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Inspired by my last foray into running a hybrid RPG/CYOA on these very forums, I've decided to do another Burning Wheel CYOA concurrently with the adventures of Astride the Beast, Orc Spartacus. This time our game will be about Dwarves. Dwarves in Burning Wheel are Tolkienistic to the extreme: they're expert artisans, greedy, and fierce and proud little warriors. Greed is the operative word here: all Dwarves lust after something, whether physical beauty, riches or power, and that Greed is what drives their very being, and often consumes them. The arc of a Dwarven Prince on a quest to reclaim their lost kingdom from an evil dragon only to go mad upon reclaiming their vast riches is one that is definitely 100% doable in Burning Wheel. Also, according to the game's designer Luke Crane, Dwarves are extremely conservative and patriarchal. This doesn't actually manifest anywhere in the game's rules, meaning that it's definitely one of those things that's to be left to the whims of the group, and while there isn't any outright ban on Dwarven ladies, they are supposedly extremely rare. As such, there's definitely room for playing as a Dwarven lady who goes against the patriarchal traditions of their culture.  While we'll start with creating our own Dwarf, my other game showed me that presenting too many options makes for extremely confusing character creation. As such, this time character creation will be much more structured, with clear indications as to which direction each choice in the character creation minigame will take us. Dwarven society is extremely rigid and caste-based. While there is some degree of social mobility, for the most part your lot in life is determined by the circumstances of your birth.
In addition to these four castes there are two more settings that only become available later on in our life: The Host, being the Dwarven military, and the Outcasts, being all those callings that Dwarves consider eerie, scandalous or simply unfitting a for a proper Dwarf. With regards to the Host, while a Dwarf born into the Clansman, Guilder or Artificer castes might be able to climb the ranks of the Host and eventually become a Captain or a Warden, it's very much an uphill struggle for them: Dwarves born into the Nobility have a much easier time reaching those positions, probably because of nepotism. The Outcast setting is one that most Dwarves don't enter of their own vocation, but a Dwarf might find themselves Outcast simply due to not being able to handle the strict nature of Dwarven society. Some Dwarves simply become Outcasts because they find themselves being called to a life of adventure, while some become outcasts due to breaking Oaths (a big deal) or being too cowardly to take an Oath in the first place (an even bigger deal). Some Dwarves take the Dwarven predisposition towards hard drinking too far and become drunks, while some take to gambling: Dwarves are firm believers in fate and determinism, so gambling is considered really un-Dwarfy. Who in their right mind bets their riches on the roll of the die? Even worse, there are those Dwarves who make fate their plaything, casting rune stones and reading the fates from them. Spooky stuff. Without further ado, let us begin creating our Dwarf. First question: Are we a Man or a Woman? Secondly, which caste of Dwarven society were we born into? Are we Born Clansman, Born Guilder, Born Artificer, or Born Noble? All of these settings provide plenty of openings to the Host and Outcast subsettings, but bear in mind that Nobility opens many doors in the military. Ratpick fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Oct 12, 2015 |
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Oct 12, 2015 16:17
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Born Guilder.
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Oct 12, 2015 16:31
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Noblewoman, with a greed for power. I want to play Dwarf House of Cards.
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Oct 12, 2015 17:35
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We are a woman who was born nobility. Who will almost certainly end up eventually becoming Outcast because that's the best way to become Dwarf Spartacus wait am I getting my Burning Wheel CYOAs mixed up
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Oct 12, 2015 18:15
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RandallODim posted:Noblewoman, with a greed for power. I want to play Dwarf House of Cards. Then you want to be a Hobbit, and name the character Francis Underhill.
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Oct 12, 2015 18:38
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Female born noble sounds like a plan.
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Oct 12, 2015 19:08
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We are a born noble dwarven lady. Our noble heritage grants us the Dvergar trait: we are descended from the ancient, mythical forebears of the Dwarves, granting us a 1D affiliation with Dwarven nobility as well as a 1D reputation among Dwarves as a noble. We also have a +1 Ob to all Inconspicuous tests among Dwarves, because it's harder for us to hide in crowds what with our noble bearing. We also learn the Dwarven Rune Script skill, which counts as the Read and Write skills for the sake of Dwarven writing, because the Dwarven educational system is awesome like that. How was our upbringing?
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Oct 12, 2015 21:41
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This is a CYOA. All Craftsdwarfship is of the finest quality. It is studded with posts. On it is an image of Dwarves. The Dwarves are burning. Let's have someone else's greed for our craft kick things off?
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Oct 13, 2015 01:51
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Noble Ardent seems most likely to prepare us to play Mineshaft of Cards
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Oct 13, 2015 01:54
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Ralith posted:Noble Ardent seems most likely to prepare us to play Mineshaft of Cards Agreed.
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Oct 13, 2015 02:00
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Abecedart, fer sure. 420 cast runes erry day.
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Oct 13, 2015 07:36
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Oh, by the way, I forgot an extremely important question: all Dwarves in Burning Wheel start with the Dwarven Common Trait Bearded but the description of the trait states that all male Dwarves have great beards. While we're deciding on our character's next Lifepath, there's an important question to be addressed: do Dwarven women also have beards?
