Okay, so dwarves are one of my favorite races in RPG's. As such, they are the most fleshed out race in my homebrew setting.
I am at a quandary, however, with how to classify the different subraces of my dwarves. The two options I am stuck over are whether to separate them into clans or 'type' of dwarf.
The first option is this:
There are seven major clans, each unique in its own way. (northern/norse, standard mountain, adventurous tinkers, psionic,
All dwarves have the same core racial traits - +2 Con, +2 Wis, -2 Cha; Medium; Slow and Steady; Stability; and Weapon Familiarity. All of these are from the standard dwarf from Pathfinder.
Where each clan differs are the other 4 racial traits, unique to each clan, such as differences in sight (low-light, dark, etc...).
This idea has the most fleshed out, but also limits the diversity of dwarves to these clans. There may be 1-3 different alternate traits available for each clan to add to the diversity, but I haven't come up with any of those yet.
The other option was as follows:
There are five different types of dwarves - Dark, Hill, Mountain, Tinker, Wild. Each type has different primary stats, with a handful of racial traits to diversify different clans of dwarves of the various types. This does allow more clans than the previous idea though, as the northern/norse clan belongs to the Hill dwarf, while the psionic and traditional/standard clans belong to the mountain, etc...
Another benefit of option 2 is that the players could have greater freedom in even creating their own clan (after all, it helps me add more to my setting).
I'm personally very partial to the first option, but I also see lots of potential with the second... hence my quandary. Any suggestions?
Alas, my post has fallen on deaf ears... lost amongst the traffic that is the forums...
Anyways, I wanted to mention another thing about my dwarves.
With the first option, each clan's leader was granted the spark of divinity in a long ago war. With the recent release of the Mythic rules, I associated one of the mythic classes to each one of the leaders (one is multiclass mythic). These demigods were gifted this by the dwarven overgod.
Also, I was possibly thinking of each major clan having one or two minor clans that replace 2-3 of their core clan's racial traits, but still allow them to be considered part of said clan.
An example is with the norse/northern themed clan. Their racial traits don't account for the seafaring aspect often associated with the theme, but a subclan would replace two of the racial traits with Saltbeard and one other, to better reflect this clan's specialty.
In 3.5, i eared about golden dwarves with +2 Con, -2 Dex. They were fierce looking and more intimidating compared to normal dwarves, but their bulk makes them rigid and clumsier than most races.
You could use them as a merchant/ noble clan (maybe hill dwarves?), with +2 Con, +2 Wis, -2 Dext instead of the normal ability modifier.
Well, if I use the second option, each subrace of dwarves does have different attributes and racial traits, and essentially more clans. That also would require me to create more clan names (which I am having some difficulty doing, actually.. >.<)
Here are the attributes for each of the dwarven subraces that I originally came up with.
Dark: +2 Con, +2 Dex, -4 Cha
Hill: +2 Con, +2 Wis, -2 Cha
Mountain: Standard (+2 Con, +2 Wis, -2 Cha)
Tinker: +2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Con
Wild: +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Cha
...or something like that.