Air : There are of course limitations as to how deep one can dig however in terms of mining and air quality there are ways to provide fresh air at a certain depth using extensive ventilation system by creating drafts which 1 take oxygen from above the ground and 2 remove carbon dioxide from underground. That said air quality does degrade the deeper you go however you also have to consider the ability to adapt to certain conditions. Take the people who live up high in the Himalayas.
The higher you go the less oxygen there is in the air. However people there have lived in such conditions for hundreds or more of years which lead to their anatomy adapting to the extreme conditions. Of course high levels of carbon dioxide are deadly but since dwarfs live in such condition my guess would be that their anatomy is adapted to produce less carbon dioxide and consume less oxygen plus better ability to get oxygen from air with less oxygen.
This would allow dwarfs to survive at a much deeper level compared to other human-like creatures. Last but not least the size of all the shafts and halls do provide bigger pockets of air thus allowing better distribution of carbon dioxide. Food: While dwarfs are known for their mining and metallurgic skills in terms of farming and breeding stock they lack a lot. However just like in real life one can use trade to export metals, jewelery, precious stones etc.
In addition to that there are a lot of mushrooms and other plants that grow in complete darkness and also with enough artificial light, soil and water one can also create somewhat efficient farms underground.
Plants also like having carbon dioxide around them in modern terms I believe this is the so called carbon farming where carbon dioxide is additionally added to the air which the plants breath to accelerate their growth and efficiency which would partially take care of the excessive build up of carbon dioxide underground.
On the other hand plants also produce carbon dioxide on their own which will add to the already rich on carbon dioxide environment. It's a tricky situation with this one. Also I don't recall ever reading or seeing underground farms in any of Tolkien's works so my guess would be using trade as the only way of providing food and drinks to a dwarf society.
Animals, who normally live above ground level, can also be moved underground though due to the lack of natural light such animals would be more fragile, probably blind or at least with a far inferior vision capabilities compared to their representatives who live a normal live under the sun and in open spaces and also this would be yet another source of carbon dioxide.
If we go away from Tolkien's universe there are many universes where dwarfs are even more advanced especially in the usage of explosives and steam in addition to possible alliances with the gnomes which tends to go towards a more steampunkish theme. This allows creating more advanced machinery which will allows digging deeper, creating a more suitable habitat for a dwarven society etc. I have an idea: what if you made some sort of plant-like organism that evolved specifically to absorb thermal energy from underground thermal vents?
True underground dwarves would need a source of energy to replace sunlight, and a way to convert it into food. A silicon based life-form like a troll might be able to eat coal directly, but dwarves are mammals. Even trolls would eat their way through a coal deposit in a few generations. I think this would be impossible with the usual iron-age fantasy technology. They could burn coal to power electric lights, and use that to farm but like the trolls, they'd run out before long because they'd would need to use it far faster than we do.
Geothermal energy won't run out for billions of years, so they could use that to power the lights for their farm. Or a rich uranium deposit forming a natural nuclear fission reactor. They'd have to develop good drills, pumps, turbines, generators and electric lights, but being tied to underground power would explain why they've not used their relatively advanced technology to out-compete the surface dwellers.
Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Could a Dwarven Civilization Exist? Ask Question. Asked 6 years, 9 months ago. Active 6 months ago.
Viewed 22k times. There seem to me to be several unaddressed problems with how a Dwarven society would work. Improve this question. Geof 13 3 3 bronze badges. Mike Nichols Mike Nichols I'd think that would solve some of the oxygen problems.
Just dig through a mountain and make windows in the sides. Genetic studies have shown that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. Crazy, I know. If I remember correctly, they had a ventilation systems that is still working today, and they were even farming animals underground. Oh, I just noticed that Keith's answer addresses this. Show 11 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. The Structures Obviously, these dwarves are masters of rock-cut architecture.
Air This is a tricky one. Food Cave Ecosystems are difficult. Improve this answer. Community Bot 1. PipperChip PipperChip I don't think a large smooth flat surface would be beyond the ken of a mountain dwarf smith. I was thinking NASA-sized, super reflective mirrors. They'd need to be both big and highly reflective.
