Why are Dwarves Scottish?

[Aaron L]

In my circles dwarves have always been a mix of Scottish and Viking and Teutonic. You know, drinking, Clans, and fighting.

 

[StupidSmurf]

Heh, that I'd love to see.

The sneering, fire bearded dwarf marches up to you, plants the top of his axe on the ground between his feet, leans on the handle with his chin (Ken Dryden style)

and says "Howz she goin' eh?"

And if the dwarven cleric casts Detect Lie and catches someone in a falsehood, do they say "Stop lyin', will ya? You hoser! What to make us look bad, eh?"

 

[Rostek]

Hmm...
I don't know why precisely. I guess the Scottish accent sounds cool and I can definatly see Dwarves subbing for highlanders and whatnot in Braveheart.

As for my accents-

I do my humans in the thick Belfast accent that my great-grandmother (God rest her soul...) brought with her from West Belfast- I'm told it's quite good

Elves are usually in a very "soft" sounding socialite English accent (I.E. the stuff you hear in films with effete English nobles).

Dwarves have kind of a Welsh-Scottish mix (with Norse culture mixed in with the Scottish for good measure), wheras their cousin Gnomes are pure Welsh (very hard to do )

Halflings... I never play, but when I DM, I use a accent similar to the one used by Hobbits in Jackson's films.

Half-Orcs... Stereotypical "Tarzan" speech with low vocabulary

I reserve my French accent for one of the homebrew races in the campaign (an Ursine species)- and they are very, very Norman French.

 

[haakon1]

Of course you could try making Dwarves ulster-scots (Northern Irish) - [ian paisley voice] "Khaz'ad-dun says NO!"

Gnomes I could make more irish or welsh, not sure that I've heard the cornish accent enough to try it, but my Dwarves are resolutely staying yorkshiremen, tha knows.

What accent do Orcs have in most peoples games? In the LotR they are portrayed as being working class with their slang and I suspect bad cockney accents abound for them.

Transliterated to American, that would be something like: "Khaz'ad-doone say-ez noigh!"

Bad cockney accents are the default accent for peasant humans, guards, etc. in most American games . . . orcs do more dying than talking.

 

[haakon1]

No. Probably because European accents sound more Old Wordy to us too and because Europeans can't do US accents anymore than Americans can do European ones.

But it's really, really funny when they try. Londoners trying to do American comes out as Texan-black-mafia mixed with irrepressible hints of the . . . what's fancy word for Home Counties accent . . . anti-deluvian or Liverpudlian or some such cute Britishism for "near the Thames".

Of course, Americans doing British generally sounds like Mary Poppins, or Michael Caine crossed with David Hasselhoff. Best to stick to making fun of the upper class accent, since everybody thinks that's funny on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

[Ace]

My dwarves are the Norse type. This fits the old germanic image of the magical smith.

I use two motifs -- Mountian Dwarves --Norse/German Hill Dwarves -- Scottish

I prefer the Hill Dwarves though as I can do a decent Scottish accent at the table. The German one, well on a good day I sound like pyscho Colonel Klink

 

[haakon1]

Heh, that I'd love to see.

The sneering, fire bearded dwarf marches up to you, plants the top of his axe on the ground between his feet, leans on the handle with his chin (Ken Dryden style)

and says "Howz she goin' eh?"

That's about right. His name is "Red", and he's a little bit Red Foreman from that 70's show (lots of orcs are called dumb ***, generally irritable) and a little bit Canadian, with "aboot" and "eh".

It's really the like of axes that makes dwarves Canadian . . . "I'm a lumber-dwarf, and I'm OK, I sleep all night and I work all day, on Wednesday I go shopping, and have buttered scones for tea".

 

[Ace]

Of course you could try making Dwarves ulster-scots (Northern Irish) - [ian paisley voice] "Khaz'ad-dun says NO!"

Gnomes I could make more irish or welsh, not sure that I've heard the cornish accent enough to try it, but my Dwarves are resolutely staying yorkshiremen, tha knows.

What accent do Orcs have in most peoples games? In the LotR they are portrayed as being working class with their slang and I suspect bad cockney accents abound for them.

I find the idea of a Dwarf that sounds like Gerry Adams kind of hilarious -- I reserve that accent for fae though-- in my current Angel game a Chulurican

Gnomes don't exist in my games. If they did I would go with the 1 foot dinky gnomes (alal the book Gnomes) and make them sound like Bjork

Spriggans have Cockney/Aussie combo accents

Orcs, ok Ekar Beastmen, talk like growling Klingons

Ghouls for some reason talk like Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel or Boomhauer

 

[OptionalRule]

Dwarves are always Scottish. Here's my question. Why?

Because Elves are English.

 

[Shadowslayer]

That's about right. His name is "Red", and he's a little bit Red Foreman from that 70's show (lots of orcs are called dumb ***, generally irritable) and a little bit Canadian, with "aboot" and "eh".

It's really the like of axes that makes dwarves Canadian . . . "I'm a lumber-dwarf, and I'm OK, I sleep all night and I work all day, on Wednesday I go shopping, and have buttered scones for tea".

I met in the donut shop with the other Canadians. We all agreed that we don't say "aboot"
But Dwarves I could see playing hockey for sure. Imagine two of em dropping their axes ad going for it...pulling the sweaters up over the heads, the suspenders, everything.

I mean, come on...look at this guy
http://www.legendsofhockey.net:8080...mber.jsp?mem=p199204&page=gallery&pic=7&list=

If he was shorter he coulda passed as a dwarf.



edit...we dont eat buttered scones with tea either. But imagining Gimli dressed like Eric Idle in that skit cracks me up.