Kingdom of Fardûn

The mountain dwarves of Fardûn have dwelt deep in the Galena Mountains for millennia, since their ancient ancestors descended from the Spine of the World before the rise of the Empire of Netheril. They longed maintained trading relationships with the eldarin of the Cormanthor Forest and, more recently, have traded extensively with the Vassir and the human merchant families of Phlan and especially Melvaunt. Their mines produce much of the stone and iron used by builders, weaponsmiths, and armorers throughout the Moonsea region and beyond. They have long since mined most of the precious metals in the Galenas, however, with the result that they jealously guard their wealth and allow few outsiders to enter their ancient halls. No one has mounted a successful invasion of Fardûn since long before the raising of the Standing Stone, though the Fardûner do sometimes welcome skilled rock gnome tinkerers into their halls from the Vanishing Hills and the foothills of the Western Galenas.
The Halls of Fardûn consist of a vast and complex network of mines, tunnels and enormous meeting halls. The greatest of these latter is Dûn-Rûnedar, hall of King Durmoc Grohthuld, who rules from his throne deep under the Arauspalt (Great Cleft), where the northern and western Galenas diverge. These Halls house some 5,000 dwarves, the largest colony in the region. The dwarves of Fardûn are renowned for their hatred of goblinoids, especially the Sceadugengan that dwell in the deeps of the southern Galenas between the Glacier of the White Wyrm and Bloodstone Pass. They are devoted worshippers of the House of Khazad-dûn, especially its lord and lady, Moradin and Berronar. They believe Moradin carved the first dwarves from stone in the depths of Mordin Findal (the dwarven name for what the Church of Tyr calls Mount Celestia). Their ancient legends teach that, after Moradin hewed the first dwarves out the sacred stone, they made their way to Faerun through subterranean planar tunnels that led to the Summit of the World (as the equivalent of the North Pole is known on Toril, at least among northern peoples such as the Fardûner, the nomadic Erakian tribes of the Ride, the Vaasir [people of Vaasa], and the Sossrim).
Political and Economic Organization of the Kingdom
Fardûn is a strictly hierarchical and patriarchal, highly militaristic society. The Grothuld clan rules Fardûn from its great hall of Dûn-Rûnedar. They and their closest supporters have grown wealthy by presiding over—and demanding tribute from—the clans that carry out the Kingdom's extensive iron mining, smithing and trading operations, the latter involving exchanges with nearby orcish tribes in the Thar and merchants from the human-dominated city-states on the northern coast of the Moonsea. The orcish tribes of the Thar provide most of the meat consumed by the Fardûner in the form of the giant boars they herd across the rocky slopes of the moors, mostly in return for slaves and weapons. Similarly, human merchants trade medicinal herbs obtained from the eldarin, textiles, timber, and fruits and vegetables suitable for pickling or other forms of preservation with the Fardûner for iron ore, stone, weapons, and slaves. While the Kingdom traded for milennia with the eldarin of the Cormanthor, relations between the Khazad of the Galenas and the high elves were always more instrumental and strategic than warm. In recent centuries, direct trade between the two has largely ceased, enabling human merchants to act as middlemen. (As discussed further below, Fardûners' role as supplier of Drow slaves has elicited mixed reactions from the surface-dwelling eldarin, ranging from indifference [more typical among the Anor-tel-quessir] to outright hostility [more typical among the Lûna-tel-quessir].)
Social Status and Stratification of Fardûner Society

Warrior clans like the Grothulds, Kriegskarn, Dolchschub and Speckpanzer enjoy the highest status and the most political authority in Fardûn, though forging, mining and merchant clans (in descending order of importance) also exercise considerable influence. The fungus farming clans tolerate a much lower status, one that has fallen considerably over the past few centuries as trade with the fertile Trank River Valley and the towns of Melvaunt and Phlan has increased, and the Kingdom has accordingly become less dependent on the fungus farmers for sustenance.
