Likewise, dwarven mages are vanishingly rare, except sometimes where religion is concerned.
Dwarf rogues are rather uncommon in fiction, as their stocky frames make sneaking around look unconvincing, and their culture values honesty and openness however dwarfs will usually know a thing or two about brawling and fighting dirty, which overlaps with the rogue archetype and being masters of crafting mechanical devices means they tend to know a thing or two about picking locks and disarming traps. Ranged combat is not their preference, but if they aren't able to force enemies into close quarters, you can expect guns ( Fantasy Gun Control permitting), throwing axes, or crossbows - in about that order. The dwarf will often serve as The Big Guy (ironic, considering their stature) of a fantasy Five-Man Band, especially since his Weapon of Choice tends to be either an axe or a hammer. They are frequently allies against outside threats. In most settings, dwarves and humans have enough in common to treat each other with respect. Their societies tend strongly toward a Reasonable Authority Figure (usually a warrior king) ruling over a socially conservative but rather egalitarian society of soldiers, miners, and craftsmen. In the decades following Tolkien, they will often be depicted as more technologically minded than other fantasy races, verging on (and sometimes overtaking) Steampunk, but this is in keeping with their engineering and crafting skills both from the classic Fantasy depictions and from actual mythology. An entire race of miners and blacksmiths, with names like Dwarfaxe Dwarfbeard and Grimli Stonesack, who are overly sensitive about any perceived slight, always spoiling for a fight, unable to speak two sentences in a row without calling someone "lad" or "lass," and possessed of a love of gold and jewels that drives them to live in Underground Cities where they dig deep and greedily ( often with catastrophic results). Oddly, despite the strong Norse influence, dwarves with any sort of Scandinavian accent are extremely rare. Stephen Briggs, who does the Discworld audiobooks, also gives many of them Welsh accents, as they often come from Llamedos, Discworld Wales. A lot of dwarves are Scottish or have some other accent that reads as rustic to English speakers - Northern or south-western English, Welsh, note John Rhys-Davies, who played archetypal dwarf Gimli in the LOTR films, is Welsh. (Many "Tolkienesque" dwarves, however, are more like the Theme Park Version.) Since The Film of the Book(s), they now even all talk the same. Within this small group, some also use "dwarrow" or "dwerrow", singular. Tolkien was the first to suggest this, likening it to "man/men" and "goose/geese", but thought it was too archaic. note There is a small group that contends that the proper plural should be "dwarrows" or "dwerrows", reconstructed modern English forms of Old English dweorgas or dweorhas, in turn the plural of dweorg or dweorh, from which dwarf evolved (compare Old Norse dverg and dvergar). Fantasy writers who use "dwarfs", like Terry Pratchett, are now the unusual ones. is now regarded by many as the standard plural (at least regarding fantasy - "dwarfs" is still the accepted plural for humans with dwarfism). Tolkien's importance to this can be gauged by the fact that the plural form dwarves, which he used to distinguish his dwarves from other dwarfs, note It was originally a recurring mistake during the writing of The Hobbit (or rather "a private piece of bad grammar" that sneaked into the text), but it quickly became an Ascended Glitch. and most of them have stuck closely to the original. Tolkien raided the Norse myths for good stuff, dozens of fantasy worlds have included them as one of the Standard Fantasy Races.
Gruff, practical, industrious, stout, gold-loving, blunt-speaking, Scottish-accented, Viking-helmed, booze-swilling, Elf-hating, ax-swinging, 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.Įver since J.
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