Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
A friendly reminder to new questers to read the Informational threadmarks and FAQ specifically before asking a question. Links below:

Frequently Asked Questions
Here is the Detailed Rune List
Discord.

On Thread Etiquette:

I'm not going to weigh in on the logic of either side's arguments, but I will ask that everyone read over what they write and really consider if the words they used are polite and won't be inflammatory intentionally or not. You cant account for people's tolerances perfectly but at least try to say your piece without saying things that can be easily construed as overly dismissive of the other side of the argument, thank you.

Please endeavour to be cordial. :^)
 
Last edited:
Brana will find them earlier than the dwarves, would be interesting to see a Brana exploration guild if they can organize themselves before getting pick off one by one the further they expand across the skies.
 
Except the degradation happened after the Old Ones left/were destroyed, as the Ogres hadn't been pressed to migrate, for them to be a creation of the Old Ones, they have to be around at the same time as the Sky Titans.

Maybe they were created based off them, but just on chronology alone the timeline doesn't add up
 
From your link

" Giants are the creation of the Old Ones, designed to protect their treasures and secrets.[8a] In ages past, the Giants were the direct descendants of the Sky Titan civilisation, who ruled benevolently within the highest peaks of the Mountains of Mourn. They were far larger than any Giants of today, and were also considerably more intelligent. Unlike the Giants, the Skytitans didn't interfere with the lands below; instead, they kept to themselves, secure in their ancient fortresses surrounded by a sea of clouds. For the most part, they only ventured from their fastnesses to tend to their flocks of Mammoths, aloof from the conflict of the world below. As with all things, however, this peace was destined to end, and the Skytitans were eventually destroyed by the destructive migration of the Ogre race. "
It's too bad we probably won't be able to save any sky titans, they seem almost close enough to the dwarves that they'd be able to get along.

Which would be pretty hilarious from the perspective of an outsider who didn't have the full picture. Imagine some elf walking around a karak and seeing sequentially bigger grumpy old mountain people who eventually make that turn of phrase to an alarming literal description.
Elgi Explorer: "... Do dwarves just keep getting bigger and grumpier until they actually turn in to mountains!?"

Dwarves: *deliberately vague grumbling intensifies*.

Edit:
Plus, just imagine the first encounter with a truly old giant.

Dawi Newspaper:

" Thane grumbles so hard at mountaintop that it grumbles back. Ground expected to be broken on the young king's karak this decade"

"Local haircare specialist becomes the first to braid a cliff face's beard. Saga to be sung publicly in the next five years"

"Brana family charged with breaking an entering after unknowingly nesting in area Titan's ear for fifty years"

there's so much material here that we most likely won't get to use.
 
Last edited:
I mean, the Easterners aren't chaos dwarves now...who knows if they can or won't be able to trade/help.

It's an interesting thing, might even be able to take some of the Ogres that aren't Maw-brain-wiped and make them useful in a non mad mage fashion too...lots of possibilities.
 
Dwarfs still live in a preindustrial society so literacy isn't guaranteed. The average Dwarf probably knows enough of the Klinkarhun and Agrurhun to get by but aside from the recordkeepers and loremasters a lot of Dwarf history is orally transmitted from elder to beardling and remembered with great precision, but is still nevertheless checked against the written accounts by those who can read from time to time. Not that the elders will brook any correction from anyone but their peers or elders.
So what you are saying is that the average Dwarf knows their letters and numbers, likely more on the number side so they can ensure everything is just perfect, but most Dwarves aren't really literate enough to be an author?
 
How do we know there was no deviation?
Comparing physical evidence to existing oral records mostly. The Indigenous oral traditions have maintained accurate descriptions of:
- Animals that have been extinct for millenia.
- Islands that sunk beneath rising sea levels after the last Ice Age.
- The physically verified locations of camps (pre-colonisation Indigenous Australians maintained a sort of nomadic 'loop' through a number of camp sites, returning to each as the local resources replenished) that were abandoned due to shifting patterns of weather, rainfall and sea levels.
And those are just the ones that have been published so far, this field of inquiry is very recent.

Included in the oral traditions are also neat stuff like marriage laws designed seemingly from mathematical principles to maintain genetic diversity which, while varying, in some peoples prohibits marriages any closer than 8th cousin.

EDIT: Damn, fell into the trap of describing 'oral tradition' instead of 'oral traditions', which is a serious problem. Indigenous Australians comprise dozens of cultures and language groups which should not be conflated.
 
Last edited:
Personally, I'd assumed all dwarfs were literate because how else would you have ridiculously thorough contracts covering all business transactions?
 
Personally, I'd assumed all dwarfs were literate because how else would you have ridiculously thorough contracts covering all business transactions?

You (and your counterparty) don't need to be personally literate yourselves, if your contract is drafted by an Elder in the Guild of Lawyers who is impeccably trustworthy (because they are an Elder) and witnessed by an independent third party who is also an Elder (and therefore also impeccably trustworthy).

Of course, this is pre-Karag Dum, where the notion of Dawi (let alone Elder Dawi) being untrustworthy is literally unthinkable. Now that the Pandora's Box of Dawi betrayal has been opened, perhaps personal literacy may be assessed as being more important.
 
Last edited:
Comparing physical evidence to existing oral records mostly. The Indigenous oral traditions have maintained accurate descriptions of:
- Animals that have been extinct for millenia.
- Islands that sunk beneath rising sea levels after the last Ice Age.
- The physically verified locations of camps (pre-colonisation Indigenous Australians maintained a sort of nomadic 'loop' through a number of camp sites, returning to each as the local resources replenished) that were abandoned due to shifting patterns of weather, rainfall and sea levels.
And those are just the ones that have been published so far, this field of inquiry is very recent.

