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Our Dwarves Are All The Same
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Typical Every Dwarf
Now Dwarves, Sire, are like angry beards on legs. Angry, beer-soaked beards on legs.
Cleric: Does he have any distinguishing features?
Haley: Well...he's short.
Celia: He has a beard.
Haley: He wears heavy armor.
Cleric: Ummm, OK... how about any unusual personality traits?
Celia: He has an accent.
Haley: He likes beer.
Celia: And hates trees!
Haley: He worships Thor.
Cleric: Can you tell me anything about him that differentiates him from every other dwarf?
You know them. Gruff, gold-loving, blunt-speaking, Scottish-accented, Viking-helmed, alcohol-swilling, Elf-hating, ax-swinging, stout, long-bearded, stolid and unimaginative, boastful of their battle prowess and their vast echoing underground halls and mainly just the fact that they are Dwarves.
Ever since Tolkien did his thing with some modified Norse myths, the Dwarves (not dwarfs, who are just short humans, except in Discworld and Warhammer) have been rolling off the assembly line as the same basic model. Since The Film Of The Book(s), they now even all talk the same. A lot of dwarves are Scottish, Irish, or Russian. An entire race of miners and blacksmiths, with names like Dwarfaxe Dwarfbeard and Grimli Stonesack, overly sensitive about any perceived slight, always spoiling for a fight, and unable to speak two sentences in a row without calling someone "lad" or "lass." Expect dwarf-tossing jokes.
In the last couple of decades, they will often be depicted as more technologically minded than other fantasy races, verging on (and sometimes overtaking) Steam Punk, but this is in keeping with their engineering and crafting skills both from the classic Fantasy depictions and from actual mythology. Very often they will simultaneously be depicted as one of the most conservative races socially, although their overall similarity with humans compared to more outlandish races means the two are usually familiar with each other.
Despite his small stature, the dwarf will often serve as The Big Guy of a fantasy Five Man Band, especially since his Weapon Of Choice tends to be either an axe or a hammer. If they use any ranged weapons at all, expect a crossbow to be the most popular choice (if there aren't any guns, at least).
Often treated as a functional One Gender Race; one of the only widespread (but not universal) novelties is what the women look like.
See also Five Races, Elves Vs Dwarves
Franchises that use this ready-made model of Dwarfdom
Card Games
- Dwarves have appeared sporadically in Magic The Gathering, though the game designers seem not to like them much. They live in the mountains and like to fight so they belong to the Red color/philosophy, but the stoic and orderly culture of traditional fantasy dwarves is more White, not to mention how goblins hog all the slots for person sized red creatures, so they're sort of an odd race out. MtG did shake up the usual dwarf formula in the Odyssey block, where the dwarves were portrayed as passionate artisans and warriors with a strong affinity for fire magic. Later in the game's history, the kithkin in Lorwyn were portrayed as sort of a cross between hobbits (which is what they were originally intended to be called) and dwarves, combining the Little Folk's general smallness and pastoral living with the Stout Folk's tenacity and well-organized communal defense; the kithkin become even more dwarflike in Shadowmoor, where they have abandoned their country villages for heavily fortified castles and become rabidly xenophobic.
- The Eventide expansion to the Shadowmoor block added dwarves again, with affinities for both white and red, and modified the design of dwarves to axe the hair and make them up more pasty. These dwarves are based not on Tolkein, or even on the Norse mythology Tolkein based his on, but on the folklore of Britain.
Literature
- JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings — pretty much single-handedly popularized the trope. Interestingly, Tolkien's Dwarvish language is constructed on Proto-Semitic, not Gaelic, implying that Tolkien was not going for the Scottish accent at all. He was trying to make his Dwarvish folk a "people apart." His dwarves are different from dwarfs of folklore and fairy tales in that a lot of them are warriors in addition of being miners and craftsmen.
- Interestingly subverted in The Silmarillion with the Petty-Dwarves, which by design or chance have most of the characteristics of modern fantasy gnomes.
- And where Tolkien uses the term "gnomes," it refers to the Noldor, a clan of elves who have various dwarflike features, such as being experts at carving gems, blacksmithing, and digging underground. Confused yet?
