The Dwarven Kingdom

Someday maybe I'll get around to writing my concepts into a full fledged story, but for now I have no where else to post this so I chose here, and this topic will be on my Dwarven Kingdom. I like to imagine the socio-economics of my fantasy creatures, for instance the Orcs are a hunter-race that prides hunting over farming. They are a creature that by nature is hunched back and dog-like, but they are ruled by a race of Orc that stands upright like a man and has a flatter face and well muscled features, reaching 6'2" they weigh about 300lbs of muscle. This Orcish creature kills and hunts the lesser Orcs that are more of a pig farmer, and they take their children and force them to learn to stand upright and become strong and violent warriors who live by hunting and eating the flesh of everything they can find.

In this world, the Dwarf makes their stronghold, far away from the lands of Humans and elves, they travel the mountains like a sailor might travel the ocean, only these sailors have sturdy ships and stout hearts that carry them through the great storms that other kingdoms never dare to tread. So the mountains become their highways deep into lands occupied by creatures too fierce for others to dwell among them. Mountains crowned by Dragons and the forests and valleys occupied by these Orcs.

High in the mountains are the most conservative of the Dwarves, the spiritual core of the nation of Dwarves which extends from the mountains to the plains. They tunnel underground to build their halls of stone, this much is obvious.

But more than that, never have Dwarven women been seen and it is either they are too fair to be exposed to the world, for Dwarves by their nature are very jealous, or it is more possibly due to the suggestions of Dwarven lore, that a Dwarf spends his life perfecting his art of stonework such that he may carve from a single stone an inheritor to his kingdom, this life-like statue being a perfect statue, when the last carefully placed stroke is placed upon the stone it comes to life as another Dwarf, the work of what would be his father, himself being the son born of the rock.

Whatever is true, the Dwarven halls are lined with carvings of stone or of wood inlaid, there are communal and individual rooms, the individual domiciles with their hearths and bed, a communal hall for feasting where beer and food are consumed in large quantities around a long table. Much of the architecture centers around the concept of a hall...for underground it is a tunnel or a room and pillar construction which dominates.

The ceilings are tapered to catch the smoke of fires and carry them out of the few openings made to the underground kingdom.

Going back to the mountain those clans of dwarves that make the mountain their home are the most frugal of a very frugal race. They live exclusively off the resources found high in the mountains or near the base of these treeless peaks. They may even cultivate the wilderness of a glacier-basin or lake or other bowl feature high above the world, an oasis of life where otherwise might be desolate, for Dwarves are a hunter-farmer race, prefering the hunt but supplementing what they can through farming. They may choose a southwestern face of a peak to plant gardens and tend small animals on lands terraced so high that the only access to these areas are from within the tunneled kingdom themselves.

These mountain kingdoms do not make the connection to each other by the traditional methods of underground connection through the great underground river caverns that run under the roots of these great mountains and connects kingdoms far and expansive across great distances without ever touching the surface.

No, these mountain kingdoms may create cabled systems across peak to peak, or light towers to communicate but often they are isolated except maybe a single passage to a lower dwarven kingdom that is wealthier and more populous, but less wealthy in the ancient tomes and Dwarven knowledge that the mountain kingdoms possess as they are the repository of such wealth.

The middle kingdoms, in the low mountains have many accesses, often are in the forest belt, and have more bountiful hunting grounds so they focus more on creating abundant meadows and well groomed forests than on supplementing their food through farming techniques. These dwarves have more grand entrances often like fortresses, where trade might be conducted with the outside world. And they often find themselves in more conflict with the barbaric races of their remote lands. Theirs is the kingdom which runs deep into the roots of the mountain and taps into that great underground river.

While there are dwarves in the plains, they feed horizontally to the middle kingdoms, in the manner the higher kingdoms feed vertically down into the middle kingdoms. So travelling deep into the middle halls, we come to the great underground which is peopled by all sorts of creatures.

Dragon-kind, little demi-human reptiles who rarely go into the light of the surface, but prefer the clefts of rock carved out by this ancient bourne.

Goblins, even the Orcs make their way down here.

The river is large enough in most places to be sailed upon by boats that are rowed, the vaulted ceiling high enough to be invisible in the dark, but the gems and limestone and phosphorescent rock glow and glitter like the stars, more than the stars. The river is lined with small communities of dwarves, or other underground dwellers peaceful and harmful, and the river is stocked with many fish, and fed by fungal mats and other slimy plantlike material.

Gold and silver and other metals are plentiful here and the Dwarves prefer the Bronze to steel, for religious purposes and likely because they are able to carry more weight than a human and are able to make the bronze strong enough tho it is heavier.

There are some great cataracts as one travels this great river into the lands of the Orc, waterfalls of immense majesty, where an older and greater Dwarven civilization (so they say) carved great stairs and statues and architecture to lower and raise the boats from one level to the next. And so it is by this river most trade is conducted below the surface, that Dwarves may remain rather secluded, leaving the surface almost untouched by their work.

Except in that the nature in their area tends to be more improved and organized, nothing the Dwarves have a monopoly on.

Orcs pitifully try to mimic it, and in the forests more free of Orcs, Elves perfected it, so that without truly farming, nature may be a bountiful cornucopia.

Barbaric humans remember the ways of these creatures but Humanity has recently been moving toward a sedentary farmer lifestyle now increasingly in conflict with the naturalists that are the Elves and Dwarves.

To the dwarf even the rock they mine and must waste to transfigure into something more is held in such high religious regard. It is not merely a tool for their prosperity.

More may be discussed about their economic and banking interactions, but I think before long I will share my knowledge of the Orcs I previously mentioned.

For instance, they have no known natural life span, and while Dwarves may live centuries, so might Orcs there certainly have been Orcs as old as the oldest humans, but their brutish lives make it difficult to achieve.

reply to post by FreeMason


Very nice, I like it

So when are you going to stop procrastinating and write the thing?

DPrice
So when are you going to stop procrastinating and write the thing?

Of Blood and Bone: The Orc

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Dunno, just posted my Orc race concept, I'm not sure if I want to write as the perspective of a traveler and writer of things antiquated and beyond the known world, or write a legitimate story like first person, a mix..etc.

I don't know if I want varied perspectives, or one perspective, a moralistic story, or a contra-moral story as if written from the perspective of Orcs.

Or neutral.

Alas so many questions.

FreeMason

I don't know if I want varied perspectives, or one perspective, a moralistic story, or a contra-moral story as if written from the perspective of Orcs.

Or neutral.

Alas so many questions.

Ah yes, the mind of an artist. *thumbs up*

Ill write a bit about the Magic and Necromancy too, that I mentioned in the Orcs thread. For instance Magic is an arcane language, a true language, knowing by what to really call something and changing its intrinsic name for instance (similar to Wizard of Earthsea)....but Necromancy is a truly spiritual nature of a person, not magic, but speaking with the spirits and combining or obeying their knowledge to reanimate corpses and etc.

I mention in passing the Necromancer is prone to psychosis, hearing voices, not knowing if they are his thoughts or those of the dead, and so in time becomes more removed from the world.

But this is also true of a Dark Wizard, who might combine the traits of both, and be a truly formidable creature stalking the world, hiding in secret societies, waiting to strike.

FreeMason
But this is also true of a Dark Wizard, who might combine the traits of both, and be a truly formidable creature stalking the world, hiding in secret societies, waiting to strike.

I have always been a fan of Raistlin Majere.

en.wikipedia.org...