Dwarves

**Dwarves** are a race of intelligent humanoids commonly found underground or in mountainous areas. Industrious and productive, dwarves are a generally lawful species, dedicated to their deity and their king.

## History

The dwarves were the builders of the Ship - not the labouring force, but the architects and engineers who turned the elven plans into concrete reality. Millions of dwarves moved aboard the Ship, and their knowledge of the Ship's internal structure was incredibly valuable.

However, their technical knowledge was soon lost, and the dwarves instead treated the Underdecks as their own personal fiefdom, where they were free to explore at their pleasure. They remained, apparently, unengaged in the War of 1995, although records are so fragmentary as to be useless. However, in 4553, the dwarves delved too greedily and too deep, and at the command of their king they breached a wall of adamantine believed to conceal immeasureable treasures. Instead, the breach released vast amounts of poison, killing not just huge numbers of dwarves but causing devastation across most of the Ship. This disaster, known as the Delving Disaster, was a watershed moment for the dwarven people, and while the dwarven population has only recently recovered, the memory of the Delviing Disaster remains fresh for the children of Adinhammer.

## Language

The Dwarven tongue, Khuzdul, is said to have been given to the dwarves by Adinhammer himself on the day of creation, although non-dwarven scholars dispute this claim, pointing to linguistic similarities with Draconic and Elven, although these similarities are disputed with equal fervour by dwarven linguists, who point out that there is no consensus on which language is older - Dwarven or Elven.

In comparison with Elven, and with most languages, Dwarven is a functional, unimaginative language, suited to the dwarves and their purposes. Non-dwarves claim that the writing of songs and poetry in Dwarven is both difficult and futile, although dwarven bards and ollams are happy to produce great sagas and epics of old to refute this.

## Government

The ruler of all dwarves is the King Under The Mountain, a hereditary monarch who can trace his family line back to the dwarven kings of the World That Was. His immediate advisors are the underkings of the great delves, each of whom has a similarly exalted pedigree.

These so-called "mountain loyalists" represent only the majority of dwarven society. Those dwarves, especially in the north, that reject his authority are called "deep dwarves". The deep dwarves have their own interdependent clan structure, and their feuding with the loyalists is primarily economic rather than military.

## Major cities

The most major city of the dwarves is certainly Lannettcrag, their ancient capital and home. Lannettcrag spreads for more than ten miles along the centre of the Sternwall, and the heart of the city is the soaring cavern carved, it is said, by the hand of Adinhammer himself.

Other major dwarven delves often have two names - the names the dwarves use for the delve itself, and the name of the city beneath which it can be found. Almost all surface cities with more than about ten thousand residents have a delve either directly underneath or within a few miles.

## Relations with other races

The dwarves are an inherently isolationist people, and they do not welcome tourists or non-dwarven immigrants to their underground cities. The dwarven talent with stonework, mining and smithing makes them tolerable for the other races, but few number the dour, serious people as friends.

Those of exceptional talent are permitted into the delves, and dwarven merchants are usually able to acquire permission for trusted - or lucrative - customers or suppliers to enter the delve. Uninvited strangers are unlikely to get past the door guards.

## Culture

Most non-dwarves will claim that the children of stone have no culture, that the higher arts are lost to them. Certainly, very few dwarves ever take up painting or ceramics, and the majority of their artistic efforts are directed towards practical goals, such as smithing, engineering and architecture. However, the often-repeated claim that poetry is impossible in Dwarven is repudiated by the talented and honoured dwarven ollams, the keepers of oral history. The dwarves pass down their history both in written form and in long, detailed sagas. The longest of these sagas, *Adinhammer Guides His Children*, is the tale of Ironfinder, one of the first dwarves, and consists of the story of his life and the blessings of Adinhammer shown thereby.

The saga is considered the highest form of artistic expression in dwarven life, and it is a common objective of adventurers to achieve such heights as to be immortalised in the slow, determined chant of the sagas of the dwarves.

## Religion

The worship of Adinhammer is almost universal among dwarves - even those who reject the authority of the King Under the Mountain acknowledge the clergy of Adinhammer, who are granted free passage throughout dwarven lands. However, two significant subgroups exist - both of whom acknowledge the primacy of Adinhammer, but devote their regular worship towards another deity.

The Evamasters are devotees of the Grim Old God of Space, and their spiritual headquarters is a secret delve said to contain portals to the airless wastes beyond the Ship. Those who would venture forth into those lands will need the evamasters on-side.

The Church of Engineers (usually just "C of E") are dwarven clerics of the Undermind. Even more than other dwarves, C of E clerics are experts - inasmuch as anyone is - on the day-to-day function of the Ship. C of E clerics, for example, are the only people who have ever been able to communicate with a Keeper.

## Infrastructure

The dwarves are perhaps the masters of the Ship's internal infrastructure - "perhaps", because huge tracts of knowledge and understanding have been lost over the centuries, and it's unclear how much of what's left is true knowledge and how much is now unthinking ritual and tradition. Certainly, for the common dwarven labourer, the Ship is as much as mystery as it is for the commoners of any other race, but dwarven engineers and priests claim especial knowledge of the "Inner Workings", the sacred, secret mechanisms by which the Ship continues to function.

In this regard, the dwarves have a complicated relationship with the Keepers - some dwarves, especially C of E priests, consider them to be holy messengers, while others tell dark tales of entire delves lost after a Keeper has sealed a hatch or vented radiation into living spaces. Fragmentary record keeping makes it difficult to tell if there's any truth to these stories.