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Old 01-11-2013, 10:08 PM   #11
Peter Knutsen
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
Default Re: Dwarven Governance & Economics?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
We have enough references to dwarven kings to think that something of the sort exists for dwarven society, though they may not be exactly equivalent to human kings. However, dwarves seem to assign greater prestige to those who make things (including weapons) than those who use them, and it's not clear just how inheritable political position is; a guild-based government, where promotion is dependent on demonstrated skill (if possibly assisted by nepotism) seems more likely than strictly inheritable positions, though a clan-based system also seems to appear (of course, you can easily have family businesses).
Medieval guild systems were basically labour exploitation, where the apprentice spent most of his time doing manual labour, and very little time actually being taught the trade by the master craftsman. It follows from this that if the master is liked by his teacher, e.g. due to non-blood nepotism or being an actual blood relative, the proportion of teaching could be much larger and with much less exploitation, so that over the course of the guild-regulated apprentice duration, e.g. 7 years, many more Skill Points can be accumulated.

This would lead to classes or grades of apprenticeships. Normal ones are mostly exploitation, so the resulting journeymen have decent skill but nothing special. Favourable ones have a bit less exploitation, so the resulting journeymen got enriched by more SP during the time when they had young and flexible brains. And very favourable ones have little exploitation and thus the resulting journeymen are very skilled, and are likely to achieve great craftsmanship later in life.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
I disagree that dwarves wouldn't have a struggling working class, it's just that dwarven society is typically relatively wealthy overall, so a struggling dwarf looks like an average wealth human. However, I'm inclined to think that dwarves are big on idle hands being bad, and thus dwarven society encourages 100% employment, with makework projects if necessary (which accounts for a lot of pointless structures created by dwarves). Dwarves might well have a disadvantage or advantage that they have trouble just relaxing and doing nothing, a dwarf who's just sitting there will probably pick up a stick and start carving, or something.
A vague idea I have is that food might be expensive in Dwarven society while manufactured goods are relatively cheap, compared to Human society. This makes sense if almost all Dwarves are Compulsive Craftsmen and if they import their food by trade with the above-ground world.

This produces a different picture of the underclass, compared to urban medieval Humans. The poorest Humans, in towns, are skinny because food is expensive, but they're also clad in rags and own no real requipment or homes. The Dwarven underclass might be very well supplied with decent clothes (woven by compulsive weavers), and small but still private homes (dug by compulsive diggers), and own nice eating utensils (made by compulsive smiths and potters), but be rather on the skinny side and slightly malnourished, because food is what's expensive.

They might also be strongly inclined towards grumpiness because they get all their fluids from water. Even if the water is from clean underground streams, they look with envy at their better-off brethren not because they can always fill their bellies with food, but because they can have several bottles of ale per day (keep in mind, alcohol is made from grain or other foods, so if food is scarce, so is alcohol).

If Dwarves who travel in Human society are also grumpy, it's because they don't like our booze.
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