|
||
|
This was an email that helped flesh out the history of the Dwarves in Pharallon and the emergence of the current culture. It was written by Amy, Cor's player, and so includes some DM-deference in the form of ambiguities and querulous assertions. But it rocks so much that I present it here. A long creation myth: The first dwarves were carved out of living rock by the Mastersmith in the dawn of the world. (Also attributed to the Mastersmith is the raising of the mountains, the hanging of the stars in the sky and setting them to move, that sort of thing. He's not the sort of god who hangs around past creation; he is believed to be Somewhere Else, busy with new projects.) They then slept far beneath the earth for a period of time that, astonishingly, there are multiple theories about (on the grounds that they don't know for sure because they were asleep at the time): possibly as short as 315 (solar) years, possibly as long as 16380 years. Waking up miles deep, they started with nothing, and spent the next thousand years inventing the entire progress of technology, starting with stone tools, moving on to working copper, bronze and silver, iron and gold, and eventually mithril and adamantine. This first generation of dwarves did not need to eat or sleep, and had lifetimes five times as long as the longest-lived of their children. They did have children, all seven of the First men fathering many children on the First Mother over the course of their extended lifetimes, thus founding the dwarven tradition of polyandry. (There are miscellaneous blasphemous stories about an eighth and even ninth male who failed to father any children and were forgotten, or were possibly the first necromancers and may even still be out there raising armies of undead in mockery or envy or whatever of their brothers' procreative skills. This is *mostly* considered a story of the type boys like to shock and scare each other with, but it does seem to be the case that the dwarves have had an unusually large number of battles with undead armies, for your average Correllendor group). (A note on the calendar: at this point, time was calculated entirely in terms of birth years, or 315 days, the length of a dwarven pregnancy. Somewhere around year 520 the dwarves, who had been tunnelling progressively upwards, broke through to the surface in the First Mountain, discovering the sun and stars, at which point the solar calendar was determined and the system of Great Years (the cycle of 45 solar years or 52 birth years) was worked out.) In the second thousand years, the First Dwarves led their slowly-growing family of descendants in the greatest perfection of dwarven craftsmanship ever known, featuring much working of mithril and adamantium, astonishing architecture, etc. It is said that at the peak of their art the dwarves learned the secret of crafting life-like beings from metal and carving them out of living crystal, although the stories don't *usually* attribute their creations the power of reproduction. (There is another story that the dragons originally attacked the dwarves because the dwarves were making creatures out of gold and silver and gems, and the dragons felt insulted, and/or threatened. This is almost certainly false, since even the most boastful legends of the dwarves don't claim that they were making anything quite so awesome as to rival dragons, and there are more sensible reasons for the conflict such as competition for habitat and resources. But no dwarf would deny that there is some sort of special connection/enmity between dragons and dwarves.) And, they probably had some commerce with other folk in here somewhere. However, even the First Dwarves could not live forever, and each died and was entombed in the First Mountain. At about this point, the dwarves noticed something: the First Mountain, and, indeed, all of the surrounding mountains, were completely honeycombed with the halls of the great dwarven city. Clearly it was time to move on. At this point, the first son (now oldest dwarf) realized (or possibly was informed by the Mastersmith) that it was the mission of the dwarves to carve the entire world, or at least the interesting bits, into its final, finished shape. They embarked on a campaign that continues in the present day, of the sort of compulsive home improvement that no sooner gets one place fixed up just right than is moving on to the next place. Some mountains are just in need of a tiny tap, others call for entire cities, but the dwarves keep working, until the day when they finally reach the Last Mountain and rejoin the rock they were created from. *** So, the dwarves think their First Age (from their awakening to the deaths of the First and the departure from the First Mountain) lasted 2250 (solar) years. This doesn't have to be true. I'd really like them to have advanced their tech level from stone age to age of marvels in more-or-less the standard progression over a long period of time, pretty independently. As for how long they've been moving around *since* the end of the First Age, that's *really* open to the needs of your world's history. Another couple-few thousand years, perhaps? I think Cor's people have been in the mountains near Illanon for about eight hundred years, if that's workable, although they've moved around in the local mountains and cave systems in that time. A note about clans: the clan system is actually fairly recent, originating some time post-exodus in the past couple thousand years or so. The clans were originally *not* hereditary, they were more like craftsman's guilds, and descent was traced through mother-daughter lines. Coincident with the decline of dwarven craftsmanship, however, some people started holding back some of their skills as "craft secrets", kept within families, and eventually the major clans (Iron, Gold, Copper, Silver, Lead) each formed around a particular metal and everyone got folded into them and they became hereditary. Cor's clan, Aluminium, is the youngest clan. The Iron and Gold clans are both centered near Illanon, but have outposts elsewhere; Lead died out, Copper is somewhere to the East and in loose contact with the clans near Illanon, and Silver is Lost. Maybe a few more minor clans... Tin, Zinc... here or there. But, in point of fact, all of the clans do at least some work in steel and gold, and they all have stonecutters and fish farmers and ale brewers and whatnot as well. There are also those *other* dwarves. The dwarves' original name for themselves was the People of Stone, but post-First Age, as the clans were forming, they began to instead refer to themselves as the People of the Hammer, referring to their role as builders and sculptors of the unfinished world. Some dwarves, however, believed that the glory of the dwarves was their prowess as warriors, and started calling dwarves the People of the Axe. Although the hardcore People of the Axe split off and are unclanned, their influence is still strong in the clans... notice that almost all dwarves always carry an axe, not a hammer. Also, the universal belief among the clans in reincarnation of heroes was a central part of the warrior creed (although the idea of reincarnation had existed before that, as more of a speculation as to why some dwarves seemed to so closely resemble their great forefathers and have otherwise-inexplicable knowledge of things they had never been told). Other bits of history: Cor's great-great-grandfather was fighting armies of some kind of extraordinary foe (probably the undead) between 650 and 600 years ago. As far as trade, it's actually pretty common for young male dwarves to travel around in twos or threes (rarely but occasionally alone) working in their particular trade learning techniques from different regions and such (or at least making sure nobody's doing anything the dwarves don't already know how to do). Many older dwarves also enjoy travelling in slightly larger groups looking for rare or exotic items to collect, unusual raw gemstones to cut, etc. And of course there's the racial duty to keep an eye out for places the dwarves might want to settle. And some dwarves, usually those whose family situations mean they won't be getting married, choose to settle in cities and practice their trades locally. There may actually be *more* of these settlements in Telperest because Illanon is close enough to the main dwarven halls that most dwarves prefer to commute back and forth on a per-commission basis. I would guess that Telperest would have a number of dwarven masons, a general blacksmith or two, and some actual Gold Clan goldsmiths. No high-prestige trades like weapons-smiths or gem-carvers though, those are all be in the clan halls, as would the engineers and architects. Anyone in Telperest with a big project would have to send someone up to Illanon to negotiate and bring down a team.
|