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« on: December 11, 2010, 09:44:50 am »
Ok, so I'm going to elaborate a bit on dwarfs, and their naming conventions, as well as overall culture.
Naming the first name of your children after tools is something you would find more often in the lower classes and more rural areas. It would be a lot like the human Christian custom of naming your kids after names, or even random words, found in the Bible. "Mat'tock" would more or less equate to Zaccharia, or Moses. It would tend to be a tool the father would use on a regular basis, be familiar with, and enjoy using. The idea is that a child, like a tool, is an extension of your "self", as a father.
As a farmer, there's a big selection here, but since Mat'tock's father also made a living as a storyteller, he could have just as easily named his son 'Word', and this would have been acceptable, although less usual. Physical tools are much more common.
Note that the Bible name wouldn't necessarily be a word that would at all derive directly from your own culture. It would just be a common element across several of them. A similar effect would occur here, since the tools would be cross-cultural.
The last name is much more important, and in most dwarf cultures comes from the mother, and would be passed on. Some dwarf cultures present the last name first, but not in this area of the world.
Among royalty--as in the case of Chrysoberyl, our Monarch, gemstones are very common as first names, although every member of a generation gets a unique name, and is never named after a living relative. So Chrysoberyl might have been named after a deceased ancestor, but noone alive at the time of his birth.
So no juniors and seniors with the same name. Infact, this would be a very rare occurrance in any dwarf culture, as there's a mild, unspoken "death" taboo connected to names, and the idea that naming a child after a living person might cause their souls to swap, or fight, or maybe just depart. It's a little vague, even in the minds of the dwarfs themselves, but it probably has something to do with the existence of undead.
In the middle--or among the affluent and literate dwarfs, up to and including nobility, first names derive directly from the runic alphabet. In the last century or so, since a separate widely accepted musical alphabet and written musical language has become popular, first names are starting to become more stylized, and to draw heavily from this musical system.
Finally, the goblin language is the most commonly known tongue among the sentient species, and is used as a universal trade language. To be frank, it's an easily learned language, very versatile, and very expressive. For the most part, the dwarfs have successfully ignored the influences of this language, but it's very slowly making fairly unwelcome inroads into dwarf culture. So this shows up a little, but it's mostly confined to merchant families who trade very closely with other species, on a regular basis.
You'd find such affected names much more commonly in a Fortress of less than 10 years, than you would in the Mountainhome--and dwarfs who move to the Mountainhome, or any older institutions, or that are looking for jobs or positions, very often revert such names to their more "pure" form, and pretend they never were called anything else.
Merchants have a lot of money, but much like in feudal Japan, they don't have a high social status. Dwarf society is primarily a low-key matriarchy, and women just don't become merchants. They may have sons who are very wealthy merchants, that they get their money from, and many dwarf societies forbid males from owning property, or even marrying, so mothers very often hold all the purse strings, but the women themselves run the Fortress, they don't do outside trading.
This is yet another taboo, in place to protect fertile dwarf women from outsiders, and their potential diseases, which doubly functions to keep dwarf women in power.
Marriage is a strong and respected institution that's not very dissimilar from human marriage, and spouses are expected to be faithful to one another, but there's no social taboo against children born out of wedlock, for the child, and intentional celibacy would be considered a rare, and bizarre, eccentricity, or just a plain old self destructive mental illness.
Sex is considered a normal part of life, and fetishism is fairly uncommon. Taboos against homosexuality are rare, particularly against lesbianism, and even when in place, are much milder than human homophobias, and tend to be against socially powerful dwarfs in hereditary positions, that ignore their responsibility to produce a child, in favor of a same sex relationship.
Most dwarfs have had atleast one or two same-sex experiences, at some point in their lives.
Groups and circles of female semi-secret societies hold the real political and social power, and any male leader, other than in terms of direct military leadership, is likely to be a figurehead, and can often be easily replaced. To use our Monarch again as an example: Userping him was upsetting to his society, but to overthrow the entire government would have required toppling the council supplying his family with power and position, and banishing or assassinating several very powerful females in key positions, and then doing something to push their families and clans out of the political loop, and then replacing them with something strong enough to keep the farmers, soldiers, and craftspeople working.
So it's a pretty stable society.
So merchants are low in the food chain, slightly above foreigners, other species, some slaves, but below aboveground farmers like Mat'tock's family.
Females are reagants (holding the real power and control, behind a more public figurehead, who may be male or female--The most powerful individual in a society would be something like a Dowager Empress, but one who actually called the shots, and who was in turn just the head of a high council).
Females are the managers, the logistics experts, the architects, city planners, governors, possibly but uncommonly theater generals and rear admirals, on down through society to the basic shop owners (as opposed to the male merchants actually running the shop), and the "basic unit" family matriarch.
The military, the merchants, and philosophers (who often represent one of a few strong male-only secret societies), are pretty much the three areas where men are, or can be, directly in charge, and hold real power, depending on the society. Performers can be an exception to this, in areas where this is male only, or a male-dominated field, and where performing has achieved an elevated status.
Secret societies, "mystery" societies, and semi-secret, politically powerful organizations, are a very common and pervasive aspect of dwarf culture, many dating back centuries or more, having strong social and religious connections, to the point of being directly integrated into that society's government at every level. Dwarfs living in cities very often belong to atleast one of these, if not several, sometimes mutually exclusive.
Craftsdwarfs hold the highest gender non-specific place in dwarf society, and often have very strong ties to religion, and the military. Craftsdwarfs of sufficient talent and dedication, especially food prepairers, are often supported by their society. The most talented cooks, brewers, and cheesemakers are the most important individuals, followed by armsmakers, and then by underground farmers and herders. Miners and military personnel are next, and then furnace operators, although certain furnace operators who maintain Fortress temperature, and also operate the vents that regulate airflow, can hold great importance and power. Below furnace operators come doctors, apothecaries, aboveground farmers, herbalists, and anyone else of direct--if lesser--importance to overall Fortress survival. Weavers, leatherworkers, and clothesmakers are below them, because a dwarf running around naked in an underground environment--while uncomfortable to all--won't actually kill that dwarf.
Iron, coal, and salt are the three most important mined items. Gold and gems are considered attractive, but their place in society among the rich has to do with the rich being the only ones able to afford a pretty, very expensive, but ultimately inedible, relatively worthless, item. So displaying wealth is a sign of social status, but would only make a poor person look like a fool.
There does exist an underground countermovement to this, which celebritizes goldsmiths, gemcutters, etc., so the very best of these might achieve a little counterculture rockstar status, in a few dubious circles. So these can have a somewhat elevated status, fueled by this irony.
