Dwarves

Dwarves are short, stout folk with wide shoulders and typically long beards. Their most prominent racial trait is their magic resistance, which the Atlantis Guild takes advantage of by enslaving dwarven kin and making them work at Magestone mines, since dwarves are more resistant to the debilitating effects Magestone has on living beings. To that end, many dwarves joined in with the Black Powder Rebels, seeking to liberate their fellow brethren from the mines and fight against the Empire's oppresion. They live in dwarven holts which are positioned in mountains and under the ground, and when outside of their holts, they make living in small lodge-houses.

Although slow afoot, dwarves can bear up under enough heavy armor to give them decent protection, and the dwarven natural immunity to magical effects makes such warriors valuable allies, especially against the Guild's offensive magicks. Dwarves are master craftsmen, being able to forge armaments that human craftsmen could never match. Dwarves also have the strange ability to sit with their eyes closed, their face relaxed, soaking up every fact heard. Their stubborn will makes them formidable even to the telepathic attacks of the Oracles of Rokos.

## History

When the Atlantis Empire started their assault on the dwarven holts the Brass Golems were created, designed to be used as corridor fighters in attacks against the Dwarven - their natural defenses against magic forced the Atlanteans to adapt non­magical means of taking the Dwarves' ancestral homes.

Although Dwarven engineers played a central role in the development of black powder guns, for a long time they were content to leave these weapons in human hands. That changed in the battle for Caban Holt, a punishment assault leveled at the Dwarves by the Atlantis Guild. With enough golems to tie up the Dwarven berserkers, the Guild devastated the human fuser corps with a troop of four Demi-magi and one Magus. Seeing this, a group of Dwarven engineers took up fusers and entered the fray, shrugging aside magical attacks and blasting back with deadly salvos that the Guild could not withstand.

After the Solonavi spell amplified magic all across the Land dwarves started to lose their immunity to the effects of magical energies, concerned that they may have lost their only edge over their enemies. Meanwhile, others have taken it as a guide to explore the possibilities of magic – and in weakness to it. Kenaz Stoneheart has gathered the most talented of those among the Black Powder Revolutionaries who have embraced the ways of magic and taken them to a secret location where he works to shape the magic of the Revolution into as powerful a weapon as gunpowder – and perhaps even merge the two - those who followed Kenaz became known as the Forgemasters.

## Culture

Dwarves are often thought of as reclusive, due to their underground holts and high mountain villages, but actually, they are very warm and charitable people, given to roisterous banquets, hearty laughter and unbridled passions. A necessity, some say, as they are so short-lived that they must wring from life what joy they can in their brief time in the Land. In speech, dwarves often use tools as metaphors for whatever they're describing. Though dwarves may be fierce warriors, they loathe the very concept of war.

Dwarven Berserkers may appear as an exception but they are an exception that proves the rule - dwarves are driven by their emotions, and vengeance is passed down through family lines like a revered heirloom. Berserkers are in touch with this inner rage and can channel it in battle. A berserker approaches war the way Dwarves approach life, with intense passion and a desire to live every moment to the utmost, yet still there is an underlying anger at the necessity of slaughter, which can build into an intense fury and finally into a berserk state.

Jarls embody the old ways of the Dwarven culture. Armed with melee and black powder weapons. A Jarl is a battle leader for the Dwarves­­ - a warrior with great combat ability who sacrifices many of his own freedoms to protect the holt or defend an important cause.

Relics crafted by Dwarves retain some of their innate Magic Immunity, such as Torengrim's Helm. Dwarven blood also has the ability to grant spell resistance - for example, Souldrinker's magic-forged blade was cooled in the blood of a thousand Dwarven blacksmiths, which is probably where it got it's Magic Immunity from.

### Names

Dwarves often bear names such as these:

* *Male:* Brynor.
* *Female:* Rikka.

### Religion

The Dwarves have their own pantheon of gods, and you will have a hard time finding a Dwarf that doesn't swear by one deity or another. Some dwarves revered the goddess Marway, patron of tinkers and mechanics. But since each of the Dwarven underground communities - called holts in their own odd tongue - were very xenophobic of outsiders, and each bore their own hand-tailored sets of rules, customs, gods and goddesses that bore little resemblance to that of their neighbors. After the Atlanteans began raiding holts and enslaving the Dwarves in the Magestone Mines, much of the Dwarven culture was lost in that catastrophic series of events. While many of the Dwarves of the modern age have benefited from having one culture born of attrition and a hundred years of slavery, much of their heritage has been lost, as well as the unique worship of many of the Dwarven Gods that flavored and shaped their individual society of warriors, crafters, healers, and Forgemasters.

## In tabletop

In Mage Knight, all dwarves have magic immunity, which makes them the perfect candidates for taking down those annoying Atlantean Magi. Also, dwarves have better than average defenses, yet are still very strong fighters - a prime example of this is the Berserker.

## Notable

Notable Dwarves
 Sigwold | *None* | Alive
 Kenaz Stoneheart | Forgemasters | Alive
 Torengrim

## Gallery

Dwarven BerserkerDwarven FuserDwarven JarlDwarven Berserker fighting a Ki DevilJanos Freeborn, a dwarf, lost somewhere in the Elemental holdings in Mage Knight Apocalypse.

***Sapient species***
 Alien to the Land

***Black Powder Rebels***
 Major characters

1. ↑ Mage Knight Rebellion Trading Card Game
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rebel Thunder (Bill McCay), Prologue
3. ↑ Mage Knight Stolen Destiny #3
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 https://www.mageknight.net/wp-content/uploads/Mage-Knight-Lore-Expansion-Rebellion.pdf
5. ↑ https://www.mageknight.net/wp-content/uploads/Mage-Knight-2.0-Card-Set-Relics.pdf
6. ↑ https://www.mageknight.net/wp-content/uploads/Mage-Knight-2.0-Card-Set-Domains.pdf
7. ↑ Rebel Thunder (Bill McCay), Chapter 5