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《Manalive(活人)》高清古籍
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by G. K. Chesterton
The Enigmas of Innocent Smith
How the Great Wind Came to Beacon House
A wind sprang high in the west, like a wave of unreasonable happiness,
and tore eastward across England, trailing with it the frosty scent of forests
and the cold intoxication of the sea. It a million holes and corners it
refreshed a man like a flagon, and astonished him like a blow.
inmost chambers of intricate and embowered houses it woke like a
domestic explosion, littering the floor with some professor's papers till
they seemed as precious as fugitive, or blowing out the candle by which a
boy read &Treasure Island& and wrapping him in roaring dark. But
everywhere it bore drama into undramatic lives, and carried the trump of
crisis across the world. Many a harassed mother in a mean backyard had
looked at a five dwarfish shirts on the clothes-line as at some small, sick
it was as if she had hanged her five children. The wind came, and
they were full and kicking as if five fat imps
down in her oppressed subconscious she half-remembered those coarse
comedies of her fathers when the elves still dwelt in the homes of men.
Many an unnoticed girl in a dank walled garden had tossed herself into the
hammock with the same intolerant gesture with which she might have
tossed herself into the T and that wind rent the waving wall of
woods and lifted the hammock like a balloon, and showed her shapes of
quaint clouds far beyond, and pictures of bright villages far below, as if
she rode heaven in a fairy boat.
Many a dusty clerk or cleric, plodding a
telescopic road of poplars, thought for the hundredth time that they were
like th when this invisible energy caught and swung
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Our Dwarves Are All the Same
Standard-Issue Dwarf.
Celia: He has an accent. Haley: He likes beer. Haley: He worships Thor. Celia: And hates trees! Cleric of Loki: Can you tell me anything about him that differentiates him from every other dwarf?
'Dwarves': you know what they are. Gruff, practical, industrious, , , , , , , , , , stolid and unimaginative,
and their vast echoing
and mainly just the fact
Ever since
raided the
for good stuff, almost every fantasy world has included them... and most of them have stuck closely to the original. 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& is now regarded by many as the standard plural (at least regarding fantasy — "dwarfs" is still the accepted plural for humans with dwarfism). Fantasy writers who use "dwarfs", like , are now the unusual ones. note& (Many "Tolkienesque" dwarves, however, are more like the .) Since (s), they now even all talk the same. A lot of dwarves are Scottish (or northern, rural, English, whose accents can sound indistinguishable from Scottish accents to most people), Irish, or Russian. An
of miners and , with names like , who are , always , unable to speak two sentences in a row without calling someone "lad" or "lass," and possessed of
that drives them to live in
where they dig deep and greedily ().
In the decades following Tolkien, they will often be depicted as more technologically minded than other fantasy races, verging on (and sometimes overtaking) , but this is in keeping with their engineering and crafting skills both from the classic Fantasy depictions and from actual mythology. Their societies tend strongly toward a
(usually a warrior king) ruling over a socially conservative but rather egalitarian society of soldiers, miners, and craftsmen. In most settings, dwarves and humans have enough in common to treat each other with respect. They are frequently allies against outside threats.
The dwarf will often serve as
of a fantasy , especially since his
tends to be either an
or a . Ranged combat is not their preference, but if they aren't able to force enemies into close quarters, you can expect guns ( permitting), throwing axes, or crossbows - in about that order. Likewise, dwarven mages are . In fact, it's not uncommon for the entire race to be at least somewhat . If a dwarf wants to use magic, he'll
so he can physically beat the enemy with it instead. If legends speak of an
from a bygone age who once forged all manner of powerful enchanted weapons and equipment, then he was probably a dwarf. If you happen to come across any of this legendary equipment and discover that , then the only guy in the world who can help you get it back into fighting shape is probably a dwarf too.
Often they get trea one of the only widespread (but not universal) novelties is what the women look like. Even then, the most common ones seem to veer somewhere around ""/"" (depending on age) or "" (with the
that implies).
An exception to this rule is the fantasy setting's , who is often based on ; this variety shares traits with our kind of Dwarves, but will be less of a tough guy and more of a charming man-child, and will scrap the ale-drinking and ax-wielding to focus on craft and mining.
See also . Not to be confused with
— once again, dwarves a dwarfs are short humans (except in the
and ), and nowadays the polite term for the latter is "little people."
These Dwarves are Rather Dwarivative
&&&&open/close all folders&
&&&&Anime & Manga&
had a handful of dwarf characters. The most notable was Ghim from the first series, who played the role of
mentor to the hero, P he was grumpy, fought with an axe, had a beard, and possessed incredible stamina, like you expect from a dwarf.
The sequel, Chronicles of the Heroic Knight, introduced a dwarf priest named Father Greevas, who subverted the trope by being quiet, gentle, and fatherly, with a bowl-cut and goatee instead of the standard bushy beard.
is, other than the fact that he's a Dark Monster, pretty much a dwarf. (The burning axe was added for the card game version later.)
In , male dwarves follow the stock-standard dwarf image... , making it impossible for humans to tell dwarven children from adults. Female dwarves, on the other hand, are capable of passing as human children. Both are significantly
than humans.
Most Dwarfs in
fit the usual dwarf archetype, but strangely many of the dwarfs to play a major role within the series are much taller than average in spite of dwarfs supposedly being shorter. Dormul is roughly average height for a Japanese man and Mia would be an unusually tall HUMAN woman. Tsubaki Collbrande, meanwhile, can be excused for being taller than average by virtue of being only , although she's still tall for a woman.
