Quote Originally Posted by Sizzlefoot View Post
Drawing inspiration from Norse dwarves coming from maggots, I might give my dwarves a maggot-like larval form, multifaceted, jewel-like eyes, and beards which are really masses of antennae.
That sounds similar to what I did with them. I had them be descended from maggots that cleaned the wounds of a giant god (my nod to Ymir) who made them into bug people in gratitude. They spend years as non-sapient maggots in cool, damp dark caves, feeding on organic fodder dropped to them by their parents until they get big and fat enough to pupate and turn into a sapient young adult dwarf, which resemble the brown crickets* you can buy as pet food in some shops.

They're good miners, stoneworkers, woodworkers, gemcutters and so on because they can feel the natural grains and veins and fractures in materials very well, but they don't like fire because it hurts their sensitive antennae unless they cut them off (they grow back slowly,) so they don't do much metalworking, and similarly need to cover or remove their antennae when travelling above ground during the day.

Because of their history with the giant god they get along well with giants, though it's a distant relationship most of the time, neither really being suited to helping the other on a day to day basis.


*When I first pondered the more maggoty dwarf idea I had a lizard and thought the crickets he ate's aversion to light and long antennae would be a neat thing for a subterranean race.