How do you feel about Dwarves that are literally made of stone, some kind of earth spirit or generally elemental-y?
It's the first idea people land on when they wanna make their dwarves different and special, and it always sucks. Nobody who likes fantasy dwarves wants to play that.
Wasn't that actually the original definition of gnomes before they were just smaller, crazier dwarves with pointy hats (which are apparently based on household spirits called tomtes from Scandinavian folklore, but that's neither here or there)?
Dwarves should be bug people, since in the original Norse myths, the first dwarves were descended from the maggots that fed on Ymir's corpse.
>>98302121Early Gnomes were described as "Earth spirits" and being able to move through earth and being associated with it but afaik there was nothing that describe them as being made of stone or anything like that. A lot of the time they were just little dudes or invisible. Also Dwarves were described as a variation of this "earth spirit" Gnome by the person who coined the term, so.
>>98302116I don't hate it but it's that classic "we're different" that everyone tends to do when it comes to Dwarves which kind of kills the point. Hell at this point if you went with the classic troupes and didn't try to go crazy with something. I bet you stand out more than the got to be different and peacock the shit out of your fantasy races.
>>98302133
>>98302120FPBPMaybe they're cool as a separate species existing alongside real dwarves but if you say they are no real dwarves and just these guys in my world then it sucks
>>98302120Nobody plays dwarves period, 99% of the time people only want them there for decoration/as npcs.
>>98302120What if I hate people who like fantasy Dwarves and don't want them to play?
>>98302116I have my own dwarf race (aka race of underground craftsmen). I just made them unique and i dont call them dwarves. If you dislike "short angry humans" archetype you can just make a new race and replace the dwarf with it. Most people who play dwarf want to be short angry humans
>>98302116Traditional games?
>>98302116wow has the earthen, they're pretty alright. i like their culture of magma heated hotsprings and gem candy since they eat raw minerals. in my estimation there's a lot of thematic crossover between stone dwarves and zeldas gorons, which i consider a positive since zeldas gorons are one of the more creative non tolkien fantasy races out there. i especially love their majoras mask interpretation which has a cultural sport of roll racing, and as hearty friendly tough folks with a penchant for smithing and crafting they tick a lot of the dwarf boxes
>>98302140Those are all pretty good. I like the orange bearded one best, though the others are also nice. Dunno whether I like the long necked or blonde one better. What can I say... I never could choose the lesser of two weevils.
>>98302140Giving them literal coloured beards as opposed to insect satea clumped to resemble a beard just looks too silly
>>98302116Like in the Talislanta game? Tried it a few times, along with elves being tree spirits made of wood. It was interesting for a while but limited the dwarves ability to be carried by others, ride mounts without crushing them, avoiding water and sea travel due to an inability to swim, etc., It became a real problem when the group tried to eat together - once the players found he could eat stone, the entire game became 'see what the dwarf can eat' as he ate his way through a city's buildings, walls and flagstones. Novelty is no replacement for a good plot.
>>98302116Used by cowards too intimidated to use the real gigachas hildefolk like redcap gnomes so they need to americanify/warcraftify it.
>>98302153You really dont play games, do you?
This is how dwarves in Draw Steel work...
>>98302116I would rather just have rock people. Do the silicoids from master of orion or something.
>>98302116I don't, since I never include dwarves in my games. They tend to attract redditors and aren't worth the trouble of accounting for.
>>98302116>>98303055OG Gloranthan dwarves are immortals literally made of stone or metal, with the rock caste (tunnel-makers) being barely humanoid stone things that can't even communicate with most mortal races. Mortal dwarves look humanoid but try to emulate the originals and are still created with artificial assistance.
>>98302963Looks gay as hell
>>98302116Like Oreads or Earth Genasi?
>>98302116How many generations of selective breeding would it take to make a lineage of dwarfs SMASHED and SLAMMED?
>>98302184Yes
>>98303370This sounds cool as hell. And looks cool as hell.
>>98302116It's not bad, but I prefer it when they're metal.
>>98303109How does that work? When you use a dwarf, does a Redditor invade your house or something?
>>98302120People who like fantasy dwarves think every dwarf needs to be Gimli so there's no point trying to please them
>>98302157You shrimply don't invite them to the game.
>>983035010 because they already are
>>98302116both of them look great.
