The reason why dwarves have had such an amazing tenure in fantasy roleplaying games is the same as that which explains their (relatively) rapid disappearance from fantasy literature. Namely: all dwarves are pretty much the same. RPGs are very low-bandwidth by their nature. We start with a large group (not two people communicating, or even a crowd of three, but often as many as five or eight or, in the olden days, twenty), who all must more-or-less understand every part of a nonexistent scenario to the same degree, and who are only organized for a very limited time. In a fantasy roleplaying game, originality is not a universal good. If I create a setting where honungaleisant erdocans go around mimeteing thrinths by elsandele and irri-iwi, then it might speak to the true nature of the human condition, but I'm going to have a bugger of a time getting players to understand what the Hell is going on. "Thrinths are basically elfs, and mimetea is basically magic" is a powerful and useful phrase. Obviously, we want to have interesting characters: obviously, we are going to need to make our characters interesting in a way that is concise and easily communicated.
Enter the humble dwarf — no, semiurge, stop, that was just stage direction, not an instruction. A normal PC gets maybe two or three details: this one is swaggering and nosy, this one is gluttonous and uncouth. Add a job title (e.g. "Fighter") and we've got as much of a character as we can possibly handle. But by relying on a pre-bundled set of tropes, we get to cheat this system. If one of our character traits is "dwarf" then, by golly, we actually get a dozen other character traits totally for free. What does Bob the Fighter do in town? No one knows and no one will remember. What does Bobgrund the Dwarf do in town? Spends all his money on booze, easy. What does Bobgrund do in the dungeon? Sniffs around for gold. The party is hit with a fireball; Bobgrund pats out his beard. The party encounters an elf; Bobgrund advises immediate execution. The party encounters an orc: Bobgrund advises immediate execution. The party encounters a goblin; &c &c.
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| Source: Dwarf Warfare Cover Art by wraithdt |
"All of this is immediately obviously true," you say? "We agree with you implicitly"? "You are very wise"? Thank you. But that's just the prelude to the actual reason I have written this essay and long list of guys. Longtime friend of the blog Phlox writes to us of "monsters of intuition", those which "have striking concepts, even when they lack total coherence". It's a good post with interesting examples, go and read it.
Now that you have returned from reading Phlox' post I can introduce you to the Interesting Fucking Guys. For a few months, just to keep my hand in, I have been writing down short descriptions of Peoples, Species and Races as they come to me. They follow a simple pattern:
- They are Interesting. They come with a set of behavioral expectations; there are ways in which a member of their people/species/race would behave in various situations which aren't the ways a generic Fantasy Human would behave. They are Interesting in that being one of them is a character trait. No exotic hairdos, simple latex prosthetics or goofy accents (i mean they can still have them but that's not their sum total).
- They are Guys. By this I do not necessarily mean that they are from some kind of Star Trek all-male planet serving to illustrate an interesting point about gender relations this week. I mean that they aren't so exotic as to be useful only as something to read about in a blogpost. You could make your PC one of them. Your party could find a town full of them, and not be shocked that nobody told you about the next town on the road. They are Guys in that medieval bestiary sense, where they might have heads in the middle of their chests, but they still pay taxes and believe in Jesus Christ.
Below, please find some Interesting Fucking Guys.
The Haraks. Ugly hairless apes (not in the same way as humans, humans have noses and eyebrows and chins). Harakan sleighs are pulled by a uniquely-harakan breed of enormous wolfhounds, who share their masters' bug-out black eyes, self-replacing shark teeth, and wheezing voices. Can't sweat, so stay out of the sun. Commonly raid human settlements for horsemeat (haraks obsessively hate/fear horses, also bees and wolves). Harakan ingenuity is responsible for most of history's wind-up holy men, clockwork birds that really fly, and self-resetting poison dart traps. Never touch iron if they can help it — the stuff stains them shiny red.
The Garsk. Like Chewbacca but with catfish barbs instead of fur. Speak mostly in depressing warbles and blubs. Perilous strong. Can hit 30 miles an hour belly-crawling through shallow water. National instrument is an enormous brass horn shaped like a coiling snake. National holiday is to find the ugliest tree in the swamp, dance around it, sing, and drink hooch. Unwelcome in restaurants and hospitals (slimy, noisome).
