For some months I’ve been working on my own Fantasy rulebook and setting designed ideally for mass battles.
Over the coming weeks I’ll be using this series to explore the development of the setting, factions, mechanics, and themes behind the game. Some articles will dive into rules and battlefield systems. Others will focus entirely on lore, cultures, or narrative concepts.
Previous Articles
Like the Orcs, when building a fantasy setting, the Dwarfs come with just as much baggage. Everyone imagines them with their underground holds, heavy armour, axes, long grudges and an unhealthy interest in gold. And again, like the Orcs of Orders & Omens, some of those ideas still exist.
The Stone-Kin, as they preferred to be called, are mountain dwellers, and are stubborn. Their armies are resilient and difficult to move. The human kingdoms depend heavily on their craftsmanship.
But while thinking about their background, one of the questions I asked myself was:
What would a civilisation built around endurance actually look like?
Not just a people who live a long time, but a people who think in centuries. Because in a setting where preserving memory if first and foremost it felt strange for the Dwarfs to just become short warriors who drink and grumble. I wanted them to feel ancient and steadfast.
It should be a civilisation that survives because it remembers. Not through stories or books, but the very stone their homes are made from.
The Stone-Kin
The first change was very simple for me. They do not call themselves Dwarfs, but amongst Humans the name remains common. But to themselves they are the Stone-Kin.
I wanted this name to reflect how they would see themselves, not just as inhabitants of mountains, but as people shaped by them.
Stone-Kin settlements are not the underground holds of Tolkien or Warhammer with halls carved beneath the peaks, but instead they stretch across mountainsides and through hidden valleys. Bridges span impossible drops between cliffs, and terrace farms climb the mountainside.
I wanted their settlements to feel less like caves and more like a civilisation that was built around the mountains rather than inside them.
No Kings
One of the earliest decisions I made was that unlike other fantasy Dwarf settings, the Stone-Kin would not have kings. Instead the Stone-Kin govern themselves through the Assembly of Holds.
Assembly of Holds
Each hold sends an emissary to debate matters of trade, defence, law and diplomacy. No singular ruler commmands them all.
To the Humans this process often appears frustratingly slow as Stone-Kin debates can stretch for months, or even years. But to the Stone-Kin slowness is not weakness, simply caution.
The mountains are not hurried
– Stone-Kin Proverb
The reasoning behind this was fairly simple. If Humans tend towards ambition and Orcs towards speed, I wanted the the Stone-Kin to feel patient and deliberate.
A civilisation more concerned with stability than glory.
The Hall of Laws
At the centre of the Stone-Kin civilisation stands the Hall of Laws. This Hall does not sit within any hold, but exists separately as a neutral ground where decisions are debated and remembered.
The Hall itself is lined with immense stone tablets containing the laws and agreements of the past. Every ruling, every alliance and every promise carved into stone.
“Stone-Kin debates exhaust most Human emissaries. Though whether this slowness is wisdom or stubbornness depends on who is asked.”
– Belen the Chronicler: The Races of the World
But even stone does not last forever, time wears even mountains smooth and some tablets have become so ancient that age has slowly erased portions of them, causing some to lose their meaning.
When this happens the Stone-Kin gather to debate about what their ancestors intended. Only once a new agreement is made are the words carved once more into a fresh tablet.
I found myself drawn to this idea while building the setting. That even memory can erode and history slowly changes, not necessarily because people lie but simply because reasons have been forgotten with time.
Memory Through Stone
One of the central pillars of Orders & Omens lore is how the cultures preserve themselves. The Humans preserve their memory through books, the Orcs through stories and rituals. The Stone-Kin preserve their memory through stone.
They believe what is carved will endure.
Law matters deeply to the Stone-Kin society because laws make up their memories and they provide proof that decisions were made, and mistakes were learned from.
Unlike the Humans whose histories may be rewritten, or the Orcs, whose stories may shift with each retelling, the stone feels permanent.
Even if this permanence may itself prove to be an illusion.
“Stone remembers, but even mountains surrender to time eventually.”
– Vaelorian the Listener
Silent Holds
Even amongst the Stone-Kin though, uncertainty has crept in. Seats at the Hall of Laws sitting empty at gatherings and Human traders who visit the mountains speak of the Silent Holds. Stone-Kin settlements where forges still burn, meals remain on tables untouched and gates stay barred. No bodies, or signs of battle, just silence.
The Stone-Kin rarely speak of these places openly and when they do they change the subject quickly.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most about building the setting for Orders & Omens so far has been taking familiar fantasy ideas and trying to take them down slightly different paths.
The Stone-Kin should feel familiar. Stubborn, resilient and masters of stone. But hopefully there is something else to them now. A people who endure because they remember, or at least try to.
Next Week
I’ll likely explore the Humans and the Faith of Memory, or perhaps the unsettling role of the Elves in maintaining the world’s fragile balance.
