Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[Vyke]

I don't agree with that. Precisely because they have so much more culture and tradition, makes it more interesting to play a dwarf than to play Generic Humanlike With Some Animal Features #17.

Seriously now, we have birdman, bearman, horseman, rabbitman, another birdman (both distinct from angelman), lizardman (distinct from dragonborn, somehow), bullman, goatman, catman, turtleman, and snakeman. Other settings add hippoman, insectman, yet another birdman, lionman (distinct from catman for some reason), elephantman, generic animalman, fishman, and frogman.

And then we get the feylike changeling and feylike eladrin and feylike fairy and feylike shadarkai and feylike shifter; and also there's the tough brutish half-orc and tough brutish firbolg and tough goliath and brutish hobgoblin and full orc.

...yeah, dwarves have way more personality than most of that list. And also, D&D has too many races.

I do not have words to express how much I agree. These must suffice.

It seems to me that dwarves are only boring if you ignore the stuff that makes them interesting.

[Xervous]

Tossing out lore and tossing in new colorful races like they’re fortnite skins tends to yield a game where only the immediate cosmetics matter, shocking.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Tossing out lore and tossing in new colorful races like they’re fortnite skins tends to yield a game where only the immediate cosmetics matter, shocking.

Agreed. Doesn't help that WotC has sucked at doing any serious lore throughout 5e at least, and it's only gotten worse as the edition progresses.

-------------

This whole Tolkien sub-thread is one of the big reasons I don't take Arguments From Tolkien (but LotR...) seriously at all. D&D basically took a few names and a couple very surface aesthetics from LotR. That's it.

* tall, graceful sylvan elves
* short (but not too short) underground-dwelling, bearded dwarves
* short "happy" halflings (fka hobbits).
* the name "orc" as a bad guy. Not much else about orcs, though.
* the name "ranger", without much of the context.

That's about it. And then they proceeded to modify, mutilate, fold, spindle, and do all those other things to what they did take. And then everyone else cribbed from D&D.

Types of stories? Nah, not stolen at all, except in the most vague sense[1]. Especially since the parts most connected to Tolkien were the earliest, least narrative parts. Magic system or abilities? Lol no. Even the general aesthetic of the settings doesn't match.

[1] Dragonlance, which is the earliest "adventure path" in the modern sense, has some of the same "good vs evil" themes. But only very broadly and vaguely. Even by then things had drifted tremendously. And for good reason--LotR is great, but the kinds of stories you can tell in that framework fit in a quite narrow band.

[Eldan]

The idea of a group of adventurers of very different backgrounds teaming up on a quest together is pretty Tolkien. Most of the Swords and Sorcery guys operate alone or in pairs.

[ti'esar]

...yeah, dwarves have way more personality than most of that list.

It's not so much that dwarves are lacking personality as that people think - to be clear, I don't actually agree with this myself - that there's basically one dwarf personality and so if you've seen/played one dwarf, you've seen 'em all. Again, I'm not going to link to it myself but I'm pretty sure the Our Dwarves Are All The Same page literally has a quote from some review about how, in the author's opinion, fantasy doesn't so much have dwarf characters as it does a single dwarf who pops up under different names in every novel. That's by no means actually true, even just for D&D tie-in novels, but I think the perception that it is is a weight around the neck of dwarf character concepts that other races don't necessarily have.

[Unoriginal]

Doesn't help that WotC has sucked at doing any serious lore throughout 5e at least, and it's only gotten worse as the edition progresses.

Dwarf lore was great in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, but I think they decided to disown that book.

This whole Tolkien sub-thread is one of the big reasons I don't take Arguments From Tolkien (but LotR...) seriously at all. D&D basically took a few names and a couple very surface aesthetics from LotR. That's it.

* tall, graceful sylvan elves
* short (but not too short) underground-dwelling, bearded dwarves
* short "happy" halflings (fka hobbits).
* the name "orc" as a bad guy. Not much else about orcs, though.
* the name "ranger", without much of the context.

That's about it. And then they proceeded to modify, mutilate, fold, spindle, and do all those other things to what they did take. And then everyone else cribbed from D&D.

