The Best Dwarves Ever

Sure, Drizzt Do'Urden gets most of the play in the Forgotten Realms universe, but don't forget that he had a bad-ass dwarf backing him up. Bruenor Battlehammer has had more than his share of adventures, most notably surviving riding on the back of a flaming dragon into the depths of Mithril Hall and clawing his way back up to the surface. He would become the ruler of that realm and more besides. In his final adventure, he perished sealing the forces of the Great Primordial, the power source of malevolent Gauntlgrym.

First seen in the dreams of Agent Dale Cooper, the Man From Another Place was one of the most iconic elements of Twin Peaks. This backwards-talking dwarf gave Cooper cryptic clues to the identity of BOB, the killer of Laura Palmer. But this was no ordinary little person—he hailed from the Black Lodge, a mysterious location of pure evil based on Native American mythology. The Man and BOB were engaged in a struggle over "garmanbozia," a substance composed of pain and sorrow that looks like creamed corn. I am not making any of this up.

Gimli, son of Gloin, is probably the best-known dwarf from the Lord of the Rings series, and for good reason. One of the original members of the Fellowship, Gimli accompanied Frodo on his quest to dispose of the cursed ring at Mount Doom. Along the way, the pint-sized warrior had cause to cut the heads off tons of orcs. Wielding a pair of battle-axes, Gimli is a veritable tornado of carnage on the battlefield, and his valor at the final battle at the Black Gate of Mordor—where he was the only dwarf in attendance—is the stuff of legend.

Unlike the other shorties on this list, Eugene Judd—the Canadian crimefighter known as Puck—wasn't born vertically-challenged. Once upon a time, Judd was a regular-sized soldier of fortune who took the assignment to steal a mystical sword, the Black Blade of Baghdad. When he takes the sword, it releases a malevolent evil sorceror. To save the world, Judd sacrificed himself, taking the spirit into his own body. That action caused his form to be compacted to 3'6" in height. Puck was a kick-ass physical combatant, easily whipping enemies twice his size.