Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[MonochromeTiger]

I like them as homanoid mini dragon race. Way better than dragonborn.

But we were supposed to talk about dwarves, right ?

That is the thread topic, though apparently Dwarves aren't cool enough to keep focus.

[JusticeZero]

That is the thread topic, though apparently Dwarves aren't cool enough to keep focus.

Well yeah... and I honestly am confused as to why it matters. Dwarves aren't cool anymore... so don't use them for your worldbuilding! Clearly they won't really be missed, and if someone does, just have them go "mumble mumble tribe from outside of the local map mumble mumble" like people with more popular races are doing now. If people are playing tortles, you need a Tortle nation on the map.... dwarves not so much.

[Leon]

I like them as homanoid mini dragon race. Way better than dragonborn.

But we were supposed to talk about dwarves, right ?

The OG Dragonborn (where a Dwarf could turn into one) were far better than the present incarnations which to me feel more like Half-dragon Lite

[Boci]

Well yeah... and I honestly am confused as to why it matters. Dwarves aren't cool anymore... so don't use them for your worldbuilding! Clearly they won't really be missed, and if someone does, just have them go "mumble mumble tribe from outside of the local map mumble mumble" like people with more popular races are doing now. If people are playing tortles, you need a Tortle nation on the map.... dwarves not so much.

A couple of points:

1. The OP at least seems to mostly be talking dwarves as a PC race. "Players don't like making dwarven characters" = "stop using dwarves for world building" is a bit of a non sequitur. As a DM I've used dwarves regularly in my games both nations and explicit NPCs that accompany the party, at least for a short. They played an important part in the lore of my desert campaign and worked on the side as allies through out the last third of 2+ year game. As a player I have made 1 dwarven PC literally over a decade ago, never got to play him, and they are quite far down the list of old characters I'd like revisit, not even top 20.

2. D&D does not exist in a vacuum. Dwarves are a staple in fantasy. Pick up a non-D&D fantasy book, and the most likely offering of non-human races will be elves and dwarves. Witcher, Riftwar saga, Eragon, ect. This will influence people joining the hobby and ensure that dwarves will never be forgotten, just by virtue of being a core race (and the next edition is unlikely to change this) and well represented in fantasy as a whole.

3. Analyze why trends and preferences shift can be beneficial. This one is shakier than the above 2, because its certain. We can't be sure why an entire player base moves towards or away from a particular race, but we can hazard guesses. For example we're probably not far off the truth as to why teifling are so popular. And identifying why dwarves fell out of favour could make fixing them an option. Maybe its a minor thing, like their reduced speed like Psyren suggested, and you nix that and suddenly dwarves are more popular.

[Unoriginal]

Just for fun, yet still appropriate:

[Boci]

Just for fun, yet still appropriate:

I would have gone with I am a dwarf and I'm digging a hole, diggy diggy hole, but this one was a good choice too.

[JusticeZero]

1. "Players don't like making dwarven characters" = "stop using dwarves for world building" is a bit of a non sequitur.

....Why? Explain why you are required to use a race in worldbuilding that people find uninteresting to play. We're supposed to be creating stuff, not just mindlessly churning out Tolkien clones out of duty. Dwarves need to earn their place in the worldbuilding. Heck, humans need to be able to justify their inclusion in the worldbuilding. If nobody cares what the humans are doing, they all made characters of a certain race or other that are connected to each other, then that's the race that has earned its place in the local area. A world where the interactions are between the Treants, the Tortle nation, and the Gnomes is still fantasy. It's valid. You don't need a Dwarf nation that's not doing anything for the players' stories. You don't need a human nation that's there because... what, imperialism or something?

2. D&D does not exist in a vacuum. Dwarves are a staple in fantasy. Pick up a non-D&D fantasy book, and the most likely offering of non-human races will be elves and dwarves. Witcher, Riftwar saga, Eragon, ect. This will influence people joining the hobby and ensure that dwarves will never be forgotten, just by virtue of being a core race

This is a non-sequitur. "You have to include deadwood races because everybody expects to see them". Elves and dwarves are really tired and uninspired, and there's no shortage of fantasy that just scraps them. If they aren't contributing, they get a pink slip and not added to the map. If you have two Tortles in the party, you need to have a big spot on the map that says "Tortles are here". If you have no Dwarves and nobody cares about Dwarves, you do not need to give them a spot on the map. If they aren't played and they're not an enemy, they are very possibly deadwood. Deadwood doesn't get prioritized any higher than any other monster.

