Please Help: I need a good sourcebook or two on fantasy dwarves Tolkien style

[twofalls]

Our next campaign, that I am starting this Summer, will be set in the Wilderlands campaign setting near the City of the Invincible Overlord. We have decided that this will be an all Dwarven campaign, where every player is a Dwarf, part of the same clan, and contracted to the Overlord as mercenaries (adventuring group). I need some primers on Dwarven Culture and ideas. Besides the various current D&D books, I have the old FR11 source book. Are there other comprehensive books out there on the topic that would be worthy recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Voadam]

There are lots of dwarf sourcebooks

Gaz6 The Dwarves of Rockhome Dwarves in Basic D&D's Mystara.

Complete Book of Dwarves Generic 2e Book on Dwarves.

Advanced Race Codex Dwarves. Green Ronin's 3.5 take on dwarves.

Dwarves of the Ironcrags Kobold Press's culturally idiomatic canton style dwarves.

Karmic Dwarves Earth connection dwarves from the Karma system.

Player Races Dwarves For Savage Worlds but with dwarven lore.

Dwarves - Companion for Sword & Chivalry.

Paizo's Player Companion for Dwarves provides pretty standard dwarf culture.

 

[Mistwell]

Did MERP or any of it's successor RPGs ever have a Dwarf supplement?

 

[jayoungr]

Which edition are you playing? Also, do you want crunch (mechanical options), or just fluff (cultural details)?

 

[Shiroiken]

In "The History of Middle Earth v12" Tolkien wrote an essay titled "Of Dwarves and Men," which may be about as definitive as you get for Tolkien style dwarves.

 

[MNblockhead]

For 1st Edition, Mayfair Games published the book "Dwarves" as part of their Role Aids line, which includes A Complete Kingdom, 2 Cities, 3 Towns, new magic, and an adventure for dwarven characters of skill levels 5-10.

I couldn't find it on-line but found a copy in the use-books section of my FLGS.

I particularly like the history of the kingdom, which is related by an elven chronicler. If I ever need to quickly have a completely fleshed out Dwarven city, I can easily reskin Ostohar and use it with very little preparation. I have the 1984 reprinting with the covery by Bob DeWitt.

You can get used copies from Amazon for about USD 10, but there is, unfortunately, no legal PDF options that I know of.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In "The History of Middle Earth v12" Tolkien wrote an essay titled "Of Dwarves and Men," which may be about as definitive as you get for Tolkien style dwarves.

This, and the LotR appendices are the best sources for proper Tolkien dwarves.

Personally I prefer Terry Pratchett's take on dwarves.

 

[aco175]

Hammer and Helm by Green Ronin, I think. A 3e supplement which I used a few things out of.

 

[MNblockhead]

Another resource I've made much use of is the Dwarrow Scholar blog and docs: https://dwarrowscholar.wordpress.com/

It's purpose is to teach Tolkien's Dwarven language, but there is a wealth of material on naming conventions, place names, and the like.

 

[thorgrit]

The 3.5 supplement Races of Stone had a few pages of fluff on dwarves and dwarven culture - probably overshadowed by other supplements already mentioned though. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/27893/Races-of-Stone-35