@@norielgames4765he is very comfortable waving that dagger around, it's like he's forgotten he's holding it. No doubt he gets lots of practise during troll hunting season. However, I've been led to believe dwarves favoured battle axes. Ah yes of course, he dual wields with the axe in his right hand.
One idea that's been rattling around my head: Appalachian Dwarves. Dwarves whose culture is based on the rural folk of Appalachia, in particular, the coal fields and lumber-towns up here.
"Hope I haven't bored you too much" Man, this video has been the most interesting thing I've watched in a while! All I knew about Georgia is where it was, What the flag looks like, that its a very very christian nation. I knew all this because I know Lasha Talakhadze and a Sumo Wrestler (yes, really) named Tochinoshin. He was born in Georgia as Levan Gorgadze. He is now retired from wrestling and imports Georgian wine to Japan!
This man is so amazing. He transcended the very concept of cosplay. He is not pretending to be a dwarf, instead, he is a man who looks exactly like the standard fantasy dwarf, talks like a fantasy dwarf, has mannerisms befit of a fantasy dwarf, and most importantly - comes from a culture that is the closest to fantasy dwarven cultures. Seeing this man is what finally convinced me that dwarves in fantasy settings should take cultural inspirations from the rich and overlooked cultures of the Caucasus rather than the overused Nordic cultures.
It makes sense why that happened, though. Seeing as the ideas of modern fantasy dwarves were born from Norse mythology. Like, it's not like somebody just blindly threw a dart at a predominantly white country... there is a real reason for this.
@@KrigareAvHallarna Yeah, obviously, but Western fantasy has moved on long ago. Elves are also from Norse mythology, but barely any settings have "viking elves" in them so why only dwarves should be tied to their mythological origins?
"Relate to" indeed . You bloody well *are* a dwarf, near enough. From the Gray Mountains, by your accent. :D And yes, I'm glad someone is standing up for dwarfkind in the face of haters. Barûk khazad! ⛏🍻
An interesting detail is that in Warhammer Fantasy, the Dwarfen heartland and Karaz-a-Karak in particular is situated in the area that corresponds to real world Caucasus (directly east of Black Water, a very obvious Black Sea stand-in, on the border between Empire/Southern Realms (Europe), Badlands (Levant) and Dark Lands (Central Asia). I'm pretty sure it's no accident, because original GW people were pretty well versed in history.
@@Yingyanglord1 Borderlands are the Balkans analogue, they even have a blend of Mediterranean and Germanic influences because they're both in Imperial and Tilean spheres of influence.
Hey Bordo, great topic. I actually used you as a dwarven armorer and npc companion. He was a really cool charicter, fought with a triple barrelled shotgun and a khajali. I kinda felt bad you immediately were a dwarf. Cheers for that inspiration and keep up the great work
When I think of Dwarfs I think of the Georgians of the Middle Ages and in later periods. Especially during the Crimean Wars. A bunch of riveted mail shirt wearing, musket wielding swashbucklers with thick long beards just comes into mind.
Dwarves are from Georgia? Next time I am near Atlanta, I will have to look for them. (J/K) I actually think of them as being militarily more like the medieval Swiss who were renowned for their pikemen (autocorrect wants me to say pokemon instead of pikemen haha). Culturewise, I think of them as being like a nocturnal society who are sensitive to the sun (based on mythology) and as a direct result come across as mysterious to the world of men. Modern fantasy (to me) seems to have just ripped away all the things that made them what they were. There's so much amazing world building people could do just based on those starting points... Which is why the way most portray them seems a bit dull and too human to me.
@@bastait That's why I included the "(J/K)" part of that... Because otherwise, someone might think I didn't know that. (but...Iberia... that's where Spain is right?)
Mate, this is amazing. Thanks so much for reaching out and including me at the opening of your video. I had no idea you would have posted it this quickly, when it's so well-edited, shot, and everything else! I'm blown away. Truly amazing content, and it's always a plus to learn from someone with the experience to back up their words. Thanks Bordo! All success is well deserved. Huge congratulations on your brilliant video, and here's to more people learning about the Caucasian peoples! -Tom
I think many people see the fantasy races as isolationist and independent societies. That’s why dwarves “make no sense” as you can’t grow anything in the mountain tunnels they’re said to dwell in. It does, indeed, not make sense that dwarves could live that type of life without trade, and they certainly couldn’t have started out by living inside the mountain, because they’d have only mushrooms to eat at best. It makes a lot more sense if dwarves are a part of a greater world, one in which their skills provide things they can trade for things they don’t have. Protecting societies that live below the mountain, mining and crafting, and selling that craftsmanship makes it actually plausible. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and the question of “dwarven ale” has been bothering me. Dwarves couldn’t possibly make ale, if they don’t farm the land and make it themselves, but now I realise, yes they can, if they trade for the ingredients and then brew it!
Found this video to get a better grasp on how to make my dwarves unique. No prior knowledge of your history and the rich culture it has, but somehow made a near exact mirror. I am both even more inspired and yet perplexed. 😂 Thank you for your work.
As a danish person adficted to local folklore, i tend to frame Dwarfs and Elves as entities / spirits rather than living beings. We have alot of Dwarf lore ind Vendsyssel, but no mountains - so dwarfs tend to reside in Bronzeage gravemounds. But in a traditional fantasy setting i have always thought of Dwarfs as cultures heavily dependant on mountain Shepherding food systems
yes, Dwarves are earth spirits and elves are of nature and light, but I like to imagine it as old school fantasy trope of "this happened hundreds of thousands of years ago and before they became spirits they were once like us" trope that Tolkein and Howard use in the early days of fantasy.
@@thebordoshow I've long been of the opinion that dwarves are mythologized remnant memories of early human interaction with neanderthal relic populations. A short, stout, very strong people, who live underground, are reclusive and clannish, are known for their craftsmanship and their ancient knowledge? Fact becomes story becomes legend becomes myth.
A place that has something similar to what you were talking about with mountain people alongside hill people, oddly enough is Hawai'I, because traditionally you have lots of fishing and trading in coastal villages, but as you go more inland from the shores, you start getting into people that did a more lumber cutting and hunting style living (or farming on the bigger islands) complete with their own form of gnomes, with the taller peaks being homes to various gods of their pantheon.
For some reason, I always saw Polynesians in general as the Goliath from D&D - a race who is dedicated to the activities of physical prowess, fair-play and impressive strength, whose bodies are marked by a strange set of lines that it is believed can reveal what is its fate. Or Orcs - have you seen the size of Polynesians? ABSOLUTE UNITS!
4:36 one thing I liked about the Hobbit movies is that some of the dwarves have northern English accents which could be seen as a nod to how a lot of northerners worked as miners for many years until Thatcher shut most of them down
As a writer who has been struggling with making multiple mountainous cultures that are both unique in their own right, and also different from the ubiquitous tropes established by Tolkien, the ideas explored here were extremely helpful. You sir, have created one more student of Caucasian history. I look forward to researching this further and I thank you for your passion in bringing your fascinating culture to an otherwise ignorant audience. o7
When making up a world (just recreationally for myself) I had my dwarves being inspired by the swiss. Fierce defenders of their lands, known for their mountain culture and wealth. That being said, Mycenians with their military and mercantile centers in the heavily fortified mycenean palaces and known for their craftsmanship at the the time are also a great inspirataion.
