Clan daggers and the Remaster

[RazarTuk]

The short version of this is just that I think clan daggers should be made optional for dwarves, as opposed to something you get by default. The longer version goes into topics like the history of fantasy's racism problem and how dwarves are connected to antisemitic stereotypes.

Long story short, a lot of fantasy TTRPGs have an issue where they tend to assume non-humans come from a mono-culture, and as a result, they give a lot of cultural traits that only make sense if you assume they call came from that same culture. A really easy example of this would be all the X Weapon Familiarity traits in 1e, like how all elves are apparently trained in the longsword. My general rule of thumb for how well a system handles this is something I like to call the Buddy the Elf Test. Essentially, give a character Buddy the Elf's backstory, where they weren't just adopted, but don't even realize they were adopted. For example, maybe a dwarf was adopted by some halflings and grew up thinking they were just big-boned or a dire halfling. Do your racial/ancestral abilities still make sense?

Ideally, the answer should be "Yes". Though in practice, it tends to be closer to "They would, were it not for languages". But for dwarves, they also don't make sense because of clan daggers. For example, your mother could have crawled into the wilderness and died during childbirth, with you only even surviving because you were adopted by those halflings. But because you're a dwarf, by Torag, you still have a clan dagger.

Already, that feels like a good enough reason to make them optional. Even if you want to still give dwarves the option of getting a free clan dagger, no other ancestry gives any sort of cultural artifact by default, so it stands out as weird. But I actually have a second test that really drives some of this home, simply called the Dwarf Test. This isn't quite asking whether dwarves pass the Buddy the Elf Test or not. Rather, it's looking at how they fare relative to other ancestries. So for example, if the baseline in a system is ancestries only failing because of languages, do dwarves fail in any ways that aren't languages? Not only does PF 2e fail that test, but clan daggers are also the only example in any ancestry published for PF 2e thus far of an ancestry failing the Buddy the Elf Test in a way that isn't languages. But to explain why that's even something I'm looking at, we need to go all the way back to Tolkien.

Tolkien's dwarves are Jewish. This is not debated, the man even drew the comparison himself. Granted, he only focused on more neutral traits, like being a people in exile or basing Khuzdûl grammar on Hebrew grammar. But through some combination of purposeful decisions, unquestioned cultural biases, and unfortunate coincidence (see also, the pre-1909 Commonwealth Star in Gringotts not helping Rowling's case), some more antisemitic elements like greed also worked their way in. And, well, it's those same traits that were the most easily borrowed into other settings. So not only do dwarves have an unusually difficult time passing the Buddy the Elf Test, but they even frequently fail because of antisemitic stereotypes like Greed, Hatred, and Xenophobia in PF 1e. (There are even still traces of it in PF 2e's dwarf feat, Vengeful Hatred)

So while I still applaud PF 2e for at least removing any antisemitism from core dwarf features, clan daggers still stand out as the only example of an ancestry getting any cultural traits by default that aren't ancestral languages. (Which, tangent, I also think it's iffy that Avistani ancestries get their local Common, while Mwangi ancestries specifically learn Mwangi, not, say, Taldane or Tien. But I digress. That's not what this post's supposed to be about)

[breithauptclan]

OK. This post went off the rails really fast. Bait in disguise is still bait.

To answer the only relevant question I could find in it - there already exists a feat, Clan Pistol that changes how the ancestry feature works. And if you want to homebrew your own, you can certainly do so.

The rest of that mess, I'm not touching.

[Ascalaphus]

Aren't you making a sky citadel out of a molehill here? If you want to play a dwarf without a clan dagger because it fits your backstory, then just... do that.

[aobst128]

I don't think this is likely to be addressed. No GM will stop you from simply not adding the knife to your inventory if you so choose.

[WatersLethe]

You don't have to start with a clan dagger if you don't want to. It's not factored into the ancestry's budget.

[Ordrik Sunsold]

*Looks down at the empty place at his hip where a clan dagger would normally rest*

*Looks up*

"I serve the Cleansing Light. I have no need of clan. Is this a problem?"

[KunninlyBrutal]

Ay I mean, if yew don't want da extra nife, da ladz and I will gladly tayk it off ya handz.

[Helmic]

Responding to a criticism of how culture is portrayed in 2e with mechanical advice like "just don't take the clan dagger" is completely missing the point. They're clearly not a player who simply doesn't want a free knife.

