Dwarf

Dwarves, also known as Stout or Deep Folk, were a natural humanoid race common throughout parts of Toril. They are a tough, tradition-abiding folk known for their strong martial traditions and beautiful craftsmanship.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Dwarves were a short race, as their name implied, standing from 4'3"–4'9" (1.3–1.45 meters) on average, with gold dwarves a bit shorter. What dwarves lacked in height they made up for in bulk; they were, on average, about as heavy as humans. A dwarf could weigh anywhere from about 160–220 lbs (73–100 kg). Dwarven males were a bit taller and heavier than their female counterparts.

Biological Traits

Dwarves had a wide variety of skin, eye, and hair colors, typically pale among shield dwarves and deeply tanned or brown amongst gold dwarves. Hazel eyes were common throughout the race, with blue eyes more common amongst shield dwarves and brown or green eyes found amongst the gold dwarves.
Male dwarves were often bald and grew thick facial hair, which was sometimes used to display social status. Unusually for humanoids, both sexes naturally grew ample facial hair, though the majority of shield dwarf females shaved their beards off. This hair was often dark in hue, though among shield dwarves blond or red hair was just as common. Gold dwarves took the care of facial hair to an extreme, carefully oiling and grooming it, with some adding perfume and ornamentations.

Growth Rate & Stages

Dwarves were a long-lived race, though not so much as elves, and reached physical maturity somewhat later than humans. A dwarf was traditionally considered an adult once he or she reached age fifty. Dwarves aged much like humans but over a longer period of time, remaining vigorous well past 150 years. Most dwarves lived to see their bicentennial and a few lived to be over 400. A dwarf was considered to be young until they reached the age of 50.

Additional Information

Social Structure

Dwarves highly valued the ties between family members and friends, weaving tightly knit clans. Dwarves particularly respected elders, from whom they expected sound leadership and the wisdom of experience, as well as ancestral heroes or clan founders. This idea carried on to relations with other races and dwarves were deferential even to the elders of another, non-dwarven race.
Most dwarven societies were divided into clans built along family ties and political allegiances. These clans were usually led by hereditary rulers, often monarchs of a sort and descended from the founder of the clan. Dwarves strongly valued loyalty to these rulers and to the clan as a whole and even objective dwarves tended to side primarily with their kin over other races or communities.
Most dwarven clans focused on one or two kinds of crafting, such as blacksmithing, jewelry, engineering, or masonry. Dwarves strove to avoid overspecialization by sending some of their youths to other clans to serve as apprentices, which also helped to foster racial unity. Because of their longevity, these apprenticeships might last decades.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Most dwarves preferred living in underground cities near the surface and above the Underdark, built around mines that provided much of their livelihood. Carved into stone, these cities might take centuries to complete but were practically ageless once finished. Though dwarves were typically a martial race by nature, these cities had civilian populations that made up about one-fourth of the total population and which were made up primarily of the young, the elderly, or a few regular adults. Females typically composed as large a portion of the military as male dwarves did.
As of the 14th century onward, dwarves could be found all across Faerûn, although the greatest numbers were in the Underdark, the North, the Great Rift, and the Cold Lands.
In their own homelands, dwarves continuously carved out new living space, mining the mountains' riches as they did so. Dwarves, in general, stuck to these locales, disliking travel, particularly along waterways, but those who lived in human lands could make themselves quite comfortable. Most did make a living as mercenaries, smiths, or artisans of various kinds. Dwarves were eagerly sought after as warriors, their reputation for courage and loyalty making them excellent choices for bodyguards.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Dwarves could see in the dark, out to about 60 feet (18 meters). Many dwarves had an affinity for the caverns in which they lived, possessing a knack for recognizing unusual patterns in stonework that could seem almost supernatural at times.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

A dwarf’s name is granted by a clan elder, in accordance with tradition. Every proper dwarven name has been used and reused down through the generations. A dwarf’s name belongs to the clan, not to the individual. A dwarf who misuses or brings shame to a clan name is stripped of the name and forbidden by law to use any dwarven name in its place.

Major Language Groups and Dialects

Dwarves can speak, read, and write Common and Dwarvish. Dwarvish is full of hard consonants and guttural sounds, and those characteristics spill over into whatever other language a dwarf might speak.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

Whether or not the dwarven claim that they'd been carved from the world's stone was true, dwarves shared many qualities considered similar to the stone they lived with. Strong, hardy, and dependable, dwarves were polite, particularly to elders, and possessed wisdom beyond that of many other races. Dwarves valued their traditions, regardless of the subrace they came from and looked for inspiration from ancestral heroes. Dwarves were also known for their stubborn nature and cynicism, traits widespread amongst the dwarves but which contributed to and were commonly offset by their bravery and tenacity.
Dwarven friendship was hard to earn but was strong once won. Naturally dour and suspicious, the stout folk were slow to trust others, specifically those outside their family, suspecting the worst of an individual until the outsider had proved their goodwill many times. Once this trust was gained, dwarves held their friends to it and viewed betrayals, even minor ones, with a vicious propensity for vengeance. A common gnomish oath, remarking on this dwarven sense of justice, was "If I'm lying, may I cross a dwarf."
For dwarves, loyalty was more than a word and they felt that it should be both valued and rewarded. Dwarves believed it a gift and mark of respect to stand beside a friend in combat, and an even deeper one to protect that ally from harm. Many dwarven tales subsequently revolved around the sacrifice of dwarves for their friends and family. Just as dwarves were known for their dependability as friends and allies, dwarves also harbored grudges far longer than many other races. This might be on an individual basis between a dwarf and one who had wronged them, or against entire races, even if warfare with the enemy had long since ceased.
Dwarves were careful and deliberate, with a more serious disposition than other races, who they sometimes viewed as flighty or reckless. A dwarf did all things with care and stubborn resolve, with brash or cowardly behavior unusual for them. However, dwarves did succumb easily to wrath or greed, which were their most common vices.
Dwarves who left their homeland to become adventurers did so for a number of reasons. In part, a dwarf might be motivated by simple avarice, given the dwarven love of beautiful things. As often, however, a dwarf might be motivated by a drive to do what was right for others (particularly their clan) or love of excitement because, as settled as dwarves were, they rarely tired of thrills. But even these wayward dwarves retained the spirit of their brethren, hoping that their accomplishments abroad could bring honor to themselves, their clan, or both. Given that successful dwarven adventurers were likely to recover rare items or defeat enemies of the dwarven people during such challenges, this was a hope not entirely without merit.

