Editing Dwarf (section)

=Dwarves vs. Gnomes=
Casuals who stumble across [[Dungeons & Dragons]] may find themselves wondering why there are ''two'' races of mechanically adept artisic short hairy men in the game, the dwarves and the [[gnomes]]. Well, the answer is fairly simple.

See, in mythology, "dwarves" and dwarf-like beings cover a wide spectrum of critters. They're usually considered a kind of [[fey|faerie]], and thusly in many cultures, dwarves are depicted not as the stern, grim, magical craftsmen of [[Viking]] lore, but as surprisingly down-to-earth people, but possessed of many magical abilities. There are many stories of dwarves in European cultures weaving illusions and changing shapes and otherwise performing all manner of mystical feats. Now, [[Gygax]] and his buddies were big mythology buffs, and they knew these stories. But, at the same time, they were also huge [[Tolkien]] fans, and their vision for the prototype of D&D was to use the Tolkienian model for dwarves. So, in the end, they said "fuck it", and just brought the magical yet down to earth dwarves of Europe into D&D as gnomes, whilst dwarves in the Tolkien model were allowed to retain their name. And it has continued ever since out of tradition.

The highlight of this has to be found in [[Mystara]], the very first campaign setting of [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. In this setting, originally, the dwarves were a people known as the Kogolor, who dwelled in cities they established on the mountains. Physically and mentally, they were more like the gnomes of the present day; outgoing, cheerful, talkative and gregarious. They had no particular resistance to magic or toxin, nor any great focus on craftsmanship, although they were (and remain) great brewers of liquor. During the Rain of Colorless Fire, their numbers began to drop rapidly, as the poisons released by the [[Blackmoor]] disaster devastated their number. An Immortal named [[Kagyar]] decided that he could use the dwarves to create a race to his design; one shaped to survive against future disasters of this scale. He took the hardiest of the Kogolor and made them tougher still, granting them resistance to magic and toxin. He filled their minds with an obsession to craft lasting works in stone and metal - things would survive the passage of time - and made them feel an instinctive yearning for the shelter of deep caves, that they would naturally gravitate towards homes that doubled as fallout shelters. He made them stubborn, conservative, and xenophobic, inclined to shun others and to cling to tradition above all else, that they would not stray from this mold. Satisfied with his work, he dubbed them "dwarves" and returned them to claim the mountains of Mystara, whilst the Kogolor he absent-mindedly swept away and discarded in the Hollow World. This did not sit particularly well with one of Kagyar's students, Garal Glitterlode - the prototype for [[Garl Glittergold]], himself an ascended Kogolor. Since his former people were gone, he recreated them, this time shaping them to be smaller and more flexible, to seek out shelter in forests as well as mountains, and thus were born the first gnomes, as a more "true to the original" descendant of the original Kogolor.