3. ...identifying why dwarves fell out of favour could make fixing them an option.

Why. Why do you care? It's a race. There's a lot of races. If nobody wants to play them, they land down there with the ratfolk and oreads and other side note races in "I'm sure they exist somewhere" territory. They were popular once and now they're not, they don't earn a place just because they were in a popular book post WWI. We aren't bound to be doing just Tolkien fanfic.

[Boci]

A lot of aggression and assumptions, I'll try and unpack them all.

....Why? Explain why you are required to use a race in worldbuilding that people find uninteresting to play. We're supposed to be creating stuff, not just mindlessly churning out Tolkien clones out of duty. Dwarves need to earn their place in the worldbuilding. Heck, humans need to be able to justify their inclusion in the worldbuilding. If nobody cares what the humans are doing, they all made characters of a certain race or other that are connected to each other, then that's the race that has earned its place in the local area. A world where the interactions are between the Treants, the Tortle nation, and the Gnomes is still fantasy. It's valid. You don't need a Dwarf nation that's not doing anything for the players' stories. You don't need a human nation that's there because... what, imperialism or something?

Firstly of all insisting a stranger on the internet is "mindlessly churning out Tolkien clones" because they included dwarves in the lore story of a game they ran, not the best look.

And again, you are conflating "interesting to play" (and more on this below) with "worth having in the game". If everything is special nothing is special. Worlds need down to earth, duller factions as well, to let the more colourful options stand out. It doesn't have to be dwarves, but they a decent choice to include between the cliff face dwelling, knife throwing ratfolk and matriachal floating merchant republic of tortle.

Dwarves also have a lot of history in fantasy, and this is useful too. "Dwarven made" is code for good quality, solid, reliable. Sure you can remove dwarves and tell your players there's another race for famous for that, but that can bog down a sentence that's really just mean to be incidental detail.

This is a non-sequitur. "You have to include deadwood races because everybody expects to see them". Elves and dwarves are really tired and uninspired, and there's no shortage of fantasy that just scraps them. If they aren't contributing, they get a pink slip and not added to the map. If you have two Tortles in the party, you need to have a big spot on the map that says "Tortles are here". If you have no Dwarves and nobody cares about Dwarves, you do not need to give them a spot on the map. If they aren't played and they're not an enemy, they are very possibly deadwood. Deadwood doesn't get prioritized any higher than any other monster.

Deadwood doesn't, but you need to understand how popularity, like many things, is relative. I'm be shocked if dwarves were the least popular core rat, let alone splat with some group don't even touch. According to the list from BG 3 linked for examples, dwarves still outrank haflings and gnomes, and yet I don't see you demanding their removal.

The reason we're talking about dwarves is because they are one of the big three of fantasy races along with humans and elves, or at least they were and now maybe they aren't. But no longer being part of the big 3, does not mean they are deadwood.

Why. Why do you care? It's a race. There's a lot of races. If nobody wants to play them, they land down there with the ratfolk and oreads and other side note races in "I'm sure they exist somewhere" territory. They were popular once and now they're not, they don't earn a place just because they were in a popular book post WWI. We aren't bound to be doing just Tolkien fanfic.

Why do you care so much about the need to not have them?

And I care because dwarves are definitely going to be a core race in the next edition of D&D, so wishing they weren't is a little less productive than thinking of ways to tweak a core D&D race to make it more attractive to players, assuming of course WotC doesn't manage this themselves. Which they might. They have access to more information than we do, but also have a bit of spotty on this kind of thing.

[Jay R]

....Why? Explain why you are required to use a race in worldbuilding that people find uninteresting to play.

Nobody said we are required to use the race. Boci is disagreeing with your suggestion that we should be required to stop using the race.

There is no logical path from "Players aren't using these races for PCs" to "These races have no place in the world". I use goblins, ogres, gnolls, hags, merfolk, trolls, wolves, dire rats, bats, giant ants, grigs, redcaps, quasits, zombies, ghouls, black puddings, and toads in my games, none of which my players use for PCs.

