Distinctions like "high elf" or "wood elf" don't mean different species in Tolkien. Wood elves (I'm actually not sure if that term is ever actually used) are literally just elves who live in the woods and that's it, high elves are elves who have been to the Undying Lands but later went to Middle Earth.
You can honestly blame D&D more than you can Tolkien for the million different Elves. Tolkien Elves would be almost too overpowered to be a player race on the first place.
Leo Wilson
Tolkein Orcs, Warcraft Orcs, and Warhammer/40k Orks are all vastly different from one another.
meanwhile dwarves in all three settings are pretty much the same
Nathaniel Price
Because every elf character need to be a unique snowflake, it is the law playing an elf. Remember every elf is special!
>Dwarves.... eh... they are ugly, smelly and dirty like the cave dwelling primitive midges they are. They all have those dirty long beards where they collect all their dust and fleas. You can't even tell them apart they don't even have females. Besides all they can do is swing around axes, they can't even make a bow, you know a PROJECTILE WEAPON, something vastly superior to axes and hammers that only primitive savages use these days.
Gavin Perry
In my last setting Dwarves were actually British style imperialists, as they are the only species capable of making gunpowder (it is the dung from rock worms).
Dwarves in my setting are also much less human than in most settings, as the cave networks in the world are filled with brine pools with rock wurms inside (think of a 2 ft. maggot that lives similarly to a deep sea vent worm). To eat these the dwarves have to consume a special kind of alcohol which protects their bodies against lethal levels of metal and methane, which other species think of as beer because of the smell and color. It is actually pretty poisonous to other species.
Adam Perry
Unless everyone was pretty high point values/etc.
Jack James
You're right, they can't make bows, elfy. they make crossbows Pic unrelated
Thanks. Sadly the party didn't care about them or their giant mountain beetles that worked like underground oxen very much, as they found out the guys were fighting Mindflayers and sped off into the distance to go hunt Mindflayers.
On the plus side, they asked when they would see some combat and I got to say "Thoon, my child, Thoon."