Tolkien freely admitted he based his dwarves on (his assumptions about) Jews, so it's a bit like how orcs carry a lot of baggage from Tolkien's (also freely admitted) anti-Asian racism. It's more complicated than the situation with orcs as there's a massive shift in how he portrayed dwarves between writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, 'cause WWII happened and a lot of the passive antisemitism he absorbed as a very British dude was put into a horrific context. He did actually get a lot better in his lifetime and of course he famously told a Nazi publisher to f#%~ off.

So with that context, having a cultural practice that all dwarves do regardless of heritage can be seen as questionable, especially when the specifically Jewish-coded ancestry is the one sticking out with this ancestry-wide practice. Not every criticism about these sorts of things has to be "a sky citadel" to be worth at least talking honestly about, OP is not accusing Paizo of being antisemites and reacting to a fairly tame criticism with this kind of defensiveness is more embarassing for the community than just accepting that untangling TTRPG's from a problematic past is tricky. It's the sort of thing Paizo already prides itself on trying to do, so it's completely unnecessary to try to derail it by calling it bait and responding in bad faith.

[shroudb]

Helmic wrote:

Responding to a criticism of how culture is portrayed in 2e with mechanical advice like "just don't take the clan dagger" is completely missing the point. They're clearly not a player who simply doesn't want a free knife.

Tolkien freely admitted he based his dwarves on (his assumptions about) Jews, so it's a bit like how orcs carry a lot of baggage from Tolkien's (also freely admitted) anti-Asian racism. It's more complicated than the situation with orcs as there's a massive shift in how he portrayed dwarves between writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, 'cause WWII happened and a lot of the passive antisemitism he absorbed as a very British dude was put into a horrific context. He did actually get a lot better in his lifetime and of course he famously told a Nazi publisher to f~*@ off.

So with that context, having a cultural practice that all dwarves do regardless of heritage can be seen as questionable, especially when the specifically Jewish-coded ancestry is the one sticking out with this ancestry-wide practice. Not every criticism about these sorts of things has to be "a sky citadel" to be worth at least talking honestly about, OP is not accusing Paizo of being antisemites and reacting to a fairly tame criticism with this kind of defensiveness is more embarassing for the community than just accepting that untangling TTRPG's from a problematic past is tricky. It's the sort of thing Paizo already prides itself on trying to do, so it's completely unnecessary to try to derail it by calling it bait and responding in bad faith.

On the other hand, completely abolishing some ancestral traditions only help make an ancestry less of a "living"thing and more of a" numbers on a stick" thing.

There's a massive difference between a tradition rooted in some negative aspect of real world society (like antisemitism) and a tradition not based on such stuff but created instead to flesh out an imaginary world.

Regardless of old origins of dwarf mythology from Tolkien, pf2 dwarves have already abolished such roots and instead have been made their own thing.

If such beings have a nonoffensive tradition, I see its complete removal as strictly a bad thing from world building perspective.

Especially now with Core 1 switching away from alignment, we've been told that ancestries would have examples of common edicts/anathema for us to help shape our characters.

So if in core 1 we see, as we've been told for all ancestries, that "X ancestry usually likes that and dislikes this", assuming that "this and that" are not inherently offensive, would that be offensive?

[Claxon]

I would support an optional rule (that admittedly would be very complicated to write) that allowed you to trade "culture based" ancestry stuff for other ancestry's culture (kind of like Adopted but with access beyond just feats). But I still support clan daggers (for example) being a default thing dwarves get. By and large, 90%+ Dwarves should have one. Will you have Dwarves raised by non-Dwarves? Sure. Will you have Dwarves that forgo their clan ties because of personal reasons? Absolutely. We should support those kinds of stories, but I don't want them to be the default.

Largely, the problem as I see it is that humans get many different cultures baked in while other ancestries are generally presented as a single culture. Why is this done?

Well, it'd be frowned upon if only one human culture existed and would be panned as exclusive. And if you represent other cultures with other ancestries, you would also be derided. So for the sake of inclusiveness, it's honestly practically required to multiple human cultures represented. And I generally think it's a good thing. However we need to get more cultures and variation represented in other ancestries too. Why doesn't that happen? Well because people want and Paizo wants to publish many different fantastic ancestry. Many of which end up shallow and underdeveloped compared to humans.

[aobst128]

Yeah, the clan dagger is benign.

[breithauptclan]

Helmic wrote:

They're clearly not a player who simply doesn't want a free knife.

