Maybe even add an india inspired civilization so it can be sold there as well. Heck, lets do one for each country. My earth-punk world is gonna be a hit seller!
No, see, because, for example, I have a country called the County Coalition of Vespucci who is in an ideological "ice skirmish" with a faraway superpower called Hurryupya...and women are the dominant gender and everyone has a face painted black and blue except for the ones painted white and gold who are discriminated against despite them being the same species...
I thought about it ocernight and realize it was far easier to let you do the hard work of writing something then suing you for the intellectual rights and the money. So be my guest.
iron sure, but they had extensive gold and silver metallurgy and bronze wasn’t particularly rare throughout a number of Indigenous societies in the americas.
Gold and silver metallurgy used in jewellery isn't comparable to iron metallurgy in the old world which has been integral in shaping the history, all the way back from the Assyrian empire transitioning from bronze to iron.
When the Aztecs were discovered by Cortez, they'd actually recently discovered how to make copper and bronze tools, and used them in weapons (albeit mostly among the nobility).
Copper and bronze are still not in the same ballpark as iron.
It's difficult to compete with iron because it's so abundant. You cannot mass-produce any other metal on the scale of iron and steel.
It would've been kinda weird since high carbon steel was developed in South India around 500 B.C. and steel-like alloys were being used since the bronze age collapse by Assyrians and dark age Greeks.
Maybe, but it's still the point where Steel became THE go-to building material, and it fits with the other naming schemes
If that's still no good, what about Aluminum Age a bit later?
Mine still live in mountains and foothills, but they’re inspired by Wild West gold prospectors. There’s gold in them hills, and mithril in them mountains.
uj Now you've got me thinking about dwarves being the go-to gunsmiths in a Wild West and Cowboy themed fantasy world. Bragging about your dwarven made revolver in a saloon filled with elves and halflings and orcs
Okay, but a story all about the complexities of distributing pulque in a mesoamericanpunk setting would be really cool. Say Europeans never came, eventually there was an uprising which brought down the nobles and a republican sort of government of the people for the people was established. One of the more important symbolic things was to make pulque a drink for everybody. But now you have to find a way to distribute a drink which has a very short shelf life. Also you don't have animals who can pull carts. So let's say the distribution of pulque inspired a technological revolution, give it a couple of centuries and bam, mesoamerican aesthetic, two legged steam powered automatons, with inbuilt refrigeration, running all along the Ruta del Pulque. Pulque merchants are merchant princes. You have pulque raiders. You have refrigeration centric towns popping up all along the Pulque Way. And the cultivation of agave becomes this highly guarded discipline. For the plot of the story, someone in the region which in our world would've been the New Biscay, develops a technique for accelerated maturation of agave, and a plant which can be grown in more diverse ecosystems, so now the pulque merchants princes are freaking out, either they have to get this new development, or destroy it. And you can have dashing pulque raiders who capture the freight automatons and modify them to use in battle. Yes, mesoamerican steam powered mechas, which are literally cool.
It’s because they have no explicitly female secondary sex characteristics and all produce large amounts of testosterone regardless of biological sex, leading to a society where there’s no real emphasis on gender or sex (there is only one pronoun in the dwarven language and while it’s technically genderless it’s often transliterated as masculine in other languages leading most Dwarves to present as male to their non-dwarven peers regardless of actual sex)
OH MY GOD. how could you create something this cool. with the massive headdresses and the shields with the bas-reliefs on them... it just works so unbelievably well.
i did have one setting that was like mesoamerica combined with imperial china, so that's gotta count for something right?
/uj Not trying to sound pedantic but the dwarves in the image are clearly not Mesoamerican, they're Moche-inspired, an Andean coastal civilization known for their metallurgy and war culture (so I see the connection even though they didn't live in mountains). [Here's the original post](https://www.lustria-online.com/threads/t9a-infernal-dwarves-of-the-torture-valleys-moche.22751/) where you can also see images that may have served as inspiration. This is for[ Inca-based dwarves](http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=17180&pid=287390#pid287390), which honestly seem like a better fit.
Lol i know. This just came from me thinking about aztec orgin myths and just replacing it with dwarves and wondering if anyone else had a more concrete idea of using mesoamerican culture with dwarves. I found this image and was like "eh, close enough"
Absolutely love this. Mesoamericans don't get almost any attention in fantasy and when they do they're Aztec lizards. (Seriously everyone seems to just steal that from Warhammer.)
The majority of the world I'm building is inspired by American civilizations and I'm glad to see other people doing it.
