|
ok was sitting here and wondering upon the topic of what exactly dwarven society would subsist on in terms of food? If you think about it it's kind of an odd thing to answer I mean we are talking about a race that lives predominately underground, has no real need for light (thanks to darkvision) and earn most of it's lively hood from mining the earth beneath them and isn't really known for farming or surface life. Now with that in mind I have been having trouble figuring out what they do for staple foods, I mean I would assume they fulfill there protein requirements with things like cavefish, large cave-crickets, and potentially even bats and other surface level subterranean creatures but I cannot for the life of me think of what a dwarf would do for a staple crop underground since there really isn't much light and very little loose soil or land for agriculture. On top of all that though comes the larger question of what do they use to produce their alcohol?
But anyways I've been mulling this over and thought it would be a fun topic to posit to the people of the messageboards and see what all of us come up with.
ok was sitting here and wondering upon the topic of what exactly dwarven society would subsist on in terms of food? If you think about it it's kind of an odd thing to answer I mean we are talking about a race that lives predominately underground, has no real need for light (thanks to darkvision) and earn most of it's lively hood from mining the earth beneath them and isn't really known for farming or surface life. Now with that in mind I have been having trouble figuring out what they do for staple foods, I mean I would assume they fulfill there protein requirements with things like cavefish, large cave-crickets, and potentially even bats and other surface level subterranean creatures but I cannot for the life of me think of what a dwarf would do for a staple crop underground since there really isn't much light and very little loose soil or land for agriculture. On top of all that though comes the larger question of what do they use to produce their alcohol?
But anyways I've been mulling this over and thought it would be a fun topic to posit to the people of the messageboards and see what all of us come up with.
One can imagine lichen and fungi that once grounded, provide a flour that can be baked into bread. Other than nuts and legumes (which I could imagine dwarves to cultivate, insects are also a good source of proteins. Not that I can imagine dwarves eating a spoonful of bugs, but again they could be grounded and baked into other things.
Going with the "underdark" concepts, caves can get big enough for cattle to be herded, as moisture and magical emanation can sustain vegetation. We could imaging dwarves engineering large fertile water fields for rice-like cereals as well.
Yet if you ask me, dwarves should still be dependent on surface holdings for various types of consumables (particularly food and fuel). I never fully adopted the 'dwarves can live their whole life without seeing the sun' concept myself.
'findel
Agreed with findel, also I think Dwarves trade for many of their goods and probably hold at least a well defended outpost with tunnels leading deeper into the mountain.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I could see dwarves keeping a small population of swine in an underground farm. Hogs do fine in low light, can subsist on just about everything. Industrious dwarves could easily re purpose a played out mine into a farm.
Remember also salt can be mined. Could have a unique dwarf culture around that. Still salt is very useful, and profitable. Salted Pork.
I'd also envision a reclusive dwarf hold having small secret fields on the surface. Only a few feet across, where most people would walk by without a thought. There they'd grow barely and hops. Maybe some other greens that aren't as important to them.
I also imagine dwarves with pools of blind white fish. They'd eat nearly anything and provide a good quality protein that has a far lower ick factor than insects.
|
In Greyhawk and the Realms there was mysterious 'underdark radiation' that served as an excuse for various things (degrading Drow weapons, areas you couldn't readily teleport around, etc.).
In the real world, there are organisms that have adapted to feed off of unusual sources, like the tube worms that feed off of deep sea chemical spewing thermal vents, instead of being part of the solar-energy based ecosystem that sustains pretty much everything else on earth.
Combining these elements, one could have some sort of bottom-of-the-food-chain fungus or vermin that are sustained directly by energies available deep underground, and that serve as fodder for the next tier of organisms, like bats, bugs, eels, blind cave fish, etc. You might even be able to skip the 'mysterious underdark radiation' concept, and have 'black smokers' exist in great profusion in the seas of the darklands, chemical-spewing thermal vents that support ecologies of strange creatures unknown to surface dwellers. Enormous bats could roost on the ceilings of these vast caverns, swooping low to pluck oversized eels from the waters below them, etc, etc.
.
Or you could just house rule that the vast majority of the flora and fauna in the Darklands trickles down from the surface world, or trickles up from the jungle and dinosaur-infested interior of the hollow earth, it's lush ecosystem fueled by the sun that burns at the center of the world.
|
|
Or you could just house rule that the vast majority of the flora and fauna in the Darklands trickles down from the surface world, [i]or trickles up from the jungle and dinosaur-infested interior of the hollow earth, it's lush ecosystem fueled by the sun that burns at the center of the world.
+1 I like this idea. Always have, always will.
One word: Rothé. (It's the big dude.)
I remember those from the Forgotten Realms.