Included in the oral traditions are also neat stuff like marriage laws designed seemingly from mathematical principles to maintain genetic diversity which, while varying, in some peoples prohibits marriages any closer than 8th cousin.

EDIT: Damn, fell into the trap of describing 'oral tradition' instead of 'oral traditions', which is a serious problem. Indigenous Australians comprise dozens of cultures and language groups which should not be conflated.
For an additional example. The Illead has been used to find pre bronze age collapse greek city states that had been abandoned and were no longer inhabited by the period contemporary to Homer.
 
Personally, I'd assumed all dwarfs were literate because how else would you have ridiculously thorough contracts covering all business transactions?
Most Dwarf contracts are written in Klinkharun (the alphabet script) and a Dawi knows how to read that usually or at the very least knows someone who does. By the time you get past your 1st or 2nd century, you usually figure it out through sheer osmosis if nothing else.

Like the big contractual jargon is more a thing the upper classes deal with. For everyday life, a simpler contract or even oral oath are good enough for a Dwarf, because of how their culture and maybe biology(who knows with the Old Ones) makes them loathe lying and Oathbreaking especially in all forms.
 
Makes sense, and if there's fuckery at the high end you have the Reckoners.

AKA the Taxmen. And for the Dawi, paying taxes is probably considered on par with "fulfilling an oath."

"I paid my taxes to the proper cent! Proper contribution to the hold, not like those beardlings who try to scrimp and save every gold coin. Back in my day they were twice as high, by Grugni, and we paid it!"
 
Makes sense, and if there's fuckery at the high end you have the Reckoners.

AKA the Taxmen. And for the Dawi, paying taxes is probably considered on par with "fulfilling an oath."

"I paid my taxes to the proper cent! Proper contribution to the hold, not like those beardlings who try to scrimp and save every gold coin. Back in my day they were twice as high, by Grugni, and we paid it!"
I took from Torroar for this, but there's two types of Reckoner in this quest.

The aforementioned taxmen, and officials designated to deal with disputes involving grudges.

Also some inspiration from Boney, but i imagine the Dwarf legal system is ultimately a very thorough series of checks, balances and procedures when dealing with judgements among dwarfs and dwarf allies.

Dwarfs, I don't think, are blind to their debt settling and vengeance happy nature. I imagine that if the Ancestors hadn't come along to install some system of making sure Dwarfs don't enter generations-long feuds among each other, simple selection pressure would have killed them all off a long while ago.

Questwise, the Ancestors did just that, but there are dwarfs who do still remember the days of Clan on Clan warfare and the bitter blood-feuds in Zorn and the earliest of the far southern Holds.
 
Last edited:
Questwise the Ancestors did just that, but there are dwarfs who do still remember the days of Clan on Clan warfare and the bitter bloodfeuds in Zorn and the earliest of the far southern Holds.

...is this through stories of vengeance being passed through Elders to bearlings for generations to generations... or did some of those same Dwarfs yet still lives to this day?!
 
I took from Torroar for this, but there's two types of Reckoner in this quest.

The aforementioned taxmen, and officials designated to deal with disputes involving grudges.

Also some inspiration from Boney, but i imagine the Dwarf legal system is ultimately a very thorough series of checks, balances and procedures when dealing with judgements among dwarfs and dwarf allies.

Dwarfs, I don't think, are blind to their debt settling and vengeance happy nature. I imagine that if the Ancestors hadn't come along to install some system of making sure Dwarfs don't enter generations-long feuds among each other, simple selection pressure would have killed them all off a long while ago.

Questwise, the Ancestors did just that, but there are dwarfs who do still remember the days of Clan on Clan warfare and the bitter blood-feuds in Zorn and the earliest of the far southern Holds.
It sound like a gang war.
 
I took from Torroar for this, but there's two types of Reckoner in this quest.

The aforementioned taxmen, and officials designated to deal with disputes involving grudges.

Also some inspiration from Boney, but i imagine the Dwarf legal system is ultimately a very thorough series of checks, balances and procedures when dealing with judgements among dwarfs and dwarf allies.

Dwarfs, I don't think, are blind to their debt settling and vengeance happy nature. I imagine that if the Ancestors hadn't come along to install some system of making sure Dwarfs don't enter generations-long feuds among each other, simple selection pressure would have killed them all off a long while ago.

Questwise, the Ancestors did just that, but there are dwarfs who do still remember the days of Clan on Clan warfare and the bitter blood-feuds in Zorn and the earliest of the far southern Holds.
I mean, their absurdly awful reproductive rate and fixation with the past (and unwillingness to adapt) would do that for them regardless. How a species that, at best, merely breaks even in terms of reproductive rates managed to create an entire empire, let alone survive for thousands of years against various foes, is beyond me.
 
I mean, their absurdly awful reproductive rate and fixation with the past (and unwillingness to adapt) would do that for them regardless. How a species that, at best, merely breaks even in terms of reproductive rates managed to create an entire empire, let alone survive for thousands of years against various foes, is beyond me.
The answer to that is that the point in time from when we get that information is after they've suffered three separate apocalypses and are suffering species wide despair. Soul's already gone into this a bit, but the foremost point is that their birthrate can change.
 
A decaying empire such as the Karaz Ankor during WHF canon would not be a civilization in which many would be willing to bring children into honestly. And those that do simply do so out of duty rather than because they want to have children. Maybe some of them actually want those kids but they'd probably be among the minority.
 
Back
Top