What started the "Dwarven Engineer" Shtick?

[AquaFire]

Hello everyone,

I have been roleplaying for fun with several friends and I often have a fun time doing so; however, I get disappointed when fellow roleplayers would start using overused fantasy tropes such as:

-Antagonization of Orcs/Goblins/Trolls
-Glorification of Elves and Elven Society
-Elves are master archers
-Emperor is a Dragonblood (Why do Roleplayers love Elder Scrolls?)
-Blondes being dumb... (haha)

I could see how some people could make arguments as to how these tropes happen to be; however, one trope I haven't been able to figure out was the "Dwarves being more technologically advanced than other races." My first impression of this was that Warcraft was what popularized this trope. Tolkien had never shown Dwarves to have large flying machines, clockwork elevators and gates, or rifles. Dungeons and Dragons (3rd Edition) had also never classified Dwarves to be any more tech-savvy than another race. I cannot find a "Logical" argument as to why Dwarves would have the technological edge. I hear most people talk about how "they were born for mountain-life, and thus, are able to have thriving communities with a decent metal income" (in which case, more metal doesn't make you smarter unless you had societal pressure to invest in inventors in which even then, other races wouldn't be that different) I would like to know what started this trope. Was I correct in thinking it was WC? or is there another origin that i am not aware of? If you are also able to make a logical argument as to why Dwarves would be better engineers than most, if would be a fun read and also allow me to feel less negative towards other roleplayers.

 

[Lord Aiden]

I started them

 

[MiniMage]

I started them

Neat.

Edit: Actually, let me give you a serious answer.

-Antagonization of Orcs/Goblins/Trolls
Orcs/Goblin/Trolls are taken straight from norse mythology. They were monsters used to teach kids not to venture out into the forests at night, as wild animals had a high probability to kill them. Trolls would have terrifying powers to wield the powers of the shadows. In fact the swedish language still retains words from those days. The swedish word for "Magic" is "Troll formler" (roughly translated as Troll formulas or The troll arts). In essence, trolls are the origin of magic. Particularly the vicious kind. The popularized image of a magician." Goblins would be a similar creature that would steal items or try to lure kids into large ambushes. The Orc is basically what you get if you combine a troll with a goblin and give them the physique of a large man. At times there were armies who would move through the forests, it could be an invading tribe or an invading army. In either case, the children would be silenced quickly as they move through the forest.

In blizzard, Orcs are less monster and more primitive beast. Goblins become technological and Trolls also become primitive spearmen and witch doctors.

-Glorification of Elves and Elven Society
Elves in norse mythology was a ghostly entity that could reveal itself as a beautiful man or woman, depending on who was looking at it. Farmers would present offering to the creature to ensure that his farm and cattle recieved blessings. If you disrespected the elves however, you could bring a curse upon your family instead. No one really knew how they really looked like, as they would change their apperances based on who looked at it.

My best guess. They wanted to mimic Legolas from the lord of the rings movies and as such applied that image to an entire race and just rolled with it.

-Elves are master archers
This is a primarly based on Tolkiens version, where all elves are humanoids with pointy ears with agility and dexterity, making them perfectly suited to archery. They never tend to be strong though, which doesn't make sense because you need quite a bit of muscle to properly pull back the bowstring.

-Emperor is a Dragonblood (Why do Roleplayers love Elder Scrolls?)
Kids like fire. Dragonblood gives the potential of an Emperor with command over flames. Long story short, it's cool.

-Blondes being dumb... (haha)
This stems from the fact that blondes are beautiful to the point that they don't need to think. Every whim or desire would be taken care of as long as they stayed beautiful. Others would do favours for them, which is why the stereotype is them being shallow and stupid.

-Dwarves being more technologically advanced than other races.
This is actually inspired by norse mythology. Dwarves are from a rather technological realm where the majority were technological and masterful artisans, they even created the weapons that the norse gods wield. For example Thors hammer, Mjölnir was crafted by the dwarves. Blizzard just extended their artisanry towards machinery and gunpowder.

Everything in modern fantasy has its origin in norse mythology. It has been slightly twisted from its origin, popularizing most tropes after Tolkiens vision.

 

[Cuore]

As far as the figure of the gaming-oriented technodwarf go, I bring evidence of this kind of route being explored before warcraft. See the example page: Dwarf Pilot and you'll recognize similiarities.
It is an unofficial wiki focused on the set of books published by games workshop in 1986: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st Edition) - Lexicanum

If earlier accounts are to be found, I advise researching on-theme literature of that decade and the previous ones, more than games or videogames.

As the post above quite clearly states, a loose connection is implicit from ancient northeuropean mythology. I have nothing to add to that.

 

[MiniMage]

Well, Norse mythology sprung up about the age 760 (might have been even earlier). So it's about 1226 years earlier than warhammer.

