Twenty Quirks of Dwarven Culture Relevant To Whatever Your Players Are Doing Right Now

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Stuart says:
20 Quirks of Dwarven Culture Relevant To Whatever Your Players Are Doing Right Now

I don’t know what your players are doing right now, although I suspect they are eating cheetos or drinking or texting someone while you read my blog. Instead of trying to be universal, I decided to come up with twenty situational quirks, most of which are cultural. There are no numbers on these because they are all 100 percent guaranteed to be equally true.

Dwarves lose *all* their hair if they stay aboveground on sunny days for more than a week.

It takes over a decade to regrow all their hair.

Eighty percent of dwarves are loudly and violently lactose intolerant to the fine cheeses served at most human and halfling courts.

Dwarven women do not have beards, but during the courtship season (autumn) married women are required to wear fake beards. These are usually made from their husband’s beard hair.

If you sneeze near a dwarf, he must say an annoyingly long prayer for the wellbeing of his ancestors, who could have been startled by the sound.

Dwarves are expected to get tattoos of their accomplishments, family tree and a map on the back of any lands they have been to beyond their home.

Dwarves have naturally fresh breath. To one another.

Dwarves are forbidden by ancient custom to eat anything that walks on two legs or less unless they killed it themselves. However, if they kill anything with less than four legs, they must eat at least a small piece of it. This means there are few wars between dwarves.

Every year on this day, dwarves by custom must give away all pay, prizes, gifts, loot or other windfall they receive. They must give it to someone who is not related, not a neighbor or business partner or somesuch and who has nothing. Halflings call this day ‘dress like a destitute’ day.

On any day except the above, a dwarf must accept any tangible gift offered him if it seems harmless. Even a cursed item must be accepted and overcome.

Unless attacked, dwarves do not acknowledge the presence of their above-ground cousins the anti-dwarves (or whatever you want to call them). They are not being rude. They involuntarily do not see them.

Dwarves refuse to help lift anything taller folk are also lifting.

Dwarves are shy when it comes to interracial sex, but frequently fall in love with taller folk.

You cannot get a dwarf to pay the regular price. They always insist on paying more as a sign of pride.

A dwarf will not, however, give you even the smallest discount.

Dwarves have perfect pitch, but only on their own musical scale.

Dwarven villages will provide free hospitality to strangers who can wrestle and best their strongest ox.

Dwarven culture is athiest, but they have gods. These gods are symbolic, but are spoken of as if real. There are no temples, but plenty of god-related booster clubs.

No stranger is allowed to turn down a duel challenge when in dwarven territory.

Their drinking contests are not to see who can drink the most before passing out but to see who can lift the heaviest object after an equal amount of drink.

One hand is for weaponry, the other for wiping. No one is quite sure which (even dwarves) so it varies by individual on occasion.

Dwarves are bad at counting lines of text.

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