Guide on Novels and Games - FANTASY - RACES - DWARVES

> **DWARVES**

In my research I found that, in theory, they originate from the germanic mythology... from what I saw most of their traits in fantasy are, more or less, the same of the "original myth".

APPEARANCE:

Dwarves are short humanoids with thic strong bodies and great beards.

The 99% of the stories I saw till now describe the male with beard but not the female.

In theory their skin is not different in color from the humans but this depend on the author's choice,

the reason I say this come from the fact that in the "original myth" is said that they dwells in montains and caves so is possible have them:

* same human color
* dark skin (there is a story where dwarves have dark skin

BIOLOGY:

This are totally my assumptions made from what they usually eat and their physical abilities.

Given the fact that dwarves are described as physically strong, short and sturdy, what I think is that during their evolution their body adapted to their lifestyle:

* Strong & sturdy, being a race described to live inside and outside of mountains is clear that they need strenght in order to move the rocks, break them and fight eventual monsters that dwell in their darkness
* Short, about this I attribute this to 2 reasons... the first is for move inside small passages and caves while the second is because I believe that their body is "compressed" for resist the pression for go deep underground

LIFESPAN:

Dwarves are described as a race that can live for various centuries, but since the thing change from author to author we can say that at least they can live for around 500 years or more

REPRODUCTION:

From what I saw they have the same human method so nothing really particular about it.

VARIATIONS:

This is quite difficult to summarize because different authors mean different variations... for example the great author Tolkien made 7 different kindreds of dwarves but I can't list them because I'm scared of eventual copyright infringment.

POWERS & ABILITIES:

Physically speaking, dwarves are very strong and quite resilient to physical damages but this don't mean that they are unvulnerable.

They possess a natural fire and/or heat resistence and are know for be master craftmen, in certain stories they are described as the race that is able to project and build anything and this imply that their knowledge is something to fear plus since they are so skilled they must have some kind of natural appraisal skill that make them able to recognize the quality of materials and items but this mean too that not all of them are all round specialized so is possible found between them skilled architects, blacksmiths (weapon and armor), engineers, ship makers, artisans (accessories and so on), etc

SOCIETY:

Their society seems divided into clans and kingdom so, from what I saw till now, the heads of the clan choice a king between them and that one rule over all the dwarves

As last note I'd like to point that most author respect the "unwritten rule" that dwarves have some type of rivalry/hate with the elves... no need to respect this In most fantasy dwarves and elves don't like each other for whatever reason but from what I saw is common that this is not hate but some kind of competitiveness mixed with pride