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[Bard Judith]

Mmmmm...   Trying to remember.  I'm pretty sure the local dwarves were hired to do the major stonemasonry, as is traditional for most larger Santharian cities.  They have a monopoly on the carving and building of large blocks, at least...

Also, that particular bridge is fairly important in terms of traffic flow, so would have had to have been built fairly early on - at least in simpler form.   Perhaps... mmm...

Let's see: how about this little anecdote?  The local Thergerim WERE hired to complete all the (six? eight?) bridges across the Mashdai that the early city planners felt were necessary - they began at the bottom of the river with the workaday 'Sunset Bridge' and moved upwards.    Alas, the city fathers' purses were not as deep as their imaginations, and just as the last and supposedly greatest bridge was to be begun, the payments to the dwarves halted.   So, naturally, did the dwarves.   

No bad blood ensued, as the practical dwarves matter-of-factly pointed out that they had been paid for all the work that had been completed, but that without gold in advance to purchase the stones they would be cutting and laying, they would contract for no further, and the city fathers accepted this ruefully.   The High Bridge remained a rickety wooden footbridge used only by lazy nobility for many years... until the newly-formed Guild of Fimbles seized on it as a way to display their gifts and attract further business...

(Feel free to sneak in other fuzzles and similar fun details!  This should be a chance for them to show off a bit.....)

[Azhira Styralias]

Miss Bard!  

When time permits, peek at my Netherworlds update. In particular, read the dwarven bits I wrote to verify it doesn't clash with existing beliefs. I've never developed anything dwarven related so I hope I've not completely skewered your precedent...

*Some of this was Arti's ideas too 

Dwarven Belief
According to the dwarves, the Netherworlds were a flawed creation of their God Trum-Baroll. Upon death, dwarven belief holds that the dead turn to stone forever to dwell in the earth’s embrace. While humans and elves may believe a spirit can exist after death, dwarven belief holds that the spirit may well also exist outside of the physical body for a time before becoming one with the stone of the earth. The Netherworlds, however, are considered a place not of stone, but of immaterial nothingness in dwarven belief. To the dwarves, there is no place of rest in the Netherworlds. As such, stone does not exist in the Chaos Realm and a dwarf would be loathe to exist there after death.

Some dwarven magi believe that the Netherworlds are the home of dark spirits whence magic can be called forth. This belief is similar to human and elven lore, but certain groups of dwarven magi teach that all magic power is drawn from the Chaos and made to materialize in Caelereth. This sub-sect of dwarven casters have come to be known as the XXX. Their belief is not shared by all magi, and in particular the Ximaxian philosophy disagrees with the XXX in many ways. It has been pointed out that the magic of summoning demons from the Netherworlds gives some credence to the XXXs’ teachings.

Another well-known dwarven superstition says that if one digs too deep into the earth, one will eventually reach the Netherworld deep below. This would mean that the Netherworlds is a physical place located somewhere in the center of the Caelereth Disk (as discussed below). Some dwarves claim to have an innate sense of exactly how far down to dig before encountering Netherworld presence or “dark stone” as they call it.

[Bard Judith]

Oh, dear!  I appreciate you checking with me on this one.  Loath as I am to contradict your creatively-written concepts, they do violate basic dwarven faith on this issue.  I quote from the Dwarven Beliefs entry:

Once the body has petrified and the life-force departed, most Thergerim believe that the ‘forgespark’ (soul, spirit, essence, or whatever name you care to call the mind and heart that animates a sentient being…) returns to meet its Creator – the great Trum-Baroll – and will dwell in his realm, the underground utopian empire known as Toll Disporbaroll. We say most, as this is the common belief; some of the older members of the more traditional clans will inform you fiercely that the body itself returns to be animated by the forgespark again, so that the deceased dwarf may have a corporeal existence in Toll Disporbaroll. Arcane dwarvish writings (not an accepted part of the "RockTales", but rather apocryphal) claim that there are in Toll Disporbaroll itself layers within layers, depths within depths, and the purified essence, with or without its body, will move ever deeper, to ever more fulfillment and joy.

Note: The Thergerim do not believe that Caelereth HAS a netherside. They don't believe it's flat. Or rather, it's flat, but not a disc - the earth continues downwards almost infinitely, like a column. The Overworld, or surface, is the flat, circular top of the column. The Thergerim live and mine in the upper layers of that column, which becomes, as they have observed, ever-hotter as they descend... At some point that heat becomes intolerable and dwarves can neither live nor work there: they say it is because they have not yet 'become stone' (see Dwarven Death Rituals). Death, then, is a way in which they can pass that 'barrier' of molten rock and descend even further, into the semi-spiritual, semi-physical realm of Trum-Baroll, the Stone Father.

