Have Developed Dwarven Culture and looking for feedback
I'm working on a new dnd campaign/setting and i've now developed my dwarven society. Yesterday i shared what i had for the orcs and now this is the next part done. I'd love some feedback on what i've got
First, here is the map of the world. It’s currently unlabelled, but dwarves are the brown faction in the northwest, as well as the light gray territory to the northeast of the main blob. For reference: the orcs are the orange and red in the center-left, the elves are the dark green in the northeast as well as both the light yellow patch. Humans are the white in the southeast. The gross pukegreen coloured faction is multiracial, with orcs and humans and elves and dwarves and Vax. The pink in the center is also the Vax, who are energy beings that are inanimate unless they possess things like suits of armor, dead bodies, clothes or tailor-made automota.
The Dwarves are divided into 9 city-states, each ruled by a hereditary King and various noble families. These Kings then elect a Khazerain-a King of Kings-to rule all of Dwarfdom. The Khazerain has sometimes been a true emperor ruling over a united people or has been little more than a figurehead for one of the other city states. Generally, the Khazerain has little power over his nominal subjects. For the last half-century, there have been a succession of strong Khazerains all from the same family line (the Darexi dynasty) who centralized the government, but the balance has started to shift with the city-states regaining powers and autonomy recently (starting a little over a century ago).
The 9 city-states have organized themselves into three factions: the Tasaic League, the Terropese League and the Kalorin Union. The cities of the latter two have allied with the Orc clans in the Iron-Blood Confederation and are the brown coloured territory. The Kalorin cities are the two black dots that are in the west and on the coasts, while the Terropese are the two large icons (fort with two points and classic-looking tower), the black dot north of the mountains and the one to the east. The three Tasaic cities (two dots and one dot-and-circle) control the territory coloured light-grey. The middle grey to the north are other dwarven city-states irrelevant to the setting, and there are some giants to the northwest.
The Dwarves worship the Zalossi Pantheon like many of the Elves and Humans. There are more than a dozen deities in the Pantheon, each with their own sphere of influence. The Dwarven church used to have a lot of power in Dwarven politics, but their influence diminished under the strong and centralized Darexi dynasty. Even with the Darexi recently losing power to the city-states, the church has not regained its former status as spiritual and cultural leaders. The Dwarven church has a Priest for each city-state who guide it as a council. They have adapted their belief and worship system to accommodate for traditional dwarven practices, particularly regarding the ancestors. The Dwarves have Thenir, Patron of Wealth, Kaltor, patron of Kinship, and Torumba, patron of Heritage as their favoured deities. These three deities track fairly well to the three main ideals of dwarven society: money equaling power, strong family bonds and ancestor worship.
The Dwarves are an oligarchic society in a rigid caste system, with the lowest levels having almost no political rights but some more freedom in a sense. Only the upper classes have wealth, which in dwarven society equals political power. The middle castes are the merchants and craftsmen and while they have no official power they have lots of economic clout. The lowest castes are labourers. The higher you go in castes, the more political influence each individual will have. However, you also have less individual freedom, with the nobility forced to adhere to rigid custom and etiquette, made to pursue traditional dwarven and not personal interests, placed in arranged marriages and rarely ever leave their family compounds. The lowest classes, on the other hand, are free to do whatever they want, but have no political or economic power.
Heritage and lineage is a big deal to dwarves, and they obsessively trace their family lines back as far as possible. Advancing to a higher caste is all but impossible and requires a good deal of luck and a lot of gold. The oldest families are the richest, and therefore the most powerful. These noble families vie for individual power in their cities, which vie for individual power in their Leagues or Unions, which vie for individual power in Dwarf society as a whole. This makes for the culture to be fairly unstable and fragmented and has prevented any real unification. However, the dwarves are united in their belief that they share the same family line and readily come together against external threats and very rarely ever fight against each other. This belief is more prevalent in the upper classes, and there it really only applies to the upper classes.
The Dwarves cremate their dead, with a few exceptions, and house the ashes in large, elaborate family mausoleums. Each family has a mausoleum (again, this is more prevalent in the upper classes; poor dwarves go to a communal mausoleum and crematorium) with a chamber where everybody is burned. The soul of the deceased dwarf is supposed to be released in the smoke and able to become one with the stone of the family dwelling. The ashes are gathered into urns and placed elsewhere in the mausoleum, but the crematorium chamber itself is never cleaned. Dwarves go there to communicate with their ancestors and seek guidance and pay their respects. Dwarves often pray to and call upon their ancestors in times of needs, and if they are favoured the ancestors will grant them their powers.
Most of the dwarven city-states are based around a single industry that they then sell on the open market. For example, some cities mine gems, some grow food and some harvest coral and pearls. Almost all of the city-states are wealthy and prosperous and dwarven craftsmen are famous across the world. Dwarven armour is especially famous for its high quality. They are a mercantile people and excellent stonemasons and architects. Under the Darexi dynasty, they turned away from religion and towards a more secular rationalism. Each city has their own distinct bureaucratic and legal system, but there is a Dwarfdom-wide Code enforced by the Khazerain, and the laws are usually based on ancestral doctrine.
The Tasaic League: the light grey faction in the center top of the map. The biggest and most important city-state of the three is Reildorn on the shores of the lake. They are more concerned with threats to the north than the other two factions are, and so did not join the Iron-Blood Confederation and remain friendly with the Elves. They are still under the Khazerain though, but the Darexi’s waning power is evident by the League’s autonomy from the Confederation. With the failure of the Valto river, the Tasaic league is the last major supplier of grain in Dwarfdom. Reildorn is a major breadbasket, and also grows cash crops like cotton and tobacco.
The Terropese League: These are the three eastern cities in the brown coloured region, and the one north of the mountains. The large, two-towered fort in the centre of the brown is Darexendria, the seat of the Khazerain and de facto capital of the Dwarfdom. The large fort in the south is the Blackspire. The river Valto used to run through the region and the area around the Blackspire was a major producer of food, but it dried up which has caused a minor famine in the region. The mountains between Darexendria and the northern city are rich with gold, silver and gems. The northern city has few forests, and so most dwarves are not cremated. Instead, they are buried without caskets in dirt tombs, and the soul returns to the earth that way. Khazerain Darexius XIV orchestrated the creation of the Iron-Blood Confederation 70 years ago in attempt to solidify his rule, but the fact that the Tasaic cities did not join is telling. Still, this part of the Dwarfdom still follows his rule.
The Kalorin Union: These are the two cities in the southwest of the brown faction. These highlands are fairly harsh, and most of them are too sparsely forested for the cremations. In areas without sufficient wood, the bodies are left exposed to the elements and wild animals. When all the flesh has been devoured by scavengers, the bones are collected and ground into a powder, which is then spread on the wind. This used to be Orc territory, and there are still several of them living there. The two cities are relatively young compared to the rest of Dwarfdom, with both being only about a millennia old. The western one, on the shores of the inland sea-was founded first and managed to mostly coexist with the dwarves. Kalorin, the city on the coast of the Sarept Sea, was founded by exiles from another city-state who conquered and drove off the Orcs. These Dwarves destroyed the Orc city of Wyrmlocke and cast it into the sea and settling their own city on the same location. This is still a sore point for the Orcs, and there are many bandits and pirates in the region. The western city is famous for its coral and jewelry, while Kalorin has mines for metals and quarries for stone, some of which are underwater.
So that's what i've got for my Dwarves. I'd really appreciate any comments you guys have
Posted Aug 30, 2016, 12:14 AM UTC