I pointed out that blizzard could be a probable cause of modern usage. The reason for exponentional usage in modern times. Naturally the latest one will have the greatest impact. I would place stories of actual technological dwarves in the medieval times to the victorian era, where steam engines started to become a thing. Back then, when they imagined steam powered mechanical men. Basically the precursors to the steampunk genre.

In fact, there's a story about a man who created steam powered mechanical parts and replaced parts of himself until he himself was a pure tinker man. He realized that he wouldn't have to fear death anymore. But he would live eternally. However, he also realized that he no longer was human and that his heart now was cold. I don't remember much, I just remember that it was a german story.

 

[Cuore]

It's inappropriate to compare Norse mythology and warhammer in the way you do it.

Here comes in the english-as-a-foreign-language factor but the sentence "Blizzard being a probable cause of modern usage" (of what?) is not making much sense to me. The goal here is to find out who first put guns and schematics in the hands of dwarves in a fantasy setting. If you mean that blizzard's work has been influential I agree. If you mean to state that it was the first to feature such themes I tell you "not precisely".


I'm sure your references can have been inspirational cues for techdwarves in fantasy. However, it would be best to cite the ealiest techdwarven themed fictional product alongside them or we could miss the point of the thread. I am not aware of a link between dwarves and firearms/military engineering that came earlier than the one I linked from 1986. Are you aware of one such fiction?

If I can advance a hypothesis based on common sense, I would go no further in the past-digging than tolkien's works publishing date.

 

[MiniMage]

Why is it inappropriate? You asked for the earliest source. There wasn't much specificity in your request, you didn't even define what you meant by technological. By inspirational, you do mean based on, correct?

 

[Cuore]

I'm sure the op can clarify

And as far as I understand the thread, I say you r comparison is inappropriate because Norse mythology is not part of the fantasy genre of fictional works. It has been heavily inspirational for fantasy but it was very different in aims, scope, literary form, distribution methods and intended users

Ah and yes "inspirational for" might be bad lexicon for "based on"

I believe that you're entirely correct in dating a link between dwarves and craftsmanship back to northeuropean mythology. I merely ask if you could add what in your knowledge is the earliest techdwarven theme appearance in fantasy fiction.

I see now you ask for a definition of technology relevant for the discussion. I really can't describe it better than the op does.

 

[MiniMage]

I would have to disagree with the statement that it's not part of modern fantasy. I would argue that modern fantasy is 80% norse mythology, 17% Tolkien derivatives and the remaining 3% are edits to ensure that the fantasy genre doesn't get stale.

If you're looking for the recent mentions of the beginnings of these editions, most edits have started to become exponentionally more common since 1974 when Dungeons and Dragons became a thing.

I'm not able to pinpoint much earlier than that. Because it's easy to find things about the distant past, and recent future. But if you want to find anything older than that 1976, you'd have to be digging through obscure books that not many people read. It becomes a case of being old but not old enough, the only way to find a definite date would be to ensure that you're very specific what you're asking about.

 

[Cuore]

I am not aware of the state of dwarven technology in the first dungeons and dragons. Trusting the user above on that, this might be insightful information: Sources and influences on the development of Dungeons & Dragons - Wikipedia

Edit: Trusting in the post above and intrigued by the research process, I went ahead and read the booklets making up dnd74. There is one reference to a figure of an engineer (it's a professional that needs to be paid if one desires to excavate tunnels in the context of a siege). But I fail to recognize any hint towards engines, nor firearms, and nothing links dwarves to this kind of practice and objects.

I conclude, based on what I can read, that this trope might have appeared between 1974 and 1983.
That's what I came up with:

• Connections of dwarves to technology date back to northeuropean mythologic tales.
• Literary origins of modern technology connected to dwarves, within modern fantasy genre are unknown.
• Dnd booklets in 1974 don't display this theme.
• Warhammer fantasy displays this technologic theme from its earliest publications in the Eighties, but firearms and engines appear not exclusively in the hands of dwarves and in truth are more prominent among human factions (empire).
• Warcraft2 in the Nineties groups up dwarves and gnomes on one side, puts goblins on the other, and assigns the newly-introduced firearm-, and engine technology predominantly to these groups.

So, based on what I can read, warcraft is not the first fantasy fictional product introducing modern technology and having dwarves wield it, but is the first to my knowledge that creates the character of the “dwarf with the gun” and tries to have it perceived as typical by the audience.

 

[Roland]

"Shtick"

 

[AquaFire]

Hello everyone,

Sorry I am kind of late on replying to this thread. However, a lot of these posts were really good reads. To clarify the question (as there were some small confusions that arose), I had been wondering what started the Dwarf Engineer theme in fiction, asking for as many examples in the past as possible (Myth, Early Game-Writing, Books, etc.). For fun, I did have a small followup asking whether it was even a logical theme to have for an entire race of short stocky people

Originally, I had assumed Dwarves to be from a Germanic culture (I never thought Wikipedia would come in that useful; sorry for lack or research xD) but I do believe Dwarves are derived from Norse mythology. Same with Elves (which I had thought were derived from Greek sprites, nymphs, etc.) I especially liked reading the segment about Elves cursing farmers (Someone make a Death Battle!!).

