What do Dwarves eat underground?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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So, I'm running a campaign which takes place mostly underground, and the PCs are spending a lot of time with Dwarves who have never traded with the surface.

So what do Dwarves eat without access to the surface? Clearly they survived on Golarion for some time without access. An obvious one is mushroom dishes, and the occasional game meat like displacer beast, but for any large settlement, there would likely have to be some kind of semi-farmed animal.

My current fix is the invention of the 'deep goat', a variant underground goat with a black hide and darkvision. My argument to the players is that deep goats are clearly only omitted from the bestiaries due to space restrictions.

I could use some other suggestions as to what other foods underground races might eat, otherwise I'll have to go with displacer chickens, dark pigs, etc.


In 3.5 there was an under-dark animal similar to cattle, IIRC, but I forget the name.


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The common joke answer is that they live on beer and tradition. On a more serious note, I imagine that mushrooms make up a large part of their diet. There may also be carefully guarded surface farms and ranches. I also imagine that rodents are a type of live stock that can thrive underground.


Underground rivers and other water sources would likely make fishing a big thing.
Giant vermin and carrion beasts would be an economic answer. Insects and arachnids are exceptionally nutritious. Many cultures use them as a staple food source.

Depending on what you as a GM determine it tastes like Gelatinous cubes could be used as a combination garbage disposal and poor man's food.


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Pretty sure the Faerun Underdark cows were called 'Rothé' or 'Deep Rothé'


But what do the deep goats eat?

To be fair, unless you throw magic in, you can't have a stable, long-term underground ecosystem capable of supporting farming and/or herding.

Sovereign Court

Mowque wrote:

But what do the deep goats eat?

To be fair, unless you throw magic in, you can't have a stable, long-term underground ecosystem capable of supporting farming and/or herding.

More or less true. But the magic doesn't need to be as blatant as simply conjuring food out of thin air.

There are indeed entire ecosystems in the real world that are not reliant upon sunlight at any point in the food chain.

You can use magic/handwaving to say some thermophiles that live near magma pockets evolved to the point of being plant-like, and ultimately support everything on up to dwarves.


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Soylent Green.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Subterranean fish, giant geckos, bats, all manner of underground flora and fauna.

There is a Pathfinder tales novel where it is revealed that a group of Kellid humans are living underground in this subterranean jungle environment that is largely populated with dinosaurs, humans, and orcs and is supported by a massive arcane artificial sun.

I'd say nothing is really off the table for you after that.


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Even in the real world we're starting to discover a staggering amount of subterranean organisms which by some estimates may, pound for pound, actually outweigh our above-ground biosphere. It's not so hard to imagine that, with the preponderance of vast subterranean caverns and tunnels in most fantasy worlds, that much more elaborate and sustainable ecosystems may develop. Giant mushroom forests, subterranean rivers teaming with blind fish and fungus-scrounging herbivores aren't really all that outlandish. All of it together could form a tightly efficient and sustainable food chain.

As for dwarves, they serves as a bridge between the realms below and those above. Dwarves are often depicted as mining and smithing the deep earth's riches and then trading them to surface dwellers. Although dwarven merchants love money, what they're more likely to trade for is what their kinsman are in short supply of underground; grains (especially barley & hops!), vegetables, meat, leather, wood, etc. So their diet is likely a mix of what they can farm & fish below and what their traders bring down from above.


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I know the beer thing is a joke, but it could also be that they have a version of Mudder's Milk.


Mushrooms and giant lizards


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Rothe as mentioned above. Also, it may not seem very Dwarf-like, but I could imagine subterranean races eating new (fantasy variety) mosses and lichens. Maybe salads of mosses, lichens and mushrooms. . .

What about large caverns with bio-luminescent lichens on the ceilings that generate a lot of light. . . and then varieties of plants and vegetables evolve that feed on that light much like real world plants use sunlight? It may not be 100% consistent with science, but it also doesn't seem like a huge departure either.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

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The single largest organism in the world is a massive fungi thing the size of a county discovered on the East Coast of America. They did a mock episode about it on the X-Files.

