Dwarven tropes - how hard can they be?

[Altair_the_Vexed]

After the happy success and fast and varied resposnses to my Elf trope thread, here, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141602) I thought it's be good to post similar threads for the other races.

Let's talk dwarves.

I'm thinking about designing and redesigning races to be more distinct and different from the "humans with minor make up" inherent in many RPGs. This is for a homebrew project, but the question is more broadly RPG than that, so I'm posting here. I'm not after mechanics, just tropes.

Putting D&D aside for a moment, what do powers and abilities do you think of when you think of dwarves in fantasy?

So far, I've got: See in the dark Super tough Indominatable Master crafters At one with stone and / or metal
What else can mythical or fictional dwarves do that sets them apart?

[Totally Guy]

Inside the heart of every dwarf is a seed of greed...

:smalltongue:

They have beards.

[BooNL]

Can bear grudges for years
They might or might not have women, who may or may not have beards
Ale
Often not the most expert fighter, but he has the most fun doing it

[Athaniar]

Runes
Axes and Hammers
BEER!
Dwarven = Scots
Live underground/in mountains

[Evilfeeds]

Short? Seems like the most obvious trait.

While this may not seem immediately useful, i believe that people who live in freezing places (like greenland) are, on average, a couple inches shorter than folks who live elsewhere. This is largely because a smaller body has an easier time retaining heat.

Because the underground has no sun, I would imagine that uninhabited areas are fairly cold. Having said that, when dwarves move in, unless "heat funnels" were build, body heat would warm up the caves to unbearable levels.

If i were to simplify this down to d&d terms, i'd give dwarves a +4 modifier on extreme weather conditions (although one could argue it should just be rolled into their con bonus).

Edit: come to think of it, theres probably a whole heap of problems waiting to be explored with the whole "carbon dioxide is heavier than air" thing. How do dwarven communities breathe?

[Grumman]

Their armour comes in two styles: heavy armour, and heavier armour.

[Ormagoden]

Dwarves kill orcs the best.
Dwarves are expert miners. (can't believe no one mentioned this.)
Dwarves are children of some sort of earth god or elemental being (or titan)
Dwarves hate goblins, orcs, and elves (just a little less that orcs and goblins)
Dwarves have strict laws.
Dwarves are not only tough but STUBBORN.
Dwarves all share a deep connection with the earth and a love of precious metals and gems.
Dwarves do not sail on ships and hate the oceans and seas.
Dwarves cannot make the distance, you'll have to toss them.

[Kaiyanwang]

Stubborn. Did someone mentioned it?

EDIT: NINJAAEED. By a freakin' BEAR.

[WalkingTarget]

Dwarves have an ancestral language that they are very secretive about and never teach to outsiders (sometimes going as far as not even using their own names around non-dwarves).

[Radar]

Short? Seems like the most obvious trait.

While this may not seem immediately useful, i believe that people who live in freezing places (like greenland) are, on average, a couple inches shorter than folks who live elsewhere. This is largely because a smaller body has an easier time retaining heat.

Because the underground has no sun, I would imagine that uninhabited areas are fairly cold. Having said that, when dwarves move in, unless "heat funnels" were build, body heat would warm up the caves to unbearable levels.

If i were to simplify this down to d&d terms, i'd give dwarves a +4 modifier on extreme weather conditions (although one could argue it should just be rolled into their con bonus).
If a given fantasy world resambles anything like a real planet, then the deeper you go, the warmer it gets. Rocks aren't that good insulators, so that body heat would be that much of a problem - especially, when you consider the need for a solid ventilation system.

Being short does help in mines anyway. Always wearing a helmet is a reasonable thing to do as well.

[Fhaolan]

If we're dealing with dwarves in Norse myth, sometimes they get mixed up with trolls, with turning to stone in sunlight, and having blood so hot they burn to the touch.

In English fairytales, dwarves, hobgoblins, and brownies get mixed up a lot as well. Anti-social, but in weird ways. Can't be paid, but will craft if given gifts, etc.

Overall, they are described as not just short, but deformed, ugly, and with exceptional work ethics. Basically the antithesis of Elves.

