Do dwarfs have little light sources in their eyes? How does darkvision work otherwise...

ah but what if they are synestetic?

dwarven chin-tendrils

>synestetic
That changes nothing. If it was any form of echolocation, it would be lost whenever the dwarf is deafened. But it isn't lost when the dwarf is deafened, only when blinded. Therefore it cannot possibly be echolocation.

well it would depend on whether the blinding/deafening was neurological or due to damage on the external sensory organ.

I guess you could imagine that the frequency used for sonar would be outside the scope of the rules for deafness. but all of that is hand-waving around the fact that it is indeed an unlikely reason.

If they have their own light source it has a lot of interesting ramifications.

for example how many dwarves have to look at something in absolute darkness before it counts as dimly lit?

That WOULD explain why nobody likes them.

they are also described as seeing everything in black and white, so one has to wonder what wavelength the light has and whether they register it using the "normal" part of their eyes or some other mechanism.

I doubt the light is blinding. Otherwise one dwarf in a party would allow them all to see in darkness.

'cos it's fiction and doesn't work with RL physics or biology

saying the fiction is fiction doesn't really solve anything. But indeed it is counted an "extraordinary ability". which "breaks the laws of physics, but isn't magical".

the rules for darkvision says it's the ability to see with no light source at all, so in theory that should include any light originating from the dwarf himself

People wouldn't dislike them because they glow in the dark, people would dislike them because they blight crops and cause cancer.

Sorry misread what it was a reply to.

have you ever read any of the artemis fowl books?

Artemis fowl dwarfs are bad ass, literally

Echolocation
That's what the beards are for

Also pheromones in the passages

they're one of my favorite interpretations of dwarves, for sure

in the transition to third edition was the thermal vision actually debunked or was the explanation just omitted when it was lumped in darkvision?

i just figured they could see better in lower light, like most other animals.

sadly as stated in
echolocation is highly unlikely.

It's the beards. They're actually symbiotic creatures with extremely good passive sonar and minor psionic abilities. They pick up information on the surroundings and pass it telepathically to the dwarf.

basically the rules for darkvision are an oxymoron since they state that you can see without any light sources which is exactly the opposite of what sight is.

Dwarfs are actually naturally omniscient, and on a good day, know everything. However, they're so inebriated throughout 99.99999% of their lives that their fantastic all-knowledge becomes weirdly limited to merely what's visible around them, in black and white.

I don't really go in for the OD&D dwarves, so I'm pretty okay with divinatory or somewhat magical senses.

The why does it still work in a "null psionics field"? can the creatures whisper to the dwarf in an emergency?

also you would think that more dwarfs would have their beard on the back for that sweet 360 vision

so a beardless dwarf is basically disabled?

omniscient within 60 ft is a pretty cool ability

i guess this implies that there is a third way of bending the fabric of reality that isn't magical or psionic. is it pure willpower or dwarf Illuminati confirmed?

They have better cones and rods to work under lowlight conditions.

They most likely hate elves because forrests tend to have dark and bright light, thus affecting their vision.

but apparently it also work in total darkness.

also there aren't really any rules for characters with darkvision being blinded by bright light otherwise affect them. Unless the the dwarfs hate seeing colors? maybe they are descendants of suburban white people?

The beards live where they want, and once the beard gets properly established, it extends tendrils into the dwarf's facial skin to communicate directly.

Not unless they're in unfamiliar surroundings.
Y'see, usually dwarves just know their surroundings because it's the mountainhome. They know every square inch by feel.

so the beards embed themselves in the dwarfs central nervous system?

Peripheral nervous system, not central.

of course, but what exactly do the connect to and how do they mediate their vision? does the dwarf feel perceive what they see through his chest or jaw?

It's a vague sense of knowing where stuff is, that's turned into visual information by the brain.
They connect to the nerve endings in the skin the beard sticks to, or rather grow in alongside them to transmit information.

That would still be dependent on temperature differences for contrast. Also millimeter waves penetrate nonmetallic materials easily. Maybe that's why dwarves wear armor all the time.

I guess this would somewhat explain the black and white vision. if they had to convey color as well it they would need to be connected to way more nerve endings.

This also raises interesting questions about how complex a scenery a dwarf can experience in darkness.

They can perceive a surprising amount; the beard is picking it up through what is basically passive sonar.
Even without that, dwarves are so attuned to the vibrational qualities of stone that their footsteps pick up a whole lot of information too.

Near-infrared isn't related to heat. It still needs a source, but maybe the dwarves glow near-infrared.

It got kinda ridiculus later on though
>a single dwarf inhaling really hard creates enough of a vacuum to collapse a submarine

Should hve stuck with digging and antennae beard.

oh i wasn't doubting the beards ability to perceive, but the dwarfs. They would have to have an incredibly sensitive neck and chin in order to be able to receive and in any way discern between the stimuli of several thousands of the beard organisms.

It's natural selection on both sides. The beards can't survive without a dwarf to live on and subsist via collected food and drink, and the dwarves have developed extremely sensitive skin to help with sensing things anyway.
As the beard matures and settles in, it starts to feed directly from the dwarf's blood supply.