Now, for the thread, the Ynglinga Saga (the Norse Equivalent of Homer's Epics [or... something like that]) alludes that Dwarfs were known healers as well as smiths (and had thousands of confusing nicknames). I should mention that I am not a big reader so I was kind of just skimming through the 56 chapter document so I might be quite off with my interpretations. It was also hard to track Dwarfs in the document as the document itself was telling tales of Odin and a line of Norse kings.

Craftsmanship would be the biggest trait to affiliate with Dwarfs with the creation of the ultimate God Hammer (Mjollnir). This would entice game companies or storywriters to write them off as gifted smithers, inventors, etc. The Sons of Ivaldi (creators of Mjollnir) were dwarves who were able to create god-level magical items (including Mjollnir). Reginn (known as Mime in Wagnerian writing) would be another dwarf smith who made the sword, Gram, for slaying the dragon, Fafnir. All-in-All after reading some Andvari tales, I could say that most of Tolkien's writing in the Hobbit holds parallels with Norse mythology (as some of you alluded to). All of these craft achievements would place the tag of Dwarfs being master metalcrafters; to go back to Dwarven Tech Advancement and the affiliation with engineering, it would entice writers to place them above other fantasy races as most societies rose because of successful smithing of steel.

Although Dwarves had been master smiths in writing, Cuore had been the one to mention that Dwarves showed technological prowess in Warhammer (which a friend once told me that Games Workshop used to be in league with Blizzard [unsure about the truth]). However, this prowess seems to be merely based on the passing of time as he also mentioned humans had access to firearms at the time (assuming that the humans had invented them). However, that could have sparked multiple images of "Dwarves with high-tech equipment" which were made popular by franchises like Warcraft (where Dwarves invented Rifles [based off the Warcraft Movie xD]) because who cares if a human race has badass guns (it's old and has been reminiscent of the sadness of truth and reality).

Now this is where I start getting salty. Sure Dwarves have had a history in fiction and myth to have been master craftsmen and that could give them an edge over most other societies (assuming craftsmanship has been tradition in Dwarf kingdoms for centuries) but does being born a dwarf make you smarter than a human? Even before Norse Mythology became prominent (somewhere in around 700 AD), Chinese Empires (in the 400 BC's) have been known to create early flying machines and explosives. Throughout our own history, it has been humans as old as 3 thousand years-old who has made remarkable discoveries in math, astrology, and invention. Perhaps the image of a Norse Viking has hurt the credibility of the human brain even though in most fantasy fiction, human societies seem to be more similar to kingdoms in feudal Europe than in the Anglo-Saxon era.

For fun, while discrediting magic out of the equation, I challenge readers to be able to make scientific arguments at how a dwarf's physique and chemical buildup could allow a civilizational edge over a race like humans.

I thank everyone for posting on this thread and I hope to keep the conversation going.

 

[Cuore]

Now this is where I start getting salty. Sure Dwarves have had a history in fiction and myth to have been master craftsmen and that could give them an edge over most other societies (assuming craftsmanship has been tradition in Dwarf kingdoms for centuries) but does being born a dwarf make you smarter than a human? Even before Norse Mythology became prominent (somewhere in around 700 AD), Chinese Empires (in the 400 BC's) have been known to create early flying machines and explosives. Throughout our own history, it has been humans as old as 3 thousand years-old who has made remarkable discoveries in math, astrology, and invention. Perhaps the image of a Norse Viking has hurt the credibility of the human brain even though in most fantasy fiction, human societies seem to be more similar to kingdoms in feudal Europe than in the Anglo-Saxon era.

Let's not draw conclusions on intelligence from a choice that has nothing to do with such implications: arming dwarves with firearms in a fictional universe is a choice of fashion, taste and opportunity, it's not done to make one seem more intelligent but because it's cool/sells better. Implied intelligence differences are put there by a reader's interpretation and are sensible and legitimate, as long as one doesnn't get confused into thinking they are part of the inherent logic of the fiction.

As for excuses for a civilizational edge for dwarves, one can come up with a great deal of explanations through sheer imagination.
Whether technology, firearms and higher-tech weapons determine a higher degree of civilization, that can be doubted.

 

[Naze]

Oops too I'm late, I was to come here and point at Warhammer, but Cuore did that before me. It is clearly the fictional universe from which Warcraft took most inspiration from, at least in the very beginning of the series. And my bet is that they're presented as a high tech civilization inside Warhammer universe due to the fact that most fantasy tropes were exaggerated in there: orcs are 10x more brutal and stupid than in D&D and Tolkien, etc. And since they were the all-skilled guys in smithing, that was the way to go.