It's heavily implied that dwarves in
largely fit the usual stereotype (smithing, fighting, mining, straightforward). Senshi, the main dwarf of the series, is considered , being a , , and , who can handle himself in a fight but prefers peace first, and admits to not knowing the first thing about ores. Nonetheless, he still has a few traditional dwarven elements in him, such as a distrust of magic and favoring an axe.
The Dwarves in
Zig-zag this. On one hand they're smiths, very strong, prideful, stubborn and distrustful of elves. But on the other hand they can grow the size of a human, and females prefer to act from the shadows.
&&&&Comic books&
Khal is what you would expect a Gimli
to be, except he was actually kicked out of his dwarven home because he actively spoke against the rigid clannishness of his culture through love poems.
Dwarves in
Lil i Put () are mostly standard with *big* emphasis on being barbaric, loud, violent, self-righteous brutes with large
toward . The do enjoy a good sing-a-long...
: Stout, short and bearded? Check. Live inside mountains (and active volcanoes)? Check. Master engineers, miners and smiths? Check. Greedy? Check. Love alcohol? Check. Hate orcs? Check. Fight equipped with massive war machines, heavy armor, axes and hammers? Check, check and check.
: The kolds are a small, bearded, industrious people who produce metal weapons for the three warring armies in Daar.
&&&&Comic Strips&
The subterranean Dawn People, or , from .
&&&&Literature&
is arguably the origin of fantasy dwarves, his version zig-zags the trope.
Tolkien's Dwarvish language is constructed alo none of them ever speak with a Scottish or Welsh accent at all.
Like the stereotype, Dwarves are martial creatures with a vaguely Nordic culture and names taken from the .
In spite of their Norse roots, when you combine the quasi-Semitic language with their lost homeland and usual status as a minority in lands ruled by other races, many writers have compared them to .
reveals that dwarves are a somewhat unnatural race, having been created by Aul&, one of the
— not
himself, who made the other "good" races like elves, humans and hobbits. The latter did end up
though, and gifted them with their own wills which a mere Valar could not do.
Although Gimli and many other dwarves use axes, others use a variety of weapons, including swords and bows.
In The Hobbit it's a subtle running joke that the dwarves in the Company are so interchangeable that even Bilbo rarely bothers to differentiate them beyond Thorin and Bombur.
features dwarfs, who are divided in two types: red and black dwarfs (referring to the color of their hair). The
are usually good-natured (if often grumpy), while most of the
are ruthless, greedy, traitorous bastards. Eleven black dwarfs eventually , and are punished with being blind/insane and abandoned to grovel away at each other (they are, of course, Lewis's allegory for atheists). Both types of dwarfs are skilled craftsmen (the narrator mentions that while there are evil dwarfs, there are no stupid ones - though see below) and in contrast to the usual dwarven preference for axes, Narnian dwarfs are deadly archers instead.
The Dufflepuds encountered in the The Voyage of the Dawn Treader were once very stupid dwarfs before being punished by being transformed into monopods (hence the name).
A brief mention in Gnomes by Wil Huygen and Rein Poortvliet. Quote: "An almost extinct species of the male sex." (Could there be a connection there?) "Height 1 metre 20 cm, often smaller. Can still be found in the middle of inhospitable forests and in the mountains. They dig for gold and silve they are masters of metalwork. They are good-natured except for a solitary few who are capable of ugly deeds. If a dwarf falls into human hands, he buys his freedom with gold. They do not have beards."
Likely influenced by , the dwarves that appear in 's
follow this trope.
Meredith Ann Pierce had no problem with "dwarrow" in . The
(yes, that's basically pronounced "dwarves") are basically Tolkienian, except
, forcing them to wear heavy, enveloping garments if they go above ground during the daytime.
trilogy has dwarves. Heavy emphasis on mining and living underground, technology better than anyone else's, and an absurd emphasis on family and clan that no other race can even follow.
plays with the trope (when doesn't it?)—wherefore see a partly overlapping discussion in the Literature folder under "Parodies and radically different versions" below—by having this as the traditional Dwarven image that most Dwarfs aspire to, but many were born and raised in cities and work in factories.
This is partly a parody of the way that an ethnic group will rhapsodise the old country more as they get further away from it. No-one in Scotland habitually wears tartan, for instance. Thus, it's noted that dwarfs who led quiet and respectable lives in the mountain mines reach Ankh-Morpork and are seized by a compulsion to dress in armour, carry battle-axes and drink like crazy.
Further, extremely fundamentalist dwarfs attempt to never emerge aboveground. If they're ever forced to, they wear garments that completely envelop them so they don't have the in-story explanation for the outfit, aside from the fact that they abhor sunlight because of beliefs established in their folklore, is that it's a ceremonial version of the protective clothing worn by dwarfs who do the important but extremely deadly job of dealing with
originally, the dwarfs who occupied this position in society would have been members of this profession who survived long enough to retire.
Though, when you catch that the headgear comes to a point, you see a nice allusion to Klan-wear. Especially when one of the deep-dwellers likes to give speeches on how it isn't murder if its a troll.
Pratchett also subverts the trope with dwarf characters such as Casanunda, the world's second greatest lover (We Try Harder), and Hwel, the Discworld Shakespeare. Also Carrot, the seven-foot dwarf (by adoption), and the openly female Cheery/Cheri Littlebottom.