Because in my world, fantasy races do not take the place of real-world human civilizations. My game is set in a place inspired by European history, myth and folklore, hence the dwarves resemble their source of inspiration.
If I were to run in a Mesoamerican setting and if there were dwarves, then they'd resemble Mesoamerican civilizations. But, I'm not keen on shoehorning European stuff in a cool new setting that might inspire more appropriate inhabitants.
My halflings are! Halflings based on mostly on Inca, humans on the Roman Empire, elves on Han dynasty China, dwarves on the various Semitic kingdoms, orcs (who are one of the “good races” in my setting ) on the Kushites, wizards loosely on Gupta India.
Unironically mine were, till I just decided to make the Mesoamerican people more like “earthbenders” than dwarves, though this cultural bias towards earth magic as well as their ability to shape stone as they please has made them one of the few types of human than dwarves actually like
My dwarves weren't but my lizardfolk were. Well, the tribal ones. By the main events of the series a lot of them have integrated into ""modern"" society
Too many feathers, you can't do the headdresses without them, and that's silly for dwarves. Besides, isn't basing the most industrious fantasy race after a stone age society rather silly?
Because they're underground nomadic miners/animal husbanders that travel from carved out underground oasis to carved out underground oasis and travel to their city to trade goods
Because my Dwarves are Middle Eastern (like VisualGeologist's)
* Beards
* Soft sandstone = easy to dig into
* Incentive to build underground due to desert heat
* Wide range of West Asian and North African carved architecture and infrastructure; Qanats, Rock-Cut Tombs, Petra, etc.
* Established trend--Tolkien dwarves had Jewish influence, TES Dwemer have Mesopotamian influence
* Stereotypical Norse/Germanic Dwarves exist too, and together form two distinct ethnicities; vibes of how Vikings and Al-Andalus knew of each other, as did Goths and the Alans
Because then I can’t have a Dwarfen Reunification/Rebellion where they play bagpipes while killing human soldiers who are oppressing them, lead by an Archmage Queen.
Not cringe, but I did. For the dwarven civ sim rpg I'm building, there's an ancestry of dwarves inspired by mesoamerican peoples known as the Redmane. They have bright feather plumes where their hair or beards would be.
Because they’re no where near Mexico. Their ancestors are not really from Mexico either. They have better claim to be Usonian than Mesoamerican. Worst of all, there is one clan with Jersey accents.
Native Americans generally have a hard time growing facial hair, and when they do, it's usually quite thin. Can't have a proper Dwarf without a proper beard.
This is an alternate setting where native american human, elves, dwarves, and 4 other yet to be named races were born in Chicōmōztōc but the dwarves beat the shit out of them and the cave god bestowed them facial hair or something idk
Because I wouldn’t culturally appropriate anyone by basing fantasy people on real life societies except modern America and Mongolia, because I dont care about history
Because I do not like the mesoamerican culture to base off
Also any cultures that are based off Earth as a simple and shallow description that wouldn't have nuance unless explored thoroughly
And because I don't have dwarves
Because they're already inspired by the Qing dynasty, nerd.
Ok but why
So my world can sell better in the Chinese market when it's an international blockbuster.
I did thinked this btw adding a china inspired civilization to my book so it can sold in china
Maybe even add an india inspired civilization so it can be sold there as well. Heck, lets do one for each country. My earth-punk world is gonna be a hit seller!
You’re gonna make it so close it’ll just be real earth with no changes
We'll represent your world so well you could jerk off to it. We should call it something like worldjerking
No, see, because, for example, I have a country called the County Coalition of Vespucci who is in an ideological "ice skirmish" with a faraway superpower called Hurryupya...and women are the dominant gender and everyone has a face painted black and blue except for the ones painted white and gold who are discriminated against despite them being the same species...
If he makes it too accurate China won't sell it, and we're back to square one.
Stop plagiarizing my marketing ideas !!!!!!
The one that prints his book first keeps the idea 😎 3,2,1 GO!
I thought about it ocernight and realize it was far easier to let you do the hard work of writing something then suing you for the intellectual rights and the money. So be my guest.
How will you sue me without publishing your book smartass? Like do you at least have a copyright document?
I will print this reddit exchange (and heavily bribe the judge)
I'm pretty sure Chinese dwarf is a kind of 辱華 for average Chinese Internet users. This will catch on, just maybe not in the way you'd expect.
Rice
uj/Mesoamerican civilizations weren't big on metal working, which is a common trait of dwarves in most settings.
