I’m back with another attempt to break the mould. Inspired by my Desert Elf, I decided to take a go at a non-stereotypical dwarf. The biggest things about dwarves that seem to plague them in every fantasy realm, are that they live in mountains, and they’re secretly Scottish. However, taking them away from mountains entirely screws over quite a number of game mechanics based on that assumption, so instead of turning them into, say, flatland dwarves, I did a variant: island dwarves. That is, these dwarves live in heavily forested areas (an island) that also happen to be mountainous. The basic backstory right now is that they do, indeed, spend a lot of time living underground, but this is to escape and gain shelter from the frequent tropical storms and hurricanes which plague the area. They make their living by fishing, some agriculture, and trading the shiny rocks and metals (and the skilled arts they make out of the shinies) to other cultures.
The dwarf below is fairly typical of appearance (dark skin, lighter hair — brown/blond when young and greying as they get older), is wearing leather armor, and holding a spear that works just as well on fish as on people. Also, as you can see, dwarves are considerably more human in apperance than elves — something which is giving me very interesting ideas regarding the evolution of sentient species, their languages, and their inter-fertility with each other.
Click the image to see the full-sized version.
