D&D (2024) No Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc suborgins, lineages, and legacies

[tetrasodium]

Character 1 (“Hans Studemacher”) Fighter with a soldier background. His clan sent him to fight in a far-off battle. He returned home to learn that his wife and child were killed in an orc raid. The religious authorities bemoaned the loss to the clan, but treated his personal loss as unimportant. He forswore his clan and the dwarven gods, and has taken up adventuring. He gives off an unfriendly demeanour because he is still grieving the loss of his familly.

Recognizably a dwarf, but not Scottish nor Norse inspired, not a miner or an artisan.

Character 2 (Volomyra Halcyonova): Born into the ruling clan of dwarves. Doubly blessed as as she seemed to be favoured by the dwarven gods. Trained in the priesthood and groomed to become either a ruler or priest in her kingdom. She negotiated the possibility of leaving her kingdom for 5 years to better understand other peoples (her parents were against it, but she’s stubborn). Could be either a divine soul sorcerer or a cleric. Very traditional, but feeling immense pressure to conform and hold up standards of “dwarvenness”.

Recognizably a dwarf. Not Scottish or Norse or a miner or an artisan.

Clearly Hans and Volomyra are different notes of dwarves, despite being a fairly straightforward application of the themes described in the 5e PHB write-up of dwarves.

Tolkien's dwarves have too much plot armor holding together a single theme for those two to be meaningfully different.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Elves persist because they are deep paradigms within Britain − thus within English-speaking nations − thus within D&D. The actual belief in fairies is still within the memory of people alive today.

Notably, many D&D players have little or no awareness of what a Norse "alfr" actually is, and probably many still think as if the Norse term "dark elf" refers to skin color. (It refers to hair color, while connoting personality as well as habitat in darkness.)

D&D is English-speaking cultural archetypes. Even references to other cultures are almost strictly stereotypes formed by English-speaking nations.

Tolkien taps into much of it, whence the resonance and popularity of his works.

it is a long faded memory to my knowledge as we brits feel zombie-like in this age waiting for something that no one seem to be able to explain or never looking up and wondering at all.

Because even if people continue to push against it, fight against the reality, people want the tropes. They want to 'play the hits'.

What one developer thinks is the coolest change ever, the masses look at and go 'but elves are supposed to be the hot ones'.

Western Fantasy is a thing, people can rail against it, but LotR and D&D have codified it.

the point is to make new hits, then you fuse them together to make something new again and so on.

Innovate enough, and you become the new standard. Seems like a win-win.

I don’t know who was the first person to depict changelings as genderfluid, but they enriched the lore.

genderfluid shapeshifters do seem to becoming more normal from the small sample I have heard of.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Also, my brother in Garl, 2 out of 9 is still low! You gave people 3 races to pick from, and still only 2 of them picked Gnome. That's demonstrating real unpopularity.

Enhh.. way too small a sample to draw any conclusions regarding "real unpopularity." At best, it's anecdotally corroborative.

 

[Scribe]

the point is to make new hits, then you fuse them together to make something new again and so on.

Dragonborn, Tiefling.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

genderfluid shapeshifters do seem to becoming more normal from the small sample I have heard of.

It's become more accepted, but it's not without those who refuse to accept the idea a shapeshifter would more likely be genderfluid. Thinking on some current controversy on how Morph (in X-Men '97) is non-binary, or the recent revelation in the comics on how the mostly female Mystique is Nightcrawler's biological father.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's become more accepted, but it's not without those who refuse to accept the idea a shapeshifter would more likely be genderfluid. Thinking on some current controversy on how Morph (in X-Men '97) is non-binary, or the recent revelation in the comics on how the mostly female Mystique is Nightcrawler's biological father.

It's so funny and sad that this is semi-controversial now, solely for real world reasons, than it was say, 20 years ago, when having a shapeshifting or body-changing species/person being neither strictly male nor female was pretty much taken for granted, whether it was in Deep Space 9, The Culture series by Iain M. Banks, or whatever. I don't believe people who have a problem accepting it are doing so in good faith, frankly.

 

[Gammadoodler]

To respond to the OP. I'll be disappointed if the Dwarves, and Halflings don't get suborigins.

Not because I think they particularly need them (in the same way that other species don't really need them), but because it represents a choice to dodge the creative effort they should have taken when the PHB (and later MToF) came out.

It's not like High vs Wood is a superior conceptual delineation compared to Mountain vs. Hill or Lightfoot vs. Stout. It's just a place where more than zero effort was spent.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Elves persist because they are deep paradigms within Britain − thus within English-speaking nations − thus within D&D. The actual belief in fairies is still within the memory of people alive today.

Given that Elves, are, if anything, more popular in Asia than they are in the West, this is 100% definitely not the reason.

They persist because they're skinny hot people who are better than everyone else.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

They’re also super religious.
And super tradition-bound.
And extremely clannish.
And stubborn and unwilling to forgive.
As artisans/miners, they have an affinity with fire and earth.
There are frequently portrayed as prone to greed.

Seems they have quite a few notes actually.

I come to remind us that Tolkien's dwarves and associated stereotypes, which continue to this day, comes from him envisioning them as Jewish-inspired (sigh), not as Norse, Northern English, or Scottish. Very fortunately, it seems like few readers saw them that way, and indeed Norse/Northern/Scots stereotypes also align with those in many cases.

 

[Yaarel]

Given that Elves, are, if anything, more popular in Asia than they are in the West, this is 100% definitely not the reason.

Tolkien is a continuation of the British tropes. It remembers earlier references to elves are humansize, retains the fertile land of Celtic Sidhe, but explores modern euhemeristic speculations about various traditions originally referring to other ethnicities.