To explain, Discworld Dwarves take the "Females have beards" thing even further. All Dwarves are considered male unless otherwise specified. And they only specify otherwise to their spouse, and even then only after a lengthy courtship (as in decades). For Cheri to act and dress openly female on duty is like a human police officer turning up to work in lingerie. And even in her case, "act and dress openly female" mainly means putting rhinestones on her axe holster, wearing a sensible leather skirt and high-heeled iron boots, and grooming her beard differently.
Also, a nod to the 'craftsman' stereotype in that they are good at any craft. Mostly the typical metalworking and stoneworking, but they are very good at anything. In particular they are as good at baking as they are at metalwork and stonecarving. However, their bakery is mostly good for weaponry. They grind down rocks to make the flour. The best way to enjoy Dwarfbread is to keep it uneaten, so that any other food will taste good by comparison. The "Scottish" stereotype is brought up here as the Low King (low being better than high for a mining people) of the Dwarves being crowned on the Scone of Stone. In Scotland, Kings were always crowned on a giant stone called the Stone of Scone (pronounced Skoon) because it was held in Scone Abbey, Perthshire. They also practically monopolize the cosmetics industry, most likely because they have real chemistry instead of alchemy.
Dwarf folklore is an i it holds that dwarfs and trolls are diametric opposites and will forever hate each other.
takes it a step further by introducing what may be the oldest of dwarf folklore, the story of the creation of dwarf, man, and troll. The story goes that Tak, a very laid-back not-quite-deity ("Tak doesn't require that we think of Him, only that we think") created a stone egg in a cave, which hatched and r one left the cave and found the things that made him man, while the other ventured deeper within and found the things that made him dwarf. Then, unbeknownst to Tak, the stone egg came to life and became a troll, but without Tak's blessing, it was an agonized half-life, without thought, creation, or virtue, such that killing it is not murder, but mercy (the citation when this story is first told mentions that in the original document, the passage about trolls appears to have been added later by a second author). Later, we're given a new version
Tak did notice the egg trying to come to life, and he was overjoyed by it, giving it the last little push it needed to become a troll (this one was recited by a pair of diplomats trying to establish peace between trolls and dwarfs, and insofar as either version belongs with the rest of the story, this is probably the one, considering the book's message).
Dwarves of
are polytheistic and devoutly religious people who pretty much play the trope straight in all other respects.
makes a point of mentioning dwarf women, but doesn't detail much about how they differ from dwarf men. They have some cities underground, but also some aboveground, even with a
when Eragon is surprised to find that Dwarves have open surface cities just like everyone else, and a dwarf tells him that they like the open air as much as anyone else. They also have seven toes, and two dwarves hold a bet on whether or not humans actually have only five toes. According to history, they are the oldest of sentient races, and lived in Alagaesia before the elves or humans arrived.
The dwarves of 's
pretty much fit the mould except for the , and the one dwarven main character being more of a . Dwarf women in Fionavar are sylph- as one character admits to herself, she should no more reasonably expect them to look like their men any more than she herself resembles her male companions.
Kage Baker may have slightly different dwarves in the "" series, although they are more a subspecies (or rare parent species??) of humans. They are partway between Tolkien-standard elves and Tolkien-standard dwarves: small, cranky, subterranean, and complete g but pale, shy, and weak.
The dwarves of , rather than a dwindling remnant, are depicted at the height of their power with an empire that spans the entire continent of Calernia beneath the surface. All of their traditional negative traits are amplified - they believe that no one but a dwarf can actually own property and so dwarves travelling the surface customarily steal everything that isn't nailed down, with surface dwellers generally too fearful of the power of the Kingdom Under to object, due to their habit destroying entire surface cities when vexed. They also lay claim to all the mineral wealth on the continent below a certain depth, regardless of whether or not they are actually mining it at the time.
In , on the world of Pryan, Dwarves are played straight. On Chelestra, they're less xenophobic and more friendly, especially in regards to other races. And on Arianus, they live in devotion to something called the Kicksey-Winsey Machine, which their entire lives revolve around. They're dead on Abarrach (where they are primarily remembered as the mortal race that survived longest in that miserable realm.)
Dwarves in the
books at least follow the blunt-speaking and stolid parts, which caused
when Gilderoy Lockhart hired a bunch of surly dwarves for Valentine's Day in . Lockhart dressed them up like cupids and set them up working as letter-carriers, which they did not seem to enjoy and nor did anyone else, least of all the other teachers. However, that's the only major appearance of dwarves in the entire series.
It is also said Harry spotted a few raucous dwarves in the Leaky Cauldron tavern, so they probably have the drinking down as well.
actually follow dwarf tropes pretty closely—they're smiths, make magical items and are obsessed with money (even running the Wizard world's bank). They are a bit nastier than your average dwarf, but not exactly evil.
trilogy features two races that could qualify as Dwarves, both of whom (intentionally) avert the typical stereotypes. The Qanuc are actually referred to as
of Inuit culture while living in snowy mountains and taming sheep for mounts. They do brew a mean liquor, though. On the other hand, the branch of the Tinukeda'ya that went underground became known as Dwarrows — superb stonemasons and crafters, they were once the artisans of the
and helped build many of their great cities, but had a falling out over their treatment as little more than slaves. They are most definitely not warlike, shrinking from any sort of combat and trying their best to
the grand conflict with the Storm King. However, when provoked, they are fearsome fighters due to their strength and endurance from millennia of delving in the earth.