This isn't about "mindlessly churning out Tolkien clones out of duty."
It isn't about "earn[ing] their place in the worldbuilding".
It isn't about "imperialism or something". [And that's an insulting term to use about another DM's choices.]
It isn't about "doing just Tolkien fanfic."

It isn't about any of the nonsense you're inventing.

It's about the fact that what races are currently being used as PCs doesn't define what are the best NPCs for them to interact with. [In fact, if everybody wants to play elves, then that's a good reason to include dwarves. There are intrinsic rivalries to exploit.]

And specifically, it isn't about being "required" to use a race. It's about who should decide -- the DM who knows the world and the players, or JusticeZero.

You wrote "Dwarves aren't cool anymore... so don't use them for your worldbuilding!" [Emphasis and exclamation point in original .]

That is simply an illogical jump.

First of all, the idea that they aren't cool in general is not proven, and seems untrue -- to me at least. The most we can conclude from the data at hand is that dwarves are far less popular as player characters. But so what? Gelatinous cubes aren't popular as player characters either. They still make good encounters.

If I have a good idea for an encounter, or a plot, that uses dwarves, then the dwarves will be in my game. And JusticeZero has no business telling me not to include them.

Furthermore, I don't care what millions of other players want to use. I'm running this game for five people, and the opinions of everybody else in the world simply don't matter.

My current players are running two humans, one hobbit, one gnome, and one half-Fair-Folk. That doesn't mean that as a DM, I should only include those races in my world.

[And for the record, I am not defending my world here. In fact, there are almost no dwarves in my world. They were wiped out 200 years ago in the genocidal frost giant / dwarf wars. Why? Because dwarves are really cool, and I have a really cool idea for something that will happen based on the outcome of that war, which will come up when the PCs reach about 15th level.]

[137beth]

I don't think I've ever played in a D&D group where dwarves were common PC choices. So, I don't think I'd describe dwarves' uncoolness (if that means anything) as a recent phenomenon.

[Cluedrew]

I would have gone with I am a dwarf and I'm digging a hole, diggy diggy hole, but this one was a good choice too.

I have heard a lot of cool fantasy songs, but the one that are just about a fantasy people tend to be about dwarves.

As for why use dwarves if they are not cool: Because I like them. They are favourite standard fantasy race and other people not agreeing with that does not chance my opinion.

[JusticeZero]

My issue is specifically with the feeling that the GM is somehow mandated to shoehorn in Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, et al. to have a world where the map is "Dwarves, elves, humans, halflings..." in spite of the party not necessarily using or including in their backstory some of those... particularly if the party is much more interested in playing some other race that will invariably end up being from The Republic Of IAmNotPuttingThisOnTheMap. As I see happen a lot. People with less Tolkien-standard, Euro-fantasy races and cultures regularly have to put up with the GM just ignoring their background because it's not "Core".
"Me, Sue, and Jack's characters are all this race here with a neat kicky African-inspired culture!"
"That's nice, you're all from (points vaguely out the window) that place outside of the map. We'll never go there."

[SerTabris]

I mean, D&D stood for Dungeons & Drow for what seems to have been some 15 to 20 years.

And perhaps, with tieflings and dragonborns in the Player's Handbook, drow aren't sufficiently unique, special, and edgy anymore...?

I think one factor might be that when you look at the surface-level "okay, what makes drow different from surface elves?" it's skin color and really nothing else. And so including their original D&D worldbuilding that kind of boils down to "these elves are the evil ones and you'll know them by the color of their skin" is fairly uncomfortable, in a way that people have gotten more perceptive to. Plus, on that point, "this is the one matriarchal culture in the setting and they're very evil" is not exactly helping either.

I'm not really sure if there's any analogous crossing into real-world issues as a significant factor with dwarves or not, but I think there's at least a possibility there with some groups, maybe those who don't have as strong of mental associations with dwarves as the Tolkien-derived fantasy concept.

[Eldan]

So, one interesting thing: I'm an on-and-off writer for a tabletop wargame, and one thing we wanted to do was write possible backgrounds for various cultures around the world, and both human and nonhuman subfactions based on those. For dwarves, we've actually found quite a few very interesting inspirations, and we're currently incorporating Dwarves inspired by Ethiopians (inspired mostly by Ethopian rock churches, also, we have an African writer who's extremely excited about them who ahs already developed an alphabet and a language), Inca Dwarves (because high mountain fortresses), Norse dwarves (of course), Germanic dwarves (separate and distinct), Mesopotamian dwarves and Japanese dwarves (metal-working clans who live in secret high mountain valleys and forge legendary weapons). More may come, but it's actually been surprisingly easy and interesting to find new cultural inspirations for dwarves.