>>98305756NTA, but from my experience dwarf players have all basically morphed into:>Rock and Stone!>Where's the ale?>That's a Grudging!>Bearded Dwarf ladies!>Diggy Diggy Hole!It's annoying as fuck
>>98302116I feel like this kind of changes their whole vibe in a way that isn't that interesting.A lot of the drama/intrigue with classic fantasy dwarfs comes from their industrious/avaricious/prideful side that leads to some fucked up shit.Making them more like elements usually means they have to be way more grounded and gives them more of an NPC vibe imo
>>98302963Why do all female artists avoid drawing beard so much?
>>98303370>>98305670to be more precise, most of the original "dwarves" were destroyed in ancient wars, and only a handful remain. Their replacements - usually called dwarves - are made of clay and are still immortal (in the sense that they don't die from old age) as long as they maintain their way of life. Most of the dwarves encountered outside of their cities are either warriors (iron dwarves) on a mission or left their way of life and became mortal.
>>98302116I feel like a big shrug. Dwarves and elves always stay the classic way for me, anything else, and I prefer if they are a new race entirely, and have more alien things that would make sense for the twist they get. Like small people made of rocks, that live underground? Why would they make clothing, and what from? Why would they make beer? What else they got going on for them aside from their skin being something exotic? Do they eat other rocks? Do they communicate via knocks instead of speaking? Do they have eyes at all in the complete darkness, or don't need them?I guess elves are more flexible, because "mythical forest folk we don't understand" can take on many shapes and forms. Like Celtic fey. Humans of the setting can also call "elves" something they don't understand.Like in this hobby, do whatever floats your boat, you are not going into the book of grudges for twisting my dwarves for your sick amusement, but I feel like if you want to do things different, you can go further and not be lazy about it.
>>98302116This is what gnomes are supposed to be. Don't include dwarves if you don't want them to be dwarves.
>>98314679>I guess elves are more flexible, because "mythical forest folk we don't understand" can take on many shapes and formsIt's also because there were always "high elves" and "wood elves" going all the way back to Tolkien, even if his rendition of those two are vastly different from modern takes on the concept. DnD added dark elves to the mix (which really just codified evil elves that already existed), giving you a nice trifecta to work with or ignore entirely and do your own thing.Meanwhile, dwarves are just a one-note punchline of a race whose fanbase actively resists wny attempts at depth or nuance. And I don't even mean radically reinventing like OP, I mean little shit like god forbid a dwarf go beardless or not behave exactly like a bad Gimli impression.
>>98302963>beardless>bald women>not even the only stone person racehm i do not think i will engage with this game
>>98302141So what's their backstory? Some rock god saw dwarves, thought they looked cool and made some race of rock homunculi modelled after them to worship himself?
>>98319684>>bald womenThe art is shit but you need your eyes checked, lil vorefag
>>98319706you need your eyes checked, retard, those aren't braids, they're steel cables attached to her neck jewelry and her head-bling.
>>98302140Holy fucking shit, I've always joked about "Well MY dwarves are insectile aberrations" as a jab at how people will try to attach familiar names to anything, but this is beyond fucking parody
>>98302133>>98320451That's the SECOND idea people land on when they wanna make their dwarves different and special.
>>98303370>>98305670>>98314203Unironically when people do the "my x are different", I noticed they sometimes do something that Glorantha already did in the 70's or 80'sEven giving dwarves guns
The best dwarves that are also special and different are drow and dark elves
>>98302116I think dwarfs should be soulless homunculi golems originally created due to hubris but eventually one of the gods adopts them and grants them proper sapience/sentience/ensouls them and they become a race capable of self-propagationThey're name for themselves would be the GOLIM (they don't have small letters)They're called dwarfs because they usually look like small animated statues with stout proportions (which were in fashion back when they were created) but the dwarfs can be made bigger than that. They just usually don't make new dwarfs that big because bigger dwarfs require more food-minerals to sustain them. They're also not much harder than the diminutive dwarfs
>>98302116Simultaneously a huge "my X is different" subversive overcorrection, and really fucking overdone and boring.Besides, gnomes are the literal earth spirits. Dwarves just mine good.
>>98310271You forgot casual fantasy racism against elves
>>98303370oh right, this brings back to mind a concept i read somewhere to reconcile weird "my races are different" freakshit and more recognizable normal fantasy races: make the normal ones a subrace.so high dwarves are basically mining machines made of stone, high elves are creepy mysterious forest spirits or whatever you want, but the "common" subraces are much more similar to humans but with traits of their monstrous ancestors/makers
>>98320454what about mole people? are they third or is there something else before them?
>>98302116IIRC, weren’t dwarves in the original folklore descendants of giant maggots? There’s potential there, right?