Apparently the further down, the better - dwarves who have perhaps not been all they should have been in life, will remain on the shallowest levels of Trum-Baroll's domain (we humans would say 'on the outskirts' or 'on the lower levels'), labouring to feed His forges or pump His bellows. Work, effort, and loyalty may 'redeem' them from this service and allow them to move downwards, ever closer to the true heart of the Stone Father. Thergerim are reluctant to speak of these mystical lower levels, but apparently the Book (Trumesdrumerons) has a few archaically-worded passages which describe them...

So then, for the Thergerim, there is no 'hell' - no specific place of punishment removed from their god - but rather only a 'purgatory' which exists on the outskirts of their 'heavenly' afterlife, which itself has ranks and classes, rather like Dante's circles.   How this can be reconciled with a belief in the Netherworlds, or how dwarven magi view the source of demons, etc. is something I'll need to think on. 

[Deklitch Hardin]

Masterbard,

In a moment of insanity err inspiration ... or maybe both, I ascribed part of the dispersal on my poem 'The Brinitarisanear' to your good self. I wanted to get your thoughts on doing that, and whether you would be likely to spread it to the youngsters around Santharia. Many thanks,

Dek

[Valan Nonesuch]

Judith, I have a question about Wirruts. Does the dwarf who created the wirrut, assuming that it is something that is more permanent than a delicious pastry, retain ownership of it?
It doesn't seem an especially dwarfy thing to do.

[Bard Judith]

Er..... what the tol'trum is a 'wirrut'?  My memory is going these days, nor can I find a reference to it on the site.   

In general, however, I can comment that dwarves are highly clannish - which means that any invention created by one of their own would be jealously guarded or carefully traded - ownership would be credited to the maker but all of the clan would benefit from it.   One dwarf does not enrich him/herself at the expense of the tribe/clan/cave, ever!  Hope that helps, whatever your purpose for asking...

[Mina]

It's in the Dwarven marriage entry, apparently. 

Once a group of dwarven adolescents have achieved Hu/Baregozar, there is a significant ceremony which takes place to recognize them as adults. The “Wirrutharoon” (roughly translatable as ‘Well-Made-Thing-Time’) is held fairly frequently by dwarven standards, roughly every ten years, so that there is always a group of youngsters who will go through the experience together. Each individual must prepare a “Wirrurt” or ‘showpiece’ – a presentation of their chosen craft or profession. For some it is simple; the apprentice smith sets forth his best sword or beautifully crafted necklace, the young baker slices a huge savory pastry and shares it out, the lass who has been learning under the Weavemistress is decked in her finest cloths. For others, their skill is demonstrated in less tangible forms; the Singspeaker apprentice must call down a pre-trained bat, ‘translate’ its vibrations, and successfully encode a responding message.

 

[Bard Judith]

(slaps forehead) In my defense, I took today off sick, quite legitimately, and am on some heavy painkillers.   Thanks so much, Mina.  A helpfulness Brownie point for you!   

Hmm, in that case, I'd have to say that Wirruterons should be considered individually, especially as some are less tangible than others.   I suspect that the swords, necklaces, pottery, etc. if judged acceptable as a showpiece, could either be gifted to special people within the clan as a token of esteem (or do double duty as a love-gift) or sold outside the tribe to bring in cash or barter items (priced up by clever merchants AS 'showpieces from mysterious Thergerim coming-of-age ceremony' perhaps)?   I suspect that is up to the individual young dwarf to decide.   Keeping it, however, as you suggest, Valan, doesn't sound particularly dwarfish.  Let's say that 'it is considered not only rude, but lazy, for the Wirrut to be kept as some sort of trophy, as dwarves believe that every subsequent (post-adolescence) task should be completed to the same high standards!'     

Perhaps I could get that added to the entry at some point, if you think that sounds good....

[Valan Nonesuch]

Thank you Bard, that is quite appropriate. The reference I saw to the baker's apprentice producing a pastry of great deliciousness and serving it amongst people made me think that it wasn't right. I mean, if a chain shirt is produced, at the very least it goes to someone who can make more use of it than a smith.

I ask because I had misgivings commenting on a dwarven CD, but wanted to make sure I got my facts straight (learning journalism for you). The offending CD was very undwarven to begin with. At this point it only looks dwarven because a helpful person gave them links to your Dwarven Marriage entry.

So thank you, once again for this lovely coffin nail!

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

If you would please take the time to look here and drop comment or two, that would be most appreciated ^^

Thanks,
Ridgen

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