Common Taboos

Many dwarves have a strong sense of justice, and they are slow to forget the wrongs they have suffered. A wrong done to one dwarf is a wrong done to the dwarf’s entire clan, so what begins as one dwarf’s hunt for vengeance can become a full-blown clan feud.

History

Like many races, the exact origins of the dwarves were lost in myth and legend. Most dwarves believed that their ancestors came from the heart of the planet itself, given life by Moradin after being made by the All-Father's hammer in the Soulforge. These legends held that the dwarves fought their way to the surface world, overcoming the dangers they faced below through strength of arms and skill.
The first known dwarven settlements on Toril originated from the mountains of Yehimal. These dwarves settled underneath the junction between the three continents of Faerûn, Kara-Tur, and Zakhara, and migrated in all directions from there, spreading across the face of all the planet, except for those who migrated northwards and came to rest in the mountains of Novularond, becoming the ancestors of the arctic dwarves. Those who turned westward to what would eventually become the continent of Faerûn settled in what was later Semphar. The dwarves then migrated westward from there, founding many settlements. The first great kingdom of the dwarves was Bhaerynden, beneath the Shaar.
The dwarves in Bhaerynden prospered for centuries but gradually began to endure schisms and fractures, which drove the dwarves apart. The first of these schisms occurred twelve millennia ago when Taark Shanat, the so-called "Crusader", led a westward migration from the caverns of Bhaerynden. The descendants of these dwarves would eventually become the shield dwarves and forged the vast empire of Shanatar. The Urdunnir moved deeper into the earth and faded from common knowledge.
Sometime after this, Bhaerynden fell to the drow shortly after their Descent following the Crown Wars, and these southern dwarves were driven into exile, ending the ancient kingdom. Their descendants became known as the gold dwarves and would return millennia later with the collapse of Bhaerynden into the Great Rift, forming a new kingdom. Another dwarven subrace emerged from some of these southern dwarves, who fled to Chult and embraced the ways of the jungle, becoming the wild dwarves.
The last dwarven lineage formed from the shield dwarves of Clan Duergar. These hapless dwarves who lived beneath the Shining Plains were in time captured and enslaved by the illithids, becoming the separate but related race known as the duergar. Over the ages, the twisting of illithid psionics caused the duergar to grow more and more distant from their kin.
In the middle of the 5th century DR, the dwarves who had controlled the World Pillar Mountains were enslaved or cast out by the nascent empire the yak-men.
Over the centuries, dwarves entered into a long decline and most of the ancient kingdoms that once stood had fallen by the 15th century DR. The shield dwarves saw parts of the North overrun and conquered by the orcs of Many Arrows while to the south the gold dwarves were largely driven from their underground kingdom in the Great Rift towards the surface world. In spite of this, the dwarves remained a proud and hardy people, unshaken by the pitfalls that had befallen them.
The most significant event in recent history for the dwarven peoples was the Thunder Blessing of 1306 DR, in which, after centuries of demographic decline, a sudden boom in fertility occurred, resulting in the births of many twins amongst the dwarves. The Blessing was widely believed to have been the work of Moradin, possibly as the culmination of a quest by a dwarven heroine or as part of some grander plan of the All-Father. One of the consequences of this sudden boon was, other than a demographic resurgence that helped bring the dwarves out of their decline, was a sudden shift in culture. The so-called thunder children were radical in comparison with their parents and during their lifetimes over the Era of Upheaval, dwarves took a more active role in the world and abandoned some of their oldest traditions, such as the ancient fear of magic and the arcane.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Dwarves did not forgive past wrongs easily and the entire race had more or less declared war on goblins and orcs as a whole, wiping them out where they found them. Many dwarves viewed these races as a foul infestation of their mountain homes and felt it was their duty to purge them. Likewise, many dwarves viewed drow and grimlocks with a similar hatred and few dwarves had forgotten their ancestral hatred of the giants who'd once enslaved them. Because of this, dwarves generally viewed related races, such as half-orcs, with distrust.
In regards to their distant cousins the azers, duergar, and galeb duhr, dwarven opinions varied. Many viewed their distant relations with sympathy for their prior enslavement. On the other hand, duergar and dwarves had long been enemies, though, trade between them was a possibility.
Dwarves got along pretty well with gnomes, with whom they shared a love of fine crafting, and passably with humans, half-elves, and halflings. However, most dwarves commonly believed that true friendships could only be forged over long periods of time and a common saying was that "the difference between an acquaintance and a friend is about a hundred years", meaning that few members of the shorter-lived races ever forged strong bonds with dwarves. There were exceptions, however, and some of the strongest friendships were those between a dwarf and a human whose grandparents and parents were also on good terms with the dwarf.

Dwarves are creatures of stone, and like stone they only change in response to extremes. The dwarves of the many worlds share much in common, but never allow those similarities to blind you to their unique traits. -Mordenkainen

Genetic Descendants

• Duergar
• Gold Dwarves
• Shield Dwarf

Lifespan

350 years

Average Height

4' - 5'

Average Weight

150 lbs