No, they most certainly are not.

They are either a troll that wants to start a fight on the internet for the lols, or they are someone who is going to accidentally start a fight on the internet with the best of intentions by bringing up some very emotionally charged topics. Either way, it isn't a conversation that I feel like getting into and it most likely violates the community guidelines of these forums.

[Easl]

Helmic wrote:

Responding to a criticism of how culture is portrayed in 2e with mechanical advice like "just don't take the clan dagger" is completely missing the point. They're clearly not a player who simply doesn't want a free knife.

Tolkien...

In RL, clan/family/symbolic daggers are often associated with Bedouins, Yemeni, and Sikhs. Some of the hunter-gatherer tribes of Borneo also award kids ceremonial knives as part of their coming of age rite of passage (with feathers dyed pink, because pink is a powerful color. In your face, western culture!). And those are just the groups I know about; I have no idea how many other RL cultures I'm ignorant of that do the same thing.

IOW, clan daggers are not a 'Jewish' thing and whatever racism Tolkein may have written into his stories in the 1930s, this aspect of Pathfinder Dwarvish culture has nothing to do with it.

I get your broader complaint about fantasy games being human-centric in that other races are often given monocultures. But if you want to address that here, consider diversifying clan dagger types, rituals, symbolism, ornamentation etc by different dwarvish groups. That would actually be *closer to* the sort of human cultural diversity we see in real life than merely abolishing them from the game. Power to the pink feather clan! Though if you wanted to give it a dwarvish flavor, maybe their clans distinguish themselves in having 1% nickle and 2% carbon in their steel vs. 2% nickle and 1% carbon...after all, why would *dwarves* draw the same distinctions humans think are important?

(And yes, optional is also fine. Not sure why the RAW has to be changed to accomplish that...)

[Ravingdork]

This whole comparison/association with real historical stuff strikes me as rather unnecessary. Paizo's dwarves of today have no tangible connection with Tolkien dwarves. What's more, they're an incredibly diverse lot, full of varied and unique culture and tradition, as evidenced by Highhelm, The Mwangi Expanse, and the Ancestry Guide.

So you think clan daggers should not be granted through one's ancestry. That's fine, makes sense to me. I wholehaertedly agree with the logic that many GMs and players running homebrew campaign settings probably wouldn't want such cultural aspects thrust upon their stories.

Still, I am left to wonder how you might implement them in other ways for characters who should have them, or how you might go about replacing them for characters who shouldn't have them.

In any case, the argument can be made quite easily without all that other contentious baggage and I would strongly encourage you to leave it at the door.

[Sanityfaerie]

So... to broaden it out to the "but what's up with (ancestry X) being a monoculture?" question... well, what numbers are we dealing with here? Like, seriously, what is the population fo dwarves on Golarion. Is it somehow unreasonable that they woudl be a monoculture?

For that matter, they've got an enormous amount of shared history. They all started out worshipers of the same pantheon down in the darklands. They all were involved in the Quest for Sky. There's a lot fo historical commonality here, especially when you count in the fact that, again, they all have the same gods. Even beyond that, these are Golarion gods, who are capable of actually holding opinions on things and communicating those opinions in direct ways that are reasonably easy to both comprehend and verify.

So all it really takes for all of the dwarves everywhere to have the same base tradition is for that to have been traditional when they were down in the depths of the earth, and still stuck with them.

Should they not be permitted to have a culture?

[breithauptclan]

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Should they not be permitted to have a culture?

And shouldn't it be a culture of their own rather than one copied from classical literature of any variety?

And it certainly shouldn't be held to be the same culture as any real culture on this planet that has or currently does exist. That is what a fantasy ancestry is for.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

breithauptclan wrote:

And it certainly shouldn't be held to be the same culture as any real culture on this planet that has or currently does exist. That is what a fantasy ancestry is for.

But they are treated as an IRL culture, though, so acting like it isn't doesn't really help matters any when this effectively serves as their IRL representation.

[Easl]

Sanityfaerie wrote:

So all it really takes for all of the dwarves everywhere to have the same base tradition is for that to have been traditional when they were down in the depths of the earth, and still stuck with them.

I blame the flattening of dwarvish diversity on their spell phones. And intermountainnet. ;)

Seriously, I can see how different campaigns could go different ways with this. Some emphasizing one people, some emphasizing multiple peoples. Seems like a great 'let a thousand campaigns bloom' situation. What I don't get - getting back to the OP - is why the rules would need to be changed to accomplish this. They already do.

