Transcribed Lectures from the University of Altdorf on Dwarfs and Gift Giving
As this class has progressed through our time together, we have discussed a myriad of ways that Dwarven and Empire cultures diverge, connect, and contrast. The importance of Oaths, Promises, and Grudges being prominent examples of differences while the vital importance of heroes and stories being an area where the cultures connect. This lecture will focus on a unique confluence of these two aspects of Dwarven culture in a way that is impossible to emulate in the Empire. An aspect of Dwarven culture that can be said to be the root of the Empire itself. I speak, of course, of the tradition of gift-giving in the Dwarven Empire.
Now, before we begin our discussion on such an important part of Dwarven culture, we must refresh ourselves as to some characteristics of culture itself. Cultures come from a way of doing things, and in that vein, it is typically produced over long years of thought and tradition typically assumed to be normal by a group of people. To pinpoint a specific person as the reason behind a cultural phenomenon is typically as difficult as it is fruitless, for the progenitor of the tradition is not nearly as important as the reason behind the tradition. The "why" it is done. For Dwarves and their culture of gift-giving, however, that is not the case. For the dwarf who begat the tradition is well known and continues his work in the North; High Runelord Snorri Kluasson, the Gift-Giver, is ascribed to be a 7,000-year-old dwarf who it is said walked alongside the dwarven Ancestor Gods.
While it seems completely implausible that any mortal could live for such a stretch of time, and in my professional opinion it is most likely a series of successive dwarves taking up the mantle of Snorri Kluasson, the impact of such an iconic cultural figure having the name "Gift-Giver" should not be ignored. From the founding of the Dwarven Empire, gift-giving has had a unique niche within the eternal balancing of scales that Dwarves undertake. No grudge is unpaid and no assistance is left uncompensated. So how, then, can one balance the scales of a gift which you can not repay back? This is a conundrum that the Dwarves have answered through ingenious means. If a dwarf is given a gift that they have no means of repaying back, then that dwarf will pass along their good fortune to others less fortunate than themselves. It is in this way that a gift from a Dwarven King to a thane or other noble will send a cascade of gifts down throughout the society of the Karak until, eventually, children are given gifts who are incapable of giving anything to someone lower than them on the hierarchy.
It is here that the second part of the gift-giving tradition is made apparent, the "Recognition of Generosity." For while a child cannot repay the gift he received, an adult with a trade certainly can. As such, when a dwarven child finally comes of age and begins his trade he begins work on a piece that he will present to his clan in recognition of their generosity. All such pieces are collected and then celebrated once a year, if able, by members of the clan in the Karak. This celebration is an acknowledgment that while all work should be fairly compensated, a clan grows stronger through the generosity of their members, of supporting the individuals in the clan to fully realize their gifts and strengths, even if those members are unable to repay the generosity of the clan at the moment. It is in this way that the Dwarves are able to square away their desire to not be indebted to another and their tradition of gift-giving.
How then does this culture of gift-giving become the root of the Empire itself? For the Empire does not have a great culture of gift-giving, especially given the oftentimes fractured Elector Counts of the Empire. The Empire does, however, owe its existence to the gifting of Ghal Maraz to the Great Sigmar by the Dwarven High-King. And if it was only the gifting of Ghal Maraz, then perhaps there would be no Empire today, for as mighty a hammer as Ghal Maraz is, it is not able to pound political alliances or unity out of fractured man. No, the Dwarven High-King seemed to find inspiration from the Gift-Giver in his gifts to Great Sigmar. For with Ghal Maraz came the twelve Runefangs, and with all of these weapons came the implication of rulership. For while Sigmar was certainly equal to Ghal Maraz, were the twelve tribal rulers equal to the Runefangs? Unlikely. But by being gifted these great weapons, the twelve rulers could unite their people and begin to actually rule under Sigmar. Just as legend holds that Snorri Klausson gave a weapon and kingship to the first kings of Karak Drakk, so too did the High-King give weapons and rulerships to Sigmar and his followers.
The High-King of the Dwarves knew, as his culture had engrained into him to know, that such generosity to the leader of men would repay not only the High-King but the entire Karak Anzor. And over the years the High-King's generosity has paid out, for even though the Greenskins threaten the Dwarves from the South and the East, and Chaos threatens from the North, the Dwarves have secured a respite from the West. A bulwark of assuredness that despite how bleak the world may be, they are not alone in facing the threats.