Types of stories? Nah, not stolen at all, except in the most vague sense[1]. Especially since the parts most connected to Tolkien were the earliest, least narrative parts. Magic system or abilities? Lol no. Even the general aesthetic of the settings doesn't match.

[1] Dragonlance, which is the earliest "adventure path" in the modern sense, has some of the same "good vs evil" themes. But only very broadly and vaguely. Even by then things had drifted tremendously. And for good reason--LotR is great, but the kinds of stories you can tell in that framework fit in a quite narrow band.

Quite true.

LotR is interesting for the history of fantasy, but that history includes going through massive changes before it even gets to reach the "and this was D&D" stage.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Dwarf lore was great in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, but I think they decided to disown that book.

I'd rate Volos and MToF lore as "decent, but not great". I want setting-specific, varied lore. Not "well, multiverse..." crap. But yeah, then they decided that it wasn't vague enough[1] for them, so they ditched it.

Quite true.

LotR is interesting for the history of fantasy, but that history includes going through massive changes before it even gets to reach the "and this was D&D" stage.

Yeah. And between LotR and D&D there was a veritable explosion of other fantasy, some of which took cues from LotR but went in very different directions. And then D&D in every edition has applied the mutant-making cannon to all of its influences. Basically, D&D does D&D, nothing else.


[1] consciously avoiding any culture war topics here.

[Trixie_One]

To quote Morglum Necksnapper, the only good stunty is a dyin' one that tells you where to find his mates.

I must have been like 10-11 at most when I got green pilled and was able to realise the truth that dwarfs are not in the slightest bit cool.

I'd read the Hobbit and Lotr already, and of course thought that Gimli was the best out of the entire fellowship back then. I'd started buying White Dwarf with 145 as they had HeroQuest on the cover and that was how they got me.

It was still pretty early days of reading their battle reports, but I'd already got the definite impression that the 'good' guys/new hotness would always win, i.e. if Space Wolves were fighting Orks after just getting their 2nd ed codex and new models only an idiot would put money on a successful waaagh.

So when there was the first Warhammer Fantasy battle report with dwarfs vs. orcs, I of course expected a dwarf win. This was White Dwarf after all, the mag is named after a dwarf, so clearly they had to win, right?

And yet the orcs, despite being hilariously screwed over throughout the battle by animosity, stupidity, and their own artillery blowing up won anyway, and it blew my tiny young mind. It's just felt so transgressive in the best possible way.

[Bookwyrm13]

It's not so much that dwarves are lacking personality as that people think - to be clear, I don't actually agree with this myself - that there's basically one dwarf personality and so if you've seen/played one dwarf, you've seen 'em all. Again, I'm not going to link to it myself but I'm pretty sure the Our Dwarves Are All The Same page literally has a quote from some review about how, in the author's opinion, fantasy doesn't so much have dwarf characters as it does a single dwarf who pops up under different names in every novel. That's by no means actually true, even just for D&D tie-in novels, but I think the perception that it is is a weight around the neck of dwarf character concepts that other races don't necessarily have.

I do have to wonder, though, how much of this is a chicken and egg thing? As in, people assume dwarves can only have one personality because people don't play them with different personalities; but no one plays them with different personalities because they assume they can only have one personality.

[Grim Portent]

I do have to wonder, though, how much of this is a chicken and egg thing? As in, people assume dwarves can only have one personality because people don't play them with different personalities; but no one plays them with different personalities because they assume they can only have one personality.

I think it starts with the non-player depictions of them in media. Most dwarves in books and games are really similar, and that informs the way people who read the books and play the games think of them and go on to portray them like later, reinforcing the existing perception.

Other than the odd evil dwarf society, like the Dawi-Zharr from Warhammer who went all exaggerated Babylonian, almost all of them are gruff Scots/North English/Norse in terms of voice and vernacular, use Anglo-Saxon/Norse aesthetics, a runic script inspired by Norse runes, live in clans, drink a lot and so on and so forth. It's a consistent cultural portrayal across wildly different settings in various media, and it's pigeonholed dwarves into a particular theme for most people.

