Dwarf
Dwarves are a proud and tenacious people, hewn from the bones of the world like the mountains they revere. Stalwart, stocky, and enduring, dwarves are known across Aigusyl for their mastery of craft, their deep-seated traditions, and their unwavering loyalty. They are as enduring as bedrock and as temperamental as magma—slow to anger, slower to forget, and utterly unyielding in matters of honor and kin.
Dwarves average between four and five feet tall, but what they lack in height they make up for in sheer presence. Their bodies are dense with muscle and strength, shaped by lives of labor beneath the earth or among highland winds. Their eyes are like cut gems—keen, calculating, and ancient—and their long, braided beards and intricate tattoos tell the stories of clan, triumph, and sacrifice. Each mark and braid is sacred, a testament to personal deeds and ancestral ties.
Dwarven society is built upon unshakable foundations: clan, craft, and covenant. Families span generations, often living under the same stone roof and bound by deep ancestral pacts. Clans operate as both political and spiritual units, guided by elders and runepriests who interpret omens carved into stone tablets or burned into iron. Their laws are etched, not written—permanent and immutable, like the mountains they claim as home.
Dwarves are legendary craftsmen. Their forges burn hotter, their steel sings truer, and their stonework seems to defy age and erosion. They are the inventors of rune-smithing, a sacred art that fuses magic with metal, and many dwarven halls house living constructs, enchanted vaults, and ancestral relics passed down since before The Fracture War. While outsiders marvel at their work, few ever see the heart of a true dwarven forge—a place of prayer as much as fire.
Though most associate dwarves with subterranean kingdoms, many dwell above ground in fortified highlands or sprawling mountain cities like Myrrhold, their ancestral bastion. There, in the heart of the Frostfire Peaks or carved into the flanks of the Stormcliff Heights, dwarves build wonders not only of stone and steel, but of memory and meaning.
Dwarves carry grudges like weapons, and oaths like armor. Betrayal is the gravest sin in dwarven culture, and a broken promise is a stain on one's soul that echoes across generations. Yet this same code binds them with fierce loyalty to allies and friends—those who earn a Dwarf’s trust gain a protector who would march through fire and ruin to uphold that bond.
They are a people of deep faith, many of them honoring Aetherial as the World-Forger, while others revere ancestral spirits or elemental forces like the Titans themselves—especially Goromund, Titan of Earth, whom some dwarves claim shaped their kind from obsidian and iron.
Dwarves are a bedrock people in both Spirit and presence. Their kingdoms endure where others fall, and their wisdom is mined from the depths of time itself. Wherever the stone holds firm, and the hammer rings true, dwarves will remain—unyielding, undaunted, and eternal.