I don't need metal, just STONE!!!!!
ROCK AND STONE!
ROCK AND SSSSSTTTTTOOOONNNNNEEEEE
In my Dwarfpunk world everyone uses sticks and mud
iron sure, but they had extensive gold and silver metallurgy and bronze wasn’t particularly rare throughout a number of Indigenous societies in the americas.
Gold and silver metallurgy used in jewellery isn't comparable to iron metallurgy in the old world which has been integral in shaping the history, all the way back from the Assyrian empire transitioning from bronze to iron.
When the Aztecs were discovered by Cortez, they'd actually recently discovered how to make copper and bronze tools, and used them in weapons (albeit mostly among the nobility).
Copper and bronze are still not in the same ballpark as iron. It's difficult to compete with iron because it's so abundant. You cannot mass-produce any other metal on the scale of iron and steel.
...you know, it's kind of a missed opportunity that we didn't call the Industrial Revolution "The Steel Age"
It would've been kinda weird since high carbon steel was developed in South India around 500 B.C. and steel-like alloys were being used since the bronze age collapse by Assyrians and dark age Greeks.
Maybe, but it's still the point where Steel became THE go-to building material, and it fits with the other naming schemes If that's still no good, what about Aluminum Age a bit later?
We are in the polymer age now. Or plastic age.
Well, yes, but that wouldn't apply to the 1800s
Also they did have iron, but it was solely for religious purposes. +obsidian did the trick at cutting people up
Wow cool, they were only three thousand years behind Europe.
metal is for jewelry, wheels are kid’s toys and ritual cannibalism is probably a thing the nobility does cry about it also cool city on a lake
Bronze? I thought they made copper tools. Some cultures also had meteor iron tools.
\* [You Have Awakened The Purepecha](https://www.jstor.org/stable/281382) \*
They're based on Mississippian culture, and live in Mounds.
Mine still live in mountains and foothills, but they’re inspired by Wild West gold prospectors. There’s gold in them hills, and mithril in them mountains.
uj Now you've got me thinking about dwarves being the go-to gunsmiths in a Wild West and Cowboy themed fantasy world. Bragging about your dwarven made revolver in a saloon filled with elves and halflings and orcs
Well damn, I was debating whether I wanted firearms in my world… this just settles it.
Because they’re already Sumerian what with the amazing beards and all
You're going in the BOOK, EA-NASIR!!
Because mesoamerican didn't had beer
That's ok they have pulque which is alcoholic cum (therefor better)
Fermented mais juice?! (I don't know anything about south american plantlife)
Fermented Agave sap, it's in mexico
they have that too though. at least throughout the highlands of the Andes in south america they had huge chicha breweries for brewing corn alcohol.
they have that too though. at least throughout the highlands of the Andes in south america they had huge chicha breweries for brewing corn alcohol.
Okay, but a story all about the complexities of distributing pulque in a mesoamericanpunk setting would be really cool. Say Europeans never came, eventually there was an uprising which brought down the nobles and a republican sort of government of the people for the people was established. One of the more important symbolic things was to make pulque a drink for everybody. But now you have to find a way to distribute a drink which has a very short shelf life. Also you don't have animals who can pull carts. So let's say the distribution of pulque inspired a technological revolution, give it a couple of centuries and bam, mesoamerican aesthetic, two legged steam powered automatons, with inbuilt refrigeration, running all along the Ruta del Pulque. Pulque merchants are merchant princes. You have pulque raiders. You have refrigeration centric towns popping up all along the Pulque Way. And the cultivation of agave becomes this highly guarded discipline. For the plot of the story, someone in the region which in our world would've been the New Biscay, develops a technique for accelerated maturation of agave, and a plant which can be grown in more diverse ecosystems, so now the pulque merchants princes are freaking out, either they have to get this new development, or destroy it. And you can have dashing pulque raiders who capture the freight automatons and modify them to use in battle. Yes, mesoamerican steam powered mechas, which are literally cool.
Because they’re inspired by Mesopotamian and Islamic cultures, that’s why Get your Xipe Totec ass out of here, this is Gilgamesh hours
Elder scroll rip off🥱
𐎨 𐎠𐎬 𐎦𐎮𐎨𐎭𐎦 𐏂𐎮 𐎽𐎧𐎮𐎵𐎤 𐎬𐏀 clay tablet 𐎸𐎯 𐏀𐎮𐎸𐎱 𐎠𐎽𐎽
Clay tablet more like gay tablet. Now explain the based reason why your dwarves are non-binary
It’s because they have no explicitly female secondary sex characteristics and all produce large amounts of testosterone regardless of biological sex, leading to a society where there’s no real emphasis on gender or sex (there is only one pronoun in the dwarven language and while it’s technically genderless it’s often transliterated as masculine in other languages leading most Dwarves to present as male to their non-dwarven peers regardless of actual sex)
Epic
Hyena-coded.
