DWARVES

The Four Types:

Hill or Earth Dwarves, sometimes called (derogatorily) Sun Dwarves
Mountain or Gray Dwarves
Deep Dwarves
Duergar, or Core Dwarves

All Dwarves tend to be gruff but good-tempered; they love nothing more than the
hard work of breaking apart rock followed by the hard night of celebrating in ale;
and as they live to be 400 in the timeless world of the underground, they are among
the most patient of people.

In fact this timelessness has become a barrier between them and other races. Their
scholars keep a calendar, but it is peripheral to their general awareness, as the
sunrises and astrological procession by which all other civilized races mark time
mean nothing to Dwarves. Instead, their acute awareness of the Earth tells them
it is spherical, about 8,000 miles in diameter, and that it rotates; slight temperature
changes in the rock prove the planet moves through phases of cold and heat (winter
and summer); and they can tell the transition from cold to warm brings water (as
snows melt and seep down).

But their sense of time centers on lineage. Thus many Dwarves are likely to say
"In the time after Oladdar wed Freyja but before Wotag was born son to Wolligin,"
which everyone in the clan will know puts it exactly in a moment the rest of the
world might call "third week of Coldmoon 914." But the system is not unwieldy to
Dwarves, as everyone knows their clan lineages by heart, back four or five generations.
Clan gatherings often involve recitations of long histories, and every clan has an
Ancestral Hall or two (or ten), the walls of which are entirely carved with the
Roster--the names of every man and wife, in a few proud cases back to the beginning
of recorded history--roughly 18,000 years for Dwarves (more than 150 generations).
Additionally, since the Universal War which claimed so many of their finest warriors,
Dwarven scholars have become detailed writers of their history, concentrating on
accounts of martial prowess. As prominent historian Haldurk Glivverbash wrote,
"It brings great dishonor to forget a single act of honor."

Lately, Hill Dwarves have begun to use the CY calendar even among themselves, but
traditionalist Hill Dwarves, not to mention Grays and Deeps, look upon this with
scorn and fear, suggesting it is the first step down a slippery slope toward
dishonoring the clan by neglecting the Roster.

In Dwarvish history, the single most signifigant event was the Universal War.
Before this war, Hills rarely left the mountain ranges and the Deep occasionally
warred against the Gray. After the Universal War, the Hills engaged with the topside
world regularly (especially Gnomes), and the modern informal Dwarvish language quickly
evolved. What had been spoken before the war became known as Middle Dwarvish and fell
into disuse except among the most isolated of clans--but even among the most isolated,
after the War, never again did the three Good types of Dwarves war on each other.
They became unified as a race--and they became acquainted with, and hateful of, the
Orcs. Furthermore, the war prompted a renaissance in Dwarven design, as before the
war they had seen ornament and flourish as decadent; after the war, they came to
believe Moradin wanted them to reward their own hard work with more beautiful designs.
The mines dug during the 1000 years after the War are some of the most beautiful and
renowned, and Dwarves will travel far to see them first-hand.

Dwarves are proud of the work of their ancestors; they know which uncle carved a
notable archway, and how many Orcs their great-grandfather slew. And at clan
gatherings, Loremasters sing the praises of generations back (these festivals last
for days, even weeks, like underground Oktoberfests). The problem is, at some point
the ale consumption outpaces all else--and so often two families will labor for
generations under the impression that it was their heroic nine-times-great-uncle
who beheaded the Evil Three-Headed Elf at the Battle of Too-Bright Meadow, then
died of his wounds.

To die in battle is a great honor, but Dwarves have not evolved a complex warrior
code, because while brilliant military engineers and strategists, for them it is
the hand-to-hand fight that holds the final essence of struggle--the brutal swing
of axe, the crack of bone and splash of enemy blood--and to codify this sense would
destroy it. But they have a generous spirit that prevents them from becoming anything
like those archenemies whose cultures barely exist outside of joy at war--the Orcs,
the Goblins, and so forth. As the Elf Illui Vardacia once put it: "Dwarves are a
mathematical and brutal people, saved only because they are quick to laugh at
themselves." To which the Dwarf Auldraught Tugbeard replied, "Unlike Elves, an
artistic and ceremonial people, saved only because we're quick to laugh at 'em."

Dwarves live mostly underground, but the Hills in particular are known to build
fortresses above the surface, in the hills, and in well-hidden mountain canyons to
grow crops and tend goat-herds. Mountain dwarves do the same but higher up.
Through a complex system of angled mirrors, Dwarves are able to bring natural light
to their deep halls, and they have become ingenious cooks, as often their ingredients
are mostly lichens and the sinewy meats of terran game.

