A miserable little pile of secrets!

Perhaps it could be said of all re... creature types !

Your words are as empty as your soul! Gnomekind ill needs a saviour such as you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abenaki_mythology

There's an entry in Abenaki mythology that talks about a group of dwarves that upset canoes and where seeing one supposedly fortells death by drowning.
... I dunno.

dwarves should be equipment focused instead of cats. just imagine if every equipment cat was a dwarf

That is a very good point..

Yeah, I understand how cats got there; cause really it makes sense in a logical progression thing*, but holistically dwarves make a lot more sense for that.

*Cats get it cause leonin were white in Mirrodin, and Mirrodin is where we first saw equipment and combining artifacts with white weenie strategies gave us equipment matters cats, and it's just kind of stuck since cats have cared qbout equipment since equipment first existed.

That's just one more reason for keeping dwarves primarily in red, with only a splash of white. That way they can still care about equipment and have some overlap with the white equipment-matters stuff that's already there without stepping on the cats' paws because dwarves would do their equipment shenanigans mostly in red. Even if dwarves end up being evenly split between white and red, red equipment matters is a place where cats can't go but dwarves can.

You can't tell a cat it can't go somewhere. It's gonna go there anyway. Cats are like that...

Cats should be all colors and get all mechanics because cats are cats.

And so are dwarves...

Step on those paws! Crush their little toes; those cat toes that shouldn't even be able to hold equipment!

But... but cats! Animal cruelty! Help!

Animal cruelty is exactly what cats did to deserve this.

...don't listen to him, Hungry Lynx. He doesn't mean it.

This makes me wonder how those in fursuits and mascots manage to grab things.

Dwarven tigerfolk

I once had that embryonic worldbuilding idea for a plane where a variety of cat people of all colours, shapes and sizes are the only sapient race. Firecat Flamekin were among them. That would actually be damn cool. Not that they couldn't make 'normal' catfolk in , but Firecat Flamekin would be even better

Give them ashen grey fur to blend in with their mountain homes, flat skulls, short necks, hunched shoulders, and sabreteeth. Sounds like a winner.

I tend to see a strong white element in classic dwarves not only because of their associations with stone but with their adherence to tradition, closeness to hearth and clan, their sense of preserving tradition, and creating kingdoms. Fantasy dwarves build ancient citadels in mountains and tend to fortify them, making them last for a long, long time - sounds pretty white to me. When they emerge to fight, they're full of vigour and roaring and chanting and are pretty red when on the offensive. While gnomes have horned in on their space as engineers, in most other fantasy universes I think that dwarves still get the best of engineering for both red (they get the creative, forging, and steam powered aspects) and white (they get impressive architecture, enduring citadels, and clever tactics and traps). There's also a blue element in how dwarves often have secrets for forging (either through a technique or a material) and the whole "ancient, buried, and forget secrets" schtick leaves dwarves feeling very to me.

I think magic could shake up dwarves a bit by playing them up as aescetics. I think a race of fantastic weaponsmiths with centuries-long lifespans living in mountain fortresses has some appeal. I would like to see them played up as knowing some really old secrets, the things the others all forgot but they remembered because of their ancient traditions. In fitting with their colour combo, they'd be a more defensive play style involving tricking your opponents into attacking you at the wrong time, reflecting a sort of "aloof from the world's affairs" view.

Probably not the most fun play style I'll admit, but I think there are aspects to dwarves beyond ale and smithing that could also be explored.