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Author Topic: Dwarf History  (Read 1847 times)

anubite

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Dwarf History
« on: March 02, 2010, 08:29:33 am »

Been playing DF for a about a year and now I'm starting to wonder, just what exactly are dwarves? I'm not aware of any official lore, history, creation myth, etc. on them, so I'm looking for everyone's opinions.

Quote
1. Who created the dwarves?

2. Why do dwarves embark?

3. Where do dwarves hail from? Is there a capital city? Why can we never see it on the world map? Is it because the embarked don't belong to a "dwarven nation"? Are these dwarven tribes and factions, instead of colonizers of a civilization?

4. Do dwarves have a written language with syntax, or is it all pictographs? Do they have a number system?

5. How many dwarven words are there for alcohol?

6. How do dwarves feel about the caste system? Do they yearn to be something greater?

7. How do dwarves perceive humans and elves? Have they had any significant history together?

My interpretations:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But enough of my ideas, what does everyone think? Are dwarves bloodthirsty slaves to Armok, or are they gentle philanthropists that get a little too stressed out sometimes (and do naughty things in their fey moods)?
« Last Edit: March 02, 2010, 08:31:44 am by anubite »
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Funk

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2010, 09:01:25 am »


3. Where do dwarves hail from? Is there a capital city? Why can we never see it on the world map? Is it because the embarked don't belong to a "dwarven nation"? Are these dwarven tribes and factions, instead of colonizers of a civilization?

7. How do dwarves perceive humans and elves? Have they had any significant history together?

the dwarves come form the mountan home X that is some were on the world map


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Asgarus

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2010, 01:25:04 pm »

1. Armok i think.
2. Why do we embark?
3. I think the capital city is somewhere in the territory of the civilization you choose at embark.
   (i also think that every civilization has its own king and so on)
4. Good question... maybe we can find a language pro who could and would create a more or less
    complete speech?
    Like Tolkien for his elves (and some others (Dwarfes, Mordor, ...)).
    Otherwise we could implement Tolkien's dwarf-language... its not as good as the elven-language,
    but maybe it is enough.
5. More than we can imagine ;) But booze is definitively enough for us annoying, beardless humans.
6. Ask them.
7. The history is created with the world map, so i think there isn't any definitive history.
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SkyRender

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2010, 01:39:58 pm »

1. Toady.  Duh.
2. Greed.  Again, duh.
3. The Mountainhomes.  This is explained every time you embark, in fact.
4. Of course on both counts.  Clerks would have little to do otherwise.
5. How many types of alcohol have they discovered so far?  That many times three.
6. They seem to put up with it pretty well, actually.  Certainly the nobles like how it works.
7. Given the worldgen histories I've seen, I'd say Dwarves perceive pretty much everyone around them as mildly irritating to extremely annoying depending on how often they declare war on the Dwarves.  Not a lot of wars in worldgen seem to originate from Dwarves just randomly deciding they wanted to ransack some other city for laughs.
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2010, 02:56:42 pm »

1.  Who created the dwarves?
A callous and uncaring God, who created them only to laugh at their suffering if he or she ever bothers to even notice them at all...  (That's you, the player.)

2.  Why do dwarves embark?
Have you SEEN what happens to the founding dwarves of new forts?  Those that survive will almost invariably become legendaries before economy kicks in, never caring about money again.  Communist worker's paradise, baby!  When you live under royalty like this, Communism has some charm, especially since it actually WORKS in DF land.

3. Where do dwarves hail from? Is there a capital city? Why can we never see it on the world map? Is it because the embarked don't belong to a "dwarven nation"? Are these dwarven tribes and factions, instead of colonizers of a civilization?
Dwarves belong to a home nation, just hit tab on the embark location screen a few times, and you can even choose which one. The home cities show up as blue on the map to make them easier to find, even, and you can look up the hometown in Legends mode.

4. Do dwarves have a written language with syntax, or is it all pictographs? Do they have a number system?
Well, aside from having all those nouns, verbs, adverbs, and the like in the language raws, you have record keepers who have to keep exact count of the 1769 blocks of granite in your fortress.  I'd say that involves a number system.  Besides, why wouldn't dwarves have a number system or language with at least the capcity for technical information that smelly humans do, wallowing in their own filth?

5. How many dwarven words are there for alcohol?
Every time a dwarf tries to count, he invariably ends up wanting to go try some of them, and winds up passed out on the floor... the ones who do this frequently get cirrocis, and do nothing else... We call them "Philosophers".

6. How do dwarves feel about the caste system? Do they yearn to be something greater?
Probably not.  They don't care about the social status of the work they do, they just care about getting paid and having the money to store neat crap in their room, or get angry when they don't get work, and get evicted.

7. How do dwarves perceive humans and elves? Have they had any significant history together?
Dude, have you OPENED legends mode?  Elves are cannibalistic filth that must be scourged from the land.  With magma.  Sadly, conquering their primitive nonexistant "retreats" is often a trap - not only do dwarves wind up being tricked into immigrating to the new "town" that isn't even a hole in the ground (Seriously, not one hole in the ground! Not even one of those silly surface buildings!  It's just freakin' ground! They just sit around all day scratching themselves!), but then the duplicitous elves who "surrendered" plot for the elderly dwarven kings of lore to die of "age" so that they can usurp the throne from rightful dwarven hands.