Polished, high-quality silver would work almost as well. However, there is the problem of the light source. If it is the sun, they would need an extremely complicated mechanical system to follow its movement through the day and seasons.
That is a lot more difficult than just making the mirrors. All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Possibly this is the real reason mithril is so valuable and dwarves reluctant to trade it.
If you get most of your nutrients that way, it covers the stereotypical dwarf enthusiasm for beer. Air Ants are capable of building incredible underground chambers that properly circulate and ventilate air. Food Dwarves would likely be dependent on above-ground food.
Nick Nick 2, 15 15 silver badges 20 20 bronze badges. Consider also that their dietary needs might be different. Add a comment. Air A properly planned cave system would have a natural circulation. Food It is generally presumed the Dwarves get most of their food from above ground either from secluded mountain terraces accessible only from air or underground or in trade with surface dwellers.
Ville Niemi Ville Niemi It's that way. This is very nicely expressed by Terry Pratchett in Night Watch : In a few hours the shops out there were expecting deliveries, and they weren't going to arrive. I couldn't figure out how to do that, as this site doesn't seem to support normal markup tags. See editing help for details. Ali Cini 3 1 1 bronze badge. Keith Keith 4 4 silver badges 9 9 bronze badges. Fishing underground If there's a river with an underground part, you might be able to catch some fish that are passing through or cave fish living off what is brought by the water from the sunny part of the river.
Nix Nix 21 2 2 bronze badges. The last half of your answer is more fit for a comment, and the part that actually address the problem could use more explanation to support it and make it a good answer. Do not hesitate to comment if you want to give the OP additionnal, out of topic informations.
Oh, and when they go to industrialize, guess where the power will be coming from? Joshua Joshua 1, 8 8 silver badges 12 12 bronze badges. It could be a good answer to a similar question, just not to this one. Lava is!! Note: See the end of the post Air : There are of course limitations as to how deep one can dig however in terms of mining and air quality there are ways to provide fresh air at a certain depth using extensive ventilation system by creating drafts which 1 take oxygen from above the ground and 2 remove carbon dioxide from underground.
Cobbington Cobbington 2, 1 1 gold badge 11 11 silver badges 26 26 bronze badges. If you can solve the food problem, everything else is easy in comparison. Robin Bennett Robin Bennett 1, 5 5 silver badges 10 10 bronze badges. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google.
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I am a Dwarf and I'm digging a hole or why do dwarves live underground? Thread starter Radijs Start date Mar 1, Tags diggy diggy hole dwarves. Radijs Fhtagn-didley Validated User. At some point in their history a war broke out, and it was a bad one. The kind that has people leaving no stone standing and sowing the earth with salt.
And the dwarves were losing. Their species, their culture was about to go utterly extinct. Driven in to the mountains, all escape cut off the last of the dwarves resorted to an act of desperation. They fled in to the caverns and began to dig, collapsing tunnels behind them they intended to tunnel through the mountain hence the line 'to dig and dig makes us free' and the constant reminders how the earth and stone of the mountain kept them safe from their opressors.
And now many generations later, the dwarves thought extinct return Dorsai The lazier of two evils Validated User. Radijs said:. Maybe because some jerk was building a wall next to them. Dorsai said:. That's sort of how it happened in my homebrew. Dwarves were the first race and originally lived on the surface.
When the dragons came, they brought destruction to the surface world that drove the dwarves underground for thousands of years. When they emerged, the dragons had mostly died out, and a new upstart race called man was living on the surface, causing some understandably hard feelings.
Even though elves came to the world much later fleeing some calamity on their own world of which they will not speak , there exists even greater enmity between them and the dwarves. While humans feared the dwarven ruins, believing them to be cursed, the elves had no trouble claiming the old dwarvish fortress-cities. The last major race, the orcs, originated underground. In effect, they are cave-dwelling magical gadgeteers. On that note, Eitri's depiction in Avengers: Infinity War is a bit of Shown Their Work , as nothing in the original myths stated that the dwarves were actually, physically short.