[LCR]

NINJAAEED. By a freakin' BEAR.

Where are its lasers?

[Optimystik]

They are actually quite interested in fashion and aesthetics - They wear elaborate feastday clothing, love ornate decoration in their clanhalls, and tend to have elaborate hairstyles and beards (replete with braids and precious metal fasteners.)

And no, this is not just true for D&D. I would quote Races of Stone, but I wouldn't want anyone thinking I was "proving them wrong" or anything :smalltongue:

[Eldan]

Not named yet:

In Fantasy:

*Respect for Tradition, Honour



In Legends:

*Can turn invisible
*Turn into stone when exposed to sunlight :smallbiggrin:

[Cicciograna]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0602.html

[Beelzebub1111]

Dwarves are expert miners. (can't believe no one mentioned this.
They most certainly are not! Kobolds are MUCH better miners.


Also on topic:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame

[hamishspence]

Dwarves kill orcs the best.
Dwarves are expert miners. (can't believe no one mentioned this.)
Dwarves are children of some sort of earth god or elemental being (or titan)
Dwarves hate goblins, orcs, and elves (just a little less that orcs and goblins)
Dwarves have strict laws.
Dwarves are not only tough but STUBBORN.
Dwarves all share a deep connection with the earth and a love of precious metals and gems.
Dwarves do not sail on ships and hate the oceans and seas.
Dwarves cannot make the distance, you'll have to toss them.

Warhammer Dwarfs fit most of these- though they play with the "don't like the sea" a bit- while most dwarfs don't like it, they have ships- generally steamships.

The signature tropes for Warhammer dwarfs seem to be: Good At Engineering, and Extremely Conservative.

[Kris Strife]

Dwarves, unlike Elves, are completely awesome. They have beards, and axes, and beards... And, they invented booze.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Short, greedy, drunken, bearded craftsmen who live underground and are tough as ****. Long lifespans, Scottish culture, stone fetish, and axes optional.

[Kaiyanwang]

Where are its lasers?

Well, they.. *vaporizes*

[subject42]

Edit: come to think of it, theres probably a whole heap of problems waiting to be explored with the whole "carbon dioxide is heavier than air" thing. How do dwarven communities breathe?

I've gotten around both this and the Dwarf con bonus by explaining them as having a physiology similar to the naked mole rat. A genetic mutation has rendered inert the gene that senses both pain and CO2 overload.

[prufock]

Quasi-Scottish accents?

[Beelzebub1111]

I always had a question: If dwarven beer is so great, how the hell do they get grain and barley if they all live underground? by that logic, dwarven ale should be terrible.

[bosssmiley]

Now Dwarves, Sire, are like angry beards on legs. Angry, beer-soaked beards on legs.
—Gnarl, Overlord.

Take a Viking. Make him 4' instead of 6'6". You have a dwarf.
Remember: Viking, not Jock.

Dwarves are all hard-drinking, hard-fighting miners and are thus real men. Even the female ones are like this.


I always had a question: If dwarven beer is so great, how the hell do they get grain and barley if they all live underground? by that logic, dwarven ale should be terrible.

Trade.

[Optimystik]

I always had a question: If dwarven beer is so great, how the hell do they get grain and barley if they all live underground? by that logic, dwarven ale should be terrible.

IIRC they farm on the slopes, and simply ferment underground.

But Races of Stone also has them cultivating underground flora and fauna to live on, so take that with a grain of salt.

[storybookknight]

Every dwarf carries around a book of all the grudges accrued by them, which must be repaid in full or passed down to their descendants to fulfill. This is why dwarves hate goblins and orcs.

[The Rose Dragon]

Dwarves, unlike Elves, are completely awesome. They have beards, and axes, and beards... And, they invented booze.

They also rule ass.

[BRC]

It should be noted that Dwarves do not actually make beer, as they do not have enough space for farming to grow enough grain for both their food AND the quantities of alcohol they drink. However, due to a genetic quirk, Dwarven bodies react to normal water in the same way human bodies react to alcohol.

[DSCrankshaw]

In D&D 3 and 4, at least, dwarves tend to be highly religious. It goes with their respect for tradition, and their particularly close relationship with Moradin.