Because the Dwarves are so clan-based, the head of each clan is a de facto king, and
each "king" holds a few feasts throughout the year, to which he invites an entire
neighboring clan. It is considered being a good sport and it is the main means of
sustaining political ties with neighbors. It is important to Dwarves to be on good
terms with their direct neighbors, as joint digging projects are often necessary and
who knows what emergencies might arise; but clans are just that--clannish--so they
desire no uber-king. Hills and Grays, however, will hold a War Council every few
years, even in peacetime, to which they invite all the clan lead families from their
type (either Hill or Gray) within their particular mountain range--and essentially
a huge festival of food, ale, booming drums, and feats of strength, it too has a
diplomatic dimension, as the clans stay familiar enough with each other that they
will know who to turn to in event of some great cataclysm.

Now, as for the Four Types...

Hill Dwarves

Hill Dwarves are the most social clans--and the most amenable to topside races.
Most famously they inhabit the Syaxats, the Angenroks, and the western Sangradoros;
a few clans inhabit the northeast Contego Mountains. Eighty percent of all Dwarves
encountered above the surface are Hills, and there are hundred of clans of Hills.
They see the topside as a curious extension of their own underground world--not home,
exactly, but for the curious, a place worth knowing. And while Elves are peculiar,
and humans live barely long enough even to bother learning their names--they have both
built somewhat respectable civilizations. Of course, many Earths are quite taken
with the topside world, and make it their new home--on religious quests, or to kill
as many Orcs as possible-or to hunt down every gem wrongfully removed from the mountain
by one of these thieving topside races. Often they become enchanted by the feasts
of brilliant meats (game much more tender than what's bagged down below!) and sometimes
a decent (though usually a disappointing!) liquor . Furthermore, with all its
opportunities for battle, a Hill could spend 100 years wandering topside and not
consider it time squandered. Thus the Hills are the wealthiest and most comfortable
of Dwarves, their traders the most numerous and prosperous-though they shun opulence--
and their warriors the most variously tested. Further, whatever might be said by
Grays and Deeps about the Hills' current "superficial" grasp of tradition, it is to
their eternal credit in the Dwarven world that only thanks to Hill leadership during
the Universal War were Orcs prevented from overrunning all of Landen, both above and
below the mountains.

Gray Dwarves

Gray or Mountain Dwarves generally don't live as near the surface as Hills, and
when they do emerge to sunlight, they prefer the peaks to the foothills. They
are known to inhabit every mountain range except the black Vidurnaktis and Mrakis,
and they build their Great Halls deep in the heart of the largest mountains. Where
there are Hill Dwarves above, the Grays communicate in a friendly way, and occasionally
feast together, regularly traveling freely among each other underground and in a rare
while collaborating on some ambitious excavation. But when it comes to venturing
topside regularly--the Grays don't do it, and they think the Hills are a little
strange for embracing that world so wholeheartedly. Generally, the Grays are much
more clannish--though they like the trade the Hills bring in, they just don't see the
full value in mingling with non-Dwarves during peacetime. Meticulous guardians of
ancient, elaborate traditions of stonecutting artisanship surpassing all others,
Grays have been known to revert to Middle Dwarvish conversationally--and sometimes
they do so to make a point, when they feel particularly scornful of some Hill in the
room--calling their cousins, in these moods, "Sun Dwarves."

The Grays inhabit tunnels some of which were carved before recorded history and
they guard tradition solemnly. No clans know more overall history than the Gray,
but so dedicated are they to preserving custom that they have become secretive about
it--in fact hiding their most ancient lore and stonecutting techniques from
all but the most serious Hills. And it's no use pointing out the contradiction in
this, you'll just be called a Sun-lover and get challenged to an arm-wrestle.


Deep Dwarves

Deeper still, at the roots of the mountains, live the Deep Dwarves. Like fish in
the ocean they see no value in anything above the surface at all, and their contact
with it is entirely second-hand, through the Grays and, less often, the Suns, who
they will aid in time of need but never fully trust. The Deep speak Dwarvish with
an accent, a sort of grunted drawl, if such a thing can be imagined, that marks
them right away for what they are, and among themselves they always speak Middle
Dwarvish. As a rule they do not know Common at all, and for a young Hill Dwarf,
his first visit to the Deep mines can be as bewildering as a visit topside, for
the stone down there is different, and the Deeps a grimmer people as if wearing
the weight of the mountain on their shoulders. They are the most religious of the
clans, and also the builders of the most complex machinery, deep in the bowels of
the earth--to bring water, find food, remove waste. Very few things live down here
other than Deep Dwarves, but they consider it an entirely natural habitat, and they
relish their frequent battles with Xorn and other such enemies. In fact they consider
themselves the only Dwarves fully living up to Moradin's charge to make use of this
life; without any boundaries to consider down so deep, they are always digging
something of stunning ambition. In fact, it is rumored they have completed a tunnel
connecting the east and west ends of the continent--and that they have discovered and
carved a magnificent shrine around the Still built by Moradin himself on his first
visit to earth--the trip when Moradin arrived and looked about and thought it would
be a fine mountain if only it contained a Great Hall booming with good company, and
decided to forge the souls of Dwarves that they might carve such a Hall--and having
decided that, Moradin first built this Still to celebrate and to inspire him as he
worked on his new race; they say that to drink one cup of this Still's fungus-whiskey
gives a Dwarf a vision he can never shake--and may give him 1000 years of life or
kill him instantly. But the Deep never comment on the rumors.

