#askdworf

[loominggaia]

niittinaatti I like the lycanthrope dworf who Evan meets in The Lycanthrope's Laboratory.

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I feel so bad for her. She just wanted to be a pediatrician and help children! She was even willing to join Lendon's shady program and endure medical torture to make sure future generations had a cure for her disease. She was a real one, and we never even got to know her name. :(

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[loominggaia]

It’s refreshing to see the Dwarfs being unlikeable, shameless, greedy asshats. I think it makes them actually far more unique compared to many other Dwarves, who (Good or not), atleast have some measure of honor or other likeable traits such as being trustworthy & not lying.

I'm glad you like the little assholes!

I shifted the whole "honor-obsessed" trait onto centaurs and decided to go a different direction with dworfs. I see dworfs as highly industrious, but that industriousness has consequences. Left unchecked, it leads to sprawling megalopolises, pollution, automation, and spiraling capitalism.

A population living in these unnatural conditions--dworfen or not--will eventually start to behave in certain ways as they adapt to basically living in a zoo. They are very detached from nature and themselves, so they have experienced a bit of a behavioral sink.

Of course not all dworfs are like this, it's only a generalization of those living in a certain areas. There are plenty of dworfs on Looming Gaia who are perfectly decent people, and who are trying to create positive changes in the world.

Dworfs like Empress Qara, Bozzag Blackjaw, and Forzotti Dorzlaf are the worst of the worst, and are not a good representation for all dworfkind.

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[loominggaia]

What is the dworfen expansion? It's mentioned in the page about minotaurs

The Dworfen Expansion refers to a big event in Zareen Empire's history. It spanned from the end of the Second Age to roughly the middle of the Third Age, though exact dates are heavily disputed.

When Gaia created the first dworfs, She placed them in the mountains of Noalen. This means they were never native to Evik, where Zareen Empire is located. However, many of these Noalendese dworfs quickly found their way to Evik by boat, as they interacted a lot with seafaring humans on Noalen's eastern coast.

During this time, many Noalendese (and some Halostiran) humans and dworfs were pouring into Evik in search of gold. Many other species joined them, but dworfen communities in particular were credited for the rapid colonization of this land, because of the ingenious engineering technologies they imported from their homeland colonies on Noalen.

Evik was quickly being colonized by foreigners, and Noalendese dworfs were leading the charge. This period was called "The Dworfen Expansion". It lasted centuries, and some say it never ended, as Evik now has the highest population of dworfs on Looming Gaia. Dworfs hold the most power in Zareen Empire, even though they are not native to that region. They seized this power forcefully, and some would say unfairly.

During the Dworfen Expansion, the native peoples of Evik were violently displaced or assimilated into what would later become Zareen Empire (the Boanningwad elves are one example). Factories replaced forests, the meadows were paved over, and the valleys were filled with industrial waste. The product of all this rapid growth and pollution was a wealth of amazing technology, most of which has roots all the way back to the original dworfen colonies of Noalen.

Depending on who you ask, the Dworfen Expansion is either a point of pride or one of shame.

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[loominggaia]

Considering the racism between gold and silver dwarves, how’s this character concept sound? Dworf uncle ruckus. A fat, ugly, extremely racist silver dworf who’s convinced he’s a gold dworf, but has “revitigo” that makes him silver. He’s always spitting straight up S-teir professional racism towards silvers, hating them to his core. Despite himself being 102% silver (with a 2% margin of error).

I'm always a slut for Boondocks references lol

Truthfully, there are some delusional and self-loathing peoples like this in the Looming Gaia universe. They may not accept the species or race they are, might reject their nationality, or ethnicity, or some other quality about themselves.

Tojum is a character who hated herself for being a kobold. Kobolds are considered the lowliest creatures in Seelie society, so Tojum was taught early on that she was ugly and unworthy of good things. Eventually she escaped that culture and learned to have confidence in herself, but I think that rejection of her own species still lingers within her.

Mr. Ocean also struggles with this. He was mistreated and misunderstood by other cecaelia his whole life, and so he decided that they are all malicious creatures. He's probably the closest thing to an Uncle Ruckus in the series, because he rejects his own species, and on some level he really believes he transformed into a Terrian when he grew legs. He's a very passive and agreeable character in general, but around other cecaelia his whole demeanor changes. He suddenly gets kinda rude and shitty. It's a defense mechanism, I imagine.

