduring, much like the British stiff upper lip. They are usually respect their elders and are very simple minded and easy to please. However, due to the constant intoxication and the results of that not being the case no one will ever really know.

I imagine Dwarf society will be pretty much the same but with the economy back in. More crime, more varied punishments, motivations and just generally a feeling of being more interlinked.

Cave adaption should always be a negative. Imagine it as the moment when the vault dweller in Fallout 3 steps out and you get blinded, but with a horrible hangover as well. There is a more detailed explanation on the wiki I believe.

[Manveru Taurënér]

I don't really have any particular conceptions of my own as to how dwarven should be prounced etc. I mostly just go with what comes instinctive, ie some sort of scandinavian/english/other hybrid. Can't wait til we get further work done by Toady clarifying it a bit though.

Rainseeker:   Well the main question that I think the whole community wants to know, and this is kind of dovetailing on an argument that's been going on for years about Dwarf Fortress ... [15]How do you pronounce Urist?
Toady:   Of course we haven't decided on any phonetic information for the languages yet, which is something that's going to go in; but just in my own mind or whatever, when I saw that question, it kind of polluted it forever ... I don't really know? Do I say Oo-rist, or Yure-ist, or (other - difficult to transcribe - examples)? I think I've used all of them since I saw that question. I'm pretty sure that that question had an answer before I saw it, but I don't even know. In the end I'm not sure what the phonetic information is going to be like. It's just one of those superfluous things, but it's one of those things that's fun to know as well; what the languages actually sound like, and so on. Maybe there'll be regional variations, we can have regional variations in the phonemes between the different dwarven civilizations so that some of them might say Oo-rist, and some of might say O-reest, and some of them might ...
Rainseeker:   Urst!
Toady:   Yeah, Urst. Or they can do the things where you add 'a's and 'r's and stuff on the end, or cut off the 't' entirely. But I have to disappoint; I don't really have an answer, I don't have an official answer. But if people want to ... you'd probably be able to change the phonemes if I put them in, they'll just be sitting there in a raw file. Although I'd hate to write up the phonetic representations of every word so probably they'll work with the alphabet representations when they're trying to come up with their phonemes. So, you'll have an answer sometime.

The lack of any family oriented behaviour so far is simply due to Toady not having gotten to that yet. As for the particulars, we probably won't know for sure until it's in.

Rainseeker:   Are families going to be more complicated? Like family relationships?
Toady:   I think just as a starting point they should be respected at all. A dwarf ... they might recognise a few things about their brother, like vaguely speaking, but they really don't in general have a handle on their parents or their brother. With their spouse they know that they're sleeping in the same room and they can shoot spores at each other, but it's one of those things, maybe even part of the sociology discussion. I don't know if ... like they say 'the building block of society is the nuclear family' ... we haven't really decided what the building block of dwarven society, but the family should certainly be part of that. If you're starting to add things like a mason's guild and a cult based around the god of minerals then having the family of a dwarf be one of those units that determines what a dwarf thinks about is really important because they'd be then weighing decisions; like 'how does this decision jibe with my religion, how does it affect my relationship with the mason's guild?' but also 'how does it affect my family?' would be a huge factor I'd think, at least in a dwarven society; I'm not sure the goblins would give a crap about it, maybe some of them would. It's one of those things that's completely underutilised. Of course families are really common; every dwarf has a family and there's a lot of different families, so tracking it as an entity in and of its

elf might be a bad idea. Having a larger clan or something, if it's a really large group of people then it makes more sense but having ten thousand different entities, one for each family, would start to stretch what's reasonable, especially because there'd be room set aside for things like 'what is the uniform of your family?'; it's not necessary information ... 'what kind of trade goods does your family have access to, what territory do they own on the map?' It starts to get silly if you really give them full blown entity status, but at the same time they're important enough that they should get an equal role in decision making. But it's one of those things that's also easier to let slide ... I'm not really sure when we'd start thinking about that stuff, maybe we'd start thinking about it when we're doing these guild and religion overhauls, just at least leave a spot open at the table for it, not code myself out of it. It's certainly something that I have to keep in mind. Huge amounts of legends are family based, like people rescuing their children, or rescuing their significant others, or having the three heirs to a kingdom fighting over it; a lot coming back to family stuff there, and right now that's completely unrecognised ... fortunately it's recognised in world generation to the point that they don't sleep with their siblings to have more kids but that's really just a very specific case that's handled in a very specific way instead of something that's tangible by itself.

