I had so many small issues with finding everything for the embark and making sure that all dorfs had the right gender that we've ended up inland next to a river. Let's work with it. I've had to re-roll everyone's gender about thirty times before I got six men and a woman, so unless this embark is hated by all I suggest we stick with it.
THE HAME OF WEALTHS
A Lesson In Dwarven Culture by Nod Chickenpungent, Human Historian of the Belated Beds
Dwarves! Oh, dwarf
kind! What mysterious urges steer you to greatness . . . and madness!
Dwarves, by nature, are a greedy sort. It drives their desires for more refined craftsmanship, for the construction of their great mountainhalls, for bees. So many bees. Their desire for bees and the golden ambrosia they produce can drive many a dwarf mad. Metals! Metals, the scarce and precious memory of the world's very creation: they inspire wonderment and drooling desire in the bearded folk. Stone of all kinds, when well crafted, can make a pit into a paradise. A well-made meal or the perfect mug o' mead gives life its meaning to these hardy sorts. Dwarves come in many colours and types, but only one thing can be called "common" to their kind: they love material wealth. It is responsible for all the good they have done for the world: their impressive contributions to !!SCIENCE!! and human culture are a result of their ever-present need for all that glitters, melts and shimmers!
But of course, their greed has a downside. You might say, "Why, Professor Chickenpungent, why WOULD it be such a boon as you have described? Surely, greed is a sin! It is a plague upon our own race!" To these commentators I would say, "Sit back down in your chair, you're not taking enough notes!" And surely enough, upon their wax tablet would be inscribed nothing less than haphazard graven scribblings and commentary about which wench they admired down at the local tavern. The tavern fed by the very booze the dwarves produce in the search for the perfect suds! Ponder that, will you? Get off of your high horse! I'll bet you have recently bathed in an attempt to impress that low-bred bar wench, and both your body and mind have evidently suffered for it.
Now, my student, take heed, for I am about to tell you a tale about what I consider the ur-example of dwarven greed: a civilization known to all history as "The Hame of Wealths."
This civilization was dominated, once upon a time, by ten guilds of impressive power. These guilds represented every aspect of dwarven society, and if there was born a new aspect of dwarven society through innovation then one of them would quickly assimilate it into their ranks as a matter of course. They were grouped by similarity in skill and interest, and these guilds were organized and named as follows:
The Delvers: Miners all. Cavern explorers, and military picksdwarves. Always interested in the collection and "personal conservaton" of precious minerals. Got along with nobody, and nobody got along with them because they were always digging big pits to hoard what they found in them.
The Prints of Blueness: Everyone who builds and designs had their place here. Lowly carpenters, high-minded sunshine-swilling architects and the masons in between. They loved to overcharge for others' guildhalls and take half-hour breaks five times a workday.
Tongs & Tapper: Forgeworkers and metallurgists. Rumored alchemists, but nobody takes that seriously . . . do they? Not in my classroom! As far as guilds went they were amicable, although that may have been due to PR and the fact nobody wanted their swordblades and hilts disconnecting mid-battle.
The Hackmasters: Anyone who could swing a thing and make it hit a skull tended to end up here, usually without their own permission. Since the law-enforcing nobility answered to the Hackmasters themselves it was tough to find a lawman with much sympathy.
The Artificier's Guild: Only dwarves of Legendary skill could be truly a part of this guild, and after they'd proved themselves with a fit of "divine" inspiration. I, myself, follow the philosophy of the cynics and realists who consider these so-called "fey moods" to be a product of dwarven fantasy and of mundane origin. Just don't tell the church or you won't be getting any high marks from
me end-year.
Axle & Assembly: Everything we know about basic physics we can thank this guild for, and the cantankerous half-deaf psychotics who ran it. They were trusted by no one but a necessary evil. Who wanted to hire the guys who, in their free time, invented new dangerous drawbridge-based methods of travel . . . into volcanoes?
Chisel & Facet: The lapidary's guild. Very covetous sorts. Hated the Delvers for their tendency to hide the biggest gems unearthed underneath piles and piles of microcline. Most members were short-sighted, literally and figuratively.
Sweat o' Yer Brow: The farmer's union, who incidentally was one of the most powerful of the guilds. Nobody wanted them to go on strike. They were well-respected as far as farmers go. There's many a tale of bee-related accidents involving noble's quarters, and more than once I've found amongst dwarven notes the presence of bears. Very large, trained bears.
Silvertongue: Ran a comedy club out of one of the more cosmopolitan fortresses and styled themselves "the Nobility." Nobody took them very seriously.
