Dwarves of Athas Assistance

That sounds like the description I recall. I think the center of the plaza may have had a red sun in made out of the stones on the ground.

An entrance to kemelot somewhere.

You should also check the adventure from the box set “a little knowledge”. Where Baranus is said to be the leader/founder and compare to the novels where it is Lyanius as the leader.

Also the 50 dwarven children which I always thought to be odd. So maybe they have like swings and a playground for them. :crazy_face:

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I remember making a map for Kled once and it got me thinking. What do they eat or do for work? It’s the same problem you have in many fantasy setting. But it seemed worse for kled. Do they plant gardens? Farm animals? Hunt for food?
Do they mine and make anything? It seemed they did an awful lot of sun worship. Not sure that pays well in a desert waste land.

It seemed the books had Kled trading with people from Tyr and Urik. But what for? I think 4e gave Kled an obsidian mine to somewhat address this.

Also please note that the boxed set adventure has the dwarven children with hair. See the encounter card 17. Not sure what to think about this.

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Here’s my first draft. Suggestions and corrections are welcome: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17YV5vynUTRD5DfMa4Q0TyJ6zWOFRkvvJ0bgRituyVIc/edit?usp=sharing

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Working on reading this…

Two things that first popped out.
First sentence. Change “Dwarven village who have dedicated”. To “village of Dwarves who have dedicated”

Second. I see you chose to go with Barunus for the founder name per adventure a little knowledge. Compare with the Troy Denning novels books 2 and 3 that refer to the founder as Lyanius. Particularly chapter one of book 3. First paragraph…

“I am Lyanius, Kled’s uhrnomus!" the old man bellowed.
“What’s an uhrnomus?” Sadira asked, looking to Rikus for an explanation.
“The village founder,” Rikus answered.

I am a little more partial to the name Lyanius just because Denning helped create Dark Sun. And I haven’t checked the authorship of the adventure with Barunus. Maybe he has two names or a last name. But others have explanations for using Barunus. Just my 2 ceramics worth.

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I updated it. Thank you for you insight and information.

What a great idea, I do think there are lots of missed opportunities detailing Dwarves. I’m working on a 5E edition conversion and streamlining races and size has been one of my priorities.

At the core are fun and balance.

All races should be balanced and have the same “value” in points. It’s arbitrary, but I would choose 6 points (worth 6 ability score bonuses or three feats ) for race, 4 points for Subrace and 4 points for backgrounds.

Races should not be played to optimize a role or class, but for the role-playing aspects. Halflings and Half-Giants are of course of extreme sizes, but all other races could have a range of sizes. Making size a separate option together with talent and training, a Race can become its own thing without focus on ability scores too much.

Size includes things that depend on size and height. Combining size steps in Short and Stout one can trade speed for sturdiness without changing size.

For Dwarven racial abilities I had this in mind:
Longevity II (Aging / 4)
Resistance (Poison and Death/Necrotic)
Darkvision
Dwarven Focus
This leaves two points to spend.

In addition I would chose to make Tireless and/or Exertion Dwarven abilties that Muls inherit from their Dwarven parent. Or at least make them optional. I’m still debating various options for the effects. Similar to Elven Run, instead of an inborn talent this could be something that can be trained (which should be part of Subrace).

Racial abilities could be something supernatural, part of a character’s magical / psionic nature. As supernatural abilities, any may be learned as a psion (borrowing elements of monk and druid) , including Longevity. Minor for players, but major the world. This is a combination of training and enlightenment, eventually ascending into something more (outsider like a monk, pyreen, genie).
This can be awesome for enriching the setting, like elves have a connection to the Feywild and Eladrin may be a fey type ascension or bloodline. Dwarves need something similar, an opposite to Fey. It could be some Races of Stone based being, but with ties to both Earth and Fire (and genie races Dao and Efreet), while Fey/Eladrin are linked to Air and Water (Djinn and Marid).

The most important “ability” is Dwarven Focus, which may expand on this. Elves and Dwarves may have or develop opposite versions of Still Mind abilities.
Elves focus on multiple things at one and being aware (the Fey ancestry and Trance abilities that Athas Elves lost but may learn?).
Dwarves are single-minded and focus on confidence and conviction.
These things could be represented by having to use the lowest of two abilities in some situations and the highest of two in others.

I’m planning to detail this for a long while, but I’m too elven to decide on certain parts!