Common Misconceptions About Dwarfs

There are no female dwarfs, they simply grow out of the ground

It is true that dwarfs aren't born in the organic sense of the word, but to say they grow from the ground is like saying human children just pop up between their mother's legs: a gross oversimplification and demeaning of the hard work of child labour. 

Dwarfs call the extraction of a new dwarf from the ground 'liberation'. The 'entombed' dwarf's body is already fully contained within the rock, waiting to be liberated from the stone and given life in the process. Liberation is an arduous and highly skilled craft during which the body of the dwarf is given its definite form.

This is the true reason you do not 'see' dwarf children. Unlike human children the dwarf's body doesn't grow or develop; barring any external damage it will remain the same throughout their lives (which can theoretically last for ever).

It would therefor be more accurate to say that there are neither female nor male dwarfs, i.e. they are without sex. This does not mean dwarfs are also without gender, though they can be. Depending on the society dwarfs live in, they tend to conform to dominant gender norms much like other people. Throughout the world you can find dwarfs living as men, women, or any other gender present within a given society. 

All dwarfs have beards, which is why people think there are no female dwarfs

A variation of the above, which shows not only ignorance of dwarfs but also of the society these people themselves must be living in. 

For starters, dwarfs don't have natural hair growth, as their bodies have no growth or development of any kind at all. Instead many dwarfs grow moss or other plants on parts of their bodies based on whatever culture they live in and conforming to whatever dominant hairstyles befit the gender they've chosen to live as. So in reality, no dwarf 'has' a beard (as in 'naturally occuring hair growth on the lower half of the face'), but all dwarfs can grow beards by planting vegetation in the appropriate areas. 

So, wherever dwarfs are predominantly masculine and might thus disproportionately choose to grow beards, this is almost always because that society values masculinity more than femininity, making it the more attractive option in the eyes of dwarfs and in fact the eyes of humans. These are the kinds of societies in which human fathers will lament the birth of a daughter, or even blame their wives if repeated copulation fails to produce a son. Obviously in such societies there are still people who choose to live as women regardless of their biological sex, but due to the fact that those societies treat women as beneath men it isn't weird that when given the choice many choose to live as men.

The dominance of masculinity and traditionally masculine features in a dwarf community is thus not due some sort of inherently dwarfen trait, but instead a mirror of the society these particular dwarfs live in. 

Dwarfs are stubborn as a rock and never change their minds

Some think that dwarf minds are as unchanging as their bodies. Those clearly haven't known dwarfs for any real amount of time. Young dwarfs go through mental adolescence much the same as humans do as they try out different occupations and interests to see what fits them. 

One other explanations of this misconception of dwarf stubbornness is that it misattributes a common symptom of age to the dwarfs as a whole. Though still a gross overgeneralization, the phenomenon of old people being less flexible and more set in their ways is not uniquely human and dwarfs do tend to last longer than their flesh born bretheren.

Dwarfs are immune to poison, which is why they drink so much

Dwarf bodies might not develop but they do, however, need fuel to function. Dwarfs commonly consume anything that burns well: oils, coal, pitch, and: strong spirits. This latter one is why some believe dwarfs to be drunks. However, a dwarf is physically incapable of getting drunk off of mere spirits. Anyone who has whiffed the stuff dwarfs do drink when they aim to get inebriated will see this to be true. 

As for poison, it is true that dwarf bodies don't seem to take to poison like we do. The few recorded times dwarfs have been affected by poison, the quantities consumed were enough to poison a small town of humans. And it probably only had any effect because of the following.

The closest thing to poison for a dwarf is anything nonflammable, such as water. It cools them and extinguishes their fuel. This has led to watered down alcohol being seen as a genuine threat by some of history's most powerful dwarfs, and is considered to be the most likely reason for the failed prohibition attempts during Loony Lucidia's reign.  

Dwarfs are crude, clumsy and oafish.

The image of a clumsy dwarf, barreling down the street as they carelessly trample anything in their way is a leftover from propaganda of the War of Oxes, fought between humanists commanded by the would be king George the Bull and the shooting militia of the City of Keys, at the time home to a sizeable and politically active dwarf community. 

