Description
A rich bear fur lined cloak covers the frame of this bury and weird dwarf.
His leather and chain armor is obviously of exceptional make and on it there
are various trinkets, pouches and scroll tubes that are hooked in convenient
to reach places. The weird of the whole eclectic lot seem to be several
musical instruments of respectable quality he seems to have on his person.
Within that plethora you almost fail to notice the two light green eyes
looking at you steadily and with a keen gaze. A remarkable fiery-orange hair
of shoulder length and a shade darker, almost garnet colored, beard reaching
all the way to his belt bring back his semblance to what a normal dwarf
would look like. In his hands you notice him fretting with a pair of
necklaces as though with prayer beads, one strung with an extensive
collection of granite beads of various colors, and the other with a
multitude of gemstones differing quality.
Role
FIRE AND STONE
Added Mon Oct 3 17:10:59 2022 at level 1:
When I was a child, the world seemed to be one rich mining shaft. My mother
and father were like strong impregnable doors at each end, while between them
and me was the rest of my whole world. My Clan was always there to give me
safety, instruction and love. The ore veins to take what I need. The forge to
make what I want. The Nankopf growing in abundance to sustain me. Life was
simple. I was told dwarves are Fire and Stone. We had a forge and the
mountain, and that was sufficient.
Then, as I was growing up I found my first geode. No dwarf would blame another
for preferring gems over mithril and gold. If you looked at the rock face
closely, you might even start to see how the water up top, that calmed the
jagged peaks and eroded the steep slopes made by Nordiach's thrashing in his
sleep, found its way between the layers, ever deeper downwards into the
darkness of the mountain below. There, patiently and over long time, the water
would deposit the elements from the surface and would gradually form the
hollow geode lined with gemstone crystals. The offspring of water and stone,
to bring joy to the fire and stone that lived below.
As my mind started to form its own personal quirks and interests, I could see
that dwarves too are like gems. All of them formed by the pressure of
responsibility and choice, by the inner fires that kept them restless and the
outside water that was trying to temper or even drown them. To say that a
blade can't be forged without fire is like mining an empty mine shaft. But to
tell a dwarf that water is equally important is to say something profane. And
I soon discovered that I had a talent for finding and being interested in what
is profane. 'All dwarves are unique like gems,' is a statement against the
sameness of the Clan. To be curious about water is to try to topple the truth
that dwarves are fire in the blood and stone in the bones. To try to see the
outsider as being a different gem created in a strange foreign geode, was to
put a claim that outsiders and dwarves were somehow the same.
The Clan never abandoned me. The Firebeards never exile their own, no matter
how unbearable they might be. Even in their greatest frustration, they would
be considerate enough to call me just 'weird', but they would always reiterate
that in spite my weirdness I was a Firebeard. A Clan of such deep acceptance
of all that is their own, and at the same time a Clan with fierce resistance
towards anything foreign. Dwarves are Fire and Stone. This is why I left my
home.
A DWARVEN BARD (1/2)
Added Tue Oct 11 15:55:01 2022 at level 32:
People keep asking "How did you become a bard?", I keep answering "The same
reasons why anyone else becomes a bard." The answer never seems to satisfy
anyone, so as it keeps being asked, my mind keeps thinking about it.
After I left my home, I wondered from one place to the next, curious for what
people will be like and always doing whatever type of a job I could find to
sustain myself. It turns out that neither the workers, and especially not the
taskmasters, think talking in the workplace for anything other than the task
at hand should be encouraged. So, the only place I could get for people to
talk and to listen was always the small canteen, or the nearby tavern, or an
inn while on the road. Almost all of these places have a bard or a few, and
since I have known about myself, whenever I get deeper in the cups I tend to
sing. Whenever I would join in the singing, the bards would laugh at me and
call me "the next Khelbra". I didn't know what that was, and whenever I asked
they'd just laugh even more. Sometimes I'd just leave it at that, other times
I'd lose my temper. What can I say, not every day is the same.
It took a long while before one wood-elf bard actually told me the story of
this Chjorgh Khelbra. Chjorh Khelbra the Disgraced, a dwarven bard of infamy.
His poetic outbursts are regarded as true visions of horror, and many claim
that it was pure dwarven obstinacy that pushed him through his life and into
the bard guild halls. But outsiders do not understand the heart of fire and
stone. They don't even know that music is a constant part of a dwarf's life.