[Boci]

My issue is specifically with the feeling that the GM is somehow mandated to shoehorn in Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, et al. to have a world where the map is "Dwarves, elves, humans, halflings..." in spite of the party not necessarily using or including in their backstory some of those... particularly if the party is much more interested in playing some other race that will invariably end up being from The Republic Of IAmNotPuttingThisOnTheMap. As I see happen a lot. People with less Tolkien-standard, Euro-fantasy races and cultures regularly have to put up with the GM just ignoring their background because it's not "Core".
"Me, Sue, and Jack's characters are all this race here with a neat kicky African-inspired culture!"
"That's nice, you're all from (points vaguely out the window) that place outside of the map. We'll never go there."

Seem's like you're mixing two separate issue linked only tangentially by Tolkien playing a role in them.

Yes, western fantasy is very Euro-centric. But removing dwarves won't make a setting any less Euro-centric, and as Eldan's post demonstrates, dwarves, like any race, can be non-European.

Whilst I appreciate the disappointment of the you, Sue and Jack in that hypothetical example, the fact is player-DM mishmatches happen, and if you want your character to be from an African-inspired cultures and for this to be relevant in the game, it might be best to check first with the DM to see if their world can accommodate such a thing. This isn't even necessarily a Euro-centric thing, I have a setting that foregrounds Native American and East Asian cultures. African inspired character would be just as foreign and exotic there as if we were playing in Not-Europe (version 9,452).

I'm not really sure if there's any analogous crossing into real-world issues as a significant factor with dwarves or not, but I think there's at least a possibility there with some groups, maybe those who don't have as strong of mental associations with dwarves as the Tolkien-derived fantasy concept.

Big noses, obsessed with gold, and most importantly (because the first two could just be an unfortunate co-incidence) Tolkien's dwarven language mimics Hebrew.

But yeah, not as obvious "dark = evil".

[Jophiel]

I like dwarves. I'd play more of them but I like halflings better so tend to play those instead. Both races have a general vibe of having their s--t together which is attractive to me and probably why Kids Today would rather play their tieflings and catfolk (shakes cane at sky). I don't need dwarves to be drinking ale or digging holes but I do want them to feel like either their mortgage is paid up or that they've vowed to restore the ancestral mortgage.

I take issue with most dragon adjacent races and creatures for the sheer abundance of varieties and for their existence diluting the impact of proper dragons. We’ve seen dragons, drakes, wyverns, half dragons, dragon blooded, spawn of Tiamat, kobold, dragonborn and more. How many wish,com dragons are we due for? (Automatic link parsing? Hope the comma disabled it)

Very much this. My last campaign setting had very little Dragon-whatever that wasn't actually a powerful mythical beast. No dragonborn (ick), dragon baby Tiamat kobolds and draconic sorcery reflavored into "elemental". Dragons should be rare and cool and spoken of in legend, not something with their DNA spread into 70% of the world population.

1e kobolds were lizard dogs with the horns and little scales but didn't look, act or have any connection to being draconic. Though mine were full on canine, taken from the Everquest kobolds who originally looked like semi-anthro African hunting dogs.

[Eldan]

Also, speaking of Eurocentrism... if you include tieflings, dragonborn and other currently popular D&D races doesn't make the setting less eurocentric, those are still races from European fantasy. And I know relatively few settings which actually mainly focus on established nonhuman creatures from non-European mythology.

[Satinavian]

Also, speaking of Eurocentrism... if you include tieflings, dragonborn and other currently popular D&D races doesn't make the setting less eurocentric, those are still races from European fantasy.

They are very much not.
Those are modern American fantasy, no real connection to European mythology or fantasy.

And I know relatively few settings which actually mainly focus on established nonhuman creatures from non-European mythology.

