There is No Dwarf City Signature

While thinking about generic medieval fantasy signatures, I thought about how there is no generic signature for a dwarf city. Although some piece of media does in fact feature a city inhabited by dwarves, there doesn't seem to be a common signature between them beside the vague idea of an underground city.

The only examples of dwarf cites I can think of are as follows:

Keldagrim from Oldschool RuneScape

Ironforge from World of Warcraft

Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings

The Mines of Moria barely qualify as a "dwarf city" in my book. It instead gives me the vibes of a Zelda dungeon that happens to have dead dwarves inside it.

Keldagrim and Ironforge share very little in common. My initial assumption was that this was due to the concept of a dwarf setting having no roots in real life history. I was however reminded that there does exist generic signatures for "elf village" and "vampire city", so that cannot be the reason.

My guess is that although dwarves show up with decent frequency in media, the concept of a "dwarf city" is rarer and thus no "common idea" for it ever formed. I find this fascinating. I also find it interesting how the "elf village" concept seemingly originates from Lord of the Rings (or at least popularized it) but that it did not happen with its dwarven counterpart. Again, I think this due to the Mine of Moria feeling like a generic dungeon rather a proper dwarven settlement.

I suppose one could argue that the Mines of Moria is not meant to depicts a place where dwarves usually lives. While I would agree with this idea, I take note that an actual dwarf settlement is actually shown in the opening scenes of Lord of the Rings (scene where dwarves get rings of power). That being said, the place certainly looks identical to the Mine of Moria aesthetic-wise. The fact this scene last 8 seconds probably doesn't help either.

That was interesting find. I look forward to finding more "art secrets" in the future.

Written by manpaint on 15 March 2025.