Our dwarves are (not) all the same

>>44582253
Those are some weird fucking proportions. I mean fucking hell their knuckles hang below their knees. And the men's nearly drag on the ground.

>>44582338
It's fantasy character art brosif, indulgent proportions are par for the course

They're amphibious swamp dwellers that look like frogs and they hold their egg pouches in their beards

No dwarves in current one. No elves, no halflings, no orcs...

I did use them in short campaign where dwarves were sort of terrifying, reclusive cave-adapted humanoids. Stocky, could subsist of alcohol, very temperemental.

File: Dwarves.jpg (29KB, 300x432px) Image search: [Google]

29KB, 300x432px

>>44582253

My dwarves are tiny goat people.

>>44582495
I dont care what people said, I still love the idea that thread brought forth.

>>44582449
Did they worship a malevolent being named Armok?

No industry
No society
Lots of magick, not nice one
Malevolent, cruel and vengeful

Basically the original norse dwarves.

>>44582338
They could easily walk on their knuckles, like apes.

>>44582253
>Unbearded females
Blatant heresy

>>44582847
>They could easily walk on their knuckles, like apes.
They do. Many of them wear gloves that are more like articulated flip flops for the back of your fingers.

Dwarf thread? cool

Anyone has a female dwarf archer with bow?

>>44582882
With arms like that, it makes sense. Especially for the old one with the cane. Why bother with a cane when your hands are just a few inches from the ground.

File: Dwarf Family.jpg (67KB, 495x700px) Image search: [Google]

67KB, 495x700px

The dwarves in my setting see dead people. They have the natural ability to see ethereal creatures without the aid of magic.

Also they are strong swimmers, because their ancestral caverns have a tendency to flood.

>>44582495
I don't know why, but I really like this idea

File: vibrams1_Bikila_Castle_Rock_LS-mens.jpg (30KB, 555x300px) Image search: [Google]

30KB, 555x300px

>>44582882
Like this, but for the back of your hands.

>>44582882
It helps when trying to hurry through small tunnels you can't stand upright in, and for climbing rock chimneys

>>44582904
>mom has a goatee
Your application for validation is approved, though I would have gone with an ability to hold their breath for longer than normal(poison gases and flooding protection) and a natural vise-like grip, so they don't get washed away by floods, instead of strong swimming.

The dwarves in my setting are basically miner-Amish (instead of the regular farmer-Amish), complete with Rumspringga. For the first fifty or so years of their adulthood, dwarves leave their holds to experience the outside world and work out their more wild personality traits.

Ergo, that dwarf in the tavern chugging ale after ale is probably just some 60-year-old pup. In a century he'll have gone home, hung up his axe, married some sweet dwarves lass, and followed his father and uncles into the mines.

>>44582253
I don't have dwarves, elves, and orcs in my setting. I have Fir Bolg, Sidhe, and Fomorians.

The Fir Bolg are the closest thing I have to dwarves. The men are relatively short, probably a head and a half taller than the averge human man, the women are half a head taller than the men. They only live in mountains if they are in a trade city, but probably 3/4 of the population lives in well guarded mountain valleys. They aren't isolationists, they tend to go out to bring knowledge to the human tribes around them. They are the most advanced technologically, as well as magically. They were the first race on the planet. They don't really hold grudges.

>>44583108
*shorter than the average human man

>>44582253
Their culture derives elements from confusianism (which is still pretty dorfy, what's with the focus on duty to state, filial piety and doing things by the book) and their astethics have some Chinede-derived elements as well (the way their nobility dresses in particular). They lost their original homeland to the dark elves and hope to one day to reclaim it, and their language is based on Sanskrit.
Also, they prefer vodka over beer.

>>44582253
They are sort of oriental. They use eastern weapons and gunpowder, value honor and discipline above all things, and wear conical hats when they go outside because of light sensitivity. Their language is literally korean with all the syllables reversed, but I didn't tell it to my players yet.

File: 1397513278344.jpg (186KB, 761x930px) Image search: [Google]

186KB, 761x930px

>>44582253
They're creations of the god of invention and construction and have magical energy in place of a true soul so are technically an incredibly advanced type of golem. The lack gender and are all beardy 'males' and they reproduce by converting the energy from a magic volcano into more faux souls.