[Slipjig]

In a "Traditional" limited view of them, then again much fuss tends to get made whenever there is a Dwarf without copious face hair (or any hair)

Sure, I play a beardless dwarf in one of my campaigns, and I've had fun with second-generation Dwarven refugees completely rejecting their traditional culture and adopting a very punk aesthetic. I also flavor Dwarven bands as sounding a lot like the Dropkick Murphys.

But at some point, you do have to ask, "How far away from the traditional Dwarven traits can we get before we aren't playing Dwarves anymore?" Playing a Dwarven who is considered unusual because he is cleanshaven and doesn't drink is still acknowledging the tropes of what a typical dwarf is like.

[Hytheter]

* tall, graceful sylvan

Not even. D&D's elves are shorter than humans.

[JellyPooga]

Sure, I play a beardless dwarf in one of my campaigns, and I've had fun with second-generation Dwarven refugees completely rejecting their traditional culture and adopting a very punk aesthetic. I also flavor Dwarven bands as sounding a lot like the Dropkick Murphys.

But at some point, you do have to ask, "How far away from the traditional Dwarven traits can we get before we aren't playing Dwarves anymore?" Playing a Dwarven who is considered unusual because he is cleanshaven and doesn't drink is still acknowledging the tropes of what a typical dwarf is like.

I think you've nailed it on the head, for me at least, when you mention punk aesthetics because whilst I imagine Dwarven Culture to be everything it is in all the media Dwarven Adventurers/PC's (and more generally, adventurers/PC's of any race, as a whole) are those that have rejected their traditions in one or more ways. While this applies universally, when a culture is accepting of change amd freedom, those that are acting out of it do not appear or come across as being wildly different. However, when a culture is hard-line and staid, those that buck the trend are likely to a) stand out more and b) push the limits of what is considered acceptable more.

Make you own comparisons in real-world history; there's plenty of rebels (with and without a cause), movements and civil actions to contrast and compare to come to your own conclusions there. Where I will make my mention is the Dwarves of the Games Workshop Warhammer Old World, in which some of the most notable and famous dwarves are those that have rejected their traditional culture to become Slayers , artificers, pirates, Imperial Dwarves or a combination of the above; in short, the kind of dwarves outsiders are more likely to see are the adventurers and outcastes, or to put it another way, PC's.

Where it's interesting is that many of even these "punk" PC dwarves lead lifestyles according to strict rules; Slayers dye their hair orange and take oaths of violence and death, for example. In this way they reject the "true path" that most dwarves lead and take another, less well travelled, but still according to their nature as dwarves; tradition, trust and solidarity being paramount. It's a fascinating take on how more free-thinking dwarves might act in the face of the overwhelming pressure of their culture and it sets them apart from the human mindset, which is far more free and easy going.

Games Workshop also has Squats (aka Space Dwarves), which are definitely still cool (though probably not as cool now, as they were back in the 80's).

[Psyren]

I'd rate Volos and MToF lore as "decent, but not great". I want setting-specific, varied lore. Not "well, multiverse..." crap. But yeah, then they decided that it wasn't vague enough[1] for them, so they ditched it.



Yeah. And between LotR and D&D there was a veritable explosion of other fantasy, some of which took cues from LotR but went in very different directions. And then D&D in every edition has applied the mutant-making cannon to all of its influences. Basically, D&D does D&D, nothing else.


[1] consciously avoiding any culture war topics here.

Setting-specific lore wouldn't add much to dwarves though, that's the problem. Whether you're talking about Krynn Dwarves living underground in Thorbardin, or Faerun Dwarves living underground in Delzoun, or Greyhawk Dwarves living underground in the Iron Hills, or Eberron Dwarves living underground in the Mror Holds, or Golarion Dwarves living underground in Highhelm.... I could go on, but my point is they really aren't that different at the end of the day, and that I feel is one thing that makes them less popular among players looking for a bit more spice.

[TaiLiu]

Setting-specific lore wouldn't add much to dwarves though, that's the problem. Whether you're talking about Krynn Dwarves living underground in Thorbardin, or Faerun Dwarves living underground in Delzoun, or Greyhawk Dwarves living underground in the Iron Hills, or Eberron Dwarves living underground in the Mror Holds, or Golarion Dwarves living underground in Highhelm.... I could go on, but my point is they really aren't that different at the end of the day, and that I feel is one thing that makes them less popular among players looking for a bit more spice.

