Races Re-Imagined: Dwarves

So there are three approaches to handling non-human player races that are common in OSR games.

First, there's race-as-class.  That makes non-humans seem exotic, but it also portrays all of them as monolithic and stereotyped, like all elves do magic, all dwarves are warriors, and all halflings are like more specialized thieves.

Second, there's race and class.  That allows players a lot more options and races are no longer monolithic, but they usually end up not feeling exotic at all, being differentiated by a few stat bonus and maybe a minor special ability.  Also certain race/class combinations are almost always clearly optimal, like half-orc warriors, halfling rogues, etc.

Third, there's race and class as class.  I've only seen this in Adventurer, Conqueror King, actually.  Basically you have two or more racial classes for every race, like dwarf warsmith versus dwarf battle-priest, etc.  This keeps races exotic while providing options, but it's more work while still allowing players fewer options than race and class.  Also, racial classes generally end up being either variants of human classes, or blends of two of them, because there are only so many niches a class can fill.

There are other options like the build your own racial heritage thing from The Nightmares Underneath's Nameless Grimoire, but generally it's either those three or humans only.

So here's my pick: race and class, but make the races way more unique and not clearly an ideal match for one specific class.

Criteria for making races more interesting:

1- No ability score bonuses or penalties.  A +1 bonus to one ability score modifier- independent of the ability score itself- is alright in some cases as long as, when combined with their other stuff, it doesn't clearly gear them towards one specific class.

2- Give them 1-3 special things, but don't just make them better at one class's thing, i.e. no bonus to damage, plus bonus to soaking damage, etc.

Stuff like nightvision is good because it's broadly useful for all classes- albeit better for rogues and rangers, and albeit too many races have it in newer editions.  Situational stuff or stuff with drawbacks is good too, like thermographic vision but you can't read or see textures with it.

3- Give them one thing that keeps getting stronger over time, so race stays relevant as you level up just like class does.

4- Give them some kind of inhuman biology that makes them seem alien.

5- Make their society really different from human society, at least partly based on their different biology.

6- Try to rationalize whatever tropes the race is fitting into, especially if it's an established race like elves or hobbits.  For instance, give dwarves a reason why they're so obsessed with mining.

Alright, so dwarves.  I've re-written them, much like I did for trolls and dragons. 

Dwarven Biology

Dwarves mostly look like you'd imagine, except maybe not quite as short.  Four and a half to five feet tall, very stout, the males are mostly bearded and even some of the women are.  They're generally slower and hardier than humans.  Their lifespans vary a lot.  They mostly live underground.  They love ale.  

The big unique thing about dwarves is that they eat gold.  Or drink it sometimes.  

Not just gold.  They mostly eat food.  And ale.  But gold is a vital part of their diet.  Without it they won't die, but they won't be very healthy either.  

The more gold dwarves habitually consume, the healthier, stronger, and better-looking they become.  Consuming gold causes dwarves to become tougher, more resistant to poison, and enhances their ability to see in the dark.  Enough gold and a dwarf develops the ability to sense vibrations in stone.

Also, they need gold to be sexually fertile. Dwarves who consume no gold at all can't have kids.  

Gold consumption eventually shows in a dwarf's appearance.  Their eyes take on a gold sheen.  Their facial hair– including both beards and eyebrows– eventually acquire a slight gold lustre, in extreme cases looking like 

Dwarven Society

Due to their unique biology, you can generally tell how wealthy a dwarf is at a glance.  Between that and the fact that dwarves need to at least not be poor to reproduce, dwarven society is intensely classist.  

Dwarves who can't afford to include at least a little bit of gold in their diet are treated as pariahs.  Dwarves of a higher class are accorded automatic respect by their inferiors. All dwarven societies, other than maybe a few isolated communes, are what sociologists would call high power distance cultures.  

A dwarf is not considered marriagable until they consume enough gold to be sexually fertile.  Unlike in human cultures, identifying them as such is as simple as looking into their eyes.  

Dwarves are obsessed with gold because having more gold is the primary determinant of not only success, but individual worth in their society.  Many is the dwarf who decides to, in the words of 50 Cent, get rich or die trying.  

Dwarven society runs on gold.  Lying about the purity of gold is a serious crime, often punishable by death, mutilation or exile.  Making jewelry or artwork out of gold is the ultimate form of conspicuous consumption.  