The Gnostiche. Like a man, but with a long ribbon-trunk for a face with little wet eyes where one would expect nostrils and the nose and mouth at the end. Always wearing black robes. Instinctive understanding of horrible Frankenstein medical procedures. Can not hang. Sickened by smoke of any kind. Respond poorly to jokes about "do you smell that" or whatever.
The Uthiers. Crown of horns, aposematic coloring, jewel-bright eyes. Gay and warlike, love to play dulcimers and sing. Male uthiers have one side dramatically overdeveloped, with a longer leg, denser horns and burlier arm. Fond of saying "the limp makes the man" — that is, the greater the asymmetry, the more masculine an uthier is perceived to be. Most of males have a large left-side; right-sided uthiers (about one in ten) are generally believed to be talented liars, disappointing musicians, and ambitious politicians (which is true). Carry large, heavy canes with them at all times to settle scores.
The Angbards. Pale and ghoulishly thin, but uncommonly strong. Renowned for wisdom and long memories. Live as small bands of itinerant seers/architects/librarians. Angbards have sight so powerful they can see (in monochrome) thru closed eyes. If they open their eyes, their vision burns everything it touches; if they accidentally lock gazes with another angbard, or with the sun, they can't close their eyes again and will die if they can't quickly step behind something solid enough to hold back the flames. Don't know their own eye color, and are eager for you to tell them.
The Nimbads. Ridiculously tall, muscular, reptilian, like if a kobold made a fake dating profile. Murderously enraged by jokes. All nimbads make their living by card sharping, pool sharking, Three Card Monty, and various carnival games that no one else can ever win. Instead of eyes, they have pilot lights, and must wear smoked sunglasses indoors.
The Harpisch. There are no male harpies. Harpies reproduce by rape and murder of lone male travelers. Their daughters are true harpies, while their sons are killed and devoured as a rule. But sometimes, a soft-hearted harpy may expose a boy-child instead, and sometimes, before the wolves find him, the child is taken in by some peasant family. Over long generations, in communities near harpy-infested mountains, the demon-blooded harpisch appear: men and women with sooty eyes and yellow teeth, swift and silent and cunning. Not truly evil, but tending towards cruelty, and with unquiet souls which doom them to a life of danger and adventure.
The Halforcs. Orcs are made in the Mills of Arezura by master-craftsman Orcus. The first thing he does is drain your blood. While it boils, he skins you, taking care not to put holes in your hide. He blows the skin up like a balloon and lets it dry while he delicately removes your muscles (to later be sewn with iron thread by his apprentices). He washes your brain with rare alcohols. Your bones he kneads with a putty that makes them malleable; your spine he bends, your arms he lengthens, your skull he molds into some terrible image that pleases only him. When the demon-lord puts you together again you are empty and ugly and colorless, and you wait in jars that line his walls. Then someone buys you, to be dyed with their tinctures and dominated by their will. But if someone loved you very much, if someone led a daring raid on that mountain workshop, if someone freed you from your jar — ah, even then, you would live a halflife only, a halforc waiting to be filled with someone else's passions.
The Kissans. Flopsy ears and sniffling nose like a bunny. Velvety brindled coat. Lanky bowlegs twice as long as needed. Skilled excavators and woodcutters, who habitually clear and level land as their nomadic camps pass through. They squat down between their ridiculous legs while they work, and rise up 10' tall to sprint from danger. Capable of breathing in while speaking, singing, or just whistling loudly (kissans hate silence).
The River Nellies. Similar to aquatic mammals, with dense muscle, thick fat, sleek silhouettes, prehensile nostrils and ears to close off water. Nellie towns, miles long, can facilitate the building of docks and bridges — or tear them down and block access. A hostile nellie river is a more impassable frontier than any desert or mountain. Their cousins, the ocean nellies, are so large they cannot ever walk on land, but river nellies often tend to flooded paddies. Also they make weapons-grade glass and the only honorable death for a nellie male is to have his throat slit by his daughter using his own knife and if he only has sons one of them needs to take the pink pill and kill him.