It has been implied that their 'shorter stature' simply meant 'lesser in power to the gods', and that the image of them being shorter and stouter than a human was brought about when Christianity came along. Tapeworms aside, it should be mentioned that they usually appeared as cave-dwellers forging weapons and jewelry. Sometimes with remarkable results. Thus the legend of the stunted master forgers in the mountains was born. Experts in Germanic mythology actually believe dwarves began as chthonic death related spirits, which makes the maggot origins and synonimity with the dark elves all the more evident.
Tabletop Games. Burning Wheel not only plays straight dwarf stereotypes but even builds upon the tale of Moria from The Lord of the Rings by working an attribute called "Greed" into the rule system: all dwarves are covetous. They get bonuses to rolls made in the pursuit of wealth. However, if the Greed attribute reaches its maximum through indulgence of the vice, the dwarf hides himself away with his hoard of goods in paranoid seclusion, never to be seen again.
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.
They are composed of the elements of earth and fire, have beards, are expert craftsmen and miners, live in the mountains, wield axes, and wear horned helms Oh, and their cavalry ride on giant lizards and mammoths, just for a change of pace. There's other differences as well. 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.
Didn't stop them from making and using magical weapons and armor either. Just made them resistant to wizard spells. Interestingly, the Races of Stone Supplement for 3. Throughout the 80s, the question on whether or not this was true raged in the pages of Dragon — especially when issue 58 introduced the first iteration of the Morndinsamman, the dwarven racial pantheon, complete with a bearded mother-goddess in Berronar Truesilver.
In the late 2nd edition sourcebook "The Complete Book of Dwarves", it's mentioned in a single line that dwarf women can grow beards, but only the Deep Dwarf women tend to not shave them off.
In 3rd edition, the idea was just quietly dropped and never referenced. Then in 5th edition, a sidebar in the Player's Handbook would mentioned bearded dwarf women as a possible "non-binary gender expression", alongside androgynous or truly gender-fluid elves The sourcebook "Dwarves Deep" would establish that Faerunian dwarf women are capable of growing beards, but most prefer to shave. This would be reinforced by the sourcebook "Demihuman Deities", which would explicitly state that all dwarf goddesses are bearded and show at least one bearded goddess.
Novels set in the setting that released in the 80s through 90s also mention bearded dwarf women in passing. In post-2nd edition versions of the setting, this lore was quietly dropped. In Mystara , apart from the aforementioned "Red Box", no mention of dwarf women being bearded ever appears. Indeed, the Mystara dwarf sourcebook, "The Dwarves of Rockhome", almost pointedly goes out of its way to not mention the idea, with all of its female dwarf art depicting them as clean-shaven.
In Dragonlance , dwarf women do not grow beards, apart from the degenerate Aghar, or gully dwarves. And even then, women do not grow beards so much as "hairy cheeks", which are implied to be basically overgrown sideburns. In the Nentir Vale , because it was built to be integrated into 4th edition, dwarf women lack beards and never had beards. In fact, a subrace of elementally tainted dwarves, called the Forgeborn, are naturally hairless. In Dark Sun , all dwarves are completely hairless, so not only are dwarf women in that setting non-bearded, they're actually Bald Women.
Dwarves are noted as being good with Divine magic , and they're one of the go-to races for Clerics. Players and Game Masters , of course, can play with or subvert the definition all they wish. Even Eberron — the setting that brought you good undead, necromancer elves, intelligent giants granted that's ancient history , removed alignment restrictions, among other things — cannot escape this.
Its dwarves are the same, with the exception of House Kundarak who are bankers instead of smiths or miners. Though if this article by Keith Baker himself is to be believed, the Neogi who look like a cross between a wolf spider and a moray eel were actually formerly dwarves altered by the Daelkyr. That being said, subsequent releases and further Word of God have tweaked them somewhat: fifth edition Eberron dwarves are notably more friendly and outgoing than the standard, with traditions of storytelling and gift-giving, but they're dealing with questions about daelkyr symbionts and other weird stuff found in the corrupted corridors of the Realm Below; some holds have enthusiastically embraced things like living breastplates and tentacle whips.
