Dwarves with no clan, no pride, and no culture of their own. Dwarves that are beardless ( completely hairless?). Have they even lost their loyalty and honor as well?
Okay, Dwarves are supposed to make great fighters, but sorry to break the news to you all, so are Muls and Half-giants, and lets not under estimate the Human.
As I try to envision the Dwarves of Darksun, their uniqueness begins to slip away. So what if their stats are different from the other races, big deal. When I run any campaign world rolplaying is emphasised. Why would anyone play a run down Dwarf. They no longer have anything worth fighting for except money. They begin to remind me of the Grey Dwarves ( the Grey Dwarves would be more fun to play)
Dwarves focus? Is this supposed to fullfill the Dwarves after they lost their own culture. Since they nolonger have anyting worth fighting for, they try to complete missions?
Personally I would like to see the Dwarves begin to revert to their cultural heritage. Im not asking for an over haul of the Dwarf. I would just like them to begin working, thinking, acting, and looking like Dwarves. Their should be a leader or many, that are trying to reinstate the Dwarven traditions. Maybe a Dwarven revolution, or revolt. I would like to see them more active. At least forming an orginization to spread their cause. Could someone please let those Dwarves know about Rogaine?
Personally I would like to see the Dwarves begin to revert to their cultural heritage.
Sounds like the dwarves from Kled just outside of Tyr. Maybe you should take a look at the info thats availble on them.
Sounds like the dwarves from Kled just outside of Tyr. Maybe you should take a look at the info thats availble on them.
Are they beard toteing alcholics?
Personnally I think you're missing the bigger picture behind the Focus-idea.
A dwarven focus dictates their life, from where they go to what they do to how they handle a situation. This is so powerful that unless th dwarf finishes its focus before it croaks it becomes a dwarven banshee.
This makes them more stubborn than the standard dwarf IMHO. The focus also provides some bonusses to quests relating to that focus.
Remember that a dwarven focus can be anything, from simple surival to gaining an audience with a Sorcerer-King(Not very likely) to exploring the width and length of known Athas to aveanging a misstep to finding a mate.
Whether they are still ale-guzzling pot-bellied humanoids(though with a shave) is up to the DM in question and shouldn't interfere with the game as a whole.
My personal opinion of Athasian dwarves is that they are difficult to roleplay, but if you succeed you'll probably end up with bullocks of fun around the table.
My greatest, and most fun character us so far, the one that i have evolved from the simplest of ideas to the character he is today, is an Athasian Dwarf. A fighter/cleric of fire. I know the prospect of playing a dwarf in Athas is quite hard, let alone a fire cleric; but the influence of Caeleum was profound ;) ..
Anyways, the basic idea i started with is the grumpy, talk little-do more, holding back but generally good nature of dwarves from other worlds. It was something I thought that would never change in their nature. Something that despite centuries of harsh life would bind them with their heritage.. i don't know if my thoughts are correct, but the amount of fun and amazing sessions i had with him(see I even perceive him as an individual) leads me to beleive that it is right...
Have fun..Play the game..
(In 2nd ed FR group I played in, we drugged our Dwarven guides and shaved off their beards as a joke. Needless to say that is a no-no.)
Anyway, I am surprised that Athasian dwarves don't appeal to people. I always thought the hairless dwarves were a great change to the standard fuzzballs. Actually, the differences between all the Athasian races and their counterparts on other worlds seemed like improvements to my players and I. While playing AD&D Dark Sun, one player in my group would always want to play a dwarf; it took a long time to convince him to play something else. He loved the idea of having a focus, as he felt it was a perfect tool for roleplaying a character. Because of him, I still long for a "Dwarves of Athas" book...
But that's not to say that a player can't roleplay a dwarf looking to bring back past glory, or, in game terms, the generic straight-from-the-chopping-block dwarf.
Sick and tired of the shovel after shovel load of crap that has been thrown at the dwarven race, their clan in particular, this individual holds a facination with their dwarven ancestors, and comes off to all they meet very much the same as some relic recently unearthed and recovered from a city of a millenia ago. Ever the "fool", the "dreamer", this dwarf has made it his or her focus to bring their clan to light, to chronicle bloodlines long since forgotten, to wipe the crap from their faces, and stand once more proud, backed by the ghosts of their once great ancestors...
Or something like that.
Point being: the Dark Sun dwarf in print is the typical dwarf, a player character is one that generally stands a head above.
And as to dwarves without beards, maybe this relic of a dwarf has such a facination with beards, the appearance of their ancestor dwarves, that they don armor similar to a samurai's kabuto (helmet) and mempo (mask), crafted/fashioned from particularly tough (ancestrally-fitting) creatures slain in battle.
?
I remember Brax once remarked that he tried to portray Athasian dwarven culture with hints of the historical hebrew tribes of the first five books in the Bible. All in the same way that various city-states of the Tablelands appear to be infused with real-world examples: Balik/Ancient Greece or Rome, Draj/Aztec, Nibenay/Angkor Vat, Urik/Babylon, Gulg/Sub-sahara, etc.