- Tolkien actually attempted to excise terms like "elf" or "dwarf" from his legendarium (to further remove them from conventional fantasy depictions), but couldn't find something else reasonable to call them. He suggested "dwarrow" at one point for "dwarf", and it survives in some place names, but that's it.
- A brief mention in Gnomes by Wil Huygen and Rein Poortvliet. Quote: "An almost extinct species of the male sex." (Could there be a connection there?) "Height 1 metre 20 cm, often smaller. Can still be found in the middle of inhospitable forests and in the mountains. They dig for gold and silver in extensive mines; they are masters of metalwork. They are good-natured except for a solitary few who are capable of ugly deeds. If a dwarf falls into human hands, he buys his freedom with gold. They do not have beards."
- Likely influenced by Dungeons And Dragons, the dwarves that appear in Raymond Feist's Riftwar Cycle follow this trope.
- The duaroughs (yes, that's basically pronounced "dwarves") in Meredith Ann Pierce's Darkangel Trilogy are basically Tolkienian. Except sunlight temporarily turns them to stone, forcing them to wear heavy, enveloping garments if they go aboveground during the daytime.
- Which makes them very close to mythological dwarves, not Tolkienian.Except for the "temporarily" part.
- David Weber's Bahzell trilogy has dwarves that basically fit this mold. Heavy emphasis on mining and living underground, technology better than anyone else's, and an absurd emphasis on family and clan that no other race can even follow.
- Discworld plays with the trope (when doesn't it?) by having this as the traditional Dwarven image that most Dwarfs aspire to, but many live in and where born in cities and work in factories.
- Further, extremely fundamentalist dwarfs attempt to never emerge aboveground. If they're ever forced to, they wear garments that completely envelope them so they don't have to look at sunlight; the in-story explanation for the outfit, aside from the fact that they abhor sunlight because of beliefs established in their folklore, is that it's a ceremonial version of the protective clothing worn by dwarfs who do the important but extremely deadly job of dealing with gas pockets in mines; originally, the dwarfs who occupied this position in society would have been members of this profession who survived long enough to retire.
- Pratchett also subverts the trope with dwarf characters such as Casanunda, the world's second greatest lover (We Try Harder), and Hwel, the Discworld Shakespear. Also Carrot, the seven-foot dwarf, and the openly female Cheery/Cherry Littlebottom.
- The Inheritance Cycle, of course, has these. To be fair, Paolini makes a point of mentioning dwarf women, apparently just to prove they exist, but otherwise he pretty much plays it straight.
- Subverted in the Dragaera novels written by Steven Brust. Easterners, who are identical to real-world humans, are called "dwarfs" by the tall, elf-like Dragaerans. Easterner society is based on medieval eastern europe rather than anything resembling Norse.
- The dwarves of The Fionavar Tapestry pretty much fit the mould except for the One Gender Race. Dwarf women in Fionavar are sylph-like and graceful; as one character admits to herself, she should no more reasonably expect them to look like their men any more than she herself resembles her male companions.
Mythology
- Norse Mythology — here's where it all started. Though they were somewhat varied, the basics of common lore goes back to mythology. The long beards, skilled at metallurgy, lived in caves, etc. A big difference was that they turned to stone when exposed to sunlight, killing them. There was also discrepency amongst how long they lived, some myths had them be an adult at three years old, and an old man by nine.
- Not to mention that they had coal-black hair, extremely pale skin, actually were a type of elf and were human-sized at first, but Memetic Mutation changed them a lot even during the Viking era. By the late Middle Ages, they were much closer to the Dwarves we'd recognize today.
- Marvel Comics' use of the Norse Mythos (via the super-hero The Mighty Thor) have Dwarves that look like the modern model but otherwise are more like their ancient inspiration. In effect, they are cave-dwelling magical gadgeteers.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons And Dragons — not surprising, given how much it was originally based on Tolkien.
- One widely used D&D addition is the idea that Dwarves are inherently more resistant to magic, being that they're all stolid and stony like the earth and all. Yet in the original myths, dwarves produced all manner of magical artifacts for the Aesir. Even Tolkien's dwarves managed to make mithril, the local Unobtainium. That said, they were resistant to The Corruption.
- Seemingly because they love gold and cunning more than they love power.
- D&D has shown an interesting evolution in the question of Dwarven females. In the oldest editions, the race was essentially monogendered. Later on their women became more feminine — but still had luxurious beards. In the latest edition they just look like very muscular Halfling lasses — albeit generally Bad Ass ones.
