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Tuesday, June 19, 2012

So when did FRPG Dwarves all become Scots?




Obviously, not all of them are, but enough that it is starting to really annoy me. I am not an anti-Dwarf racist or anything, but when I was looking for Scottish Highlander miniatures on EBay today I found these guys-



Apparently they are for a game called Dwarf Wars, and only one of the factions is Highlander Dwarves, but it got me to thinking. Dwarves aren't part of Scottish Highland folklore, not D&D type Dwarves anyway. D&D type Dwarves come straight from Norse and other Germanic sources via Tolkien's works, and I rather prefer them to stay more Nordic; or at least be the short bearded guy in the party that is otherwise indistinguishable from the rest of the party in dress and weapons, maybe preferring the axe, or the crossbow.

Now I understand there is a miniature battle game put out by Fantasy Flight Games, their stuff is usually top notch, right? This one, called Battlelore, is a fantasy version of the Hundred Years War, where you get to hire Dwarf and Goblin mercenaries, or so the box says, I haven't played it.

Their Scottish Wars Expansion pretty much makes the case that all the Scots are Dwarves.





So does the Dwarven Battalion Expansion.



I think I remember reading something in a TSR novel set in the Forgotten Realms back in the early 1990s with some Scottish Dwarves too, but I can't remember which one, if it ever really happened at all.

Then I remembered Games Workshop and their Warhammer Fantasy RPG and the ginger, Mohawk sporting Dwarves there, so I did an image search and found this-



A definite Scottish look to him. I might not mind this; although I have a buddy that's of Irish extraction an only 5'8" and he has to deal with Leprechaun jokes constantly from another friend of ours who is lucky she's a woman, because he's kind of a bad-ass; but I might not mind Scottish Highlanders being associated with Dwarves if I wasn't 6'6" tall. I know it's stupid of me to take this as a personal affront, but I kind of do anyway. Even my little brother is 6'3". My sister is 5'9".

7 comments:

  1. I think it's more about both groups being psychos...

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  2. I think it had something to do with the flavor text in D&D having them live in clans (although so do elves and halflings, but you don't see them wearing tartan or calling everyone lad and lassie). Then Dragonlance came out with Flint Fireforge the dwarf, who called everyone lad and lassie. Down hill since then.

    Personally, all my NPC dwarves sound like Hanz and Franz from SNL (or some other equally silly Teutonic stereotype voice). "Ja, girly man. Ve are going to PUMP... YOU UP!"

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    1. Another reason to hate Dragonlance then. All my Dwarves tend to be Teutonic/Nordic, based on the Rankin-Bass version of the Hobbit, with the exception of their trading guilds which employ what might be referred to as Dwarven Ninjas.

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  3. Yup, there's that old John Cleese joke. Scots have two defcon settings: "Yer pi**en me off pal" and "Lets get the bu**ers!". Bit like dwarves really.

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    1. And they claim it's the Irish that're fighters :)

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  4. Ah, Dragonlance. I wondered about this myself. I thought it started with the John Rhys-Davies version of Gimli, but I was told that this "trope" predates the Lord of the Rings films.

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  5. The worst thing is I think I might have found a niche use for those Dwarven Highlander miniatures in my Garnia World campaign.

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