There are at least a couple for Not-Japan full of various Yokai.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

Dwarves are my favorite race to play, but 5e did them a great disservice by saddling them with a movespeed penalty and some of the worst racial traits. Toughness is fine, acting as sort of an additional +2 CON, but Armor Training feels wrong. Unless you're making a wizard or sorcerer, you probably already get armor proficiency. Similarly, their ability to ignore speed penalties from heavy armor feels weird because, if you have heavy armor proficiency and the encumbrance limits to carry it, you're probably meeting the STR requirements already. They're in the odd place of being a great race for making armored wizards and not much else, which doesn't play very well into the type of characters you imagine when you think of the stereotypical dwarf.

[Xihirli]

So, one interesting thing: I'm an on-and-off writer for a tabletop wargame, and one thing we wanted to do was write possible backgrounds for various cultures around the world, and both human and nonhuman subfactions based on those. For dwarves, we've actually found quite a few very interesting inspirations, and we're currently incorporating Dwarves inspired by Ethiopians (inspired mostly by Ethopian rock churches, also, we have an African writer who's extremely excited about them who ahs already developed an alphabet and a language), Inca Dwarves (because high mountain fortresses), Norse dwarves (of course), Germanic dwarves (separate and distinct), Mesopotamian dwarves and Japanese dwarves (metal-working clans who live in secret high mountain valleys and forge legendary weapons). More may come, but it's actually been surprisingly easy and interesting to find new cultural inspirations for dwarves.

Which war game?

[Eldan]

They are very much not.
Those are modern American fantasy, no real connection to European mythology or fantasy.
There are at least a couple for Not-Japan full of various Yokai.

Normal people born with some demonic feature on their body because of dark magic, or gaining one as part of a pact with the devil are extremely common in mythology. Maybe not dragon people so much, yes.

[Witty Username]

Well yeah... and I honestly am confused as to why it matters. Dwarves aren't cool anymore... so don't use them for your worldbuilding! Clearly they won't really be missed, and if someone does, just have them go "mumble mumble tribe from outside of the local map mumble mumble" like people with more popular races are doing now. If people are playing tortles, you need a Tortle nation on the map.... dwarves not so much.

I think, if you like dwarves, then you should keep playing with them. If you don't like dwarves, then don't worry about it.

I don't care much for Tiefling, but I am not going to champion its removal from the game.

[Psyren]

That is the thread topic, though apparently Dwarves aren't cool enough to keep focus.

Ha!

I mean, barring additional insights from the devs I'm not sure there's much else to say. I think we've exhausted the best publicly available data, and put forth most if not all of the plausible theories for their decline in usage.

To try and sum up the prevailing ones:

• Across settings and games, dwarves have (or are perceived to have) a narrower thematic/aesthetic possibility space than other races.
• Even for those players interested in the thematic niche Dwarves most regularly occupy/align to (i.e. the Big Guy), there are more interesting/exotic options now.
• They have retained certain mechanical disadvantages across multiple appearances that people are increasingly finding off-putting, such as being slow and lacking Charisma.
• "Short" races in general are showing a lack of popularity; people just don't want to roleplay as being short in general when they have the option to not be.
• Dwarves in particular occupy a weird state of being short enough to be the butt of jokes about it / be slower than tall races, but not short enough for any of the mechanical benefits like having increased options for cover or squeezing.
• There is a fatigue or decline in interest for Tolkien races in general, albeit one that Elves and Humans have proven resistant to (especially in non-western cultures.)
• Dwarves were aesthetically resonant with the demographic of gamer that made up the bulk of the hobby pre-5e. Now with a large influx of newcomers that don't align with or are otherwise less interested in that aesthetic themselves (particularly non cis-males), dwarves are seeing a natural dilution.
• The mechanical advantages they did have were not particularly exciting, ranging from rarely-beneficial ribbons like Stonecunning, to weapon proficiencies that usually wouldn't see use outside of builds that get them anyway, to armor proficiencies that border on overpowered while still not being very interesting.

Did I miss any?

I quite prefer early D&D edition tieflings what with them being "vaguely human, but weird in some nasty way". Extra phalanges or fingers, sharp nails and inhuman teeth, constant weak-but-detectable smell of sulfur (yuck, rotten eggs!), eyes and noses that aren't quite right etc. I have played several tieflings over the years, and only one was anywhere similar to what D&D 5e stereotypes them as. An outside observer would've been hard pressed to put any two of those characters into the same "race", much less all of them taken together.