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Oct 13, 2015 08:03
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Yes. Beards for all! Also Abecedart
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Oct 13, 2015 13:48
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Of course they Rockopolis fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Oct 13, 2015 |
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Oct 13, 2015 15:58
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Lifepath: Noble Ardent and no beards.
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Oct 13, 2015 16:40
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I'm going to buck the usual trend and say Dwarven women do not grow beards, but traditionally wear prosthetic beards trimmed from the beards of their great male ancestors. How our particular dwarf feels about being socially pressured into wearing a beard that is supposed to be imbued with the spirits of her ancestors who will keep her safe in a male-dominated society will be interesting to see.
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Oct 13, 2015 18:21
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Ardent And not beards per se, but epic mutton chops.
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Oct 13, 2015 18:31
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Go Nagai Sideburns
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Oct 13, 2015 18:50
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:I'm going to buck the usual trend and say Dwarven women do not grow beards, but traditionally wear prosthetic beards trimmed from the beards of their great male ancestors. Now this, this is a good one.
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Oct 13, 2015 19:38
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:I'm going to buck the usual trend and say Dwarven women do not grow beards, but traditionally wear prosthetic beards trimmed from the beards of their great male ancestors. This is a great and clever idea and I love it. Also, Ardent because Abecedarts don't have court intrigue in their description.
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Oct 13, 2015 21:10
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Artificer's Ardent so we can get on the path to Black-Metal Artifice and Stentorious Singing.  Also, DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Dwarven women do not grow beards, but traditionally wear prosthetic beards trimmed from the beards of their great male ancestors.
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Oct 13, 2015 23:11
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Dwarven women do not grow beards, but traditionally wear prosthetic beards trimmed from the beards of their great male ancestors. Also, we go Noble Ardent. We learn to Sing, as well as getting Soothing Platitudes, Accounting and Whispered Secrets-wise as Skills we might want to open later on. We also gain the Trait Humility in the Face of Your Betters. After having received our basic training there's a few openings we might take (I'm not listing all of them, because some mean moving backwards and not forwards):
Oh, and about that Prince Lifepath: it's pretty much the most powerful Lifepath in the Burning Wheel. Not only does it give a bunch of nice Skills and Traits, it also gives us two hundred freaking Resource Points. This is both a blessing and a curse: the more Resource Points you start with, the higher your starting Greed exponent. Also, if we do jump into the Prince Lifepath we'll have to come up with a really good narrative for how our female Dwarf rose to such a prominent position. Also, for the longest time I've wondered whether the Dwarven Prince Lifepath is supposed to be a Prince in the sense of a Prince of the Blood or a Petty Ruler, and I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be the latter. Taking the Prince Lifepath would mean that we'd be the equivalent of a High Duke or a Petty King or something.
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Oct 14, 2015 08:13
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Ratpick posted:Dwarven women do not grow beards, but traditionally wear prosthetic beards trimmed from the beards of their great male ancestors. Yesssssssssssssssss The opportunity to scandalize dwarven society by tearing off our false beard in the middle of the Mountainhome and declaring ourselves to be <NAME> The Bare-Cheeked is a valuable card to keep up our sleeve until it's needed Also let's go Rune Caster with an eye towards looping back into Noble to try and grab Prince later. We can't House of Cards our way to the top if we started near the top already, but some unexpected magic tricks might be handy to have in our quest.
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Oct 14, 2015 08:20
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Clarification: Rune Casting isn't exactly magic tricks. It's divination through casting rune stones from a bag and reading the fates from those runes. Dwarves being extremely into fate think it's really sick to mess around with fate like this. It's a really cool skill though: it allows us to make pronouncements about people and their fate and when those fates come true we get Artha! However, each time we do it we need to change one of our Beliefs to be in line with our reading. It can also be Linked and FoRKed into all types of tests, but there's a catch: if you FoRK it into a test, the die counts as open-ended both way, so a 1 means that it can potentially reduce our successes! Still, it's definitely not a bad skill to have.
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Oct 14, 2015 08:54
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What is Black Metal Artifice? Or: What's so great about Black Metal?
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Oct 14, 2015 13:09
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Dwarven Metal Artifice is divided into two types: Black and White. Black Metal Artifice is the art of crafting tools and goods from base, or "Black", metals, like iron. White Metal Artifice is for making decorative items and vanities out of precious, or "White", metals, like gold and silver. Both skills are magical, meaning that they are open-ended (extra dice when sixes are rolled), meaning they are quite simply better than their mundane equivalents.
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Oct 14, 2015 15:06
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Runecaster
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Oct 14, 2015 16:36
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Ratpick posted:Dwarven Metal Artifice is divided into two types: Black and White. Black Metal Artifice is the art of crafting tools and goods from base, or "Black", metals, like iron. White Metal Artifice is for making decorative items and vanities out of precious, or "White", metals, like gold and silver. I realized after I asked that it could just refer to blacksmithing. Turns out I was right (to an extent). Cool to know that it's magical, though. Let's Cast Some Runes.
