I'm deeply disappointed you didn't take the chance to go with "Ditch the caves, hit the waves!"
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
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Ditch the earth, hit the surf!
Get out of the tunnel and swab the gunnel!
Get off that rock, we're about to undock!
No time to mine, we're sailing the brine
Off the turf, in the surf!
You've got a bright future in dwarven politicking/travel agency. 🤌🏼
Feels like a pitch from corporate.
"Clearly dwarves are the most cost effective solution."
"How will the dwarves feel about eating spoiled food and being separated from everything their culture cherishes?"
"Excellent question and the answer is simple: Rum and spiced Whiskey."
“How will the dwarves feel about eating spoiled food and being separated from everything their culture cherishes?”
Same way human sailors do, probably. Humans didn't exactly evolve for being stuck on a small wooden thing for months on end, living off of hard tack.
I think sailing has been pretty staple culture for humans for at least 3000 years if not more.
Yes, but before maybe the 15th century they didn't really go on the really long voyages without frequent stops for resupply that lead to severe nutritional deficits. Maybe on accident or in unusual circumstances, but not as a standard modus operandi. Most of the time, people just sailed within sight of the coast.
And while 3000 years is definitely long enough to develop a sailing culture, it's not long enough to change the physiological makeup. Though I guess the same could be said about dwarven miners, if we assume that they developed from a common ancestor with humans and weren't just purpose-made as miners or general underground dwellers by the gods, which is often the lore about them.
Archaelogical digs in Oceania have uncovered evidence of deep sea fishing (tuna bone carved fishhooks) from 40,000 years ago. We have been at sea a long time.
I have issue with almost all of your points.
- Dex & wisdom would be the important stats for sailors IMO (i am not saying strength and con are useless, but just not as important, they would be 3rd and 4th IMO).
- Darkvision wouldn't do a damn thing, its range would barely get off the side of the boat.
- Poison resistance is not disease resistance.
- Some spoiled food would be poison, but some would also be disease (depends on how it spoiled and the food).
- In order for short stature to be relevant to ship design, they would need a completely custom designed ship tailor made for them, which would have benifits but sounds unlikely for what pirates would be sailing. (That being said, a dwarven merchant ship designed speciifcally for their stature would be a massive pain for normal height characters to battle on)
- lower speed means they swim slower too which means going overboard is even worse.
EDIT: dwarven submarines!
- short stature actually hugely relevant as submarines are notoriously cramped
- darkvision means no need for lights in the sub, beneficial for multiple (admittedly somewhat minor) reasons.
- honestly no clue what stats would be important for a sub, no argument here
- toxic gasses less of a problem thanks to poison resistance
- Dont even need to go to the surface, a fully underwater submarine port could be connected to existing dwarven settlements near the ocean with the correct design and planning.
- Also benefits from legendary dwarven engineering.
Dex is good, but IMO it's not as vital as Con. Sailors were dying a LOT, and it wasn't from accidents. Con would help a lot with diseases (those were rather common on sailing ships), the exhaustion inherent to working on a sailing ship and the lack of nutritious food. And scorbut, which is a disease, was one of the biggest issues in intercontinental sailing.
Darkvision might not do jack for navigation, but it would be very useful when you need to work day and night and the only available light sources are torches, oil lamps, candles, moonlight and starlight.
The OP never even mentioned pirates.
AFAIK most sailors couldn't swim at all, and when would the lower speed actually be an issue? In most cases, it's all about whether you get exhausted before you're at your destination.
Great point with the submarines, though.
Dex is valuable for tall ships, but steamships and ironclads, str/con is the way to go.
tall ships are a hate crime to dwarves
I like the mental image of a dwarf ship that's 6 ft tall and got 47 masts to make up for it.
like one of those italian airplanes from the 1920s!
Dex would be super important for them too. Cannons of all flavors aim with dex due to being ranged weapons.
The height being an issue for other creatures gave me a funny thought. If dwarves didn't build massive structures and instead built for their height, people invading them would have such an issue. You'd have dwarves running through halls chopping at them while they're crawling around or bent down. Invaders wouldn't stand a chance.
For sure wisdom being the highest priority unless they always sail near the coast, but to be fair you only need 2 people with high wisdom
These are all problems humans already have and try to get around. A few adventurous and entrepreneurial dwarves is all it would take to kick start the golden age dwarven naval empire.
I am looking at this from a fun world building viewpoint and I find this idea exciting.
Darkvision limited to 60ft. Nighttime navigation was based on stars.
A ship can barely contain enough ale to last a dwarf a month, let alone an entire crew...
below decks in ships were notoriously dark
Gay darkroom vibes
That's a feature, not a bug.
indeed, get boarded by someone without darkvision/good light source? just retreat below decks and slaughter them
Probably a bad idea. If I was leading a boarding party, and all the defender's retreated below decks, I'd consider it a victory. Take down the sails, pin the rudder, then park my ship outside of their cannons' firing arc. Then just wait. Maybe have my crew bring over buckets of shit, vomit, or whatever other vile substances we could find, and dump them down the grates. If I got real desperate, I could just board up the doors and set the ship on fire. Sure, I'll miss out on most of the treasure, but those dwarves will probably burn to death before the boat totally sinks.
Depends on your goal. If you just want to sink the ship, boarding is unnecessary. If you want to loot it, you have to go below at some point.
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Darkvision limited to 60ft. Nighttime navigation was based on stars.
You don't need darkvision to see stars and that would be dim light, so darkvision is a boon
Then it doesn't help navigation
It still means they can see the area within 60' of the boat as bright light
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Tbh, that's a rule that makes sense in context and something where I as a GM would make a house rule.
Even the darkest night at sea is not nearly as dark as the mines, so I'd totally allow for darkvision to be range-less (or long-range) on the sea.
Edit: deleted because I replied to the wrong person
Having lived on a boat for years, I can tell you right now, you show me a body building midget, and I'll show you an amazing marine mechanic.
Splittermond, a German RPG, has a culture of arctic viking dwarves. It's perfect.
"The Boat Ramp of Durin, Lord of Mooria. Speak, matey, and enter. I, Narvi, made it."
Saily saily ship
One of my favorite campaigns I was a tempest cleric dwarf in a sea campaign. She came from a clan of dwarves that would take longboats along river coasts downstream from a mother clan's mountain mining to find pockets of washed down minerals. It was so fun and eventually she started her own seafaring clan the Sundersalt. We were based on an island but controlled a lot of trade in the area with ships modeled after Korean turtle ships
I am a dwarf and I'm sailing a ship
Saily saily ship
Saily saily ship
Ran a Pirate campaign once. Had a pirate faction of Dwarfs called the Reefbeards.
They lived up, under and along the water for so long, they had colorful corals growing in their beards.
They also had a lot of cool technology, so they shot grapplehooks to swing over and ran around with entire cannons on their back.
The copper dwarves are excellent sailors.
They aren't very buoyant though, are they? What happens when one falls overboard?
You go back and mine another one.
I would say dexterity isn't such a bad stat while moving on the masts or wet planks. and since they can see in the dark too, and further because they are much larger, elves win again -.-
What is this, dwarves for giants? Those fuckers are at least 5m tall, goddamn.
THANKS I NEEDED THIS
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