Dwarves
Mooldëti, the Settlers
"We are the Mooldëti, those who settle, those who have lost and reclaimed their history": Dampa Khaanipë
Biology
Dwarves are one of three highly intelligent hominid species of Illangar. The other two species are the closely related Humans and Elves. Dwarves are however more distantly related to humans and elves than each of both are to each other. The most noteworthy physical difference of dwarves is their height, which is always below the average of humans and further below that of elves. While elves and humans can have fertile offspring with each other without problems, this is not so much the case for mixed children of dwarves. Humans and dwarves can have viable offspring. Half-Dwarves however are fertile in only a third of all cases. Children of dwarves and elves are extremely rare. They are called Jaanoqhi kizhshi, translating into "Small Sin", as they are believed to be the result of adultery. One of the few known individuals is Noritë. Noritë like all known cases of dwarven-elven children is sterile. Additionally there is a subgroup of dwarves called the Southern Dwarves. Children of Southern Dwarves and humans are also unheard of and likely sterile in all cases. While dwarves are smaller than humans, they have the same body mass and are physically stronger. The majority of humans is right-handed, while the majority of elves is left-handed. Dwarves lack this preference and are generally ambidextrous, they see handedness as an impairment. For this reason they are reknown for their crafting skills in particular. On the reverse is the eyesight of dwarves worse that of humans and elves. Their eye are more sensitive to light, while simultaniously being short-sighted. This may be an adaption to their respective environments. It appears that dwarves are also sturdier and resiliant to diseases, which have more devastating effects on other hominids. Phenotypically there are two types of dwarves. Northern and Southern Dwarves. Northern Dwarves have usually light skin and dark to brownish hair. Southern Dwarves are dark-skinned and have a similar range of hair colours. Both groups can have fertile offspring without problems and there is no reason to assume that they are subspecies. The only difference is that Southern Dwarves cannot have fertile offspring with humans. The bottleneck event, which plagued Northern Dwarves might be one reason for this. Also a prolonged co-existence between Northern Dwarves and Humans, could have lead to some by chance fertile Half-Dwarves, who spread this adaption in the smaller northern population. Interestingly there are no transitional phenotypes between the almost pale northern variants and the dark skinned southern groups. This might be due to bottleneck event, which the Northern Dwarves faced following their almost-extinction. Since ancient times there had been only sporadic contact between the two groups.Southern Dwarves
Apart from the Northern Dwarves, who call themself Mooldëti, translating as "those who settle in stone houses". Apart from them, there is a second more elusive group. Northern Dwarves refer to them by the name Nayifë "those who sing". The southern dwarves live in the tropical forests of Illangar. They are secretive in nature and are seldom in contact with both their northern relatives and the kingdoms and empires of humanity. Few things are known about their culture. They seem to be neither matriarchic nor patriarchic and live in egalitarian groups. They build their houses out of enchanted trees in the canopies of the rainforest. They paint their bodies in glyphs reminiscient of the runes utilised by their northern counterparts. Their striking feature however are their songs, from which they have gotten their dwarvish name Nayifë. Their magic is concerned with beautiful tunes and songs, which echo through the forests. They enchant the trees and the wild animals to do their bidding. Their songs create illusions to lure their enemies into traps. Their songs move trees upon which they live. If they do not want to be found by any outsider, they won't. It might be, that this magic is what saved from the cruel fate of their northern brethen.Culture
History
Dwarven history begins with its own end. The earliest history of dwarves has been lost forever. Devoured by the flames and the terror of the Damat, the name which they have given to the Second God. The history from before this event has been utterly destroyed and the survivors could only try to pierce together what little there had been left. The Damat drove the northern dwarves nearly to extinction and only a few thousand of them survived the catastrophe. Elven historians are quiet on ancient dwarvish history, as they are only concerned with their own past. It is however known that the elves were the first to discover the Second God and some elves, most of them the Shatun did ally with the Second God. Thus some dwarves suspect that elves purposefully hide a part of their own shameful history from them. After the Damat was defeated, the survivors did everything they could to carry on and preserve their fading legacy. This era is known as Notat Oora, the "Time of Gathering" as they tried to salvage their fractured civilisation. They managed to persevere and to rebuild their old glory. They began in the Tonad-Qhoor and expended from there on into the north and the east. They found remnants of cities once populated by dwarves, all of them slaughtered. They found walls inscribed with texts they could not read. This left a lasting impression in their mentality as a whole. A part of their culture became solely dedicated to preservation of knowledge. Writing was considered sacred and it became the duty of every single person to record knowledge. During this age they also recontacted humans tribes, with whom they build friendly relations. Humans