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Old 10-19-2015, 08:22 PM   #10
Landwalker
 
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Cumberland, ME
Default Re: A dwarf by any other name...

Quote:
Originally Posted by VariousRen View Post
My question is how different should I make these subterranean dwellers so the players don't just say "Oh, so it's a dwarf" and then jump to conclusions like "So they must hate elves!" or "They must all be greedy, and have bonuses against giants!".
Depending on the context in which your characters (or players, whichever) initially learn of this new race, making a quick strike against established stereotypes could definitely be done.

Perhaps they encounter the dwarves acting in their capacity as allies (or allies-for-hire) for elves in some sort of conflict.

Perhaps they meet a dwarven trade caravan on its way to (or from) elvish lands.

Perhaps dwarven religion has a strong monastic inspiration with vows of poverty, etc., and an emphasis on tithing one's wealth to the dwarven church.

Maybe there aren't any giants? Maybe they're on good terms? In the Iron Kingdoms campaign setting, dwarves and giants don't really have anything to do with one another (admittedly, giants don't really have anything to do with anybody, as there are only a handful of known ones and hardly anything is known about the race as a whole), but dwarves and ogrun (your basic SM+1 burly fellows) are on excellent terms, and it isn't uncommon for a dwarf to have an ogrun bodyguard (so to speak). (Ogrun are decidedly not ogres. They're an intelligent, civilized, and often quite serious race that happens to be quite tall and typically full of muscles.)

Or, as has been suggested, make them so blatantly not dwarves from an aesthetic standpoint that there will be no tendency to associate whatever the race happens to be with its dwarfy inspiration. They have four arms and an exoskeleton. Their lower body is that of a serpent. They're actually made of rock or metal, like an entire race of sapient golems, and they reproduce by carving offspring out of the walls of the mountains. They're mole-people. They're bat-people (advance disclaimer of all responsibility for bat-men jokes).

Between "Introduce them in a way that immediately shatters one or more conventional dwarven stereotypes" on the one hand or "Introduce a race that is so blatantly not a dwarf that no further metaknowledge stereotypes can follow," I think you've got some good options on how to go about it.
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