I use Swiss for Goldbeard dwarves, who are more cunning and business oriented, holding the world gold reserve. its fun to use different inspirations for different variants of a fantasy race, so not to keep it stale and one dementional. not all humans look and act the same, so why should elves and dwarves.
this randomly showed up in my recommendeds and i love it! the enthusiasm in your voice makes it really fun to just listen to you ramble on about the caucuses!
Used to read Vazha-Pshavela a lot when I was in highschool and the rich history and culture of Georgia always blew me away. Such an endless source for world building inspiration too. Would love to see more of those rumblings :D
it took me 30 seconds to realize that was a blade. I thought he had a really rad smoking pipe. that's it, this man is going to be the stereotype for dwarves in my games from now on. i love it not going to lie I'm learning a lot and am loving it. I could listen to this sort of thing forever and not get bored
Ser, I have travelled many leagues and been visited by many beings in this miasmic space we call the internet. Thou, gentle blacksmith, are by far one of the humblest, kindhearted, and peaceful souls to be found here. Many pitfalls and snares are on the road, and twice as many that wish me harm, but thou art most richly adorned than all the vain creatures that stalk the threads of the net. May He who dwells in thee prosper thee, and may thy craft glorify He who crafted the universe.
Very informative, and I very much appreciate the topic of mountain dwelling cultures being from the Rockies in the US, and currently living in Japan which is a very rugged country. Also, as someone who translates very very old Japanese tales and puts them on here myself, I absolutely love hearing about traditional stories from around the world. We are a storytelling species, and it is to our benefit to pass down these stories and the ideas they contain, both through the original stories, and the adaptation of the ideas into new works of fantasy and world building. Thank you very much my friend.
I wholeheartedly agree. Culture is alive when its still in living memory and people connect by sharing stories. I'm personally fascinated by Innu and find many similarities with Caucasian culture
I used the Caucasus region and the cultures within as a base for worldbuilding not long ago. I must say that I learned more from you than all the research that I have done before. Thank you.
great video Borbo, i enjoyed it very much. I'm in the middle of writing a post-apocalypse story where technology and society has regressed to medieval standards, your tales of Alhassan forge priests have inspired me to make gunsmiths hiding in the mountains of my ruined world.
our world has actually been through multiple "Apocalypses". bronze age collapse, dark ages and many more regional falls, like mongolic devastation of middle east and East Europe, Caucasus has been through it all and always managed to scrape by while empires got berried under the sand
@@thebordoshow I also like that your model with the dwarves and the halflings quite closely matches Tolkien's design. With the dwarfs in the Lonely Mountain providing specialist goods and monetary services while the men of Dale and the Long Lake providing food and trade with the outside world.
The Dwarves of my Pathfinder setting that I'm working on come from a mountain society heavily influenced by Welsh culture (The Dwarvish name for the Kingdom is Teyrnas Carregaen, for example), but I might belt some influence from the Caucasus Mountains now!
Considering humans have lived in mountains and caves throughout our history, it isn't unreasonable to assume Dwarves would happily live under a mountain.
My ancestors fled to Ecuador from Spain during the inquisition so I've been fortunate enough to visit my extended family in Quito before. The mountain climate is absolutely wonderful once you adjust to how thin the air is. Even in the dead of winter it never dropped below 60°F. Almost all year long the mangoes are in season.
@@YourLordAnon the Great Book of Grudges, a bit of lore from Warhammer Fnatasy. The Dwarves keep a record of every single slight done against them, written in blood. It can be as extreme as the murder of jundreds of dwarves or as minor as being shorted a few coins in a deal.
you seemed to put yourself down about not being interesting with you history rant, while yeah its not for everyone, I, at least, was fascinated to a fault. You speak with such passion and love for the subject it's genuinely inspiring!
Thanks, I often rant at people who aren't as interested in history so i feel bad for bothering them, thankfully there are plenty of cool folks out there who are interested in it!
@@thebordoshow I also noticed you you say Caucasian (kaw-ka-see-an) as opposed to how I'm used to hearing it (kaw-kay-zhun) and I think this allows me to finally differentiate between Caucasian as a term for white people an Caucasian as a term for the mountain peoples
I once found a copy of Ossetian version of Nart Sagas in my high school library. I was extremely impressed and still are. It was like reading a work of Tolkien but it hit much harder since it was an ancient text. So much wit, so much creativity, so much lessons, so much more. Kurdalægon smiles on to you, gamarcoba from your south-western neighbour my brother in wolf 🐺
Im glad someone else sees their immediate surroundings in the same fantastical terms that I do. I live in the US state of Georgia btw. We have mountains too. I always used to imagine dwarves living in them.
@@thebordoshow From Kentucky here, I should send you some pictures I took on a misty morning after a nasty storm. Was out hunting squirrels and suddenly realized as I was looking at parts of the mountain and thinking about how many homes you could dig into that slope or this cliff face that I WAS the dwarf.
I am amazed as i recently started a fantasy worldbuilding project with dwarves in mind, and had the exact same thought process of including elements of caucasian, tibetan and inca culture to make a more grounded version of this "moutain-dwelling" race we all know and love! It was an absolute delight to stumble on this video, and will happily explore more of your content as this video was as much informative as it was a pleasure to watch. It is an instant like and subscribe on my part!
"I identify with dwarves" sounds like Rhys Davies and looks like someone straight out of Erebor. You're more dwarf than any man ive seen yet! :D Love from Sweden!
Got this video recomended to me semi-randomly, but watching this tall pure-blooded dwarf talking about his native environment with such joy is very entertaining :)
Excellent video! The way you talk about many different topics feel really cohesive and fluid, and has the vibes of sitting down with a friend and hearing them talk about the most interesting stuff you've ever heard. Anyways, I would like to add some points about the interaction between mountain societies and lowland ones from what I know of them in my corner of the world (Southern China and Mainland Southeast Asia), which might also be present to some extent in the Caucasus and other upland regions of the world. The perception folks I know have of mountain societies is that they're indigenous in a way that make "Them" separate from "Us". That people there in the highlands are a different sort of people, without such markers of Us-ness as sedentary rice farming and large population centers, and when They are the same thing as Us, they're "living ancestors," how we were in the past as opposed to how people are in the present. The truth is the mountains and the lowlands are in constant dialogue with each other, are of the same continuous group of people who interact and influence each other. One of the most common interactions happen when lowlanders and people in the foothills are faced with unacceptable taxation, conscription, or some form of oppression. They flee to the highlands where they're out of the state's reach. They abandon rice fields and cattle herds in favor of root crops and slash-and-burn agriculture (unlikely to produce much economic value to the state, and more difficult to be seized or destroyed). They live in less permanent settlements, making it even harder to be controlled by lowland states. (Tangentially related, but Hmong people often trace the etymology of the word "Hmong" to the one that means "free"). And highlanders weren't confined to a single language or culture, as a vast majority would be to some degree multilingual and dwelling on and around constantly shifting political and ethnic boundaries. In the ancient Chinese and Vietnamese classifications of peoples, a person's ethnicity depended less on how they lived (even less on what they looked like), and more on whether that person paid their taxes or not. "Raw" barbarians are those who lived outside state control (lowland history claim these as tribute-paying autonomous vassals, but they were more like trading partners), and "cooked" ones were direct subjects, but still barbarians who are on the first step of the linear path to civilization. On the other hand, lowlanders who "slipped" back into being highlanders are evil and devious people (in Chinese, 奸 jian) who betrayed their own kin and became one with the barbarians. Another important interaction happens when the highlands is of immense economic value to lowland states. Both of them can get by fine without the other, but they both prosper with trade. Aromatic wood, bezoar stones, tung oil, sap-based latexes, feathers, birds' nests, honey, beeswax, tea, tobacco, opium, and pepper for the lowland luxury market and its international trade routes; salt, seafood, ironware (okay this is the most uncharacteristic point for a dwarven culture), ceramics, pottery, fabric, needles, wires, matches, and kerosene for the highlands. Furthermore, the highlands themselves can offer as you said in the video, valuable and useful minerals (and aside from that, tourism and manpower). All you need is a labor force to extract it! Complete control is the ultimate goal, but without the distance-demolishing technology of paved roads, a lowland ruler is gonna have to settle for persuasion. The main thing they can offer to highlanders is a military alliance, a mutual partnership between equals. But the reality of political posturing turn a lowlander merchant-diplomat to a governor extracting tribute from an appointed "chieftain" (in reality, a particularly ambitious headman of a handful of villages eager for clout and valuable lowland products), while the lowlanders (from the highlander perspective) are naïve outsiders too preoccupied with putting themselves at the center of the universe to acknowledge the situation. Still a win-win for both, just one with political nuance that bolsters the position of both parties. Applying this to a fantasy setting is a bit fraught, since lowlanders and highlanders being at least the same species would conflict with the taxonomy of dwarves being distinct from humans. For this I propose something similar to the relationship H. sapiens (probably) had with H. neanderthalensis, where there would still be minor physiological differences, but cultural perception would be the main factor that's differentiating them. And… you know, so on. I ran out of juice writing this.