File: funny-meanwhile-in-russia-bear.jpg (20KB, 365x488px) Image search: [Google]

20KB, 365x488px

>>44582253
>Most of them are blatant russians

>brew buckets of samogon from potatoes

>many arm themselves streltsy style

>geomantic engineering: geode seeds are grown into crystal chambers as huge as the Halls of Moria, ships were made from stone and concrete before the dragons conquered their coast region.

>phalanx formations and roman scutum/gladium combo for tunnel warfare, because it makes much more sense than weapons which need a lot of maneuver space like axes.

>Pic is proof that I'm writing non-fiction.

>>44582495
I think I might be doing this in my next campaign. Maybe not the hooves, but at least the ram horns.

>>44583108
>I don't have dwarves
piss off then

File: Lich Dwarf King.jpg (385KB, 954x700px) Image search: [Google]

385KB, 954x700px

>>44582253

My dwarves are artificial asexual lifeforms created by the gods as their first experimental race. Ultimately the dwarves got a little bit peeved at the gods for creating them without genitals or any other means of natural reproduction, meaning that their numbers would ultimately dwindle away to nothing over the generations.

So they built weapons to kill the gods. To their credit they did manage to get one or two of them, but after the opening salvo the gods blasted their civilization until the entire northern pole of the planet was a magically irradiated wasteland, then abandoned the world for good. Those dwarves that survived in bunkers turned to necromancy and lichdom to ensure their race would continue on in some fashion; nearly 100% of them are some form of undead at this point.

>>44582253
My dwarves are depicted pretty stereotypically, the difference lies in the justification. They are remnants of an civilization that existed before a catastrophic event basically changed the nature of life.

Their underground cities are disaster shelters.
Their famous booze is actually a vital nutritional additive.
Their collectivist attitude is caused by 'shipboard mentality'.
Their advanced technology was left from their heyday.
They are master craftsmen because their life-supporting infrastructure requires constant maintenance.
They are distrustful of other races because the other races look creepily similar to dwarves yet are pretty alien in biology and behavior.
They are always grumpy because from their POV they are living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

File: dwarf_female_by_samosoboy-d71hrpx.jpg (907KB, 1081x1536px) Image search: [Google]

907KB, 1081x1536px

>>44583040

Not just the mom, but the kids too! And yes, they do have the hold-breath thing. The grip, on the other hand, is just part of their Strength bonus.

>>44582253
Ended up focusing more on the mercantile side of them.

Dwarves come from a mountainous continent to the north. At some point in the past, the natural seawall protecting the below sea-level valleys, so about 1500 years ago, the continent was flooded and became an archipelago. Most of the lower levels of the Dwarves mountain holds were flooded, but the Dwarves adapted, converting great halls into ship docks and building fleets of ships. Now the Dwarves have a strong naval presence that they use to trade with the rest of the world.

Dwarves are extremely stubborn and meticulous with their laws. Dwarves do not lie, cheat, or steal and are quick with retribution against those that break their word. They believe that when they die, they will be fined for every slight and misdeed they did in life, so the goal for any Dwarf is to make enough money to pay their fines, and to follow the laws, so that their fines will be low. When a Dwarf dies, their possession are liquidated and the monetary value is loaded on to a ship with their body, the ship is cast adrift into the Northsea.

The ruling body of the Dwarves is the Council of Merchant Guilds, with 13 seats held by the heads of the most powerful guilds. Dwarven military is seen as another form of commerce, so it is made up of almost entirely of mercenary companies and state-approved privateers. Many of these groups can be found hiring out their services to the other races.

>>44582253
Similar to the classic D&D or Tolkien Dwarves with a few key differences.

>Average Male is about 5', Average Female is about 4'8"
>Average Male is about 220lbs, Female is about 160lbs
>Females don't have beards.
>Are fiercely democratic traditionalists
>Get along really well with halflings, to the point that in larger cities Dwarflings are a somewhat common sight.

>>44582495
>>44582522
>>44582909
>>44584174

But what do they use as mounts?

File: Dwerves.jpg (469KB, 973x655px) Image search: [Google]

469KB, 973x655px

>>44582253
They are dumb, semi-quadrupedal creatures that dwell in the wilds and kill/rape for fun

>>44582338
If memory serves, the dorf is Dwarf Fortress have normal human proportions, but their kneeless legs go straight to feet right around where knees should go.

