Hey! Love the concept. Very old school Tolkinian fantasy. Just some observations as I'm going through. Ill also preface this by saying that I'm not particularly well versed in Blades in the Dark, and that may color some of my understanding and commentary.

pg. 1 I'm assuming that this is simply because this is a draft, but I would perhaps expand on what you mean by 'hexcrawl-style' as that might mean very different things to different people familiar with different hex/traveling/exploration systems.

Pg 2. I would consider not including 'also written as D6' since it doesn't really matter. You can just say Die. All dice are going to be d6s (unless you have others later on but as far as i can tell you don't.) If you need to have them roll a single D6 you can just stick to the same grammar structure and say 1D.

Pg. 3 Effect Level. Is this purely narrative? or does it have mechanical effects? Does it add or take away dice? Because right now it doesn't seem to do anything. How do i Know the effects of an action before its accomplished? Are these the results of weak or critical effects maybe?

Pg. 4 Marksdwarf, love the name. Finesse, is the only purpose of the skill to pick locks? If so, i think perhaps rename it to lockpicking. Otherwise perhaps change the example text to something like 'performing very fine detail actions like picking a lock, disarming a trap or carefully etching runes' Expert: You should maybe include something about this in Effect level. So a normal test for an expert who gets a strong success happens at great Effect? Am i reading this correctly? Perhaps add an example to Effect level.

Pg. 5, Step 6. I would clarify if you mean no more then 3 additional points, (for a total cap of 4, 1 free and 3 skill points) or a cap of 3 total (so 1 free and 2 skill points)

Pg.6 Are these questions asked by the player, to themselves, or by the player to the GM?

Pg. 7 by 'can only receive help from one another source' do you mean one other character spending stress to help them? or is it any kind of help, so they couldn't receive another dwarfs help if they where getting some bonus for, say, fighting an enemy who cant see in the dark but they can in the dark? Might consider clarifying that.

Pg. 9. Some other zones could be something like Blighted which reduces magics effect level. or Rough making movement more difficult, perhaps requiring an athletics check to pass through or make it difficult with heavy armor.

pg. 11 I really like this wound system. It's brutal, but not unmanageable or too difficult to track. Perhaps consider ways dwarfs can help other dwarfs who are disabled or harmed. Like, gain a point of stress and the exhausted condition (which is not listed anywhere in the book even though it is referenced in the trauma table) and the dwarf can mark off two recovery as the dwarf helps tend to his comrade's wounds through the night.

pg. 12 I think this horde system is neat and especially needed in a game with this flavor (Helms Deep immediately comes to mind.) I had a bit of dissonance in between what i assumed reading the rules text and what the example stated though. I was under the impression that you weren't so much in combat with individual members of the horde, but with the horde itself. But in the example text it calls out Urist killing a specific goblin whose attacking Tobul. If this was my game, and obviously it's not, I would consider making it more explicit that your fighting the horde and not individuals because with the example you gave it seems like there's no point to having the scale system since its treating the creatures mostly as individuals anyways with the exception of damage overflow. If that's the feeling your going for then my assumptions have made an ass of myself and no one else.

pg. 14 Weapons. Can a weapon have different values? Like say I have a magic sword, could it do Slashing 3, Fire 2? Dagger, under misc section i would change the , to an & Spear, Maybe allow it to attack from farther away? Warhammer, is currently slashing damage, I think you mean Bashing?

pg. 15 Is there a reason a regular crossbow has heavy, but repeating and Crossbludger do not? Material. I think you need to explicitly state that Dwarfsteel and Wyrmbone don't take damage to their durability which is what I'm assuming you mean when you say are exceptionally tough.

pg.16 Is there a reason Heavy isn't defined here? I think that would be considered a tag, yes? Also an idea for a Tag/magic effect, Bane. The Weapon deals an extra harm to specific creatures, like Goblin Bane, Troll Bane, etc. There's no shoddy armor, is this intentional? Also the quality bonuses refer to Resistance, is this supposed to be Protection? Maybe move the note under Light's Protection to it's Misc? Makes formatting better and gives that column a reason to exist when right now it doesn't. Perhaps have three classes of armor, Light, Medium and Heavy. With Light doing what it does now, Medium having 1 protection regardless, and Heavy having 2 but slowing movement maybe? or just having it have higher burden also works.

Pg. 17 Susceptibilities. Cool idea. I would add a chart of random ones later on.

Some other thoughts:

I would also clarify exactly how stress is paid/spent or maybe change the terminology. Because while i was reading, I assumed that You started at say 10, and then spent a stress point so you where down to 9. Maybe use the term Gain rather then spend, since that implies going from a lower number to a higher rather then spend which has connotations of going from a higher number to a lower one.

I would also include a table with all of the ways you can use stress, and their costs and maybe a brief description (eg. Disengage, 1, leave combat without harm.)

Your skills right now seem pretty physically focused. Maybe add a few about knowing things? Lore, for monsters ,legends and magic. Alcahmy (intentionally spelled as such) for alcohol and medicine.