The Dwarves

"Ours is a tale of misfortune and tragedy. Once our people all called ourselves Adu. Now we cling to the scraps the Darcassian and Zarmudans leave us. We go by new monikers, entirely fashioned by our enemies and by our own people. The Silver Dwarves have accepted their place in the Darcassian Empire. There are the Black Dwarves who cowered behind their walls in Minuba. And my own kin, the Stone Dwarves, who have grown wayward and lost."
"There is so much bitterness and hate lurking in the hearts of my kind. How many mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, perished during the War of Zealots and Martyrs? Now it seems we only exist in the shadow of other people."
Brogan Veserlund, Dwarf Historian, "Histories of the Adu Arnem Vol. 5"

Civilization and Culture

History

The Dwarves are a race of stocky creatures who live throughout Kiimati and Minuba. Like the race of men, the Dwarves were already present in the lands of Kiimati when the Fatherland of Zarmuda moved into the region and began its colonization of the region. The Dwarves were slowly driven from their ancestral lands until only a few pockets were left in Kiimati.
The Dwarf Empire lasted longer in Minuba but even this would come to an end. Like their cousins overseas it would be the Darcassians who, taking over the Zarmudan colonies there, began their conquest of Minuba in search for Zerizite.

The Adu Arnem

Once the Dwarves were known as the Adu. They ruled an empire, the Adu Arnem, that spanned Minuba and Kiimati during the Divine Age. It was wealthy and prosperous, the ruins of which can be seen strewn across places like the Stone Lands today. They moved into these lands even as the God Kings urged their followers west. The Dwarves, recognizing the God Kings as their creators, permitted the Zarmudans to live alongside them. The land's native humans did likewise. They joined the rest of the world in praising and paying tribute to the God Kings of Zarmuda.
Under the influence of the God Kings the Dwarves proved to be adaptable to any environment. They tamed mountains, deserts, and wide open plains to suit their needs. The wide variety of lands that the Dwarves ruled over led to an explosion in the identification of important minerals, plants, and energy sources. These discoveries and the Dwarves skill at living mostly everywhere helped contribute to the Artificial Age.

Fall from Glory

Once the Artificial Age began the Dwarves soon fell out of favor as the Zarmudans under the direction of new God Kings began to outpace the Dwarves technologically. An arms race soon began with Zarmudans and Dwarves challenging each other to a contest of creativity and innovation. In the end the Zarmudans won out and much of the glory of the Artificial Age was credited to the Zarmudans and their colonies.
The Dwarves soon found themselves in a spiritual and economic race with their neighbors. Zarmudan colonies quickly outpaced those of the Dwarves. Many more humans and Zarmudans embarked on Pilgrimages to ascend and become God Kings. The Dwarves also had God Kings but in the time between the Divine Age and the War of Zealots and Martyrs only twenty Dwarves had succeeded in becoming God Kings.
So when the world began to mire in religious discontent and confusion, this outrage was soon turned to a lust for power and control of more territories.

