Dwarves

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**Dwarves** are a short and stout race found throughout Aedron.

## Ecology

Dwarves tend to be shorter than humans, averaging between 3'10" and 5' tall, and while shorter than many races, are considerably more stocky, meaning their overall body mass is roughly equivalent to humans.

Dwarves skin tones tend to mirror those of humans, and can reflect any that a human can possess, as well as an ashen gray skin tone.

Dwarves hair color tends to be darker or earth tones, rarely are they blonde, and a dwarf's hair only becomes lighter once they reach an advanced age.

Dwarves tend to grow an enormous amount of facial hair, regardless of sex. Dwarven hair is typically coarse, thicker than human hair, and easily styled, but also much more hardy than human hair. It is not uncommon for Dwarves to wear their hair and beard in thick complex braid patterns.

Dwarves are typically monogamous, and a mated pair tends to have three to five children. A dwarf pregnancy lasts fourteen months, and Dwarven females have particularly easy births compared to females of other races.

Dwarves are long-lived, usually surviving for up to three centuries before succumbing to frailty. By old age a Dwarf has stark white hair, and their stocky frame withers to a much thinner build.

## History

In the early days of the world, when the gods first began to seed life upon Aedron, After the failure of the Elves creation (in many of the god's eyes) Ma'at came to Eden, and sought permission and guidance to create a race to reflect his own values in the world. He wished for a race of steadfast and hardy folk to fill the world and last through all ages of the realm.

Eden agreed to assist him, and Ma'at molded the new race in his own image, making the Dwarves as stony and stubborn as he.

These beings were placed in the deep womb of the earth, and a short time later, came into contact with the Orcs, another race placed in the depths of Dis. These two groups quickly turned hostile towards the other, and began a war of extinction that lasted for centuries, but ended with the dwarves killing the last of the Orcs, and eventually emerging onto the surface.

## Society

Dwarven society differs from those of other races in a glaring way, and that is due to the caste system that colors all aspects of Dwarven life.

The Dwarven caste system is divided into five levels, each assigned from birth following ancient rules and understandings of the world. Families from one caste are strictly forbidden from intermarrying with those of other castes, and those who defy this tradition are placed in the lowest caste.

The highest caste is known as **Adamant** and is made up of the royalty and most influential and powerful Dwarven families in the world. Their power and resources are vast, and they keep dominion over multiple clan holds, as well as wholesale controlling multiple lesser clans, through money or military power. The most well known of these is the Darksteel clan, perhaps the most powerful of all Dwarven clans. They control many lesser clans, and use the militaristic Ironhammer clan as a means to maintain control over their other holdings.

The **Gold** caste is made up of successful and ancient families with wide reach and power, deep reserves of money, or renowned warriors and prestige. It is not unusual for a Gold caste clan to maintain a large clan hold, stocked with workers and craftsmen, or several smaller clan holds spread across all of their society.

A **Silver** caste clan is typically one that is renowned for a single specific thing, be it mastery of a particular craft, or lineage from a mighty hero or influential leader. Though many Silver caste clans typically are only modestly wealthy and far less wide spread in their influence within the Dwarven realms.

A clan within the **Bronze** caste is more typically known as a commoner in other races parlance, known for generic laboring, reasonable success with farming, or mercantilism, and is seen as the lifeblood of Dwarven society, making up the vast majority of the Dwarven population.

Below those four castes, and making up an unofficial fifth caste, is the **Tin** caste. These are Dwarves that have been removed from polite society, often times due to a criminal infraction, or some other taboo breaking or mark of shame from some time in the past. Clans are stripped of their status, power, and influence, and expelled from traditional society, and made 'Tin'. Dwarves in this caste are not allowed to be officially married, maintain property within Dwarven civilization, inherit or bequeath property of any kind, or be officially recognized for any reason. They make up an invisible underbelly within Dwarven cities, often relying on less wholesome means to survive, and making up the bulk of the street level crime in any Dwarven town.

It is not uncommon from a clan of a higher caste to act as a protector to a lesser clan, and so on down the line, with each lesser clan owing fealty to the one above them, creating a linked web of semi-feudal loyalty and duty.

If a child is born in an unofficial union between members of different castes, that child is always a member of the lower of the two castes, and in legal disputes, custody is always given to the parent from the lower caste.

Dwarves have a love of all things fermented, their tastes seem strangely bent toward the bitter and salty spectrum of flavors. A well known Dwarven delicacy is a fermented blind cave fish served in a salt stew that other races find inedible.

Their love of fermentation doesn't stop at food, as they also love fermented beverages, in the form of any kinds of ales and liquors. Due to their stubborn and stalwart nature, they also seem to have a natural tolerance for drunkenness, and never seem to succumb to the ill effects of alcohol that other races can fall to. Indeed, it is not uncommon to see a Dwarven woman deep into a pregnancy compete with, and win, a drinking contest and suffer no ill effect to herself or her child.