Also, in 4e, they get a Wis bonus, which is a primary stat for three of the four Divine classes so far, and a secondary stat for the remaining one.

There's also a tendency to make them anti-magical. This shows up as spell resistance in 3e, although, despite this, they make pretty good wizards there too. (There's nothing particularly anti-magical about dwarves in 4e. While they're not really well-suited to any of the Arcane classes, they don't have any penalties either.)

But in many other RPGs, dwarves can't become arcane classes. Though they can usually craft magic items anyway.

[Amphetryon]

I always had a question: If dwarven beer is so great, how the hell do they get grain and barley if they all live underground? by that logic, dwarven ale should be terrible.

A (dwarven) wizard did it.

[Ormagoden]

Where are its lasers?

He doesn't need lasers. He throws bears.

[Ormagoden]

Warhammer Dwarfs fit most of these- though they play with the "don't like the sea" a bit- while most dwarfs don't like it, they have ships- generally steamships.

The signature tropes for Warhammer dwarfs seem to be: Good At Engineering, and Extremely Conservative.

It also fits many other Dwarves from other games, novels, and myths. :smallwink:



:EDIT: Crap double post!

[Drogorn]

This is largely because a smaller body has an easier time retaining heat.

This is not true. Larger creatures have an easier time retaining heat, because they have less surface area for their volume.



Edited for better terminology

[subject42]

This is not true. Larger creatures have an easier time retaining heat, because they have less surface area for their mass.

To be fair, though, Dwarves do tend to approximate a sphere.

[Totally Guy]

Dwarves are:

Accustomed to the dark due to living in halls of firelight.
They all have beards.
They all have a duty, an obligation to their clan or society.
They favour stone and gems for material possession and craftsmanship purposes.
They're short compared to men but a bit bigger around the middle.
They're tough.
Also in the heart of every dwarf is greed. It's always in the background. They like riches, high quality items, power and beauty. Being in the presence of that which the dwarf covets most might bedazzle them or maybe they'll take steps to acquire the object of affections.

You're never have a dull time amongst the dwarven nobility.

[Tackyhillbillu]

Consulting Dwarf Fortress it appears:

Dwarves are secretly ruled by cats.
Dwarf Nobles double as tinder.
Dwarven Defense and Dwarven Offense are remarkably similar, in that they both involve large amounts of Lava.
The natural enemy of the Dwarf is the Elephant.

[Freshmeat]

In the dwarven army, it's considered a crime to abandon your post.
Unfashionable facial hair.
Miscellaneous odor offenses.

[Altima]

The beer issue: What makes you think dwarves use grain for their alcohol? Never had a good ole fungus beer? Mmm, mmm, terrible. But dwarves like it.

Dwarves consider it possibly the highest honor to die in battle against enemies of their race. Some could go so far as to say that dwarves do not fight to win but fight to die.

Dwarves are highly territorial. What they claim as theirs is theirs, and they want everyone else to know it.

Dwarves are incredibly defensive-minded, and are among the best, if not THE best, defenders (the act, not the class description) in any given world. Their strongholds and fortresses are exactly that--colossal meatgrinders designed to turn any invader into a paste somewhere between puddy and over-watered soup.

Dwarves are, many times, inflexible. Stubborn plays into its account as does their territoriality. Many times, they'll make a last stand where any other more practical race would simply retreat and conserve their forces. Also, from my experiences, dwarves are strategically inflexible, generally having two modes--attack and defend, whereas they get clever tactically.

[Eldan]

I forgot another Norse legend:

When the world was created from the body of the slain giant Ymir, there were maggots crawling in the flesh. And when the flesh became the ground, the maggots became dwarves. Therefore, dwarves live in the ground and are pale and hairless.

[Frosty]

Dwarven culture is very similar to Klingon culture.

[hamishspence]

I forgot another Norse legend:

When the world was created from the body of the slain giant Ymir, there were maggots crawling in the flesh. And when the flesh became the ground, the maggots became dwarves. Therefore, dwarves live in the ground and are pale and hairless.

in the Realms of Villainy anthology, goblins get an origin story a bit like this.

