I think elves are kind of pulling back to pre-tolkien folklore too, though. You put a humanoid sapient in and you get some of the interpretations of the Fair Folk/Elves/People of the woods.

See, with the fair folk, the idea of nature was primarily drawn because people would bloody vanish if they went too far out. I mean, the sidhe would have probably been black if anything. The strongest ties to nature in those early tales were probably the Tuatha de Dannan, and even then, they ran a big gamut and were not remotely elvish. That's not even getting into the alfir from nordic inspirations, which in fairness are probably the closest paradigm to Tolkien.

I mean, the hilarious part to me is the idea of the fey associating with the modern elf aesthetic when those were a world apart from the sidhe who have a closer resemblance to proto elves. If we were matching inspiration to aesthetic, we'd still have green fairies instead of blue ones and elves would be either black or white.

Ok it's been years since I read these books and I probably did a lot of work to convince myself that I liked them since Otherland is one of my favorite series of all time but... how did they grab idiot balls? I honestly don't re... mem...

Wait... wait...

Didn't they have the entire prophecy and still did the thing with the swords that did the thing? Oh my god I totally forgot about that till you mentioned it. How... how did they not see that coming. Yeeeeuuuurgh yeah that was pretty bad. If I'm remembering correctly how that went down and how obviously avoidable it was.

@Barinellos:

I feel like this is another area where the shallowness of Green (and Red really) have wrecked bloody havoc with what creatures go in what color. If green was allowed to have a nasty edge beyond RAAA SMASH they might still work in green. Any of them really.

I remember reading something where the Sidhe were a thing and existed on a different scale compared to humans. The dwarf stood about eight feet in height but was, well, dwarfed, by his Sidhe brethren.

I'll have to check out Otherland, then. I actually owned the first book (second hand) but after reading Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn I decided to avoid it.

Yeah, has problems. I feel has better depths that just aren't explored enough.

I think this is why Satyrs were one of the few things I really enjoyed out of Theros.

dwarves as we know them take a HUGE inspiration from the svartalf from Norse myth. (that's right, dwarves were elves) they had the same body type, but were our size.

Then we have the dokkalfar, which are closer to what people think of dark elves which are commonly confused with the svartalfar given the extreme similarity in their name. (black elf and dark elf. Bleeding hilarious that.)

I have always been of the opinion that dwarves would sit nicely in the wedge, to contrast the goblins and orcs that fit better in the shard.

I'd honestly like the orcs to stay out of green and sort of stick to the red/white/black wedge of identity.

You make Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper sad...

He got new art. That was more than he could have expected.

Maybe it's a general depression talking, but I find myself caring very little about this news. I don't think Dwarves are all that interesting in "traditional fantasy" and the Duergar didn't do anything special for me. As always, I'm wiling to be won over but currently I don't see what Dwarves can offer us that we can't get in any other way.

It'll probably be very much down to execution. On paper I was very excited for the orcs of Tarkir but on.. uh.. on cardboard, I guess, I was pretty underwhelmed by the overall flavor of the set.

@Szat:

I take it that I was not wrong in my recollection of MS&T's climax >_< Yeesh.

Listen though I love Otherland but if you disliked how Tad Williams writes four books when he could write two you are... you are gonna be in for a rough time. It's one of the most bewilderingly imaginative series I've read but it has some pretty critical flaws that all could have been solved with a fearless editor that told him to cut like six plot threads.

I loved Otherland! Or rather, I loved what I read of it. I borrowed it from the local library, and someone else had taken one of the books and never returned it. I could never find another copy, and eventually forgot about it. Thanks for bringing up that painful childhood memory.

It took like a year for me to finish the series due to similar circumstances >_<

It happened to me with another book series too, can't remember what it was called. I believe that UHF had the right idea on treatment of late book returns:

...I need to show this to Sara immediately...

I can definitely see why people think dwarves could/should be , and as I said before, I'm not opposed to the idea of dawrves being equal parts and , I'm just not a fan of moving them out of . I don't see what's inherently wrong with the way dwarves have been portrayed in Magic so far. I mean, adding some more nuance would definitely benefit them, but radically redefining their place in the colour wheel feels like fixing something that isn't broken. They live in the mountains, they are skilled miners, builders, masons, smiths etc. (that is, good at working with metal and stone), they're good at smashing stuff, they're passionate and hot tempered, they like drinking and feasting, they typically wield axes and hammers and have quite a bit of a warrior culture. Many traditions also interpret them as spirits/elementals of the earth.

Adding is fine for the reasons people already stated, though. But (perhaps to a lesser degree) you could also justify splashing any other colour.
, too, is associated with the earth, and also with artisans and with the wisdom that was ascribed to dwarves. I'm pretty sure Snow White's dwarves live in a forest, and proudly reciting long genealogies and telling old stories over a pint or ten also wokrs really well in . Dwarves value tradition and stability, and, in their own way, nature and natural beauty (e.g. Gimli freaking out over the caves of Helm's Deep and wanting his people to care for them).
Adding and turning them into magitech engineers, alchemists or learned wizards and scholars wouldn't feel out of place either. Or, you know, seafarers as on Ulgrotha.
And finally, yeah 's greed, egoism and "not my/our problem" attitude also work for dwarves, plus maybe associations with literal darkness. Kind of like Scrooge McDuck (at least when you make them ).

Edit: Here's hoping the triumphant return of dwarves will take us to Valla (or maybe Kaldheim, though that seems less likely. Or Ulgrotha, but who am I kidding).

In fairness, that's a problem Tad Williams had with everything he wired. It starts out really strong for about two books and then promptly starts wandering into bizarre territory as if he's lost and looking for his mommy.

I think I prefer that for gnomes.

Gnomes have a serious identity problem in magic already.