They'd be some good eatin's.
|
ok was sitting here and wondering upon the topic of what exactly dwarven society would subsist on in terms of food? If you think about it it's kind of an odd thing to answer I mean we are talking about a race that lives predominately underground, has no real need for light (thanks to darkvision) and earn most of it's lively hood from mining the earth beneath them and isn't really known for farming or surface life. Now with that in mind I have been having trouble figuring out what they do for staple foods, I mean I would assume they fulfill there protein requirements with things like cavefish, large cave-crickets, and potentially even bats and other surface level subterranean creatures but I cannot for the life of me think of what a dwarf would do for a staple crop underground since there really isn't much light and very little loose soil or land for agriculture. On top of all that though comes the larger question of what do they use to produce their alcohol?
But anyways I've been mulling this over and thought it would be a fun topic to posit to the people of the messageboards and see what all of us come up with.
In the Mystaran Setting Gazetteer 'THE DWARVES OF ROCKHOME' there are colonies of other races living on the surface growing food for the dwarves because farming is 'above them'. They grew Grains and whatnot.
Frankly if Dwarves had to grow food for themselves, they would likely degenerate into a caste system with 'farmers' at the bottom and 'miners' and 'artisans' above them (but what fool would grow food for others who treat you like dirt?), or more likely become raiders like Orcs.
|
|
I could see dwarves keeping a small population of swine in an underground farm. Hogs do fine in low light, can subsist on just about everything. Industrious dwarves could easily re purpose a played out mine into a farm.
Remember also salt can be mined. Could have a unique dwarf culture around that. Still salt is very useful, and profitable. Salted Pork.
I'd also envision a reclusive dwarf hold having small secret fields on the surface. Only a few feet across, where most people would walk by without a thought. There they'd grow barely and hops. Maybe some other greens that aren't as important to them.
Salted Cave Fish (9 gallon firkin/100lb)
Salt (9 gallon firkin/200lb)If Fish are a source of protien then raw Fish eyes like the inuit's salmon would have protien, Fungus as a source of fiber,
In my campaign world, dwarves'. initial supply of food comes from edible mushrooms and other fungi, and from underground-dwelling creatures. Their favorite traditional beverage comes from fermented fungi.
Their larger settlements do also contain a few surface farms (or shallowly underground farms that have "skylights" broken into them) where they grow some grains and vegetables (mostly root vegetables). This they picked up from their neighbors as a good supplementary source of food (and more things to ferment and brew :) ). They also raise some livestock largely as beasts of burden for traveling over the mountains to trade.
Traditionally, goats do best in high altitude/rocky terrain herding. They are agile, eat just about anything and are relatively easy to herd. Not only do they provide meat, but they are a source of milk and leather. Other species like lamas and sheep have similar qualities.
Actually, lamas can also be used as beast of burden and source of wool. While they aren't your typical European-Tolkienesque animal, I could see lamas as a favourite of dwarven surface farmers.
'findel
|
|
Traditionally, goats do best in high altitude/rocky terrain herding. They are agile, eat just about anything and are relatively easy to herd. Not only do they provide meat, but they are a source of milk and leather.
Some even grow hair long enough to use like wool, as well. Twenty goats can live on the same amount of pasturage as a single cow, and they are much better suited to living in climates and subsisting off of foliage that couldn't support a cow anyway. Goat meat and milk may taste appalling, but they are darn effective, and dwarves are usually too drunk to taste their food anyway. :)
But chickens, that's the number one converter of random crap lying around on the ground into yummy protein. Some sort of underdark chickens would probably be an effective source of food.
Being a fantasy world, these 'underchickens' being scaly critters, related to cockatrices (but lacking the petrification, except for 1 in 1000 mutations), could be funky. Dwarves could have scaly lizard-chicken versions of cockfights with them, outfitting them with spurs and letting them go crazy on each other.
Ah, Rothe. Since the Menzoberranzan boxed set in 2e, which had a city of 30,000 or so dark elves living off of the meat of a herd of Rothe living on an island approximately 20 ft. across (all numbers made up, it's been a decade or so since I read it), I just can't take them seriously. I never thought much of miniature underdark yaks, but now I just think of them as a bad joke.
Goats have beards and horns, dwarves have beards and helms with horns, so they're probably kin. :-P
I picture dwarven cuisine as meat slathered with mushrooms and gravy, maybe on a bed of noodles or taters or trenchers of black bread and goatsmilk butter. Served with ale or fermented mushroom spirits.
Actually, I bet dwarves do a lot of grilling and barbeque. They like fire and taking time to craft something to perfection, and they're hardy enough for some quite potent spices! I bet each clan has its own secret recipe for marinades and BBQ sauce and the like, with ancient rivalries and espionage to steal rival clans' recipes.
Unless the dwarven settlement is completely isolated from all surface cultures, I think it goes something like this:
1) Precious metals, gemstones, and high quality metal goods go out.
