The Campaign Builder's Guild

I've been thinking about making a substantial change in Dwarves in my campaign world. They've been up to this point a clannish matrariarchy, rather isolationist and distinctly bland. Now I'm thinking that instead, I may make dwarves into a race that has no gender, no sexual identity whatsoever. Instead, they reproduce by "carving" offspring out of stone and "breathing life" into them. When they die, they revert to stone.

They would be humanoid while alive, as one way of minimizing rules conflicts, but my real worry is; what would this do to dwarven culture? What would dwarves be like, psychologically? What would other races think of them? Should it be a secret that the dwarves hide about themselves, or should it simply be a known fact?

Before I make such a radical decision in my world, I'd like to get a feel for the potential ramifications for it. So please, any thoughts that come to mind, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

I like it. It's strange enough to differentiate your setting, but not so bizarre they sound like a whole new race.

I think they would probably keep it secret just to make relations with other races easier.

As for psychological/cultural changes that's a big question, and there's no simple answer.

I like it as well, though I would likely say that this would make stonecarvers very important in the society.  In fact, what type of position would this be?  I'm very intrigued.

I don't know if they would keep it secret; it depends on your setting.  It would be impossible in mine, but I'm sure you could make it work.

I'm interested in what "breathing life" entails.  If it's a complex or difficult magical ritual, Dwarves would be considerably rarer, like Elves (or even more so), and those who could perform these rituals would be the most important people in Dwarven society.  If anyone can do it, what determines when and how often?  Could they "mass produce" themselves if suddenly embroiled in a war with the goblins?

Yeah, there needs to be a limit to prevent dwarves from just building armies whenever their homes are threatened. Like maybe breathing life into the stone takes some of the builders. You could make it take all the life of the builder, but that would make dwarves an inherently dying race, since any killed by violence could never be replaced.

If you make it so it takes some part of the builder's life, and you need special rituals not all dwarves can perform, you can restrict it easier.

I envision the "life breathing" to be a priestly function. Perhaps only a certain order of priests do this; but each dwarf is responsible for carving his heir(s).

Perhaps in times of war they are capable of making "half-stone" dwarves that are not really quite alive but are more like constructs. Or possibly that is something that was done in the past, but is now forbidden because it had negative consequences.

I think that either the method of dwarvish reproduction has to be a deep secret, so nobody but dwarves knows it, OR it has to be an open piece of knowledge, so that it isn't seen as strange and bizarre by the other races. Keeping it a deep secret at least partly defeats the purpose...

My dwarves have always been fairly limited in numbers; some are deeply reclusive, keeping their numbers and exact dwelling places secret, while others have chosen to mingle with humans and have even formed a jointly ruled kingdom.

Anyone who's interested in reading the current iteration of my campaign world can find it here:
http://vishteercampaign.pbwiki.com/FrontPage
And the bulk of info about dwarves here: http://vishteercampaign.pbwiki.com/Harothar and here: http://vishteercampaign.pbwiki.com/Dwarves

I think it can be a secret, but still something the PCs learn. Really, in a campaign, the only information that matters is what the PCs learn.

50 pages of background info on dwarves doesn't matter unless someone plays a dwarf or the PCs actually learn it or affected by it.

hmm....why make it a secret?  if that's how it allways have been, then for the people in the campaign world then it could simple be common knowlegde, if dwarfes aren't a rare race that lives out of the way at the end of the world. for us it sounds strange, but for the people in your world it's an acepted fact, like how it's an accepted fact that kobold lay eggs and elves reproduce slower then other race.

as for how it affects dwarfes in the world....well, for one thing, turning into stone means that they can't be animated as a corporal undead when they die, and so might make the dwarfes and the rest of the world see them as champions when it comes to figthing undead.

Assuming that the dwarfes are still capeble of falling in love, then a relationship amonth the dwarfes might be alike the ideals the ancient greece had about same sex relationship, heck they might be equally capeble of falling for for any gender and any race, since procreation and relationship is seperated.

it would also create a society where ones prowess matter more then who's related to who, essentially putting all dwarfs on equal footing...or, if they at birth are being giving birth with a specific purpose in mind, then that would make the dwarven society a very rigid caste system.

which reminds me, are the dwarfes carved from stone in the form of children, or as fully grown adults?

Well, some very interesting tidbits here. Just what I was hoping for!

