Dwarves

Dwarves

Gruff, inventive, and stalwart, the Dwarves of the ‘verse are nearly identical to those living planetside. Despite spending most of their time in massive fleets of mining and war ships, star dwarves are just as comfortable in the bowels of a mountain as their terrestrial brethren. Indeed, the dwarves who make up the Galactic Dwarven Conclave know that the biggest and richest mountains to be minedare, in fact, asteroids drifting aimlessly through the Black
While terrestrial Dwarves deviate into distinct branches based on familial lines, star dwarves, especially those from their homeworld of Jormund, take on traits which make them sturdier than their terrestrial brethren. The high gravity of their homeworld strengthens their bones and ensures their short, stocky stature, and a life spent doing industrial labor toughens their muscles into steel.
Dwarven expansion into space took a somewhat different route than most, in that there was little in the way of war or conquest. Ages before they discovered spaceflight, the dwarves had already founded the beginnings of the Conclave, which drove the interests of their entire race forward under one banner. When they began expanding out into the galaxy at large, they found that, although Jormund was host to all manner of life, the surrounding systems were barren. What they lacked in inhabitants, however, they made up for in mineral wealth. True to their nature, the dwarves turned their skill, magic, and technology towards the mining of these planets, and converted the influx of material into the largest mining and freighting fleet in the galaxy. To this day, no other interstellar race can match the raw material wealth or manufacturing skill of the dwarves, a fact which theConclave would like to ensure.

The Granite Throne

From the outside, Jormund, the second of three planets orbiting the star Jotun, seems like the least likely place to find a thriving race of people: it is a desolate ball of rock, pockmarked with craters, nearly devoid of atmosphere, and constantly blasted by radiation. Just below this stark surface, though, Jormund teems with life, not the least of which are the Dwarves themselves.
The oldest Dwarven records recall that Jormund once flourished with surface life. Eons ago, long before the Dwarves fashioned their first ships from mountains and rockets, a great cataclysm befell the planet, forcing life on the planet to flee underground. The details of the old cataclysm are lost to time, for conflicting stories tell of different disasters, from a war caused by the greed of an ancient dwarven king, to the folly of an invention crafted by a mad blacksmith, to the poisonous breath of a spiteful dragon which contaminated the skies

Despite being sequestered away under the surface, the subterranean dwarven cities are true marvels of engineering. Their tunnels stretch deep into the planet some reaching nearly to its core. The highest cities, which reach the surface itself are full of brisk winds and titanic granite stonework, while the lowest cities, nestled in artificially-cooled pockets within molten rock, are humid places of stunning obsidian towers. Indeed, within its rocky caverns and carved halls, the planet’s interior, called the Granite Throne, can house nearly every inhabitant of Dwarven space. This becomes a requirement at least once a generation, as each dwarf dedicated to the Conclave makes the journey home to elect two of their elders to supreme leadership, that of the Matriarch and the Patriarch

The Adamantine Fleet

Despite their peaceful expansion to the stars, dwarves retain every ounce of their legendary ruggedness, their love of strong drink, and their fury in battle. Dwarven soldiers and smiths are held in high regard across the ‘verse as potential mercenaries or crew members⁠—many even think having a dwarf aboard is good luck. Dwarven spacecraft are praised just as highly: the Adamantine Fleet may not be as large as the Hegemony Armada nor as swift as an Elven Forest-Fleet, but its ships are nearly impossible to destroy. Coupled with the Dwarven tendency to experiment with explosives, even a single Dwarven ship can make for an astonishingly frightening foe.