Dwarves

Dwarves are hardy, and take great pride in their craftmanship. Their heritage is rich with mining, forging, and fighting. The warlike people have strongholds of imposing stone with miles of tunnels, and frequently go to war with each other over things other races would barely care about.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Dwarves are given the surname of their highest ranking parent (or potential parent), and failing that, the name of the parent who has earned the most glory in battle. As they reach mid-adulthood it is common for dwarves to take a second surname, that of a person they greatly respect, idolise, or in some cases owe their life to.

Major Organizations

Dwarven organisations are run by a small council of generals. In Kadrik this council is called The House of Twelve, and contains, as it's name suggests, twelve self-elected members, one of which is allocated the title "high king of Kadrik". There is no proper democracy, but noone can be in the house of twelve unless they have the respect and admiration from a majority of the population, as no dwarf will lie down quietly if they feel they are suffering an injustice.

Beauty Ideals

Well kept, long hair is admired, and so are battle scars. Physical strength is very important.

Gender Ideals

Male dwarves are usually seen as more important, as they are are often physically stronger. They often become soldiers, although the female dwarves are expected to be capable warriors they do less fighting. As a counterpoint, female dwarves are valuble for their ability to bear children, and are expected to be knowledgable so they can teach these children.

Relationship Ideals

Older dwarves often marry, in lifelong partnerships. However, most dwarven culture does not put emphasis on monogamy, and does sometimes encourage it, especially for younger dwarves. As such polygamy, polyamoury, and prostitution are common and openly practiced. This has some interesting concequences for the family lines of the children of these practices, with some family trees listing all potential fathers, others only the named one, or the one who most helped to care for the child, or sometimes no father is listed at all. This is not a problem in dwarven-run societies, and has the extra bonus of disregarding the complex bloodline politics that some races suffer from.

As you can imagine, dwarf culture has emphasis on sex and the body, and very little concept of modesty,

Major Language Groups and Dialects

They speak common and dwarvish. Dwarvish is a quite germanic language, with a lot of hard sounds. Some dwarf scholars like to learn primordial, as they believe it influenced the language in it's early formation.

History

It is said that the small size of dwarves comes from centuries of working underground. This is largely speculative, although it is certainly true that they are much more at home undergroung than most races. Their strongholds are well spread around most of nardish's mountainous and cold regions, with several being abandoned or destroyed as the ambitious inhabitants made the most of the expanding lands around them.

Dwarves are quite common in and around Tariksan. The country on the northwest border is a dwarven-run state, called Kadrik, and in the mountains there is a stronghold called Norderban. The slighly cold nature of tariksan's landscape means it has a quite high dwarven population and influence.