Legends of Belariath
Mozenwrathe
What I am Not...
There have been a number of tales and songs made by elves, humans, and centaurs over the centuries about my people.You will note how most of those bards and scholars had met maybe one or three of the Chosen People in their natural lives (or unnatural as the case may be).Something else that has always struck me as humorous is the way they always manage to leave out some important detail a dwarven wordsmith would never have.And yet do many consider these tales and legends as recited by the voices of others "the truth."
Such rubbish is one of the reasons why I take no stock in the bandied-about shard-speak I am the unwilling audience to.
If naught else, there is much any dwarf - from a smith in the vales to a foreign swallow-dasher (a mistress of the greatsword to you non-dwarven types actually reading this) - could tell you about what we are.Hundreds of scrolls exist in the vaults of the royalty and the lorekeepers, rich with the history of the Blessed of Lightning and Thunder.If you ever wanted to, I am sure they would let you in to read a few texts to get you properly pushed thought-wise into seeing we dwarves in a more golden light.
That is not what I am going to do.
I am no trained orator, nor am I some dove-speeched poet.I am a warrior and ogre-slayer, and what I CAN tell you is what I am not.
What no dwarf is, to begin with, is a shrunken human, a malformed elf, and most definitely nothing even closely related to an orc or goblin.Anyone who calls us something like that gets what they get - normally a helmet to the jawline or a gauntlet straight to the lower belly.Nothing personal, but we find that a personal insult.
Never, ever, do that.
Something else we are not, is a footstool for ogres or Minotaurs.Wolven as well try to get wise with the barmaids and prostitutes some days, trying to use their tails to dust the faces of the damsels.What they constantly forget is that the average dwarf is armed and dangerous as long as there is a fork or something metal close at hand.You would be surprised at how swiftly a wrist can fall off the bone with nothing more than an angry bartender holding a regular half-dull dirk when an ogre paws her for the fifteenth time.
Another major issue I have with you taller races is associating us with Halflings.Not that I mind them, for they have their uses - just not in a fight most of the time.They make great thieves, and are as good in a kitchen as we are in a forge, but they are NOT distance or close relatives to us in any way shape or form.Next thing you know, you'll be insisting that humans and elves were formed from the same Godforge, and that Minotaurs and centaurs have a common GreatSpirit which oversees them all.
Nonsense.
Not all dwarves are filled with wrath and rage, nor are they even all holding axes when we come from our mothers.We are as frail as one of those high elven bards that constantly sing their own praises while young, but we hardy up far more swift than a Sithian's tail can slap the taste from the mouth of a fresh-speaking Torian.(Not that they do not all need to have that done from time to time, but such is well known anyway.)As younglings, we have the same weaknesses and strengths as most other races do, but we just handle things better than the rest of you.Why?Because we are dwarves, why else?
Something I just remembered from a rather handfasted and condensed conversation with an overly drunk dark elven sorceress: about where we live.I do not live in a cave, in a tree, or in a bog.Wherever we dwarves choose to reside, we make that landscape our own.A forge and a proper smithy are not always made first, but you can expect them sooner or later, even for the more arboreal branches.So we are not slaves to where we live, either.
Idiot girl thought that those of us who left the surface were former slaves to escaped the "cruel bondage" of the sunlight to be "free to roam" Below.As if anything is truly free underneath the crust of the realm.Sure, we dwarves can spend much of our lives under the soil of what most of you call home, but we are not by any means dark-lovers by the same degree as the dark elves.You would have to be completely insane to crave the shadows like they do.Give me a torch and some flint any day.
So maybe now you might have a better idea of what we dwarves are not.If you do not prove yourselves completely feckless shards of pyrite, you might even be honored to be allowed to know exactly what a dwarf actually IS...