We sing when we mine, in the forge, during every feast. Granted, it isn't
singing like the surface mud miners think. It is often a droning, chanting,
meditative affair, it is often about toil and war, but even the dwarven ballad
exists. It is the way tenders sing to the slumbering God that created the
mountains. The reason why they haven't surfaced to the wider world isn't
because they don't exist, it is because their beauty and symmethry falls apart
when translated from dwarven, the parables and allegories are lost to anyone
not intimate with the fire and the stone.
I have come to understand that dwarves further south have grown more like the
other races than they'd like to admit. Even they see themselves as priests,
warriors, smiths. Far to the north, a man or a woman is a dwarf. Every dwarf
mines, forges, digs, grows, sings, fights. Even the most skilled at the forge
will bring their hammer to war, and even the fiercest fighters will join the
clan when a new ore vein is to be attacked. To be a dwarf is to be everything
that any dwarf can do, and all dwarves do all of it to varying degrees of
skills, as blessed at their creation by Nordiach.
A DWARVEN BARD (2/2)
Added Tue Oct 11 15:55:50 2022 at level 32:
The southern dwarves still have a part of this notion remaining, and it shows
most strongly in the deeply rooted tradition of what it means to be properly
dwarven. The best I can explain this is to compare us to the other races. The
humans are a collection of chaos. They come in all shapes, colors, forms and
characters imaginable. The elves are much more like us in the sense they
conform to a strict ideal. They are like the trees in a forest. Each alike,
but each of them unique at the same time. By comparison, a dwarf is a part of
a stoneface. Uniqueness exists to the point that it can completely blend with
the cliff and to the outside perspective still allow for the whole thing to
appear as seamless. There are no gaps in a dwarven shield wall. To be a
dwarven bard is to stand out and be apart. It is, to my deep dismay,
ultimately undwarven. I think that it is the difficulty to deal with the
horror of this prospect that makes the Firebeards unable to accept that one of
theirs can be different, they have to be just simply weird.
I don't know if it was the Lord of Luck that brought that elf to cross my
path. I remember it was pouring rain. Tossed out on my ass out of the inn for
having fought to get the answer to what being a Khelbra means, bleeding and
roughed up, the fairy elf just walked up to me, like owning the whole damn
world and right there, in the mud and rain, shared the story. In it I saw a
dwarf in pain. Alone and heartbroken, trying to cry out his pain to a world
that would not listen. To my surprise the elf thought so too. He even said he
had met the fellow. I was inclined not to believe, but who knows, fairies do
seem to live forever, and in that dark rain, he could have been a hundred, or
twelve hundred years old. I don't know if he truly saw anything in me, or he
was just having a good time with it, but he did write a letter of
recommendation, and that elven signature of his made the guildmasters shut
their mouths, admit me into the guild, and even show some small bit of
respect.
So, again the question: How, why have I become a bard?
For the same reason any dwarf would. Ckhjorg Khelbra was one of us. If the
world won't listen to me, like they didn't listen to him, another dwarf will
come and eventually they will all hear about the hearts of fire and stone.
THE BEAUTIFUL GODDESS
Added Tue Oct 11 15:57:18 2022 at level 32:
I don't like the elves. I mean, I like elves, some of them are very dear to
me, but I don't like THE elves. We have all grown up on the stories of elves
making deals with dwarves and then reneging on the deal. "Yer can'nae trust ah
fairy!" And I feel it in them too, the subdued enmity, as I walk through their
cities and woods. Still, I would go. Even to the places where they live, as I
am curious how it came to be that at this point it is a historical trope that
elven maidens fall in love with dwarven Thanes. Well, I am also curious how
dwarven Thanes could fall for a beardless fairy. I am not sure it is always
witchery as our kin would claim.
The greatest surprise to me have been the caverns of Evermoon. Who would have
thought that the tree-hugging fairies would actually choose to live in caves.
Especially in ones so beautiful that any dwarf would love to call them home. I
spent a whole day walking through those halls. I ignored the glares from the
guards and just took in that beauty. Nordiach must have had a pleasant dream
when he created them.
For all the beauty of the day, I found sleeping in Evermoon to be impossible. I
could hear the rushing of water somewhere deep in the cavern and just couldn't
bring myself to sleep. Fucking water. It is the most terrifying sound for a
dwarf. It brings death, and not just in the simple form of drowning. Wet
pyerite ore has been the death of many dwarves. Well, heated cinnabar ore too,
but strangely we aren't as afraid of that. As I lay there waiting for the
fumes to suffocate me, I will never admit it, but for the first time in my
life I felt the urge to leave the caverns and seek open air.