Oh, sure. With illumination it should work just fine.

to be able to sense what is essentially a 3d mapping of several hundred square meters of terrain the dwarfs have to be incredibly sensitive. If you pinch a dwarf on his unprotected neck does he go into a pain coma?

>dwarf hair stiffens after plucked and can be used for lockpicks
>dwarf jaws can unhinge and ingest rocks, dirt, and even gems without chewing
>dwarf digestive systems are so fast they can process all this and blast it out the other end in a matter of seconds
>dwarf pores are so enormous and powerful that, deprived of water for a time, they can function as suction cups
>dwarves have a hidden joint in their left pinkie toe that can trigger a cannon-like explosion of shit
>dwarf toes are opposable

most OP race in the series, only drawback is sunlight and height disadvantage, even comes with the stereotypical careless OP rogue demeanor.

Thing is, there's no such thing as "Total" darkness. Anywhere there is matter, there will be light produced, but usually not in the wavelengths we can see.

All darkvision requires is the ability to see a wavelength of light that is ambient, such as Cosmic background radiation or the light given off by materials at room temperature (which is incidentally what thermal vision is, seeing a different wavelength of light).

yes of course in practical terms, but the rules states that it is "the extraordinary ability to see with no light source at all" i.e. total darkness.

>no light source
If it's outside the visible spectrum for humans, it isn't light.

well now we are entering semantics territory, but generally light is any band of electromagnetic radiation whereas the visible spectrum is denoted "visible light".

>dwarves glow near-infrared
>so little that it's undetectable in the light, and only detectable with darkvision in the dark
I love it

Which is mostly to clarify that it works in magical darkness.

Actually, it doesn't. Magical Darkness effects explicitly state that Darkvision doesn't work to see through them.

Ughhh. So why get so specific about darkvision?

Why can't it just be night vision like many nocturnal animals?

well it depends on the spell and the edition

because that requires some light, whereas dwarf sight is rationalized by them living in dark caves which is near complete darkness.

Fuck if I know, it's just in the spell descriptions.

Honestly, I take it as Darkvision seeing different wavelengths of light, and magical darkness effects simply block all wavelengths of light.

I'll just leave this here: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_theory_(vision)

Oh man, another thread which would have been solved if people had actually read the rules for the problem and speculated from there.

>Darkvision
Darkvision is the extraordinary ability to see with no light source at all, out to a range specified for the creature. Darkvision is black-and-white only (colors cannot be discerned). It does not allow characters to see anything that they could not see otherwise—invisible objects are still invisible, and illusions are still visible as what they seem to be. Likewise, darkvision subjects a creature to gaze attacks normally. The presence of light does not spoil darkvision.

>Low-Light Vision
Characters with low-light vision have eyes that are so sensitive to light that they can see twice as far as normal in dim light. Low-light vision is color vision. A spellcaster with low-light vision can read a scroll as long as even the tiniest candle flame is next to him as a source of light.
Characters with low-light vision can see outdoors on a moonlit night as well as they can during the day.

Darkvision is an unnatural ability to see out to a specific distance with black and white vision. There is nothing in our world like it, not even with technology. It is not infrasion, it is not microwave or anything else. It is more than likely supernatural/"magical" in origin, but natural within the fantasy world where dwarves live. It is also not the ability see farther than humans as that is low light vision, which animals and and elves get.

Incidentally, Darkvision doesn't allow you to see ink on a page, as that is color on paper. This is why dwarves use runic alphabets, to transmit messages in total darkness that can be read requires geometric shapes carved in rock tunnel walls or other surfaces.

>dwarves glow near-infrared.

Actually, everyone gives off photons.

Like many people in this thread, you're assuming that "the fabric of reality" in your setting works exactly according to modern science in the real world. Wrong assumption.

And magic and psi (and chi, alchemy, geomancy, Fate etc etc) don't "break" reality. They don't break anything. They ARE the reality of that setting.

If someone in that setting was running a TTRPG in a "fantasy" world that was our real world, you'd have a dozen minor hedge mages bitching about how invoking the power of Science doesn't change the fact that keeping all those plot-convenient-but-never-used nuclear missiles in underground launch sites in the midwest would have caused a zombie apocalypse by now due to the necromantic interactions.

They'd be whining the whole time that Science can't repeal the natural laws of nature, which clearly state the karmic implications of having such ready potential Death weapons around should cause a backlash.

In a magical world, the laws of nature that we're familiar with don't work, or at least don't work the way we're used to. Darkvision may or may not have a justification in a particular setting, but by default, their night vision is just so damn good that they can counter any and all darkness penalties, up to and including total darkness. Period. In most settings, this is a non-magical ability that's nevertheless beyond human capability.

In LotR, the hobbits are repeatedly reminded that what they lump together as "magic" is actually many phenomena, some totally natural. It's a lot like how someone might call something a "sickness" without knowing or being able to understand or distinguish between those caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses, prions, allergies, auto-immune conditions, or cancer. We just see the symptoms and classify them that way, without any deeper understanding of what's really going on.

