Dwarves

Types of Dwarves

Northern Dwarves

Physiology

Traditionally referred to as simply Dwarves by virtually everyone these subterranean burrowers are the most recognizable of all their cousins. Most share a great deal of similarities with humanity with the few exceptions of being stocky, close to half the average size, and many can correctly claim to have bones harder than stone. Although Dwarven facial hair is a common staple seen the average female dwarf does not possess much if any facial hair. These powerful people can carve through solid stone with hand tools to bore out subterranean homes or carve fine art. The average northern dwarf lives a little longer than the average human, about 90-120 years.

History

Descended from Southern dwarves, Northern dwarves are smaller and more compact due to years of carving out new tunnels on their exodus and the magic fluctuations they experienced along the way. They came to settle the northern realms with humans and elves and erected many of the older forts and castles with their help.

During the early years after they emerged on the Valley floor the dwarves were cornered by the dragons for their jeweled goods, many family heirlooms were lost, and many more trapped underground until they were lost.

Those who couldn't stay on the valley floor didn't and instead dug their way down deep under the northern realms. There the clans selected cauldron's under the Ghrimtung Mountains and settled into the cauldrons that suited their needs.

Digging was not enough to dissuade the dragons who had come to see their handicraft and any who were in the path were taken by these hoard thirsty dragons to places where they could be put to work exercising their talents under extreme duress.

After the dragon menace was driven out of the northern realms the peace accords allowed the subterranean kingdom to support itself and become a driving force of industry and ruling over them in the centuries since are a council made up of regents who rule their cauldrons.

With their talents forcefully practiced for ages the dwarves who had been captured had a great skill and many of them used it to rebuild their people. Whole clans had been lost to rampages and fragmented from the forced relocation for many.

Haldur Karne of the Throne was the most recent regent and was expected to live another fifty years comfortably. Before he could do more with the kingdom he died fighting a tyrant, his death brought them victory, slaying the tyrant and saving his kingdom.

Ruling the Underworld

The King of the Underworld, when one is chosen, rules his kingdom from an inverse point beneath Mount Destiny that has a sacred meaning to the dwarven people. This point of power is seen as to give King a greater sense of his people and their needs.

All of the current regents have been working together with the surface humans and elves the Kingdom Below has found a great outlet for their jewels and the mountains of raw stone material they need to displace as their kingdom expands and requires more room.

Traditional Dwarven families are known by the braids of their beard which identify each clan, much like tartans in Scotland. When outlaws are imprisoned they are not allowed to braid their beard because of the shame it can bring their families. Some exiled Dwarves are technically not allowed to braid their beards. Others don’t simply to denounce dwarven customs.

There is a royal knightly order called the Copperbeards, so called because their families’ beard was woven in copper onto their armor’s face-plates.

Objects

Valorium

Valorium is a super rare metal discovered and highly prized by dwarves. Ancient dwarven kings made their armor with as much of the rarest Valorium as they could find, especially those bearing the ultra-rare deep green color, which is harder than most surface alloys and requires a rune forge to render it pliable.

Southern Dwarves

Southern dwarves are a race of dwarf that now live in mountains north of the area once known as the Valley Of Sorrows.

Physiology

Southern Dwarves are built much like humans but more muscular, taller, stronger, and chiseled features that tend to lean towards resting stoic.

History

Little is known about Southern Dwarven history, with so much loss in the exodus the connections and the old histories have dissolved into a handful of myths and legends.

Older than dirt was a popular southern dwarf saying that survived the journey with the dwarves to their new northern homes. And it happens to be mostly true when it comes to dwarven history, so much so that families who have intact histories are still eventually going to come to a point somewhere deep beneath the Karthemire Mountains and be lost forever beyond that.

Except for the single detail that once they were from the south, and eventually the south was inhospitable and they were forced to leave it behind. The lost history is a part of the life of any Southern Dwarves still living.

Southern dwarves, like many of the subterranean Underkin, can't recall the first of their kind, they have always been digging out a life in the stone far beneath the surface and have only gotten stronger as time has moved on.

The ancient dwarven home of Haldunirr is rumored to be between ten thousand to fourteen thousand years old depending on quadrant of what district you are referring to. Traditionally the Southern Dwarves had no racial leader, they were as ready to follow any new dwarven leader with the necessary skills to keep them all alive.

Subterranean Dwarven Society

Settlements

Chaldron

When spelunkers and explorers come across an opening large enough they settle there, building whatever structures needed out of woven strands of giant mushroom stalk that are sturdy and flexible enough to support the hefty dwarves and their nomadic lives. Many of the timbers and walls made in this fashion have a series of carvings from the days they have been in use, it's a way of recording history among the peasentry. Often times these are lost to fires, to shattering from improper treatment or because weight limits were exceeded. In the Northern Realms these mushroom timbers can also be replaced by wooden timbers from above, though few trees have the required strength and flexiblity. The original Chaldrons settled into collapsed after enough centuries, the history lost as the forests above were being harried by dragons or protected by elves and the mushroom forest had yet to mature enough to provide replacements. By then the stone carving techniquies of the subterranean kingdom were perfected and the Chaldrons that existed were a starting place, digging into the stone from there the inhabitants were able to carve out homes and build bridges that would last.