Duergar

Core Dwarves, or Duergar, are unlike the rest. For one thing, they are bald-headed,
and for another, evil. Duergar shun all contact with Deeps, Grays, and Earths, and
they live far below them, where they toil ceaselessly in fear of their deity, Laduguer.
They travel higher only to make war, usually on the Deep Dwarves, sometimes the Grays.
What drove the Cores so deep and filled them with such hate is is related only in
competing legends, which in true Dwarf nature have been much appended during each
retelling--or abridged, depending on quality of ale served. A popular Gray legend
tells of an attempt, at the beginning of the world, to tunnel to the center of the
Earth--but Moradin Soul-Forger disapproved of this effort and shook the earth with a
mighty quake that collapsed the tunnel, sealing the most arrogant clans 1000 miles
down for 20 generations. One Hill legend suggests the Cores tunneled from mountains
on the opposite side of the planet, straight through the center, and that passing
through the flaming center of the earth changed them irrevocably. (It is common
lore among Dwarves, though not official religion, that the molten Center of the
Earth is forbidden; that tunneling toward it is a doomed according to the first of
Moradin's Two Edicts: Seek You Not the Center of the Earth--the second being Waste
You Not Your Lives Outside the Earth. Dwarven philosophers have arm-wrestled over
many a point regarding interpretation of the both edicts, the second revolving
around What constitutes outside? What makes waste?) Another Gray legend claims
that Gruumsh One-Eye laid a powerful curse on the Dwarvish race at its birth, but
seeing only half of them, his curse affected only those clans which became the Core--
draining from them all lust for life. Thus their joyless toil has warped them into
evil creatures.



Timeline

Currently by Dwarvish Reckoning (DR) it is 18225 (CY 937).

18138 = Dwarves attend Common Convocation (CY 850)
18089 = Fourth Vree-Dwarf War; Vree destroy Gimcork's Peak (CY 801)
17950 = Third Vree-Dwarf War; Dwarves destroy Dantorian army (CY 662)
17901-17903 = Second Vree-Dwarf War; victory for Grays and Hills of Angenroks.
17842-17845 = First Vree-Dwarf War; Grays of Angenroks victorious.
17840 = Vree discover the Diamond Mines of The Crags (CY 552)
17803 = First Suhndi-Dwarf contact very peaceful, in Syaxats (CY 515)
17690 = Human Vree thieves rob a Holy Dwarf Shrine in the Crags (CY 402)
15259-15261 = Third Duergar Surge
15256-15260 = Second War with Evil Giants
14559-14566 = War with Evil Giants
12721-12722 = Dwarves eliminate the growing Fangbite Orc Tribe
9754-10554 = Endtime Alliance with Elves
9742-9767 = The Universal War
8427-8499 = Second Duergar Surge
3915-3918 = Inconclusive War with Elves; Gnomes broker ceasefire.
3812 = First recorded contact with Elves; cold relations
3339 = First recorded contact with Gnomes; cool but friendly relations
3211 = First recorded contact with Orcs; hostilities
2003-2065 = First Duergar Surge, a brutal underground war; birth of Middle Dwarvish
1877 = First recorded contact between Hill and Deep
1506 = First recorded distinction between Hill and Gray Clans
871 = First recorded contact with Duergar
605 = Oldest known writing, in Drachlarich Delve, Sangradoro Mtns.
1 = Oldest known carved passage, in Krachtin Delve, as described in pictograms on
wall of Uracka Delve which were discovered and analyzed by first known scholar, Golhk,
in 773; it was Golhk who determined the starting point of the DR Calendar, and no
carving older than the Krachtin's has ever been confirmed.

It will be noted that the Dwarves of the Angenroks are wary of humans while those
of the Syaxats are more positive and are often found in the towns of Syabassar.
This is entirely the fault of the Vree--who can't understand why some short war 136
years ago could still bother anyone.

The Crags are a gem-rich but foreboding stretch of fang-like mountains on the eastern
face of the Angenroks, straddling the border between Dantoria and Galaga. The Dwarves
who inhabit this area are particularly religious and regard the gems as the property
of their Deity. Historically many Vree have disagreed--almost invariably, to their doom.


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