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A QUICK PRIMER

1. Eugenics: Dwarves practice eugenics in order to devote their limited resources on the children most likely to survive and most apt at integrating the special Dwarven society. It’s a sort of quality control.
   
   For the players, it means that, at characters’ creation, you can re-roll a 1 on a D3 and re-roll a 1-6 on a D20, once each - unless you don’t want to (You might want to play a wounded or crippled character looking for a last hoorah in order to impress the Ancestors’ Gods).
   
   
2. Marriage: Dwarven females are rare, 10 to 1. Even with the custom of marrying up to 3 ‘husbands’, plenty of Dwarven males will never marry. There is a huge competition to impress clans’ elders and get authorised to court a Dwarven maiden. Dwarven sexual drive follows a cycle, like many mammals i.e. spring is the mating season and the time where the Dwarven sexual drive is at its peak. Only one husband is chosen as mate per cycle. Thus, despite the multiple husbands, the bloodlines are still patrimonial rather than matrimonial.
   
   Women’s place in Dwarven society is weird. They are outrageously indulged when they are children, treated as precious and sacred commodities when they enter maidenhood, revered and honoured when they become mothers and then exalted as fountains of wisdom and near deified when they are old crones.
   
   Note that this mating cycle does not prevent ALL sexual activity (and even pregnancies) outside of the spring period but it is the peak and young unmarried Dwarves can be pretty hot-headed during that time.
   
   
3. Close Quarter Living: Dwarves live on top of each other’s. Even if holds were designed in a time when Dwarven population was far bigger, most of the extra space has been closed off to protect the remaining part of the holds from infiltration by goblinoids or skavens. Dwarves are used to this and raised to take it but, nonetheless, Dwarves felt the need to codify social conflicts, especially as the race is prone to grudge bearing. Thus, non-deadly “duels” (from arm wrestling to boxing matches to feats of craftsmanship) are an accepted form of social conflict resolution.
   
   
4. Honour and Greed: Dwarves are an acquisitive race. They have a deep seated love for material possessions (riches or items of beauty) but also power and recognition (which play an important role in the mating race). Honour became a way to temper those fiery desires and regulate society so that it would not self-destruct. Thus, as every Dwarves must fight to not give in to Greed, Honour can also be seen as supreme self-control.
   
   
5. Beer Drinking: Humans tend to come into contact with Dwarven Outcasts or, at best, expats. These Dwarves are less likely to always exercise self-control with the same intensity as Hold-bound Dwarves. Within holds and the Dwarven kingdoms in general, beer is drunk as a form of food and specific brews may be drunk for their physical properties (basically, the equivalent of drugs for humans, except with less undesirable side-effects). Dwarves do not get drunk on any regular basis and, actually, almost never. They are only allowed to let their hair down during very specific feasts or religious occasions.
   
   
6. Craftsmanship: As per the book. Dwarves spent the time and resources to produce articles they can be proud of. Thus, it’s all, to various degrees, superior quality stuff but bulge quantity and mass production aren’t their thing.
   
   
7. Warfare and Technology: The Dwarves have adopted a craftsmanship approach to warfare. They’re soldiers, not warriors. They rely on discipline and unit cohesion to deal with their enemies. “Esprit de corps” has replaced warrior spirit. There are no such things as gyrocopters. They do have air balloons and hand-gliders and parachutes, although those are seen with some suspicion by the more traditionalist generals. There are no such things as steam tanks, although black powder guns of various sizes are fairly common. There are no deep-sea Dwarven navies, although they do have two wheel-powered ironclads suitable for fluvial and coastal navigation.
   
   Tunnel fighters are elite soldiers. Like their real-world Vietnam counterparts, they perform search and destroy missions against their Hold’s enemies regularly crawling in the Dwarven underground networks. Their survival rates are low but those who do survive for any lengths of time are Dwarven heroes.
   
   
8. Superstition and pessimism: Humans stereotypically view Dwarves as dour, withdrawn and prone to pessimism – unless or until they have had the opportunity to relax with some drinks. As stated, Hold-bound Dwarves do not really drink recreationally but the stereotype is not entirely wrong. Because of the high cost of failure, most Dwarves, whether expats or Hold-bound, tend to concentrate on the downside risks for any given activity. Furthermore, that risk-aversion also leads most of them to become superstitious, fond of omens and signs, prone to believe aphorisms and proverbs.
   
   
9. Career Choice: Dwarves aren’t stupid. You’re born in a given clan and, of course, the clan hopes to retain its young and train them into the clan’s specific craft(s) but the elders will also let go of a young Dwarf if it is clear his skills and inclinations are better suited to a different craft or activity. It’s simple resource optimisation stuff.

