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--- consolidated:neighbours:dwarfculturalitems [2025/05/21 09:41] – [Religion] johnb
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-====== Dwarf Culture ======
-Every cultural group identifies with a few things, often food items, religion and social activities, that helps to define them as a group.
-===== Food Items =====
-  * **Ale** - More a family of beers than one single drink, dwarven stout is known by different names around the Inner Sea. Dwarven stouts are dark beers characterized by a slightly burnt flavor and a foamy head; they are said to be as filling as a meal.
-  * **Keep-All** - the (not so) secret ingredient of many favorite dwarven dishes.  While surface and coastal communities use salt to preserves supplies for the winter and lean times, Dwarves use Keep-All - a mineral compound that gives food a reddish colour and a tangy flavour, and replaces salt ion the preservation process.
-  * **Dwarf Sausage** - The meat doesn't really matter, but it has the reddish colour and tang of Keep-All, and has been smoked - it is an absolute favourite for trail rations and winter meals.
-  * **Nubbe Paste** - Another Dwarven favourite, Nubbe Paste looks and tastes a bit like pinkish peanut butter, with the tang of Keep-All.  It is protein packed and will stay good for ages.  However, Dwarves rarely mention that it is made from Cave Crickets - unless they want to tease their non-dwarf companions.
-===== Religion =====
-  * **Religious Tolerance** - All dwarves are aware of the different origin stories of Moradin and Torag, and while there was some tension in the early days this has been resolved over the years.  Priests of the two faiths asked their respective deities for guidance, although none has been forthcoming yet.  In the absence of any divine instruction to start a war, the two communities co-exist peacefully.  However, Dwarves who worship the evil deities, associated with either pantheon, are generally shunned by all right-thinking dwarves.
-  * **Burial Customs** - Dwarves see death as a transition.  The soul has gone, and the empty shell is left, but that creates a problem - what do you do with a decomposing body?  On the surface, there is lots of space to bury people, or follow other funerary customs, but underground space is limited however, a practical solution must still be found.  Mine-hold funerary customs reflect that.  Priests have a spell that speeds decomposition, and the body is buried in the fungus caves - with all proper ceremony.  Six months later, the bones are disinterred, and placed in a crypt.  The crypt is often a series of tunnels with niches, for an urn containing the bones with the skull placed in front.  The tunnel network is extended regularly so that there is plenty of space for new ‘burials’ with each niche cut in the six months that the body is in the ground. Niches are maintained regularly by the priest's acolytes.  This practice is common across both faiths and, perhaps, helped the two set of priests reach a compromise.
-===== Activities =====
-  * **Music** - metals are the most common materials in Dwarf mine-holds, and influence the favourite dwarven musical styles.  While there are metal based drums, cymbals, flutes etc -  it is the trumpets, horns and other instruments of the brass band that dominate.  Formal occasions might have large bands playing sedate arrangements, smaller bands for less formal occasions, while bars might just have a small band, of three or four musicians, playing rowdier Oompaah style, drinking, music.  There are other instruments,  of course, and most Dwarven Bards play a range of instruments and styles -  but nothing says Dwarf Music in the same way as a brass band!
-  * **Dancing** -  for the formal occasions Dwarves favour slower march like dances, although polkas are more popular amongst younger dwarves and for less formal occasions or parties.