Forgotten Realms with its dazzling level of diversity and details subverts this trope a few times with sub-races like the wild dwarves and arctic dwarves, plus Gray Dwarves duergar. Shield dwarves and gold dwarves are closer to the stereotype, as a beard-combing grimly determined Proud Warrior Race Guy is never too far. Gold dwarves tend to be tradition-bound, suspicious, greedy, obscenely rich and almost as haughty as elves, though trade with humans and other folk a lot. Shield dwarves are split.
Some are "The Hidden", isolationist clans. Most are "The Wanderers" who got a clue from all those empty clanholds that dwarves aren't too far from extinction, and see interacting with the world proactively as their duty. These are borderline Boisterous Bruiser sorts, allying with anyone up to elves and half-orcs if necessary, adventuring, working as smiths in non-dwarven cities.
They are fairly traditional, but marry whoever they like including humans, gnomes or halflings instead of checking exact age, social status and opinions of all elders in both clans before starting a family. Dragonlance played with the trope a bit.
They had the Hylar, Niedhar, and Daewar clans of dwarves, all of which were in the general neighborhood of Lawful Good , and the Daergar, who were Lawful Evil. The classic supplement The Dwarves of Rockhome goes out of its way to justify the trope by explaining the modern dwarves' backstory, which they themselves don't generally know: after the Blackmoor civilization accidentally wiped itself out in a quasi-nuclear cataclysm that tilted the very axis of the planet, the Immortal Kagyar — not so coincidentally the patron of craftsmen — took some of the few surviving Kogolors and turned them into a new race highly resistant to poison and radiation and incidentally magic as well and a predilection for living underground, so that even if a similar disaster should strike the world again, dwarven culture and its achievements would be able to survive in spite of it.
Thus, dwarven underground cities essentially serve double duty as potential fallout shelters for their inhabitants. It also plays with the idea that dwarves are always craftsmen by including a clan of dwarf farmers , descended from criminals who'd been sentenced to the "humiliating" task of growing food. The Wyrwarfs, tired of being treated like riffraff, voiced their discontent by threatening to withhold food from the other clans: if the clans refused to acknowledge farmers as equal to miners and artisans, they could huddle down deep with their trinkets and eat rocks.
The original design specs called for a dwarf faction that had deposed their king, abandoned faith in their god, and become communist factory workers and miners. The Dwarves would have dressed like something out of a '30s era Soviet propaganda poster and built mecha golems. The Duergar have limited Psychic Powers and have a grim, humorless society based around slave labor and constant toil.
Fifth Edition hammers the trope a little harder by giving dwarven characters automatic proficiency with hammers, axes, and the player's choice of metalsmithing, stonemason, or brewing tools.
So Monks or Rogue are likely to be the only classes that see a dwarf not running around with such weapons since the class features don't really use either very well. On top of that, the Mountain Dwarf subrace also gives automatic proficiency with light and medium armors, so in the event that you want to play a Mountain Dwarf Wizard , you'll still be wearing a breastplate and holding a battle axe. Dark Sun Athas's Dwarves play this straight, except for few noticeable differences.
They're completely hairless, and they have a tradition of working toward short- and long-term goals that only they know of. The Uvandir of Wicked Fantasy basically turn the typical dwarf stereotypes up a notch or three and play it for some mild Black Comedy. They seem to be a One-Gender Race , but the truth is that they're actually genderless Artificial Humanoids psionically shaped from stone — this incidentally makes them a Dying Race because the free Uvandir don't know how to make new ones.
They're inherently able to communicate with each other non-verbally, so they hate talking to excess and see it as the mark of a fool, which is why they don't get on so well with other races. They're rude and gruff because they're actually very emotionally sensitive, and are prone to attacks of melancholy so intense they can end up permanently reverting to stone if they get too depressed, and so they try to avoid forming attachments with the shorter-lived races.
Eon : Zigzagged. There are four Dwarven clans; Ghor, Roghan, Drezin and Zolod, each with their own culture putting them somewhere on the Straight-to-Subverted spectrum.