To me, this idea seemed very workable for application to Athasian dwarves.
Regards,
Eric ANondson
In my Campaign, Dwarves have deep brown or obsidian black skin. They are usually bald but hair growth is possible
Even the original boxed set describes all races as having a huge range of skin colors and pigmentations, many varieties are mutations rather than from simple genetics. And the Pentad (least, I hope that was where I read it) describes a ritual that young dwarves go through before reaching adolescence that permanently removes all hair from their bodies and seals the dwarve's follicles from producing any more hair ever. So you could easily have furball dwarven tribes that shun this normal tradition.
Dwarves in my campaign are about as dour as you can get. They don't all gather round and get ficshnickered and dance on tables till they pass out. They don't have a sense of humor, they don't laugh, the don't feel the joys that other races do. Part of what defines them mentally and culturally in my game is what they don't have, more than what they do. So single minded, ALL that matters to them is their focus: that one thing that keeps them going, that's makes their lives in this age worth living. Everything else has been taken from them: their pride, their honor, their heritage, their empires (in my campaign, dwarves were top notch in the Green Age, with empires rivaling any other race). Everything is gone, with not much else to live for. Sadness, cynicism, pesemism, they're like the Bleak Cabal of Planescape without the comic inuendos. Often, they are suicidal in the persuit of their focus, reckless, careless. Since they care only about their focus with such determination, most other races do not get along with them at all. Dwarves view everyone else as a tool to be used to acheive their goals. Friendships are very hard to come by, and most companionships last only as long as the dwarf feels the person is able to advance his goals. Woe to the people of Athas should a dwarf come about who is able to unite his people under the common focus of rebuilding their empires . . . united, they would be a force that would make even the SKs tremble.
And the Pentad (least, I hope that was where I read it) describes a ritual that young dwarves go through before reaching adolescence that permanently removes all hair from their bodies and seals the dwarve's follicles from producing any more hair ever. So you could easily have furball dwarven tribes that shun this normal tradition.
Why do the Dwarves go through such a ritual in the first place? Dwarves in other settings are very proud of their beards. Perhaps this ritual would have something to do with the loss of their Dwarven Empire and the near genicide of their race. Maybe the ritual symbolizes the stripping of their pride. This may also be a way they morn their ancestors for sacrificing themselves during the Green age.
Since being hairless is more of a RITUAL, those Dwarves raised away from their own family may have missed out on it (Slaves, Outcasts,ect). This means that the Dwarves still follow TRADITIONS. Those Dwarves that don't honor the tradition may be looked down upon by their own kind. If this was the case, even arena champion Dwarves (who didn't have the oppurtunity to participate in the ritual) may shave all of their hair to avoid being accused of dishonoring those who died in vain ( their ancestors of the green age). This way honor is still important to Dwarves even if it is limited to their own race.
That the dwarves of Athas don't resemble traditional dwarves' culture or lifestyle is greatly appealing to me.
I remember Brax once remarked that he tried to portray Athasian dwarven culture with hints of the historical hebrew tribes of the first five books in the Bible.
Those traditional hebrew priests had the coolest beards! (Sorry on a tangent Bob.)
Why do the Dwarves go through such a ritual in the first place? Dwarves in other settings are very proud of their beards. Perhaps this ritual would have something to do with the loss of their Dwarven Empire and the near genicide of their race. Maybe the ritual symbolizes the stripping of their pride. This may also be a way they morn their ancestors for sacrificing themselves during the Green age
That's my take on it, in a way. And if its was from WotD, then mondo kudos to Brax since it was a very defining bit of cultural info for me in giving dwarves the clincher they needed. Sometimes, all it takes is that one little idea that you can then expand upon. Its not so much as mourning the loss of their heritage and pride, but also in a way freeing themselves to turn their attentions towards their focus. It is a nasty ritual that often leaves the dwarf's skin with pocks and scar tissue. Even a semblance of physical beauty is simply a distraction that can get in the way of the dwarf's goals. In my campaign, the dwarven numbers are on a steady decline; few dwarves have a focus that deals with living a simpler kind of life with a loved one and raising children and their numbers suffer greatly from this. Most dwarven children are from brief couplings and many dwarven children are forced very rapidly into a state of independance from their parents. There is little love to be found in a dwarven family.
While alot of the entire focus idea is cultural, its been this way since the comming of the SKs and the fall of their empires to the Butcher. Its become ingrained within them, even so much as causing them an unnatural fate upon death. Granted, this applies to the dwarves of the Tablelands. Those described in the Last Sea may be a bit grim and stubborn, but they're certainly closer to 'standard' dwarves than any other. I've yet to use the Saragar dwarves at all in my games, since I always wanted to throw the same kinds of twists into the Green Age that Dark Sun has in its current age as far as races were concerned.