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Oct 14, 2015 20:03
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Ratpick posted:Dwarven Metal Artifice is divided into two types: Black and White. Black Metal Artifice is the art of crafting tools and goods from base, or "Black", metals, like iron. White Metal Artifice is for making decorative items and vanities out of precious, or "White", metals, like gold and silver. We should learn white metal artifice and make shiny magical beards for other dwarf ladies to make them better than the paternalistic male Dwarves.
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Oct 14, 2015 21:26
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Cast runes gently caress with fate.
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Oct 14, 2015 23:11
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The only way to get to Prince in four lifepaths is if we take Axe Bearer now, so that's my vote.
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Oct 14, 2015 23:44
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Rune-caster, though I definitely think we should go Axe-bearer next. What's the point of playing a dwarf if you aren't going to hit people with axes?
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Oct 15, 2015 06:31
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Ratpick posted:Dwarves are firm believers in fate and determinism, so gambling is considered really un-Dwarfy. Who in their right mind bets their riches on the roll of the die? Even worse, there are those Dwarves who make fate their plaything, casting rune stones and reading the fates from them. Spooky stuff. I feel like this is backwards. If you're literally rolling dice, isn't that a pure expression of fate (so long as the dice aren't loaded)?
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Oct 15, 2015 12:43
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Green Intern posted:I feel like this is backwards. If you're literally rolling dice, isn't that a pure expression of fate (so long as the dice aren't loaded)? Yeah, I'm mixing Games of Chance and Rune Casting together: Rune Casting is considered mad and profane, but there's no such stigma attached to Games of Chance, apart from the wording that there's a certain "cult" among Dwarves who are really into Games of Chance. This is really just based on my reading of the fact that Gambler is an Outcast Lifepath, but it does give me the distinct impression that gambling is considered very un-dwarfy. Even if the roll of the dice is, basically, determined by fate and not by chance, why would any sane Dwarf bet their money on such a thing? (The answer, of course, is Greed.) And really, I don't think it even has to be internally consistent, because that's what magical thinking is all about : Dwarves believe in fate and determinism, which is exactly why they think games of chance are bad, because chance and randomness just don't sit with the traditional Dwarven mindset. I know that's a circular argument, but hey, superstitions!  e: Also, I think this is a really interesting tangent! As I said, I'm basically extrapolating from what little information there is on Dwarves in Burning Wheel, so I'm making a lot of assumptions and interpretations of my own, so stuff like this is really great in helping me do a bit more world-building. Ratpick fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Oct 15, 2015 |
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Oct 15, 2015 14:18
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I want axe bears so I'll go with Axe Bearer.
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Oct 15, 2015 15:20
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As a Rune Caster question, how do your 'predictions' have to work? Is it within the limits to predict something and then forcibly make it come true? Basically, can we open fights by throwing the bones, and announcing "You're gonna die" as a legitimate prediction?
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Oct 15, 2015 15:24
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RandallODim posted:As a Rune Caster question, how do your 'predictions' have to work? Is it within the limits to predict something and then forcibly make it come true? Okay, here's how Rune Casting works: you declare your prediction (which has to be tied to a specific character) and roll the skill. The Obstacle is actually LOWER the more notable your target is. The prediction must also tie into one of the target's Beliefs. Now, for the prediction to even have a chance of coming true, the Rune Caster also has to change one of their Beliefs to fit the prediction. This Belief obeys the normal rules for Beliefs: working towards fulfilling it and actually fulfilling it give you Artha! The benefit of this skill is allowing you to change your Beliefs very easily in play, as long as you tie your new Beliefs to the fate of another character. The fates only come true or not in play, but if they do come true you get rewarded.
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Oct 15, 2015 17:50
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Ratpick posted:Yeah, I'm mixing Games of Chance and Rune Casting together: Rune Casting is considered mad and profane, but there's no such stigma attached to Games of Chance, apart from the wording that there's a certain "cult" among Dwarves who are really into Games of Chance. Perhaps making a game of Fate is simply frowned upon. Fate should be taken far more seriously!
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Oct 15, 2015 19:53
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It seems like Rune Caster has the popular vote. We spent the next twenty years of our life apprenticed to Helga, the old woman who first read our fate. From her we learned Rune Casting, and we also picked up Foraging, Scavenging and Bad End-wise as skills we might want to open up later. We also get the trait Slave to Fate. For our fourth (and possibly final) lifepath, what was the reading that Helga gave us about?
This will be our last Lifepath: unlike in the Orc game, where taking Lifepaths in excess of 4 is the norm, 4 Lifepath Dwarves are already quite capable. Also, the last Lifepath already has some clear starting points for Beliefs built in.
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Oct 16, 2015 08:32
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Everyone knows that behind every great Dwarf is a spouse. Let's keep the House of Cards theme and find an advantageous Dwarf who needs a Wife.
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Oct 16, 2015 08:46
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