Clan Ghor play this trope completely straight, being the most traditional clan who've changed the least since the Dwarven race broke through the surface and entered the world above, to the extent that the clan still mostly live underground and in the mountains. Being the largest clan, the Ghor Dwarves are also responsible for establishing this trope as the in-universe international stereotype of what a Dwarf is like. Clan Roghan play this tope mostly straight and is the clan with the worst relationship to the Elves, though unlike Ghor they have split more with the traditions of old and have integrated more freely with other races.
Clan Drezin is where things start veering into stranger territories as while their way of living is almost as traditional as clan Ghor's, they are also a clan far more devoted to arcane studies than your average Dwarf and are also subject to great stigmatization from the other clans On top of that, Dwarfs of clan Drezin also often shave or trim their beards in order to differentiate themselves from other Dwarfs, instead favoring the Badass Mustache.
Finally there's clan Zolod, who are generally mocked by the other clans for how untraditional and un-Dwarf-like they are, having almost completely integrated into human society. As a generic system, GURPS can potentially handle any sort of dwarf — but its writers have mostly stuck to the established standard.
Most adults have at least one point worth of personal "signature gear". However, some details mostly concerning dwarf women were left unspecified, meaning that players could form their own conclusions. The Dwarfs of Kings of War come in two forms the Dwarfs who are very much Tolkien Dwarves with cannons and badger cavalry.
Unlike most Dwarf civilizations who are either declining or staying underground, these Dwarfs take an expansionist path. Then there's their evil counterparts the Abyssal Dwarfs, who have thralls and dwarf mutants in their armies. The now-defunct Mage Knight miniatures game had standard Tolkien-y dwarves. All male, all bearded, all craftsmen and miners some not by choice , and their craftiness led to literal Steampunk 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. The Jotun of New Horizon were once compared to dwarves, except being huge wafans instead of short humans. Subsequently a group of dwarves raided the forum, decapitated the person who made the claim, and told everybody never to compare them to war machines again.
Rifts : Dwarves come in a couple different varieties, each of which comes from a different dimension. Regular dwarves come out of the Palladium Fantasy dimension, and exhibit all the classic characteristics, including a deep-seated cultural aversion to magic.
There's also races like the Dwarf Forgemasters from the Three Galaxies setting and the technologically adept and rune magic-using Nuhr Dwarves, but they're all basically variations on a theme. Female Dwarfs in Warhammer are not bearded, despite in-universe rumors to the contrary, but tend to look like plump, braid-haired viking maidens straight out of a Wagner opera; they also make up less than five percent of the Dwarven population, as most Dwarf births are boys.
That said, they do have some eccentricities: Dwarfs don't tend to speak with a Scottish accent, but with a thick Yorkshire accent — the ubiquitous English stereotype of Yorkshiremen being that they are gruff, grumpy mining folk with a strong disdain for soft southerners and their airy-fairy ways and it is no accident that Warhammer 's Elves speak just like those refined and aristocratic upper-class southerners.
Even the other Dwarfs can't understand him half the time. They take immense pride in their beards, which they grow throughout their lives and never cut unless in penance for some great shame or failure. They are often elaborately braided and decorated, and a Dwarf's social status as he ages is determined by the length of his beard — mature adults are called "Fullbeards", while elders are "Longbeards". Forcibly shaving a Dwarf is one of the greatest insults imaginable.
The women, being beardless, instead grow out long, pleated braids that serve the same social function as their brothers' facial hair. Their technological superiority is also notable. These Dwarfs have guns. No Fantasy Gun Control here! And cannons. And helicopters. And Ironclad submarines. This is in spite of them being so utterly conservative that any widely-used design had to have went through decades of testing and refinement to be considered acceptable the aforementioned guns still has plenty of Dwarfs grumbling about the troubles with these "new"fanged curios compared to the old reliable crossbows.