Markus Heitz's
manages to play this trope perfectly straight, yet gives each character enough
to be an effective character, rather than just the trope. Not surprising, since all main characters are dwarves.
series. Dwarfs are humans who have used advanced technology to deliberately change themselves into the standard representation of Fantasy Dwarves.
are basically traditional dwarves. However there are some original exceptions, including two
warriors (Ido and Dola) and even a sorceress (Reiss).
Alexey Pehov's The Chronicles Of Siala series has bog-standard dwarves, except they wouldn't be seen dead in a beard (to avoid looking like gnomes).
The dwarves get very little "screentime" in , but don't appear to deviate from the standard model very much, which is not surprising given that the story intentionally resembles
a great deal. There does seem to be a link to plants, but this isn't really explored in any depth.
In Chris Evans Iron Elves trilogy Sergeant Yimt is a
. The only other dwarf met in the series is a veteran turned unscrupulous merchant. Dwarves were once enslaved by the Empire and brought to it from across the sea, resulting in a a racial claustrophobia of being inside ships. Due to the racial habit of chewing crute, a metal infused spice, most Dawrves are literally , or at least their bones are. While they do use axes other common weapons are the drugar, , and the shatterbow, a cross between a crossbow and a shotgun that fires explosive bolts.
In , "dwarf" is a medical condition, not a species (in other words, like Real Life), making it a case of Our Dwarves are Different. However, the only really prominent one, Tyrion Lannister, manages to nail most of the traits pretty well. He fights surprisingly fiercely with axes and crossbows, grows something you could call a beard, makes a big deal about Casterly Rock and its gold mines being his rightful inheritance, drinks heavily, has trouble controlling his temper, holds grudges like nobody else, mistakes a female dwarf for a male one, and ...
reveals that the Ibbense share a suspicious number of similarities with the standard issue fantasy dwarf. They?re short and squat but ferociously strong, bearded and hairy. They?re skilled craftsmen and badass warriors, but also very greedy, insular and suspicious of outsiders. And top things, the in-universe author implies they might not even be human, since they cannot produce fertile offspring with people from other nations.
novel Unlocking the Curse, most of the dwarves are minor characters fitting the type, but one is an
soul who wanders the name and
anyone who thwarts him into a .
series may differ considerably from the
archetype, but the Dwarves are still all the same. Short, broad and muscled, have a high tendency to be blacksmiths. The only difference is that they're second-class citizens and may sympathize and collaborate with Elves to the Humans
against "Otherlings."
They do have a few notable differences from the norm. Sure, they're skilled craftsmen, but in this world that speciality goes to the gnomes. Dwarves are known to be shrewd and cunning businessmen, and many prominent Dwarven characters are bankers. There's also a law firm run by Dwarves that specialised in winning cases by making witnesses disappear and arranging mysterious 'accidents' for the enemies of its clients.
Malraux is friendly and hospitable but gruff. He later explains that he's caught in the fantasy cliche and doesn't even like mining but he's a dwarf and that's what they do.
In , the titular dwarves are pr they give the accent, horned helmets, and axes a miss, but keep all the other standard traits.
Somewhere between the Norse myths
and Tolkien , there are the seven dwarfs from , who are mentioned to be ore miners in the Grimms' fairy tale. They don't live in their mine though. It is merely their working place, and the dwarfs leaving Snow White alone at their living place (a dwarf-sized, but otherwise presumably ordinary house) every day is a major plot point.
Very very averted in Andy Remic's The Blood Dragon Empire series where the Harborym Dwarves, while physically the standard Fantasy Dwarf, have some very big cultural differences from the standard mould. Firstly their religion is called the Church of Hate, that in itself speaks volumes. They do practice mining and consider it an important job, but not really that much more important than other jobs. The biggest difference however is that they enslave humans, torture them for entertainment, and treat them as disposable miners, food for their captive Dragons, or sex slaves. Each of the Dwarf characters in the series is either e the main Dwarf character is a twisted and spiteful hunchback who tortures innocent people because he can and forces young female Dwarfs into his bed, another is a rapist with a fetish for human women, another is a torturer whose sheer sadism would impress , and another is a King quite prepared to have families murdered to tie up loose ends and who believes that he is a God. Additionally, outside of a hardcore few, the Harborym Dwarves don't have the fanatical courage typical of the standard dwarf. They're a lyin', cheatin' bunch of cowardly bullies who whimper and grovel once their victims start kicking their asses.
The gnomes from
are all bearded, talk with Northern English accents, and work in the mines. They are also skilled craftsmen, engineers and inventors.
&&&&Live-Action TV&
The Seven Dwarves in . Grumpy gets the most screen time for some reason and fits the trope to a T. Later appearances of the dwarves in the series show some more unusual characteristics, one of which is the fact dwarves aren't born, they're hatched in eggs.
&&&&Music&
On 's second album Space 1992: Rise of the Chaos Wizards, we are introduced to the Astral Dwarves of Aberdeen whose king wields a "Crystal Laser Battle Axe."
&&&&Myths & Religion&
— here's where it all started.
Though they were somewhat varied, the basics of common lore goes back to mythology. The long beards, skilled at metallurgy, lived in caves, etc. They also turned to stone (sometimes temporarily, sometimes not) when exposed to sunlight. There was also discrepancy amongst how long they lived, some myths had them be an adult at three years old and an old man by nine, some myths had them always looking old but being immortal. They had coal-black hair, extremely pale skin, actually were a type of elf and were human-sized at first, but
changed them a lot even during the Viking era. By the late , they were much closer to the Dwarves we'd recognize today. In Norse Mythology, dwarves were originally endoparasites. Like tapeworms, living in the intestines of some of the first giants.
