I've been tinkering around with a Homebrew campaign setting lately, and I want to do something new with Dwarves. We all have the same image in our head when we think "Dwarf" Gruff, ale drinking, beard-having, Tolkien-ing, Dwarves. But what else could we do with the idea? I want to hear suggestions, what others have done in their own settings, etc...
So, have at it! So far I've got mountain-dwelling, bar-brawling Elves, extinct halflings replaced with a Drow-Equivalent, Underground Giants, and Metropolitan Humans. and Lawn Gnomes. I'll probably post more about the setting if people are interested enough, too.
The dwarves in Archmage were formerly underground-dwelling amoral genetic engineers and mad scientists with a cultural obsession with creation of new life. They don't live as deep underground anymore, due to their mistakes escaping and overrunning their old cities. They are sturdy, keen-minded and slow of limb. They prefer ranged combat over melee.
The typical dwarven warrior wears thick metal armour and carries a shield with a kind of mortar mounted in it. They wall up and fire and reload their heavy guns from behind a protective formation. Inaccurate, but great for blocking off a tunnel and filling it with sprays of shrapnel.
Now that's interesting! One idea I've had was to give them an Aztec/Mayan feel, but beyond that, I haven't gotten far. I was thinking about throwing some steampunk in there, but that might just be from too much Skyrim on my part.
My own dwarves are sailors, pirates, and merchants, having long since abandoned the solid lands to call all the seas their homes.
When I get around to putting up racial details and histories on my setting blog I'll link it here.
Bump? Is there no interest in spicing up dwarves?
I worked with an idea that the reason you never see dwarven women is that dwarves are hermaphrodites.
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Playing with stereotypes;
Dwarves dislike horses, using mules as beasts of burden, and riding instead large boned mountain rams.
Dwarves prefers axes and hammers as weapons of war, not 'because Tolkien!,' but because they are a practical, yet spiritual, folk, and prefer hard work to warfare, considering weapons that have no use (or origin) as tools, such as swords, to be belligerent creations, designed only for murder and butchery, and even the creation of such items in their forges considered to have a deleterious effect on the spirit of the crafter, twisting him into a lust for violence and a lack of respect for life with each blow of his hammer. (Crafting thousands of arrows, knowing that they won't be used for hunting, but for killing orcs? Still better than crafting a single sword, that could never be used to hunt for food, or chop wood for the fire, or forge armor for protection, but only ever to kill.) Dwarven craftsmen who are assigned to craft weapons with no productive use (such as siege weapons for defense of their mountain fastnesses) are ritually blessed every day of work, for such work is considered spiritually corruptive. Spears and bows and daggers, usable as hunting tools, or to prepare game, are a second tier of acceptable weapons, even if less obviously 'tools' than axes and hammers. Dwarven warriors who use weapons that have no use save as weapons (such as dwarven defenders who use polearms) are regarded with some pity, and yet also respect, for risking their own purity to use such weapons in defense of their people, or, if not in that sort of position (such as a dwarven gladiator who prefers a flashy sword), regarded with distrust, with the viewing dwarf perhaps making a subtle sign to ward off misfortune, and avoiding any further contact with that 'misguided' or 'damaged' soul.
The mountain valleys and lochs preferred by the dwarves are great for producing sheep and goats and eels and fish, but these traditional dwarven communities have no access to great supplies of cattle, pigs, fields of hops and barley, etc. Bacon and beef and *beer* are rarities greatly savored by dwarvenkind, sought after as trade items, and while most humans in the lowlands think of dwarves as eating nothing but beef and drinking nothing but ale, that's because the only dwarves they see are far from home, and indulging themselves in foods they can never get at home, as the average mountain dwarf regards such fare as decadent luxuries, available only through trade. At home, most dwarves drink some combination of water, honey mead and wine, the drinks they are most capable of making with the resources at their disposal. Out of sight of humans, dwarves with extensive underground holdings are more likely to snack on bats, and, their most common meat, the 'chicken' of the darklands, giant centipede. (Indeed, it is rumored that their tolerance to poison stems almost entirely from a diet rich in giant centipede!)