The War of Zealots and Martyrs

The Dwarf Gods did not collapse into infighting and civil war like their Elf, human, or Zarmudan counterparts. This hardly mattered as the Adu Arnem over the course of the war was picked apart and dismembered by powerful nation states, crusaders, and revolutionaries. One by one, the Dwarf God Kings were slain. The Adu Arnem collapsed and the different Dwarven states struggled to survive against their many foes.
The darkest days of the Dwarves came with rise of the False God, who invaded the Erun Stokkal. Now known as the Stone Lands, the Erun Stokkal was left alone and surrounded. Its people begged the God Kings to save it from the assaults of the False God and his followers. No answer came and the Erun Stokkal was destroyed by artillery and chemical weapons. The once beautiful plains had been leveled into barren wastes, desert, and stony rock. The exceptional craftsmanship of the Dwarves survived, still standing as a testament to the long lasting splendor of the Dwarf Courts.
The Erun Mikkal fell not to the False God, but to the rising Darcassian Empire. Abelech the Apostate led his armies into the mountains after his victory against the God Kings of Zarmuda. The Erun Mikkal had held out for the entirety of the war. Abelech ordered that artillery shells filled with a flesh eating virus be fired into the mountain. The achievements and creations of the Dwarves survived but many of the Dwarves were liquified or crushed beneath falling rubble as the shells smashed through the mountains and into the Dwarven cities. By the end the Dwarf God Kings who dwelled in the mountains lay dead. Abelech and his Imperial Vennacti marched into the ruined cities as conquerors, drawing the Erun Mikkal into the Darcassian Empire as a province.
The Erun Zotacli in Minuba was the last of the great Dwarf nations to fall. With Vintirrion's Realm splintered by civil war, the Erun Zotacli closed its doors and fortified their cities, such as the famous city of Miztulan and the Dwarf Kingdom of Mazatkan. While the Elves destroyed their own empire the Dwarves flourished. It was not until Abelech the Apostate completed his conquests in Kiimati that the Darcassian Empire arrived. Conquering the Zarmudan colonies in Minuba first, they soon moved on, defeating the Elves and Dwarfs in quick succession.
Abelech did not conquer their lands. Instead together with God Queen Shoka, succeeded in killing or stripping the Dwarf God Kings their of their divinity. Humiliated the Erun Zotacli had their walls forcibly torn down as a sign of deference. The Darcassian Empire would not complete the conquest of Minuba until after the war.

The Stone Dwarves

The survivors of the Erun Stokkal never forgot the abandonment of the God Kings. Calling themselves the Stone Dwarves, they set about reclaiming their lands. They beat back Darcassian and Athelian attempts to conquer their land. As one of the few nations to do so, the Stone Dwarves kept their lands independent of Darcassian Rule. The borders between the Athelian and the Stone Lands are heavily guarded. The occasional skirmish and even battle breaks out to this day.
Despite this defiance most Stone Dwarves abandon their lands in search of opportunity elsewhere. Many end up living in the Empire where they settle in with their Dwarf kin from the Erun Mikkal. The Stone Dwarves who stay in Erun Stokkal harbor a bitter hatred for all who had destroyed their lands. It is a bit of a coin flip as to whether or not the Dwarves, in the event of a second war, will side with the Fatherland of Zarmuda. Zarmudan Missionaries and Darcassian Diplomats work round the clock to sway the Dwarves to their cause.
The Stone Dwarf capital is Godsblood.

The Silver Dwarves

Conquered by the Darcassian Empire, the Silver Dwarves have been part of the Empire since the end of the War of Zealots and Martyrs. The Silver Dwarves were hard hit by the war, with all of its adult population killed by its end. Only the famous Ral Half-Handed remains as a representative for his people.
Unlike the other Dwarf peoples, the Silver Dwarves have not recovered from the war. Their population remains low and much of the industry of their land has been devastated and left in a sorry state. Because of the lack of a government, the Erun Mikkal is personally overseen by the Martocrat. Rebuilding has progressed but slowly.
Most Silver Dwarves, once old enough, abandon their mountain homes and go abroad in search of opportunity. Like the Athelians, the Silver Dwarves enter in the service of the Imperial Vennacti, serve as mercenaries, or simply to travel. Some Silver Dwarves, more than others, seek out their lost kin eager to restore the Adu Arnem to its former glory.

The Black Dwarves

The inhabitants of Mazatkan, the Black Dwarves went into an isolationist state at the start of the War of Zealots and Martyrs. This had spared their lands from much of the war's devastation. This peace soon ended with the Darcassian Invasion of Minuba. The Dwarves and their Elf allies were defeated after a grueling siege at Miztulan. Mazatkan, boasting some of the most formidable walls, were threatened into surrendering. In full view of the city's populace, the Darcassians forced the Dwarves at gunpoint to destroy their beloved walls brick by brick.
The last of the Dwarf God Kings were either killed or stripped of their divinity. Since then Mazatkan has not been fully integrated into the Empire. Resistance grows and though the battle at Miztulan was lost the war for the Black Dwarves appears to have not ended quite yet.

Lifespan

500 to 600 years

Geographic Distribution

• Kiimati
• Minuba