Much like Tolkien/standard rpg dwarves. In my realm, female dwarves do not have any more facial hair than females of the other races, which is to say sparse to none. The dwarves of this realm come in all the tonal shades as humans and the other races. Not all dwarves have Scottish accents, most do not. Most dwarves have gray eyes; other eye colors include light brown, orange, and some dwarves have a dark, stone blue eye color. Dwarves were the the first of the peoples to work metal as they had the easiest access to it being created to be stewards of the hills and mountains. In regards to the greater world, dwarves are master engineers and bankers. Of the peoples dwarves seem to be most concerned with the making of things.
Not only do the dwarves control great material wealth below ground they have some great cities above ground as well. Dwarves are the pre-industrial world’s captains of industry. A good 20 to 25 percent of the world’s population is made up of dwarves. Because of their material wealth dwarves are frequent targets of greedy human kings, lords, and thieves of all kinds.
Dwarves are just about the keenest businesspeople in the world. Unlike the humans that seemingly want to control all the land and plant their flags everywhere and rule everyone and everything the dwarves have learned that he who has the gold makes the rules. The dwarves are the bankers and some of the major business owners in the world. They don’t need to rule everything to run everything.
The dwarves have great underground cities of advanced engineering and beauty. Formidable war machines to defend against humans, some may be steam powered – steam cannons, semi-auto ranged weapons, etc. Create great works of art from stone, metal, and crystal/gems.
In my realm, dwarves are not obsessed with the gold and riches they mine like the humans are. And if we think this thru why would dwarves be obsessed with gold and gems? If you are around them all the time and you see real wealth in the act of creation rather than the act of consuming and hording. To the dwarves, gold is simply a material to fashion into something lovely and interesting.
Dwarves learned early on about human fascination and obsession with things that shine. Dwarves do not fight with humans over the gold for the sake of the gold. Dwarves fight with humans to defend their homes from humans because the humans are trying to take something that the dwarves worked for. There was as famous battle, Battle of the Golden Hillside, where the dwarves actually catapulted gold in various forms at the oncoming human army. “You want the gold so badly, well here it is!” Those humans that did not get killed or knocked unconscious from being hit in the head with gold ingots started fighting amongst themselves for the treasure that was being flung at them.
Dwarves have a saying, “When goods are traded blows are not.” The dwarves see that it makes more sense to simply trade with the humans for what the humans want then for both sides to kill each other. The dwarves have tried to pass this lesson on to their friends the elves. The elves reply, “The humans don’t actually want your mountains, they want the treasures found in your mountains. If you let the humans go into your mountains and take all the gold and other treasures they would leave and you would still have your homes. If we let the humans come into the forest and take all the trees and treasure there will be nothing left for us to have as home.”
Dwarves in some areas, with their financial ties to humans, aka the humans owe them lots of money, use that as leverage to dissuade the humans from invading elven territory, “Wars are tricky things. The unexpected could happen. And your soldiers are also your farmers. If they go to war then who’s going to plant the fields and bring in the harvest? With less harvest I don’t think we’ll be able to extend your loans and may have to begin to call them in.”
There are no surprises. The wise of the peoples know that a very careful dance is taking place and once misstep could bring great bloodshed. The humans know that the dwarves are typically allies and friends with elves because the humans know they or their ancestors or country probably at one time tried to conquer elven and dwarvish lands and the two longer-lived peoples joined together. The dwarves know that yes, humans have short collective memories, and they observe that humans want and want and want because their lives are so short that the humans have to grasp at whatever they can as fast as they can as much as they can because it will be gone so fast for them. If they had another century or so to live then humans would probably be less impatient and thus less greedy. “What you don’t consider is that humans look at us and you and they see that they’re not as good. They’re not as good as you at magic, they’re not as good as us at making things. Humans just don’t have enough time to get as good. So this, and they not having much time, makes them feel less valuable, they’re not worth as much. So we trade with them for want they want – that makes them feel more valuable. They want the shiny, yellow metal. So we trade the shiny, yellow metal with them for their crops, or some crappy, little trinket or something they made. And that makes them feel good. It makes humans feel like they have worth because we gave them something of worth, in their eyes, for something they made. It’s that simple. And because they know we’re willing to trade the gold they crave for their crops and crappy goods they don’t feel like they have to take the gold from us. There’s no rush to get it. We’ll trade it, and we’ll loan it to them. Just trade them some lumber every now and again. Trade them some rare herbs. Some fine venison. That’s all. You don that, and you’ll have a great deal less trouble with the humans.”
Some elves have of course known this for some time as well and there are some trading posts set up on the edges of elven lands just as there are trading posts/towns at the edges of dwarven lands – usually here human embassies can be found. It would be exceptionally rare for human embassies to be in elven or dwarven lands proper, even though elven and dwarven embassies can be found in the capitals of human lands. Why? Because again everyone knows it was the humans that initiated the wars and tried to take elven or dwarven lands so few humans push for their embassies to be in the hearts of elven or dwarven lands. Again, there are no surprises.
Dwarves may make up 10 to 20 percent of the population in some human cities. Typically have an official embassy and may even have a dwarven quarter or district. Dwarves tend to be the bankers, financiers, and major investors of the city. The dwarves may, depending on the history with said humans, also be in the ore business with the humans. Dwarves also make up some number of the city’s fine jewelers and crafters, crafts like finely-worked metal items such as clocks and sculptures for gardens like intricate wind-catching items and chimes.
Unless the dwarves of an area are on extremely good terms with the neighboring human community, and for some time, those dwarves would not be selling any type of weapons or armor their human neighbors lest the dwarven wares end up being used against their own people. If dwarves do sell any weapons or armors to humans than those items are probably for show or ceremony. Almost unheard of to find any dwarves selling functional weapons and armor to humans.