wow, for the most part you were describing the situation in Caucasus so perfectly I forgot you were talking about china 😅. the relationship you described between Imperial and free folk is basically the state that North Caucasus under Russia is and Georgia often found itself. I'm going to delve deeper on this topic when I cover more history, especially mountains as safe and free space. due to constant raiding and many attempts to wipe us out by myriad of empires many regions have sort of collapsible houses that can be moved, they had to pack up and leave as soon as the smoke rose over the hills. Highlanders were only "conquered" during soviet union when they finally built roads that can take their armies up there, before Highlanders didn't even recognize feudal system and only acknowledged the king as their equal. the similarities show that Geography plays such a heavy role in creating society.
I was not bored. I was amused by the fast forward segments. I found the relations between low lands and high lands to be fascinating and gave me some considerations. However while that sounds all good and well, I can't help but to feel it'll inevitably lead to a case of the upper class stomping on the lower class " _We fight and protect you, you should be glad and just shut up otherwise you'd be dead!_ " which is a sad re-occuring thing of humanity. I'll definetly check out a few others of your videos that I spotted over the days.
Class struggle is a great source of drama. World building should help create conflict for the story so perfect and all good societies are never as interesting to explore as flawed ones.
That's a good point! I wasn't thinking of it in those terms when I wrote that comment, only seeing the way it'll break down but not the drama from it, even though that is a source I myself am incorporatng in my story! Thanks for the headbutt!
An absolutely fantastic video! Thank you! I've been listening to the History of Rome and History of Byzantium podcasts lately and those got me interested in the Caucasus region. Your videos are a very welcome discovery for me.
I'm really glad I got this video in my feed. In the project I'm working on the dwarves take heavy inspiration form slavic and eastern european cultures. So what you discussed here makes very much sense to me. Thank you for opening the door to old Georgian history. It's also interesting how some things remind me of old nordic mythology.
I'm actually working on a big project too, making a fantasy dnd style world but taking inspiration from black sea regions and beyond. Slavs to me are predominantly farmer culture, when they invaded Eastern Rome, rather than pillage and leave they started farming, so the romans let them stay. I get halfling vibes from slavic culture, especially Ukraine and Poland.
@@thebordoshow I understand what you mean. I don't have halflings in my setting, so things like that become much more of a cultural question overall. I watched the video where you talk a bit about your project and it sounds really interesting. Some time ago I was thinking of making a game like that but based in nordic culture and myth. But I decided to focus on the project I'm working on now instead but brought some elements along from the other one.
Greatest tourist attraction haha. I actually got my username from dwarves. Tolkien's dwarves are pretty much just slightly taller and angrier gnomes. Anyway, greetings from Finland, this was very refreshing!
20:00 I'd say you were successful. As an American I had no clue about your countries history or origins and I got so wrapped up in it I forgot I was watching a video about dwarves
I knew most of these informations already, thanks to my interest in history and Caucassian region previously, but you, sir you put is so nicely in one neat presentation, very pleasantly explained. Thank you, great work.
I really like that you're popularising your people's culture! Especcially in the context of story and world building, it just warms my heart even though im not caucasian or georgian or from there at all
Your accent is wonderful to listen to, your premise is immediately engaging, and your examples are a delight to listen to and learn from. Thanks for your contributions, I hope to see more from you on whatever topic you are inclined to share about going forward!
Greeting from România! This video was pretty great. I originally came for the discussion on dwarf culture, but the lessons on Caucasian and Georgian history, culture and mythology was pretty damn interesting.
Interesting video, personally, I find your digressions and your cultural perspectives very intriguing. You've even influenced and inspired me to let my own fantasy play and invent my own background story for dwarves.
If anyone is interested in my new understanding of dwarfs: It began millions of years ago, in a time known only by the gods, dragons, and beings of eternity. The ancestors of dwarves, goblins, and halflings lived in a mountain region larger than all the mountain regions of the world combined. The proto-dwarves, as I call the last common ancestors of dwarves, halflings, and goblins, lived in family tribes and wandered this gigantic mountain. They were small and did not live longer than humans. They also had no cities, villages, farms, or other permanent settlements yet. Due to their size, the proto-dwarves could not cover long distances daily, so they fiercely defended every piece of land. If another tribe occupied a forest or a river, it often meant starvation for one tribe. During this time, a natural toughness developed among the proto-dwarves, which the dwarves never lost. However, wars between tribes were rare because the losses in such tribal wars were high. The proto-dwarves, therefore, had extremely complicated and long-lasting oral agreements with each other. A proto-dwarf tribe that did not adhere to agreements was considered enemies, scum, and cursed for all time. After thousands of years, a tribe found a system of caverns where warm water flowed. In this cavern system, with the help of a god, the proto-dwarves began the first permanent settlement. Wood, leaves, and bushes were brought into the caverns to cultivate mushrooms for food. Over the millennia, this proto-dwarf tribe began to build their own caverns and create new mountain settlements. The other tribes began to trade with this tribe. Wood, herbs, animals, and other items found in the valleys were exchanged for metals, weapons, mushrooms, and protection from the mountain tribes. The tribes that lived in the valleys began to become halflings, while the tribe that lived in the caverns became the dwarves that can be found today. The tribes that never settled and lived nomadically became goblins.
Damn this is what I needed I was thinking about dwarven culture I was thinking about Incan and Georgian as a base but this gave me a push to look deeper and also gave me a lot of cool info Good work
You made my day, friend! I thank the gods of youtube who brought me here. Best wishes and regards from your Circassian neighbor from other side of the mountains. You've just got a new (and very happy) subscriber
An idea that I loved as soon as I heard about it was basing dwarves culture on Ancient Near Eastern culture, city states and proto-kingdoms like Babylon and Ur. Builders of an inscrutable scale, worshipers of a strange fire religion, and known traders. When those ancient city states started building walls, wars basically came to a stop, because nobody had invented siege engines capable of taking them down yet, and I think dwarven defensive engineering would be on a similar level.
what a great video! It's abundantly clear that you are passionate about your people and their history and it's positively infectious. Not only did you provide us a history and geography lesson, you gave us a wealth of information to speculate and imagine with for any wordbuilding projects. cheers!