Do No Harm: A guild of highly neurotic and pedantic "caretakers." Perhaps the single most insidious and dangerous guild of them all. I believe their name to have been a joke: more dwarves suffered deaths in their presence than even the Hackmasters. Besides holding a considerable amount of power over the lives of others they were noted as being paranoid and unstable while maintaining a demeanour of compassion and caring. Wouldn't have wanted to be on their bad side.
Every single one of these guilds had their own agenda, none of them particularly cared for the other, and all of them wanted control over whatever resources were discovered. Whenever a new fort was constructed, one of these guilds had a hand in it. Ever wonder why we don't teach the history of dwarven war? It's because there never
was any. Unlike our constant conflicts with the elves and the invading scum from the evil mountains of the northlands, dwarves never needed a war. They had each other for that.
This fact, that all forts were under the influence of one or another of these guilds, brings us to a most interesting subject of study involving the Hames of Wealth:
The Trustworthy Guild
Some dwarves, they'd just had it. They wanted to find some way to co-exist peacefully. These dwarves decided that they needed to set an example for the rest of society. This effort was called The Trustworthy Guild, a new concept for dwarven society at the time. They'd gathered what they could from their respective guild coffers and decided to build a place that they could start to grow from: all guilds, working in harmony together. The initial seven dwarves had come from various backgrounds: all were former guild members and all of them were eager to start something new separate from the guild grind.
Now, young student, you may be wondering: wouldn't such covetous opponents try to hinder any attempt at creating a society that espoused unity and togetherness? Or perhaps I'm putting myself in your shoes and wondering that myself, because I already know it to be true! It's entirely possible you thought that The Trustworthy Guild ran off into the forest dancing and singing praises to their gods of fertility, rocks and cows and never suffered for their brazen ways! In fact, I will assume you did not and that the idea now rests in your head because I put it there in place of your idle daydreaming about your mother's dragonfly-brain pie, and that tarty tavern trollop you've admitted to distracting yourself with during my lessons. As you can see, I was born to teach and mould your lazy mind, like the soggy clay that it is, into something as respectable as myself.
My dear student, the other guilds did not sit on their thumbs doing nothing. Oh no. They were one step ahead already, as you will see.
The Hill of Deceivers
Irony. Iron. Do you not think the words are similar? Tell me student: what do dwarves love most? It is a multiple choice question, and please pick the answer closest to what you believe to be true.
1. Buttercup flowers.
2. Drinking seawater.
3. Skinless vipers who trail deadly dust.
4. Iron.
If you answered anything but "4" then you are a dullard and I should expel you into the trash-littered streets outside this university. The answer is, of course, "four." And if dwarves love iron, would they not also love, by association,
irony? Alchemical theory of metals and semeiotics tell us that the words are
inexorably and
indoubitably linked. Like how one who loves bismuth must also have an appreciation for biscuits, and those who admire gold desire their bread a bit on the green side. The similarity and rhyme between substance and word imply a similarity of personality and desire. A "copper" helm is most suitable for a "hopper," as in "a very agile individual who likes to make small leaps." Thus, our most agile of soldiers are clad in nothing but copper armour! Elementary. So, therefore, because dwarves love iron, it is most evident that they also love irony. The name of the fortress being "The Hill of Deceivers" was not a literal naming of a place full of liars, but instead an ironic jab at the hill being the one truly
honest place that a dwarf could retreat to! Oh, how I adore their cleverness!
Their embark point was close by a river in a rather sweltering environment not far from the original mountainhomes of the Hames of Wealth. Perhaps they thought they could "hide in plain sight" as it were.
Not as flat as I'm sure they'd have liked.
But functional. The nearby river swam with merry hippos, a most cheerful animal known for being not-at-all territorial.
The initial seven dwarves were as follows:
And this, dear students, is where MY narration ends. The story itself is theirs, from their perspectives and not mine. While I am no stranger to storytelling I believe that even my masterful tongue would mar the important lessons to be learned therein.
And quit chewing on your chisels. It's most distasteful. You don't know whose been handling those chisels, or where they've been.
OOC
The embark is pretty hilly, and I had to change it from the last one because I accidentally embarked without spending points on equipment. As you can see, I'm kind of a fumbling GM. Tell me if you need me to change it. If I hear a majority "
UGH" then I will find a new embark and redo everything and re-up the pix. If not, then come at me with your commands! Tell me what you want your dorf to do!
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Topic: The Hill of Deceivers .25 - A Community Fort of Treachery and Treason (Read 78851 times)