Yeah. Eberron is my favorite setting and the most unusual dwarves are those bonded with eldritch aberrations. But even that is just playing off of the "they delved too greedily and too deep" dwarf stereotype.

[Leon]

But at some point, you do have to ask, "How far away from the traditional Dwarven traits can we get before we aren't playing Dwarves anymore?" Playing a Dwarven who is considered unusual because he is cleanshaven and doesn't drink is still acknowledging the tropes of what a typical dwarf is like.

Are you playing a shorter but not small sturdy humanoid ~ then your probably playing a Dwarf, the amount of hair on one or where the hair is really isn't an important feature.

[Pauly]

I think one of the problems is that in fantasy dwarves are more or less presented as a monoculture regardless of source. You can drop a D&D dwarf into LoTR or Warhammer and barely notice any differences.

Which leads there to be 'one true path' to play a dwarf and the player either accepting the stereotype or playing a character rebelling against the 'one true path'. For humans there is no one accepted way to play the race. For elves there are many accepted ways of playing the race. Basically every other race has more latitude for the player to choose how to play their character. At the very least there is no other major race more constrained than dwarves.

[Vyke]

I think one of the problems is that in fantasy dwarves are more or less presented as a monoculture regardless of source. You can drop a D&D dwarf into LoTR or Warhammer and barely notice any differences.

Which leads there to be 'one true path' to play a dwarf and the player either accepting the stereotype or playing a character rebelling against the 'one true path'. For humans there is no one accepted way to play the race. For elves there are many accepted ways of playing the race. Basically every other race has more latitude for the player to choose how to play their character. At the very least there is no other major race more constrained than dwarves.

For clarity though.... you know those constraints are self applied right? Like, they have the same constraints as elves. None, really. They're people and how they interact with both their culture and the culture they find themselves in can be as nuanced as any other. I actually think them having a strongly recognisable culture is a positive not a limit, if there's no baseline to draw from then everyone's just random. And everyone leans into or rejects aspects of their own culture and that of the society they live in to many different nuanced degrees. It's not binary. Yes, you have to think about their culture to decide how much it influences them but, should you not be doing that with all characters?

Also, as an aside, I'd argue that most DnD elves would be just fine in LoTR or Warhammer as well. Ditto Halflings. Ditto most humans to be honest.

I dunno, it just seems that people are saying dwarves are boring because they only create boring dwarf characters because that's all they can be bothered to consider. Of course they're boring if you only play them one way (or two ways by completely rejecting all of their culture I suppose). I've played most things at this point, I'm not specifically a dwarf aficionado or anything but I've played a number of dwarf characters who were both identifiably dwarven and also distinct from each other.

I mean, by that logic I could say humans are boring. Most of the ones I see IRL go to work at similar times, and follow the same laws and they mostly seem to want to be able to pay for shelter and food and warmth. The ones I see the absolute most also work in one place! And it's the same place I work! And none of them have horns or wings or breathe fire or speak via telepathy. How boring!

[JellyPooga]

I dunno, it just seems that people are saying dwarves are boring because they only create boring dwarf characters

I agree.

Whilst I've seen (and played) a few archetypal dwarven characters of the "minin' & fightin' & drinkin' when they're not being the party stick-in-the-mud" variety, the best characters I've seen or played myself have been defined by their antithesis of those dwarven traits.
- One guy I knew played a Dwarven Wizard who, as a rookie player, wasn't a very good wizard (by TO standards) and he utilised that OOC lack of proficiency and learning curve to represent his growth IC, from a Dwarf with a spellbook and no master to apprentice him, to a Wizard of fair repute.
- Another Dwarf I saw was a nasty piece of work; crook, criminal, assassin and downright unpleasant individual to be around. He hated almost everything about dwarven culture, having been shunned by it, but he was handy in a scrap, had very few scruples to inhibit the more...practical activities the party had to get up to and he was a former master locksmith, so no-one was better with locks and other mechanisms.
- A favourite of mine was a Dwarven Druid. Foregoing the cultural insistence to learn stonecraft and metalworking, he preferred to take a leaf from the elven book and shape such things using the magic of the land. A protector of the deep, dark places and its inhabitants, he cautioned his kin against delving too deep and industrialising to fast or too hard. He was patient, wise and slow to anger, making druids of other races looking as mercurial and transient as trees growing upon his mountain.