Thanks algorithm. Greetings from the Ozark Mountains, Bordo. Edit: oh gosh I love your channel. I am such a big fan of the WHERE, and how important the places we live are in our lives--even more so before the modern era.
This is beautiful, please keep on with your history. That part of the world is tremendously important, and at least here in the states we learn very little about it.
I’ve been working with a friend who is making a fantasy D&D type game with some worldbuilding for a specific race- The Galanshr (Giants| lit. Stone men) Instead of dwarves in the mountains, I took the creative liberty to do Giants. And I have been creating a conlang for the giants.
6:28 I loved this video as deeply as any mountain's root, but this part in particular made me feel very warm and happy. Something about the obvious time it would take to create that joke and still being so jovial about delivering that line brought a single tear of joy to my eye.
Damn straight mountain dwarves sources... Great vid. Now gonna go listen again to Wind Rose's "Army of Stone" right after i give another listen to their " I am the Mountain".
Man seeing your earlier video about where your channel should head, it makes me very happy and glad that you got this little blow up. Take advantage of it and do your best, amazing editing in this video.
yea, I was in a rot because I couldn't launch several projects due to myriad of reasons, very happy to see the winds picking up. regained my mojo in a way
As someone who's been working for years on an historical fantasy book about dwarves in the Ural Mountains battling Scythian tribes, I'm pretty sure I was meant to find this video... Thank you!
I absolutely love this, caucasian culture and history have interested me for a while, so getting it presented to me like this is wonderful! I might have to make my dwarves Georgian in my next campaign now lol
I had this video in my queue for a few weeks and I’m so glad I finally watched it. What I’ve been thinking of isn’t strictly a “dwarf” society, but I definitely want to make it a craftsman or smithing society, and now I know basing it in the mountain forests isn’t ludicrous. Sharing this with anyone I know who’d care.
I live in the mountains of south spain, and its very cool how the arabs made us be a society more agrarian, due to the developement of irrigation and water keeping, mainly in coparation to the people of the norther mountaisn of spain, that are more miners societies, but also fishing societies
It's very interesting to me as a Venezuelan Andean considering how different peoples from Spain settled in different places of the Americas. So where I live most families had Galician, Basque or Canarian origins and there's a lot of focus on combining our indigenous hill farming practices and fishing in the rivers with big livestock farms in the plains around the rockier mountains, with cows and bulls being brought from Europe. Before Europeans came we did not have any big animal to help carrying or dragging things like horses or bulls so our societies were very isolationists, the indigenous Venezuelan Andean languages being even considered an isolated language family without relationship to those around it. With those animals we could actually start moving around and became more connected to the rest of the world
Just want to say, it's super cool to see someone so excited to share their culture and history with the world. Thank you for sharing this, it's super cool to learn about a part of the world that isn't talked about much
Should Dwarves not exist? A real dwarf responds!
"Can dwarves exist? We asked a dwarf"
Lmao
the irony its just killing me
Video so controversial the dwarves had to send out an ambassador to prove humans wrong
@@RashFever26 dragons show fallow
The second this man sat down I knew immediately that I should listen to whatever he says about dwarves
Who better than an actual Dwarf?
With his daggerphone he can stab you and listen to your heartbeat dwindle.
He even laughs like a dwarf!
@@norielgames4765he is very comfortable waving that dagger around, it's like he's forgotten he's holding it. No doubt he gets lots of practise during troll hunting season.
However, I've been led to believe dwarves favoured battle axes. Ah yes of course, he dual wields with the axe in his right hand.
One idea that's been rattling around my head: Appalachian Dwarves.
Dwarves whose culture is based on the rural folk of Appalachia, in particular, the coal fields and lumber-towns up here.
I want to hear their ACCENT - imagine, Dwarves speaking a hillbilly accent!
Hey, even a new nickname for Dwarves from Appalachia: Hillbillies.
“We folks here ain’t fixin’ to brew any beer. Moonshine’s good enough fer us!”
This is hilarious I actually just finished putting together a dnd campaign with this exact thing.
That's way Cool. Making Dwarven Mead & running the booze to the Elven Speakeasies?
now dwarf bard with a bajo is stuck in my head!
Holding microphone with the dagger is legendary! I can surely say that he knows what he is talking about.🗡️
He certainly has a point!
"Of course I'm biased, but I'm biased for a reason." Very cool, very based.
"Hope I haven't bored you too much"
Man, this video has been the most interesting thing I've watched in a while! All I knew about Georgia is where it was, What the flag looks like, that its a very very christian nation. I knew all this because I know Lasha Talakhadze and a Sumo Wrestler (yes, really) named Tochinoshin. He was born in Georgia as Levan Gorgadze. He is now retired from wrestling and imports Georgian wine to Japan!
Feels like I sat down with a Caucasian Dwarf around a campfire and I asked him exactly one question and now he's going on a half hour rant. Love it.
My friends have to physically stop me sometimes from rambling on 😅
@@thebordoshow And that's without the Ale! lol
UA-cam algorithm randomly recommending me the best worldbuilding video ever made
Same
Same!
Same
This man is so amazing. He transcended the very concept of cosplay. He is not pretending to be a dwarf, instead, he is a man who looks exactly like the standard fantasy dwarf, talks like a fantasy dwarf, has mannerisms befit of a fantasy dwarf, and most importantly - comes from a culture that is the closest to fantasy dwarven cultures. Seeing this man is what finally convinced me that dwarves in fantasy settings should take cultural inspirations from the rich and overlooked cultures of the Caucasus rather than the overused Nordic cultures.
As a Nordic, I wholeheartedly agree
It makes sense why that happened, though. Seeing as the ideas of modern fantasy dwarves were born from Norse mythology. Like, it's not like somebody just blindly threw a dart at a predominantly white country... there is a real reason for this.
@@KrigareAvHallarna Yeah, obviously, but Western fantasy has moved on long ago. Elves are also from Norse mythology, but barely any settings have "viking elves" in them so why only dwarves should be tied to their mythological origins?
Using the "from the mountains of the Caucuses" clip is A+
Ikr that’s what got me into the video lmao
While trying to convince me dwarves are logical fantasy folk, he also completely sold me on the idea of moving to the Caucus mountains.
"Relate to" indeed . You bloody well *are* a dwarf, near enough. From the Gray Mountains, by your accent. :D
And yes, I'm glad someone is standing up for dwarfkind in the face of haters. Barûk khazad! ⛏🍻
Nice khazalid
Rock and Stone my friend!
khazâd ai-mênu!
@@thebordoshowCan I ask a question?
@@Liam-lx8xb sure
This man has not only taken the Dwarf Pill but manufactures them as well.
xD
An interesting detail is that in Warhammer Fantasy, the Dwarfen heartland and Karaz-a-Karak in particular is situated in the area that corresponds to real world Caucasus (directly east of Black Water, a very obvious Black Sea stand-in, on the border between Empire/Southern Realms (Europe), Badlands (Levant) and Dark Lands (Central Asia). I'm pretty sure it's no accident, because original GW people were pretty well versed in history.
