Random Scotto factoid:

My melee weapon of preference in a fantasy setting is has almost always boiled down to a one-handed axe or cleaver first, hammer or mallet next, then a pick or some sort of pointed short spear.

Swords are near the end of my list.

Not only are they great multifunctional tools but they are also (to my imagination) more readily available if you don’t have something handy.

Being a fan of dwarves as a fantasy humanoid character didn’t hurt either.

I think I originally leaned into Dwarf stuff was the nice opposite number to Elves, and the special abilities like seeing in the dark, high constitution and innate mapping senses made them pretty handy for dungeon crawling.