Dwarves of means are expected to display their wealth openly, to have it 'counted' for purposes of status. Every dwarf takes every tenth coin they earn and set it aside, and for every possession they wish to be 'counted' for these purposes (which can influence what sort of mate one might attract, or what sort of position one can hold in the community), the beard must be decorated with adornments of 1/10th that value. A fantastically rich dwarven merchant may have dozens of thick golden articulated ornaments, replete with valuable gemstones, draped from his beard, and the total value of this beard reveals the tenth part of his total 'net worth.' (Not counting any 'undeclared holdings,' such as income derived through illegitimate means, that goes unclaimed, untaxed, and unrewarded with respect or status). Wealthy female dwarves wear expensive jewelry instead, and in some dwarven clans, once a dwarf marries, he is to cut his beard short and array all of his beard-wealth as his bride-gift, where it is re-shaped (if necessary) and placed upon his bride, so that she, rather than he, displays his wealth. (In clans where this is the case, the wife is brought along to all public functions and business transactions, as she is the arbiter and dispenser of wealth, completely in control of all financial decisions for the husband who has symbolically 'given her his beard,' and also because she is the visible indicator of how wealthy her husband is.) Still other clans regard this as nonsense, and a married couple keep their finances *meticulously* separate (and have a much more mercenary concept of marriage, and divorce, with one year contracts being renewed or annulled, with no financial entanglements or complications).
Playing against stereotypes;
Dwarves prefer to dwell in areas considered unlivable by other races, with the largest dwarven cities being in swamps, built into the sides of seaside cliffs, or in the heart of deserts. In each case, dwarven engineering and artifice has allowed them to overcome obstacles that other races deemed insurmountable. In the swamps and deserts, great baking ovens are created, each the center of a dozen mirrors that reflect the light of the sun onto vast molds, into which mud or sand are poured, to be baked into a kind of ceramic or glass 'brick,' which is the source of their building materials in these climates, leading to great glass buildings in the desert, and equally impressive ceramic / brick constructions in the middle of 'impassable' swamps, where no stones could possibly be brought from distant quarries. Cliffside residences are accessible only through ladders, narrow stairs and rope trolleys and lifts. Dwarves regard it as a challenge to build in places others call impossible, and yet, it's not simply a love to defy the odds that lead dwarves to building in impassible areas, as they find their new homelands easier to defend, and far from traditional enemies. The nature of this 'ancient enemy' they never speak of, that led to their choosing only to live in the most inhospitable climes? A great secret, one that the dwarves will not even admit exists...
Cold forged swords are made to battle evil outsiders. To make cold iron requires pounding ore till only iron and carbon remain in it. Most humans and elves won't spend most of a month on one weapon. Dwarfs don't really shy away from magic. Many are sorcerers with earth based bloodlines, or wizards of the earth school. Female adventuring dwarves are rare, but not nonexistent. Usually they are rebels, often witches or something. Some female dwarves receive a calling, and are oracles, clerics, or paladins. Some dwarven women have beards, and some don't. There's a superstition that if your wife has a beard, your sons will too. Male dwarves who cannot grow a beard, tend to be suicidal, which is great for a berserker. Some wear a badger pelt to hide their shame. Such was the case with Olaf Badgerbeard. His real last name was Bloodhammer, which was a good reason to not call him Badgerbeard to his face.
In my home world dwarves are expert riders of most beasts and masters of divine magic. They also have a pact with the dragons of the world which involves sacrafices in exchange for sorcererous powers.
In my games dorfs don't exist because they are stupid. Same with gnomes and halflings. So no hats at all for any of those guys.
But I'm not a complete heightist. Ratfolk and vegepygmies are ok. And totally not stupid. Of course. ;)
Sorry I couldn't be more constructive. :)
I'm pretty sure this qualifies under the "if you don't have anything nice/helpful to say, don't say anything at all" clause.
Gaaah. Tough crowd. I added emoticons. They are nice!
Ok ok.
HERE is the only post I ever made where I actually had something nice to say about dwarves. Treasure it. There is unlikely to be another one.
Gaaah. Tough crowd. I added emoticons. They are nice!
Emoticons do not automatically make a bad post okay, no matter what other people on the internet tell you. Especially when the post wasn't funny to begin with.
To take your comment from the Archmage thread and put it in context so I can kill two birds with one stone:
Seemed serious to me. Like seriously stupid. Why someone would bother commenting so unconstructively on a thread they could just ignore, I don't get.
Unless it was the dorf thread. I was going to post something extremely negative there, but at least I was going to put a ":p" in so people knew I was just poking fun. Dorfs are stupid.
The same reason I don't go into elf threads and tell people how much I hate elves and how stupid elves are and how they shouldn't exist. It's not polite to go crash a thread and tell people how stupid the thing they're working on is.
Maybe you should take your own advice.