They also have the "love for alcohol" base covered. They have ale that is so filled with nutrients that they can literally survive on it alone. Bonus points to the fact that they distill their helicopter fuel from it! There's also their most defining trait: Their hat is Revenge Before Reason. Dwarfs nurse a grudge like a human would nurse a family heirloom — in fact, many dwarf Grudges are family heirlooms, passed down through generations. All dwarfholds keep a big book called the Book of Grudges, and if you ever wrong a dwarf from that hold, they write that wrong down in the book and remember it.
Grudges all have set standards for fulfillment, usually disproportionately high, and Dwarfs will never stop until it is repaid. Classic example: a White Dwarf Dwarf vs.
Empire battle report that resulted in heavy casualties for both sides was justified by a backstory that explained why the Dwarfs were attacking: Six years ago, an Empire lord underpaid the Dwarf workers who built the castle by two and a half pennies — as far as the lord and sane real-life human beings are concerned, it's simply a matter of a few missing coins, but to the Dwarfs, you have cheated them out of money, and for that, you must die.
Common consensus of Dwarf society only aired by elves and humans when safely out of dwarf earshot is that they're driving themselves to extinction pursuing centuries-old wrongs. Dwarf tendencies towards Serious Business and honour also leads to the quirk of the Slayer. What does a Dwarf do if he or she is shamed or dishonoured such as failing to uphold a grudge, failing to not treat something as seriously as it should be treated, or producing shoddy work that injures or fails another Dwarf?
They become shamed in the eyes of Dwarf society and become Slayers, walking out into the wilderness with nothing on but a pair of pants and a mohawk to find the biggest, meanest beasties and hopefully die trying to kill them.
Some of the most or least successful Slayers are veteran warriors who have killed everything from demonic personifications of primal rage to dragons the length of football pitches.
And they do all this because honor demands it. The only alternative to being a Slayer is being a submarine crewman: Dwarfs hate and fear water with unrivaled fervor. The majority choose to become Slayers. Interestingly, while the individual Dwarf in Warhammer is fairly slow it's the little legs , Dwarf infantry is effectively among the fastest in the game.
This is because the game mechanics say that you can't march read: move at double your normal speed when there are enemies within 8". Dwarfs, by virtue of being Determinators , can ignore that rule, and effectively always march. Apart from when they charge. The result is that army of short bearded guys is going to tactically outmaneuver you by landing their gyrocopters 7" behind your lines and so suddenly everyone but your cavalry is being outpaced.
In a way this is not the case in-universe. To the humans of the Empire, Dwarfs have an extremely conservative and homogeneous culture, but in truth, each Karak has its own unique cultural quirks. The Dwarfs of Barak Varr for instance are actually quite progressive and friendly because their Karak is built into a cliff on the coast as opposed to an isolated mountain, and Barak Varr is a major maritime and trade hub so the dwarfs here interact with other races often; the now-extinct "Norse Dwarfs" of Kraka Drak on the other hand were isolated in Norsca away from the main Dwarf centres in the Old World for thousands of years, and as such not only were they lagging behind technologically but their language and culture were practically unrecognisable to any Dwarf from an Old World Karak, and they were much more grim and warlike because of their constant battles with the forces of Chaos.
Finally, there's the Warhammer take on Evil Counterpart dwarfs. The Chaos Dwarfs Dawi-Zharr , a subfaction whose aesthetics were based on ancient Mesopotamia: Diabolical, slave-driving fascists worshipping a Chaos God in the form of a bull, led by evil warlocks addicted to Black Magic , which gradually turned their bodies to stone. While they've been always been part of the lore, their army list and models were dropped by Games Workshop after 5th edition due to a lack of sales.
Chaos Dwarfs still appeared as warmachine crew for Chaos armies in later editions, but sadly missing their traditional magnificent hats. Do not mention their existence to the normal Dwarfs. The Forge Fathers in Warpath are space dwarves through and through. A race of miners and industrialists with very advanced technology that decks their soldiers in Power Armor and builds stompy Mini-Mecha.
Not much is known about them, though, mostly because they are very secretive and determined. Winterweir 's Bathas are evil sociopathic slavers but still live underground and have an interest in wealth. They also invent things. 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. Oddly enough they are sometimes referred to as black elves.