The Khazad of Fardûn attach great status to long, full beards and hairy, muscular bodies, features often on display in the great public baths in the subterranean hot springs of Baden Damphar. The vast grottoes where the bathers gather fill with deep sonorous chants, akin to both Tuvan throat singing and funeral doom. The grottoes also frequently host performances by revered traditional Fardûner bards such as Gram Schädelhammer, not to mention earsplitting concerts featuring traveling bardic ensembles. Both the Herald of Doom and Shagrat, the orcish trio from the Eastern Thar infamous for tearing apart large animals during their thundering, relentlessly abrasive performances, attract particularly large and maniacal audiences. To be sure, a minority of traditionalists grumbles that these outsiders have no place in the grottoes, but they remain immensely popular nonetheless. Indeed, King Grothuld is said to be a huge fan of both acts. Fardûner family portraits, in which adult dwarven women are forbidden to appear
Gender and Family in Fardûn
Female dwarves are forbidden to enter the baths, thus ensuring that they will have little input into the Kingdom's affairs, given that much of the real decision-making occurs in the grottoes. (To be sure, some whisper that particularly hairy, small-breasted female Fardûner sometimes pass as male dwarves, thus becoming Falschhaare, though this is difficult given strong social pressures to engage in ritualized homosexual copulation in the grottoes.) While dwarven women from most lineages are quite capable of growing luxurious beards and thick back and chest hair, strong taboos against the same render most cisgender Fardûner women easily identifiable and thereby reinforce their relative powerlessness and exclusion from many aspects of public life. Women belonging to the most powerful and wealthy clans typically have many children, as many as two score over the two-century-long periods during which they remain fertile.
The Kotgräber and the Itinerant Priests of Marthammor Duin
While the fungus farming clans and Fardûner women suffer from relatively low status, the most downtrodden element of Fardûner society is undoubtedly the so-called Kotgräber clans, who typically perform the most stigmatized tasks, such as maintaining latrines, collecting and sorting garbage, and butchering giant boars. Unlike other clans, Kotgräber must trim their beards short or face harsh censures, sometimes including banishment. Kotgräber at work More Kotgräber
Given the insularity and hierarchical nature of the Kingdom, it is perhaps unsurprising that Fardûner who leave their subterranean home for extended periods are typically viewed with some suspicion and even a degree of contempt if ever they return, often even by their own closest relatives. Consequently, regardless of their clan of origin, those Fardûner who come home permanently after traveling extensively or even settling outside the Kingdom often find themselves downwardly mobile, only able to live among and marry Kotgräber. Male clerics of Marthammor Duin are tolerated in Fardûn, though these itinerant priests find few eager to observe the Duinian rites outside the Kotgräber, among whom they typically reside while visiting Fardûn's hallowed halls.
Magic in the Kingdom
Compared to humans and the Tel-Quessir, not to mention their western cousins the Arausammen, the Fardûner have a very different relationship to magic. The Kingdom's inhabitants attach great importance to both physical strength and endurance, as well as practical intelligence and good judgment, especially in the context of large-scale collective projects. Such projects may aim at shoring up the Kingdom's defenses and proactively managing potential threats from both the Sceadugengan to the south and the Drow and Duergar below, producing monumental functional and decorative stoneworks, providing a steady supply of the highest quality steel weapons and armor, or expanding the Kingdom's infrastructure in the form of bridges, gates, and transportation systems. In order to be effective, such projects require dwarves to plan ahead and coordinate the work of many across time and place. To no small extent, conversely, magic—especially as practiced by the human wizards of the Collegium Miraculorum—centers around what individuals can do, especially during a very short time horizon (e.g., combat round). Accordingly, the Fardûner view wizardry and sorcery with great skepticism and even hostility to the extent that they perceive their workings as enabling specific individuals—and only those individuals—to solve problems that could otherwise be solved collectively through cooperation, planning and hard work.