Not to steer the thread away from dwarves again but I wanted to respond to this. With the new hybrid rules releasing this year, you should be able to make a Human/Tiefling that is closer to a Human and get some of these weird subtler elements like sulfur smell and sharp nails/teeth in there.

[Xihirli]

Normal people born with some demonic feature on their body because of dark magic, or gaining one as part of a pact with the devil are extremely common in mythology. Maybe not dragon people so much, yes.

I think some versions of Merlin are thought to be devil-children.

[Boci]

I think some versions of Merlin are thought to be devil-children.

Fey and demons/the devil were more blended in traditional European folklore, so the cribswaped/changelins/killcrops could be described as tieflings too.

[*]Dwarves were aesthetically resonant with the demographic of gamer that made up the bulk of the hobby pre-5e. Now with a large influx of newcomers that don't align with or are otherwise less interested in that aesthetic themselves (particularly non cis-males), dwarves are seeing a natural dilution.

Not necessarily missed, but adding to this: drinking beer. It use to be like half the drinking population's preferred drink, but its less popular now, alcohol overall is, and there's more and more fruity beers available, which don't exactly scream dwarf.

[Xervous]

Fey and demons/the devil were more blended in traditional European folklore, so the cribswaped/changelins/killcrops could be described as tieflings too.



Not necessarily missed, but adding to this: drinking beer. It use to be like half the drinking population's preferred drink, but its less popular now, alcohol overall is, and there's more and more fruity beers available, which don't exactly scream dwarf.

Dwarven beer never really struck me as something in the realm of regular beer. Every other time it’s mentioned there’s remarks on its potency. Pair that to the typical resilience of dwarves and I tend to envision 80+ proof “Grunbel’s Stone Polish”. How many people do you know that are in the business of disappearing bottles of whiskey or vodka? Not really the common sort.

[Mordar]

• There is a fatigue or decline in interest for Tolkien races in general, albeit one that Elves and Humans have proven resistant to (especially in non-western cultures.)

Um...if two out of three resist the decline, is it really "in general"?

Did I miss any?

I would add:

• Their niche and stereotype is one that has frequently been contrary to that common to particularly younger/newer role-players: Staunchly do the expected right thing, hold to tradition and rules, and don't be splashy about it. "Hard drinking" and "bearded" don't seem to make up for that much any more...if ever.

- M

[Boci]

Dwarven beer never really struck me as something in the realm of regular beer. Every other time it’s mentioned there’s remarks on its potency. Pair that to the typical resilience of dwarves and I tend to envision 80+ proof “Grunbel’s Stone Polish”. How many people do you know that are in the business of disappearing bottles of whiskey or vodka? Not really the common sort.

It is a roleplaying game though. You can pretend you are a dwarf and you're drinking dwarf beer, since it presumably balances out. Yes dwarf beer is stronger, but you're a dwarf, hence why it doesn't feel strong for you. In at least a few cases it likely isn't even this explicit, just beer = beer.

Now by contrast pretending that your "Schöfferhofer Grapefruit" is something the average dwarf would touch with a 10ft pole can be a little harder with the default presentation of the race.

Um...if two out of three resist the decline, is it really "in general"?

Psyren might be counting orcs, in which case its 2 and 2.

[Jophiel]

Eh, I don't think the beer thing really tracks. For one thing, it's more commonly "ale" which, sure, falls under the same umbrella but has a bit more fantasy panache. Especially back in the 80s and 90s, we didn't think "They drink beer, just like me!" -- dwarves drank ale. Also, the brews were always a bit silly and not just in terms of alcohol proof. They'd be made of fungus or have chunks in them or other stuff that meant you had to be a true hard-swillin' dwarf to partake.

"Orzammar ale tastes like it has dirt in it. Because it does!" -- Oghren, "Dragon Age: Origins"

So I'm skeptical that the switch from Miller Genuine Draft to Zany Mike's Peach-Raspberry Shandy really had much influence in how much people play dwarves because dwarven brew was always a world apart from mundane people beer.

[Boci]

So I'm skeptical that the switch from Miller Genuine Draft to Zany Mike's Peach-Raspberry Shandy really had much influence in how much people play dwarves because dwarven brew was always a world apart from mundane people beer.

"ale" is still used in Britain at least. Maybe its completely archaic in the US, but "ale" is not a fantasy only term for beer everywhere.