These legends of course all predate Wagner by a fair few centuries. Tolkien was quite adamant his works were not based of Wagner's Operas.
The Nibelung are possibly an allegory of Jews. Considering Wagner was quite anti-Semitic this is probably right. Video Games. Females are never seen, so all dwarves are the same; bearded stocky men. Asking about dwarf women is a surefire way to send a male into a homicidal rage.
The "mostly" comes in because it's the Steampunk s, some dwarves exchange their armor for tailcoats, and dwarves are the most technologically-apt of all the races. Even so, however, this mostly manifests in dwarves being master smiths with an advanced understanding of materials science; traditional dwarves would never use a steam engine to replace the power of their muscles, and therein lies a large part of the game's plot. Battle for Wesnoth 's dwarf faction are pretty standard-issue, apart from the fact they're fanatical about history and record-keeping: Their "cleric" equivalent in the roster is called the Lorekeeper.
They also field the distinctly Ancient Grome -flavoured "Dwarven legionary" a Stone Wall type that gets stat bonuses from having other similar units in an adjacent hex alongside some much more Norse-inspired units, including a literal Berserker. In Ghost Ship Games's Deep Rock Galactic , the dwarven protagonists are short, have beards reaching their knees, love beer, are really good at engineering and will dive anywhere for valuable ores, including hostile alien planets no one else wants.
So even in outer space and carrying miniguns, a dwarf is the same everywhere. Delve Deeper. It's played mostly for laughs, but they're about as generic as it gets. This led to them being Demoted to Extra ; they were too Boring Yet Practical and didn't offer any interesting options. Deep Dwarves, described below, are another story altogether. Golden Sun 's dwarves, in the Loho mining camp from The Lost Age , probably don't have Scottish accents, since Funetik Aksent is used for the two humans with Scottish accents but not the dwarves.
Additionally, some are historians, which is why the dwarves are in Loho, excavating the ruins there. However, they all have awesome facial hair and a love for digging — "If you live in Loho and don't dig, you just don't belong" — and the only visible female in town is the human innkeeper, so they otherwise fit this trope perfectly.
They are the only dwarves to appear in the entire series, and nothing is made of their presence in a village otherwise made up entirely of Hylians. Lusternia : Lampshaded. The dwarven people were originally called the Clangoru having descended from the Elder God Clangorum ; when the humans arrived in Lusternia from a different dimension, they puzzled everyone by calling the Clangoru dwarves.
They did this because the Clangoru — alone of every other mortal race — were recognisable to the humans, being indistinguishable from the dwarves of their native dimension.
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. Majesty has dwarves as one of your recruitable classes. They have horny viking helmets and are hammer-wielding Mighty Glaciers whose voice lines emphasize how much they love hard work and building things. They're also mutually exclusive with Elves , although they won't come to a kingdom with gnomes either.
Master of Magic has a fairly stereotypical dwarves: tough, hard-working, good at mining and climbing mountains, but not fond of ships. They also make golems and steam cannons. Myth : 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. Neverwinter Nights : In both games, this is both played straight and averted. When it's played straight, it's hilarious. Averted: Neverwinter Nights features the possible henchman and later a boss in an expansion Grimgnaw. He's a Monk of the Order of the Long Death, which as you can guess from the name, isn't exactly a nice group.
He's the only henchman with an Evil alignment, and has a fascination with death that is damn creepy. He isn't loud and boisterous, is bald and has no beard, and doesn't need a giant hammer or axe to kick some serious ass. He loves to send people to the Silent Lord , often in the most violent way possible. Neverwinter Nights 2 , on the other hand, features Khelgar Ironfist, who is a stereotypical dwarf to the extreme, drinking lots of ale without paying, being very loud and fantastically racist , and is easily provoked and will start a fight with a group of drunk sailors just because one of them agreed with him.
