This a human tale from Gatanese folk-lore that originates from before the Empire of Gatan that explains from the point of view of a Gatanese commoner how the group known as Forge Dwarfs came to set up their communities (known as Forges) amongst the human settlements.  It came about in-game from one of the players asking what their character, who comes from Gatan (which is the example setting in the OpenQuest rulebook).

I forgot how much I liked writing this sort of thing, not just from years of playing in Glorantha but also from writing up fragments of myths to present in Monkey the Roleplaying Game. 

Note, none of this is Open Gaming Content, as is anything I write about Gatan (which is defined as product identity in OpenQuest 3).

How Dwarfs Came to Live With Us

Hundreds of years ago, a group of dwarfs came down from their mountain homes*

“Why are you here?” asked our Elders?

“We want to have houses like you, try your foods, and have women” the Spokes Dwarf replied.

“No, you can’t have our women. They are ours,” replied the Elders.

“No, you have misunderstood us. We don’t have any women where we come from. We will live among you and learn,” the Spokes Dwarf replied.

The Elders were still confused, but the Dwarfs said they would make crafted goods and trade directly with the Elders in exchange for an area of housing in our village. So this was amenable to our ancestors, and so they set up what became known as a Forge in our town.

One day the Elders noticed that Dwarfen women were wandering about the Forge and even popping over to the bakers to pick up bread and cakes.  Confused, they went to the Spokes Dwarf.

“I see you have women now. How did they get here? They weren’t here yesterday,” they asked.

“They did not come here. We made them. We watched how your women work, and we made copies of them,” replied the Dwarf.

So that is how the Dwarfs who live in our towns, cities and villages came here many hundreds of years ago so that they could be more like us. The dwarfs who stayed in their mountain homes, are rather stuffy and don’t have any women. The Forge Dwarfs say that their Mountain brothers suffer from in-flexibility. I don’t know what that means, but I like our Dwarfs much more.