were nomads at the time, hence why they came to be called Talëmi "Wanderers". Dwarves traded with them and taught them their language and their script. The coming age is often called the Golden Age of Dwarves. It preceded the ultimate rise of humankind and followed on the great fall of elven empires. In this time dwarven culture spread in the known world and influenced especially humans to an amazing degree. Humans adopted the dwarven language not only for official writing, but soon their own languages became very mixed with dwarven influence, to the degree that they can be considered Creoles, if not entirely relexified. The dwarven influence eventually declined during the First Age of Humanity, when humans became more numerous and dominant. Human agriculture also proved to be more productive than dwarven horticulture. Dwarves did not seek conflict, but hold onto their old centres of power. There were few armed conflicts between humans and dwarves and dwarves mostly vanquished their claims on the open plains. During the Second Age of Humanity, elven influence on humanity grew and humans adopted most of their magical traditions. Their states however remained stable and were not threatened by the conflicts of the human empires, during which they stayed mostly neutral. Most dwarves are concentrated in the dwarven states, called Nakhoosh. However they are also found all around the known world and many have integrated into human realms, seeking a life different from the sometimes oppressive rulership of the clans.Society and Matriarchy
Speaking generally one can summarise human societies as mostly patriarchic. Elven societies are egalitarian in terms of gender dynamics, yet at their core they are hierarchic meritocratic societies ruled by Mages. Dwarven societies are matriarchic, but also gender segregational. Dwarven societies are organised into clans called Napya. Each clan is lead by a mother Ama. The Ama has an almost aristocratic office, passing down the title each to her eldest daughter. Dwarves generally live in small polities and city states. Some of these are ruled by a Queen called Nakhol, while others can be ruled by a civilian council. Nonetheless do the Napya have considerable influence over politics even in council-lead states. Some unions of several Napyakhi choose their own Nakhol, while in orders the title of the Nakhol is purely hereditary. Dwarven politics tend to be a convoluted mess of the interests of many clans and other groups. Wars are rare, but one could say a lot of dwarven states are in a constant cold war with each other. Individual men are generally prohibited from owning property. Land is passed down from a mother to her eldest daughter, while younger daughters are often dependent on their older sister. Brothers are expected to care for their sisters and help them in the upbringing of their children. The concept of marriage is unknown and there is also concept of fatherhood. The primary male figure in the family tends to be the uncle, oldest brother of the sister. Dwarven women therefore don't marry and inherit the property of their mothers. They have relationships with men, but they are expected to not live together for an extended period of time. A man living together with his lover is generally considered a sign of poverty as the brothers could not provide for their sister. Relationships can be both monogamous and polygamous, the important thing is that both partners don't live together for long, the man is only considered a guest. Men and women for that matter are expected to be loyal foremost to their family and their clan only. In another there is a certain gender segregation especially for single men without sisters. Without prospects of inheriting any property they often seek company in their craft and live in male-only communal houses.Magic
Like among other species, there are also dwarves possessing the Gift of Magic. Dwarven mages are roughly as common as mages among humans. The most common form of mages among dwarves are runic mages, who cast magic by incribing certain symbols into objects. The act of magic is an act of transference of power from the mage to the object.Language
When the dwarves survived the Damat they only knew one single language called Emat. There were probably other languages once spoken by ancient dwarves, yet they have been completely forgotten. Some of them been preserved on epigraphic texts uncovered by the survivors, yet their languages do not seem to be related to Emat at all. Classical Emat soon became the dominant language of Illangar as humans were eager to learn the art of writing from the dwarves. They adopted Emat and made it part of their own culture, intensively mixing it with their own languages, to the point that they could be considered creoles. Meanwhile, as dwarves once again spread, their languages changed once again. They began to speak languages spawning from Emat, while keeping Emat as the literary standard. This stage was called Common Emat and is still widely used as term to describe the post-classical usage of Emat by non-Emat speakers. Despite losing influence in recent years, especially the the widespread Daulerim language, knowledge of Emat is still considered pivotal for a classical education and most people who pursue a higher education are well versed in Emat. Once in a while some people even raise their children as supposed native speakers of Emat. Dwarves have three names, the name of the clan, the name given to them by their uncles and the name given to them by their mother. The name of the clan comes first, after which the name given by their uncles follows. The name given to them by their mother however is never used in public and only within the family.Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
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