In one version, they first appeared as maggots in the corpse of Ymir, whose body was then made to form the earth itself. In this light, the stated origin for the dwarves seems an appropriate metaphor, what with their penchant for tunneling and living beneath the surface of the earth.
' use of the Norse Mythos (via the super-hero ) have Dwarves that look like the modern model but otherwise are more like their ancient inspiration. In effect, they are cave-dwelling magical gadgeteers.
Tapeworms aside, it should be mentioned that they usually appeared as cave-dwellers forging weapons and jewelry. Sometimes with remarkable results. It was cavedwelling dwarves who made Þ&r's hammer (always hits, destroys its target, returns to the user), &O&inn's spear (always hits its target), Freyja's necklace (shining like the sun), and the nine golden rings (give birth to new rings). 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.
&&&&Pinballs&
In , the Dwarf comes complete with horned Viking helm and long hair.
&&&&Tabletop Games&
— not surprising, given how much it was originally based on Tolkien. There's other differences as well.
One widely used D&D addition is the idea that Dwarves are inherently more resistant to , being that they're all stolid and stony like the earth and all. 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 . That said, they were resistant to . Seemingly because they love gold and cunning more than they love power.
Interestingly, the Races of Stone Supplement for 3.5 provides a special
that allows the casting of spells in armor, providing a description that's best summed up as "Nobody thinks there's any Dwarven Wizards because they wear Armor like the rest of the Dwarves". Of course, .
D&D has shown an interesting evolution in the question of Dwarven females. In the oldest editions, the race was essentially monogendered. Later on their women
— but . In the latest edition they just look like very muscular
lasses — albeit generally badass ones.
Dwarves are noted as being good with , and they're one of the go-to races for Clerics. (see: Durkon from
for an example). Players and , of course, can play with or
all they wish.
— 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
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 .
level of diversity and details
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
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
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.
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 , and the Daergar, who were .
uses this trope 100% straight with its Rockhome dwarves, then subverts it with their Kogolor predecessors, who lived aboveground and mostly raised goats for a living.
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 largely forgotten Chainmail D&D Miniatures game (the early 2000s relaunch, not the classic '60s version that inspired D&D) ended up using pretty standard D&D dwarves, but oh . 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.
Just like elves, dwarves in D&D have a subterranean : the Duergar, or Gray Dwarves, who are built on the folktales of dwarves as nasty schemers with supernatural powers. The Duergar have limited
and have a grim, humorless society based around slave labor and constant toil.
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
basically turn the typical dwarf stereotypes
and play it for some mild . They seem to be a , but the truth is that they're actually genderless
psionically shaped from stone — this incidentally makes them a
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
if they get too depressed, and so they try to avoid forming attachments with the shorter-lived races.
It plays them as straight as it comes, though Warhammer Dwarfs are most definitely Dwarfs and not Dwarves. Female Dwarfs in Warhammer are not bearded, but tend to look like plump, braid-haired viking maidens straight out of a Wagner opera.
Once upon a time, though, Warhammer had the Chaos Dwarfs, which were based on ancient Mesopotamia of all things and diabolic slavemaster warlocks with cloven hooves and addicted to . Sadly, their army nearly dropped off the face of the earth, and the few new Chaos Dwarfs we've seen (as crew for a war machine model) seem very much standard, if eviler-looking.
Warhammer's 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). The
novels play with the accent, introducing a Dwarf character whose speech is a comically exaggerated version of a real Scottish brogue. Even the other Dwarfs can't understand him half the time. Their technological superiority is also notable. These Dwarfs have guns. (No
here!) And cannons. And helicopters. And Ironclad submarines. 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!
Dwarfs in Warhammer have one special niggle that sets them apart from other dwarves in fiction: their
is . They have a big book called the Book of Grudges, and if you ever wrong a dwarf, they write it down in the book. Grudges all have set standards for fulfilment, usually
high, and they will never stop until it is repaid. . Classic example: a
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, the lord underpaid the Dwarfen workers who built the castle by twelve 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,
. In a more modern example of this, during the Battle of Grimspike Pass, an Orc shaman became too powerful and exploded, causing the pass to collapse and kill ten thousand Dwarf warriors who were standing under it. After the battle, the Dwarfs declared vengeance, but not against the Orcs, but the pass itself. In their own words, they won't stop until Grimspike Pass is "mined to exhaustion and the rocks of the pass are as dust". Seriously.
They take their honor extremely seriously as well. How seriously? Well, what does a Dwarf do if he or she cannot fulfil a grudge? Well, they become shamed in the eyes of Dwarf society and become Slayers. They cut their hair into a huge mohawk, take a huge battleaxe and no body armor, and seek out battles with the biggest, meanest beasties they can find . Some of the most successful (or alternatively, 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 . 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. Yeah.
Interestingly, while the individual Dwarf in
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 , 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.
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
and builds stompy . Not much is known about them, though, mostly because they are very secretive and determined.
The Dwarfs of
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.
plays it straight with standard, Tolkien inspired dwarves — not surprising for a game from
that was significantly inspired by . 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.