There's another version of it in the North of Faerun.

Whole mushroom forests exist down there, and are covered in several novels. That's the main food...mushroom derived.

And of course, they trade craft goods for grains and other meats. Can't make good alcohol without them grains, y'know.

==Aelryinth

Scarab Sages

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What do dwarves eat? Stone soup.


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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Roast pork & beer.


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What do the goats eat? Mushrooms.
What do the mushrooms eat? Dead goats.

This is the kind of trouble that happens when you start asking too many questions about a fantasy world.

I imagine an ecosystem akin to hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the sea. Dotted throughout the darklands could be mineral rich hot springs populated with specialized microbes that subsist on the minerals dissolved in the spring waters.

Other creatures, including mushrooms, could survive on these microbial enriched waters which would be flowing throughout the darklands in underground rivers and streams. Also, water from above ground would be bringing additional nutrients from the surface, sun-based ecosystem.

The entirety of the darklands may not be habitable. There are probably vast swathes of the darklands that are only inhabited by things that don't eat.

There are also things like purple worms that eat the very rock itself.

Dark Archive

I've seen beer being mentioned a couple of times, but that would be virtually impossible. It does raise the question: What did the dwarves drink before the quest for sky?

There's gotta be some rancid fermented liquid we can come up with, right? Maybe something like rotgut? Huh, how do the orcs make rotgut anyway?


the David wrote:

I've seen beer being mentioned a couple of times, but that would be virtually impossible. It does raise the question: What did the dwarves drink before the quest for sky?

There's gotta be some rancid fermented liquid we can come up with, right? Maybe something like rotgut? Huh, how do the orcs make rotgut anyway?

Since where there is dwarves there is magic, underground farms are very possible. While these dwarves may not trade with the surface they may very well trade with other under ground species and have been able to aquire even surface foodstuffs or seeds that way.

But you can ferment nearly anything so they will have SOME sort of booze. Hell I once had mead made of fermented black tea.

Or there may be as many types of 'deep' grains, sheep, cows and pigs, etc. as surface versions.

Not to mention mushrooms and perhaps a species of fast growing fungus that can be used like Tofu to make nearly anything else.


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Ehh, they just wrote down two weeks of iron rations on their character sheets and that has gotten them through centuries.


the David wrote:

I've seen beer being mentioned a couple of times, but that would be virtually impossible. It does raise the question: What did the dwarves drink before the quest for sky?

There's gotta be some rancid fermented liquid we can come up with, right? Maybe something like rotgut? Huh, how do the orcs make rotgut anyway?

Rockfruit are sweet, sugary mushrooms in the darklands that hang like grape clusters from the slimy cave walls around steam vents.

Dark Archive

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Dwarves EAT ... PEOPLE, they're cannibals posing as Welshmen with Scottish accents. BEWARE!!


I imagine most dwarves actually leave close to the surface and have farming outposts around. Underground, they get by on mushrooms, specialized flora/fauna (both domesticated and caught) and trade. Divine casters can provide food and water, druids and rangers take care of lifestock or their by-products... Few humanoids are as capable at tending to, say, beehives - especially of the underground variety - as dwarven druids and experts. That resistance to poison comes in handy at times :) .

There are times when darker deeds are necessary, such as banditry and raiding. There may even be times when... other meat is eaten. However, this happens much more often among the races further down below - deep gnomes, drow, and worse.


Yak butter tea and rancid yak butter tea are staples in Tibet and mead is fermented honey. I imagine Dwarves could figure out a way to make liquor out of something or other. You make due with what you've got.

Sczarni

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Just because the dwarves haven't been to the surface doesn't mean their food hasn't.

Lots of rivers flow underground in places and break the surface in others. It's possible the dwarven tunnels always had easy access to the surface via a water route, that they never knew about because they aren't aquatic. Thus, any type of freshwater or even saltwater fish could be said to be fishable from underground.