- There's other differences as well. Dwarves are noted as being good with Divine magic, and they're one of the go-to races for Clerics. (see: Durkon). And players and D Ms, of course, can play with or subvert the definition all they wish.
- Eberron's dwarves are pretty much the same, except that they are also bankers.
- Because the Forgotten Realms has an obscene amount of diversity it actually subverts this trope a few times with "sub-races" like the wild dwarves and arctic dwarves. Shield dwarves and gold dwarves, on the other hand, take portions of the stereotype, with shield dwarves playing the Proud Warrior Guy archetype and gold dwarves holding on to the craftsmen side of the coin.
- Warhammer plays them straight , but once upon a time, had the Chaos Dwarfs, which were based on ancient Mesopotamia of all things and diabolic slavemaster warlocks with cloven hooves and addicted to Black Magic. Sadly, their army nearly dropped off the face of the earth, and the few new Chaos Dwarfs we've seen (as crew for a war machine model) seem very much standard, if eviler-looking.
- The Gotrek And Felix novels play with the accent, as most Dwarfs have the typical slightly-Scottish speech that is still easy to understand. Then they introduce a Dwarf character whose speech is much closer to a real Scottish brogue, and even the other Dwarfs can't understand him half the time.
- To clarify, the Dwarfs of the southern kingdoms have an accent described as something more resembling German, rather than Scottish. (which makes sense, considering that they influenced the language of the humans who would found the Empire, based off Renaissance Germany) It is the northern Norscan Dwarfs who speak in a thick Scottish brogue.
- Also, these Dwarfs have guns. (No Fantasy Gun Control here!) And cannons. And helicopters. And Ironclad submarines.
- And they eat "rock bread"!
- They have ale that is so filled with nutrients that they can literally survive for weeks on it alone.
- Mmmmm, beerfood
 .
- Warhammer 40000 once had the Squats, which, naturally, were Dwarfs IN SPACE, but the designers couldn't quite decide on their overall theme. Some models were straight Dwarfs, while others were more like really short Biker Dudes IN SPACE, so they got removed from future editions — i.e., they Dropped A Hive Fleet On Them. However, the "space Dwarfs" concept, if not the models, seem to be returning in the form of the Demiurg (Greek for "craftsman"), a mercenary alien race that has worked for both the Imperium and the Tau in the past.
- The now-defunct Mage Knight minatures game had standard Tolkieny dwarves. All male, all bearded, all craftsmen and miners (some not by choice), and their craftiness led to literal Steam Punk tech such as Steam (mecha)Golems and steam-powered mounts.
- There are some differences from the standard model here. They are actually shorter lived than humans, an elderly dwarf being about 30, and they play up the resistance to magic. They were actually forced by The Empire of Atlantis into slavery, mining for magic Phlebotinum because they were immune to the deadly radiation. They joined the Black Powder Rebels in order to free their comrades from this slavery.
- Changeling: the Lost has the Wizened, humans who were made to work as the Gentry's craftsmen and servants. Like dwarves, there's usually something "diminished" about them (sometimes size, sometimes muscle, sometimes social presence), they tend to be cranky (see "diminished social presence"), and they're very, very good with crafts.
- Winterweir's Bathas are evil sociopathic slavers but still live underground and have an interest in wealth. They also invent things.
- Warcraft is an interesting case. For most of the RTS games, this was played straight, but right before World Of Warcraft hit, dwarven miners unearthed (no pun intended) evidence that linked them to the titans—specifically, being created by the titans. This caused a surge in the interest of science and knowledge in dwarven society; King Magni Bronzebeard even ordered that the main dwarven industry switch from mining to archeology. Now you'll find just as many explorers, scientists, archeologists and scholars among the dwarves as you will miners and blacksmiths.
Theater
- Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, epic predecessor and undoubted inspiration to Tolkien (the clue's in the title). His Nibelung dwarves are, true to their Norse roots, subterranean miners and metalcrafters. His dwarven brothers Alberich and Mime inspired (in this troper's estimation) the thieving dwarf Mîm who appears in The Silmarillion.
Video Games
- Dwarf Fortress is essentially built around this trope. There's even a system in place to automatically generate dwarfy names.
