Among the various iterations of fantasy dwarves, a few trade skills are common associations. I figured that we could use a thread for information and images. This doesn’t relate directly to the battles which we all love, but they form the fluffy lore which enriches the flavor of our evil armies.
What I wanted to start with, in this specific post, are resources about the tools of the trades. Specifically, three trades.
Blacksmithing is the obvious first choice, as dwarves are considered master smiths in most fantasy settings. The article “Is Blacksmithing a Good Hobby?” contains a section about the basic tools needed by a smith, though some of them are modern tools.
Next is mining, as dwarves are often associated with mines. They might dig the mines themselves, or they might oversee groveling slaves, but either way, mining is an important trade. The Gezahe are an early modern collection of tools used by individual miners.
Finally, and less common, is stone masonry. This is often implied rather than stated, as dwarves are portrayed as dwelling in great underground cities which must have taken decades to carve. Even ziggurats are a form of stone work. D&D Basic went further and gave dwarves characters advantages on noticing sloping passages and secret doors in walls. Either way, a good place to start is the 13 Essential Masonry Tools list.
I’d like to eventually find good quality images for these various tools before moving on to other topics in this area, but I’m hoping that others can contribute as well. It’s a nice little extra lore piece.
ADDENDUM TO AVOID CLUTTER: how precisely could dwarves perform many of these functions without wood? Masonry requires scaffolding, smithing requires fuel, and even mining requires support beams. Check out the first answer to this question on Stack Exchange for clever solutions.
I’d also count them as savy rock carvers, not just masons. I’d assume some runes would be carved into the stones used for building themselves. They would have to be cunning metalurgists and alchemists to make barrels that can handle the powder loads necessary for the earthquake mortar, and to create the only ICBM in existance (The Skaven dont count. They are like North Korea)
Also, bone can be used as a combustable for fire, and given that the area is called “The Great Skull Land” and its traditionally where dragons went to die, I would wager there are a large amount of bones of all sizes. Considering dragons were around since before the old ones even showed up, it might be the most plentiful resource around!
I entirely agree that the use of bone would probably replace wood for most uses where metal isn’t suitable in chaos dwarven society.
Furniture, Scaffolding, jewelry, and Tools that cannot be made from metal (wooden mallets/the handle of a mason’s hammer are purposefully designed to be soft enough not to dent material.). bone could be used as a stand in for wood.
I do believe dwarven society (and Chaos Dwarven) would as a whole be less reliant on wood. Humans use wood for quick fix solutions, that aren’t intended to stand the test of time. I believe dwarven culture as a whole would value long term high quality solutions over cost saving human methods. Stone and metal would be far more common then bone, but certain applications require a softer material by nature.
I think even furniture would probably be made from metal, or smooth carved stone. I can imagine they would imbed precious gemstones into pieces of massive smoothly sculpted black onyx. They could decoratively apply carved bone binding into the corners, maybe even foreign mother of pearl or abalone found on the coasts of Ind inlayed into the tabletops found in the chambers of pompous sorcerers.
As for how Chaos Dwarves heat their forges I think it’s safe to assume they’re entombing enraged daemons and using their unbridled fury to heat the forges. before this chaos dwarves could’ve found ways to refine the natural tar found in the oil sands of the darklands into a gas similar to propane and used this to heat their foundries.
Bone Carving would be a trade found within the Chaos Dwarven working class. This could also mean that bone scavenging parties out of Gorgoth, The Black Fortress, Or Darkhold to the Plain of Bone occur.
If you have oil in the dark lands you likely also have lignite / coal seams. Although I am somewhat surprised that bones supposedly burn that well, they cannot be used for smelting. Natural gasses are hard to bring up to temperature as well. Possible but the logistics associated with it make it hard for me to see why chaos dwarves would choose it over coal. Also: the steam engines and gun powder weapons likely rely on coal.
Wood is most likely imported from friendly green skin tribes. Would they timber their mines? Sometimes perhaps. Even with a complete disregard for the slaves’ safety, it might make economic sense here and there to stabilise a section when a collapse could potentially mean having to give up that particular mine.