Belili Samsuiluna, the first Dwarf

The Hand of the Trial, The creature called Tester, rose from the burning ruin. A cylindrical pillar of ivory white withered flesh. Two sets of stalked 4 jointed arms extended from the body. One was mangled and barely functional. Tester used two of the three claw-like phlanges of one arm to clip off the damaged limb. A new one would grow out. The bare wrinkled dome of a head sprouted a swarm of eye stalks like tentacles. They surveyed the flaming rock falling from the sky. The black cloud spreading outward with fires and lightnings. The still rippling, roiling and writhing terrain that rose and fell in concentric ripples from the huge crater with a volcanic spire at it's center. The roar of water pouring into the glowing basin of molten rock and blasting boiling clouds of steam up and out but visible hundreds of miles away. The mouth, a perpetual purse lipped upturned u-shape became more pinched. THIS would be the trial. The Trial self was destroyed. The Host gone. The Hand still held a few slaves. The new test. The ephemerals would be freed and given a year. Once it was up, the Tester would come and judge their works and survival.
Belili Samsuiluna was a lesser Host of the Trial, one of the kept things. Tested in wits and crafting. She repaired the Clockwork Host. She made mechanisms and parts for the trapped mazes and challenges that the Trial ran. The Hand on it's Wheel, told the survivors of the New Test. Survive a year and be judged. It dumped them onto an island of solid stone in a shattered world of smokes, fire, shaking ground and booming sky shot through with lightning bolts. All was a dark cloud, fogs, smokes and fleshes of lightnings. No sun or moons could be seen.
She turned to the Hand. "Master, beyond survival, what are we judged on?"
"We are no longer Master. You are released of claim in the name of the Trial. What you have is the measure." The Hand shaped a passage with an appendage and was gone.
Belili looked over the others. " I have taken my hammer, the tongs and the gloves, plus whatever was in my apron. I think we are best as a Host." Some agreed and some objected. Belili consulted with her Host - others formerly of the Trial's possessions. These knew her from the shops and foundries and works. Planners, makers, repair and destruction. This was a test to be sure.

Dwarven story of Origins "Belili Samsuiluna and the Great Test."

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Belili Samsuiluna was made a dwarf before there were Dwarves. Made short and stocky to withstand the Trial's tests. To be able to work the mechanisms and set the tests the Trial demanded. Physical. Mental. Emotional. Always challenges to find the breaking point. Belili refused to allow limits. She pushed past them. This made her a favored plaything.
When the world broke and the Great Test was set, Belili set out to win. To win she broke all the old patterns. She depended on her Host - a group of slaves of the same master. They made oaths and bound themselves to the world taking on elemental aspects. Fire, Earth, Air, Water and Wood. And Belili found something missing and claimed for herself the Void. Her Host set out to find others. They gathered all they could and had them join. The kith and kin of The Fae races. They joined them together. They built a safe place- above ground and below. They fashioned weapons and spells. They set gardens and supply. They set decoys and traps and defenses.

The year ended in the cycle of seasons. And the next day the Tester arrived. It tested the walls. It tested the defenses. It tested the tricks and traps and found them wanting. It pulled open the fortress and found the secret tunnels below. And it met the former slaves. They fought with fire and earth, water and air, wood and metal. They did not bend. They did not waiver. And Belili stood wielding Ice in the Black Hammer of the Void and Fire in the Hammer of Making. Each of the warriors was sealed with the mark of the Void upon themselves and their weapons. The settings and conditions that activated new aspects. Spears of Hope and Life. Axes of Tears and Shields of Dreams. Javelins of lightning thought and Heavy stones of memory they threw themselves forward. The Sidhe glowing and radiant. Sluagh stealthy, arising and vanishing. Pooka feinting and shifting forms. Gnomes stoic and relentless. Goblins reveling in the fight and rage. Trolls bound in oaths and service. And the Dwarves, a wall of denial and grim determination. Minaed, satyrs, and other forms forged in a new and novel unity. And as all Dwarf craft, it shone and defeated all testings.
This is how they beat the Tester. And the Dwarven curse caused it to break when the enemy was defeated, the purpose spent. Each claimed their import and glory. Neither wrong nor right, it broke the alliance and the fae went their separate ways. Fragments of this and that. It would be thousands of years before they came back together. Belili's people claimed the land of the First Standing, the victory of the Test. Here they built great cities and underground delvings.

Gender Identity

Belili Samsuiluna was said to be a shining beauty of copper hair with a short beard of the same color, golden skin and eyes dark as iron at the time of the Tumult. Most images show her greyed or white haired and a build like a block of metal. It is believed that she was entirely living metal and held affinity to the earth elements. Belili is always said to have been female and is given as the mother of the dwarves.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Belili formed the Dwarven Guilds of her own clan. The Crossed Hammers of making and testing. The Picks of cutting and digging, shaping and polishing. The Loom of Wood. The Harp of Air. The Mug of water and the blank Scroll of the Void. She bound them to avatars of making and true forms, showing beauty previously unimagined. 

Failures & Embarrassments

Belili made the pacts and deals with the other fae and the spirits of the world, and for her own people with the Avatars of the True forms in the Astral realms. And the pacts required prices be paid, then and in future.  The dwarven price was the Bane or Dwarven curse:  Nothing they made would be perfect, no matter how wonderful or exquisite. For the Dwarves, it would always have a flaw and weakness - some minor and some great.  

Taboos

Belili was beloved of the metal spirits and the earth as she always showed them respect and asked of them their finest forms. Even Iron, which held no love for the Fae races and the Sidereal invaders made peace with her and her ancestors. So long as a Dwarf is touching elements of earth they are keeping faith with the legacy of iron and Iron will not harm them as it will harm other fae. Thus, dwarves hate and avoid or refuse the sea and boats which removes the contact with the ground, soil and elements of earth. Likewise they will not willingly fly or train flying mounts.  They are even reluctant to ride mounts unless they have a stone touching skin.