That also gives us a potential source of seaweed and other vegetation, as well as a source of water to feed the inevitable mushrooms.

They could also be farming/husbanding other forms of cave fauna, like lizards, rodents, bats, or whatever else Golarion might have.


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From Dwarves of Golarion:

"A typical day for many dwarves begins with a bowl of hot porridge flavored with mushrooms, along with a generous slice of bacon or well-seasoned sausage. When the day’s commitments permit a midday meal, the fare is usually coarse mushroom bread, sharp cheese, and perhaps a slice of salted meat, washed down with water or a mug of ale. Supper is often a hearty roast or savory stew accompanied by root vegetables, hunks of bread, and tankards of good stout ale.
While such meals remain popular, modern dwarves have adapted to surface foods and no longer have to rely on the traditional meats and mushrooms. Goats, sheep, and swine are the meat animals of choice, though many dwarves have developed a taste for beef as well. Fruit is usually eaten dried, and leafy vegetables are rare."

Perhaps it's best not to ask where they originally got the meat from in the first place. ;)


wraithstrike wrote:
In 3.5 there was an under-dark animal similar to cattle, IIRC, but I forget the name.

Rothe. They also eat snail, lizard and mushrooms


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How do dwarves live underground?

Knowledge (local): 1d20 ⇒ 9

I dunno.


Magic glowing crystals, the kind that are so common in underground caverns so that light is never an issue, provide the base energy input into the system just like the sun does above ground.


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Bread in a bottle.

Dark Archive

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Ashram wrote:

From Dwarves of Golarion:

"A typical day for many dwarves begins with a bowl of hot porridge flavored with mushrooms, along with a generous slice of bacon or well-seasoned sausage. When the day’s commitments permit a midday meal, the fare is usually coarse mushroom bread, sharp cheese, and perhaps a slice of salted meat, washed down with water or a mug of ale. Supper is often a hearty roast or savory stew accompanied by root vegetables, hunks of bread, and tankards of good stout ale.
While such meals remain popular, modern dwarves have adapted to surface foods and no longer have to rely on the traditional meats and mushrooms. Goats, sheep, and swine are the meat animals of choice, though many dwarves have developed a taste for beef as well. Fruit is usually eaten dried, and leafy vegetables are rare."

Perhaps it's best not to ask where they originally got the meat from in the first place. ;)

Man, I am not fond of mushrooms, but this is making me super hungry.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

they mine giant worm dung...


Since Gorons are basically Legend of Zelda dwarves, I can only assume that dwarves eat rocks.


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Ashram wrote:

From Dwarves of Golarion:

"A typical day for many dwarves begins with a bowl of hot porridge flavored with mushrooms, along with a generous slice of bacon or well-seasoned sausage. When the day’s commitments permit a midday meal, the fare is usually coarse mushroom bread, sharp cheese, and perhaps a slice of salted meat, washed down with water or a mug of ale. Supper is often a hearty roast or savory stew accompanied by root vegetables, hunks of bread, and tankards of good stout ale.
While such meals remain popular, modern dwarves have adapted to surface foods and no longer have to rely on the traditional meats and mushrooms. Goats, sheep, and swine are the meat animals of choice, though many dwarves have developed a taste for beef as well. Fruit is usually eaten dried, and leafy vegetables are rare."

Perhaps it's best not to ask where they originally got the meat from in the first place. ;)

From the surface, presumably. Dwarves who engage in no trade with the outside world would be unusual.

(Theory: some form of rock-penetrating light permeates the Pathfinder universe. This makes Darkvision work. There are also plants that can live off it.)


I go with the idea that dwarfs have goats on the rocky surface of there mountain homes.


They live on stubbornness.


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Haggis and beer.