[Eldan]

Yeah, I love leaning into the dwarven connection to stone and darkness. Geomantic mystics are one of my favorite dwarf archetypes, those who literally talk to the living rock.

[Psyren]

For clarity though.... you know those constraints are self applied right? Like, they have the same constraints as elves. None, really. They're people and how they interact with both their culture and the culture they find themselves in can be as nuanced as any other. I actually think them having a strongly recognisable culture is a positive not a limit, if there's no baseline to draw from then everyone's just random. And everyone leans into or rejects aspects of their own culture and that of the society they live in to many different nuanced degrees. It's not binary. Yes, you have to think about their culture to decide how much it influences them but, should you not be doing that with all characters?
...
I dunno, it just seems that people are saying dwarves are boring because they only create boring dwarf characters because that's all they can be bothered to consider. Of course they're boring if you only play them one way (or two ways by completely rejecting all of their culture I suppose). I've played most things at this point, I'm not specifically a dwarf aficionado or anything but I've played a number of dwarf characters who were both identifiably dwarven and also distinct from each other.

You're right that it's mutable/voluntary on the part of the creatives - but dwarves seem to have a higher expectation of cross-setting parity, if not full-on uniformity, than perhaps any other race. Over the decades, a slew of fantasy authors, game designers and other creatives seem to have independently landed on a single cultural expression being the clearest signifier of "dwarf" in their works - hence the pervasiveness of the trope I linked earlier.

And because of that - while new authors absolutely have the power to make their dwarves very different, consumer appetite for that becomes a tricky proposition. Since most designers and authors who sit down to make settings are doing so with the ultimate goal of selling their work - whether that means the straightforward goal of commerce, or merely to get players on board with a homebrew setting that resonates with them - deviating from those tropes becomes a much riskier proposition for them.

Yeah, I love leaning into the dwarven connection to stone and darkness. Geomantic mystics are one of my favorite dwarf archetypes, those who literally talk to the living rock.

^ case in point. Dwarven affinity for earth magic is pretty well-accepted, when they're allowed to have an affinity for magic at all. But an author who made their setting's dwarves predominantly aeromancers or sea witches would probably get pushback from anyone they pitched that setting to.

[Mordar]

I think one of the problems is that in fantasy dwarves are more or less presented as a monoculture regardless of source. You can drop a D&D dwarf into LoTR or Warhammer and barely notice any differences.

Which leads there to be 'one true path' to play a dwarf and the player either accepting the stereotype or playing a character rebelling against the 'one true path'. For humans there is no one accepted way to play the race. For elves there are many accepted ways of playing the race. Basically every other race has more latitude for the player to choose how to play their character. At the very least there is no other major race more constrained than dwarves.

On top of this, even the "adventuring" dwarf outside one specific instance are generally presented as the sidekick, lieutenant, old mentor or quiet background character. Not a big driver for many of the nascent roleplayers, theater kids, wish-fulfillment types, people that want to replicate the heroes of their favorite S&S stories, or simply those driven by common perceptions of cool.

Cross-intersecting with 9-alignment system, I'm guessing Lawful Good Dwarf might be one of the core race/alignment combos viewed least appealing by surveyed players. Interestingly to me, though, I would think it would be one of the most common alignments for dwarves (or at least disproportionately represented in ADP (Actuals Dwarves Played).

- M

[Slipjig]

Since most designers and authors who sit down to make settings are doing so with the ultimate goal of selling their work - whether that means the straightforward goal of commerce, or merely to get players on board with a homebrew setting that resonates with them - deviating from those tropes becomes a much riskier proposition for them.

I think this pretty much captures the dilemma. Sure, every dwarf is an individual, and an author or DM is 100% to create a dwarven culture that varies wildly from the standard tropes. You can create a dwarven culture that made up of jungle-dwelling cannibal communists (and the story of how they got that way could make for some great worldbuilding).

