elfs always get their own continent in fantasy settings. why the hell dwarfs dont? lets brainstorm what a dwarf continent would be like
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what would a Dwarfs Continent be like?
elfs always get their own continent in fantasy settings. why the hell dwarfs dont? lets brainstorm what a dwarf continent would be like
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Work on your grammar, ESLgay.
Elves are at their core an aristocratic fantasy. Poets, scholars, magicians, rarely ever beholden to any kind of scarcity, living in (often literal) ivory towers. Decadence common but not obligatory. And just like the aristocrat who secludes himself from the lower class, elves need to exist in a vacuum.
Dwarves are working-class fantasy. Rugged, industrialist, alcoholic, belligerent but brotherly. While they sometimes seclude themselves to mountains, these are more akin to the "working class neighborhood" than the isolated estate one would associate with elves/aristocracy. That's also why you'll find in most fantasy settings dwarves are a lot more happy to mingle and associate with humans compared to elves, see LotR, Warhammer, World of Warcraft.
>inb4 "but in MY specific example this isn't the case!" Yeah moron I'm talking about general trends so go die
They don't have a continent because they live underground.
They not ON continent, they IN continent!
This is a really plebian take that's very clearly anchored down by a D&D-addled mindset, and should be ignored completely.
>name 5 settings.
>ummm not those ones
Kek.
You might want to re-check who I was replying to.
According to Tolkien, elves were both, dwarves were monomaniacs, as implied by their improper creation.
>elfs always get their own continent in fantasy settings
Name five settings where this is the case.
Not OP but:
Warhammer
Eberron
Lord of the Rings
Elder Scrolls (twice/thrice)
Can't think of a fifth one.
Valinor isn't an "elf continent" dumbass, it's literally Heaven. It's the realm of the Valar. Elves are native to it and return to it when they pass from the world, but at that point they are outside of the narrative scope of the setting and are irrelevant until the literal end of the world.
Like nearly everyone else has already said, there's no point in a "dwarf continent" because Dwarves already have their own largely-uncontested domain beneath the earth. Certainly you won 't find humans living there.
Fantasy continent for dwarves coming right up
Taking the piss out of those frickin uppity elves. Useless as breasts on a bull, them lot
Frick this, its bloody hot up here. Im digging a cool hole in the ground, Coober Pedy style
I wanted to suggest it but gave up because no mountains. Outback is really kino, but can we put some snowy mountains there for good measure? Also I was thinking maybe the continent became barren because of the dwarfs. It's a very industrial very busy bustling continent, where every single dwarf is already preoccupied with 10 separate tasks in his mind that they don't even notice their surroundings. Perhaps the dwarfs who came to the "Middle Earth" of the setting tried to escape this extreme business in the first place
>Australia
>no mountains
It seems fitting for a dorf continent that they all live in and around a single mountain range and then 80% of the rest of it is empty space
Then they get all shirty and possessive when some elves move in - even though they aren't using that land
>>no mountains
Bro, I took my 89 year old grandmother to the top of Kosciuszko for a fricking picnic. That's a hill.
oh god, i wanted to find a video how they pronounce this mountain name, because i know it will be awkward (as far as i understand it should be pronounced Kostyushko) but the way they do it is beyond shocking: Cozyosco. JESUS
>hates uppity elves
>casually lets fat dragons like Gianatrix and Twiganax of the Great Forest run the mining guilds (and by extension, the realm).
The dwarf continent is under the elf continent
They get the underground. Or they should.
Often the underground is described as a vast realm but quickly disregarded with little exploration. Adventurers go down vague caverns with little civilisations beside a few cities. Too often there is no underground equivalent for some sort of countryside or even medium settlements: it's ether a vast underground city, an adventurer camp or wilderness.
So it's doesn't feel like an actual region where people live and more like a big dungeon.
Seems to me that the most important thing to consider when giving a race their own continent is how/why they become relevant to the players. You build a setting to play games in, not just for the sake of empty worldbuilding.
If you're giving an entire continent to a single race then you have to explain why they haven't conquered the world. An entire united continent is generally going to massively outmatch the patchwork of feudal kingdoms that make up the core of most settings (e.g. the Sword Coast or the Dalelands, the Five Nations, The Empire etc - the place most adventures actually take place or a least start) so why haven't the dwarves conquered it?
Maybe they're isolationist a la Haijin China, maybe they're a race in decline (the usual reason elves haven't conquered the world despite their own continent) or in the midst of a massive war amongst themselves, maybe their continent is too small or poor or inhospitable so that even though they control the whole continent (at least ostensibly) they're still not strong enough to conquer the protagonist continent, maybe they're not the conquering type (e.g. they're all too Good to conquer other races or they follow some inscrutable purpose like the Mostali of Glorantha and have no interest in what the other races do).
The obvious choice for any distant foreign continent (especially a mono-cultural continent) is to make them Asian-coded. That narrative fits easily into most people's heads.
For dwarves I'd crib heavily from Warhammer Chaos Dwarfs in terms of culture and appearance. Use Haijin-style isolationism or Mostali-style devotion to the World Machine to explain why they haven't conquered the rest of the world. Part of me wants to give them a race of slaves
As far as how they're relevant to the rest of the world
>The occasional exile fleeing the dominant dwarf autocracy
>Huge ships of traders that occasionally arrive at ports
>Mysterious agents sent to enforce the will of the World Machine
Distinctly smaller than the other continents
I don't really like Majority Dwarf countries cause It takes away from their Stronghold culture. Makes more sense to me if they're more like reservations in some seemingly in hospital crag. If there's a council of mayors, barons, and counts in a region, they'll invite a representative from the Dwarves and Halflings on their lands to hear out them out. Dwarves only care for war and news about what's safe to hunt this year, while the halfling representative might enjoy the haggling and gossip
rocky
Short.
Railroads connecting every hold
dwarf continent idea 1
it was a very prosperous land at the edge of the world, ahead of everyone else, but they mined too deep...evoking cataclysms and eruptions that tore apart the entire landmass like paper, then shattering it into thousands of isles . those who fled thousands years ago and arrived to not!MiddleEarth have come to be known as the Dwarfs. those who stayed behind are now a much different culture. bearded and short in stature still, but have become island dwellers and boatmen renowned for primitive warfare. occasionally a cave or a wound in the earth emerges, revealing long abandoned forgotten dwarven halls, treasure and technology
Not a continent but close enough
Just a really big mountain range