But I won't attribute it to some kind pre-existing biological tendency to comprehend technology, or to being more intelligent, I see it as if they're a race that combines both interest and easy access to the means of developing technology (having plenty of forges and whatever else in their towns).

An interesting thing is that goblins are seen as tech-savvy too in some fantasy settings, in their own way of course, and it seems to me that it has nothing to with their origins in mythology, but rather with The Hobbit. There are, like, 2 lines of text from that book that say that goblins eventually do some experimenting with fire and mechanical creations. And that they take joy in building clumsy stuff, specially if the machine does the hard work for them. When I read that I wondered if that small unpretentious excerpt from the book was the base for most of the current interpretation of fantasy goblins.

which a friend once told me that Games Workshop used to be in league with Blizzard [unsure about the truth]

o: I didn't know about that. I always guessed that Blizzard wanted to make an RTS based on Warhammer races but couldn't, so they kinda took the humans and greenskins and made Warhammercraft 1.

 

[MiniMage]

Now, for the thread, the Ynglinga Saga (the Norse Equivalent of Homer's Epics [or... something like that]) alludes that Dwarfs were known healers as well as smiths (and had thousands of confusing nicknames). I should mention that I am not a big reader so I was kind of just skimming through the 56 chapter document so I might be quite off with my interpretations. It was also hard to track Dwarfs in the document as the document itself was telling tales of Odin and a line of Norse kings.

Norse mythology, particularly their stories, refer to elves and dwarves interchangably. Some instances show them being healers, while in others, they are pure artisans. In others they are powerful sorcerers. For example, in one instance, a dwarf transformed himself into the dragon Fafnir to guard a priceless treasure. As for elves themselves. Agewise, the concept of elves developed from the trolls. Among the dwarves, there's numerous kinds. As vikings conqured and ruled territories, who have then adaped their stories. In many cases, house elves is a thing. But in the north, it's more common to refer to them as a type of dwarf. Typically referred as the "Tomtar". They looked liked like miniature version of santa claus with a brown color palette as opposed to the red and white that santa has.

Now this is where I start getting salty. Sure Dwarves have had a history in fiction and myth to have been master craftsmen and that could give them an edge over most other societies (assuming craftsmanship has been tradition in Dwarf kingdoms for centuries) but does being born a dwarf make you smarter than a human? Even before Norse Mythology became prominent (somewhere in around 700 AD), Chinese Empires (in the 400 BC's) have been known to create early flying machines and explosives. Throughout our own history, it has been humans as old as 3 thousand years-old who has made remarkable discoveries in math, astrology, and invention. Perhaps the image of a Norse Viking has hurt the credibility of the human brain even though in most fantasy fiction, human societies seem to be more similar to kingdoms in feudal Europe than in the Anglo-Saxon era.

Well, vikings had the most advanced technology when it came to ships and weapons. Mostly because of great high quality steel mines that sweden is still famous for. They had stable trade routes and many of the merchants had the ability to speak seven languages. Vikings were also popular guardsmen by roman nobility due to their large stature and fearlessnes. The swedish town Birka had more gold than the rest of the north combined. I'm a little confused how a viking would hurt the "credibility of the human brain".

As for gunpowder. It wasn't invented because of a clever idea. But more like a very interesting accident.

They tried to mix an elixir of life to extend the life of their emperor, instead, they created an explosive compound that leveled their building. The sight of this spurred further experimentation into this because of the military potential. That is how it came to be. If Dwarves have the technological edge, they would most likely be experimenting with minerals a lot more. As their race is primarily miners and blacksmiths, they should have an immense surplus of these components. Thus, enabling them to experiment more and as luck would have it, gunpowder is invented. It would then be used by miners and would be further refined as a consequence of this.

For fun, while discrediting magic out of the equation, I challenge readers to be able to make scientific arguments at how a dwarf's physique and chemical buildup could allow a civilizational edge over a race like humans.

As mentioned before. It's not about chemical or structural compositon, it's about having access to materials and being safe enough to have the necessary time to develop it.

Craftsmanship would be the biggest trait to affiliate with Dwarfs with the creation of the ultimate God Hammer (Mjollnir).

Mjönir wasn't the ultimate god hammer. In fact the hammer itself retains no power, it's just very dense, heavy and resilient. No human can really lift it. It's not like marvel where it choses its master. It's just really frigging heavy and only someone with the power of a giant would be capable of lifting it, As all norse gods were half giants. When the hammer was given to him, it was too short, so he couldn't swing it, so he threw it. In norse mythology, thunder is explained as thor throwing his hammer, attacking the giants. The dwarves also made a sword for Thors brother, Tyr as well as the spear "Gungnir" for Odin among many other weapons and tools.