What are dwarves like in your campaign?

[Sado]

Dwarves still live in the mountains, but only because that's where they originated, in a very mountainous Scandinavia-type region. They don't necessarily live inside the mountains, but among them.

Elves are more akin to Native Americans, living in tribes, with a few big Aztec/Inca type city-states. They are not as technologically advanced because they have relied on their superior innate magical affinity. They are ahead of other races in magic, but lag behind humans (and dwarves) in technology. So while humans value elven magical skill, elves place an equally high value on human craftsmanship.

 

[Aeolius]

Aquatic, red-skinned, and chemosynthetic. They dwell near hydrothermal vents.

 

[Gez]

Pretty traditionnal. Warriors and merchants, living in hills and mountains, great stonecrafters and metalworkers, prized mercenaries... Three offshoots, hill dwarves have a celtic bent (think of the Asterix comic for that peculiar brand of fantasy celtic ), gold dwarves have a quirky anglorussian bent, and mountain dwarves are the most typical.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I've only introduced the Dark Dwarves (for lack of a better name) and they are like 'miniature' fire giants - black skinned with red hair. They use polearms and traffic in dead/animated human corpses because their necromantic culture forbids disturbing their own dead. I am thinking that Fire Giants will be their 'Titan protectors' but I haven't developed anything else.

Not much has been sketched on the rival Mountain Dwarves except that they are friendly with humankind and can be traded with once per year, like feudal Japan & the black ship.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Dwarves (and NOT elves) are the masters of wizardly magic in the setting I'm building. They are obsessed with knowledge and unraveling cosmic mysteries, and while some still keep to their mountain steadfasts, most abandoned them centuries ago to live on the surface world and broaden their knowledge base. They have a very philosophical bent and are fascinated by riddles and conundrums; they are almost always working on some kind of puzzle or wordgame during their downtime. They are very concerned with the preservation of knowledge and, given enough time, will etch lengthy dissertations in runic form on stone walls. The very walls of ancient dwarven holds serve as their libraries.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Dwarfs are like mutton, and best served with roast potatoes and mint sauce. Elves, on the other hand, are best when deep fried in batter with a lightly spiced mayonnaise dip.

 

[reason]

...

More elemental, less bearded - get right back to the mythic associations of magic, crafting, the psychology of independence and the earth. The Datarii in the Enclave setting are the magic folk under the mountains, the closest thing to rightful tenants of Creation and their presence is felt in all Enclave cultures, despite their self-imposed isolation.

Reason
Principia Infecta

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Mine are pretty much a standard Tolkienian/D&D dwarf. They have a close relationship with delvers, which help them excavate the huge halls dwarves love.

 

[Zenodotus of Ephesus]

I think dwarves, as individuals, are too often treated as comic relief in fantasy literature and films. I like my dwarves more like Gimli in Moria than at other times in LotR or as per other dwarves portrayed in The Hobbit (or the D&D movie, for that matter). As I recall, and despite his work often being tagged as a poor man's Tolkein creation, I believe Terry Brooks kept his dwarves as serious-minded folk, for the most part. It has, however, been quite some time since I read SoS or any of the follow up books so I might be misremembering things. Bumbling, toungue-tied dwarves just rub me the wrong way as being overdone, IMO.

 

[dave_o]

Dwarves in my current Steampunk game both fit into the aristocratic, high-eschelon niches in society and the incredibly skilled artisian crafters near the middle. Elves, on the other hand, are second-class slave status citizens, serving anywhere from concubines, to domestics, to unskilled laborers.