Fuck
*dorfs in

>>44585333
They don't have mounts, like the aboriginals

The beard thing is just a fashion preference that many but not all dwarven cultures share.

Sea dwarves. Their only city is a floating network of docked ships that's been turned into an offshore harbor and supply hub. Most families live their lives aboard a ship and rarely if ever go on land. Pro merchants, carpenters, and traders.

They're also brown or black.

File: Beach_Dwarf_by_Tregis.jpg (129KB, 900x1104px) Image search: [Google]

129KB, 900x1104px

>>44582253
They worship the sun, building mountainous ziggurats as a means of getting closer to their gods. The most impoverished dwarves live inside, deep down inside. Living on, or near an exterior wall, and higher up the slope is a sign of affluence.

>>44582253
Take an ape, a badger, a mountain goat and mix them together into something three to four feet tall, 'bout 130-200lbs with males being larger. Shave the skin 'round the eyes, nose, and forehead, inside of the upper arm, the sides of their hips, and their palms, with females missing hair on their necks, faces, chests, and stomachs. Add hooves to three jointed legs, pair of four to six inch long, three to four inch thick, dark horns above a low brow, a dark, dry, nose, and a pair of round ears on top of their head and you get the idea.

>>44584202
Thanks babe

Communism? They're relatively communist, with the idea that you are not allowed to pursue personal interests until you have done your daily/weekly/monthly allotment of work to benefit the whole of the Fortress. Once you've completed your government mandated tasks you can do whatever you want. Being selfish and seeking personal pleasures before doing your duty gets you banished.

But this might just be one nation/area of Dwarves because I'd like to make multiple ethnicities for my non-human races. It always seems kind of silly that settings have Humans with multiple societies and such, then all the Elves and in the woods and all the Dwarves are in the mountains. Shake it up, man!

They're Crabmen who guard the secrets of metalworking. Some are scavengers who trade goods from the time before, others toil away at their craft, mining or carving stone, shells, and pearl.

In the other campaign, they're extremely business minded and entrpeneurial. Their clans have undergone a strange shift, becoming much more like companies in the modern age. This has brought a rift in their people between Mountainholms. each like a city-state of it's own, some are very traditionalist, while other embrace the new opportunities at the cost of their culture.

>>44583018
>dwarves are nothing more than filthy subterranean apes

I can get behind that concept

Basically they're magical Appalachian hillbilly families (clans). Not as in actual Appalachia, but the same premise; they live on relatively small patches of land and basically sustenance farm to get by. Families are led by the eldest male, and these Elders form a Council that meets to make decisions in times of emergency and when disagreements between clans threaten to get out of hand. The decisions are backed up by all of the families, so might makes right basically.

They're also the longest lived race in the setting, and are extremely attuned to magic, so much so that a regular dwarf would use a spark spell rather than strike a match to light his pipe. As such they are very technologically backwards.

"I bin farmin this here land fo two hunnerd years without them fancy tools, don't reckon I need em now."

>>44582253
my dwarves sometimes look like they're under 40 years old.

>>44585333
Even though they're vaguely related to giant rams, I see no reason they shouldn't be able to ride them.

dwarves think you shouldn't rely on gods to do something you can do yourself. dwarves have a strong appreciation for hygiene. dwarves have an eye for detail and steady hands. dwarves are sturdy.

dwarves were the first ones in the world to work out germ theory and the practice of medical hygiene. the crazy bastards have actually started making alcohol simply for sterilization purposes. every human court with the money for it has a dwarven surgeon on call, and humans travel to isolated dwarfholds to learn the dwarven arts of medicine.

>>44582253
Dwarves aren't actually small in my game. I took a darksiders root and made them giant in comparison to your average human. Not sure if you can call them dwarves anymore, but they have the same rustic beard, eye for trades and are strong as hell.

>>44582253
I basically stole my favourite bits from TES and shoved them in.

My dwarves have an inverted kind of religion where they worship a potential future god that SCIENCE will one day make, their interpretation of science is a physicalist view of the universe that includes magical principles as just more shit they can work with.

They only really become unique in the modern and then futuristic settings, where one of them first creates STEAMPUNK COMMUNISM and later they all become a super eugenics obsessed bunch of floating meat spheres in little pods who just sell weapons to the humans

All dwarves in my setting, while they began as typical ale-drinking-ax-forging-gold-digging midgets, during one of their digs almost a thousand years ago found out a Secret.

