Dwarves

Dwarves are considered people of good heart and indomitable will. They are people who are admired for their powerful and resilient armour and even more durable and everlasting structures. Great castles above and below the ground. Great halls reaching deep beneath the Cold Mountains. Vast cities that no force of evil had ever conquered. They grouped into clans that lasted for generations, and later founded great kingdoms that then fought the evil forces of Ferdlan, replaced chaos with peace, and created beautiful cities for everyone in Ferdlan. Though they are short, they are known as great and old, for the eternal achievements of their race are worth any riches hidden in this world.
Even though these bearded folk can look dreadful when rushing with warhammers in their hands and covered with full plate dwarven armours, they are mostly kind and good-hearted folk that like good food and party. When on such a dwarven party, one can hear many happy songs thanks to which dwarves became known as great singers.

Basic Information

Biological Traits

Dwarves have divided into a few subraces during their longtime activity, which caused them to change physically:

Rock dwarves - They are dwarves that inhabit deep halls that were dug inside of mountains. They have slightly grayish skin and dark hair. They became known as very strong and durable folk which have adjusted to living in dark, stone halls.

Sun dwarves - They are dwarves that inhabit southern and northern Ferdlan. They have tanned skin and ginger hair. They are dwarves that are most frequent to meet. They are known for their charismatic attitude and great instincts.

Moon dwarves - They are dwarves that inhabit cold areas of Ferdlan, mainly around the Great Glacier. They have light, almost pale skin and black hair. They are known for their unexpected ease in acquiring knowledge and their ability to see through darkest night.

Dark dwarves - They are dwarves inhabiting Undergrounds. They have white hair and dark gray skin. They are known for their endurance and perfect vision in darkness, with which comes sensitivity to sunlight.

Additional Information

Social Structure

Dwarves at their beginnings have been grouped in their single castles and small halls. They were rivals between each other, trying to be always mightier than others. Later on, some of the rivarly have transcended into leadership of the stronger, creating first of clans, groups of halls and castles, connected by strong leader, which was a voice of his people and their strongest hammer. Later on, when other races started to establish their own systems, dwarves grouped up more tightly and created first kingdoms. They started to conquer new lands, but avoided unnecessary slaughter and fought with honor. After some time, they started to practise politics and started to slowly connect with other countries, creating greater and greater kingdoms. To current days two of great dwarven kingdoms prevailed: Kingdom of Rilan and Kingdom of Tar, two kingdoms ruled rightfully by sun dwarves.

Facial characteristics

Dwarves have circular faces and always have facial hair, regardless of a gender. Males tend to grow long beards, usually interwined in thick braids and females prefer to grow their sideburns, but not as long as their husbands and brothers. They have small eyes, because of thick skin folds. Their noses are wide and short, similar to the rest of dwarven body.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Dwarves are inhabited all over Ferdlan and if there is a place where they do not live currently, they will have probably left this place, leaving some nice ruins of their ancient cities. They are most known to inhabit depths of Cold Mountains and Four Kingdoms. Beyond that they inhabit in fewer ammounts surroundings of the Great Glacier and warm plains of Nothsandan.

Average Intelligence

Dwarves are known for their vast knowledge about dwarven history and architecture. Most of them also know at least basics of armorsmithing.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Dwarves their naming traditions dependant on their subrace (listed below are most common):

Rock dwarves - Male first names: . Female first names: . Surnames: .

Sun dwarves - Male first names: . Female first names: . Surnames: .

Moon dwarves - Male first names: . Female first names: . Surnames: .

Dark dwarves - Male first names: . Female first names: . Surnames: .

Major Organizations

Kingdom of Tar - One of two remaining great dwarven kingdoms. Kingdom of Rilan - One of two remaining great dwarven kingdoms.

Average Technological Level

Dwarves have been for a very long time in front of Ferdlan's development, except weaponsmithing. They were responsible for almost every invention in architercture. They are masters in armoursmithing, since the beginning of time. They are responsible for every device used to make mining safe. Recently, after humans' invention of guns, they became experimenting with it, hoping to invent something that will end up being better than humans' guns.

History

For thousands of years, dwarves have been rivals to other dwarves in different halls and castles, fighting small battles for treasure and minerals. Each of them is trying to be mightier than the others. Through all those years, plenty of halls and castles became much mightier than others and conquered weaker ones, establishing leadership upon them. That is when the first clans have been formed. Structures of halls or castles were connected by a common leader, that was their rightful representative, their wisest voice and their strongest hammer, which led them to battle. Clans began the age of peace between dwarves.
This peace has been interrupted by new dwarves that from even deeper, than dwarves have mined already. Dark dwarves, willing to kill and steal from mighty dwarven halls. There was a great war, where clans of rock dwarves joined together to stop masses of dark dwarves and their monster legions from coming to the surface. After repelling the attack from the Undergrounds, a few clans joined together and created the first dwarven kingdom - Mountain Kingdom. Other clans have followed their example creating their kingdoms, except for a few clans, that wanted to remain independent.
Dwarven kingdoms were willing to expand, to conquer terrains that surrounded them, rich in different wealth dwarves have lived up to those days. They became greater and mightier, rising over all races but not treating them as inferior. They were conquerors, yes, but they were conquerors that were rightful and honourable to inhabitants of new lands. After the age of conquering passed, dwarves started to play with politics, establishing trade routes, forming alliances and unionizing with those who saw it profitable. Kingdoms became mightier. After a time, some of them fell apart, changed their system or gave up their rule to others, but only two domains prevailed: the Kingdom of Tar and the Kingdom of Rilan.

Lifespan

Dwarves live for about 200 years, reaching maturity in age of 37 years.

Average Height

Dwarves reach quickly about 110 cm in two decades and rarely grow much higher than that.

Average Weight

Dwarves weigh a bit more than one would expect, due to their massive bodies, reaching up to 80 kg.

Average Physique

Dwarves are very close to the perfect shape. Shape of a square with rounded edges. They are massive and short in the same time. They have thick and rough skin.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Dwarven body tint varies depending on the ammount of sun they were getting and subrace they belong to, which makes skin adjusted to environment these dwarves tend to live in.

Geographic Distribution

• Ferdlan