D&D 5E It's Dwarfy McDwarferson from the Player's Handbook!

[Plaguescarred]

Nice piece of art! I would have liked to see the female dwarf with a beard (i even tweeted Mike Mearls today to know if any had been commissioned) but the quality of the artowrk is still amazing IMO.

 

[Umbran]

"svart" literally meaning "dark-skinned."

Yes, it literally means that - dark or swarthy. But how much of what you say is literal when you are writing down stories?

The various sources have different words - Dökkálfar (dark/black elves), Svartálfar (dark/swarthy elves), and Ljósálfar (light elves). Snorri was writing in the 13th century, and it is not clear how much he personally influenced the depiction. While the light elves do seem to be "elves" in most of the ways we think of them, the darker forms might be elves, might be dwarves - the terms are not consistently or clearly used with much description around them to be sure.

Moreover, it is not clear whether the black or swarthy nature of the creatures is really supposed to refer to traditional skin tone, or is an adaptation to the dualistic light/dark spiritualistic duality spreading through Europe at the time. Snorri may have said, "These things are supposed to be kinda nasty. We call nasty things dark, and their outward seeming of course matches their inward nature!"

 

[Zaukrie]

One picture proves racism? Are we really going there? There days I love these boards, and then there are days like this.

 

[evileeyore]

One picture proves racism?

One picture? It's every picture before and every picture after that sets the pattern.

 

[Abstruse]

It's entirely possible that this particular dwarf spends a lot of time with humans and thus adopted their styles, including shaving her face and braiding her hair (the description also states dwarves prefer long yet simple hairstyles, while she has a more complicated braid in her hair).

 

[I'm A Banana]

It is only speculation from some scholars that think the svartalfar and dvergar were the same thing. Other scholars disagree and speculate that they are two distinct peoples and even others think svartalfar, dokkalfr, and dvergar were all distinct.

Interesting thing about most real-world myth: it has no canon. People just made up words and creatures without much rhyme or reason or care for what might have gone before or what some scholar somewhere decided to put into writing. I mean, none of these things really existed, so it's not like someone go check. "Guys, no, this is a brownie, and this is a booka, and this is a dobie, and this is a goblin, and this is a domovoi, and they are all totally different things, because look, they are not the same!"

"Are the svartalfar the same thing as the dvergar?!" is kind of the wrong question to ask.

And either way, dwarves in D&D have often been described as brown-skinned, and have only occasionally been depicted that way. And this one isn't. But maybe this one's a Mountain Dwarf, or just a light-skinned Hill Dwarf or something. It ain't like she's blue, she's consistent with the descriptions.

But I'd be into more brown dwarves, totally.

 

[variant]

Interesting thing about most real-world myth: it has no canon. People just made up words and creatures without much rhyme or reason or care for what might have gone before or what some scholar somewhere decided to put into writing. I mean, none of these things really existed, so it's not like someone go check. "Guys, no, this is a brownie, and this is a booka, and this is a dobie, and this is a goblin, and this is a domovoi, and they are all totally different things, because look, they are not the same!"

"Are the svartalfar the same thing as the dvergar?!" is kind of the wrong question to ask.

And either way, dwarves in D&D have often been described as brown-skinned, and have only occasionally been depicted that way. And this one isn't. But maybe this one's a Mountain Dwarf, or just a light-skinned Hill Dwarf or something. It ain't like she's blue, she's consistent with the descriptions.

But I'd be into more brown dwarves, totally.

That piece of art is consistent with that description, but I still feel it is only because Bruenor Battlehammer is ruddy skin with red hair. They even give Bruenor's description in a quote from the novel. It's as if they disregarded altogether every piece of D&D fiction and art.

They could have just described the dwarves as having the skin, eye, and hair color range of humans and been done with it. Elves were originally described as being mostly pale, dark hair, and green eyes, but they changed it to that. Yet somehow the dwarf didn't change except to add ruddy with red hair.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I see the text next to the hammer and all I can think is, "I'm a little teapot..."

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

All hail TEAPOT THE DESTROYER!

 

[tuxgeo]

So . . . she's a Texan dwarf?

"Teapot from Poteet!"