I did some thinking about the dwarves in my setting last night and I figured I'd share some thoughts here.
The dwarves are mainly underground creatures, the live in caves and mines, often in perpetual darkness. They will either have very sensitive eyes to allow them to make use of what little light there is or they'll be nearly blind, kind of like moles.
A consequence of this is that dwarves in the outside, surface, world are mostly active during the night. In the day it's too bright for them and they have trouble seeing well enough to work. In the modern day the existence of sunglasses has changed this slightly, but most dwarves still prefer night-time activity.
Another consequence of living underground in the darkness is that facial expressions as a component of communication is almost completely absent. With humans and other daylight, surface dwellers, facial expressions say a lot about a person when they're talking, but not so with dwarves. Instead they have a much more varied vocal language. They have to make up for the lack of facial expression through the sound of what they're saying. Tone, volume, speed, accent etc all have a lot more import in dwarven speech than among the other races.
A side effect of this is that dwarves are highly praised as singers.
The main sustenance of the dwarves comes from the mineral dust that wafts through the air in their caves and tunnels. It's filtered through their beards in order for them to get rid of particles they don't need and then transported to their mouths/feeding holes (I haven't really gotten into exact details about exactly how they eat).
Somewhere under the beard is a mouth of some kind which is where the mineral dust enters the body.
I imagine it's a bit similar to how large whales live on plankton that they filter out of the water they swim through. In the same way the dwarves live off of mineral dust they filter out of the air they breathe (social consequences when interacting with non-dwarves to be pondered at leisure).
Bearing the above in mind I've got this image of the typical dwarf on the surface looking a bit like a mix between Super Mario and on the bearded guys in ZZ Top.
The dwarves are mainly underground creatures, the live in caves and mines, often in perpetual darkness. They will either have very sensitive eyes to allow them to make use of what little light there is or they'll be nearly blind, kind of like moles.
A consequence of this is that dwarves in the outside, surface, world are mostly active during the night. In the day it's too bright for them and they have trouble seeing well enough to work. In the modern day the existence of sunglasses has changed this slightly, but most dwarves still prefer night-time activity.
Another consequence of living underground in the darkness is that facial expressions as a component of communication is almost completely absent. With humans and other daylight, surface dwellers, facial expressions say a lot about a person when they're talking, but not so with dwarves. Instead they have a much more varied vocal language. They have to make up for the lack of facial expression through the sound of what they're saying. Tone, volume, speed, accent etc all have a lot more import in dwarven speech than among the other races.
A side effect of this is that dwarves are highly praised as singers.
The main sustenance of the dwarves comes from the mineral dust that wafts through the air in their caves and tunnels. It's filtered through their beards in order for them to get rid of particles they don't need and then transported to their mouths/feeding holes (I haven't really gotten into exact details about exactly how they eat).
Somewhere under the beard is a mouth of some kind which is where the mineral dust enters the body.
I imagine it's a bit similar to how large whales live on plankton that they filter out of the water they swim through. In the same way the dwarves live off of mineral dust they filter out of the air they breathe (social consequences when interacting with non-dwarves to be pondered at leisure).
Bearing the above in mind I've got this image of the typical dwarf on the surface looking a bit like a mix between Super Mario and on the bearded guys in ZZ Top.