If you ARE going to elaborate on the "how" for a player, I think it's a mistake to try to tie it to real-world physics.

I'm going to do an asspull here and say their eyes are not light receptors. They are extremely sensitive gravity sensors. All mass has a small gravitational pull even if it is extremely small. That is what their "eyes" perceive. The minute variations in gravity perceived by their eyes create a model of the world around them. This explains why dwarfs are excellent miners and poor artists appart from engravings and statues.

They are good miners because they literally can perceive variations in density through the rock to find caverns or ore deposits. This also explains their love for gold. Gold is dense and therefore more "visible" from their point of view. That humans alsonlive gold for it's shine is just a coincidence. They love gems, diamonds, rocks and metal for the same reasons.

As for art, they cannot perceive colors therefore paintings and tapisteries almost look like blank calavs to them. Some more cultural savvy dwarfs understand other species see something there but most of them think that other aoecies like to stare at blank walls while pretending to see something pretty.

Dwarfs dislike trees because of the leaves. Trunks are solid and ok but low density leaves look like "spooky ghosts"

That is a very interesting way of explaining it and one I never thought of. No I'm thinking of a group of Dwarfs in an art museum huddled tightly around female bust sculptures drooling while chiding everyone else on how stupid they look staring at blank walls.

funded

So, in a nutshell, more advanced echolocation. Gotcha.

the same way cats eyes work:

"...six to eight times more rod cells, which are more sensitive to low light, than humans do.

In addition, cats' elliptical eye shape and larger corneas and tapetum, a layer of tissue that may reflect light back to the retina, help gather more light as well. The tapetum may also shift the wavelengths of light that cats see, making prey or other objects silhouetted against a night sky more prominent"

also darkvision is kind of a misnomer, its more like excellent low light vision. Darkvision doesn't work in the "darkness" spell which is what I would consider true darkness/total absence of light.

Close. They can see the magic radiation in the world.

I might not be a scientist, but that has nothing to do with echolocation.

Except that echolocation is an active system while gravity detection would be passive.

To continuing with this idea. The reason most dwarfs are short and muscular is not due to evolution. It is cultural. Dwarfs find density desirable. Therefore short and muscular reproduced more. It could be possible to make a tall and thin "dwarf" but they will rarely reproduce to transmit their genes (assuming genes exist in that universe).

Now dwarf weapons and why they are good. A race that can sense density will have an advantage when it comes to metallurgy. Since they can perceive density variations within a piece of metal, they can determine when tonstrike it while heating it. Other species need to rely on colors tondetermine the heat of blade. Dwarfs only need to see when the metal becomes soft enough.

>Dorfs constantly being the engineers in fiction
>waist-length beards
>never hear about a Dwarf being decapitated after getting his beard caught on a belt-sander or some shit

Why?

Engineer here. That is good question.

Absolute darkness is far from absolute; there are still waves/particles passing through, by which you could, feasibly (given an appropriate cell structure to receive them) see.

Eg even in the absolute absence of natural or artificial light, in a cave deep in the granite of a mountain, there might be enough alpha, beta particles or gamma radiation to see by (though the presence of radon gas would probably fuck with that); given large enough eyes or consistent enough sources, you could also see by high-energy neutrinos, even in the absence of other background radiation.

How you would evolve any of this shit is beyond me, but you don't need light from the human-visible spectrum to see by, even if you exclude infrared ranges. There's the ultraviolet, for one thing.

>dwarf yells drunkenly all the time
>can see in darkness

echolocation

...

>Metal Beard Solid

They only had low light vision in 4e

>mfw that's how I fluffed duergar

>Incidentally, Darkvision doesn't allow you to see ink on a page, as that is color on paper.
>Darkvision is black-and-white only (colors cannot be discerned).
You can see ink on paper, assuming the contrast is close enough to black and white, or you know, actually black and white like most ink on paper is.

Umm... There are Near Infrared, Far infrared and then Microwaves. Basically there is nothing between infrared and microwaves. Spectra is just continuum of wavelengths/frequency/energy (electromagnetic). Different regions are just differentiated based on their characteristics with different materials.

BUT! It would be interesting if there would be another spectrum beside electromagnetic. Magic and "Force" would probably go into this. Therefore if dwarves would see in this other spectrum. In that case they would see in "complete darkness".

Not original idea I know but something to consider.

Ever heard of a machine that could survive dwarven beard?

Among dwarves who work around moving parts and machinery, the fashion is to braid the beard tightly, to avoid stray hairs getting caught.
There are two major styles to this:
> One long braid, which is fastened to the belt or contained in a bag.
> Two braids, thrown over the dwarf's shoulders and kept there with weights woven into the braid.

I like this idea, and I don't think I've ever encountered it before.

>The reason most dwarfs are short and muscular is not due to evolution. It is cultural. Dwarfs find density desirable. Therefore short and muscular reproduced more.
That IS evolution

There is no such thing as "absolute darkness", aside from magical darkness.

There will always be some amount of background radiation/energy/magical waves to see. Darkvision simply allows them to see (without colors) in these extreme low-light conditions.