But if the ONLY thing that makes them recognizable as dwarves is that they are ~4' tall, at that point you've lost most of their dwarf-iness, and we're back to the "humans in funny hats" problem.

[Vyke]

^ case in point. Dwarven affinity for earth magic is pretty well-accepted, when they're allowed to have an affinity for magic at all. But an author who made their setting's dwarves predominantly aeromancers or sea witches would probably get pushback from anyone they pitched that setting to.

I'm not sure... this thread alone suggests people might want to see new variation on old themes.

However I do think you can look at the things that make dwarves classically dwarven and come up with something that isn't bagpipe playing, scottish dwarves in heavy armour that mine for gold, live underground and are defined by their beards.

[Cygnia]

In the 5e world I'm designing, I've already decided dwarves sound like they're from Minnesota rather than Scotland.

[Vyke]

In the 5e world I'm designing, I've already decided dwarves sound like they're from Minnesota rather than Scotland.

I can absolutely imagine that!

[PhoenixPhyre]

In the 5e world I'm designing, I've already decided dwarves sound like they're from Minnesota rather than Scotland.

My dwarves are Mongolian

I've also taken some cues from Terry Pratchet--the "main" culture of dwarves take writing seriously. But there are bunches of other cultures. Including one that strongly rejects all the traditionalism and goes full on mad scientist. And another whose cultural music is basically "the Hu, but more angry." And several more that are cosmopolitan. Sure, you've got your rock-ribbed traditionalist "don't like the light" bearded folks who are obsessive crafters and super lawful. You've also got your expansionist fire-worshiping lava-cultist culture, your xenophobic-and-isolationist magitech culture, and at least one mountain-top living, griffon-taming culture with arabic names (a mashup of Warcraft's Wildhammer dwarves and the Aladdin story, for various rather bizarre reasons).

Which (having more than one culture for a given race) is something WotC D&D doesn't do well in general--every race[1] but humans has really 1 culture within a setting and often between settings. Really the only exception are drow, who have two--the spider-obsessive Lolthites and their good (or at least not-horrifically-evil) kin. Yay. Such diversity of thought.

[1] they only differentiate at the sub-race (5e version) level, and then only mildly.

[LibraryOgre]

Interesting. Well it's at least ten years since I last read the Hobbit so I'm clearly not remembering all of it. But then, where does the stereotypical dwarf come from? I think it's described as such in the D&D PHB (2nd and 3rd edition at least) but that's unlikely to be the source...

At this point, D&D is its own subgenre of fantasy, and feeds from itself as much as it feeds from Tolkien and the like. D&D Dwarves draw a lot from Flint Fireforge, Dwarves Deep, Complete Dwarves, and Bruenor Battlehammer, which aren't Gimli or Thorin.

One thing that I find when playing traditional races (the core races in AD&D) is that they do, generally, have a weight of history, and you can play to type or against type. I can play Brunar Waraxe if I want, the traditional dwarf... or I can play Varric, who exists as a contrast to the more traditional dwarf... he's suave and sexy instead of gruff and greedy, shaved and with a crossbow instead of an axe and a beard. Varric exists as an atypical dwarf among more traditional dwarves. He's Driz'zt, the atypical drow, without the angst.

If a race has less of an established type, there risks the Tasslehoff/Greedo problem... the example we see becomes the entire species. Greedo is a bounty hunter, so all the Rodians have a culture that centers around hunting. Tasslehoff is irrepressible and wears a topknot, so that's common among all of them. You might make a character, and even decide that they are an outlier for their race... but if no one knows what you're an outlier from, then you're the race.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One thing that I find when playing traditional races (the core races in AD&D) is that they do, generally, have a weight of history, and you can play to type or against type. I can play Brunar Waraxe if I want, the traditional dwarf... or I can play Varric, who exists as a contrast to the more traditional dwarf... he's suave and sexy instead of gruff and greedy, shaved and with a crossbow instead of an axe and a beard. Varric exists as an atypical dwarf among more traditional dwarves. He's Driz'zt, the atypical drow, without the angst.