[PossibleCabbage]

Like Dwarves are the fantasy people who:
- Actually share a common history as a people, even for Dwarves living on different continents.
- Are generally deeply committed to preserving their own cultural traditions.

So it's very easy to figure "the Clan Dagger thing started before the quest for the sky, when Dwarven civilization was less spread out, and this tradition carried on through the ages."

[Claxon]

Sanityfaerie wrote:

So... to broaden it out to the "but what's up with (ancestry X) being a monoculture?" question... well, what numbers are we dealing with here? Like, seriously, what is the population fo dwarves on Golarion. Is it somehow unreasonable that they woudl be a monoculture?

For that matter, they've got an enormous amount of shared history. They all started out worshipers of the same pantheon down in the darklands. They all were involved in the Quest for Sky. There's a lot fo historical commonality here, especially when you count in the fact that, again, they all have the same gods. Even beyond that, these are Golarion gods, who are capable of actually holding opinions on things and communicating those opinions in direct ways that are reasonably easy to both comprehend and verify.

So all it really takes for all of the dwarves everywhere to have the same base tradition is for that to have been traditional when they were down in the depths of the earth, and still stuck with them.

Should they not be permitted to have a culture?

I don't think you're arguing in bad faith, but I do think your logic here is misguided. There will always be regional variations of culture once you reach a big enough size. And how "large" those variations are (if one could quantify it) will probably depend on not just geographical drift but other influences. Knowing that dwarves don't just exist in one place, it seems obvious to say that there should be cultural differences between dwarves that live underground, in the mountain, and on the surface with other races. And even among those that live in the mountains I would expect variation because there are citadels outside the 5 mountain regions. I would expect some similarities, but also some considerable differences too.

And Paizo had written that to an extent, but most of what can be easily found online is shallow descriptions with only very high level differences noted and no explanation that Ouat dwarves probably don't value clan daggers as part of their culture and don't have a connection to traditional dwarven gods because they focus on inner perfection. A very different kind of culture from dwarves of the 5 mountains.

[Claxon]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Like Dwarves are the fantasy people who:

- Actually share a common history as a people, even for Dwarves living on different continents.
- Are generally deeply committed to preserving their own cultural traditions.

So it's very easy to figure "the Clan Dagger thing started before the quest for the sky, when Dwarven civilization was less spread out, and this tradition carried on through the ages."

I mean, maybe that's true for a lot (90%+) of dwarves but there are at least some (the Ouat for example) who probably don't agree with that even though it's not explicitly stated.

I understand why more details haven't been written about some of these splinter groups. But I think it would be nice if the rules supported representing these kinds of characters better without simply ignoring a thing written into the character that is a piece (even a very small piece) of their power budget.

[3-Body Problem]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Like Dwarves are the fantasy people who:

- Actually share a common history as a people, even for Dwarves living on different continents.
- Are generally deeply committed to preserving their own cultural traditions.

So it's very easy to figure "the Clan Dagger thing started before the quest for the sky, when Dwarven civilization was less spread out, and this tradition carried on through the ages."

So are conservative Muslims and they have multiple distinct sects that cannot stand one another. These conservative, we must stick to the old ways, cultures tend to be the ones that fracture the most easily over small but significant changes.

[Sanityfaerie]

Claxon wrote:

I don't think you're arguing in bad faith, but I do think your logic here is misguided. There will always be regional variations of culture once you reach a big enough size. And how "large" those variations are (if one could quantify it) will probably depend on not just geographical drift but other influences. Knowing that dwarves don't just exist in one place, it seems obvious to say that there should be cultural differences between dwarves that live underground, in the mountain, and on the surface with other races. And even among those that live in the mountains I would expect variation because there are citadels outside the 5 mountain regions. I would expect some similarities, but also some considerable differences too.

And Paizo had written that to an extent, but most of what can be easily found online is shallow descriptions with only very high level differences noted and no explanation that Ouat dwarves probably don't...

Well, sure there are local differences. Look at Dongan Hold. Then, too, the followers of Droskar could very easily be seen as a "local difference" of that variety. There are subcultures, and at least some of them are accounted for

At the same time, if something is true about 90% of the peopel who might be part of an ancestry, then I think it's reasonable to have that be true by default for people who are members of that ancestry. For the dwarves of Ouat...? Okay, according to the wiki, there are about 15 of them. That's... just not enough dwarves to move the needle.