The now-defunct
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
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
of Atlantis into slavery, mining for magic
because they were immune to the deadly radiation. They joined the Black Powder Rebels in order to free their comrades from this slavery.
has the Wizened, humans who were made to work as
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.
's Bathas are evil sociopathic slavers but still live underground and have an interest in wealth. They also invent things.
As a generic system,
can potentially handle any sort of dwarf — but its writers have mostly stuck to the established standard.
Dwarves in , the main official GURPS fantasy setting, are a race of natural artificers and merchants. Most adults have at least one point worth of .
GURPS Fantasy offers another variant of the same type.
In the GURPS predecessor , dwarves were straight out of the Tolkienian mold. However, some details (mostly concerning dwarf women) were left unspecified, meaning that players could form .
not only plays straight dwarf stereotypes but even builds upon the tale of Moria from
by working an attribute called "Greed" into the rule system: all dwarves are covetous. The higher a dwarf's Greed, the more likely they are to betray others, or even go , in the pursuit of possessing objects of high value and/or craftsmanship. 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.
The Jotun of
were once compared to dwarves, except being huge
instead of short humans. .
Dwarves in
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. Pantheons of the Megaverse has dwarves that represent the dwarves from , right down to being the creators of Mj&lnir. There's also races like the Dwarf Forgemasters from the Three Galaxies setting, but they're all basically variations on a theme. A list that circulates around message boards and other sites called "You Know You've Been Playing Rifts for Too Long When..." has an item in it that reads "You've ever made a Dwarf character whose name did not have 'axe' or 'beard' in it."
&&&&Theater&
's , 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. His dwarven brothers Alberich and Mime inspired the thieving dwarf M&m who appears in The Silmarillion. Oddly enough they are sometimes referred to as black elves. These legends of course . Tolkien was quite adamant his works were not based of Wagner's Operas. The Nibelung are possibly an allegory of . Considering Wagner was quite anti-Semitic this is probably right.
&&&&Video Games&
: 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
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.
Played mostly straight in the RPG , including what may be one of the earliest examples of the now-standard Scottish accent as spoken by NPC Magnus. Females are never seen, so all
bearded stocky men. Asking about dwarf women is a surefire way to send a male into a
The "mostly" comes in because it's the
1880s, 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
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.
Two dwarves appear in , with one of them being the foster father of the hero, Lloyd Irving. In , which takes place about 4,000 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.
for the Nintendo 64, the dwarves are represented by hidden character Gar Gudrunnson. His people are mountain-dwellers enslaved by despotic Lord Deimos (think
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 , 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
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.
's dwarves, in the Loho mining camp from The Lost Age, probably don't have Scottish accents, since
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.
Played mostly straight in Bungie's
series of fantasy games. 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.
Two "Dwarven Swordsmiths" appear in . 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.
in . The dwarven race 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 . 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.
Dwarves are a recurring race in the , at least in the older games. They follow the Tolkien/D&D model fairly closely—most dwarves are axe-wielding warriors. A notable exception, though, is that the first dwarf you meet, , is young, cheerful, and beardless (but still an axe-wielding warrior). They are not slowed down by hill terrain, which makes them surprisingly mobile.
It's because Luke from
is a , Gort is a Dwarven Warrior, but Luke is a hobbit. Jaha in Shining Force II is also a Hobbit, but Gyan and Randolph are Dwarves, funny because Randolph is beardless.
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 , often in the most violent way possible.
, 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 , 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.
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.
The Mountain Dwarves in
are standard issue. Deep Dwarves are different, though: see below.
In , the Dwarves are short, live in mined-out caves, are the major source of ore (aside from the players), are extremely fond of beer and kebabs, and pretty much the only way you can tell it's gender are whether it has a beard and/or helmet or not.
series has always included dwarves that fit this mold.
In , 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...by selling back to you the items he made out of the silver you risked your life to get him.
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.
has dwarves as one of your recruitable classes. They fall on the smith/engine their fortresses can only be built once you have a Level 2 Blacksmith in your kingdom. They have
helmets and are hammer-wielding
whose voice lines emphasize how much they love hard work and building things. They're also mutually exclusive with , although they won't come to a kingdom with gnomes either.
In , the dwarven troops fit the typical image of fantasy dwarves exactly ? bearded, grumpy, interested in subterranean wealth acquisition, technologically inclined.
Barik from
is very much a typical dwarf. Scottish accent, short and muscular, extravagant beard, and a . The only thing he doesn't do is fight with an axe, preferring to use a blunderbuss.
. It's played mostly for laughs, but they're about as generic as it gets.
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 . In fact, the only sound you get from a dwarf is a grunt. Followed by axe swing/flamethrower.
In Ghost Ship Games's , the dwarven protagonists are short, have beards reaching their knees, loves beer and are really good at engineering. So even in outer space and carrying miniguns, a dwarf is the same everywhere.
&&&&Web Comics&
has Vadim as a main character, who meets most dwarf stereotypes, but comes from a Russian-type culture and has a matching accent, drinks Vodka, uses the word "brother" in place of "laddie", and never seems to feel the need to point out that he is a dwarf.
' includes Dwarves in its array of races, and from their first appearance, we have bearded females, and a long-standing rivalry with . Mostly over beer nowadays.
has an all-dwarf cast, of the
has a dwarf claim that everything about dwarves can be summarized as
: It turns out that the Island Dwarves used to be , not miners. This came about as a result of the last big war and shake up in the world.