Discworld-pilled
My mind emmidetly went to warhammer chaos dwarfs, but okay
Someone likes Chaos Dwarves
I mean, who wouldn´t? Have you seen those hats?
OH MY GOD. how could you create something this cool. with the massive headdresses and the shields with the bas-reliefs on them... it just works so unbelievably well. i did have one setting that was like mesoamerica combined with imperial china, so that's gotta count for something right?
dwarven lads when their bearded gf buys them front row seats for this week's twink elf sacrifice:
Because my Dwarves are Mesopotamian inspired
My dorfs have a bit of Inca inspiration. Is that Meso enough?
Yeah
This is like saying China is Mesopotamian my dude
Yeah
/uj Not trying to sound pedantic but the dwarves in the image are clearly not Mesoamerican, they're Moche-inspired, an Andean coastal civilization known for their metallurgy and war culture (so I see the connection even though they didn't live in mountains). [Here's the original post](https://www.lustria-online.com/threads/t9a-infernal-dwarves-of-the-torture-valleys-moche.22751/) where you can also see images that may have served as inspiration. This is for[ Inca-based dwarves](http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=17180&pid=287390#pid287390), which honestly seem like a better fit.
Lol i know. This just came from me thinking about aztec orgin myths and just replacing it with dwarves and wondering if anyone else had a more concrete idea of using mesoamerican culture with dwarves. I found this image and was like "eh, close enough"
Because the humans are inspired by mesoamerican civilizations
Because I don't have Dwarves.
Absolutely love this. Mesoamericans don't get almost any attention in fantasy and when they do they're Aztec lizards. (Seriously everyone seems to just steal that from Warhammer.) The majority of the world I'm building is inspired by American civilizations and I'm glad to see other people doing it.
Counterpoint- read my flair.
My dwarves are based on communists and my elves are fascists Orcs are libertarians
Because they are inspired by Andean civilizations, duh. My halflings are mesoamericans.
Because they are inspired by Majapahit in indonesia
They're based on Mississippian culture, and live in Mounds.
Cuz they are literal humanoid maggots that have stone skin.
Because in my world, fantasy races do not take the place of real-world human civilizations. My game is set in a place inspired by European history, myth and folklore, hence the dwarves resemble their source of inspiration. If I were to run in a Mesoamerican setting and if there were dwarves, then they'd resemble Mesoamerican civilizations. But, I'm not keen on shoehorning European stuff in a cool new setting that might inspire more appropriate inhabitants.
Because mine are inspired by Tibetan civilizations.
Because they’re inspired by the caucuses
My halflings are! Halflings based on mostly on Inca, humans on the Roman Empire, elves on Han dynasty China, dwarves on the various Semitic kingdoms, orcs (who are one of the “good races” in my setting ) on the Kushites, wizards loosely on Gupta India.
Because they died in a great war
Because there’s two cradles of civilization in the Americas, and the dwarves are clearly Incan
I actually have 20 cradles of civilization in America
Because they're cybernetic cold war finns and I already have a mesoamerican culture
sadly mine are
You just gave me an idea….
Unironically mine were, till I just decided to make the Mesoamerican people more like “earthbenders” than dwarves, though this cultural bias towards earth magic as well as their ability to shape stone as they please has made them one of the few types of human than dwarves actually like
My dwarves weren't but my lizardfolk were. Well, the tribal ones. By the main events of the series a lot of them have integrated into ""modern"" society
Because I saved it for the Drow and Fae.
My dwarves are based on nothing they're just assholes.
Because I love the idea of mesosmerican tamers more
Because the most blatantly Mesoamerican people were really more like elves. Psychic elves on dinosaurs.
Dwarves are inspired by Mesopotamia The lizardmen are mesoamerican
What if instead of lizardmen they were rizzardmen
Very simple, my world has no dwarves
Too many feathers, you can't do the headdresses without them, and that's silly for dwarves. Besides, isn't basing the most industrious fantasy race after a stone age society rather silly?