None of this means, however, that the Fardûner prohibit magic use within the Kingdom. Indeed, magic plays a central role in the ritual chants practiced in Bad Damphar, where it is seen as an appropriate and enriching complement to the collective voices of the bathers. Similarly, Arbeitslieder (work songs), rhythmic chants passed down through oral tradition, not only help maintain high spirits and predictable flows of effort and materials but also literally power mining carts that carry fuels, ores, and tools where they need to go. Thus, bards rather than wizards or sorcerers tend to play a much more central role in the Kingdom, not merely as entertainers and keepers of sacred lore, but also as leaders of the chants that power the Fardûner mining, forging and distribution operations. Few Fardûner attend the magic schools of the Collegium Miraculorum—and even fewer who do ever return to the Kingdom's halls, where they would be viewed with even greater suspicion and contempt than other travelers.
In some respects, there is a degree of similarity between the Fardûner bardic traditions and the Arselu Tel-Quess of the eldarin, insofar as the latter make much weaker distinctions between art, music, and magic than is typical among humans. However, the Fardûner collectively express great distaste for what they see as the playful and frivolous songs of the eldarin, which to Fardûner ears and bodies lack the weight, power and practical utility of their own sacred hymns and work songs. Moreover, the Fardûner abhor the practice of witchcraft, which they have long seen as the downfall of their once great trading partners in the Empires of Narfell and Raumathar. Despite the very limited participation of the Fardûner in the Collegium's schools of magic, then, the Khazad of the Galenas share that organization's deep hostility to the pursuit of arcane secrets purely in the service of personal and political power. Yet unlike the Dons of the Collegium, the Fardûner concern themselves less with how the will to power may corrupt the search for knowledge and truth or destabilize the sharp boundaries between the material and spiritual planes. Instead, they revile witchcraft and certain approaches to wizardry and sorcery for their failure to support collective displays of strength, discipline and ingenuity and to produce durable works.
More specifically, Fardûner customs condemn illusion, enchantment and conjuration, while selectively tolerating collective application of abjuration and evocation magic and enthusiastically encouraging the development and application of transmutation rituals. As such, traditional Fardûner bards may learn "spells" only from the latter three arcane traditions and can only "cast" such spells by working together with at least two other dwarven bards (but, in game mechanics terms, they can always select spells from the latter three arcane traditions, whether or not the same are included in the "Bard Spells" list). Those who practice illusion, enchantment or conjuration magics, by contrast, quickly find themselves banished or even executed.
Suppliers of the Slave Trade
Another important aspect of the Kingdom's society is its heavy involvement in the slave trade carried out in the region primarily by the Cult of Bane. While virtually no Fardûner are adherents of the Cult of the Black Lord, they do supply most of the Duergar and Drow captives sold in Mulmaster's vast slave market. Though their hatred of the Sceadugengan is far more visceral, the Fardûner have long regarded the dark dwarves and the Ithil-tel-quessir as a more fundamental threat to the Kingdom that any surface-dwelling species. Consequently, the Fardûner revere above all others those ancestral kings such as Maion Kreigskarn, who led preemptive wars against the deep-dwelling denizens of the Unterirde. With the demographic explosion of surface-dwelling humans over the past few millennia, the Fardûner have increasingly channeled their ancient enmity toward the Duergar and Drow into systematic raids aimed at maintaining a steady supply of captives for delivery to human and orcish slavers. Partly in the interest of preventing such raids, some Drow leaders (virtually all of whom are women) have struck bargains with the Fardûner, in which they willingly supply male Drow as slaves in return for payment in weapons and other goods. (This practice is a straightforward extension of matriarchal dominance in Drow society, which permits and even encourages Drow women to own male slaves.) No slaves live among the subjects of the Kingdom itself, as the Fardûner attach far too much moral and practical importance to hard work to allow even the most menial of tasks to be performed by slaves. (Notably, goblin slaves remain virtually unheard of either within or beyond the Kingdom, both because the Fardûner insist on exterminating the Sceadugengan whenever possible and because goblins are exceedingly difficult to train and control, meaning that they would fetch at best very low prices in most slave markets.)