Let me clarify, normally you're a cool guy OSW, I have nothing against you personally, I like 90% of your work (especially in homebrew and your MCA stuff). But you get really unpleasant whenever the subject of dwarves comes up, even when you try to be "funny" about it, and it's a disservice to your normally even-headed and respectable personality that you choose to do that rather than simply walk away.
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Hush-hush, both of you.
Back to dwarves: recently I have seen a tv documentary about Rapa Nui (i.e. Easter Island). There was description of rather unique technique of stabilizing earth for purpose of farming by placing stones on the fields. This reduces wind and water based erosion of soil and extends the time the field is usable. I thought immediately that it would be suitable farming technique for dwarves.
Don't suppose you've got a YouTube or other online source for that documentary? Would love to have a look for myself =)
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We call ourselves the Dokkar. Our lands lay to the north, among the mountains and valleys where the wild fjords flow to the bountiful sea and the eagles and ravens call. Ah, Umanyar, my home! How long must it be until I return to you? Umanyar! Motherland of the Dokkar!
You say you want to know more? What I shall tell you may come as a shock. You have three names for us. Oh yes, you call us dwarves, dark elves, and trolls - rarely caring that we are cousin-kin despite our outward differences (which are, indeed, a minor thing).
For us whom you call dwarves, you see the beards and long tresses and our short stout forms, but you fail to notice how our skin matches that of our taller kindred, nor that we also have tails as they do.
For us whom you call dark elves, you see the longer ears and more slender forms, but you fail to notice the beards and tresses, the tails that we have, or that our skin matches that of our shorter and taller kindred.
For us whom you call trolls, you see only our more bestial features and not the beards and tresses or the skin that matches our kindred. You barely notice our clothing matches those of our kindred as well.
Why are there three kinds? We do not see it that way. Rather we are one people with a difference in size and some appearance. We can and do interbreed, and our children may be any of the kindred. It was the will of Moriquen that we have these shapes, and we do not forget our blood-ties.
What of our clothing? It is a kilt with our clan colors in its sett with a sash to match. We wear the ghillie shirt, the sporran, and the brogue shoes a well (though these are different among our women). We do not always insist on such dress, of course, but it is our tradition, and we wear it when it is practical.
What of our homes? They are longhouses with generations of our family within. Our castles have union domes with the color of the noble house within. We trace our lines through our mothers, for without women there could be no men! It is the man who leaves to reside with his in-laws and who must provide groom-price to prove he is a worthy provider.
You have heard we live solely underground or in high mountains? How absurd! We could not grow crops, nor tend our cattle and sheep, nor catch the wild salmon if we only lived there! While we do have places in the mountains and underground where we live and mine there are more in the valleys and hills, among the streams and forests, along the shores and cliffs. Ah, the waterfall city of Mahal! You should come to see it some time and you would know that we Dokkar can make beauty with water and wood as well as earth and stone!
You are shocked that we farm? Well, we do. We farm and we fish as well as we mine. While our lesser boats may be made of wood (strong as we can find), surely you have heard of the steel boats we trade with, so superior to the ones made of wood? No? Ah, they are lovely to behold! Their sails are folded in a way unlike other sails, so that we can catch the wind from many directions. Our hulls are built in compartments so that they can be easily sealed if breached, and we use magic to provide steam to power them.
There is more to know of course, but that is all I have to say for now. The sea is calling, and my longboat awaits! Oh, do not mind the ropes, my friend, they are easily cut. You say I bring shame to the Dokkar? Ha! We must go a viking at times, to remind other races that while we are traders by nature, killing our kin-cousins is frowned upon! We, ourselves, are careful to meet out justice - those we have killed were instruments of death. Those we plundered have robbed. And those who are young - ah, the gifts we have given them! The young are the future, you know, it is best they learn we can be generous as well.
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A racial variation on dwarves could be giving them a +2 Con, -2 Dex and +2 Int, with dwarven masterwork forging techniques, and the secrets of crafting cold iron and adamantine weaponry being secrets of dwarven craft, jealously guarded by means both mundane and mystical (even if their methods have been divined through means equally mundane and mystical, their monopoly on effective crafting techniques is so set in stone that they dominate markets in masterwork armor and weapons, and cold iron/adamantine gear). Due to their racial intelligence, they have the best techniques of architecture and craft, which they guard with a zeal that the Freemasons would envy, and dwarven engineering companies are hired by diverse races to provide aqueducts and irrigation systems, locks for canals, keystone arch architecture, traps, fortifications and siegeworks. Even in communities where some clever human engineer can match their craft, long-standing trade agreements lock non-dwarves out of any real competition, leading to much grumbling, but little real progress. Dwarven coins are preferred currency in many human markets, being far more stable (even over the lifetime of entire human dynasties) than any human minted currency, and hard to effectively forge due to a dwarven preference for coins made of alloys like electrum, bronze and brass, to pure metals like gold, silver and copper.