3-Body Problem wrote:

So are conservative Muslims and they have multiple distinct sects that cannot stand one another. These conservative, we must stick to the old ways, cultures tend to be the ones that fracture the most easily over small but significant changes.

That's as may be. I'd suspect that you'd see less of that with a knowable, perceivable set of deities actually expressing opinions and acting on the world in obvious ways, but I could see the argument that that's not enough justification and to be truly representative we need some sort of ugly schism with a lot of bad blood on both sides.

I think the duergar have you covered on that one.

[3-Body Problem]

Sanityfaerie wrote:

That's as may be. I'd suspect that you'd see less of that with a knowable, perceivable set of deities actually expressing opinions and acting on the world in obvious ways,

The lore does not seem to see things that way as these knowable deities still have religions that develop sects based on which of the deity's traits most deeply resonate with them.

Quote:

but I could see the argument that that's not enough justification and to be truly representative we need some sort of ugly schism with a lot of bad blood on both sides.

I think the duergar have you covered on that one.

I don't think that's nearly enough. We should see something more like the Catholic-Protestant split with all the splinter denominations on each side and each Hold having a different mix of beliefs that have all slightly drifted from some ancient mean over the generations. Even with magic and deities that can interact with a small number of chosen mortals communication in Golarion is hard and cultural drift is nigh impossible to prevent.

Golarion Dwarves should probably be closer to how the Aiel are in Wheel of Time with each group believing they hold closest to the true beliefs of the old ways.

[Sanityfaerie]

3-Body Problem wrote:

I don't think that's nearly enough. We should see something more like the Catholic-Protestant split with all the splinter denominations on each side and each Hold having a different mix of beliefs that have all slightly drifted from some ancient mean over the generations. Even with magic and deities that can interact with a small number of chosen mortals communication in Golarion is hard and cultural drift is nigh impossible to prevent.

Golarion Dwarves should probably be closer to how the Aiel are in Wheel of Time with each group believing they hold closest to the true beliefs of the old ways.

Okay. So you're not satisfied. You want staunch traditionalists to be inherently more schismed and at odds with one another. Golarion isn't grinding your particular axe hard enough for your liking, or making your particular political points with as much enthusiasm as you'd prefer. You have a view of the way the world works, and Paizo isn't promulgating it.

Noted.

...and I find that I simply do not care.

[3-Body Problem]

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Okay. So you're not satisfied. You want staunch traditionalists to be inherently more schismed and at odds with one another. Golarion isn't grinding your particular axe hard enough for your liking, or making your particular political points with as much enthusiasm as you'd prefer. You have a view of the way the world works, and Paizo isn't promulgating it.

Noted.

...and I find that I simply do not care.

I want greater realism and detail for every non-Human species on Golarion so they aren't one-note monocultures.

[Unicore]

The time scale of Golarion makes the spreading out of cultures a little more complicated than earth. There are several thousand more years of recorded history, so "how far does a cultural tradition spread?" has to be constrained by magical and supernatural restrictions that break with any attempt to fit around earth scales for time, distance and direct, observable inter-dimensional intervention.

So on that level, an ancestry that spans the globe having a common cultural device is not really as indicative of that ancestry being treated as a monoculture, as it is an opportunity to show how different dwarven cultures have adapted the very ancient practice.

At the same time, for the clan dagger to be a ancestry feature, not connected to heritage, can be confusing for dwarves not raised within dwarven cultures. I don't think it makes sense to make it a "bonus add on feature" though, because then you will have most players trying to figure out a way to trade away that feature for something else, since a clan dagger is not inherently that great of an option for most characters. Having an item that is 90% story, with minimal mechanical benefit be opt in at the cost of feats will essentially mean that most dwarven adventurers suddenly don't follow the traditions of dwarven cultures. For that reason, it really does need to be a situation where "Dwarves are given this blade at birth by other dwarves, even across continents and millennia of diaspora" needs to just be a default thing that any player can just choose not to be a part of their character's backstory.

Maybe just changing the language around the clan dagger and having it be an item that can't really be bought, except dwarven characters can choose to have one for free as long as it doesn't conflict with their back story?