As a fan of the table top Warhammer, the bad lands are more akin to the Balkans
@@Yingyanglord1 Borderlands are the Balkans analogue, they even have a blend of Mediterranean and Germanic influences because they're both in Imperial and Tilean spheres of influence.
I may be in fact an idiot who mixed them up@@andreyradchenko8200
The Border princes are the Balkans @@Yingyanglord1
I need to learn more about Warhammer Fantasy, Its overshadowed by 40K, but vibeswise its more my style.
Hey Bordo, great topic. I actually used you as a dwarven armorer and npc companion. He was a really cool charicter, fought with a triple barrelled shotgun and a khajali. I kinda felt bad you immediately were a dwarf. Cheers for that inspiration and keep up the great work
I am very happy to hear that actually!
I trust anything this man has to say about Dwarves implicitly.
The first twenty minutes of this thirty minute video is this guy talking about his mountain home. I loved every second on it, instant subscribe.
When I think of Dwarfs I think of the Georgians of the Middle Ages and in later periods. Especially during the Crimean Wars. A bunch of riveted mail shirt wearing, musket wielding swashbucklers with thick long beards just comes into mind.
Dwarves are from Georgia? Next time I am near Atlanta, I will have to look for them. (J/K) I actually think of them as being militarily more like the medieval Swiss who were renowned for their pikemen (autocorrect wants me to say pokemon instead of pikemen haha). Culturewise, I think of them as being like a nocturnal society who are sensitive to the sun (based on mythology) and as a direct result come across as mysterious to the world of men. Modern fantasy (to me) seems to have just ripped away all the things that made them what they were. There's so much amazing world building people could do just based on those starting points... Which is why the way most portray them seems a bit dull and too human to me.
@@sebastiansilverfox6912 he means georgia the country
bordering ancient iberia and armenia in the caucaus mountains.
@@bastait That's why I included the "(J/K)" part of that... Because otherwise, someone might think I didn't know that. (but...Iberia... that's where Spain is right?)
@@sebastiansilverfox6912 i just get my jollies by being informative.
@@sebastiansilverfox6912 the iberian peninsula is spain
the kingdom of iberia was in the caucaus mountains.
As a huge Tolkien nerd, "we shall put it in the Book of Grudges!" may be the most Dwarven phrase I've ever heard. 😂
The Scottish people already do something like this - they KNOW how to hold grudges...
Step aside Gattsu, there's is a new Georgian UA-camr in town!
Georgia sweet georgia
we friends don't you worry. Georgian national moddo is "Strength in unity"
@@thebordoshow Russia should leave good people of Georgia alone as an Indian both Georgia and Armenia have some sort mystic monastery vibes to me
How could dwarves don't make sense? There is one right here on this video proving it real
Mate, this is amazing. Thanks so much for reaching out and including me at the opening of your video.
I had no idea you would have posted it this quickly, when it's so well-edited, shot, and everything else! I'm blown away.
Truly amazing content, and it's always a plus to learn from someone with the experience to back up their words.
Thanks Bordo! All success is well deserved. Huge congratulations on your brilliant video, and here's to more people learning about the Caucasian peoples!
-Tom
Thank you too.
I've been thinking of branching out to fantasy but never got to it, but your video inspired me to finally make one, so thanks
I just watched a video where a dwarf explains why his mountain has the most dwarvish dwarfs. He makes a good case considering he's a dwarf.
I think many people see the fantasy races as isolationist and independent societies.
That’s why dwarves “make no sense” as you can’t grow anything in the mountain tunnels they’re said to dwell in. It does, indeed, not make sense that dwarves could live that type of life without trade, and they certainly couldn’t have started out by living inside the mountain, because they’d have only mushrooms to eat at best.
It makes a lot more sense if dwarves are a part of a greater world, one in which their skills provide things they can trade for things they don’t have. Protecting societies that live below the mountain, mining and crafting, and selling that craftsmanship makes it actually plausible.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and the question of “dwarven ale” has been bothering me. Dwarves couldn’t possibly make ale, if they don’t farm the land and make it themselves, but now I realise, yes they can, if they trade for the ingredients and then brew it!
Found this video to get a better grasp on how to make my dwarves unique. No prior knowledge of your history and the rich culture it has, but somehow made a near exact mirror.
I am both even more inspired and yet perplexed. 😂 Thank you for your work.
Great to hear! My goal is to both share my ideas but my culture as well
As a danish person adficted to local folklore, i tend to frame Dwarfs and Elves as entities / spirits rather than living beings. We have alot of Dwarf lore ind Vendsyssel, but no mountains - so dwarfs tend to reside in Bronzeage gravemounds. But in a traditional fantasy setting i have always thought of Dwarfs as cultures heavily dependant on mountain Shepherding food systems
yes, Dwarves are earth spirits and elves are of nature and light, but I like to imagine it as old school fantasy trope of "this happened hundreds of thousands of years ago and before they became spirits they were once like us" trope that Tolkein and Howard use in the early days of fantasy.
@@thebordoshow I've long been of the opinion that dwarves are mythologized remnant memories of early human interaction with neanderthal relic populations. A short, stout, very strong people, who live underground, are reclusive and clannish, are known for their craftsmanship and their ancient knowledge? Fact becomes story becomes legend becomes myth.
A place that has something similar to what you were talking about with mountain people alongside hill people, oddly enough is Hawai'I, because traditionally you have lots of fishing and trading in coastal villages, but as you go more inland from the shores, you start getting into people that did a more lumber cutting and hunting style living (or farming on the bigger islands) complete with their own form of gnomes, with the taller peaks being homes to various gods of their pantheon.
Thats why Learning about different cultures is important.
You see what's unique and what's a universal pattern
@@thebordoshow I agree, and why I'm glad I found your channel, because I get to learn more about a culture that I don't know much about
For some reason, I always saw Polynesians in general as the Goliath from D&D - a race who is dedicated to the activities of physical prowess, fair-play and impressive strength, whose bodies are marked by a strange set of lines that it is believed can reveal what is its fate.
Or Orcs - have you seen the size of Polynesians? ABSOLUTE UNITS!
I aspire to such a level of glorious beardlyness.
Also "forge priest" is just incredibly badass.
All these little Conan and other fantasy references inserted funnily really show how deep your appreciation for fantasy goes 😂
I actually cut a bunch of fantasy references for time but now I regret doing so.
4:36 one thing I liked about the Hobbit movies is that some of the dwarves have northern English accents which could be seen as a nod to how a lot of northerners worked as miners for many years until Thatcher shut most of them down
As a writer who has been struggling with making multiple mountainous cultures that are both unique in their own right, and also different from the ubiquitous tropes established by Tolkien, the ideas explored here were extremely helpful.
You sir, have created one more student of Caucasian history. I look forward to researching this further and I thank you for your passion in bringing your fascinating culture to an otherwise ignorant audience.
o7
When making up a world (just recreationally for myself) I had my dwarves being inspired by the swiss. Fierce defenders of their lands, known for their mountain culture and wealth. That being said, Mycenians with their military and mercantile centers in the heavily fortified mycenean palaces and known for their craftsmanship at the the time are also a great inspirataion.