Humans are a sadly primitive race, but they show some promise, and perhaps even deserve some pity for their inability to work the stone like we dwarves.  The ones who drink quite often even make wonderful cannon fodder for the dwarf who braves the road in search of adventure.  They are, however, also a potentially very greedy and violent race, to the point of attacking their own allies for personal profit, even at communal expense, which likely explains their lack of understanding the stone and metal of the land.  Self-enforced savagry... pitiable, indeed.
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twwolfe

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2010, 03:08:17 pm »


7. How do dwarves perceive humans and elves? Have they had any significant history together?
Dude, have you OPENED legends mode?  Elves are cannibalistic filth that must be scourged from the land.  With magma.  Sadly, conquering their primitive nonexistant "retreats" is often a trap - not only do dwarves wind up being tricked into immigrating to the new "town" that isn't even a hole in the ground (Seriously, not one hole in the ground! Not even one of those silly surface buildings!  It's just freakin' ground! They just sit around all day scratching themselves!), but then the duplicitous elves who "surrendered" plot for the elderly dwarven kings of lore to die of "age" so that they can usurp the throne from rightful dwarven hands.




However, some elves usurp the throne for very dwarven Reasons. Take Cacame. He took the throne becasue he felt the dwarves weren't killing elves fast enough.
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MC Dirty

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2010, 03:11:22 pm »

About the alcohol question:
I think dwarves don't have a single word for alcohol. It's like the Discworld dwarves and their different words for stone. They have different words for every kind of stone, the words including the stones' stability, the likeliness of precious gems in them and their dangerousness. But they don't have a universal word for "stone".
I'm pretty sure it's the same with DF dwarves and alcohol. After all, they can taste the difference between a ☼Sunshine☼ and a ≡Sunshine≡. It's just that there are so many different words for alcoholic beverages and related stuff, that it can't possibly be translated; and it's just because we humans are cretins when it comes to alcohol that we only translate it as "alcohol".
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Karnewarrior

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2010, 03:21:46 pm »

1-
There are multiple factions of Dwarves who belive different things. The most extreme belive in the crackpot theory of "Evolution", saying that Dwarves and Elves and Goblins all originated from the same ancestor, which can be disproven with this extremely old book, penned and repenned by 153637 generations of scholars. They call it "The Book of Armok." They say he made the Planes of Teaching in 7 minutes!
2-
Why isn't there only one human town?
3-
The mountain homes. *facepalm*
4-
Dwarves write messages in phermones. They don't need any writing system because they can leave a phermone trail that stays until the end of time (usually around 200 W.G.)
5-
How many Dwarven words are there? Stone is "Rock Brew", Tree is "Wood Brew", Home is "Vomit and Magma brew", Cold is "Russian Brew", and so on and so on.
6-
What caste system? Dwarves just do Sh*t, they have no social system. Nobles are a techie term for "Safety net when the Magma trap fails".
7-
Dwarves don't perceive Humans and Elves. They're too drunk. They see Dwarves, Beardless Dwarves, Cannibal Dwarves, and Green things, three of which they like to throw crap at. (hint: It's not the beardless!)
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2010, 09:51:54 pm »

About the alcohol question:
I think dwarves don't have a single word for alcohol. It's like the Discworld dwarves and their different words for stone. They have different words for every kind of stone, the words including the stones' stability, the likeliness of precious gems in them and their dangerousness. But they don't have a universal word for "stone".
I'm pretty sure it's the same with DF dwarves and alcohol. After all, they can taste the difference between a ☼Sunshine☼ and a ≡Sunshine≡. It's just that there are so many different words for alcoholic beverages and related stuff, that it can't possibly be translated; and it's just because we humans are cretins when it comes to alcohol that we only translate it as "alcohol".

I'm sure they have a word for "drink", however.  Something that distinguishes liquors worthy of a dwarf from swill like water.
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They Got Leader

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2010, 11:31:19 pm »

Im curious because the game is "Slaves to Armok" yet no Dwarf worships Armok. They all have their own gods. Whats up with that...?
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ungulateman

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #10 on: March 03, 2010, 12:36:56 am »

What slave worships their master?
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JubalHarshaw

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #11 on: March 03, 2010, 01:11:55 am »

Im curious because the game is "Slaves to Armok" yet no Dwarf worships Armok. They all have their own gods. Whats up with that...?

Quite simply, we (collectively), are Armok.
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Cruxador

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #12 on: March 03, 2010, 02:37:15 am »

1. Some god, usually. It depends on worldgen.

2. Greed.

3. The mountainhomes, which are, in fact, perceptible.

4. They have written language and numbers, though they seem to find it vulgar when compared to the glorious engravings that they could use.

5. all of them.

6. It's not really a caste system. But most don't care much for nobles.

7. Humans and Elves aren't dwarves.
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shadowform

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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #13 on: March 03, 2010, 04:24:08 pm »

1. Dwarves grew from the souls of the mountains themselves.

2. As with any society, the reasons differ: we establish military outposts, toll gates along roads, 'friendly' defensive contractors for human towns, to search for wealth, to alleviate problems with high population...  and sometimes out of pure masochism.

3. The Mountainhomes, of course.

4. I'd assume so - engravings are just large murals, decorative pieces of art to make things look nice.

5. Well, they probably have about as many as humans do...  depending on what type of plant it comes from, the fermentation process, additions made to the fermenting liquid, and so forth.  I mean, English has rum, vodka, whiskey, scotch, moonshine, booze, beer, lager, ale, etc...  I don't really see Dwarves having an unusual number more.

6.

7. Elves are peace-loving sissy hippy kids worthy only of contempt and +Elf Bone Bolts+.  Humans are useful for being large suppliers of metals (such as platinum and pig iron) and wood.
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Re: Dwarf History
« Reply #14 on: March 03, 2010, 05:01:45 pm »

Im curious because the game is "Slaves to Armok" yet no Dwarf worships Armok. They all have their own gods. Whats up with that...?
My theory is that Armok is the top dog of the pantheon in every worldgen possible. All other gods in whatever world you're playing in are his servants which he uses for non-bloody things. Except the occasional war god who's essentially his drinking buddy.
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