Why don't dwarves like magic?

[I'm A Banana]

A Theory

Deity-A-Week....it's over a year old, but nowhere near 52 articles....well, at least it's still updating.

Enjoy the OTHER evil wicked dwarf god of evil greedy wickedness. OR ELSE!

As always, suggestions are welcome!

 

[Moe Ronalds]

I always thought it was because dwarves were a tad Amish. You know- long beards, hard workers, durable, good at what they make, high ethical and moral standards, and a little disapproving of all those fancy new fangled arcane whatchamacallits.

Edit: I should add I have nothing against the Amish, and this was not intended to offend any who happen to visit the ENboards.

 

[dave_o]

Amish people are rad and all. But, I mean, if they're Luddite Amish - how're they gonna visit the boards?

KM, btw, I love all your RPG stuff. I wish you were my DM.

 

[Gez]

The same reasons elven boys aren't into girls*: tradition. Clichés are an important part of the world in heroic-fantasy, one of the basic bricks of the universe, may we say.

Besides, old grumps and whimsical powers don't mix easily.


* And thus, all those half-elves from elven mothers, who've gone searching for love and lust in the arms of manly humans. Read your Tolkien, there were at least three occurences of inter-species marriage, and each time it was a human las and an elven lass.

 

[trancejeremy]

Because beards & magic don't mix very well...

Long beards, anyway. They get in the way of complicated hand gestures and working around an open flame is impossible (I have no idea how dwarven smiths do it, actually). All makes it really hard to eat salads (get dressing in it)

 

[spacecrime.com]

I like trancejeremy's reason.

However, the real reason dwarves don't like magic is because elves do. Prancy little nature-loving twits, ruining magic for the rest of us...

where's my hammer,

 

[Psychotic Jim]

Because it's tradition pure and simple (like- for all fellow Pratchett fans- how it's not polite to ask a dwarf's gender unless you're courting them)

 

[William Ronald]

This is largely a hold over from 1st Edition, where dwarves could not be arcane spellcasters. As I recall, only NPC dwarves could be clerics.

Dwarves, in many different cultures, are viewed as magical. There are several good examples from the Celtic, Norse, and Germanic traditions. (Dwarves even forged Thor's hammer, Mjolnir.)

 

[Skarp Hedin]

Long beards, anyway. They get in the way of complicated hand gestures and working around an open flame is impossible (I have no idea how dwarven smiths do it, actually).

Dwarven beard-nets are available in hemp, silk, silver, gold, mithril and spin-forged tensile adamantite.

You can always tell a dwarven smith's relative wealth and social class (only royalty head to the forge with diamond-sprinkled nets) by his or her beard-net. Available in all fine smithwear and ethnic dwarven goods shops.

Sort of like how you can tell a gnome's occupation by the weft of his red felt hat.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Heh. A D-A-W update turns into a full-out thread. Well, that's cool.

For those who don't want to read the god's description, it basically theorizes that the reason D&D dwarf PC's don't dig the arcane is because the dwarven gods of arcane magic (Diirinka and Laduguer) both rebelled and turned all evil on them...

And D&D does have those magical mystical forgers of everything...they're the Gray Dwarves. It's just that their also quite wicked about it... The Good Guys, of course, don't have truck with that corrupting arcanism!