But I mean, even a dwarf who's mother died in the wilderness, during childbirth, and was raised by some kind of nomadic creatures could very easily have found their mother's blade upon some return to the location of her death, and the idea that important metals call to dwarves across time and distance feels pretty fitting for an ancestral ability and not a cultural one. With Metal now being a true element as well, it is really not in anyway a greed thing for dwarves to have another elemental affinity than earth/stone.

[MMCJawa]

My two cents:

I've recently just about finished the High Helm book, and with the caveat I am not Jewish, I don't really see anything that particularly looks like it was drawn from that real world culture or fills in those stereotypes. If anything, Dwarves are portrayed within that book are the opposite of greedy, certainly less so than humans.

Paizo 2E has done a pretty good job of adding cultural diversity to there different ancestries, especially with elves and dwarves. Of all the settings I have come across, it probably has the least amount of monoculture for those ancestries. Although to be honest, they are probably an ancestry that sort of makes sense to have a lot of cultural similarities with other groups. They all share a relatively recent origin, they take there traditions seriously, their seems to be a lot of contact between different groups, and of course they have long lives. If you assume stuff like the clan daggers was present in the pre-quest for sky population, than it makes sense it might be retained.

I am also not a Tolkien scholar, but I will point out the "greedy dwarf" aspect is something Tolkien more likely (IMHO) pulled from Norse mythology, especially with the story of Regin and Fafnir, but other dwarves share these traits. It's also where the crafting and subterranean tendencies come from.

[Easl]

Claxon wrote:

There will always be regional variations of culture once you reach a big enough size.

In humans, in history. These are dwarves, in a fantasy world. It's absolutely within a table's power to decide some race (even humans!) did maintain a monoculture across continents and thousands of years. If that's the background your table wants to play in. If your table prefers lots of different cultures, they can do that instead. Is aeon-spanning, globe-spanning monoculture something we think humans realistically could do? No. But we can't throw fireballs at dragons either.

Quote:

And Paizo had written that {some variability} to an extent, but most of what can be easily found online is shallow descriptions with only very high level differences noted

Good. I'd much rather they spend their creative blood sweat and tears crafting APs, classes, spells, feats, monsters, etc. than detailing dwarvish history down to the granularity of what each clan wears and doesn't wear. Both because the former is more generally appreciated by their customer base (IMO), and because while I like to have a 'good enough' setting information, I don't want so much that it becomes overly constraining. It's totally cool if you want Aliceclan to wear gold curved daggers while Bobclan eschews them altogether and instead wears dagger-shaped pendants, but I really don't need Paizo to go to the level of detail of telling me that must be true in my world too.

[PossibleCabbage]

TBH I always read Dwarves as more Nordic or Celtic than Jewish.

Like Tolkien's dwarves were straight up lifted from the eddas.

[magnuskn]

Also very Scottish. ^^

[Charlie Brooks]

Thematically, I like clan daggers. Mechanically, they aren't worth a feat, so adding it to the ancestry works for me. If a player doesn't want theirs, they can either ditch it or start with some extra silver, in my opinion.

[PossibleCabbage]

Like "do you still have your clan dagger?" is essentially isomophic to "do you reject traditional dwarven culture?"

[Claxon]

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Claxon wrote:

I don't think you're arguing in bad faith, but I do think your logic here is misguided. There will always be regional variations of culture once you reach a big enough size. And how "large" those variations are (if one could quantify it) will probably depend on not just geographical drift but other influences. Knowing that dwarves don't just exist in one place, it seems obvious to say that there should be cultural differences between dwarves that live underground, in the mountain, and on the surface with other races. And even among those that live in the mountains I would expect variation because there are citadels outside the 5 mountain regions. I would expect some similarities, but also some considerable differences too.

And Paizo had written that to an extent, but most of what can be easily found online is shallow descriptions with only very high level differences noted and no explanation that Ouat dwarves probably don't...

Well, sure there are local differences. Look at Dongan Hold. Then, too, the followers of Droskar could very easily be seen as a "local difference" of that variety. There are subcultures, and at least some of them are accounted for

At the same time, if something is true about 90% of the peopel who might be part of an ancestry, then I think it's reasonable to have that be true by default for people who are members of that ancestry. For the dwarves of Ouat...? Okay, according to the wiki, there are about 15 of them. That's... just not enough dwarves to move the needle.

I agree with you that it's okay for it to be the default to have the clan dagger. I'd just like to see an option to replace it.

[Sanityfaerie]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Like "do you still have your clan dagger?" is essentially isomophic to "do you reject traditional dwarven culture?"

