dwarves and violence

Dwarves take disputes seriously.

Never bring violence underground. That is where you are safe. Dwarves have long written memories, right from (so they say) the first days of creation where the gods laughed and played and ruined lives. Nothing can touch a dwarf underground. It is the place of ultimate safety and security for the dwarven people. To bring violence and strife below ground is, perhaps, the original sin for dwarves.

There are ways of dealing with disputes beyond blows, of course. The Iron Courts are filled with snow-bearded lawyers who juggle cases, from the big to the small. Games of all kinds - human chess, leonine archery completions, even the ball games of the lizard-people - are used to settle grudges between towns, cities and even nations. Even the simple coin flip will suffice, in a pinch. Dwarves will do anything to avoid violence.

Never bring violence underground.

Of course, dwarves are people. People are capable of anything. Maybe one tiring day, you've put up with your overbearing supervisor for long enough. You put down the pick and you pick up the axe.

The shame is overwhelming, of course. Dwarves often go missing in pairs. Old dwarves will speculate and shake their heads and cluck their tongues. Disgraceful. Money exchanges between the affected families - condolence payments, covering costs of the funerals, and if you're rich enough, paying the Lorekeepers to carefully edit things so nobody looks too hard at the family history.

But sometimes it's not overwhelming enough. Sometimes a dwarf comes back shaking and bloodied, and indicates, before they're taken anyway, where a body is. In those places, you'll find a door, barred and spiked. Dwarven mothers tell their children not to go past these doors. Stay away. Experienced miners make a mental note and avoid those places, and don't talk about why.

Never bring violence underground, or else...

It says a lot about humans that the worst thing they can imagine a corpse doing is getting back up again.