With dwarven psychology/society, I'm obviously biased but I think of them as fairly similar as to how portrayed by Tolkien, and from what I've gathered so does Toady to some extent. I mean, DF was originally supposed to be LotR themed complete with Hobbits and Balrogs etc. The thought of possible trademark ramifications made it more sensible to omit certain parts however (this was before DF was even considered a Slaves to Armok continuation iirc). While he's obviously moved away from it since they're still fairly similar.

Cave adaptation is sure to start giving some positive effect when lighting is implemented, with some sort of boon to vision underground/in the dark. It's possible there'ss be other obscure effects as well, seeing as the underground is supposedly permeated with various magical energies the closer to the HFS you get.

Rainseeker:   Fieari asks: [4]'You've previously stated that all the animal men have at the very least friendly diplomatic relations with each other, if not actually being the same nation. What is the relation of the underground animal men to the aboveground animal men?'
Toady:   We're still working some of the political considerations of the animal peoples out. We always ... Zach and I are always: 'let's talk about this more' and then we fail to talk about it that day but right now the idea is that the underground animal peoples, being that they're [...] closer to the bad things that are down there, are a bit twisted and don't relate well with the aboveground animal people, and they're basically hostile. The aboveground animal people have that kind of tense relationship with the elves and they work well with each other to some extent although we've had this back and forth when we're discussing the stories about ... The key question here - what almost all of it comes down to is - does a tigerman eat a deerman? I think the latest answer to that question was that 'Yeah, yeah a tigerman probably eats a deerman' except in the situation where you have the elves working as a glue between the animal peoples in areas with forest spirits and so on, there might be less predation going on with the actual animal peoples. But left to their own devices they'll act more or less like the animals that they are humanoid versions of, except they're more intelligent. Down below, as I think we mentioned before, they're going to be more civilised in a sense, but they're also all at war with each other and with your guys. I mean war in the sense of just mindless violence right now.

[blazing glory]

Dear Forum, I ask your opinions.
-How do you read Dwarven? Exactly what does it sound like in your own opinion?
-How does the dorfy mind work, and what would you consider to be the stereotypical DF dorf?
-What will dorfen society be like in 1.0?
-Just as an afterthought, exactly what is cave adaptation and what benefits will it confer in the future? Right now it's purely negative, which one would think isn't really an adaptation at all...

just grabbing multiple words from the dwarven language okay,kulet is the dwarf word for abbey I would pronounce it as KU-LET okag is the dwarf word for bloat I would pronounce it as something like OAK-ARG the dwarf word for crab is ozsit I would pronounce it as OZ-IT taking the s for a silent letter,that's how I do most of  them.

the dorfy mind would work like this,beer prioity 1,food prioity 2,sleep prioity 3,partys prioity 4,doing whatever why boss want's me to do prioity 5.I guess the ordinary dwarf in my mind looks sorta like a disheveled drunk with a sorta curved hat the curves forward the dwarf would often be sleeping.

not sure what dorfen socity will be like in 1.0

guess a benifit of cave adaption could be fights somewhat better underground when he has it

[viewtifulrexx]

I can't comment accurately on how I'd pronounce dwarven words because it's not something that I have put a lot of thought into... but I can make some insights on how I think a dwarven mind and personality works.

Basically I thinks dwarves are totally unhinged.

Seriously, the amount of emotional pain that things that happen to them seems to cause is related entirely to how long ago it happened to them. Losing their beloved and having to drink the same old booze both sting the dwarven psyche equally painfully, and something as simple as being able to check out a really cool looking lever is enough to assuage being forced to breathe in the rotten reek of their decaying wife. They also deal with unhappiness and joy in absolutes. 'Once I feel THIS unhappy, I will go berserk and start throwing all the levers until I feel better, and not a moment before.'   

Dwarves also universally enjoy inflicting pain upon their enemies. Any dwarf in the military (that I have seen, I could be wrong) will take great joy in slaughter no matter what it is they are told to kill. A goblin, wildlife, the dwarven caravan merchants, they will kill any targets with unrestrained glee.

They're also obsessive to the point of insanity. barring being possessed, when a dwarf has a strange mood he comes up with this idea that they absolutely MUST realize, RIGHT NOW; they'll happily toss whoever is in the craftshop they want and bring your goblet production to a screeching halt because they need to make a flute covered in spikes and pictures of cheese. If they can't scratch that mental itch, they lose their sanity, either going berserk, insensate and demented, or simply so depressed they choose to starve to death.

TL; DR: Dwarves are nuts.