The night before a battle with the drow (or other underground critters), the leaders would throw a big party and drink all the beer and eat all the food. Then early in the morning the leaders would have the horns so all the dwarves would wake up with terrible hangovers, and the leaders would give this prepared speech:

    "we've nothing left to eat but haggis, and nothing left to drink but water. we either take the drow village and their supplies or we'll have to eat the haggis while sober."


Matthew Downie wrote:

{. . .}

(Theory: some form of rock-penetrating light permeates the Pathfinder universe. This makes Darkvision work. There are also plants that can live off it.)

Interesting idea. If life forms could somehow develop a way to harvest neutrinos, this could actually work, although having the Darkvision be of any use would depend upon a significant fraction of other things also doing this to a limited but noticeable degree. (Of course, [i]really big IF[/].)


To quote Gimli, son of Gloin "Malt beer, roast pork ripe on the bone...". So I'm guessing they have pigs/hogs underground. They are raised mostly indoors now in our world.


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
deusvult wrote:
Mowque wrote:

But what do the deep goats eat?

To be fair, unless you throw magic in, you can't have a stable, long-term underground ecosystem capable of supporting farming and/or herding.

More or less true. But the magic doesn't need to be as blatant as simply conjuring food out of thin air.

There are indeed entire ecosystems in the real world that are not reliant upon sunlight at any point in the food chain.

You can use magic/handwaving to say some thermophiles that live near magma pockets evolved to the point of being plant-like, and ultimately support everything on up to dwarves.

I'd think they'd survive on fungi, lichen, moss, etc.


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You said the game takes place "mostly underground" and that the dwarves don't trade with the surface. That's fine; here's some suggestions:

Sun rooms: dwarves create solar tubes to direct sunlight down into their halls. This diffused sunlight isn't great but it does allow for crops to grow. Small gardens and water grains are grown in these chambers. Over time as kobolds and other lower-dwelling light-sensitive creatures have invaded and claimed dwarf territory, these rooms have come to serve a different purpose: torture. Kobolds, being primarily lawful take dissidents to these rooms and chain them to where the sunlight pools, forcing their eyes open with toothpicks.

Frostgrass: just like green plants on the tundra there are some green plants that survive in fissures and glacial rifts. Canny dwarves have learned to recreate these conditions where their halls exit onto frozen cliffsides. Just at these entryways are hoarfrost gardens where domesticated goats graze. Never one to leave resources unused, the scat from these animals is even processed. Through Purifying spells as well as good old-fashioned work undigested greens and grains are extracted and then boiled in a mash for a pleasing, if nutty fermented drink.

These, plus the suggestions above this and the inclusion of spells like Daylight, Plant Growth and finally the invention of some unique, setting specific lichen and fungi would give the dwarves plenty of food sources.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Pork seems like a likely staple as pigs will pretty much eat anything.


My dwarfs, have farms high up in the mountains or Trade with other undergrund traders that use the underway(like a undergrund Road connecting some of the dwarven settlements. So pehaps the dwarfs up in the foothills have han almost no dealings with the local settellers but they have regular dealings with folks that deal with farmers far far away. there can also be fish in undergrund rivers and lakes.

Sovereign Court

I like the Warhammer dwarf ecosystem. They have protected valleys where they grow much of their food, and they also import.

In Warhammer dwarfs primarily aren't rich because they mine gold. They're rich because they're the best craftsmen in the world - so everyone wants to buy their stuff. But dwarfs don't want anything made by non-dwarfs, because they think it all sucks. So they just horde gold and sometimes buy caravans of food etc. (That way they can spend less time farming and more time crafting.)


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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

My wife, who has a master's degree in geology with an emphasis in speleology (caves) suggested that perhaps they could partially subsist on crayfish. Especially if they had a breeding population of them. Crayfish eat small insects, somehow even the dwarves' waste is helpful here. Not sure I totally get what that's about. Not sure I want to.

Anyway, food for thought.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

waste attracts maggots and parasites = food for crayfish, frogs, fish.

==Aelryinth

Shadow Lodge

This could be my favourite thread ever on paizo.com.

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