These dwarves, even when not particularly fond of empire building, have the most powerful trade consortiums and engineering and architectural guilds, moving teams of highly trained dwarves from job to job for various other (often human) clients, with well-established crews sometimes having jobs set up for decades in advance. Their dominance of certain counting houses, moneylenders, mercantile guilds and trade concerns, regardless of their scrupulous adherence to contracts and sometimes dogmatic sense of fairness, has led to other races sometimes resenting their monopolies and comparative wealth (and unbreakable stranglehold on their own position), and a lone dwarf wandering into the poor quarter of a human city might find himself stripped naked, shaved and beaten, if not worse, by those who are happy to take their frustrations out on a dwarf for the various opportunities and apprenticeships and inheritances that have never come their way...
Other races might have their own specialties, with dragonhide or mithril being techniques mastered by other races (or perhaps mithril, instead of cold iron, is also a dwarven technique, as it was in Lord of the Rings, where the famous 'mithril shirt' was a gift to an Elven Prince crafted by dwarves under the mountain).
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From the Conspiracy Theories of Golarion thread;
When dwarves were first seen on the surface world, only males were encountered, and they reacted to questions regarding the females of their race with momentary confusion or stony silence. Soon after, some 'female dwarves' were seen, but bearded and almost indistinguishable from male dwarves, other than some odd behavior. Years later, beardless clearly female dwarves surfaced, and any mention of the previous oddities was ignored. Theories range from 'they thought the surface world was too dangerous, and kept their treasured ladies safely out of sight until they had tested the waters, using only a few hapless male dwarves dressed as females when the question was raised,' to 'they were confused because *they didn't have females* when first encountered, and the dwarven crossdressers were a temporary stop gap to stall questions until they *crafted female dwarves in their deep forges.*'
I appreciate all the input everyone! I'm glad to see more people interested in playing with dwarves. I see I'm not the only one who thought about making them Swampfolk.
Saw a Snow White animated movie where they made dwarves act like rednecks instead of the typical dwarf. Not sure how feasible (or desireable) that would be. As for my own, in one version of my setting I made dwarves be descendants of copulations between elves and earth-based fey.
On a similar note (tangental to this talk of dwarves), I made my gnomes into steampunk Spartans from the 300 movie, instead of illusion-based fey-like people. They live in a country teeming with rivers and lakes (there's even a place in the country where the Elemental Plane of Water leaks into the country, no pun intended), which is why they began work on harnessing their overabundance of water, bringing about steam power. That, and I really like the Warforged and had them created by the military-minded gnomes.
I have 2 "subraces" of dwarves, though they use the same statistics. One that is the typical mountain-dwelling, stone and metal loving miners that first comes to mind when people think dwarves. The second is my take on "hill dwarves". They live in a country similar to the rocky outcropping filled area of Utah (or Thousand Needles from old world of warcraft) with part of it being a salt basin desert (incidentally similar to Thousand Needles as well... hmm...), but don't live underground. Though I am thinking of maybe changing that to something else now. I still went with my dwarves being earth based.
Gaaah. Tough crowd. I added emoticons. They are nice!Emoticons do not automatically make a bad post okay, no matter what other people on the internet tell you. Especially when the post wasn't funny to begin with.
To take your comment from the Archmage thread and put it in context so I can kill two birds with one stone:
Seemed serious to me. Like seriously stupid. Why someone would bother commenting so unconstructively on a thread they could just ignore, I don't get.
Unless it was the dorf thread. I was going to post something extremely negative there, but at least I was going to put a ":p" in so people knew I was just poking fun. Dorfs are stupid.
The same reason I don't go into elf threads and tell people how much I hate elves and how stupid elves are and how they shouldn't exist. It's not polite to go crash a thread and tell people how stupid the thing they're working on is.
Maybe you should take your own advice.
Let me clarify, normally you're a cool guy OSW, I have nothing against you personally, I like 90% of your work (especially in homebrew and your MCA stuff). But you get really unpleasant whenever the subject of dwarves comes up, even when you try to be "funny" about it, and it's a disservice to your normally even-headed and respectable personality that you choose to do that rather than simply walk away.