[Jayabalard]

Dwarfs of both sexes have beards; Dwarfish courtship is an incredibly tactful affair, primarily concerned with finding out which gender the other dwarf is.
Dwarfs are intensely literal-minded; this is primarily a practical survival trait:Rocks are hard, the darkness is dark. Start messing around with descriptions like that and you're in big trouble."
Dwarfs tend to be miners
Dwarfs love gold (well, not really, they just say that to get it into bed.)
Drawfs have a longstanding enmity with trolls
The primary weapon (other than bread products) in dwarf culture is the axe. A traditional dwarfish axe is multifunctional; one side is a pickaxe used for prospecting, and the other side is a battle axe used if someone tries to stop them.
Dwarfish is famed for having no words for rock. It has hundreds of words describing different kinds of rock, but not a single word that simply means "rock"

[Optimystik]

Unfashionable facial hair.

Not always:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachments/plots-places/36615d1222067823-dragons-crowned-rouges-gallery-dwarf-warlock.jpg

[BlckDv]

Drawfs have a longstanding enmity with trolls


Let's stick to Dwarfs/Dwarves for this thread. :smallwink:

[Jayabalard]

Let's stick to Dwarfs/Dwarves for this thread. :smallwink:I'm not sure what you're talking about. The text you quoted is about Dwarfs.

[AtwasAwamps]

I'm not sure what you're talking about. The text you quoted is about Dwarfs.

Are you sure? I think it's about Drawfs...

(you were being teased)

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Funny how this thread spawned way less discussion and posts than the elf thread.
Why is it that dwarves have to play second fiddle to the elves (aside from no-one ever saying the dwarves were good bards :smallwink:)?

Is it that we have a more concrete, unchanging idea of what makes dwarves cool and significant as a species?

[Eldan]

I'd say that generally, dwarves don't create that overblown hyped hate which the internet seems to have in spades and is generally unloaded on the elves. Which, in turn, seems to come from the many "elf fanboys" and the elves' supposed arrogance. The dwarves are sometimes just as elitist, people just seem to think of them as friendlier and more often drunk.

[Totally Guy]

Funny how this thread spawned way less discussion and posts than the elf thread.

Dwarves represent the working class. Elves represent the upper class.

If one is going to cause more controversy it'd be the pompous noble rather than the stentorious everyman.

[Fhaolan]

Elves get better reactions because they're the beautiful people, while Dwarves are short, angry little fireplugs. It takes a certain kind of person to identify with a classic dwarf, where there are tons of people who like to think of themselves as elves in disguise if only people could see what they're *really* like.

Basically elves are emo.

[Dienekes]

Funny how this thread spawned way less discussion and posts than the elf thread.


Dwarves have found the secret of how to be so awesome that everyone knows what they are.

Elves try and fail at being so awesome, so everyone keeps attempting to add their own ideas to make them seem nearly as awesome as dwarves. Poor blokes just don't seem to get it.

Anyway

Dwarves are awesome, traditionalist, alcohol loving, strong willed, hard to mind control, badasses, who love to craft things for either their own entertainment or greed.

Dwarfs are also awesome but tend to be a bit goblinoid, and may or may not eat child brains as a delicacy.

[clockworkmonk]

that does leave out the Dorfs, who are able to drown while on fire. and are able to solve many problems with lots of water or lava, who sometimes go on crazy murdering rampages throwing the whole fortress into a depression death spiral. Also, they can get over things pretty quickly with nice mist and very pretty tables.

[Zen Master]

The standard issue fantasy dwarf bores me, I'm afraid.

Oh, I find the stereotype hilarious, and I play my dwarf characters that way. But as GM, dwarves are nowhere near that.

No hard to find mountain fastnesses. Outside a dwarfhold are mountains of junk - obviously scree from tunnelling, but also slag from forges, and various detritus from production. And I do mean mountains.

The holds themselves are vast, blackened industrial complexes, smokestacks pumping smoke and ash into the sky. Downwind of the typical dwarfhold will be miles and miles of uninhabitable badlands choked with pollution.