For players, it means you can choose your initial career and/or can allocate your initial characteristics rolls according to your initial career i.e. I encourage you to come up with a concept first. Please avoid choosing an airborne soldier or a sailor. I think I would have trouble integrating those two concepts in my campaign. Short of that, feel free to choose as you please.

PC SELECTION & A COUPLE OF COMMENTS

I am presently going through the WFRP3 Dwarven supplement - Black Fire Pass... And it's a solid supplement that will be able to re-use to a large extent... But the reason I am writing to you all is to discuss careers. Julius has already chosen a Dwarven engineer, specialising in black powder...

The basic Dwarven specific extra careers are:

• Apprentice Runesmith: As the name says. No nifty magic powers per se, though so don't get all excited...
• IronBreaker: The new name for tunnel fighters. Pure cosmetic change, it's still the good same old.
• Grudge Keeper: As the name indicates, they are the Dwarves who keep the Book of Grudges of their particular hold up to date. They travel within their hold's territories or even further to add/subtract grudges that have been inflicted/redressed. Some keepers want to be more than the memory of their people and do take it upon themselves to settle grudges directly. Basically, it's Dirty Harry... with a PhD in History... 
• Miner: Also prospector, from the description. I remind you that you will be adventuring around mines... Miners/prospectors aren't mandatory in the slightest but it might help the party at some point...

That's it for the basic Dwarven specific careers. Advanced ones are: Master Engineer, Ironshield (intermediate tunnel fighters), thane (noble, except non hereditary?!), runesmith, Ironbeard (advanced tunnel fighter. Bloody Hell, I thought I had an obsession about tunnel fighters. How many variations?), DragonSlayer (oh yeah, they're good).

You can also choose whatever you want from the Basic careers (within the limit of coherence), except the slayer career, if you don't mind. I'd like to be able to keep that as a threat hanging over your PCs...

ADDING NEW RULES – MIXING BURNING WHEEL WITH WFRP3rdE

A Player asked me if he could play a Bounty Hunter and since I got the card, there was no problem in being a bounty hunter. Note, however, that Dwarven criminals are rare and that fines, exile and slayerhood tend to be the most common punishments. However, nothing stops you from hunting human criminals. Quite a few have been known to try and hide in the Mountains.

And here I'd like to introduce a concept borrowed from Burning Wheel - Beliefs. That is to say, that you should give your character 3 Beliefs, things he strongly believe in/hold dear/want to accomplish. In BW, these have complex mechanical effects. Here, it will be mostly for colour, for giving me hooks and for getting to understand what aspect(s) of the setting you're interested. I might give you Fortune dice if you're rolling on something in order to accomplish/follow a Belief.

In order to help you with your Beliefs, I will give you some background on the setting and 2 examples.

Setting:
You will be (unless you really have a concept that requires to be from somewhere else) from Karak Ziflin. It is situated in the Grey Mountains, near Kreutzhofen. Apart from the change of name and location, it really is Karak Azgaraz. The only thing I'm changing from the background is that I am toning down the amount of enemies. Dwarves came to the Grey Mountains because they were less contested than the World Edge Mountains. It makes little sense to have them too crawling with Orcs, Goblins and Skavens...

Grey Dwarves are poorer than their WEM counterparts. Furthermore, their Karaks are more recent, founded after the Time of Woes, often by settler clans who had lost their home holds. Thus, WEM Dwarves tend to look down on Grey Dwarves for having left for less dangerous pastures... Grey Dwarves may resent that and/or try to prove their WEM kin wrong by outdoing them in their efforts against the greenskins.

However, all is not well in the Grey Mountains. Always rather poor in minerals compared to the Black Mountains, the Vault or the WEM, some Grey holds are experiencing economic difficulties. Thus, some Grey Dwarves are leaving for new (mining) ventures wherever else.

And this theme will allow me to introduce a second important location (apart from Karak Ziflin) - The boom town of Harkenbad in the Haunted Hills. This town is situated within the Empire but has a big Dwarven population - many Grey Dwarves or Expat Dwarves but a significant chunk also coming from the Everlasting Realm. The High King of Karaz-A-Karak has made it clear to the Humans that these Dwarves remain his subjects (as opposed to Expat Dwarves who are Imperial citizens and thus Karl Franz's subjects. Grey Dwarves' status is somewhat unclear, the Grey Dwarf King of Karak Norn having been less trenchant about the whole set-up than his royal cousin from EverPeak).

Examples of Beliefs
Let say you decided to play a Miner.

You could easily decide to make him a younger Dwarf, a shortbeard.

Belief 1: My ancestral Hold of Karak Ziflin offer little prospects of glory. I will seek out my fortune elsewhere.

