Why are Dwarves Scottish?

[The Grumpy Celt]

'Cause making the short, hairy, hard-drinking, big-noised dwarf's German would have been unaccaptably sterio-typing.

 

[haakon1]

I guess I'm out of the loop, but I always kind of pictured dwarves as Irish. The bright red beards, the ability to drink any man under the table and then some, ready to fight at the drop of a hat.

Sounds like an Dubbliner.

As someone who's last name is common among both Irish and Scots (leading to confusion sometimes in the UK), I have a suspicion there's not a lot of difference between Scots and Irish. Both like kilts, bagpipes, heavy beers, sports involving tossing logs, food involving fried pigs and oatmeal, hating the English and the other side of the Irish Sea as national past times, etc.

Somehow, Scots are less controversial, so they "won" the dwarf sweepstakes.

 

[DragonLancer]

In an old homebrew campaign I ran under 2nd AD&D, Dwarves were Klingon basically.

As for why Scottish, I guess it just fits very well. No real answer I'm afraid.

 

[mythusmage]

In an old homebrew campaign I ran under 2nd AD&D, Dwarves were Klingon basically.

As for why Scottish, I guess it just fits very well. No real answer I'm afraid.

Way long ago there was a campaign where the DM (an Oztralian) made kobolds klingons. A junior member of the SSGCLA (Slavic Small Giant Class Liberation Army). He never said what his dwarfs were.

You can read about her (long story) current real life adventures here. If you're nice she might tell you about her DnD days. (Now that I think of it, Zoe should have some insight into how it feels to put on a girdle of sex change. )

 

[Jonas Grumby]

The Jackson dwarves aren't very Scottish, IMO, although every once in a while Gimli will sound vaguely Scottish.

Perhaps because John Rhys-Davies is Welsh?

 

[Ranger REG]

Of course they are. They love themselves way too much, they'll shag anything, they dress like christmas trees and everybody hates them. Sounds French to me.

I dunno. To me, female elves don't have a lot of underarm hair.

 

[Ranger REG]

Maybe, but he looked pretty dashing in the spiked WW1 helmet. (and swearing in pseudo German while falling out of his Fokker.)

Well, maybe he's Austrian.

 

[Ranger REG]

I remember Roger Moore (the American one who writes D&D stuff, not the British one who played James Bond) said he thought dwarves had many stereotypically Jewish characteristics (which he said was OK to say, since he's Jewish; in America, that makes it automatically OK to talk about otherwise hands-off topics) -- like being in exile (at least in Middle Earth) and dealing in gold.

Oy vey.

 

[jester47]

Not only have I wondered why dwarves have a scottish accent also, but I've also wondered why my fellow americans think using bad scottish/english/irish accents means they are roleplaying their fantasy character more like a fantasy character. With that logic, do Europeans roleplay their D&D characters with American accents so they can get more into the role?

Well, Conan (in writing) had an american accent.

 

[jester47]

Ok I am going to settle the score.

The factor everyone is missing is one thing that is fairly common the world over:

MOUNTAIN MEN

Dwarves are the stereotypical mountain man. From the German smiths of legend to the scandanavian culture (oceans then mountains= fijords) to the old west 49ers to SCOTTISH HIGHLANDERS. Highlanders = mountain men. So when it comes to boating, Dwarves draw on the norse heritage, when it comes to mining, you get the 49er mentality, when it come to drinking, they are quite german. Highlander accents are the easiest to do.

nuf said.

Aaron.