Seen from the outside, a dwarfhold is a mountain rebuilt. Ramparts rising endlessly into cloudcover, from which bristle (visible only on a rare cloudless day) war machines in strange and unknown profusion, ready to rain death in a thousand horrible ways.

Dwarves know and use gunpowder - but really only in those cases when acidhurlers, lightningprojectors, fleshrenders, or some other far out quasi-technological horror.

Dwarves have very close to no concept at all of human-seeming morals. They find the concept extremely confusing, though they will listen intently to explanations and take notes. They will tap their noses, make understanding 'hrumph' noises, then ask 'ok ok - I think I get how. What I'd still like to ask is ... why?'

Of course, this is in the rare instances when dwarves take time from their busy schedules to notice the existance of humans at all.

Dwarves have no goals discernible to mere human sentiments. They are an undeniable prescence, in the background - far more magical than the pansy elves, and where the elves sit back and do nothing much of anything with theirs, the dwarves are industriously undermining reality, boldly going where the gods frown upon anyone going.

As you might have guessed, their preferred class is artificer.

[TheCountAlucard]

Dwarven culture is very similar to Klingon culture.One joke I've heard is that the Klingons keep themselves eager to fight by not having any any bathrooms on their ships... :smalltongue:

Now, how would we turn that into a dwarf joke?

[Eldan]

If we are talking about atypical dwarven cultures... I made one once which had music as it's main goal.

You see, long ago their god (not Moradin in this case) had sent them to a new mountain. This mountain had a huge, natural cave system and, through a special phenomenon, when the weather was right, the wind blew into these caves, creating strange and wondrous sounds. Their god gave them the mission to listen to the music and, by slowly changing passages and caves over millenia, "perfect" the music. The uppermost caves, nearest to the surface and the summit of the mountain, are holy, and only the most skilled carver-priests can enter them near the end of their lives, where they will sit and meditate on the music and then, just before they die, make a single alteration to the stone of the caves.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I always liked the mythological version where the Dwarves were originally maggots in the flesh of Ymir, the World-Giant, e.g they were given form from worms. Also Fafnir, one of the most famous dragons in Norse myth, was originally a dwarf who turned himself into a Dragon when his greed consumed him.

Dwarves should be shapeshifters and sorcerers. They weren't famed for their fighting skills in the old stories--the only reason we think of Dwarves as fighters is because Tolkein's Gimli was a fighter and D&D's Dwarves are pretty much flanderized versions of him. They could be powerful tricksters in the Norse sagas: Alberek/Albrecht the Dwarf is the one who ransomed a fortune in gold out of Odin and the gods.

Although it's debatable, I always liked to think that Regin (the guy who raises the quasi-divine hero Sigmund) was a dwarf. You have a long-lived creature like a dwarf essentially raising a human child to be an effective fighter/weapon in what must seem like a very short time to the Dwarf. And of course once Sigmund's slain Fafnir, Regin was planning to kill him in his sleep and take the treasure for himself.

Once you move on from Norse Saga to Medieval Romance with Celtic influences, it gets harder to tell Dwarves from human little people. Well, it's always much harder to draw fine categories of "Dwarf," "Elf," "Pixie" and so-forth in actual mythology. Alberek's name means "Elf-King," and he's one of the most famous Dwarves in norse myth. In Arthurian stories, pretty much anytime you see an enchantress, she is attended by dwarves. The writers may have simply meant short humans, who were considered a curiosity at the time, or it may have been meant to imply the otherworldly nature of enchantresses by giving them inhuman servants/familiars.

So what going back to the sources gives me for Dwarves is:

-Grown from maggots/worms
-Usually small and hiresuit (supposedly if an infant was born with hair below the navel, the parents had given birth to a dwarf-child), turn into old men immediately after childhood or all look ugly/wrinkled (cf. Alberich and the Rheine-Maidens)
-Live in the subterranean world, beneath the earth
-Clever, tricky, like to make bargains where they come out ahead
-Hoarders of wealth
-Makers of powerful magic items and weapons, but would rather hoard it and only give their treasures under duress
-Shapeshifters, or can turn invisible (like Doli in the Prydain Chronicles)
-Seen as familiars or attendants to powerful sorcerers/esses
-Will usually cave in rather than fight (the dwarves made Thor's hammer, Sif's golden hair, and the collapsing ship under threat; in some versions of the Ring Cycle, once he had the ring Alberich enslaved the other dwarves). But can fight by proxy (again see Regin/Sigmund).

