Our Dwarves Are All the Same/Quotes

"Cleric: Does he have any distinguishing features?

Haley: Well...he's short.

Celia: He has a beard.

Haley: He wears heavy armor.

Cleric: Ummm, OK... how about any unusual personality traits?

Celia: He has an accent.

Haley: He likes beer.

Celia: And hates trees!

Haley: He worships Thor.

Cleric: Can you tell me anything about him that differentiates him from every other dwarf?"

- Order of the Stick, strip 602

"Gimli: Think about it. What is the defining characteristic of dwarves.

Aragorn: Low charisma?

Gimli: I mean besides that.

Legolas: Bearded women?

Gimli: Not that either.

The GM: Rampant alcholism?

Gimli: No! Well, maybe a bit. I'm talking about the fact that dwarves are lawful!"

- DM of the Rings

"Now Dwarves, Sire, are like angry beards on legs. Angry, beer-soaked beards on legs."

- Gnarl, Overlord

"On this day, I counted how long we have endured the grobi’s siege, for I thought we may have reached one hundred days. I searched out our records, their runes freshly marked, but could find no date for its commencement. I spoke to the king, but he said that I should dig for the answer myself."

"I stood at the guard post in the western tunnels, but the grobi launched no attack today. When my watch was done I returned to my endeavour. I found the date that Thorntoad first attacked our patrols. I found the date the last trading boat reached us unmolested. I found the date we retreated from the hold of find Urbaz north of the pass, the date our settlers were recalled from the highland meadows, the date we closed our gates and tunnels against our foes outside. But none of these was called the start of the siege."

"I went to the king before my next watch and retold what I had found. I asked him which of these dates he thought was when the siege had begun. He called his oldest counsellor forwards, who placed before him a stone engraved. It was a thousand years old, and it was a copy of records long before that. The king pointed at a single line thereon, the journal of a day when our ancient kingdom was still young. It said that on this day was the kingdom of Karak Angazhar laid siege by the tribes of the grobi."

"To my father, to his counsellors, to our ancestors, that was the first day of the grobi’s siege. And it will continue until the last drop of blood falls upon our stone, whether it be theirs or ours"

- Extract from the personal ledger of Ung Gramsson, son of Gramrik, King of Karak Angazhar, Warhammer

"Dwarves are one of the easiest races in D&D to roleplay. They have well-defined personalities, and it's easy to imagine a dwarf character in your mind as you play. Everybody knows how dwarves are supposed to look and act. Accordingly, making a dwarf character is often a matter of deciding how much you want to play against type. You can be a doughty dwarf fighter, a sneaky dwarf archer/rogue, or even the vanishingly rare dwarf sorcerer."

- From Races of Stone, a D&D supplementary book that discusses dwarves (and gnomes) in depth.

"(Player Character): I thought Dwarves were short with long braided beards.

Zaid: What? That's just an old stereotype! Most dwarves are normal height and prefer not to have ridiculous facial hair."

- Rune Factory 3

"Dwarves typically consist of seventeen main organs: The beard, the boozehole, the gratuitous Scottish accent, 13 livers and an axe."

- 1d4chan on dwarves.

"My problem with his dwarves? Nearly all of them are comic reliefs and have all the dignity of Jar-Jar Binks. Pikel is possibly the worst of the lot;

for kicks and giggles, I did a search for "Oo oi" in the collector's edition of the Cleric Quintet, and 140 instances turned up. If that's not stupid,

then I don't know what is. It's some of the most pathetic attempts at humor I've ever had the misfortune of seeing in any fiction. With other dwarves,

it's marginally better, but ultimately most of them are slapstick, and badly done slapstick at that.

Moreover, much like his elves, they aren't very distinct characters. Someone's said once that there are no dwarves in fantasy, just one dwarf

copy and pasted all over with a few details changed, and in no other fantasy fiction I've seen truer evidence of this."

- from Candlekeep forums, on R.A.Salvatore's dwarves