However, this image is completely without evidence. Though it is true that dwarf bodies are heavy dwarfs are fully capable of carrying that weight around with dignity and finesse, much like we humans are heavier than mice, but our movement isn't made cumbersome by this difference in weight. Moreover, a mere visit to the famous Golden Circus will quickly put to rest any such nonsensical ideas about dwarf crudeness. 

That is not to say that their relative heft doesn't affect their lives and common occupations. It is physically impossible for dwarfs to swim in water, and contrarty to some strange notions I've encountered, they do require air to breathe. In my interviews with dwarfs who live in coastal regions, this inability to swim is most cited as the reason why they prefer to work on land rather than on sea, though of course many might for various reasons still choose to set sail regardless. 

Side note: When researching I have come across an account of dwarfs living near the Basilisk Bay, who walk on the bottom of the sea with so called 'breathing tubes' to study the bay's many sumberged statues. Unfortunately I was unable to travel that far west to confirm this account, but it goes to show that dwarf weight in relation to water doesn't always have to bea negative. End of side note.

Dwarfs are renowned metalworkers, miners and stonemasons

This prejudice stems from a simple fact: Able-bodied dwarfs have stone sense. When they closely examine a mineral they can tell what it is made off with far greater detail than eye sight, or touch, or smell alone enables us humans to do. 

Like with any other sense, the stone sense of dwarfs varies. Some can sense more accurately and can sense larger quantities of mineral and metal simultaneously than their peers. Others are stone impaired and are a lot less accurate and become even less accurate as the quantity of the mineral increases. On the whole, minerals have an additional complexity to able-bodied dwarfs that they don't have to humans.

Defenders of this misconception often cite stone sense as the reason. They reason that as dwarfs are naturally more adept at working with mineral and metal due to their stone sense, it is no wonder they are disproportionately represented in those areas. 

Obviously, this is bunk. Suppose someone would argue that humans are overrepresented in sweat inducing labour because of our exaggerated ability to sweat (even among other creatures born from flesh). This would be considered laughable. 

The true reason this overrepresentation occurs, whenever it does, is far more sinister. Historically some humanist societies have only valued dwarfs for their stone sense. The polis of Veritas is a good example. For over a century dwarfs in Veritas were forbidden from pursuing any other occupation than one related to metal and minerals. It is historical, humanist oppresion and not innate dwarfness that has forced so many of them to mine work and gemcutting.

Dwarfs love gold and gems

This is by far the most nefarious of the misconceptions I will adress here. Where the existence of stone sense in dwarfs might lead an honest, though ignorant person to conclude that dwarfs are 'more suited' to work with minerals and metals than humans are, it requires malice and wicketness to attempt to justify this horrid idea in anything other than ideas of human supremacy. 

Does my sight make me covetous of pretty things? Does my ability to taste make me gluttenous for good food and drink? My ability to smell obsessed with perfumes? Clearly not. One's ability to sense something is not sufficient ground to say they must all be lovers of the delights to such senses. And that is if we assume there be some inherent pleasantness to gold and gems to dwarf stone sense to begin with!

Unfortunately, this 'observation' about dwarf love for gold and gems is in fact a thinly veiled accusation of supposed innate dwarf greed. There will be dwarfs who love gold and those who love gems, much like there are humans who do so. But to suggest that a dwarf's love will be greater because they can sense the gold on top of seeing it is rediculous. 

If you are not convinced, consider this: do all humans delight in the same sorts of food and drink? Then why would all dwarfs find the sense of the same sorts of stone pleasurable?

Concluding remarks

Hopefully I have been able to adequately correct these saddeningly common misconceptions about our stone born brethern. Your author hopes they have merely come about by ignorance, and whenever malice did play a role, prays it was merely a malice which arose itself from ignorance. 

All these misconceptions have been addressed by dwarfs many times in writing, but their prevalence has unfortunately not lessened. That I, a human, have to come out to address these same misconceptions decades afer the publication of 'In enquiry into dwarfhood' by Hildegarde Hoogoven goes to show how big a problem humanism still is today.

As someone born from flesh I know that my perspective on this is inherently limited. If at any point I erred, know that these were honest mistakes and know that I am always open to a good faith discussion of my work. 

Finally, know that the best way to learn about dwarfs is to talk to them, listen to them, and if you are able to do so, to travel around and see first hand that the diversity of dwarfs easily rivals that of humans.