- Puzzle Quest Challenge Of The Warlords — only slightly subverted in that Khrona doesn't hide her most obvious gender identifiers, but still sports a nice, long beard.
- Partially averted in Elder Scrolls: Morrowind - the Dwemer, dwarves in human legend - turn out to be basically just another race of elves. They still like their underground lairs and hi-tech toys, but they're based off of Mesopotamian cultures instead of Norse or Celtic.
- Guild Wars mostly follows the standard, although the dwarves come off a bit more Scandanavian than Scottish. This trope is partly averted by the Stone Summit clan, a bunch of xenophobic slavedriving hatemongers, then it gets taken to its conclusion at the end of the Eye of the North expansion pack. The dwarves seek to awaken the Great Dwarf to battle the destroyers pouring out from beneath the earth. What happens is that they become the Great Dwarf, their bodies turning to solid stone and their hearts consumed with an eternal thirst for battle, so they can fight the destroyers for eternity.
- Dungeon Siege has dwarves who left behind an Elaborate Underground Base, some flamethrowers, Gatling guns and sub-machine guns, and a Steam Punk Humongous Mecha.
- They have appeared sporadically in the more High Fantasy installments of the Final Fantasy series, with the only distinction being that their catchphrase is "Laliho!"
- In FF IV they have tanks. Tanks that battle airships.
- There's also the Litlie race from the Crystal Chronicles subseries, which are essentially dwarves, but adorable, chipmunk-like dwarves.
- Played mostly straight (mostly since it's set in the gameworld's Steam Punk 1880's so they wear tailcoats as well as armor) in the RPG Arcanum, including what this editor believes to be one of the earliest examples of the now-standard Scottish accent as spoken by NPC Magnus.
- Betrayal at Krondor (published in 1993) beats Arcanum by nearly a decade. "Ach, what is it noe?" "I thought I hearrd a Brak Nuur!"
- Played subversively straight in that females are never seen, so all dwarves are the same; bearded stocky men. It's somewhat averted in city dwarves, which are naturally culturally different (though their women are never seen either.) Magnus is a subversion in that he tries doubly hard to be as dwarven as possible, to the point of hiding and denying his city origins, because he hero-worships the dwarves of the legendary mountain clans.
- Magnus is a double subversion in that he is a descendant of the long lost high-tech Iron Clan, and one of the subquests involve finding the fortress of said clan.
- The Witcher may differ considerably from the Medieval European Fantasy archetype, but the Dwarves are still all the same. Short, broad and muscled, have a high tendency to be blacksmiths. The only difference is that they're second-class citizens and may sympathize and collaborate with Elves to the Humans Fantastic Racism against "Otherlings."
- They do have a few notable differences from the norm. Sure, they're skilled craftsmen, but in this world that speciality goes to the gnomes. Dwarves are known to be shrewd and cunning businessmen, and many prominent Dwarven characters are bankers. There's also a law firm run by Dwarves that specialised in winning cases by making witnesses disappear and arranging mysterious 'accidents' for the enemies of its clients.
- Since the universe of The Witcher is based on both medieval European cultures and typical fantasy and fairy tale beings, dwarves in this world are the real dark fantasy successors of Tolkien's creation and have gone from proto-semetic to the stereotypical medieval conception of the Jewish people. Which might make the concept of them classified as low-grade beings by the ruling humans much more uncomfortable.
- Two dwarves appear in Tales Of Symphonia, with one of them being the foster father of the hero, Lloyd Irving. In Tales Of Phantasia, which takes place about 4,000 years after Symphonia, dwarves are extinct, though their ruins are intact.
- A skit in in Tales Of Symphonia mentioned that the majority of the dwarves are hidden by Cruxis somewhere in Derris Kharlan as they use them for maintaining machinery, so they may have still be living on the comet.
- In Mace: The Dark Age, a Soul Edge style weapons-based 3D fighter for the Nintendo 64, the dwarves are represented by hidden character Gar Gudrunnson. His people are mountain-dwellers enslaved by despotic Lord Deimos (think Nightmare with his own kingdom) to build his weapons of war. Gar is among a handful of rebels, and his weapon is an enormous steam-powered Warmech, ironically making him the largest character in the game and one of the few who are original. He's rather overpowered though, and is more on par with sub-boss Grendal due to his enormous strength and the fact that he can't be thrown or Executed. The mace enslaves him and the other dwarves and it motivates them to wage war on mankind.
