D&D General why are dwarves harder to think of varients for?

[Scribe]

You don't have to do anything. You could play poker instead.

Very true, but did the rule books tell us we could?

 

[Incenjucar]

Very true, but did the rule books tell us we could?

Rule 0.

 

[Scribe]

Rule 0.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i think a dwarven mage-culture based around the druid class might be interesting, lean into the earthbender angle with spells like erupting earth, stoneshape and summoning earth elementals, the dwarven martial weapons they get access to isn't unappreciated either.
edit: after some work on heroforge

 

[Voadam]

In the Sovereign Stone setting dwarves are more based on a steppe nomad cultural basis and detailed in Marauders of the Wolf. Having a short race with possible movement penalties decide that pony riding nomadism is a way to thrive can make sense to me.

I also like the D&D Fantasy Egyptian Ptahmenu Dwarves of Green Ronin's Hamunaptra as builders, engineers, and children of Ptah. (center right front row in the race lineups). They feel both D&D dwarven and culturally non-norse/scottish.

Not really that big a fan of Nyambe's D&D fantasy African Dwarves who are characterized as just focusing on the gruffness part of traditional dwarves.

Same for the barbaric D&D Japanese Ainu folklore inspired Korobukuri from Oriental Adventures. Partially that is from there being very little description or art of them in OA and I am not personally familiar with the original inspiration folklore so they are mostly 1e OA barbarian dwarves which never really strongly grabbed me as a concept.

 

[Minigiant]

Dwarves in my Klassico Setting

1. Kingdom Dwarves
   1. Mountain Dwarves: Tall Traditional Dwarves. Are expert stonemasons.
   2. Deep Mountain Dwarves: Ultratraditionalist Dwarves
   3. Hill Dwarves: Short muscular dwarves who have must integration with the surface. Best brewers.
   4. Underdark Dwarves: Dwarves whose home reaches the Underdark and had unfortunate interactions with illithids and drow.
   5. Volcano Dwarves: Dark stocky dwarves whose resistance converted to fire to adapt to the nearby lava. Are expert metalsmiths.
   6. Valley Dwarves: "Backwards" Dwarves who break traditions such as living in the valley between 2 mountains
   7. Arctic Dwarves: Pale stoic dwarves who mine a giant elemental-touched mountain range
2. Expedition Dwarves
   1. The Dune Expedition: Dwarves digging in the desert for oil.
   2. The Jungle Expedition: Dwarves digging in the jungle for rare gems
   3. The Surface Experiment: Dwarves living in houses on the surface?

The hook in my setting is dwarves can be born earthbenders like ATLA. It is generic and spiritual so dwarves get it by being of a certain Clan and worshipping the "Dwarf Gods"

The variants come in that the various kingdoms Revere certain gods more and their dearven benders get different styles. For example the Volcano Dwarves worship the God of Fire and their benders are magmabenders.

The Valley Dwarves buck tradition, have female leadership, use swords and spears, and have agile airbenders.

Whereas the Underdark Dwarves shun the normal earthy gods and worship the Knowledge goddess and have "mindbenders" aka psions.

 

[ECMO3]

I mean...the Duergar are pretty true. Then there's one in Act 3, but I took this to be a species question.

The Duergar are pretty true to stereotype, but I am talking about the other "regular" surface Dwarf NPCs. There are a bunch of them in act 3 and none that I can remember have beards.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I think you might need to define what dwarves are, then take traits and either highlight them or oppose them. To me dwarves are:

• Related to stone, hills, and mountains
• Orderly/law focused
• Clan/family based
• Skilled craftsmen
• Skilled warriors

I could probably think of more, but you might ignore the hills and mountains and create a desert dwelling clan that is known to be skilled mounted warriors (maybe giant lizards, maybe camels) and skilled craftsmen creating incredible glass products from sand located in their home.

Maybe a clan has taken to the seas, a chaotic society where strength and cunning gets you a leadership position. Still skilled warriors, there homes are found on the coasts and ships at sea.

Maybe they're skilled wizards, known for their spellcasting and the magical artifacts that come from that knowledge. This one is probably a trope as well, dwarves forged magical artifacts in Norse mythology, it's one reason why I always found it weird that they couldn't be wizards back in the day.

I think, as you said, highlighting the tropes is another good way to go about this.

Your average dwarf clan is orderly and law-abiding... What if you take that further? You could have a species of dwarves who are super lawful and orderly, maybe even with a supernatural ability to command others? Something like:

Gem Dwarves

Gem Dwarves are a species of dwarf supernaturally aligned with the planes of law. They are born with a gem embedded in their forehead; some gain more gems with age or wisdom.

Gem Dwarves are known for their clear and sonorous voices, which they can use to command others to an almost magical level. Sometimes when Gem Dwarves cast enchantment spells, their gems glow or flash.

Mechanical effects could include advantage on Charisma checks made to give commands, resistance to enchantment magic, or even access to spells like Command.

 

[Incenjucar]

I like to look at a species' abilities and extrapolate.

Architecture will respond to the short stature and gait, not to mention their darkvision.

Poison resistance means being able to handle toxins easier, which has huge impacts on food, medicine, environments, materials they can use in their tools, etc. Dwarven homes might be unhealthy to visit and full of arsenic bronze and poisonous plant decor, and their cures might kill.

Tremorsense is powerful, and would lead to adding stone surfaces to everything and using stone for mechanisms and caches.

This makes dwarves pretty amazing jungle dwellers, among other things.

 

[Tonguez]

This isnt an issue with D&D though, its an issue with writers, players, DM's, whoever. The system isnt preventing anything, it hasnt for decades.

ASI, Alignment, Culture, Species, whatever. None of that is a straightjacket, hasnt been for longer than most 5e players have existed on the planet.

Want to have a suave, nature loving, CN dwarf Bard with dump stats of Str and Con? Go nuts.

watching the recent DnD movie my head kept thinking of Holga as ‘the Dwarf’ because she fit the tropes of hard drinking, hard fighting gruff warrior with an axe and I think that may be part of the problem too, Varric as discussed above also exemplifies it.
Once you take away the Undermountain/Miner-Smith aspect and clannish pride there is nothing about Dwarfs that really distinguish them from a stout human viking. Sure you can make them sailors or rangers or desert nomads or burlesque dancers but other than putting the dwarf label on them what distinguishes Dwarf from Human (or Halfling for that matter?