[Emphasis mine] But Orthos, you didn't seem to get the bolded part. I didn't "crash the thread" and I didn't tell anyone how "stupid their work" was. I merely exposed myself as a bigot where dorfs are concerned, and apologized for being unconstructive. That must be the 10% you don't like.
While there are very creative approaches to dwarves here, not one of them has swung me to a greater appreciation of dwarves. And Orthos should be able to tell you I am a person who changes his mind and often comes to appreciate things he previously dismissed. Not so here.
So Orthos has made me examine my dislike, and I want to know what inspires the creativity expressed here.
Some of these "dwarves" are so far removed from classic dwarves as to be something completely different. My question to the thread is: what is the essentia of fantasy dwarfism, that makes it attractive, beyond the reskinnings?
Is it the stature, the mentality, the familial bonds, the artifice and engineering? If you remove the mythological and Tolkien inspired fluff, what are you left with? And why is it still a dwarf?
We call ourselves the Dokkar. Our lands lay to the north, among the mountains and valleys where the wild fjords flow to the bountiful sea and the eagles and ravens call. Ah, Umanyar, my home! How long must it be until I return to you? Umanyar! Motherland of the Dokkar!
You say you want to know more? What I shall tell you may come as a shock. You have three names for us. Oh yes, you call us dwarves, dark elves, and trolls - rarely caring that we are cousin-kin despite our outward differences (which are, indeed, a minor thing).
For us whom you call dwarves, you see the beards and long tresses and our short stout forms, but you fail to notice how our skin matches that of our taller kindred, nor that we also have tails as they do.
For us whom you call dark elves, you see the longer ears and more slender forms, but you fail to notice the beards and tresses, the tails that we have, or that our skin matches that of our shorter and taller kindred.
For us whom you call trolls, you see only our more bestial features and not the beards and tresses or the skin that matches our kindred. You barely notice our clothing matches those of our kindred as well.
Why are there three kinds? We do not see it that way. Rather we are one people with a difference in size and some appearance. We can and do interbreed, and our children may be any of the kindred. It was the will of Moriquen that we have these shapes, and we do not forget our blood-ties.
This explains why Trolls don't regenerate from parts anymore.
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Some of these "dwarves" are so far removed from classic dwarves as to be something completely different. My question to the thread is: what is the essentia of fantasy dwarfism, that makes it attractive, beyond the reskinnings?
The OP asked for *non-traditional dwarves* to go with his non-traditional elves and giants and stuff.
This isn't the 'traditional dwarves are hella awesome, let me convince you of this' thread.
Sure Set, I understand that. But that is my point. What is the essentia of dwarfism that still is a dwarf, and not something new, and thus not a dwarf? Or are we just reskinning dwarves here? I'm warming to the swamp dwarves, a little.
First, what is it you hate about dwarves, gnomes and halflings? Because they are short? Personally, I love dwarves. Dwarves and half-orcs are usually my go-to races when the DM says "Core races only". I am not a fan of the illusion fey-ish trickster gnomes that seem to be default for them, but I like my military gnomes. Halflings I am indifferent towards, unless someone plays them like a carbon copy of a kender/Tasslehoff Burrfoot, in which case I want to strangle them.
And my take from the OP is reskinning dwarves, and how others went about it. Kinda like Eberron's take on drow, though not quite as drastic as (example) Orthos's seafaring dwarves. I don't really see anything wrong with the default/stereotype dwarf. Although I would like to see a more nordic/viking-y dwarf instead of the ale-swilling scottish miner. Some stereotypes of the races I have no problems with. Others I like to see what other people have done to make them different.
@Adjule: Equal parts Tolkien-over saturation and inability to see them as physically viable. The concept of a gnome barbarian ruining my day ruins my day. Yes, this is fantasy. No I don't stretch that to include mighty thewed halflings.
Look, I played a party of evil dwarves back in 1e, so I'm not completely unreconstructable.
For some reason seafaring dwarves and swamp dwarves resonate with me, not sure why that is, given the strong earth bonds of classic dwarves.
I think my problem with the small races is that a lot of their "gig" seems to be based on their stature, which I surprisingly don't get with ratfolk (rats seem almost humanoid anyway) and vegepygmies. Though I prefer "vegefolk" in the same same but different way lizardmen became lizard folk.
Question: Is anyone interested in thin dwarves/dwarves that are less sturdy/barrel chested?