Dwarves typically adore violent activities, fistfights, melee weapon fighting, ranged weapon fighting, they love fighting in general. It is a pride issue that most of them feel they are superior martial fighters than a member of the other civilized races. Though smaller than Men and Elves, they make up for their size with a determination and almost sixth-sense about fighting. Dwarves have a love of particular weapon as well, as the elves love the rapier and long bow, the Dwarves love hammers and axes. Perhaps this is because they use items like them to fell trees to fuel their forges and hammers to pound out weapons over said forge. Regardless, they use axes of both one and two-handed styles, called a war and battle axe respectively (a running joke among most Non-Dwarves is that the names are different because those who use a two handed axe will participate in a single battle while those who use a one handed axe and a shield will survive the war).

Dwarven society is further complicated with the traditions of Guilds. A guild is most usually a multi-clan alliance for a particular purpose, whether it be to control a larger territory, administer and work a larger mine or quarry, or patrol and defend some chunk of the world, a guild is usually formed for such a purpose.

One such guild is known as the Wyldmen, a mercenary company organized between a number of clans, and lead by one Nevril Wyld, a renowned Dwarven warrior and strategic genius.

One last thing about Dwarves is their obsession with honor. Just listening to them speak they will mention it multiple times in the same sentence. They have an unnatural love of their honor code, and would rather die than fail it somehow. If you are not Dwarven born I have a word of advice to you, do not attempt to understand the Dwarven code of honor. They quote lines from it like it reveals answers in all situations, and yet it makes little sense to me. Dwarven honor is the second most important thing in their society, after money of course. They fight for honor and they marry for honor, they work for honor, and it seems to a humble observer, that they can lose that honor with a single misstep or lack of some proper protocol in their day to day life.

Dwarven society reveres metals and metalworking as prized possessions and skills. As they live in a strict hierarchy, they also hold these metals in a similar one. The lowest of their sacred metals is iron, mined extensively and throughout their territory, making up the majority of their arms and armors. Next, Mithril is held in high esteem, as it is ever bright and shiny, light, and stronger than steel. Dwarves hold even more esteem for Adamantine, a dark metal of supreme durability that offers some of the best protection of any armors that can be constructed. Star-metal is prized even more highly, and makes for creating blades that hold the best edges of any forged, being particularly light and durable. Lastly, the greatest and rarest, holding the highest place in the Dwarven mind is Eternium. This purplish metal is so extremely rare and difficult to process that few weapons have ever been forged fully from said metal. More commonly an allow is formed with lesser metals to 'stretch' supplies, and even diluted in these ways, those weapons are still considered to be the best of the best. A pure Eternium weapon is priceless and legendary, reserved for the mightiest Dwarven hero or King.

Due to Dwarves obsession with honor, and stalwart nature, they typically tend to lean toward traditions and conservatism as values within their culture. Dwarves typically dislike change, dislike abnormalities in society, and tend to be uncomfortable around those who flaunt uniqueness in the face of tradition.

The Dwarven justice system is well known to be slow moving and often quite prejudiced against non-Dwarves. It is something of an open secret that judges within Dwarven society make up their minds well before a trial begins, and simply 'play out' the trial and give the verdict they had at the start.

## Territory

Dwarves tend to enjoy living in areas of mountainous climate, not bothered by the harsh winds and cold, and rather enjoy the total darkness of the world beneath the ground. Their cities stretch across both the Aerun Mountains in the southern continent, as well as the Ironroot Mountains of the north.

The Ironroot mountains are the home to these people on the northern continent. It is a mountain range stretching from the swampy lands of the south east all the way to the arid deserts of the west. It covers most of the continents southern coast and meets the sea as large cliffs. The area in the oceans directly south is filled with small islands that are both dangerous and said to contain many valuable minerals. These lead to Dwarven expeditions that are generally ill-fated.

The mountains are a rich source of minerals for the crafting of Dwarven items and sold to the northern human cities for high prices, due to their generally high level of craftsmanship. The depths of the tunnels are often boasted by the Dwarves and they collects rare and precious metals like Mithril, Adamantine and Star-Metal from the depths. the mountains are heavily mined and yet still have much wealth yet to be discovered, there are two primary mines in the mountains, both west of the capital city of Ironroot Hall. First is the Eternium Mine, owned by the Crown and protected by the royal army. It is highly productive and is the only source of the ultra-rare mineral the mine is named after.

The other Mine is known as Gromgir's Fault. It is a play on words meaning both the fault line that crosses the mine, and the failure that the mine originally presented, placing blame of Gromgir, the original founder. It was originally a highly productive mine, which would have guaranteed the Stoneweaver clan a massive amount of wealth, and for
the first few years it did so. Until a gas pocket was struck by a miner, causing an explosion that killed Gromgir's son Gromgar. After the accident rumors of the place being cursed sprouted up. Seemingly making these fears come to life was a terrible earthquake that shook the entire western mountain chain. The resulting devastation rended the mine in two, creating a deep fault fissure through the entire complex. Many miners died in the accident, among them was Gromgir himself. His family continued to mine there, building a complex series of rope bridges to connect the sides of the fissure. In the years since the mine has steadily produced large amounts of iron and gold. Despite the problems of the mine it has earned the Stoneweaver clan a significant amount of wealth and prestige in the their society. Many smaller mines dot the mountain chain, though none produce as much as the two named above.

## Governance

The ultimate authority within Dwarven society belongs to the King of the Dwarves, currently that is King Uud Nine-hammer, the seventh sitting king from the Nine-hammer dynasty. He rules with skill and care from his throne in the Ironroot Halls.