2) Large quantities of foodstuffs from the surface go in, perhaps with magical preservatives to keep them fresh.
3) Repeat steps 1 and 2.
Actually, I bet dwarves do a lot of grilling and barbeque.
Appropriately, the term 'barbeque' is derived from the way french soldiers used to roast a goat "de la barbe à la queue" (skewed from the beard to the tail).
'findel
Actually, I bet dwarves do a lot of grilling and barbeque.Appropriately, the term 'barbeque' is derived from the way french soldiers used to roast a goat "de la barbe à la queue" (skewed from the beard to the tail).
'findel
Dwarves ain't French!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!oneeleven!!!!!!! ;-)
I usually picture them as Norse/Germanic or Welsh.
EDIT:
Are goat ribs any good?
Some even grow hair long enough to use like wool, as well.
:-) i fist thought you talk about dwarfs :-P
underchickens
With that word alone you Sir, win this thread :-)
|
|
Wow great posts from everyone really helpful. My thinking though on dwarven culture though sort of takes the whole surface farming and import/export of agricultural goods off the table on two things. Number one being that dwarves strive to be as autonomous as possible and putting your most essential resource to societal survival in the hands of someone else would be a gigantic weakness that could easily be exploited and leave them totally exposed if something were to happen to the suppliers (say orc raid or even the suppliers becoming enemies of the dwarves)and at the mercy of factors outside there control. Second is that dwarves are a species that originated in the depths of the underdark and have ascended up to the higher levels close to the surface which would mean that surface farming and natural sunlight would be a relatively new thing for their culture and the therefore must have been surviving on something prior to that to get their nutrition.
With all that said I really like a lot of the suggestions given here for meats and things that would be consumed especially when it comes to things like giant cave fish, goats, pigs, giant crickets, and even "The Underchicken" as all these creatures are either native creatures that could be found below ground and therefore already accustomed to the environment that the dwarves were living in and were probably brought with them when they moved up from the deeper parts of the under ground or are hardy, compact surface creatures that could survive on just about anything and require very little living space (perfect representation of the dwarven ideology)which would be at a premium in the underground where one would have to at the very best expend a lot of time and energy to just hollow out some new space for them and make sure they don't bring the whole cavern down or destabilize the thing.
As for vegetation I found myself really liking Sets idea of light independent creatures like the volcanic tube worms. I can see something like a grain subspecies that survives by leeching nutrients from the rocks of surrounding cave walls to fuel its growth while either replacing the minerals lost with the byproduct of its metabolism or growing into the vacuums it creates so as to keep the cave from collapsing. It might also supplement it's diet with small game in the same way Venus flytraps or more likely pitcher plants do (much more passive system). I can see it probably having a crystalline texture or something due to its mineral consumption method. Ohh could serve a double purpose for mining as it doesn't feed on precious metals like gold, silver, mithril etc. and could be used to help mine where traditional methods are too hazardous (ie. gas filled mines, or unstable mines). Think I shall call it Miners Grain, or Crystal Grain or Dwarven Grain to surface races.
Ohh one last thing, on the underchicken I could see something like that but would have been an off shoot of the breed that would be more reptilian like a pudgy comsognathus. It would probably be cold blooded since most cave environs keep a constant temperature year round and would allow it to go for longer stints without food since the underdark is usually portrayed as a place with small pockets of abundant life surrounded by long stretches of desolate caverns with no food at all. The other option if we really want to get out there is some type of specially bred flightless bad that can still climb about and hunts things that live in walls of caves and still nests on the ceilings of caves. This gives the major upside of an easy to keep food source since you can use the ceiling space of large caverns as farms keeping ground space free for colonization construction by the dwarves and would provide access to cheap and readily available fuel and fertilizer in the form of guano (also for those who use it an easy source of ingredients for gunpowder).
|
|
One can imagine lichen and fungi that once grounded, provide a flour that can be baked into bread. Other than nuts and legumes (which I could imagine dwarves to cultivate, insects are also a good source of proteins. Not that I can imagine dwarves eating a spoonful of bugs, but again they could be grounded and baked into other things.
'findel
On the concept of bug consumption I pictured less of them eating a spoonful of bug and more of them rearing groups of large cave crickets about the size of beagles or so. Dwarves would prepare them either as either a soup or stew (perhaps served inside the abdomen which serves as a makeshift bowl) or as something like a giant chicken wing a la futurama where you would just crack the leg off and then cook it inside it's shell like one does crabs or lobsters in boiling water or roast it over an open fire and then crack it open and eat the meat inside. Come to think of it this also makes them much easier to transport since the hard shell helps keep contaminates from getting in like mud, dirt, or other things and might be used as standard fair in field rations.
|
|
If they really come from the depths of the underdark, should their societal survival not be based on anaerobic organisms rather then aerobic?
