The Forge: Dwarves!

I had hoped to show off my neat Tarot-card based system, but alas, it has escaped me and I can't find it. So instead you get a look at dwarves for my homebrewn D&D setting. How they would despise my laziness!

My major complaint with the modern dwarf in D&D is that it's kind of become a lukewarm race. Not quite Norse as barbarians, not quite as hardy as duergar, not quite as skilled as gnomes, not quite as fearsome as drow, etc.

And so I decided to use the deep dwarves from the Monster Manual, and kick them up a notch. That 'kick' comes up with the simple fact that in my setting, dwarves are the major bulwark against the chromatic dragons. Their eternal enemies are the dragons and their lackeys, the kobolds.

Just setting up dwarves as "the folk that kick dragon ass in the dark" already makes them feel more epic in my mind. I'm pretty happy with the result.

Dwarf

The people of the deep, dwarves are best known for being the race to plumb deepest into the thick earth and stone of the land, and create virtual paradises out of nothing more than stone and soil. Their wars against the ancient wyrms beneath the world are things of legend, and they often war against the wyrms' servants - the kobolds - in order to keep their axes sharp.

• +2 Constitution, -2 Charisma.
• Medium: As Medium creatures, dwarves have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Dwarf base land speed is 20 feet. However, dwarves can move at this speed even when wearing medium or heavy armor or when carrying a medium or heavy load (unlike other creatures, whose speed is reduced in such situations).
• Darkvision: Dwarves can see in the dark up to 90 feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight, and dwarves can function just fine with no light at all.
• Stonecunning: This ability grants a dwarf a +2 racial bonus on Search checks to notice unusual stonework, such as sliding walls, stonework traps, new construction (even when built to match the old), unsafe stone surfaces, shaky stone ceilings, and the like. Something that isn’t stone but that is disguised as stone also counts as unusual stonework. A dwarf who merely comes within 10 feet of unusual stonework can make a Search check as if he were actively searching, and a dwarf can use the Search skill to find stonework traps as a rogue can. A dwarf can also intuit depth, sensing his approximate depth underground as naturally as a human can sense which way is up.
• Weapon Familiarity: Dwarves may treat dwarven waraxes and dwarven urgroshes as martial weapons, rather than exotic weapons.
• Stability: A dwarf gains a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, flying, riding, or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground).
• Light Sensitivity: Dwarves are dazzled in bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.
• +3 racial bonus on saving throws against poison.
• +3 racial bonus on saving throws against spells and spell-like effects.
• +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against monsters of the dragon type.
• +4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against monsters of the dragon type of large size or larger. Any time a creature loses its Dexterity bonus (if any) to Armor Class, such as when it’s caught flat-footed, it loses its dodge bonus, too.
• +2 racial bonus on Appraise checks that are related to stone or metal items.
• +2 racial bonus on Craft checks that are related to stone or metal.
• Automatic Languages: Common and Dwarven. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Gnome, Goblin, Orc, Terran, and Undercommon.
• Favored Class: Fighter. A multiclass dwarf ’s fighter class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.