Why are Dwarves so Cool -- and what are the Best Dwarven Resources?

[Piratecat]

Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves (Bad Axe Games) is great. Very neat dwarven crunch.

Ditto. I love this one.

 

[Morpheus]

Dawnforge, by FFG, has another take on dwarves by allowing players to custom build them during play. They do this with all the races, but dwarves deserve special mention because a couple of the abiltities they can get are darn cool. Damage reduction and Craft Magic Arms and Armor. Well worth checking out (Dawnforge, that is)...

 

[Zudrak]

Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves and Hammer and Helm are both fantastic. I am the DM in our campaign but my dwarven brother uses both of those as well as Mongoose's The Quintessential Dwarf. I don't know that Mongoose's book is as strong as the other two, but he likes the section on dwarven gear and the various character concepts. If you're as into dwarves as he is, then ANY dwarven book will "do". It makes for easy shopping at Christmas and birthday time.

 

[BluWolf]

I would seriously recommend the old Dragon magazine articles by ???. I'm drawing a complete blank right now but they ran in the early 80's as a complete serious on the various demi-human races. They were also compiled in the Best of Dragon 3.

 

[your father is]

Thanks to everyone who responded, that's lots to go on. I'll see what I can find

 

[Endur]

Dwarven materials:
Norse legends: Thor's hammer and many other magic items of the Aesir were built by the dwarves, etc.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings

Gaming: D&D Dwarves are based on Tolkien and the Norse legends.

For gaming, I prefer the older 2e materials. The 3e/3.5e dwarven materials have been highly focused on rules (crunch) and less on background (flavor).

The DMG has the Dwarven Defender prestige class.

The Faiths & Pantheons book (FR) has the Dwarven Pantheon for both Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms.

The new FR Players Handbook has the Hammer of Moradin prestige class.

There are other dwarven prestige classes in other materials, but the Dwarven Defender and the Hammer of Moradin are the two "classic" elite dwarven archtypes. The upcoming racial book from WOTC should be interesting.

There are all kinds of online resources for dwarves; use a search engine. The greyhawk sites has useful stuff about dwarves in greyhawk. Various sites have info about forgotten realms dwarves.

Warhammer has some great stuff on dwarves too.

Thanks to everyone who responded, that's lots to go on. I'll see what I can find

 

[Hoodooman]

Check out Urban Arcana for playing modern dwarves!

There's some pics in Urban Arcana about modern dwarves. The dwarf has piercings, a goatee, and ripped jeans, with a baseball bat. Sweet!

 

[johnsemlak]

I did really like Hammer and Helm.

One resource worth tracking down is the Dragon issue that focused on Dwarves. It was many issues ago, Dragon 279 IIRC.

 

[Dark Jezter]

The new FR Players Handbook has the Hammer of Moradin prestige class.

Yes, it does. And the Hammer of Moradin is such a cool prestige class that I want to play as a dwarf paladin in an FR campaign just so I can take that class.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Seconding (thirding? fourthing?) the motion for Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves. It's great. And cheap.