(Of course there's the story where Sir Gawain was turned into a dwarf by an enchantress, so maybe the ones we see in Arthurian romance are magicked humans).

So basically you can form a picture that's the total opposite of the gruff, doughty warrior from Lord of the Rings. Dwarves can be mysterious, wicked, ugly little bastards who know potent magical secrets and hold powerful treasures and are always trying to win/trick something out of stupid mortals or unlucky gods. And it's totally true to the same roots Tolkien was digging from (anyone remember "The Dwarves of Yore Cast Mighty Spells/While Hammers Rang Beneath the Fells"? Or the "magical dwarf-made toys" Gandalf brought to the Shire way back at the start?)

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I really---really ****ing hate that stupid faux-Highlander accent all fantasy Dwarves have to have nowadays. It was kind of funny back in Warcraft II, now it's just un****ingbearable.

[Eldan]

Well, Duergar (Dvergar, which just means "dwarf") have a little bit of that going on: they have invisibility and change their size, so that's at least something.

[maddmatt]

I've gotten around both this and the Dwarf con bonus by explaining them as having a physiology similar to the naked mole rat. A genetic mutation has rendered inert the gene that senses both pain and CO2 overload.

Magically animated ventilation fans.

[subject42]

Magically animated ventilation fans.

Come on, how many chances do you get to use the phrase "naked mole rat" and have it explain everything? You just can't pass up an opportunity like that.

[Brendan]

they tend to not get jokes.

I quite like the ethicless portrayal given a few posts up, and probably will play them that way in my next campaign.

[Dervag]

Runes
Axes and Hammers
BEER!
Dwarven = Scots
Live underground/in mountainsMe and my father always used German dwarves. Dwarves are part of the Scandinavian/North European mythology that came with the Germanic tribes; the Celts don't have anything quite like them. And the image of hearty, ale-quaffing metalworkers who spend most of their time indoors works better with Germans than Scots; Scots get out in the (miserable) weather more often than that, and didn't have a strong affinity for machinery or craftsmanship until the Industrial Revolution.

We just think of dwarves as Scottish because John Rhys-Davies is the best dwarf impersonator of our generation.


If a given fantasy world resambles anything like a real planet, then the deeper you go, the warmer it gets. Rocks aren't that good insulators, so that body heat would be that much of a problem - especially, when you consider the need for a solid ventilation system.It's complicated. If you go really deep (miles underground) it's warm. But at intermediate depths it can be quite cold, or at least much colder than body temperature, because the sun isn't warming the rocks effectively when you get that far down.


It should be noted that Dwarves do not actually make beer, as they do not have enough space for farming to grow enough grain for both their food AND the quantities of alcohol they drink. However, due to a genetic quirk, Dwarven bodies react to normal water in the same way human bodies react to alcohol.Eh, I always figured that they drink a petroleum derivative. My father prefers to think they drink vodka; they're the only people who dig the potatoes out of the ground from underneath.


I'd say that generally, dwarves don't create that overblown hyped hate which the internet seems to have in spades and is generally unloaded on the elves. Which, in turn, seems to come from the many "elf fanboys" and the elves' supposed arrogance. The dwarves are sometimes just as elitist, people just seem to think of them as friendlier and more often drunk.I think the main difference is that people who write elves often portray them as better-than-human in every way that matters. Dwarves... they have visible limitations, things that you wouldn't envy them for, such as the bearded ladies and having to live in a cave all the time. So they don't become the target for resentment because they don't have preachy authors asserting their racial superiority the way elves do.

[hamishspence]

Eh, I always figured that they drink a petroleum derivative. My father prefers to think they drink vodka; they're the only people who dig the potatoes out of the ground from underneath.

Gotrek Gurnisson and Snorri Nosebiter do- by the bucket, in the Gotrek and Felix books- though this was because they were visiting Kislev, where it's a common drink.

