On the Great Dwarven Empire as a Supposedly Unified Culture

The Great Dwarven Empire ruled the continent, which does not mean that everyone within it agreed about anything. Popular histories frequently imagine the Empire as culturally monolithic because its law, examinations, administrative script, and monumental architecture spread across enormous distances. From this, readers infer a single Dwarven language, religion, cuisine, architectural style, and political identity. The actual record is considerably less tidy.

The Empire governed mountain cities, farming regions, coastal settlements, mining colonies, trade centres, and territories inhabited by populations whose customs differed dramatically. Provincial dialects could be mutually difficult. Religious practice varied, as did food and family law. Even examination preparation varied enough that surviving educational manuals contain complaints about regional advantage.

Imperial unity was administrative before it was cultural, and there is nothing unusual in that. Modern people often imagine old empires as uniform because the things which survive are official: laws, coins, monuments, military records, tax documents. Nobody preserves five hundred years of arguments about stew. The resulting past is a misleading one. The Empire looked unified from the perspective of its bureaucracy, and most empires do.