All dwarves in the Order of the Stick universe drink beer, have two livers, worship the Nordic Pantheon, have beards, wear heavy armor, have , and . The only thing unusual about them is a shared dendrophobia (fear of trees) for .
Lampshaded by the Cleric of Loki.
Cleric of Loki: Can you tell me anything that differentiates him from any other dwarf?
However, Durkon himself is a custom model. Unlike other dwarves, he rarely swears or loses his temper. He almost always remains calm and serves as the
in the party. He is unfailingly loyal and honest. His primary role on
/ instead of a blacksmith or warrior. One wonders how he ended up worshiping Thor (who in this setting, acts like a well-meaning frat boy.)
Granted, a later issue reveals that Thor told the dwarf race about the deal Hela and Loki made, in that Hela would get the souls of all dwarves, minus those who died honorably, in exchange for not having normal clerics. As such, Thor's information was what made the dwarves into such the honor-bound race they are today... and why he's so venerated amongst them.
&&&&Web Original&
's Beardbeard, and every other dorf we've seen, has been this trope taken to psychotic extremes — every problem can be solved with a , violence, or a .
is staffed by a horde of very squat, heavyset demons with long gray beards, who are, for all intents and purposes, dwarves.
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
warns against the use of this trope.
Is any character in your novel best described as a "dour dwarf?"
These Dwarves are More Dwarvergent
&&&&Comic Books&
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.
even thought they're called , 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 , 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
to create a market for their magic weapons. This is because Castle Waiting is more influenced by
than Tolkien.
&&&&Films — Live-Action&
The film version of
took pains to avert this trope. The dwarves are all short, hairy, and crusty, but they have great variety in their faces, beards, clothing, body types, personalities and weaponry. Particularly notable are Thorin, F&li, and K&li, who all benefit from varying degrees of , with K&li's
practically making him a
by dwarf standards. They also have accents that range throughout Britain, from Scotland to Ireland and Wales. Gl&in, the most stereotypical of the dwarves, is the father of Gimli, who is arguably the modern day codifier of the trope.
In , a bunch of wicked, sharp-toothed dwarf-like creatures called "dwergi" reassemble Dr. Frankenstein's equipment for Dracula.
Adventurers Wanted features dwarves that mostly fit the standard. Even the women are bearded, A mix of Scottish and Germanic accents, a hard drinking, poison resistant, etc. The one thing that is added is that these dwarves are seafarers. Dwarven raiding parties terrorize the coasts in their long ships as dwarves with dane axes and spectacle helms go I-Viking.
&&&&Literature&
plays with the standard dwarf model. On one hand, men have , dwarves , and they wield
in battle. On the other hand, dwarven women lack facial hair (and are ), the entire race is not so much a nation as a loosely-connected country of hunters and farmers, and most (though not all) of the population live above ground, going underground only in times of great need.
and Tracy Hickman have tried to avert this.
was basically about what happens to Tolkienesque races' cultures when put in completely different worlds, and
trilogy ). Didn't really work, because the dwarves always got the least characterization, but they tried.
Averted comedically in
by . Toenail the dwarf (brother Hangnail, cousin Chillblain) is about 3 feet tall, clean-shaven, and decidedly not a warrior. He goes and hides in baskets or under tables when trouble threatens. Dwarves in general are servants t they're the ones who clean the floor and polish the armor. They are also extremely clever at solving puzzles, riddles, since they're too short to reach the pool table and too weak to throw darts, that's all they have to do at the pub on their nights off. note&
series has dwarves mutated from human stock (like most of
of the books) but with the added caveat that, , they are claustrophobic and dislike going underground. They actually appropriate the typical elven skill in that they are skilled woodsmen, and their crafts are mostly carved from wood rather than stone, and are famous for their gardens and dams.
Flint Fireforge, from the
Chronicles trilogy, was originally going to be a well-dressed fop. Eventually, though, they decided against this, and just made him the standard dwarf. The well-dressed fop concept later became the preferred mortal guise of Reorx, god of the forge.
The Valerians of the
series are a race of strong, tough,
, but they're really human , not fantasy dwarves. Also, the shortest Valerian described stands at above 7ft tall in his stockinged feet.
Possible example: Gregory Maguire's , in which the eight (yep) dwarves are, at least initially, shapeshifters. They're also far more, well, mineral than your typical humanoid character.
In Adrian Tchaikovsky's
series Beetle-kinden are essentially clean shaven dwarves in a / setting. Short, stocky, technological and capitalistic with the
emphasizing the tech side and
emphasizing the capitalist side.
The urZrethi of The Dragon Crown War initially appear to be bog-standard dwarves, but are gradually revealed to be quite different. They are a race of short, stocky expert smiths and miners who live in elaborate subterranean mountain fortresses and have a lifespan measured in centuries. However, they're also a matriarchy, have limited
powers, were created by overthrown elder gods to dig them out of the
(a cause most urZrethi ended up abandoning after a disastrous war with the dragons), and
the fem!Sauron-esque
is actually a half-urZrethi (and half-dragon) who uses her shapeshifting abilities to look sort-of-elven. Turns out that they're not actually restricted to the "short, stocky humanoid" model, they just find it fairly utilitarian.