I use Swiss for Goldbeard dwarves, who are more cunning and business oriented, holding the world gold reserve.
its fun to use different inspirations for different variants of a fantasy race, so not to keep it stale and one dementional.
not all humans look and act the same, so why should elves and dwarves.
this randomly showed up in my recommendeds and i love it! the enthusiasm in your voice makes it really fun to just listen to you ramble on about the caucuses!
thank the great unknowable Algorithm
Used to read Vazha-Pshavela a lot when I was in highschool and the rich history and culture of Georgia always blew me away. Such an endless source for world building inspiration too. Would love to see more of those rumblings :D
it took me 30 seconds to realize that was a blade. I thought he had a really rad smoking pipe.
that's it, this man is going to be the stereotype for dwarves in my games from now on. i love it
not going to lie I'm learning a lot and am loving it. I could listen to this sort of thing forever and not get bored
glad to hear, I'll make more content like this for sure
Ser, I have travelled many leagues and been visited by many beings in this miasmic space we call the internet. Thou, gentle blacksmith, are by far one of the humblest, kindhearted, and peaceful souls to be found here. Many pitfalls and snares are on the road, and twice as many that wish me harm, but thou art most richly adorned than all the vain creatures that stalk the threads of the net. May He who dwells in thee prosper thee, and may thy craft glorify He who crafted the universe.
Very informative, and I very much appreciate the topic of mountain dwelling cultures being from the Rockies in the US, and currently living in Japan which is a very rugged country.
Also, as someone who translates very very old Japanese tales and puts them on here myself, I absolutely love hearing about traditional stories from around the world. We are a storytelling species, and it is to our benefit to pass down these stories and the ideas they contain, both through the original stories, and the adaptation of the ideas into new works of fantasy and world building.
Thank you very much my friend.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Culture is alive when its still in living memory and people connect by sharing stories.
I'm personally fascinated by Innu and find many similarities with Caucasian culture
I used the Caucasus region and the cultures within as a base for worldbuilding not long ago. I must say that I learned more from you than all the research that I have done before. Thank you.
great video Borbo, i enjoyed it very much. I'm in the middle of writing a post-apocalypse story where technology and society has regressed to medieval standards, your tales of Alhassan forge priests have inspired me to make gunsmiths hiding in the mountains of my ruined world.
our world has actually been through multiple "Apocalypses". bronze age collapse, dark ages and many more regional falls, like mongolic devastation of middle east and East Europe, Caucasus has been through it all and always managed to scrape by while empires got berried under the sand
I love your voice, you sound like that one youtuber who makes giant elastic band powered automated crossbow and offers to "show me it's features."
I'm basically eastern Euro version of him
@@thebordoshow I also like that your model with the dwarves and the halflings quite closely matches Tolkien's design. With the dwarfs in the Lonely Mountain providing specialist goods and monetary services while the men of Dale and the Long Lake providing food and trade with the outside world.
The history lesson including Conan brought a smile to my face! Great video!
The Dwarves of my Pathfinder setting that I'm working on come from a mountain society heavily influenced by Welsh culture (The Dwarvish name for the Kingdom is Teyrnas Carregaen, for example), but I might belt some influence from the Caucasus Mountains now!
Considering humans have lived in mountains and caves throughout our history, it isn't unreasonable to assume Dwarves would happily live under a mountain.
Oh I have shared this to as many places as I could. You are incredible!
Thank you kindly!
You are the most apt to talk about true Dwarfness! You are an honest to god dwarf, a man after my own heart. ROCK AND STONE!
Rock and stone brother!
>8-20,000 years ago is more recent than Conan's Hyborian Age
He was so real for this
My ancestors fled to Ecuador from Spain during the inquisition so I've been fortunate enough to visit my extended family in Quito before. The mountain climate is absolutely wonderful once you adjust to how thin the air is. Even in the dead of winter it never dropped below 60°F. Almost all year long the mangoes are in season.
Someone said dwarves shouldn't exist? That's going in the book.
...which book?
The book of grudges lad, every proper dawi carries one@@YourLordAnon
@@YourLordAnon the Great Book of Grudges, a bit of lore from Warhammer Fnatasy. The Dwarves keep a record of every single slight done against them, written in blood. It can be as extreme as the murder of jundreds of dwarves or as minor as being shorted a few coins in a deal.
@@YourLordAnonthe book of grudges, where warhammer dwarfs write down slights and offences committed against their people that must be avenged.
AAALL OF THEEEM!!!@@YourLordAnon
you seemed to put yourself down about not being interesting with you history rant, while yeah its not for everyone, I, at least, was fascinated to a fault. You speak with such passion and love for the subject it's genuinely inspiring!
Thanks, I often rant at people who aren't as interested in history so i feel bad for bothering them, thankfully there are plenty of cool folks out there who are interested in it!
@@thebordoshow I also noticed you you say Caucasian (kaw-ka-see-an) as opposed to how I'm used to hearing it (kaw-kay-zhun) and I think this allows me to finally differentiate between Caucasian as a term for white people an Caucasian as a term for the mountain peoples
I once found a copy of Ossetian version of Nart Sagas in my high school library. I was extremely impressed and still are. It was like reading a work of Tolkien but it hit much harder since it was an ancient text. So much wit, so much creativity, so much lessons, so much more. Kurdalægon smiles on to you, gamarcoba from your south-western neighbour my brother in wolf 🐺
Gaumarjos!
Nart Sagas and many other Caucasian stories are amazing and I hope to bring more attention to it
>video about dwarves
>open video
>narrator is literally a dwarf
This is gonna be a good video
Im glad someone else sees their immediate surroundings in the same fantastical terms that I do. I live in the US state of Georgia btw. We have mountains too. I always used to imagine dwarves living in them.
2 Georgia's one heart!
@@thebordoshow From Kentucky here, I should send you some pictures I took on a misty morning after a nasty storm. Was out hunting squirrels and suddenly realized as I was looking at parts of the mountain and thinking about how many homes you could dig into that slope or this cliff face that I WAS the dwarf.
George also comes from the Greek for farmer, meaning 'Earth-work'
00:01 seconds in, and you already know you are in for it.
Finding your channel was like stumbling upon a great and valuable treasure. Thank you.
Very happy to hear it
Seeing him being so happy to talk about Georgia makes me happy
I am amazed as i recently started a fantasy worldbuilding project with dwarves in mind, and had the exact same thought process of including elements of caucasian, tibetan and inca culture to make a more grounded version of this "moutain-dwelling" race we all know and love! It was an absolute delight to stumble on this video, and will happily explore more of your content as this video was as much informative as it was a pleasure to watch. It is an instant like and subscribe on my part!
Ok, now I need to see Dwarves throat-singing in the Himalayas...
"I identify with dwarves" sounds like Rhys Davies and looks like someone straight out of Erebor. You're more dwarf than any man ive seen yet! :D Love from Sweden!
As a historian I can say that this is amazing
Glad to hear it
Got this video recomended to me semi-randomly, but watching this tall pure-blooded dwarf talking about his native environment with such joy is very entertaining :)
Excellent video! The way you talk about many different topics feel really cohesive and fluid, and has the vibes of sitting down with a friend and hearing them talk about the most interesting stuff you've ever heard.
Anyways, I would like to add some points about the interaction between mountain societies and lowland ones from what I know of them in my corner of the world (Southern China and Mainland Southeast Asia), which might also be present to some extent in the Caucasus and other upland regions of the world.
The perception folks I know have of mountain societies is that they're indigenous in a way that make "Them" separate from "Us". That people there in the highlands are a different sort of people, without such markers of Us-ness as sedentary rice farming and large population centers, and when They are the same thing as Us, they're "living ancestors," how we were in the past as opposed to how people are in the present. The truth is the mountains and the lowlands are in constant dialogue with each other, are of the same continuous group of people who interact and influence each other.
