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The reason why dwarves have had such an amazing tenure in fantasy roleplaying games is the same as that which explains their (relatively) rapid disappearance from fantasy literature. Namely: all dwarves are pretty much the same. RPGs are very low-bandwidth by their nature. We start with a large group (not two people communicating, or even a crowd of three, but often as many as five or eight or, in the olden days, twenty), who all must more-or-less understand every part of a nonexistent scenario to the same degree, and who are only organized for a very limited time. In a fantasy roleplaying game, originality is not a universal good. If I create a setting where honungaleisant erdocans go around mimeteing thrinths by elsandele and irri-iwi, then it might speak to the true nature of the human condition, but I'm going to have a bugger of a time getting players to understand what the Hell is going on. "Thrinths are basically elfs, and mimetea is basically magic" is a powerful and useful…