Aimless wondering can take you to the strangest of places. A deep part of the
river. A darkness that beckons. I have felt that darkness before. The sheer
drop of a deep vertical shaft. An out of control galloping cart headed your
way. If you but chose not to move, or just make the slightest of movement and
there it is, Death. This time, in that darkness are these two most beautiful
emeralds. The sparkling eyes of a Goddess, singing. And if anything, seeing
those eyes, hearing that song, makes a dwarf glad to be alive. Maybe even as
much as ale, gems and gold.
A GOOD EPILOGUE (1/2)
Added Sun Nov 20 20:54:56 2022 at level 49:
Quivdereayeh says to you 'What now for you, then?'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Ah'm told by ah healer an' ah researcher dat ah be..
normal. Whatever dat means.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Ta be honest, ah've always thought ah'm ah wee bit
weird.'
Quivdereayeh says to you 'I'm glad you were able to find a more... sustainable
weird?'
Quivdereayeh says to you 'Tell me though, what happened?'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Ya ever wondered where all dat knowledge folk be
puttin' on pages be existin'?'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Maybe even where all dem ideas be comin' from?'
Quivdereayeh says 'I mean, sure.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Do concepts an' first truths actually exist at all?'
Quivdereayeh says 'I like to think they are... or do you mean exist
physically?'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Well dem do. An' dem exist in ah plane o' knowledge.
Some call it da plane o' pages.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Physically.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'An' so do stories within' dat place.'
Quivdereayeh says 'That is... fascinating. And a taleteller like yourself, it
has to be thrilling to know.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'We have ah sayin' dat ah story be comin' ter life
when ah skilled storyteller telss 'em.'
Quivdereayeh says to you 'What you make lives on.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Oh aye, thrillin' an' terrifyin'.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Da terrifyin' part be dat some stories seem ter be
able ter tell themselves.. or ter unfold.. ah ain't sure.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Da Trickster be ah being from dat place.'
Quivdereayeh says to you 'Ah. I thought he was an old god, awoken and perhaps
finding his way here from that lamppost.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Who knows, maybe she be ah God.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Imagined, er real. Hardly makes ah difference at
times, aye?'
Quivdereayeh says to you 'Aye. Makes no difference at all.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Within dat plane, der be pages o' love, an' pages o'
anger.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Ah word written in anger, can truly cut yer der.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'An' all o' it epxands into infinity. Blank pages,
brimmin' with potential. An' der ain't nothin' as scary as ah blank page fer
ah poet.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'So aye, inspirin' an' terryfin' at da same time.'
Quivdereayeh whispers 'You truly are a poet, friend.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Har! Yer should hear da old feller talk.'
Quivdereayeh says 'Inspiring and terrifying, indeed.'
Quivdereayeh says 'I believe it.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Dem ain't rememberin' what dem went through.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Ah'm grateful fer dat.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Another conundrum fer ah storyteller. Do yer tell 'em
or not?'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Or ye just tell da story, but say it happened ter
someone else, elsewhere.'
Quivdereayeh says to you 'Some stories hide in books for longer than others,
aye? And some books fall behind the shelves for a reason, methinks.'
A GOOD EPILOGUE (2/2)
Added Sun Nov 20 20:56:40 2022 at level 49:
You say to Quivdereayeh 'People be like gems, Quivdereayeh.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Dem be shaped by what da water brings ter da
mountain's deep.'
Quivdereayeh says to you 'It's a good epilogue, all the same.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Aye. It do be good.'
Quivdereayeh says to you 'Aye.'
Quivdereayeh says to you 'So what now for you, friend? Now that you're both a
half and a whole?'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Har! Well ah've got ah Pretty Goddess ter learn ta
swim with, an' yer said yer wanna see ah dwarf go on ah bender.'
Quivdereayeh says to you 'I wish you well on that, breathless.'
You say to Quivdereayeh 'Aye, see yer around, lass.'
WHAT OF YOU NOW?
Added Sun Nov 20 22:19:59 2022 at level 49:
In the vastness of a blank page a poet can give birth to many souls. But in
that vast potential, one risks losing his own soul too. And the stories that
are born there, no matter the apparent skill, always leave a dreadful doubt in
the heart of the author. Is it good? Is it perfect? It never is, and to still
take that, and in spite of all the trepidation release it to the world--a
gift.. it is bravery to match the burning passion of a dwarven heart.
"What now of you?", a question akin a heavy drop of water disturbing the still
sea within the bottomless void. The answer can only be silence and a vague,
almost invisible shape of a hope, that within the deep water there is a set of
a Godess' emerald eyes. A hope, that at the nadir there is a raging torrent
leading elsewhere, to a place that you truly belong.