Okay, I think two things are definitely clear to me, and others are consolidating nicely.

1) Only a single order of priests of Mikarathlan (god of the  dwarves) can breathe life into new dwarvish offspring. Dwarves are created at a stage most races would recognize as  "young adult" or human equivalent about 15 yrs. The process of breathing life into them gives them some basic racial/instinctual knowledge of dwarven culture (which helps explain why MOST dwarves are lawful good - it's breathed into them).

When a dwarf carves a "child" he generally has an idea of what the clan needs, and he does his best to imbue his creation with those skills and that knowledge. A dwarf must spend about 3 months time and a point of CON imbuing a new member of his race. It takes some time (maybe years?) for that damage to heal, which is why dwarves remain a relatively unpopulous race.

2) the genderlessness of dwarves is a sort of open secret. It is well known that all dwarves are "male"; at least humans think that way - but few really know how dwarves reproduce, and fewer care much about it. That way, I don't have to play up culture shock and revulsion.

I like the idea that dwarves bond deeply with each other, perhaps not even as pairs, but in small groups within a larger "clan". Dwarven "families" would thus be bonded pairs, trios, or quartets with their "sons", if any. There needs to be a special word that means this sort of bond.

Having dwarves form this bond outside their own race makes for an interesting set of possible party interactions, for sure!

I hadn't even thought that dwarves could not become corporeal undead - that's a neat resistance! Because of the undead problem, most folks in my campaign world don't bury their dead, but cremate instead. So dwarves might be the rare group that have tombs with sarcophogi or even with the stone bodies of the dead laid out in plain view (if they're not too gruesome!) I wonder if you could make a hacked up stone body look presentable with stoneshape!

That's enough rambling! I'd love to hear more reactions/opinions on this topic, please...

Quote1) Only a single order of priests of Mikarathlan (god of the dwarves) can breathe life into new dwarvish offspring.

Well, this basically ensures that Dwarven society will be some kind of theocracy; the power over life and death means that they'll be the most important dwarves of all.  A rebellion against them would be pointless, because without them the race dies out.  Even if dwarven society is a monarchy or something, it seems unlikely that the order of priests would be far from power.

Dwarves would probably end up being very isolationist, and yeah I think it would be prudent for them to keep it secret. Even if your dwarves are very kind, peaceful people, they're likely to have someone who doesn't like them, and if it were public how they reproduced someone could fairly easily doom the race (or at least some colonies). There are some "solutions" to this, of course (perhaps dwarf life-breathers take on a very Queen in a Bee Hive-type lifestyle, and/or they have elite bodyguards that follow them everywhere, etc.).

Have you considered the uniformity of dwarves that are made?  Regarding your previous statement that dwarves would probably create new ones based on what their clan needs, what if each life-breather was good at creating a certain kind of dwarf? Things as simple as the ability to "choose" the best stat(s) of the individual, or maybe one life-breather can make an especially tough-skinned or healthy dwarf. Powerful ones might be able to create new dwarves that have natural spell-like abilities or something.

I don't like the notion of losing a Con point when doing this; that does limit how many offspring a dwarf could make, but it's also permanent. I think a better limiter would be the loss of a single level; this way, a successful dwarf could craft many many children in their lifetime, but they couldn't built up an army in a week.

This would be good for explaining both uniformity in appearance and culture; dwarfs are generally very traditional, so you could use this as a good explanation. A dwarf doesn't treat carving a child as a work of art, it's a solemn duty.

As for psychological issues, dwarfs would have a very hard time understanding other race's notions of romantic love. They could still be altruistic and have platonic love in relationships, but fiery emotions like love, lust, and maybe even jealousy would be foreign to them. They would probably treat males and females of other races the same, and at one point they might have even thought they were different races ("there are bearded humans and humans with odd growths on their chests ...").

I do like requiring priests to breath life into them, but I wouldn't make it a high level spell; I'd simply make it a ritual that requires a DC 20 Knowledge (Religion) check to make (within the reach of a 1st level cleric); otherwise, the loss of all of their high level priests would kill the race.

I really like this. Bravo.

What if the process was to some extent alchemical?  Dwarves might have knowledge of personal formulae for creating "sons" of certain temper or skill, and bargain, battle and ally for the knowledge of such great works (eg. "the Sons of Azhad forge brothers whose wit and guile is beyond compare").