Dwarven eyes and beards, as mentioned, show a dwarf's socioeconomic class.  Underclass dwarves are also known as beardless.  Higher-class dwarves grow out their beards to display not only their social class, but how long they've been in it.  Dwarves who become wealthier often trim their beards to hide their past poverty, while those who fall on hard times may braid or style their beards to subtly obscure more recent growth.  

You can tell much about a dwarf's history by their beard.  Dying one's beard gold is a grave social offense– sometimes even illegal– but many do it anyway.  Potions of beard growth are highly sought after by the newly rich.  

Many of the changes wrought by gold consumption, such as thermographic vision and stonesense, have the net effect of making dwarves more suited for life deep underground.  Dwarven cities thus tend to have the wealthier districts deeper underground.  Dwarven throne rooms are laid out like amphitheaters with the throne sitting below the audience. 

This tendency to view lower as better seeps into dwarven languages and thought patterns.  They think of their gods as living underground and the devils in the sky.  Phrases like "high and mighty" are inverted to "low and mighty," and military leaders are the "deep command" rather than the "high command." The rich are the "lower class," or perhaps the "deeper class."  Org charts show the leader on the bottom and workers on top.  

Dwarf Stats

Dwarves are medium-sized, being shorter than humans but about as heavy.

They are about one-third slower over short distances than humans.  If humans move 30 feet per round, dwarves move 20.  However, they are less bothered by heavy loads– encumbered dwarves move as fast as if they were one encumbrance level lower.  

Alcohol is sort of healthy for dwarves.  They get drunk like anyone else, but only suffer half the penalties and it takes twice as much to get hangovers or alcohol poisoning.  They also don't suffer long-term harm such as liver damage from it, and can metabolize alcohol for energy just as well as carbohydrates.  They can't live completely off of alcohol– they need protein, fats, vitamins and minerals– but it can effectively substitute for bread or other carbohydrate sources.

Dwarven characters start out with a small metal file that they use to shave down gold coins for consumption.  Gold is generally shaved into flakes which are mixed with beverages.  It can be sprinkled on food, usually confections, but that tends to be reserved for the lower class (meaning the wealthy, remember).  

Gold Consumption

If you consume no gold, your hair is brittle, your eyes dull, and your skin sallow. You look sickly.  You are sexually infertile, can't get married and probably have no libido.  You get -1 to reaction rolls from other dwarves, other than fellow beardless. Your CON modifier is one lower for all purposes; if CON doesn't already affect hit points in the system you're using then you get one less hit point per level.  This is applied retroactively whenever you change social class, not permanently as you level up.  

If you consume the equivalent of one gold coin per month, you no longer suffer any of those penalties, and you can get laid/married now.  Your eyes and beard start to show flecks of gold– dwarves will notice it, but other races usually won't.  Your vision extends into the infrared range, but this is usually only good for about 30 feet before it starts to get blurry.  

At one gold coin per week, the gold in your hair and eyes may be noticeable to humans who look closely, and is clearly reflective in bright light.  You get +1 to reaction rolls with other dwarves of a higher (that is, worse) social class.  You also gain advantage on saves against poison, and your CON modifier is treated as one higher.  If CON doesn't affect hit points in your system, you get an extra hit point per level as if it did.  

Consume a gold coin per day, and your eyes and beard may glitter in all but complete darkness.  Your infrared vision now extends out to sixty feet, and if you gently lay your beard against stone, you can feel vibrations through the stone, detecting moving creatures up to 30-120 feet away depending on size.  After attaining this social class, this stonesense takes three months to become active since your beard has to grow out for it to work.  

If you're extremely wealthy, you can consume five gold coins a day.  Your thermographic vision extends to 150 feet, and you get +2 to reaction rolls with dwarves of a higher (again, less wealthy) social class.  Your vision within the visible spectrum also becomes more sensitive, allowing you to read normally in very dim light.  However, you become blinded by bright sunlight.  Your hair and irises look like they're made of gold, and will brightly reflect any amount of light.

Kings and magnates sometimes consume more gold than that, but it's just to show off.  Note that gold is typically consumed daily in small amounts, not once a week/month.  Changes in gold consumption level take about a month to take effect, both visually and in terms of game stats.

Note that the specific gold numbers will have to be adjusted based on how common gold is in your game, and whether you're using a gold or silver standard.  As a very rough guideline, starting PCs should be beardless, the "one gold a month" level should be affordable by level 2 at the latest, and further social class advances should become affordable every 2-3 levels depending on how much of your money you want to eat.  Obviously this also depends on your XP system, how much money players earn through means that don't count for XP, etc.