Friday 23 January 2015

Dwarves and Weather

It makes sense that a civilized underground race like the Dwarves would treat things we take for granted like the sun, moon and weather as we treat arcane astronomical phenomena. This means:
  • Advanced dwarven settlements often have an above-ground observatory with wind gauge, rain meter, mercury column, smoked glass for observing the Sun, and other such equipment.
  • Ouranology is the civilization advance responsible for maintaining an objective, sun-based standard of timekeeping, because dwarven settlements with a sleep-cycle-based calendar diverge greatly over long periods of time. But timekeeping by the moon? Weird, occult, something humans and elves do.
  • Very advanced ouranologists observe the clouds up close
  • Superstitions spring up about fate and basic personality depending on the state of the sun and moon at  time of birth (So you're an Afternoon Waning? Far out, so am I)
  • Dwarves who venture above ground are seen as cosmonauts of sorts, and there is fussing about the optimal weather conditions and possible catastrophes that seems baffling and neurotic to humans.
  • Continuing the analogy, dwarves with lots of above-ground experience have physiological adaptations (no longer blinded by sunlight, losing their agoraphobia) akin to the effects of zero-gravity, that make them a little strange to those in their native habitation.
  • When dwarves name things after the "Day" and "Night" (like the Day and Night Kings in Monte Cook's Ptolus, which brought this whole topic to mind) it's a lot more arcane and cosmic to them than when humans do.
  • Dwarves sneer at any science or magic that gives importance to the stars or planets. Size matters, and the biggest things in the sky are clearly the sun, moon and clouds.

5 comments:

  1. Never wrote it down, but your thoughts mirror my own on dwarfs. Adventuring dwarfs would be okay with weather. But imagine a dwarfling's alarm the first time it starts to rain upon his head!

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  2. Good stuff, easily applied in all sorts of different campaigns.

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  3. An excellent post! I never really considered this, but it's so logical.
    I plan to have my PCs have a random encounter with an above-ground thermometer: a baroque, overlarge series of diamond or crystalline tubes, filled with a strange, silvery metallic liquid. After they puzzle at it for several minutes, try to figure out how to steal it, etc- when maximum weirdness has been achieved, a single dwarf will pop out of a concealed hole in the ground, casually place a small ladder, climb up, record the temperature, and descend back into his hole.
    Should be a pretty fun little encounter.

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  4. Dwarves who venture above ground are seen as cosmonauts of sorts...
    Dwarves with lots of above-ground experience have physiological adaptations ... that make them a little strange to those in their native habitation.

    Sounds a lot like Uncle Traveling Matt of Fraggle Rock fame.

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