So I've been reading through the section of Run Faster that discusses the metatypes and how they fit into society, as I realized I didn't really know much about dwarves beyond "they fit in well enough".
What I read didn't seem to make sense to me and sounded kind of dumb. Three quarters of all dwarves are connected? They have a strict mainstream culture that you can be exiled from? This sounds like something that would make sense for an ostracized, xenophobic metatype where 75% of them lived on the same relatively small landmass. But not for what is supposedly the metatype that's more or less accepted and fits in everywhere. I'm not saying they wouldn't have their own culture at all, but this one that takes a huge precedence over all other cultural aspects? Enough to have mechanic effects, where as long as they're not an exile, a dwarf would rather deal with another dwarf "no matter where they fall in a nation, corporation, or religion" over anyone else "even non-dwarves of their parent culture".
The other metatypes I get it for. Elves, for instance, are put on pedestals by humans subconsciously with such strength that even they start to buy into the stereotype of what an elf must be like. They aren't treated like people, similar to how celebrities are treated, and so flock together to get away from it. They are distanced from other metatypes because of this, they are grouped together. But even their section mentioned "elf cultures", as in, plural. There isn't one universal elf culture they all prioritize over all other cultures.
But the chapter still kind of phrases it as just "nah elves are just like this".
Maybe that kind of stuff makes sense in D&D, where all the races are super segregated and those are the only cultures that exist, but in a setting that is directly based on the real world, where the metatypes are all over the world (not equally of course...) it just seems unrealistic to say that they have their own cultures over all the "human" cultures without social causes.
Like I said, in the case of elves, how I explained it makes sense. Orks are similar, just in the other direction. They are feared, mistrusted, and thought of as stupid and brutish, and so pushed out of society. As a result, it gets separated into "orks" and "non-orks that hate us". And trickle some trolls in there too. And since they are forcibly segregated from other cultures, they develop their own culture.
But dwarves are explicitly not segregated, and are the best integrated metatype. Why would this result in them having one united global culture that takes precedent over all other cultures? I don't get it.
Is the chapter in Run Faster badly written, or am I missing something here?