It's not like they have giant fans in the caves to provide them with oxygen.Maybe some sort of magic nuclear fusion based organism that converts carbon (from oil, coal, gas) into oxygen?
Maybe though the assumption is that wherever the dwarves are coming from below there was a plentiful supply of oxygen at least enough for them to evolve as oxygen requiring creatures otherwise the surface would be as toxic to them as creatures like the derro or they wouldn't have to breath at all. Also if one assumes that they have some form of plant life that they raise for food or otherwise this becomes far less of an issue as those plants would help provide oxygen back into the environment and consume the carbon dioxide produced by the creatures living therein. The biggest issue to get over with regards to agriculture is still the lack of space and sunlight since they would have lived where the sun cannot reach and the space necessary for standard societal agriculture just doesn't really exist in the underdark as whatever habitable land there is is usually at a premium, heavily sought after, and fiercely defended by it's inhabitants. If oxygen levels in the given space were a factor then they wouldn't be setting up shop there anyways as lack of oxygen would be a much swifter killer then starvation.
My Dwarfs subsist primarily on Beer.
My Hill Dwarfs tend to have tracts of surface land suitable for farming and raising animals. Generally sheep, pigs, goats and cattle. I don't envision them enjoying bird meat much, but thats just me. Crops consist of anything that can be readily recognized as an ingredient in alcohol, (ie hops, barley, wheat, etc) as well as tubers. (beets, potato, carrots, etc)
My Mountain Dwarfs are more towards raising Rothe and swine underground and maintaining mushroom, fungus and tuber farms. They hunt on the surface for mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, moose, deer and caribou to add variety and probably forage for berries and wild fruits. They are less picky about what they eat and probably have recipes for spider, bat, rat and lizard that would make other races gag.
|
|
I'm hearing a lot of shrieker harvest and Carrion Crawler Hunting here.
Without grain, Dwarves dont get beer and Fish sandwiches. So beer (and grain) is a corruptor of the Dwarf folk introduced by foreign devils to destroy their social fabric.
Maybe they can brew some Korvian Red ale made from Elf blood. Maybe they are dwarves because they dont get enough grain.
Dwarves have pica! :-O
I am working on a campaign now with drow in the underground, and I ran across the food issue myself. When they're not raiding, the drow run into the same situation as any underground omnivore. My solution was that the phosphorous fungi would line low roofs, producing enough light for some very hardy and unique plant life. Alternatively, I like the idea of an alternate source to the sun for energy. Certainly in a fantasy setting, there are many deep-earth gems and sources of mystical life that don't seem like a cop-out. If anything, this provides a great story possibility. Are there ancient, enlightened dwarves that guard this life-gem as an analogue to the Tree of Life.
I am working on a campaign now with drow in the underground, and I ran across the food issue myself. When they're not raiding, the drow run into the same situation as any underground omnivore. My solution was that the phosphorous fungi would line low roofs, producing enough light for some very hardy and unique plant life. Alternatively, I like the idea of an alternate source to the sun for energy. Certainly in a fantasy setting, there are many deep-earth gems and sources of mystical life that don't seem like a cop-out. If anything, this provides a great story possibility. Are there ancient, enlightened dwarves that guard this life-gem as an analogue to the Tree of Life.
The Root of Life?
Perhaps dwarven clerics cast create food and water a lot? ;-)
Or dwarven druids have secret caves where they cultivate plants sustained by continual light or daylight spells??
Aside from Underdark critters, I expect dwarves eat a lot of fungi. Perhaps they've even found a way to make giant slugs and purple worms palatable??!
(And in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, his dwarves eat rat as a dietary staple -- another reason why Ankh-Morpork is so popular with them -- and their bread items readily double as weapons, such as "battle croissants" and the like! Plus dwarf bread is a field ration staple; for most non-dwarves, the mere thought of eating dwarf bread is a natural appetite suppressant...)
Cheers, JohnH / Wanda
|
Did none of you ever play Dwarf Fortress? Dwarves live off of both underground and surface-level plants. The underground plants include:
Plump helmets (an edible mushroom that makes dwarven wine),
Pig tails (a fibrous fungus, source of dwarven ale, that can also be made into textiles),
Sweet pods (the plant source of dwarven rum, sugar, and syrup),
Cave wheat (which makes dwarven flour and beer),
Rock nuts (which make quarry bush leaves - used as a spice), and
Dimple cups (an inedible mushroom that makes a beautiful midnight blue dye).
In my worlds dwarves usually live on the surface. I just can't abide living underground full time for one major reason: heat. It will be murderous. My dwarves are still miners, stoneworkers, and metalworkers, and still spend a great deal of time underground, but they do not live there. The same applies to my drow. This makes food much easier for dwarves to obtain.