Musing: Dwarves

In the LL game I'm currently running our Dwarves speak with Russian accents. This came about because I wanted to change up the "standard" accents that the races are known to have and try something a little different.

Several jokes about "In Soviet Dwarfholds, Stone mines you!" later and it sort of fell into place. The end result was a sorta offhand mention that Dwarves in our game are probably communist. This doesn't come up too often in the game itself (not as much as it should IMHO), but it got me thinking.

The ideal behind the "dwarven communism" actually works quite well in Deminar.

The dwarves in Deminar are fighting a never ending battle with the goblins across the floating isles and have been doing so since they first rose into the sky. Their underground homelands have grown sparse, as many islands don't have mountain chains on them and few have sufficient area underground to support both species.

Because of this, everything the dwarves do is for the greater dwarven community in which they live. Everything is dedicated to helping the dwarves hold and expand their territory. There is no personal honor, there is only honor for your community as a whole. A great dwarven general is held in the same regard as one who mines ore to help make weapons. Dwarves do not have an economy in any traditional sense, everything produced is given to the community as a whole and no one dwarf "owns" any one thing.

Because of this, when dwarves do interact with other species (especially humans), they have a hard time understanding how they work. The idea of a nobility and social class is alien to them, as is the need to pay for goods ("why can't the hungry beggar eat what was grown by the farmer?").

Also, because of this, most dwarven adventurers are considered traitors to their community. Leaving their station to explore the world is turning your back on the fight and many can never return to any dwarven community (especially their own!). Exceptions do exist, of course, those traveling to find ancient dwarven relics to help turn the tide in their on going battle or those out to find new lands to settle, for example, are still helping the greater good and are not considered traitorous.

Even those that choose exile to become adventurers still hold onto the mindset they were raised with. They don't see a need for someone in the party to lead them, assume that all supplies carried by everyone is to be shared with whoever in the group needs is, including any loot found in the dungeons themselves. This includes coin, even if they don't understand the need for it, they're not stupid and understand its usage.