[OverdrivePrime]

Dwarves are natural sprinters.
Dwarves love to sing, but aren't very good at it.
They love machinery, but are meticulous in its design and construction.
Dwarven women are stacked and uncomfortably aggressive.
Their magic is based on runes and oaths.
All dwarves are pedophiles - they all have sex with miners!

[dspeyer]

Across fantasy novels, dwarves are often the highest tech (not magitek), sometimes having railroads, cast steel, and assembly lines while everyone else is medieval.

[Mikeavelli]

They dig too deep.

I swear, every time I'm in a video game, and I encounter dwarves, there's gonna be something in their mines sealed up when the world was young, and they dug too deep and woke it up.

[The Rose Dragon]

I swear, every time I'm in a video game, and I encounter dwarves, there's gonna be something in their mines sealed up when the world was young, and they dug too deep and woke it up.

Dragon Age dwarves dug too frugal and too high and struck elves. :smalltongue:

[Thursday]

Usually, (and I don't think mentioned before but I'm never right when I say that) they are not over-fond of riding horses, Or other mounts, or are sucky at it at least.

Or share with an elf/ride a steam powered helicopter. Yes.

[Thajocoth]

Dwarves are simple. They're "short angry beer soaked beards with legs" and an affinity for explosives. They like any melee weapon that's not straight (how can a drunken blacksmith smelt in a straight line?)Years of drinking and living in caves have turned them gruff, surly, and cynical. And they've all got that distinct accent. They hate elves, but they hate all the things that hate elves even more, so they grudgingly work with elves on occasion.

[Jayabalard]

Usually, (and I don't think mentioned before but I'm never right when I say that) they are not over-fond of riding horses, Or other mounts, or are sucky at it at least.Or really animals in general, other than the ones currently roasting over a fire.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I always had a question: If dwarven beer is so great, how the hell do they get grain and barley if they all live underground? by that logic, dwarven ale should be terrible.
BioWare's Dragon Age does exactly that. Living underground forces dwarves to use odd stuff for their food and drink, like wine made out of moss, or beer brewed in sulfuric pools or simply ale with dirt in it. When you gain a dwarf companion and bring him to the surface, the first thing he notices (after getting used to the sunlight) is that the alcohol actually tastes good.

[Ravens_cry]

All dwarves are pedophiles - they all have sex with miners!

*bang*
Pun Police, nothing to see here, Citizen. Move along.

[Fhaolan]

BioWare's Dragon Age does exactly that. Living underground forces dwarves to use odd stuff for their food and drink, like wine made out of moss, or beer brewed in sulfuric pools or simply ale with dirt in it. When you gain a dwarf companion and bring him to the surface, the first thing he notices (after getting used to the sunlight) is that the alcohol actually tastes good.

In my campaign there is a substance that is callled: Dwarven Chewing Ale. You don't want to know, trust me.

[Vizzerdrix]

I always thought of Dwarf ale as equivalent to the Mudder's Milk (http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/Mudder%27s_Milk) from the Firefly series. Sort of a liquid bread.

[tribble]

I think the main difference is that people who write elves often portray them as better-than-human in every way that matters. Dwarves... they have visible limitations, things that you wouldn't envy them for, such as the bearded ladies and having to live in a cave all the time. So they don't become the target for resentment because they don't have preachy authors asserting their racial superiority the way elves do.

I disagree, I think it's because dorfs are *not jerks*. A dorf is stronger and tougher than you, but the noone ever comments on it, it isn't surprising or even thought about. Also, dorfs are driven to achieve and make stuff with their lives, while elves sit around and diddle their trees all day. lazy hippies bringing big clothes and crappy dye to our forts.

EDIT: another vote for mudder's milk style dorfbooze.

[Eldan]

And another thing I remember from Dwarf Fortress: their main food item is booze soup.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Well, more-to-the-point:
Dwarves aren't resented because their flaws are played out. It's not just because they look funny and have bearded women.

Dwarves are hidebound traditionalists (but they aren't preachy about it). They're incorrigible alcoholics. They sometimes too dig too greedily and too deep. They're not graceful. They're short. They're usually morose or lack social graces.

They're basically working Joes.