- Averted in Kingdom Of Loathing, where dwarves are 7-foot tall miners. They are all the same, but not like dwarves in other fantasy fiction.
- Golden Sun's dwarves fit it to a T. (Though they probably don't have Scottish accents, since Funetik Aksent is used for the two humans with Scottish accents but not the dwarves.)
- Partially averted in Dragon Age. Dwarves speak in a mid-western American accent and have an incredibly rigid caste system complete with backstabbing nobles. Of course, they're still short, hairy, traditionalist, axe-wielding miners with a high instance of alcoholism...
- This troper might add that they might seem hairy at first, but the actual number of bearded dwarves isn't any higher than that of bearded humans, and a shaved dwarf not an uncommon sight at all.
- Also there is a grand total of one Dwarf alcoholic, the party member, he is openly mocked by other Dwarves for it
- Played mostly straight in Bungie's Myth series of fantasy games. Dwarves there are short, construct underground cities, are good with gadgets, greedy, and have chemistry far beyond that of the other races leading to them becoming explosive and demolition experts. However, instead of sounding Scottish, they are voiced to sound more like crabby old men.
Webcomics
- Dominic Deegan has recently added Dwarves to its array of races, and from their first appearance, we have bearded females, and a long-standing rivalry with Halflings. Mostly over beer nowadays.
WebOriginal
- Dorf Quest's Beardbeard, and every other
dwarf dorf we've seen, has been this trope taken to psychotic extremes - every problem can be solved with a drinking contest, violence, or a violent drinking contest.
Franchises that customize the model
Comic Books
- Gold Digger Dwarves have optional beards on both sexes, no specific accents, aren't all short tempered and have plenty of non-miners, but otherwise fit the mold. A female Dwarf villain, G'nolga, insists that the beauty of dwarf women is legendary. While she and other dwarf females definitely don't look bad, one does wonder how much of this comes from her being acknowledged as one of the ten strongest fighters on the planet.
Literature
- Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have tried to avert this. The Death Gate Cycle was basically about what happens to Tolkienesque races' cultures when put in completely different worlds, and The Sovereign Stone Trilogy recast them as Mongol-style nomads (the Elves were Japanese). Didn't really work, because the dwarves always got the least characterization, but they tried.
- The Shannara series has dwarves mutated from human stock (like most of the races of the books) but with the added caveat that, due to their ancestors' millenia of hiding in shelters, they are claustrophobic and dislike going underground.
- Flint Fireforge, from the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy, was originally going to be a well-dressed fop. Eventually, though, they decided against this, and just made him the standard dwarf. The well-dressed fop concept later became the preferred mortal guide of Reorx, god of the forge.
- The Valerians of the Lensman series are a race of strong, tough, axe-wielding proud warriors, but they're really human Heavyworlders, not fantasy dwarves. In other words: Space Dwarves.
- Dwarves in Narnia are expert archers, a trait more commonly associated with elves. Just so happens that there aren't any elves in Narnia, or at least not the Tolkien sort, so dwarves got to appropriate one of their talents.
- They also come in red-haired and black-haired models. And it's explicitly mentioned that Trumpkin smokes and Nikabrik doesn't, which kind of sticks out as a way of acknowledging personal preference, since pipe-smoking is usually right up there with drinking as the substance abuse of choice for dwarves.
- Possible example: Gregory Maguire's Mirror Mirror, in which the eight (yep) dwarves are, at least initially, shapeshifters. They're also far more, well, mineral than your typical humanoid character.
Tabletop Games
- The Mountain Folk of Exalted draw heavily on the Norse Dwarves for inspiration, but two of their castes (Artisans and Warriors) are actually human-sized; the Artisans are tall, beautiful super-geniuses, and their warriors look like neanderthal space marines in power armor.
- Mike Pondsmith's Castle Falkenstein roleplaying game (from R. Talsorian Games) had dwarves based more on the ancient Germanic myth model — supernaturally strong and resistant to fire, with chicken feet (which they hide by wearing big boots), and no females at all. When they marry, they marry Faerie women — the male children are more Dwarves, the girls are Faeries like Mom. They do have the whole mining and beer obsession, but are more likely to fight with big wrenches than axes as they are the master technologists of their world.
