Dwarves

Dwarves are a bit of an oddball race in the Suikoden World. They are some of the most cliche things you'll find in any fantasy world... and yet can be very cruel and conniving. There are some consistent facts about Dwarves in the Suikoden World: they have a small population relative to humans, tend to stick to societies based in mountains, live in caves, stand about half the size of men, the males always have beards, they are always good diggers, they don't like Elves and they are generally left alone by most people/races.

But there are two distinct versions of Dwarves in Suikoden. They are as follows:

Suikoden 1: In Suikoden 1 Dwarves live near in the Mountains away from the neighboring countries, content to be in a type of cold war with the Elves of the Great Forest. The two sides have been anxious to fight each other, but have not actually fought in years. Then a General of the Scarlet Moon Empire comes and seeks domination, first by defeating the more willful and resistant Elves (this, after defeating the Kobold tribes of the Eastern Forest). The Elves and the General fought many battles, but the Dwarves did nothing to aid either side.

This was a grave matter for the Elves. Despite their animosity, the Dwarves likely had the strongest army in the region. For the Dwarves of the Scarlet Moon Empire were wizards of technology, inventing Windmills, coal factories, elevators, robots, and, their most powerful, the Burning Mirror, a giant laser capable of destroying an entire forest. Eventually, the Scarlet Moon Empire "stole" the Burning Mirror, and used it to, that's right, burn the entire forest down, committing genocide on the Elves (if you're wondering, yes you need to recruit that General).

The word "stole" is in quotations, because many people, like this one and myself, believe the dwarves let the Elves die by allowing the mirror to destroy the Elves. Only after the Elves died did the Dwarves use another "secret" weapon to aid the rebellion and destroy the burning mirror. In the end, the Dwarves of the Scarlet Moon are powerful, technological magicians who prefer letting others do the dirty work. In the game, everyone else who joins your rebellion aids you directly - the dwarves do not. If a dwarf was like this, one should certainly be wary of making such a friend.

Yet, in all the other Suikoden Games Dwarves appear (III, IV and V) Dwarves have lost their side of playing in the shadows, their gray color. They are almost always cheerful but stupid, great miners and that's it, wanting to be alone but willing to help out. They play no role in Suikoden II, cameo in III and IV (with just a single miner dwarf) and in V only help when the bad guy of the game tries to kill them all because he's a xenophobic villain (noticing a theme with Suikoden?). Dwarves in these games only use axes or pick-axes, and display none of the cunning displayed in Suikoden 1.

Now these Dwarves live in other regions, other continents, so it's not far-fetched to simply say that the Scarlet Moon Dwarves evolved into something much more geared towards trickery and innovation. But the games do not state why, leaving us to speculate. It's for this reason that Harold, having seen both types before, is cautious about trusting the Dwarves. For if they be like the Scarlet Moon...