The one good thing they've got going for them is that they're supposed to be peerless craftsmen. Except elves are often also good craftsmen.

I mean, just look at the Lord of the Rings movie. Gimli was pretty much comedic relief to the all-too-perfect Legolas.

[Orzel]

Dwarves love magic weapons.
Shiny things and Enchantment?

Dwarven kingdoms tend to last very long. But when the world conquering armies come, they're always top 3 in the running to get DESTROYED.

[LurkerInPlayground]

They dig too deep.

I swear, every time I'm in a video game, and I encounter dwarves, there's gonna be something in their mines sealed up when the world was young, and they dug too deep and woke it up.
Dragon Age actually has a hidden parody of this trope.

The Dalish Elf dungeon actually has a hidden note in it that explains that there were dwarves that dug too frugally and too high . . . and struck elves.

The elves killed them anyway.

[Benejeseret]

If we are talking about atypical dwarven cultures... I made one once which had music as it's main goal.

You see, long ago their god (not Moradin in this case) had sent them to a new mountain. This mountain had a huge, natural cave system and, through a special phenomenon, when the weather was right, the wind blew into these caves, creating strange and wondrous sounds. Their god gave them the mission to listen to the music and, by slowly changing passages and caves over millenia, "perfect" the music. The uppermost caves, nearest to the surface and the summit of the mountain, are holy, and only the most skilled carver-priests can enter them near the end of their lives, where they will sit and meditate on the music and then, just before they die, make a single alteration to the stone of the caves.

I just watched an old episode of Fraggle Rock almost exactly like this!!

So either cookies for you for an amazingly subtle reference or, there is an episode out there you should go watch.

[Eldan]

I don't even know what Fraggle Rock is. So no, not a reference.

[Totally Guy]

I mean, just look at the Lord of the Rings movie. Gimli was pretty much comedic relief to the all-too-perfect Legolas.

I might be wrong about this but a friend told me there was a deleted scene where Legolas beats Gimli at a DRINKING contest.:smallsigh:

Is that for real?

[Eldan]

Yes. I've seen it. A sad day indeed. Gimli falls over, while Legolas just looks the same.

[flabort]

That was deleted?! seriously, we got the whole-collection pack, that said it had 30 extra minutes+ on each movie, but I didn't know that scene was "deleted"!

Gimly: "Hah! It's the Dwarves who sleep, with little hairy women. Hah, hah, hah ah..."
Legolas: "My hands are tingling. I think it's affecting me."
Gimly: "HAH! The Elf can't hold his liquor!" *Falls unconsious*
Legolas: "Hmm. Game over."

Edit: minor ninja

[Hurlbut]

I might be wrong about this but a friend told me there was a deleted scene where Legolas beats Gimli at a DRINKING contest.:smallsigh:

Is that for real? you can see it in the extended version of...I think "Return of the King". You won't find it in the theater version.

That was deleted?! seriously, we got the whole-collection pack, that said it had 30 extra minutes+ on each movie, but I didn't know that scene was "deleted"!

Gimly: "Hah! It's the Dwarves who sleep, with little hairy women. Hah, hah, hah ah..."
Legolas: "My hands are tingling. I think it's affecting me."
Gimly: "HAH! The Elf can't hold his liquor!" *Falls unconsious*
Legolas: "Hmm. Game over."

Edit: minor ninjaYou forgot to add in that he fall off his chair :)

[Volkov]

Ahem. Our dwarves are all the same. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame)

[TheThan]

Dwarven women posses an unearthly grace and beauty, so great is this that fey and outsiders seem rather homely by comparison. However Dwarven men are a covetous lot and take great steps to hide away and protect their women from the rest of the world. They have even resorted to lies and fabrications, often claiming that they have no women and that they just spring up out of holes in the ground. Or that their women are often mistaken for dwarf men.

[Eldan]

Wasn't there at least one nordic legend about a beautiful dwarf woman? Or am I misremembering something?

[TheThan]

Wasn't there at least one nordic legend about a beautiful dwarf woman? Or am I misremembering something?

maybe, but it's probably been covered up by now. so we'll never know for sure. :smallbiggrin: