Why are 10 million dwarf souls even important?

[Bulldog Psion]

Note that she refers to "such an influx of resources" and says it "could" make her more powerful than Odin himself.

Referring to an influx pretty much shows an easy way around "but more are already dead" as an argument. The other gods' souls are already taken up providing infrastructure support, so to speak. Hel is getting 10 million dwarves front-loaded.

It's not just the numbers, it's also the concentration in a short period of time. Just think of the difference between the current purchasing power of a 60 year old who has earned $3 million over the course of their life -- say, 40 years of working -- and a young whippersnapper who has just won a cool $1 million in the lottery.

Making $75,000 a year and probably spending most of it, the 60-year-old probably has anywhere from nothing to $100k to $200k socked away. Respectable, but if they both place a bid to buy a company, the whippersnapper is almost guaranteed to beat the 60-year-old despite having earned only 1/3 as much money.

Edit: nor, in another sphere, is it always the biggest army that wins.
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Double Edit: let's say that the dwarves have generations 60 years long (double that of humans). That means since the creation of the world 1,184 years ago, there have been approximately 20 generations.

Let's also assume that 1 million dwarves were created for the first generation, and each generation has added 500,000 by natural increase. That would mean a grand total of 94.5 million dwarves lived and died prior to the current 10 million.

Split between 17 gods, that works out to 5.5 million dwarven souls each.

Now, other races worship the Northern Gods, but they seem to be less closely involved with them than the dwarves. A lot of CG humans are going to end up just in the CG afterlife, not as part of "Thor's entourage."

If we count only dwarves, Hel might have almost twice as many souls as any of the other gods. Even with a couple of million human fanatics thrown in for some of the other divinities, I'd guess there's still a strong argument to be made she may be ahead regardless.