Dwellers of the Peak
A dwarven druidic circle who make their home at the top of a mountain.
Structure
As with many other circles, the dwellers are led by a small number of elders who gain their positions through experience and power. What is slightly unusual is that the dwellers are always led by those born in a particular part of the cycle. When the dominant elemental energy shifts every 103 years the dwellers choose a new group of leaders who were born during the period when the opposing element was strongest. This helps to maintain a balance between the natural affinity these people will have for their birth element with the currently dominant form of energy. With a dwarven lifespan, their are few who will naturally suvive to the end of the period when they could be leader the circle which also helps to reduce problems with people not wishing to relinquish control.
Culture
The dwellers are druids who follow the ways of Cirga Ashenspear of Clan Ironhammer. Their central beliefs are similar to other circles, focusing on following the ways of nature seeking to maintain a balance, but with a greater emphasis on balancing the core elemental energies. Members of the dwellers are expected to practice and master uses of elemental energy that are in direct opposition to their nature which tends to make those born two to three hundred years ago the most powerful as a particular element reaches it's peak power.
New recruits for the dwellers are drawn from Magrannor Halls and other nearby mines and settlements. The cavern of the unclaimed is rich in willing volunteers, but most of those are looking for a way out rather than wanting to learn to listen the mountain. The dwellers will occasionally take one or two who are unsuited to being druids when they are in need of some extra bodies for work around their settlement, but even then the volunteers will need to be willing to at least out on an act of following the dwellers' beliefs.
The group is primarily made up of dwarves, not due to any prejudice against other races, but because the founder of the circle taught that people should listen to the living rock. This is much easier to do if you have lived your life surrounded by that rock, and the conditions the dwellers must endure on top of their mountain would kill most non-dwarves. The dwellers like to be in directly contact in contact with ground if possible, so they tend to go unshod when moving about their community. The nicks and scrapes their feet acquire on a daily basis are considered a fair price to pay for being able to feel the mountain's energy rising up their bodies.
Dwellers are slightly less restrained in their use of magic than other druids as they are used to casting spells in the mountains, where there is relatively little life to affect. Ritual circles for these druids are circles of stone rathrr than the trees and bushes you would find in an elven circle, but the dwellers seem to have no trouble drawing the power of nature from rock, and the few visible plants.
Since the fall of Andaxius the dwellers have been very concerned with the weather and how it has shifted. According to them it is as though a great dam that was holding back air rather than water has burst, helping to worsen storms and creating a wider range of extremes. This claim is oft repeated when clan leaders climb to their peak to consult with the dwelers about the unsettled weather. According to the dwellers the relatively calm weather that used to be experienced in the mountains and further south was a result of artificially imposed limitations on the wind and that while it may be unpleasant for some, it is the way things are meant to be. They are rarely thanked for this advice.
Public Agenda
According to most other dwarves the dwellers' main goal is to be left alone and hug rocks. While not technically untrue this isn't all the dwellers do. They also provide advice on weather for explorers and traders, protest against large scale mines which may harm the living rock, and try encourage the dwarves of the Magrannor Halls to listen to the mountains. The dwellers can also be counted on to help deal with orc and goblinoid raids as they consider both races to be blights on the mountain with none of them showing proper reverence to the stone.
The world balances on a single point
Bunch of cloth wearing rockhuggers. They're so backward they still haven't learned to use sandles or boots to protect their feet.
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