Multiple dwarves might pool ther efforts into the creative act, so that an individual might be named Harum, Son of Elud and Ahaz and Igful and Afjord...

Perhaps they could even work their personal aesthetic into the design, with engravings that become tattoos upon the individual's "birth".  Someone with Knowledge (dwarfcraft) might be able to recognise a particular region's designs, like a kilt, or with a sufficient roll recall a specific ancestor.

This way, the priesthodd would have exclusive power over the breath of life, but the act of creation itself would be available to all dwarfkind.  Rogue dwarves might seek to animate their offspring without official sanction, siring soulless half-born abominations of flesh and stone (recalling Frankenstein's monster, with its alchemical origins and the creator's desire to "play god"), while heretic priests could go so far as to breathe "errant life" under forbidden specifications, creating dwarves ready-born with the willingness to follow their creator to all manner of lunatic ends.

This makes an interesting origin for duergar and derro.  The former might be the creations of an insurrectionist splinter-cult that rebelled against the priesthood in a failed coup.  Over generations they corrupted the energies or what-have-you breathed into new dwarves, until they had a force of loyal scions ready to overthrow the priesthood (kind of like Darth Sidious' manipulation of the Clone Army's training).  As a result, the strictures for creating life would have been made more rigid and authoritarian, so as to prevent future corruptions.

The Derro could be the insane creations of rogue dwarves, or "fiendish" dwarves possessed with some demonic presence before a true life could be breathed into them.

Well, after having thought about this all week, I've decided on a few more things:

The idea that dwarves "are all male" is fairly widely understood; most folks think this means thatere are only a few females and that they are never "on public view" so to speak. Only a few scholars, historians and wizards know or care that dwarves are genderless and even fewer know exactly how they reproduce. Dwarves don't deliberately hide the facts; they're just so insular that the topic rarely comes up.

2) Any dwarf can "carve" an offspring. There are three levels of creation - a 1st level dwarf with no experience to use can fuel his creation with a point of Con. Other levels of creation are fueled with XP. More XP = some added level of point buy or of added feats/skills/whatever. I'm not gonna work this out in detail unless/until a PC wants to know for personal reasons! Any CON spent on this kind of creation heals/renews in one year. Maybe a Miracle or Wish would also recoup the  loss.

3) A priest is USUALLY required in the process. However there are alternatives involving alchemical processes that non-priestly dwarves have used in the past. These "experiments" frequently have bad results - ie the creation of mutated dwarves or offshoot dwarf races. Since I've never used derro or duergar IMC, I'm not sure I'd use them per se, but the idea is there.

4) dead dwarves become stone. They can never become corporeal undead, although their spirits can become incorporeal undead, just as any other humanoid could. So dwarf skeletons - NO, Dwarf wraiths - Yes.

5)Dwarf culture revolves around the clan. Each dwarf as created is a near-adult, imbued with a basic lawful good alignment and a basic set of racial abilities. They also may have added capabilities from their creator's added XP expenditures. But they are NOT absolutely fixed to a trade or skill; that  would be TOO limiting to the race. So they sometimes change roles or grow into new ones. Adventuring dwarves are those who for some reason have not fit properly into their clan and are waiting for either a place to evolve for them, or to find a role they suit better. Dwarf "families" are based on work units, not social groups. A group of smiths who work together will also likely live together, and raise their "offspring" together.

5)Social bonds are strong, but based on custom and clan and like-mindedness, not family. Sometimes groups will shift in what seems to outsiders to be unexpected ways, but to a dwarf the changes were often seen as coming long before they actually happen; dwarves are slow and methodical in their approach to change.

That's about it, for now. I'd still love to hear more ideas.

Very nice ideas, here. I'm really intrigued.

I have a few questions about death. If dwarves turn in to stone when they die, it seems like non-dwarves would notice (and would, perhaps, eventually deduce that dwarven "life" does not come and go by the means to which they are accustomed.) What do non-dwarves know about dwarven death, and does that knowledge give them suspicions about dwarven "birth"?

It seems to me that no matter how insular a culture is, sooner or later, some of them are going to be unable to avoid dying among foreigners, and from there on, it's a matter of time before somebody starts drawing conclusions.

What happens to the stone dwarves? Do their surviving friends and relatives display the dead like statues? Are they ground into powder and returned to the earth?