Thaden

Thaden is a nation of dwarves who have withdrawn from not only the world, but their own dwarven cousins over a divergence in belief and philosophy towards their place and ultimate destiny on Aramanth. The dwarves of Kduur believes they are meant to understand and guard against the dangers of the Ancients, using the tek they left behind only in the safest and most controlled circumstances. Thadian dwarves believe they are the rightful inheritors of the Ancients, created to resume their work upon not only Aramanth, but the universe at large.
Despite such lofty aims, Thaden is a reclusive nation with little care or regard for the outside world. They follow most dwarven traditions, though most have evolved or shifted over time. They lack the need for subtlety or etiquite that their Kduurian cousines have, for the tasks ahead of them are far too pressing for that. The continue the rituals of the birthing vats, of the silent ones, though in both cases those customs have evolved to include considerably more tek implanted in both cases. Most Thadian dwarves are born with some form of Iron Flesh implanted, including universally one that alters the way their life beyond death works. Thadian dwarves do not revive as somber, silent beings content to stand in protection of their people and their holy places, they arise as fully sentient, fully ambulatory beings with their minds fully aware and intact.
Granted, these enhancements also create within them an unsatiable desire for living flesh, blood, and life force. Because of this, Thadan keeps a large chattel slave population for food. These slave are preferably taken from other races, but such is the need that those who trespass the law in Thaden are likewise tossed into the slave pits to sustain their undead populace which accounts for more than half of Thaden's population at any given time.
Thaden often finds itself in armed conflict with it's closest neighbors Karnos and Naldonia, not out of any particular enmity, but simply because they need warm, sentient bodies to sustain their undead populace. They have a paradoxically cordial relationship with Naldonia, despite the constant aggression between the nations. They are often at odds for caches of Ancients tek, and Thaden raiding parties often abduct their peasants, but usually Naldonian nobles have long since altered themselves beyond the ability to be healthily consumed by Thaden's undead, and so they tend to be able to converse relative amicably as beings who have no overt use for one another.
Also not unlike their neighbor to the southwest, much of the land in Thaden has been altered over the years by the experiments or machinations of ambitious Thadians seeking to expand their understanding of the Ancients. But while Naldonia's changes to the area usually come from pollution, overexploitation, or inefficient development, Thaden's effects tend to be more notable--areas where the physical laws break down or work oddly, regions of looping time, ot pockets of corrupted deep field that result in wilf unpredictable surges of magic.

Structure

The nation of Thaden is ruled by a parliament almost exclusively populated by their unliving citizens. This has more to do with their age and experience than anything else, though the cold touch of death has also left them shed of things like compassion and empathy, both concepts seen as weak by the Thadian dwarves.

Culture

Thadians are driven above all by a legacy they believe they each carry to understand what caused the long ago disappearance of the Ancients and with that understanding to undo it. They believe themselves to be the reversions of the Ancietns, and so bringing their return involves their own transcendence of their mortality. They have little care for the issues around the world beyond what it can bring to their research. It is sometimes possible to work fair deals with Thadians, for they are a people of their word just like their Kduurian cousins, but one best beware what will befall them once the terms of their agreed deal have been completed.

Public Agenda

Thaden seeks to acquire tek to advance their inquiries into their own past and nature, and to acquire chattel slaves to sustain their undead populace. This puts them at odds with most modern nations, but they maintain working ties with several clandestine groups who sell them the living flesh they require. Indeed, Thaden is one of the only nations with a semi-productive relationship with the Land of the Red God, Stralk, and it is not uncommon for the nations to send ships across the treacherous Endless Ocean to exchange slaves for death-dealing tek with them.

Assets

Thaden is rich in terms of intellectual capital, particularly in research with regards to the Ancients. Their land has been rendered mostly inhospitable by the millennia of experiments done to achieve this knowledge, but the majority of Thaden's residents subsist not on food one must grow, but on the life force of other sentient beings. They have notable reserves of tek, but much of it is of extremely esoteric natures and of less practical use... at least insofar as has been researched into it, anywya.

History

The split between Kdurr and the Thadian dwarves occurred millennia ago when a generations-long debate about the lost history of the dwarves bubbled up into a near martial conflict. It was only centuries of instilled etiquette and norms that prevented the outbreak of violence, but instead the heretical dwarves split from their people and left to form a new nation where they could further their ideas and philosophy in peace. 
The greatest breakthrough was their refinement of the tek inborn into their children at their emergence from the birthing vats. The anciet devices allowed a form of semi-return from death for the dwarves, but the Thadians learned to improve it such that even upon death the dwarves did not lose their mental faculties or their physical capabilities, but rather saw both of them enhanced. This came at the cost of a need to fuel these undead enhancements with the consumption of living energies, but such seemed a worthwhile trade. 
After this, rulership of Thaden slowly shifted over to these beings, whose theoretically unending lifespans was seen as a sign of wisdom and leadership. Undead dwarven scholars were freed from concepts of ethics and morality in their pursuit of knowledge and understanding and, of course, sustenance for them and their undead brethren. 
Since regular contact developed with other races the Thaden dwarves have held them in generally apathetic regard, seeing their benefit only in providing food for their undead populace so that they didn't have to draw upon their own for it. 
Thaden faired poorly during the Voidgate War, losing entire swaths of their unliving populace in the face of elven sorceries particularly designed to burn them away from their undead shells. This lead to a crisis of leadership when the nation had to, for the first time in millennia, be put under the control of their living members.  Unused to such responsibility, and likewise unprepared, this did little to help their predicament in the war. Their deliverance from the conflict only came in them holding out long enough for the dissidents in Astronel to work up a means to destroy the gates through which the elves were being supplied with near-infinite reinforcements. 
It is only in recent years that the unliving populace of Thaden is reaching the levels it once had, returning again the nations unending need for chattel slaves.

Religion

Thadians practice a form of Ancestor Worship akin to their Kduurian cousins, but altered by the fact that most of their ancestors are, in fact, still around. While overt worship is not practiced, the Thadian dwarves hold a deep reverence for their undead forebears and defer to them wherever they can. Generally the older the Unliving the greater the belief in their infallibility, for better and for worse.

What was once, we shall be again.

Founding Date

-7417 SE

Type

Geopolitical, State

Alternative Names

The Deadlands, Land of the Gray Dwarves

Demonym

Thadian

Government System

Democracy, Parliamentary

Power Structure

Unitary state

Economic System

Mixed economy

Currency

The Thadian Gnot