Ironically enough, Khelgar also can become a monk, just like his polar opposite Grimgnaw, a possible reference to NWN1. As with most dwarves, he's not a good fit at all for the class without a lot of nudging, he just knows he likes being able to beat things up with his fists. Overlord deliberately exaggerates all dwarf stereotypes for comedic effect. Drinking, mining gold, hoarding gold, doing something altogether unsanitary to gold, sporting gigantic beards, wielding enormous axes, and harassing elves is basically their entire function.
They have even less personality than the elves, which is impressive considering that the elves spend all their lives bewailing their lot and talking about how awesome they used to be. In fact, the only sound you get from a dwarf is a grunt. Barik from Paladins is very much a typical dwarf.
Scottish accent, short and muscular, extravagant beard, and a master engineer. The only thing he doesn't do is fight with an axe, preferring to use a blunderbuss. Puzzle Quest : Challenge Of The Warlords : Khrona doesn't hide her most obvious gender identifiers, but still sports a nice, long beard.
The Warlords universe in general plays around with this, in the form of regular dwarves, and Dark Dwarves, playing a somewhat similar role to dark elves. Both are industrious and warlike, but the two are quite different : Regular dwarves are affable, somewhat jolly, love partying enough that they have zero problem going to war drunk, and prefer fighting personally, decking themselves out in heavy armor and carrying magnificent melee weaponry.
Dark Dwarves are grim, science-obsessed, disregard nature in the face of progress to the point of resembling Captain Planet villains, and prefer to fight in a more advanced manner than their good cousins, with extremely powerful and advanced siege weaponry and tremendously strong metallic golems. Shining Series : Dwarves are a recurring race, at least in the older games. They are not slowed down by hill terrain, which makes them surprisingly mobile.
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, years after Symphonia , dwarves are extinct, though their ruins are intact. A skit 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.
The World of Mana series has always included dwarves that fit this mold. In Final Fantasy Adventure , you eventually meet a colony of dwarves, but they don't do much besides point you in the direction of a product you have to buy to save one of their dwarf friends.
Once you do buy it and go on a quest to save him, you will find out that his only "companion" ability is to sell you basic items that you might need to break him out of the dungeon.
Once you do get him out and back to the dwarf cave, he thanks you the only way dwarves know how Secret of Mana has Watts, which continues this. He is a dwarf who basically knows that your party is out to save the world, and so he only continues to forge your weapons in exchange for increasingly massive amounts of money.
He's probably saving up to buy the entire Gold City, and with his smithing skill, he probably could. In Trials of Mana , the Dwarves look like a cross between a Wookie and a teddy bear with glowing eyes, wear Viking-style helmets, and speak like Old West prospectors. Beaches and Basilisks has a dwarf claim that everything about dwarves can be summarized as "beards, booze, and battle.
Mostly over beer nowadays. The Dreamland Chronicles : Just look at them. The Order of the Stick : All dwarves in the Order of the Stick universe drink beer, have two livers, worship the Nordic Pantheon and are short.
The only thing unusual about the dwarves is a shared dendrophobia fear of trees for added wackiness. Lampshaded by the Cleric of Loki. Cleric of Loki: Can you tell me anything that differentiates him from any other dwarf?
Roy : reading over a letter Durkon is sending back to his homeland You know, you don't have to transcribe your accent. Web Original. Diggy Diggy Hole from the Yogscast is a catchy music video for this trope, and neatly illustrates how the song could be about any author's dwarves. The dwarves mine, drink, sing, and fight goblins in their vast underground fortress. Born underground, suckled from a teat of stone Raised in the dark, the safety of our mountain home Skin made of iron, steel in our bones To dig and dig makes us free, come on brothers sing with me.
In ElfQuest even thought they're called trolls , the trolls are identical in every way except being green to stereotypical Dwarves.
However Two-Edge, a half-troll half-elf looks identical to a typical dwarf but is bat-shit insane. In Castle Waiting , Hammerlings are short, hairy miners and engineers with much fewer women than men. However, they're considered to be notoriously sneaky and devious, and are widely accused of War for Fun and Profit to create a market for their magic weapons. 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.
Films — Live-Action. The film version of The Hobbit took pains to avert this trope.
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