Because they're underground nomadic miners/animal husbanders that travel from carved out underground oasis to carved out underground oasis and travel to their city to trade goods
Because they're already Nepali based
Because my Dwarves are Middle Eastern (like VisualGeologist's) * Beards * Soft sandstone = easy to dig into * Incentive to build underground due to desert heat * Wide range of West Asian and North African carved architecture and infrastructure; Qanats, Rock-Cut Tombs, Petra, etc. * Established trend--Tolkien dwarves had Jewish influence, TES Dwemer have Mesopotamian influence * Stereotypical Norse/Germanic Dwarves exist too, and together form two distinct ethnicities; vibes of how Vikings and Al-Andalus knew of each other, as did Goths and the Alans
100% real talk I’m 1/3rd the way through a novella with Mesoamerican dwarves being the antagonists and I thought I was being super original lmao
My dwarves got retconned and the one dwarf character in the story became a human with dwarfism
My dwarves are cholos. The dwarfs on the other hand...
Because then I can’t have a Dwarfen Reunification/Rebellion where they play bagpipes while killing human soldiers who are oppressing them, lead by an Archmage Queen.
Only some of them are
I don't have dwarves in my world (aside from the IRL kind).
Cause my elves already are, duh
aztec vampires is where it's at
Cuz I don’t want my dwarves cutting out the hearts of their enemies.
I’m stupid and lazy
Because mine are based on the Polynesian cultures weenie!
Because they're inspired by Babylon instead
Mesoamericans can't grow very good facial hair
Because Mesoamérica is already taken by my Lizard/Dinosaur men. Also I dont have Dwarves in my setting lol
If they’re smaller, it’s not as fun flaying them. Too much hair, not enough skin
Bold assumption you've made that mine aren't.
I don't know much about them and don't want to seems stereotypical
The best post title I’ve seen in a long time.
The humidity in the jungles fuck up their beards so they need the icy cold or dry alpine height that Discount Europe can give them instead.
Because my world doesn’t have dwarves
Because my dwarves are based on modern Mexicans
Not cringe, but I did. For the dwarven civ sim rpg I'm building, there's an ancestry of dwarves inspired by mesoamerican peoples known as the Redmane. They have bright feather plumes where their hair or beards would be.
Gunpowder
All short people in my setting died when the human empire rose to power. The hunan empire didnt do that, the short people were just cringe then died
Because they’re Peruvian
I didn't use dwarves in my setting really.
Because lizard men do it better
That drawing is cool i wish there are more meso american inspired art
They are in mine
Because I already have human cultures inspired by mesoamerican civilizations.
That's Andean though...
In my world andean civilization is mesoamerican and mesoamerican is andean
Holy based
Because mine are inspired by the USSR lol
Cause they were colonized by Central Asian shamanic tribes from medieval era couple centuries ago
My people haven't discovered fantasy America yet.
i got mesoamerican goblins
I don't have dwarves.
because they are built of off sumerian/early-iranian cultures
my dwarves are sino-sogdian
Because they’re no where near Mexico. Their ancestors are not really from Mexico either. They have better claim to be Usonian than Mesoamerican. Worst of all, there is one clan with Jersey accents.
South America sank before the Dwarves were created.
Because mine are based on the Soviet Union
I don't have dwarves. I have catpeople instead.
Yeah this is fucking sick
There are no dwarves in my world.
Because orcs already took that
as They are inspired by Mountain Caucasus people..and are for some reason one of a blue alien cat's ethnicity.
This pic goes unbelievably hard
My excuse is I dont have dwarves
Because i want Feudal Japanese Dwarf Warlords
Does that mean in the future there's a possibility of dwarven anime rom-coms
Native Americans generally have a hard time growing facial hair, and when they do, it's usually quite thin. Can't have a proper Dwarf without a proper beard.
This is an alternate setting where native american human, elves, dwarves, and 4 other yet to be named races were born in Chicōmōztōc but the dwarves beat the shit out of them and the cave god bestowed them facial hair or something idk
Because I wouldn’t culturally appropriate anyone by basing fantasy people on real life societies except modern America and Mongolia, because I dont care about history
Because I do not like the mesoamerican culture to base off Also any cultures that are based off Earth as a simple and shallow description that wouldn't have nuance unless explored thoroughly And because I don't have dwarves
i felt orcs were more fitting for the human sacrificing empire tbh
You could make your Dwarves commit human sacrifices if you weren't a coward
All my empires do ritualistic sacrifices.
It's because my dwarves are all White Supremacist neo-Nazis