Barak Kar

Dwarven resilience meets cunning and greed

Culture

The dwarves of Barrak Kar are likened more to pirates then honest dwarves. They are cutthroat to the extreme, but they need to be to survive in the unforgiving ocean. One wrong move, even made with the best of intentions, can cost you and your crews life. The dwarves learn to rely on one another quickly, and so their have strict codes of conduct. They regularly renegotiate deals, and will choose any option that secures them the most wealth when making deals with other races, though they are at least slightly more honest when it comes to dealing with other dwarves. They are opportunistic, and so can be seen raiding other races for loot and plunder, if they think they can accomplish it easily of course. Due to this way of life, they are extremely competent at fighting in naval and underwater conditions, and so truthfully few can hope to match them in the elemental plane of water. However, despite the apparent thieving and scheming attitude, one will find that these dwarves will consider teammates like family, and are loyal to the end. You will never find a single dwarven captain of Barrak Kar who wont go down with his ship, as a true display of outmost loyalty and devotion to his people and his crew.

History

Fractioning is what happened when the Dwarves argued about what to do. Heading with Telgrun, those dwarves who followed him would agree to spread across the Elemental Planes, with one group choosing to go to the Plane of Water, and they were in for a truly perilous time. With little in the way of natural surface land, the dwarves had to come up with how to build their great sky city and secure enough material. The few scattered land masses were heavily contested by other races that washed up in the plane of water. Unable to afford a war this early in their history, the dwarves of Barrak Kar would build a fortress under water, jury rigging their ships to be able to travel underwater and made the great underwater fortress, a divination from their other kin who made flying fortresses. They would soon find that the underwater depths of that plane are filled with all manor of horror beyond description, but riches beyond the wildest imagination, and the fabled material that kept their machines running.
The greatest expedition however, and the most infamous of this fortress, would come from when the dwarves sought to scout out the Darkened Depths, the place in where the suns protective light does not reach. They traveled so far down, that some were worried if they would ever see the light again. That is when they found it...The Dark Reef. A fortress like place that held architecture that felt both familiar and completely unnatural to the dwarven explores. They would venture into this hellish place, and awaken the monsters inside. Strange eldritch creatures that are beyond description, they would butcher the dwarves and only a few would manage to make it out with their lives. Fewer would make it to see the sun again. Since then, the dwarves of Barrak Kar would not only have to contend with the ocean itself, nor the other races seeking dominion over the plane, but fight a desperate war of survival against these abominations, for they corrupted everything they touched. They fought for plunder, but now they fight for survival as well.

Foreign Relations

The dwarves of Barak Kar are seen with suspicion from their kin, for they are more pirate than respectable dwarven warriors. However, ancient treaties thousands of years old mean that they must still be respected, and besides, some of the younger dwarven folk admire the wanderlust and adventure these dwarves exhibit. To other races Barak Kar holds mixed reception as they do raid trade lanes sometimes, and especially to the inhabitants of the underwater depths of both he plane of water and the depths of the mortal realm, for many riches can be plundered from there

"To the depths and back!"

Type

Geopolitical, City-state