Belief 2: Breda Goldenhair from the Goran clan is a pure and ladylike Dwarven maiden. I will do almost anything to win the right to court her.

Belief 3: Snorri Grob-Butcher, the leader of my mining clan, is neglecting his duties to indulge in his greenskin hunts. We need to find new gold and metal veins more than we need extra grobi skulls. I will speak against him at the next Throng.

Or you could decide to play a more mature Dwarf

Belief 1: I am nearly a longbeard, of an honourable family and a proud clan. I will be treated with the respect I am due or else...

Belief 2: Breda Goldenhair from the Goran clan is a pretty but willful Dwarven lass. She needs a Dwarf of proven experience such as me to tame and guide her. I will offer her clan my next big find for the right to court her.

Belief 3: Snorri Grob-butcher, the mining Throngrink, said I ought to be flattered to be asked to lead our mining expedition to this Harkenbad but I know that failure is likely. I will make sure the blame is his once this silly adventure reveals itself for the foolish "dar" it is.

You might find something more original than young-brash versus old-conservative but those are just examples to get you going. We will discuss these as the game starts.

YET MORE INFO ON DWARVES

My suggestion to try and define your characters via 3 Beliefs led to demands for greater precision about the campaign and the setting, to guarantee relevance. Fair enough. I hope the following helps.

Setting
I think you should have a fair idea of the geographies by now. In terms of themes for the campaign itself, it will probably be structured in 3 cycles as follow:

The Black Fire Pass Cycle: Or where Karak Zeflin and its position vis a vis Karaz-A-Karak and its human neighbours are explored. New Friends, old foes, new foes, old friends. It gets busy.

The Harkenbad Cycle: Or where you discover the Haunted Hills, interact with Humans and must balance Honour and simple decency in an environment made even harsher by everybody's Greed. Well, rumors of Undead help none, either.

The Waaagh! Cycle: Or where the Greenskin menace comes to the fore. Will Humans and Dwarves put asides their differences and their respective internal strife to face the Greenskins together once more? And is everything what it seems? A fitting conclusion to a campaign worthy of the sagas of old!

At least, I hope so... :)

Still More Dwarven Psychology
Tim raised the point that you might not think you know enough about my views of Dwarven society and psychology to make credible Beliefs. I think that I am not that far away from canon that you really need to worry about this too much. Still, here is a deeper look at what makes Dwarves and Dwarven society tick...

Extract from a lecture to some young Slanns…

We shall start with the assumption that our forefathers from the first spawning used some existing genetic materials to create the life-forms of this world. In the case of Humans, the use of Chimpanzees and Bonobos DNA is undeniable. For Elves, one might suspect the influence of some Aye-Aye monkeys and other lemurs (as well as cheetah, it has been suggested. Rumours of Goldfish DNA being also used are not to be taken seriously). More radically in the case of Dwarves, it was argued that their DNA is based on gorillas' but with a hefty mix of marmots' or maybe mountain beavers' DNA.

This would go a long way to explain both the physical characteristics - short legs/long arms, very powerful upper torso as well as some of their social organisation and taste for digging and building.

But one should not underestimate the environmental factors either. Various sociological studies have shown that mountainous people tend to be clan-ish and prone to violence/retribution. The generally accepted explanation is that mountains, being unsuited to extensive agricultural production, force its humanoid inhabitants to rely on animal husbandry and, in the case of Dwarves, mining - thus, the sources of wealth in mountainous areas tend to be 'portable'. Therefore, in order to dissuade raiding tactics and thievery to achieve wealth, inhabitants of such areas develop highly sensitive triggers to violence. Thus, a culture where grudges matter and vendettas can be carried out over generations emerges. Similarly, it will lead to a culture where most if not all males will be train to fight. But, at contrario, the difficult environment and their genetic make-up will also explain why they depend so much on clan/family and on cooperation. As demonstrated by our game theory mathematicians, cooperation is a superior strategy for survival in harsh surroundings. Therefore, mountainous environments will create culture where, simultaneously, cooperation amongst a society's members will be high and punishment for free riders/cheats will be extensive.

Furthermore, while their mountainous environment would be enough to explain clan, honour, grudges and a warrior culture, we ought not to forget that the Dwarven culture was put under severe pressure from its outside enemies from millennia. This and their low birth rates, as explained in an earlier scroll, will have forced them to move from a warrior culture to an unforgiving soldier one.

To answer students’ questions, here is a short FAQ. So. What's a Dwarf to think about...