- There are two common stereotypes for Dwarves in Shadowrun; they're all good with machinery, and they all have major Napoleon complexes. The average dwarf has a tendency to get loud and belligerent when either of these stereotypes is applied to them. This does not change the fact, however, that the dwarf willpower bonus is so useful to certain professions that almost every rigger you'll find is a dwarf.
Video Games
- Subverted in The Elder Scrolls — the dwarves are, in fact, human sized. They were called "dwarves" because the giants mistook them for small humanoids, and the name stuck. They're also an Elf subspecies ("Dwemer," meaning Deep Folk) and based around ancient Mesopotamia, if the ancient Mesopotamians had all lived underground, discovered magic and steam punk technology, then vanished off the face of the earth. Odd people, the ancient Mesopotamians.
- Not only are they totally different, but at the same time they are also still the same with the same dwarfy traits - they were reclusive, lived in underground fortresses under mountains, had an uncanny knowledge of metals and metalworking, were at odds with the (other) elves, and wore large beards. The way Bethsoft managed to keep the dwarfiness while doing away with the Nordic theme cliché was quite ingenious, in this troper's opinion.
- Partially subverted in the Lineage MMORPGs: The male dwarves are about what you expect, but the female dwarves resemble cute elves, only half the size.
- Age Of Mythology goes back to the roots of Norse myths, making Dwarves simply good craftsmen and gold-diggers. They don't use axes, except for gathering wood or when transformed into Heroes of Ragnarok by the Ragnarok godpower.
- Eitri uses an axe to fight in the campaign, though he can use it to cut wood. His brother Brokk has a hammer instead.
- The Warcraft universe has a wide variety of dwarf variations. While nearly all of them share dwarfish traits like mountainous homes, a love of beer, and ferocity in battle, each also have their own traits. They were originally descended from the Earthen, a dwarfish race made of living stone created by the Titans through magical forges to help build and maintain the world.
- The Bronzebeard dwarves are fairly traditional and master miners, but they're also scholarly, archaeologists, and when it comes to dealings with folks who aren't Orcs, pretty diplomatic.
- The Wildhammers live in the surface of high peaks, befriend all kinds of wild animals and like nature. They are the Alliance's master gryphon-riders and traditionally get on well with elves. They also have tattoos.
- The Dark Irons live deep in the fiery volcanic underworld of Blackrock Spire and the Burning Steppes. They're magically-inclined, devious, gray-skinned, skilled at stealth, and (mostly) worship an Eldritch Abomination, Ragnaros the Firelord.
- The Iron Dwarves are an aberrant corruption of the Earthen spawned by servants of another Eldritch Abomination. They're hostile, skilled in runic magic, and made of living iron, with lightning crackling across and beneath their skin. They may be closer to robots in some ways than truly free-willed, since unlike even the Dark Irons they're universally hostile.
- The Frostborn are a polar clan of pale and blue-skinned dwarves who seem peaceful and contemplative and befriend giant eagles.
- In Magical Starsign, dwarves are basically tiny balls of fluff who consist mainly of a beard with hands, feet, and beady little eyes. Not much is made of their physical prowess, but they're the best starship engineers in the galaxy.
- In Class Of Heroes, dwarves have the same typical culture of other dwarves, but they look more like beastmen.
- Even Kingdom Of Loathing doesn't stray from the path too far. Yes, their dwarves are 7-Feet Tall, but other than that they act exactly the same as here.
- Final Fantasy IV plays it straight, and heck, so do most dwarves in Final Fantasy IV The After Years. However, Luca keeps herself clean-shaven (other female dwarves in the game have beards) and doesn't have much love for dwarven fashion. The one thing she gets right is a love of technology, with two custom-built clockwork dolls at her command, but she'd rather study under the human Cid than other dwarves.
Web Original
- Dwarves in Tales Of MU mostly follow the model, with a few additions. Their names have a Germanic flavor, they count in base seven, and while they seem like a One Gender Race, it's been explained that male and female dwarves just don't get along. The one full-blooded female dwarf who appeared was not described with a beard. MU dwarves have a strong disposition for secrecy and privacy, though the college-going ones are willing to make exceptions for attractive women of other races. One recurring minor character, Gebhard, shows a somewhat fussy and fastidious nature.