@Adjule: Equal parts Tolkien-over saturation and inability to see them as physically viable. The concept of a gnome barbarian ruining my day ruins my day. Yes, this is fantasy. No I don't stretch that to include mighty thewed halflings.
Look, I played a party of evil dwarves back in 1e, so I'm not completely unreconstructable.
For some reason seafaring dwarves and swamp dwarves resonate with me, not sure why that is, given the strong earth bonds of classic dwarves.
I think my problem with the small races is that a lot of their "gig" seems to be based on their stature, which I surprisingly don't get with ratfolk (rats seem almost humanoid anyway) and vegepygmies. Though I prefer "vegefolk" in the same same but different way lizardmen became lizard folk.
Question: Is anyone interested in thin dwarves/dwarves that are less sturdy/barrel chested?
One of the reasons I included the "Dark Elves" as a variant of the Dokkar was because I felt there was a need to realign the Dwarf/Svartalf connection. Besides, aren't the Duergar supposed to be emaciated Dwarves?
I think that it's interesting that the Dwarves are the only race defined by an occupation. You never hear of a race associated with forestry, fishing, agriculture, etc even though there technically could be such races.
It could simply be you're tired of Dwarves = Earth all the time which is why the seafaring and swamp ones resonate with you. I'll be honest - if I were to do Dwarves for a setting, I'd probably have them be similar to Nordic folks including (as I mentioned) a strong sea-faring tradition that leads to trade and raids.
As far as their size goes, Dwarves are actually pretty well aligned with the lower end of human size-range. It's interesting to note that they were originally taller but as they became more buffoonish they shrunk (probably becoming associated with real life humans of smaller stature who sometimes entertained).
I've often wondered if there would be a way to associate Dwarves with Neanderthals - it would explain a lot of their bodies since they'd have adapted to the colder and more brutal northern climes. Elves could be Denisovan while Orcs could be Homo Sapiens Idaltu (or vice versa).
Fantastic response. Thanks Indagare.
I do think there is a saturation of dwarf=earth that contributes to my alternate appreciation of sea and swamp. But I feel there is something else too, and perhaps your seafaring Nordic attachment works for me too.
Actually just remembered I like derro too. And I wasn't really cognizant of duergar as emaciated dwarves, but I do like them more than regular dorfs.
Hey looky, dwarves are looking up. Pun not intended...
I've been tinkering around with a Homebrew campaign setting lately, and I want to do something new with Dwarves
Dwarves as the default "forest folk"
Dwarves enjoy a close connection to the Earth, not so much it's dark and deep caverns but its very soil, and what grows from it. They typically go barefooted and let their beards grow like the leaves on the trees. Led by circles of druids, dwarves revere stone as the bed on which the soil lays. This is reflected in their religion and architecture as "divine essence" transit through stone, and their building features hanging gardens and mighty trees grown over (and eventually around) their homes.
I never quite understood why there is a difference between a Dwarf and a Duergar. Duergar literally means Dwarf.
What happens when dwarfs find a vein of uranium, and outgrow their tunnels? Meet The Biggles. They live in a big stone house they built on the side of a mountain. They dug a strip mine in the badlands and sell stone blocks to castle builders. In tonight's episode Polly brings home a Fire Giant boyfriend and her dad erupts. :)
In a homebrew I am working on, dwarves were the dominant race in the world until fairly recently, supplanting the elves who came before them. Their big things are practicality, progress, and empire-building. Given their long lifespans, they build to last, and they're famous for their construction. They like spectacle and grandeur, so their city are far larger with a lot more open space than you would expect beneath a mountain. They are champions of rational thinking and logic, and they were the first race to discover wizardry (before they came along, all arcane casting was done by sorcerers and witches), and more recently alchemy. They're excellent engineers, and if any race was going to create firearms in the setting, it would be them.
I've been tinkering around with a Homebrew campaign setting lately, and I want to do something new with DwarvesDwarves as the default "forest folk"
Dwarves enjoy a close connection to the Earth, not so much it's dark and deep caverns but its very soil, and what grows from it. They typically go barefooted and let their beards grow like the leaves on the trees. Led by circles of druids, dwarves revere stone as the bed on which the soil lays. This is reflected in their religion and architecture as "divine essence" transit through stone, and their building features hanging gardens and mighty trees grown over (and eventually around) their homes.
I can get behind this. Small forest folk make sense. Arboretecture and leaf beards are nice visuals. I could definitely see some spiral motifs. Add a few sets of arms, a tail and a snout and you have the UrRu from Dark Crystal.
But yes, forest dwarves make sense. Thanks 'findel.