Dwarves

Created by Hjanda, the Dwarves are mountain dwellers, tool makers, and ardent fighters. They have strong ties to kin and home.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Like the other mortal races, dwarves are upright, bipedal beings with two hands. They are shorter than the others, save only halflings, but are more than able to make up for that deficiency. They were created to be a hearty, strong race, and have a tendency to have wide, stocky builds. Both males and females are known to have facial hair, though the social norms in most Dwarvish cultures instructs women to remove theirs.

Growth Rate & Stages

Dwarves reach adult hood by the middle of their twenties, and can live more than two centuries old, making them the longest lived race, next to Elves. Despite their longevity, they do not seem to be as confined to idle introspection.

Additional Information

Social Structure

Dwarven societies tend to be built around the family. Surnames are less common here, preferring to list of the entire ascendency of surviving ancestors. With their kind living two centuries, such lists can become quite lengthy and tiresome to outsiders. Beyond the immediate family, there are clans that are made up a small group of interconnected families, usually within the mine or portion of it. Groups of clans within the same mine or cave system are known as a Hold. Dwarves are expected to know and recite all of this from memory, as well as the history of the clan and hold they belong to.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Dwarves are most often found in the deep holds and mines they create in the mountains of T'sara, or in the surrounding area. The Hammerdeep dwarves claim the largest mountain chain in T'sara. They can also be found in the Traxian League, near the Nuled Empire, and more spread out areas. Above ground, they tend to be most commonly found in large metropolitan areas, where their cultural leaning towards being good with tools usually translates to being successful in a craft or trade. It is rare to find a solitary dwarf in a settlement, preferring to travel and live in groups.

Average Intelligence

Dwarves often have an understated intelligence. Their propensity for the mines and crafts often makes them look basic and dim. What is often missed is that the dwarf in question is usually adept, if not an expert, at whatever their given skill or profession is. When applied to more academic principles like spellcraft, they can more than hold their own with others.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Designed to make their home in the deep caves of mountains, Dwarves can see as well in the pitch dark as in the day.
Dwarves have Darkvision

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Dwarves tend to have short, one or two syllabal names, often in a rhyming form with their parents and grandparents.

Gender Ideals

Dwarves have a even understanding of the roles of males and females in their society. Everyone mines, everyone digs, everyone fights, everyone cares for the family. Women have the extra obligation of knowing how to care for infant dwarves in newborn status, but within the family, both parents and siblings are responsible for caring for and raising of children. There are also few restrictive norms in most forms of dwarven society; women are understood to be just as able to drink, play, and fight like men.

Courtship Ideals

in most societies, Dwarven courtships are long and slow. They are also public: eloping and even dating without family knowing is considered highly disrespectful. Introducing dates to family members happens early, and it's common for both dwarves to be invited to events with either family.

Relationship Ideals

Relationships should lead towards marriage, extending family lines, and siring children. Because dwarves focus so much on children and family, being created by the Goddess of Families, homosexual relationships are not well accepted. Sons and daughters of especially famous or prominent Dwarves are under particular pressure to carry on the legacy; but still finding the right partner with which to do so.

Major Language Groups and Dialects

Dwarvish languages fall into a single language family, though no Hold still speaks true "Old Dwarvish". In the Lost Age, all Dwarves lived connected together in various holds through an underground highway near the center of T'sandra. With the Sundering of the world itself during the Fey Crisis, the Holds of Dwarves would be permanently separated; reconstruction of the highway impossible, even for dwarves. This separation has lead for the pockets of Dwarves to develop and alter their own dialects, and over the past three ages, are distinct languages from one another. The various languages are mostly distinct from one another in their vocabulary and pronounciation; grammar mostly being intact. As such, an outsider who learns one of the dwarvish languages can interact with other dwarvish languages, though at the rough equivalent of a child.

Old Dwarvish is still used in written form. Some traditions, like marriage ceremonies, are still spoken in Old Dwarvish, though only by those familiar with it. Speaking the old tongue as an amateur is a wide embarassment. Only worse are non-dwarves trying to speak to dwarves in the old tongue, showing themselves to be unworldly academic peons.

Common Dress Code

Dwarves tend to dress for modesty and hard work. Mirroring the humility of their Goddess Hjanda, they commonly wear attire that covers the full body, of simple colors and fabrics that are easily cleaned. This often gives the false impression that dwarves are dour, serious buildings. Dwarvish fashion actually includes plenty of vibrant designs and colors, favoring vivid contrast, but is reserved for special occassions; away from work in the mines or the shop.

Being some of greatest smiths in all of T'sara, it is fairly well understood for dwarves to have decorative flourishes in their weapons and their armor as well. Images signifying their clan or Hold are the norm, but smiths have also been known to incorporate styles from archiectural cues in them as well.

History

Dwarves were the fourth race of mortals created by The Six Sisters, behind Elves, Humans, and Orcs. With so much of the world occupied, but still wanting to contribute her part to the world, Hjanda decided to create beings that would not be a threat, but also not be forced to submit to others. She would make dwarves in such a way that they would be naturally inclined to the mountains, to living in a world under the world. Given Hjanda's other gift of tools, Dwarves would spread through the mountains and make their impact known on the world, both literal and metaphorical.
Dwarves would be the first to make weapons and armor, guided by their goddess as well as Glokrei, God of War, and would foreverafter be known to be masters behind the anvil, and fearsome fighters in front of them. With their strong ties to family, the Sundering of The Fey Crisis would affect them more culturally than physically. They would be able to survive in the mountains as they had before, but the sepeartion of the mountains into all different places of T'sara without any connection would spinter one immense dwarvish family into several, families that often did not get along together. Many have tried to claim a role of High King, to rule over all dwarves in the world, but all pretenders have been struck down, often my members of their own holds.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Being the least interested in global affairs and less directly affected by the Triumverate War, Dwarves are the most conciliatory and positive with Orcs. Their tribal traditions also closely resembles Dwarvish ones, granting a spirit of solidarity. So long as Orcs come forward with good intentions, the various dwarvish holds will likewise do the same.

Their fey-touched counterparts, the Goblins, do not have the same positive relationship. Goblins are far more impulsive and less considerate. The worst among them have sabotaged dwarvish mines as they claim space for themselves; thinking the caves would be protect them from the ire and blades of the species above ground.
In most cases, Dwarves have a positive relationship with the likes of Humans, Elves, and Halflings. They all have been positive trade partners, and unlike Goblins, generally stay away from Dwarvish lands. That does not mean that these relationships are without tension; Elves are commonly seen as vainglorious dawdlers, Humans too overly ambitious and oversexed, and halflings so wrapped in their wanderlust that they can never seem to amount to anything.

Genetic Descendants

• Tiefling

Related Organizations

• Shogunate of Cygia