Dwarf

Dwarves are a stout, tough race of humanoids mainly comprising three subraces: mountain dwarves, hill dwarves, and gray dwarves. They are known for their strength and resilience, both physical and mental, and their natural propensity towards mining and smithing. Dwarves have larger, more rounded ears than humans, and are significantly shorter and broader. Their coloration, however, runs the same gamut, although red hair is more common, and blond, less so.
They are master craftsmen when it comes to strength-based weaponry and stonemasonry, and make their homes in grand mountain halls and caves where they can mine for needed materials. They are long-lived, normally exceeding four centuries, with the very oldest reaching around 460. They see their long lives as a challenge, a warrior's trial to be endured, just as a column of stone must be built strong and stout to weather any storm.

Basic Information

Genetics and Reproduction

Dwarven fertility begins to decline around the age of 200 for both men and women. Pregnancy in women older than about 225 is very rare, while men can be fathers theoretically at any age, though it becomes rarer and rarer as they grow older. Gestation is approximately one year.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Dwarves are given their first names by a clan elder, and take their clan names as surnames. Many such clan names are compound words related to a historical profession or perhaps a significant battle won by an ancestral hero. The Dwarvish language employs many hard consonants.
Dwarves who bring shame to their clans might be stripped of their names as punishment, and forbidden from using any other dwarvish name in their place.

Beauty Ideals

Dwarves are a practical people with perhaps less interest in physical beauty than other humanoid races, more likely to appreciate something for being innovative or practical than visually appealing. However, fashion-wise, they do appreciate colors that are metallic or rich, and they go to great lengths to style their hair. Dwarven beards are famous for their length and thickness, and all dwarves have thick, fast-growing hair that does not thin with age. Even some dwarven women have beards. Head hair is not normally styled except to tie it back and get it out of the way, but beards are often braided in complex patterns and adorned with various pieces of ornamentation.

Relationship Ideals

Though dwarves are considered adults around the age of forty, they normally don't begin courtships until well after this. A courtship usually lasts at least ten or fifteen years, so most dwarves consider sixty to be a relatively young age to marry, but an acceptable one. Most dwarven couples strive for three children, though depending on the clan, it might be common to have more.

Average Technological Level

Dwarves have made many advancements in technology over the centuries that have allowed them to live in comfort almost entirely underground, the most significant of which is the dwarf-created material known as varekan, used as a sun substitute. This material was historically used more commonly; in lieu of the Great Shadow, however, more dwarven strongholds have become more troglophile in nature, living mainly underground but with many inhabitants frequently traveling aboveground for farming, hunting, trade, religious ceremonies, and more.

Major Language Groups and Dialects

The Dwarvish language is very old and has developed into three major languages which are closely related but no longer considered mutually intelligible. However, most dwarves with the means to do so learn all three of these languages, a task that is not difficult once one has command over one of them.

History

Dwarves originated in the mountains of Talazic during the Age of the Meydra. In this time they were stronger and more numerous than humans, until, legend has it, the goddess Shej incited in Clan Kzenldim, the most prominent society in the continent at the time, a rebellion, which led to civil war, which led to the complete collapse of the community in a very brief amount of time. This set back the dwarves of Talazic in terms of numbers and power tremendously. Most modern dwarves curse Shej's name and have a very strong sense of justice and order. The dwarves of Talazic lived largely in seclusion and small numbers throughout the Era of Cloud, and it was not until the wake of the Great Shadow that a truly great nation arose: Vundkrag, from the ruins of the kingdom of Himinnheim.

Lifespan

400 years

Average Height

4'6"

Average Weight

150 lbs