Or, alternately, "Do you utterly reject your own clan?"

Basically, a dwarf who's walking around without a clan dagger... that's something with a story behind it. Stories are good.

[Claxon]

Easl wrote:

Claxon wrote:

There will always be regional variations of culture once you reach a big enough size.

In humans, in history. These are dwarves, in a fantasy world. It's absolutely within a table's power to decide some race (even humans!) did maintain a monoculture across continents and thousands of years. If that's the background your table wants to play in. If your table prefers lots of different cultures, they can do that instead. Is aeon-spanning, globe-spanning monoculture something we think humans realistically could do? No. But we can't throw fireballs at dragons either.

Quote:

And Paizo had written that {some variability} to an extent, but most of what can be easily found online is shallow descriptions with only very high level differences noted

Good. I'd much rather they spend their creative blood sweat and tears crafting APs, classes, spells, feats, monsters, etc. than detailing dwarvish history down to the granularity of what each clan wears and doesn't wear. Both because the former is more generally appreciated by their customer base (IMO), and because while I like to have a 'good enough' setting information, I don't want so much that it becomes overly constraining. It's totally cool if you want Aliceclan to wear gold curved daggers while Bobclan eschews them altogether and instead wears dagger-shaped pendants, but I really don't need Paizo to go to the level of detail of telling me that must be true in my world too.

The problem with your statement is that they already do this kind of thing with Humans. But pretty much only with Humans. And that's why it's a problem.

Does it really bother me? No. Would it be nice to see more detail and defined culture differences with mechanical options to support it? Yes. Will I boycott things or change anything about the way I interact with Pathfinder or Paizo because of this? Absolutely not.

While I find the lack of detail somewhat annoying and unrealistic, it doesn't bother me enough to do more than say "Hey, it'd be nice if you did this".

[Squiggit]

I wonder if to some extent the Ancestry system in PF2 might have been a bit of a mistake. It ends up putting a lot of cultural and racialized things at the front and center of the PF2 experience when a lot of other games are explicitly trending away from that.

In many ways it seems kind of antithetical to Paizo's attempts to otherwise cultivate an image for itself as a very Progressive company.

Ultimately I personally don't think it's that big of a deal, but it's interesting how contrary it is to other currents we're seeing and how some segments of the community react to it.

[PossibleCabbage]

Sanityfaerie wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Like "do you still have your clan dagger?" is essentially isomophic to "do you reject traditional dwarven culture?"

Or, alternately, "Do you utterly reject your own clan?"

Basically, a dwarf who's walking around without a clan dagger... that's something with a story behind it. Stories are good.

It's not even like "you own a knife" is something that has a lot of baggage behind it. That the "clan emblem" is something as functional and pragmatic as "a knife" does tell you something very about dwarven aesthetic sensibilities.

Like everybody is going to need to cut something from time to time, like a carrot or a thread.

[Easl]

Claxon wrote:

I agree with you that it's okay for it to be the default to have the clan dagger. I'd just like to see an option to replace it.

But the rules already support that option! Straight from the rulebook, p35, my bold:

"While the distance between their mountain Sky Citadels can create vast cultural divides between various dwarf clans, most dwarven societies share a number of similarities. Nearly all dwarven peoples share a passion for stonework, metalwork, and gem-cutting. Most are highly skilled at architecture and mining, and many share a hatred of giants, orcs, and goblinoids. Few dwarves are seen without their clan dagger strapped to their belt. This dagger is forged just before a dwarf’s birth and bears the gemstone of their clan. A parent uses this dagger to cut the infant’s umbilical cord, making it the first weapon to taste their blood..."

**

Vast divides exist. Most societies /= all societies. Nearly all peoples /= all. Few /= none.

Paizo has put all sorts of squishy language in the description to allow GMs and gaming groups to create entire dwarven societies that don't fit the exact mould described. Dwarves as written (the DAW, lol) don't all have clan daggers. The option you wish for is right there, already in the text.

Maybe 1E was more restrictive? Or you play with a very 'all dwarves must be the same' GM? Whatever the origin of this notion that 'no option to go without one (either as an odd dwarf or a normal dwarf from a group that doesn't have them) exists', it is not per the rules.

