Dwarven Glory

I’m a player in a D&D 2e campaign run by P. Armstrong (from Ode to Black Dougal). It’s a conversion of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path for Pathfinder. In this campaign, I play Klack – a dwarf fighter/thief from the Kodar Mountains of Golarion.

Here is what the Dwarves of Golarion sourcebook has to say on the subject:

Though considered uninhabited, the Kodar Mountains are home to a few scattered communities of dwarves, most of whom are “slags” – outcasts from dwarven society.

Comprised of criminals, outlaws, oath-breakers, and not a few lunatics, these dwarves come here specifically because other dwarves avoid the area. Although their existence is harsh, and their life expectancies short, they literally have nowhere else to go – at least, not anywhere they can mingle freely with other dwarves.

The slag life is brutal, but faced with waves of dwarves immigrating to the Kodar Mountains over the centuries, they have tunneled deeper into the caverns, shored up caves, and generally built for themselves the dwarven equivalent of shantytowns (which they wryly refer to as “slag-heaps”). The accommodations are crude at best, and fortifications sometimes meaningless (especially when considering the rocs, dragons, crag spiders, and other carnivorous beasts that frequently invade the caverns in search of easy prey), and slags are forced to relocate on a regular basis, but their society, such as it is, endures.

The communities themselves remain isolated and fiercely independent, dealing little with the outside world, if at all. Other than some bartering with nearby barbarian tribes, the slags conduct no trade, have no particular industry, and despite their criminal element, rarely even rob travellers or raid other settlements.

Pretty cool, eh? So how can we steal this idea for Dwarven Glory?

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