One of the most common interactions happen when lowlanders and people in the foothills are faced with unacceptable taxation, conscription, or some form of oppression. They flee to the highlands where they're out of the state's reach. They abandon rice fields and cattle herds in favor of root crops and slash-and-burn agriculture (unlikely to produce much economic value to the state, and more difficult to be seized or destroyed). They live in less permanent settlements, making it even harder to be controlled by lowland states. (Tangentially related, but Hmong people often trace the etymology of the word "Hmong" to the one that means "free").
And highlanders weren't confined to a single language or culture, as a vast majority would be to some degree multilingual and dwelling on and around constantly shifting political and ethnic boundaries. In the ancient Chinese and Vietnamese classifications of peoples, a person's ethnicity depended less on how they lived (even less on what they looked like), and more on whether that person paid their taxes or not. "Raw" barbarians are those who lived outside state control (lowland history claim these as tribute-paying autonomous vassals, but they were more like trading partners), and "cooked" ones were direct subjects, but still barbarians who are on the first step of the linear path to civilization. On the other hand, lowlanders who "slipped" back into being highlanders are evil and devious people (in Chinese, 奸 jian) who betrayed their own kin and became one with the barbarians.
Another important interaction happens when the highlands is of immense economic value to lowland states. Both of them can get by fine without the other, but they both prosper with trade. Aromatic wood, bezoar stones, tung oil, sap-based latexes, feathers, birds' nests, honey, beeswax, tea, tobacco, opium, and pepper for the lowland luxury market and its international trade routes; salt, seafood, ironware (okay this is the most uncharacteristic point for a dwarven culture), ceramics, pottery, fabric, needles, wires, matches, and kerosene for the highlands.
Furthermore, the highlands themselves can offer as you said in the video, valuable and useful minerals (and aside from that, tourism and manpower). All you need is a labor force to extract it! Complete control is the ultimate goal, but without the distance-demolishing technology of paved roads, a lowland ruler is gonna have to settle for persuasion.
The main thing they can offer to highlanders is a military alliance, a mutual partnership between equals. But the reality of political posturing turn a lowlander merchant-diplomat to a governor extracting tribute from an appointed "chieftain" (in reality, a particularly ambitious headman of a handful of villages eager for clout and valuable lowland products), while the lowlanders (from the highlander perspective) are naïve outsiders too preoccupied with putting themselves at the center of the universe to acknowledge the situation. Still a win-win for both, just one with political nuance that bolsters the position of both parties.
Applying this to a fantasy setting is a bit fraught, since lowlanders and highlanders being at least the same species would conflict with the taxonomy of dwarves being distinct from humans. For this I propose something similar to the relationship H. sapiens (probably) had with H. neanderthalensis, where there would still be minor physiological differences, but cultural perception would be the main factor that's differentiating them. And… you know, so on. I ran out of juice writing this.
wow, for the most part you were describing the situation in Caucasus so perfectly I forgot you were talking about china 😅.
the relationship you described between Imperial and free folk is basically the state that North Caucasus under Russia is and Georgia often found itself.
I'm going to delve deeper on this topic when I cover more history, especially mountains as safe and free space.
due to constant raiding and many attempts to wipe us out by myriad of empires many regions have sort of collapsible houses that can be moved, they had to pack up and leave as soon as the smoke rose over the hills.
Highlanders were only "conquered" during soviet union when they finally built roads that can take their armies up there, before Highlanders didn't even recognize feudal system and only acknowledged the king as their equal.
the similarities show that Geography plays such a heavy role in creating society.
I feel like I'm listing to a dwarven sage teaching a class to college students
I was not bored. I was amused by the fast forward segments.
I found the relations between low lands and high lands to be fascinating and gave me some considerations. However while that sounds all good and well, I can't help but to feel it'll inevitably lead to a case of the upper class stomping on the lower class " _We fight and protect you, you should be glad and just shut up otherwise you'd be dead!_ " which is a sad re-occuring thing of humanity. I'll definetly check out a few others of your videos that I spotted over the days.
Class struggle is a great source of drama.
World building should help create conflict for the story so perfect and all good societies are never as interesting to explore as flawed ones.
That's a good point! I wasn't thinking of it in those terms when I wrote that comment, only seeing the way it'll break down but not the drama from it, even though that is a source I myself am incorporatng in my story!
Thanks for the headbutt!
Your "rambling" wasn't boring at all. I could listen to you talk about history all day - you're a really good storyteller
I absolutely love the historical input you put in this video. All of these points are just amazing.
Rock and Stone, fellow dawi! =D
rock and stone!
An absolutely fantastic video! Thank you! I've been listening to the History of Rome and History of Byzantium podcasts lately and those got me interested in the Caucasus region. Your videos are a very welcome discovery for me.
*Bless the dwarnks.*
Those who are borne of the stone will stand in the depths forever!
I'm really glad I got this video in my feed. In the project I'm working on the dwarves take heavy inspiration form slavic and eastern european cultures. So what you discussed here makes very much sense to me. Thank you for opening the door to old Georgian history. It's also interesting how some things remind me of old nordic mythology.
I'm actually working on a big project too, making a fantasy dnd style world but taking inspiration from black sea regions and beyond.
Slavs to me are predominantly farmer culture, when they invaded Eastern Rome, rather than pillage and leave they started farming, so the romans let them stay.
I get halfling vibes from slavic culture, especially Ukraine and Poland.
@@thebordoshow I understand what you mean. I don't have halflings in my setting, so things like that become much more of a cultural question overall. I watched the video where you talk a bit about your project and it sounds really interesting. Some time ago I was thinking of making a game like that but based in nordic culture and myth. But I decided to focus on the project I'm working on now instead but brought some elements along from the other one.
@@deadredherring I have very big issue with choosing 1 topic to work on so i get ya
Greatest tourist attraction haha. I actually got my username from dwarves. Tolkien's dwarves are pretty much just slightly taller and angrier gnomes. Anyway, greetings from Finland, this was very refreshing!
Both Gnomes and Dwarves are Earth spirits.
We find, little hairy men as earth spirits in almost every ancient culture
@@thebordoshow we love little hairy men
@@averyangrygardengnome same
20:00 I'd say you were successful. As an American I had no clue about your countries history or origins and I got so wrapped up in it I forgot I was watching a video about dwarves
Lovely ramble, keep it up and take care!
This is a FANTASTIC resource, for both worldbuilding, and learning about a culture I didn't even know existed until now. Great stuff.
I knew most of these informations already, thanks to my interest in history and Caucassian region previously, but you, sir you put is so nicely in one neat presentation, very pleasantly explained.
Thank you, great work.
You can check out my other videos where I cover more niche topics such as Caucasian mythology and armor history in eastern Europe
I really like that you're popularising your people's culture! Especcially in the context of story and world building, it just warms my heart even though im not caucasian or georgian or from there at all
Witching this video made me so happy and it makes me want to continue my world building i paused for a long time
Never late to continue what we love
This guy is the first Georgian I have watched on YT, good stuff!
Your accent is wonderful to listen to, your premise is immediately engaging, and your examples are a delight to listen to and learn from. Thanks for your contributions, I hope to see more from you on whatever topic you are inclined to share about going forward!
Greeting from România!
