Dwarves, and their tradition of combining firearms with melee.

"Ahhh Dwarves. This short but sturdy race has always had me curious, especially on what my brother was thinking when he built them out from the mountains. A group of weapon-addicted lunatics with a society entierly based on hair, grit, and the size of ones gun. I simply do not understand how they could possibly function. Perhaps thats why they sit in their cave holds, surviving by their alliance with the humans. But one thing I must applaud them for, is their ingenuinity.
Within the depths of Drawaheim they process the material Whymnium, named after their god, the Gunfather. A very peculiar material that has long thought to be... unprocessable. Furthermore, the tools they create with Whymnium are next to divine."
Draghânir, God of Corruption

History

The Dwarves have always been a masterfull people of mining, brewing, stonework and masonry. But besides these, there is one aspect to Dwarven society that truely gives them their unique culture. Metal processing, especially that of Whymnium. This metal have through the years been ceremoniously used and honed to perfection within armour and weapon making. This easily shaped yet dense metal becomes extremely hard, and stabile.
The Dwarves therefor use this material for weaponry, creating all maners of bizzare but often exceptionaly effective weaponry. Everything from harpoonlaunchers, flamethrowers and rocket batteries to pistol-axes, pick-crossbows and wheelock-hammers.
This tradition has grown from the dwarves almost romantic passion of their signature weapon. Having more than one can almost be seen as cheating on a wife or husband, and trust me, you do -not- want to cheat on a dwarf. So instead of having to choose between a ranged or melee weapon, they tend to combine weapons.
To complicate things further, it is very common for dwarves to couple with one that use a different weapon than their own, yet enhances their own capabilities. Because of this dwarven couples are usualy made up with a melee and ranged users, but ranged, ranged or melee, melee couples also exist and are widely accepted and encouraged. Afterall, everything depends on how efficent the two are together in combat.
There was a slight issue present for a short time that ranged weaponry was far more common than melee because of Dwarven faith in the Gunfather. However as an esteemed dwarven warrioress died, she was believed to be taken as Whymnír's lover within the eternal gunstore. She has since then been a Paragon and known as The Axemother. This is also believed to be the root why combining weapons is so important. It does not only show your personality, but your love towards your father and mother.

Execution

There are many different ways to combine weapons, all carrying a different symbolism.

• If a melee and ranged user combine their weapons together, it's most likely a sign of love

• If two melee users or two ranged users combine their weapons, it's a sign of siblings with a bloodbond

• If a two melee or ranged users combine their weapons and dual wield pairs of them, it means they are twins. Sidenote: Twins are seven times more common within Dwarven society than Human

• If they dual wield a combined melee and ranged weaponry, it's a sign their lover has died.

• If they dual wield one of their own weapons and one of their siblings, it's a sign their sibling has died.

Components and tools

Anything is allowed, the more the better often. So long the product becomes as efficent as possible for the individual dwarf, there are no law for what they can, or not use, except material that requires to strictly be Whymnium, but this is more because it's the only metal that many of these weapons can be created of, without risking the tools to break on usage.

Participants

The ones who attend the ceremonies of crafting these weapons is different depending on situation.
On love and marriage, it's the two different clans of participants that create the tools for them. It starts with the couple drawing blueprints and then the parents mine the material required. The grandparents and relatives thereafter start to melt and shape them. Combining the parts is then done by the couple.
If it's a bond of siblinghood, it's the orders, guilds and closest friends of the two dwarves that aid, along with their family. The two are then required to spill their own blood within the molten metal to symbolise they are now rather one, than two. As time goes, this bond can however be broken by brothers, if both along with relatives approve of such.
This may first seem as strange, considering similar ritual for such different things as siblinghood and marriage, but in dwarven culture having a close sibling is sometimes even more important than having a lover. This is especially true for twins that often stick together for their entire lives. It is however, most common, that dwarves go trough both these rituals in life. The siblinghood one as young, to then be broken later in life, for them to be bound with lovers instead. It's believed these rituals is also the cause Dwarves fight with zeal for one another and -never- leave someone in the frey. They rather fight on till the last drop of blood, because their close bonds with one another makes dying together far more pleasant than living without one another.