Duskwalkers

Duskwalkers are a source of legend and stories told 'round the campfire. Thought to be a large family cast out from the Faoli tribe for practicing necromancy, they are actually a separate race that evolved at the same time as the better known tribe. Shorter than the Faoli by twelve to fourteen inches on average, they have a mottled gray skin tone that makes them immediately recognizable. While still thin and well muscled, their ears are rounded and slightly over-sized. Duskwalkers have no native language, but speak common with bits of Faoli dialect mixed in, a fact that reinforces the origin theories held by many others. Their home is in the caves along the eastern shore of Tehbran. Mostly stationary, they are grouped in small family "clans" and are known to form temporary alliances when larger foes makes themselves a nuisance.
There is an uneasy truce with the tribes of Ettins that also inhabit the hills, although this is more from a sense of territoriality than from any real negotiations. Neither group can truly grow enough in strength to outwardly attack the other with out costing too much in losses of land or life. Cave dwellers by nature, their homes rival many towns in creature comforts. Engineers of nature, they are highly skilled at directing water flow to tunnel through the stone faster than they ever could with tools. A byproduct of this means of construction is that they are left with underground pools of clean water that has been filtered through the layers of bedrock. They have also managed to route thermal vents alongside their caverns and aquaducts to provide stabilized temperature, even hundreds of feet below the surface.
Standing roughly 60 inches tall, they dress in leathers, often boiled for hardness. Duskwalkers adorn their arms with simple bands of silver and iron, beaten into shape from the weapons of fallen foes, and also used as a currency when needed. Skilled shapers of stone, they cold forge their simple weapons or take was has been dropped by others. Masters of tunnel fighting, they often wield hammer and spike two-handed, much to the terror of their foes.
Without a centralized ruling party, the number of duskwalker are unknown, but estimated to be in the thousands just on Tehbran. An ambitious Duskwalker will often leave the caves to seek fortune in the world, selling them selves as an exterminator, spelunker, or for the brightest, an engineer of sorts. Their cold eyes unnerve most other races, but their ferocity is challenged only by the orcs of Thangol.