What followed was that without an apparent reasons, following this discovery, all dwarves almost without exception migrated South, settled an archipelago with a huge volcano in its centre and have lived there is seclusion and secrecy ever since.

They also became extremely mystical and started heavily employing magic - while they are still famous for their crafting skills, they mostly focus on highly complex magic items, often beyond human comprehension.

The goal of the entire race is to protect the Secret and nothing is capable of wrestling it out of them (explaining some homebrew rules for dwarves' resistance to mind-affecting shit). They'd rather die than expose it - no matter how wicked an individual dwarf is.

>>44587904
Do you know what the secret it is, or is it one of those SECRETS that are just ill-defined and never to be revealed, like the disappearance of the dwarves?

>>44585432
Actually, they have normal proportions and all, and their legs bend as normal. The lack of knees is due to the fact that Toady only programmed equipment for Upper and Lower leg parts, ignoring the knee on armors and body parts as if it's part of the lower leg. Everything else is made up by fans.

>>44588051
To be honest, while I have a big twist planned for the entire setting , namely, that the planet has been artificially made to serve as an aeon-old lich's phylactery, the veins of precious, super-dense material being just runic inscriptions, holding its magic together , I am not yet sure whether I want them to know this particular one or if I should come up with a better one.

File: Conquistadwarves.jpg (180KB, 1024x962px) Image search: [Google]

180KB, 1024x962px

>>44582253
Spicy Spanish accents and a devotion to God, Gold, and Glory.
>La superficie será nuestra! ¡Viva el corto!

>>44585333
Mountain gorillas.

>>44582253
My dwarves are pretty much stereotypical industrial mining, ancestor-venerating, craftsman beardies except for one thing: they are inadvertently feeding and empowering a Lovecraftian slumbering god that has inveigled its way into their ancestral tombs from the underground lake beneath the mountain where they live. Gonna take it one of two ways, depending on what my players stumble onto; either a major dwarven priest has discovered evidence of the God and wants it removed by the players without the other dwarves knowing, or industrial waste dumped in the lake is causing the God to stir, causing quakes and prompting investigation.

>>44585385
>...and kill/rape for fun
Literally the most boring way you can write a race.

>>44589901
>>La superficie será nuestra! ¡Viva el corto!
Literalmente, ¿Qué?

>Duergar are Communist Russia/World Police/Brotherhood of Steel.

>Most dwarves that would fall into the normal category are equally distributed between mountain holds and the open ocean.

Other races tend to think Dwarves are stern and stubborn... Until they meet a Duergar.

>>44585432

Huh, that's odd, as almost every other humanoid is modeled with knees, which is evident when they're broken by wrestling.

>>44592360
Every time. Every god damn time.

>>44592482
The dwarves of the surface exist solely due to a single enterprising Duergar inventing capitalism and baiting other ambitious Duergar with the promise of wealth and liberty to be lazy. But the one thing that broke the camel's back? Intoxication.

Duergar required all members of the society to work in peak condition so any form of recreational drug or intoxicating practice was banned. While the dwarves of the surface still have a good deal of discipline, the divide left the Duergar remaining to be that much more cold, devoted and ruthless.

Tldr; bootleggers and moonshine made a subrace.

>>44582253
Their flesh is hard and stone-like, they have luminescent crystals growing on their extremities, and their internal anatomy is all weird (their blood is so saturated with elemental magic it can function as a potent explosive, and their main organ is reactor-like "core"). When dwarf dies, their flesh solidifies and, after some time, crystallizes into mythril. Many family heirlooms of dwarves are, in fact, their family

They still are short industrious dudes who like alcohol, though - 200-proof alcohol is a good energy source.

>>44582253
My Dwarves are color blind cave dwellers engaged in gang based civil war after their royal family was assassinated by a branch of the government of the short dog people with three fingers and a thumb.
They also have whiskers and large eyes and noses compared to a human.
They also got completely wrecked during the course of the Border wars by a combination of Human Technology(Tanks, Bombers, Snipers, that sort of thing) and D'na abominations which ironically were developed from creatures called Angler Scorpions that live in the caverns the dwarves share.
Nowadays they are pretty damn Xenophobic and don't allow anyone to take any sample of living matter out of their Caverns. infact the only immigrants they allow are magic users of the dog people out of spite to the agency that killed their royal family