If a race has less of an established type, there risks the Tasslehoff/Greedo problem... the example we see becomes the entire species. Greedo is a bounty hunter, so all the Rodians have a culture that centers around hunting. Tasslehoff is irrepressible and wears a topknot, so that's common among all of them. You might make a character, and even decide that they are an outlier for their race... but if no one knows what you're an outlier from, then you're the race.

Amen to both these paragraphs. It's one thing I dislike about the current trend of not providing any lore because it "constrains people". Like...that's the point of lore. To build those "types" so that you have something to work with/from. Blank slates either produce their own, really narrow types or just don't produce anything meaningful at all.

You can't play against type if there isn't a type. You can't subvert or invert a trope that doesn't exist. Nor can you play it straight. Instead, you end up typecasting the entire group. Or, if you fail to be memorable enough, you just create something that's a generic PC-blob in a costume. Not even a human--humans have more tropes than that!

[JellyPooga]

Case in point. Dwarven affinity for earth magic is pretty well-accepted, when they're allowed to have an affinity for magic at all. But an author who made their setting's dwarves predominantly aeromancers or sea witches would probably get pushback from anyone they pitched that setting to.

Quite the contrary; I could absolutely get behind a Dwarven culture that espouses the sky or sea.

For airborne Dwarves, I'm envisioning an affinity for the sky born of their living atop mountains (in a similar way Cloud Giants are); theirs is the province of weather, air, lightning and the contrast between the purity of the clean air at those altitudes and the chaotic nature of the wind as it blows across mountain peaks. These dwarves would have a special relationship with giant eagles or other flying mega-fauna and be renowned as devastating sky cavalry, utilising their short stature and muscular build to ride the winds atop their flying steeds, raining destruction down upon their foes in the form of gunpowder based grenades and artillery made from the natural resources mined from their mountain homes. Dwarves hailing from these mountaintop homes would be hardy and resilient to cold weather and high altitude, with thick, soft, wispy hair (think husky or hare) and beards that flow in the wind; superstition has it that they can "read" the breeze in their prized beards, the elders claiming to be able to predict the weather or impending doom by the tugging of the wind on their whiskers. Dwarven mages take this a step further and are known to be Astronomers and Astrologers both, with many famous Oracles; wise in their interpretations of the mercurial currents of magic that they read from lofty mountain towers and canny in their reading of the celestial spheres above; Kings and Rulers from across the world travel far and long, or send their most trusted heralds to hear their portents. Harnessing the magic of the ground beneath and the sky above, the long-lived, studious Dwarven Magi are considered some of the most powerful wielders of magical power in the world; some say their proximity to the heavens lends them a fraction of the power of the gods themselves, but that's only superstition and hearsay...right?

For Dwarves that sail the seas, I envision a mighty navy of warships that pack far more punch than their size and weight would allow for other races fleets. The short stature, resistance to disease and hardy nature of the dwarves speaks well for them as sailors. They last longer on fewer rations than other sailors. They can fit more crew per square foot than longer-limbed ships. Diseases that plague other fleets are weathered as handily as any storm. Yes indeed, the Dwarven Navy is a thing to be feared. Originally hailing from a ring of volcanic islands, they have developed a raiding culture and they utilise small, heavy ships suited for boarding actions and coastal or river assaults, where they can best use their superior numbers. These Dwarves famously don't swim well. Their dense bones has a tendency to make them sink, but in response to this, many dwarven raiders dreadlock their beards, woven with cork, bladders and other buoyant materials, turning their facial hair into a remarkably adequate floatation device. These coastal dwarves have a love of song and the sea beyond the comprehension of humans or forest elves. Their deep, resonant voices carry far and wide underwater and their love of tradition and lasting things has given them a strong bond and relationship with some of the largest, oldest and wisest of creatures to exist; whales, sea turtles and older, deeper things still. Dwarven sea mages speak to these creatures and use them as a source of knowledge, communication and even travel; stories abound of dwarven mystics travelling in the belly of blue whales or requesting the wisdom of ancient turtles. Other dwarven magi speak to the elder things in the deeper, darker places; Warlocks and Sorcerers drawing power from creatures beyond the ken of mortal creatures, or at least the younger, more flighty species, summoning the inky dark and frigid cold of the ocean depths to assail their foes.