- Limyaael suggests that customizing the model is a really good idea.
- In The Salvation War, Belial's Elaborate Underground Base of Palelabor is staffed by a horde of very squat, heavyset demons with long gray beards, who are, for all intents and purposes, dwarves.
Webcomics
- Unforgotten Realms averts this about as far as is possible. Any character which isn't obviously another species is invariably a Dwarf. Probably the only character who even has a beard is Sir Schmoopy of Awesometon, one of the two main player characters.
- Most of the Dwarves in Looking For Group are evil, black-leather wearing, pierced punks.
- And Pella is quite shapely and fan-servicey, not fat and dumpy like dwarven females are so often depicted as.
Parodies
Literature
- Discworld (where it is spelled "Dwarfs", just like Tolkien noted in the preface to later editions of The Hobbit). Vimes' experience with them points to countryside dwarfs usually being quiet industrious types who don't cause trouble, and putting on airs of being rowdy and violent seem to be trait only annoyingly common in his city. This is probably because, unlike their home mines, the city won't cave in on their heads if they're noisy, and there's more beer available. Also they are German and Welsh as well as Scottish. Interestingly, given the Semitic roots of Tolkien's dwarvish language, there are theories that Pratchett's dwarfs are Jewish… ish (quiet, hard-working, thrifty, very respectful of ancient traditions that they don't feel they necessarily follow as closely as they're supposed to…).
- The above description also fits many other ethnic and/or immigrant groups besides Jewish-ish.
- The "Dwarfs as Jews" group-think probably came from that one Watch book that had multiple jokes about Dwarfs being in love with gold. "What? No, we only say that to get it into bed."
- The love of gold, of course, is very probably from the miner/craftsman aspect (especially since it is often compared to their love of iron) making things seem very recursive. The Dwarfs seem to have the tendency of being put in the place of any immigrant ethnic group whether black (in Soul Music they come up with "Rap" or "Rat" music) or Muslim (Thud) or yes, Jewish. Trolls on the other hand, seem to be just be sentient rocks.
- Trolls and Dwarfs do share a tradition of "Hole Music".
- Dwarf women are also often seen - however, they are physically indistinguishable from male Dwarfs. This has had an affect on their culture somewhat, in that many Dwarfs do not use female pronouns, courtship is largely devoted to finding out what sex, under all that leather and chainmail, the other Dwarf is, and a Dwarf identifying herself as female is treated akin to coming out as gay in a conservative society.
- Exemplified by Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom of the Ankh-Morpork Watch, who "comes out" as a female, wearing leather skirts, high-heeled boots, and makeup, much to the chagrin of other dwarfs; but is never without her iron helmet, battleaxe, and beard.
- Being a dwarf also seems to be more a matter of certain actions and traditions than a biological thing, as Captain Carrot is technically a dwarf despite also being a nearly seven foot human.
- Carrot's making a nature/nurture point - culturally he's a dwarf. He was raised as a dwarf, by dwarvern parents and went through all the normal process of growing up as a dwarf. He may not be as hardline dwarfish as the Deep Uberwald dwarves - mainly due to coming from a surface dwarf community near Lancre - but is still more dwarfish than many an Ankhmorpork city dwarf. He questions the relevance of being (genetically) human in the light of all this.
- And about as averted as you can get in Artemis Fowl where Dwarves are human/mole/earthworm hybrids with Prehensile Beards that burrow through the dirt by eating it and then crapping it out as fast as they do. Also, they can suck in water through their skin (a dehydrated dwarf can use this to Wall Crawl!), and their saliva is a fast-hardening, glow-in-the-dark anesthetic.
Webcomics
- Order Of The Stick — LampShaded in the quote at the top of the page. Further, Durkon's accent is so inseparable that it even appears in his written speech; though Roy is confused by it, it could be assumed that the dwarves he is writing his letter to would find it natural.
- Also, Durkon gets along about as well as anyone does with their resident elven Insufferable Genius, Vaarsuvius. He is, however, deathly afraid of trees.
- In DM Of The Rings, Gimli brings up the characteristic of dwarves. Aragorn, Legolas, and the DM mention a handful of other things than what he meant.
- While looking upon the door to Moria: "Should've been a hammer dwarf rather than an axe dwarf"
Web Original
Western Animation
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