Then there is Ginger and Itchy...They both distrust other satyrs, though Ginger isn't as open about this as Itchy is. Itchy will just blatantly say that satyrs are all lazy, thieving, hedonists. Ginger may not say it out loud, but her behavior towards her kind can say it all. Hell, they don't even trust eachother half the time.

Ginger knows it's ignorant and is at least trying to teach her children not to think this way. Itchy, meanwhile, regularly tells his kids not to trust other satyrs because they're "feral scum".

Evan is not ashamed of his species, but he is ashamed of his national heritage as an Evangelite. He goes as far as to reject it, saying he doesn't consider himself an Evangelite even though he was born in Evangeline Kingdom. Instead, he thinks of himself as a "man of Gaia".

Lukas rips on other Matuzans pretty hard, never missing a chance to mention how corrupt/horny/greedy/whatever they are. Then again, he rips on everyone for everything, so...

Those are just some examples I can think of at the moment, I'm sure there are probably more in the series somewhere.

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[loominggaia]

You say dworfs are from Noalen but where exactly?

All dworfs descend from a handful of tribes that lived around Ironmaid Mountain in Noalen. However, they advanced and migrated quite quickly, so ruins of their early civilizations can be found all over the Shrieking Mountains and even Frostbite Crag. Dworfs consider the entire northeast region of Noalen their "motherland".

Early in their history, many dworfs jumped on boats with humans and colonized western Evik. These colonies later became Zareen Empire. Dworfs in these colonies did better than the ones who stayed in Noalen, because in Noalen they faced a lot of conflict with encroaching Evangelites, wild dragons, hostile centaur tribes, and bad weather.

Today, there are more dworfs living in Evik than Noalen, so even though it is not their native land, western Evik is often called "Land of Dworfs".

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[loominggaia]

What’s with the continued conflict between gold & silver dworfs? Aside from their skin being unable to blend what acts the source for all this conflict? What are some stereotypes they have about eachother? And if a mixed race dworf couple or a dworf character gets race swapped how many jimmys would get russled?

Good question! To answer this properly, we have to go back in time.

The gold-skinned dworfs descend from just one ancient tribe in Noalen. The silver-skinned dworfs descend from an ancient tribe not too far from them. These two tribes were pretty similar, but differed on some superficial levels like accents, religion, cuisine, fashion, etc. Naturally these differences caused some conflict.

But the majority of their conflicts were due to resource competition. These early dworfen societies invented advanced technologies and infrastructure very quickly, but these things required a lot of raw resources like wood, minerals, water, and so on.

Both tribes were located in the mountains and shared the same river, but the gold tribe was at a higher elevation. You know what they say..."shit rolls down hill". This meant that the silver dworfs' section of river was getting polluted with the gold dworfs' sewage and refinery pollution. Also as the two tribes expanded, they would squabble over logging, mining, and farming territory.

These conflicts lasted a long time, and during this time the dworf tribes harbored resentment towards eachother. They just couldn't seem to put aside their superficial differences and become allies.

That is, until they were both assimilated into the Great Kingdoms. But even now, echoes of their turbulent past still ring through many of their communities today.

Exactly how bad this prejudice is depends on where you are. It varies city to city, or sometimes neighborhood to neighborhood. Sometimes it's barely there, and other times it's impossible to miss. Stereotypes will vary a lot too, and some will even contradict eachother. Gold dworfs tend to think of silver dworfs as lazy, slobby, alcoholics, while silver dworfs think the gold are gluttonous, vain, narcissists.

I could imagine some dworf communities getting very upset if a popular dworfen character was race-swapped. They might complain and protest. But ultimately they are a minority, and most modern peoples wouldn't care that much. To other species, it would seem no different than casting a brunette in a blonde's role; it's different, but the difference is superficial and ultimately affects nothing.

Likewise, the dworfs' skin colors are just superficial differences that mean nothing. Their original cultures and traditions are long gone, thousands of years in the past. Even their ancestral lands have been absorbed by Evangeline and Folkvar. Whatever they squabble over now are just problems these communities made up in their heads due to generations of prejudice.

