MAY 10, 2024

TTRPG, Game Mastering

Growing whole life: from gnomes to giants

• They keep growing all the time.

  • Youth is “gnomes”: curious, playful, and open to magic

  • “Dwarf” is their adult.

  • “Ogres” are their mature adults: “power grandmas/grandpas”

  • “Giants” are their elderly. At times, they can catch Alzheimer and start roaming around spooking humans. Their gluttony is just forgetfulness to eat or care for themselves. And maybe their teeth are missing – so they can as easy satiate their hunger

    “Why you care so much for the ravaging beast?”

    “It’s no beast, it’s our grandma*.”*

• The “World Below” (Underdark, the “deep mines”) is a transitory plane and the Khazad came from a different world (locked and besieged in their fortresses by the oppressing enemy). They were tending to mountains even before – but mostly because of their equivalent of the Bronze Age collapse, were “peoples of the sea” toppled coastal empires.
• Trolls are those dwarven clans, who made a pact with demons to protect themselves – they got a special demon hide protecting them (Koloss from Sanderson’s Mistborn)

Dwarves as Jews in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

• Were pushed out from their homeland
• Secret language and closed-off social group
• Parallel social structures: justice court, police, taxes, etc
• Perceived as greedy but craftful
• Usually own alehouse and borrow money

Dwarves as Asian immigrant stereotypes

• Demanding parents
• “One of you will become a lawyer and the other one - a doctor”
• Have dwerven and common names