This video was pretty great. I originally came for the discussion on dwarf culture, but the lessons on Caucasian and Georgian history, culture and mythology was pretty damn interesting.
Interesting video, personally, I find your digressions and your cultural perspectives very intriguing. You've even influenced and inspired me to let my own fantasy play and invent my own background story for dwarves.
If anyone is interested in my new understanding of dwarfs:
It began millions of years ago, in a time known only by the gods, dragons, and beings of eternity. The ancestors of dwarves, goblins, and halflings lived in a mountain region larger than all the mountain regions of the world combined. The proto-dwarves, as I call the last common ancestors of dwarves, halflings, and goblins, lived in family tribes and wandered this gigantic mountain. They were small and did not live longer than humans. They also had no cities, villages, farms, or other permanent settlements yet.
Due to their size, the proto-dwarves could not cover long distances daily, so they fiercely defended every piece of land. If another tribe occupied a forest or a river, it often meant starvation for one tribe. During this time, a natural toughness developed among the proto-dwarves, which the dwarves never lost. However, wars between tribes were rare because the losses in such tribal wars were high. The proto-dwarves, therefore, had extremely complicated and long-lasting oral agreements with each other. A proto-dwarf tribe that did not adhere to agreements was considered enemies, scum, and cursed for all time.
After thousands of years, a tribe found a system of caverns where warm water flowed. In this cavern system, with the help of a god, the proto-dwarves began the first permanent settlement. Wood, leaves, and bushes were brought into the caverns to cultivate mushrooms for food.
Over the millennia, this proto-dwarf tribe began to build their own caverns and create new mountain settlements. The other tribes began to trade with this tribe. Wood, herbs, animals, and other items found in the valleys were exchanged for metals, weapons, mushrooms, and protection from the mountain tribes.
The tribes that lived in the valleys began to become halflings, while the tribe that lived in the caverns became the dwarves that can be found today. The tribes that never settled and lived nomadically became goblins.
glad to hear it. I'll do more fantasy mixed with history and anthropology videos and we can share more ideas on how to worldbuild
This is the most qualified person to speak about dwarfs
In the middle of planning a new campaign and this video is quite the blessing. Loved your history of the caucuses, very interesting stuff!
Damn this is what I needed I was thinking about dwarven culture
I was thinking about Incan and Georgian as a base but this gave me a push to look deeper and also gave me a lot of cool info
Good work
You made my day, friend! I thank the gods of youtube who brought me here. Best wishes and regards from your Circassian neighbor from other side of the mountains. You've just got a new (and very happy) subscriber
Mountain brother! Stronk together!
An idea that I loved as soon as I heard about it was basing dwarves culture on Ancient Near Eastern culture, city states and proto-kingdoms like Babylon and Ur. Builders of an inscrutable scale, worshipers of a strange fire religion, and known traders. When those ancient city states started building walls, wars basically came to a stop, because nobody had invented siege engines capable of taking them down yet, and I think dwarven defensive engineering would be on a similar level.
what a great video! It's abundantly clear that you are passionate about your people and their history and it's positively infectious. Not only did you provide us a history and geography lesson, you gave us a wealth of information to speculate and imagine with for any wordbuilding projects. cheers!
Want to share my unique world to the wider world
Absolutely fantastic. You can tell this is personal, which makes the insights and comments feel all the more genuine and real.
This was incredibly informative and helpful -- thank you so much for your perspective, and sharing such rich insight into your home culture!
Glad to be of aid
Thanks algorithm. Greetings from the Ozark Mountains, Bordo.
Edit: oh gosh I love your channel. I am such a big fan of the WHERE, and how important the places we live are in our lives--even more so before the modern era.
Hello mountain brother
Another great video! I enjoyed listening to it while making maps for my own DnD setting.
love to hear it. I'll make more fantasy content and share my maps too
This is beautiful, please keep on with your history. That part of the world is tremendously important, and at least here in the states we learn very little about it.
My goal is to raise awareness of these mighty mountains
I’ve been working with a friend who is making a fantasy D&D type game with some worldbuilding for a specific race- The Galanshr (Giants| lit. Stone men)
Instead of dwarves in the mountains, I took the creative liberty to do Giants.
And I have been creating a conlang for the giants.
you can check out my video on Devi, who are Caucasian Giants
6:28
I loved this video as deeply as any mountain's root, but this part in particular made me feel very warm and happy.
Something about the obvious time it would take to create that joke and still being so jovial about delivering that line brought a single tear of joy to my eye.
I now regret cutting this part short, I had more references and deep cuts but thought not to annoy people too much
lol don’t second guess yourself mate the whole vid is great.
@thebordoshow Yeah, what Lilo said! Keep putting out what you like to make and you will find an audience.
It's really good stuff. Valuable, too.
Liked the vid Bordo! Much better take on how dwarven cultures could operate!
glad to hear it
Damn straight mountain dwarves sources... Great vid. Now gonna go listen again to Wind Rose's "Army of Stone" right after i give another listen to their " I am the Mountain".
I love this! It's fantasy folklore supported by real anthropology and geography. All my favourite world building tools combined
Man seeing your earlier video about where your channel should head, it makes me very happy and glad that you got this little blow up. Take advantage of it and do your best, amazing editing in this video.
yea, I was in a rot because I couldn't launch several projects due to myriad of reasons, very happy to see the winds picking up.
regained my mojo in a way
As someone who's been working for years on an historical fantasy book about dwarves in the Ural Mountains battling Scythian tribes, I'm pretty sure I was meant to find this video... Thank you!
valid, I use urals for winter dwarves in my setting
I absolutely love this, caucasian culture and history have interested me for a while, so getting it presented to me like this is wonderful! I might have to make my dwarves Georgian in my next campaign now lol
Do it!
I had this video in my queue for a few weeks and I’m so glad I finally watched it. What I’ve been thinking of isn’t strictly a “dwarf” society, but I definitely want to make it a craftsman or smithing society, and now I know basing it in the mountain forests isn’t ludicrous.
Sharing this with anyone I know who’d care.
dwarves are just the popular idea of Mountain craftsman people have
I live in the mountains of south spain, and its very cool how the arabs made us be a society more agrarian, due to the developement of irrigation and water keeping, mainly in coparation to the people of the norther mountaisn of spain, that are more miners societies, but also fishing societies
As another (east) Iberian, Iberian peninsula is another underrated world to dive deep into
It's very interesting to me as a Venezuelan Andean considering how different peoples from Spain settled in different places of the Americas. So where I live most families had Galician, Basque or Canarian origins and there's a lot of focus on combining our indigenous hill farming practices and fishing in the rivers with big livestock farms in the plains around the rockier mountains, with cows and bulls being brought from Europe. Before Europeans came we did not have any big animal to help carrying or dragging things like horses or bulls so our societies were very isolationists, the indigenous Venezuelan Andean languages being even considered an isolated language family without relationship to those around it. With those animals we could actually start moving around and became more connected to the rest of the world
@@OsoPardove dude, imagine the Inca people! They built an empire on the slopes of the Andes!
Just want to say, it's super cool to see someone so excited to share their culture and history with the world. Thank you for sharing this, it's super cool to learn about a part of the world that isn't talked about much
I LOVE THIS CONTENT was not expecting this when i clicked on this video but KEEP AT IT !! planning to watch more of your stuff 😁
NGL, I wasn't interested in Dwarves but your video helped open my eyes to them. Thank you!