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Old 09-18-2017, 01:18 AM   #11
sir_pudding
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Default Re: Our dwarves are different

In the setting I am working on now the dwarf-role is being taken by the coblynau (a Welsh faerie that is one of the sources of the US tommyknocker), with the twist that the knocking sound is the low frequency end of their sonar echoes.
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Old 09-18-2017, 03:25 AM   #12
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Default Re: Our dwarves are different

Someone used dwarves as elementals and IIRC early versions of RuneQuest had dwarves as machines*.

There was also the idea presented on the SoogaGames blog whereby dwarves, gnomes and halflings were all one species.

*I quite like the idea of going a bit Elder Scrolls with this - the dwarves, such as they were, backed themselves up onto a series of crystal matrices (perhaps to avoid a plague or something), some of which are installed in mechanical chasses so that they can perform routine maintenance of the mothballed dwarf holds. For whatever reason, the dwarves were unable to revert to "meat mode" and their species essentially no longer exists, leaving a series of "abandoned" dwarfholds for use as "dungeons" ... with some having mechanical guardians for PCs to fight. The crystal matrices, known as "dwarf power stones" are popular amongst the magic community who don't realise that they're consuming dwarven souls when they use them.
I'd couple this with a SoogaGames take whereby you have another "little people" species made up of those dwarves who got locked out of the holds when the grand backup occurred ... following the plague and civilizational collapse they know no more about the original dwarves than humans do and are more like hobbitses than dwarves.
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Old 09-18-2017, 11:22 AM   #13
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Default Re: Our dwarves are different

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Originally Posted by Pragmatic View Post
Since there's a lot of threads about dwarves, I thought I'd make my own to get inspiration...

I'm getting a pretty good handle on how I want elves to be. EVERYONE talks about elves, so it's easy to "data mine" (plagiarize) from dozens of sources.

Spoiler:  


But what about dwarves? What makes dwarves unique in your universe? How did they come to be? What defines them? How are they different from "short humans, lives underground, likes gold, gruff, Scottish accent"?
Loves artisanship. Has an aesthetic interest mostly in rock and metalurgy and crafting with such. Make great infantrymen, never forgets a favor or insult. Lives in city-states and tribes but never empires or territorial kingdoms. Very conservative. Always hungers after the past. Stubborn. Resistant to ring-addiction. Made by Aule who goofed up and had to be rescued by Eru because even the Valar can't make a whole intelligent species of their own. And where the heck did the Scottish accent come from?
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Old 09-18-2017, 11:39 AM   #14
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Default Re: Our dwarves are different

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Go back to the source: the dvergr of Svartalfheim in Norse mythology. They live underground, and they're good with tools. That's all these dwarfs have in common with D&D dwarves.

Dvergr are intensely magical - they created Thor's hammer Mjölnir, Odin's spear Gungnir, Freyr's ship Skíðblaðnir, and many other artifacts of immense magical power.

Four dvergr have lent their names to the cardinal directions of the compass: Austri, Vestri, Norðri, and Suðri (“East,” “West,” “North,” and “South”) hold the sky off the ground. This is an example of both their strength and their height - dvergr are not short.

Their skin is pitch black. They might or might not have beards. And their accent is Norse, not Scottish.

More at https://norse-mythology.org/gods-and-creatures/dwarves/ , from which I cribbed most of the above.
My dragon heresy game features dwarves that are mostly derived from this. They have skin that looks like granite (it's still skin, though), they're hairless, and they're actually the source of the dominant human culture in Torengar, which is sort of the "Town" of a DFRPG style campaign if "Town" were a whole realm.
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Old 09-18-2017, 03:38 PM   #15
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Culture and religion based on Confucianism.
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Old 09-18-2017, 04:27 PM   #16
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Default Re: Our dwarves are different

I once did a setting where dwarves and dark elves were the same race, short, pale-skinned, dark-haired (beard optional) and had a worm-like larval form. They could also be killed by sunlight, but the popular idea that they turned to stone was caused by confusion with trolls.
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Old 09-19-2017, 07:38 AM   #17
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Default Re: Our dwarves are different

I have a few minor variations, but nothing major.

Dwarves don't ever form complete communities. They always find some other species to be craftsmen and miners for, so they don't have to worry about food. They'll still have their own section of the community, but will always have farmers of other races nearby.

There is only one dwarven mine, but its in a weird pocket dimension with entrances spread over the world.

Dwarves have a slight resistance to being burned, and so can work with metals in ways others can't.
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Old 09-19-2017, 03:16 PM   #18
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Default Re: Our dwarves are different

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Culture and religion based on Confucianism.
I tend to do this too. Dwarves have a very structured and orderly society, with acknowledged superiors/inferiors in every relationship. They're also very big into conformity and tend to suppress individualism.
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Old 09-19-2017, 06:35 PM   #19
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I tend to do this too. Dwarves have a very structured and orderly society, with acknowledged superiors/inferiors in every relationship. They're also very big into conformity and tend to suppress individualism.
They are also very big on reciprocity which sounds a little more Zenish.
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Old 09-20-2017, 03:57 AM   #20
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Default Re: Our dwarves are different

Whereas the whole ancestor obsession thing ... Asian fusion seems to be the way to go for dwarves - a Confucian/Shinto/Taoist/Buddhist mix ... much like a lot of actual Chinese people (if you substitute out the Shinto for traditional Chinese animism).
I also like the idea of dwarves whose funeral rites are very similar to their child dedication rites (each essentially marks you moving to or from the spirit branch of the family).

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Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
They are also very big on reciprocity which sounds a little more Zenish.
Although thinking about it this could also be about the management of obligations - a dwarvern society in which every individual keeps a strict tally of their debts to one another could well look reciprocity obsessed to outsiders. Recall Pratchett's dwarves whose marriage rites include closing out your accounts with your parents ... in cash terms.

Actually, speaking of Pratchett, how do we portray female dwarves? Rare or just all but indistinguishable from the males? (And recall there was variation even in his dwarves ... the Copperheaders had acknowledged gender within their community whereas that was a massive taboo for dwarves from Uberwald

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