Humans: Not much per se. While it would be simplistic to say that all Dwarves' attitudes can be divided in opposing views, namely Conservative versus Pragmatic, this simplification will do for the time being. Conservative Dwarves are keen to underline the general untrustworthiness of Humans. Pragmatic Dwarves will note that such untrustworthiness is mostly the result of their short memory - which in turn is a consequence of their short lifespan. Thus, once a Dwarf accepts that Humans cannot match Dwarves' trustworthiness, through no fault of their own, a modus operandi can be established. Conservative Dwarves would point out that the causes of Humans' fickleness matters little. Only that they are.

Elves: As you'd expect. If Humans can be forgiven for their recklessness and other foibles due to their short lifespan, Elves have no such excuses. Furthermore, even after the War of Vengeance was concluded satisfactorily, Elves have been hard to deal with for Dwarves. We've heard that several Holds in the Grey and Black Mountains tried to strike a deal for timber with the Wood Elves of the Athel Loren Forest but to no avail, no matter how sustainable the woodcutting was to be.

Goblinoids and Other Enemies: As you'd expect. The rumours that Dwarves cannot control themselves in the presence of their greenskin enemies and will always fight them regardless of circumstances are unfounded. But they certainly cannot think of any long term solution to their problems other than fight. For example, no negotiation between Dwarves and Goblinoids has ever taken place, as far as we can ascertain.

Breda GoldenHair: As we discussed earlier, Dwarven women are in a peculiar position. They are outwardly revered and adored, due to their rarity but, by the same token, they are also treated as a resource and thus commoditised or objectified. In general, Dwarves will place a high premium on their women adopting a sexually modest attitude. Of course, preferences and tolerances will vary with individuals, with, again, a rough split between the more conservative elements and the more open minded ones. The importance of courtship can lead to unexpected display of "courtly" love from Dwarven males. But the high pressures the Dwarven mating habits put on individuals has also be known to lead to violence - feuds, unauthorised duels and even 'crimes of passion' i.e. rape and murder.

Murder Taboo: All living beings tend to display a taboo about killing members of their own species. Our forefathers rarely messed with the genetic imperatives that arise from the survival instinct and the when they did, it ended badly. But the Dwarves are particularly loath to kill one another. Thus, the more severe crimes which would be punished by death in, say, human societies are punished by banishment/ostracism in the Dwarven societies - Hence the existence of this curious cult of the troll-slayers.

Snorri Grob-Butcher: Most of the Dwarven society is meritocratic. While our game theory can demonstrate that fairness and meritocracy are the best societal strategies, for most races, the costs of a caste based society can be tolerated. Not so for Dwarves who are, as you should know by now, under severe outside pressure and fight for their very survival. As such, leaders are selected for their aptitude to leadership and general competence. Thus, most command the respect of their followers. However, as always in unpredictable environments and without the benefits of our non-linear predictive magic spells, the best path to be taken can be subject to honest disagreement. Again, Dwarves tend to divide themselves along the line of conservatism/pragmatism.

Face Saving & Blame Storming: Dwarves put such an emphasis on face, on competence and punishment for failures or coming up short (no pun intended) can be so harsh that, in the event of failure, some resort to underhand tactics to save face and shift blame. If caught doing so, the disgrace will be instantaneous but, faced with a blame-if-you-do, blame-if-you-don't kind of choice, some Dwarves will gamble.

Ancestor Gods & After-life: Dwarves have a very crude understanding of the Warp. They believe that, at death, their 'essence'/soul/personality will voyage through the Warp [a further trial they ought to prepare for in life by being free of weakness] to reach what they call their Ancestors' Halls - A place more like the humans' idea of 'Eden' than of 'Heaven' i.e. it is a place where understandable activities Dwarves like - such as creating artefacts, feasting, drinking etc - will take place, with one Dwarves' Ancestors and his descendants rejoicing in the telling of sagas and life stories. Thus, the Dwarves do not believe in Gods the same way humans do and, furthermore, such Ancestors are not seen as omnipotent, omniscient or omnipresent. Rather, by praying and/or devotions and/or glorious acts, a Dwarf in his mortal coil, may be lucky enough to attract the attention of his Ancestors - intentionally or, in the rarest of case, unintentionally. But such thing will mean that those Ancestors really peer through the Warp and the Heavens and thus will not be doing something else per se such as feasting and telling stories i.e. their immortal spirits are limited [and, to the unscrupulous Dwarf, can be deceived by face saving strategies]. Dwarves will be particularly distressed by the idea or fact of a Dwarven ghost. They will always see it as their utmost duty to help such an Ancestor through to their after-life Halls where things are pure, beautiful, and simple and Dwarves can finally enjoy themselves free of pressure, free of goblinoids threat and free of Elve

Any questions then please email me here