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[loominggaia]

Anonymous asked:

Is being mixed on looming gaia treated the same way it is on earth like having a skylid and like odazi couple on a zareen TV show would be diverse or something

Anonymous asked:

This is the same annon who did the big racil question I ment is it like in the real world weee seeing an odazi and skylind on TV in zareen would be something you never saw back in the day

That’s a good question! The answer is a bit complicated, so I’ll start by saying that in the Looming Gaia universe, the words “race” and “species” refer to different things.

“Species” refer to different species of people. For example, humans and satyrs are two different species.

“Race” refers to a different breeds within the same species. For example, Ela and Faefaras are two different races of elf. They are both are the same species, but different races.

In the real world, all human races evolved from one single group of humans (who evolved from apes before that, and fish before that, and so on...). But on Looming Gaia, the Spirit of Gaia crafted each race of each species separately--there was no evolution at play. So the concept of “race” is quite a bit different on LG than in the real world.

With all that said, there is less racism in the world of LG than in the real world. Why is that, you ask? Because if you are a human in a world with half-animal people running around, you are probably just relieved to see another human, no matter where they came from or what color they are.

On Looming Gaia, people are a lot less concerned about race than they are about species. Of course there are exceptions, and there is still racism in some parts of the world (This was actually a major theme in “Age of the Grupphund”). But for the most part, people regard race in the same way we regard hair or eye color in the real world. They acknowledge a difference, but it’s usually not a big deal.

So, to answer your question...

There was never a point in Zareenite history where interracial couples were considered controversial--at least for most species. There was just one exception, and it was among dworfs.

Silver-skinned and gold-skinned dworfs have been beefing with eachother since the very beginning of their history, and they have carried this beef with them into modern times. This dworf-specific racism has calmed down a lot in recent times, but its remnants still linger in Zareenite society. It’s worse in some regions than in others.

Among other species, no, this isn’t really an issue. The average Zareenite would see an Odazi/Skylind couple on TV and never give it a second thought...yet whenever a gold/silver dworf couple is shown, jimmies are still rustled to this day.

The reason this racism has stuck around for dworfs is due to a unique biological phenomenon. Usually when peoples breed, their offspring will inherit a mix of their skintones, hair tones, etc. For example, a light-skinned human and a dark-skinned human might produce medium-skinned offspring. A green-skinned goblin and a brown-skinned goblin may produce offspring with brownish-green skin. And so on...

But this is not the case for dworfs. They are born either gold or silver, and for whatever reason, these colors never blend when they have offspring. The offspring has a 50/50 chance of inheriting either gold or silver skin.

Strangely, their hair and eye colors don’t follow this rule. It’s unique to dworfen skin, and they are the only species in which this phenomenon happens. Other species were able to blend features with one another over time, and it helped them realize they were not so different after all. But for dworfs, this process has not been so easy. Their unique biology has led to continued division among them.

(Of course that’s not the only reason these two groups of dworf still quarrel, but it sure hasn’t helped the situation...)

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[loominggaia]

What are some myth regarding dworfs

Long ago, some tribes of primitive Evangelites believed that dworfs were just another breed of human. These Evangelites called them "dwarvs", and it was also believed that humans with dwarfism were the offspring of a dwarv and a non-dwarv. This meant a lot of false infidelity accusations were flying around at this time...

As time passed, these Evangelites learned that "dwarvs" were actually a species separate from humans. And as language evolved, the name "dwarv" evolved into "dworf", which became the dworfs official name in Universa.

Some believe that gray-skinned dworfs all descend from ancestors born in mountains rich with silver, while yellow-skinned dworfs' ancestors were born in mountains rich with gold. Researchers can't yet explain what causes these two skin colors among dworfs, but they have confirmed that it has nothing to do with gold and silver.

There is a popular myth that you can get drunk on dworf blood. But any vampire will tell you this isn't true...In reality, dworf blood does not have natural alcoholic properties.

Some people, especially older Zareenites, think that dworfs will go blind if they spend too much time in direct sunlight. While dworfs do have some sensitivity to sunlight, the damage it does to their eyes is temporary just like with other species. Any discomfort they feel can be eased just by wearing sunglasses or brimmed hats.

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