Dwarves

Once a dominating and singular force beneath the mountains of Cairne, the dwarven people were fractured and changed when the Blight hit. Their once opulent underground kingdoms were ravaged by lurking horrors, madness, and disease as whatever aberrant denizens and fell creatures that call the void home spilled uninhibited into the dark places the dwarves called home. The dwarves fought back hard, and into the modern day the epic tales of their heroes are revered and held sacred by all their kin, but in the end their people were split. One faction, primarily the craftsmen, traders, and ruling castes, decided in the end it was not worth the loss of life to hold on to a realm that seemed to no longer favor them, opting instead to move to the mountain tops and dig out a new empire of Culvarkt. The remaining hold outs, the Fouvienians stayed and continued to hold back the darkness in the deep places from spilling out into the surface world.