[3-Body Problem]

Easl wrote:

"While the distance between their mountain Sky Citadels can create vast cultural divides between various dwarf clans, most dwarven societies share a number of similarities. Nearly all dwarven peoples share a passion for stonework, metalwork, and gem-cutting. Most are highly skilled at architecture and mining, and many share a hatred of giants, orcs, and goblinoids. Few dwarves are seen without their clan dagger strapped to their belt. This dagger is forged just before a dwarf’s birth and bears the gemstone of their clan. A parent uses this dagger to cut the infant’s umbilical cord, making it the first weapon to taste their blood...

Ah yes, the totally vast cultural differences that Paizo hasn't ever fleshed out while pushing the typical Dwarf traits that every other RPG also uses to the forefront. Excuse me if I'm unwilling to applaud them for this "amazing" lore and diverse representation of an entire species.

[Claxon]

Easl wrote:

Claxon wrote:

I agree with you that it's okay for it to be the default to have the clan dagger. I'd just like to see an option to replace it.

But the rules already support that option! Straight from the rulebook, p35, my bold:

"While the distance between their mountain Sky Citadels can create vast cultural divides between various dwarf clans, most dwarven societies share a number of similarities. Nearly all dwarven peoples share a passion for stonework, metalwork, and gem-cutting. Most are highly skilled at architecture and mining, and many share a hatred of giants, orcs, and goblinoids. Few dwarves are seen without their clan dagger strapped to their belt. This dagger is forged just before a dwarf’s birth and bears the gemstone of their clan. A parent uses this dagger to cut the infant’s umbilical cord, making it the first weapon to taste their blood..."

**

Vast divides exist. Most societies /= all societies. Nearly all peoples /= all. Few /= none.

Paizo has put all sorts of squishy language in the description to allow GMs and gaming groups to create entire dwarven societies that don't fit the exact mould described. Dwarves as written (the DAW, lol) don't all have clan daggers. The option you wish for is right there, already in the text.

Maybe 1E was more restrictive? Or you play with a very 'all dwarves must be the same' GM? Whatever the origin of this notion that 'no option to go without one (either as an odd dwarf or a normal dwarf from a group that doesn't have them) exists', it is not per the rules.

The complaint is that the mechanics don't fit the lore, or rather than the answer shouldn't be just ignoring certain parts of the mechanics.

Like yeah, you can houserule that the clan dagger is another item.

But what if you character doesn't come from Dwarves that have a clan structure at all? And what if you wanted to have some other small thing instead. Substituting one item for another might be straight forward, but substituting that clan dagger for say a bonus like Catfolk get for reduced falling damage and not landing prone. Are those equal? Never mind justifying how a dwarf would get it, it's part of the base Catfolk race.

Having some additional rules or options for things like that would be nice is all that's really being said.

[Lurker in Insomnia]

It really does seem that the RAW and ROI answer to "I don't want to care about clan daggers" is to not care about clan daggers.

All it means is that your particular dwarf is outside of traditional clan structures or traditions, but also with no clan responsibilities or expectations. Just a dwarf from a family that thinks of itself Kintargan or something. Maybe your grandparents still have their clan daggers, but maybe even some of them don't wear them except on formal occasions.

Edit: A clan dagger is two gold pieces. That is it. Give a non clan daggery dwarf an extra two gold and call it a day.

[Temperans]

Tried to think about this subject for a bit and here is my take.

The idea that you species (ancestry) has a general thing they are good at is good. The idea that subspecies can be better at different things than the "generic" version is good. The idea that with training and culture you can further develop more abilities is good.

So what's not good? Well being forced to get an item regardless of your actual culture or biology; Not having different cultures represented; Not having different regions represented; Not having the different subtypes properly represented; Not getting enough mechanical differentiation at level 1; Etc.

As far as dwarf are concerned, the whole clan dagger thing began with Pathfinder 2e. Before that no dwarf inherited a dagger unless they had the heritage weapon trait. The ability to inherit a weapon should had been a generic level 1 ancestry feat that gave you the weapon and made it scale with your class' weapon proficiency. Is it better than Racial Weapon proficiency? Depends on the character. Is it broken? Not really. Does it make advanced weapons too strong? The whole way of balancing them is wrong in the first place: Simple, Martial, and Advanced should had been differentiated by Common, Uncommon, and Rare not whatever is currently done.

[Jonathan Morgantini]

This thread touches on real life topics that are too sensitive to be discussed here, and are outside the scope of Paizo. You are more than welcome to play a character of Dwarven ancestry without a clan dagger, if appropriate for the game in which you are playing. This thread is now closed.