R. A. Salvatore's Demon Wars saga has dwarves who are also called powries. They've got a lot of the typical dwarf traits - short, stocky, tough, and bearded. However, they're also an incredibly aggressive
who mostly interact with humans only when raiding them, live on an archipelago and are famous for their "barrelboats" (low-slung ships that the powries, with their superhuman endurance, paddle fast enough to catch most human ships), and maintain their physical prowess with note&. They're all around nasty pieces of work, and while not quite
(they demonstrate loyalty to each other and extend respect towards non-powries who they consider sufficiently badass, at least) most humans hate and fear them - a reputation the powries themselves are happy to encourage.
Dwarves in
resemble much like most depictions, but draw more from their depictions in European fairy lore. They are entirely subterranean (they can't stand bright light), reproduce by carving others of their kind from stone, and are miners and craftsmen. However, their centuries-long lifespans means they greatly pity the shorter-lived beings and try to improve on nature with mechanical replicas or preserving living beings in glass coffins for immortal slumber. They serve as the antagonists of the 4th book in the original series, under Mulgarath's orders.
Humboldt in
is a sensitive, snack-serving Dwarf who is part of a clan cursed to
within the Crypts of Ramen, and who seems genuinely sad knowing that everyone who comes though the Crypts will almost certainly die. His greatest passion is reading love poetry and he's reduced to a mess of tears when our heroes tell him a modern love story from Earth:
: A calm, industrious race known for clever machines and a near-utopian society where everyone tries to help everyone else. Also, they don't live underground, though they do mine as much as any other industrial race would have to.
keeps the bit about being skilled smiths (with the exception of the main character's friend, Blitz) but throws in some odd tidbits: they evolved from maggots, come from a world of pure darkness and sunlight gradually turns them to stone, and there's a certain population among them with divine blood which is taller and more attractive (by self-proclamation). And most of these differences come .
: They are called Stonebenders ("Dwarves" is a racial slur used by humans) and do all of their stone- and metalwork with their bare hands.
&&&&Live-Action TV&
Physicaly the Liberata of
fit the trope perfectly and
says that they used to be a
before being conquered by the Castithans and joining the Votan. Now they are . They also breathe nitrogen and their hair and beards (found on both sexes) are stark white.
The Tellarites, one of the founding members of the Federation. They had a fierce rivalry with the , are stubborn, undiplomatic, and generally have the competence to back up their boasts, all dwarven hallmarks. They are also short and often show up in mining contexts — again, all dwarven hallmarks. Customized by also being .
The Klingons are also
who frequent dimly-lit great halls, drink a lot, and have an ongoing feud with the Romulans.
Dwarves in
may be small and occupy their time mostly with masonry and stoneworking, but they are more akin to a
in some aspects.
&&&&Tabletop Games&
Mike Pondsmith's
roleplaying game (from R. Talsorian Games) had dwarves based more on the ancient Germanic myth model — supernaturally strong and resistant to fire, with chicken feet (which they hide by wearing big boots), and no females at all. When they marry, they marry Faerie women — . They do have the whole mining and beer obsession, but are more likely to fight with big wrenches than axes as they are the master technologists of their world.
Falkenstein's Dwarves started out as more typical Faerie, but gave up most of the classic traits thereof in exchange for the ability to handle iron with impunity.
Young Falkenstein dwarves are also raised and named by their mothers. Their main drive toward industrialism and workmanship is so they can make or discover something impressive enough to make a name for themselves with, so they don't have to introduce themselves as "Buttercup" or "Morningblossom".
As mentioned above,
has produced a few dwarven subraces that break the mold.
The wild dwarves from
are barbarians who live above ground in jungles and hunt with poisoned blades. Still very gruff and loyal, though. The same setting also has arctic dwarves, or Innugaakalikurit, who are white-haired, have no affinity for metalwork or living underground, are expert hunters and trackers, are immune to the cold but love to sunbathe until their skin burns, and favor spears and harpoons over axes. They're also short and squat even by dwarfish standards.
The derro are a race of insane sorcerers with traces of human ancestry. They have bluish skin, blond hair, and huge, pupil-less eyes, and many go beardless. (In , though, they are actually
with no connection to dwarves.)
Several dwarven subraces in . Clan Daergar resemble common dwarves in appearance and culture, but are ruthlessly evil — or may be straight-up expies of the Duergar. Clans Theiwar and Klar are an
of the derro, but s the Theiwar keep the magic and generally evil attitude, the Klar keep the appearance and the rampant insanity (racially , but prone to being manipulated by their fellow Deep Dwarves the Daergar and Thiewar). Clan Zakhar are hairless, diseased outcasts. Finally, Clan Aghar, more commonly known as gully dwarves, are diminutive idiots who serve as .
3.5 presented several environmental variants with only minor differences from the standard hill dwarf. Desert dwarves are gruff miners who are good at finding water. Glacier dwarves are gruff miners who are good at surviving in the arctic. Seacliff dwarves are gruff miners who are good at swimming. And so on.
Duergar, essentially the dwarf equivalent of Drow, have shown up in a few settings. They tend to be grim, regimented, joyless workaholics and slave-traders. In , they are actually the corrupted descendants of the original dwarves, tracing their lineage to those dwarves that didn't burrow up from the heart of the world at the start of the race's history.
Dwarves in
are completely hairless, have absolutely no knack for metalwork at all (as metal is almost extinct on their world), are completely illiterate, have superhuman stamina, and are workaholics to such an extent that the setting's equivalent of a
is created from the soul of a dwarf who died before his or her current focus-task was complete.
The Kogolors of
play around with this trope quite heavily. They look like typical dwarves, but they prefer to build houses atop mountains rather than to live in deep underground lairs (though they do enjoy}