Dwarf

The dwarves of Golarion are a humanoid race of dour warriors and craftspeople. They excel at jobs other races find tedious, but also have a great love of exploration and discovery. Taller races sometimes refer to dwarves as runts, although they find this extremely offensive.

Basic Information

Biological Traits

A dwarf is a stout humanoid, usually a head shorter than their human counterparts, but much broader. They have thick, heavy bones, tightly packed muscular sinew, and stability unmatched by other races. This bulk also causes dwarves to weigh as much, if not more than, humans. Their coloration varies, with the dwarves of Garund being deeply tanned and weather-beaten, while the dwarves of Avistan tend to be paler, especially those who dwell in the far north of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings.

Dwarves have a wide range of eye colour, with brown and grey being the most common, though some possess shocking blue irises. Their hair is usually worn long, and dwarven men spend considerable effort growing, maintaining, and embellishing their long beards. Popular beard decorations among more traditional dwarves include complicated braids, small trophies of battle, or other objects associated with significant life events. One of the worst offenses to a dwarven man is to shave his beard, as it is considered a deadly insult not only to the individual, but also to his ancestors and family.

Sexual dimorphism

There is dramatic sexual dimorphism in dwarven physiology. Males tend to be quite noticeably broader, though not as much taller comparatively, and they have slab-like torsos and heavy eyebrows. Most males grow facial hair at an alarming rate, and as such almost all dwarves keep a beard, with the exception of the Ouat caste of Osirion.

Dress

Dwarven dress mirrors the items they so carefully craft, elevating function over style, but they are never plain. Most decorations also serve a practical purpose, such as special fasteners, reinforced seams, useful padding, or loops for holding weapons or tools.

Personality

Dwarves rarely forgive a wrongdoing done to them or their families. Despite this, they are capable of seeing through ancient prejudices to value a battle-tested friend. True friendship to a dwarf is worth more than all the gold and gems they seem to crave.

Adventurers

Treasure hunting or mercenary work are the main professions of dwarven adventurers, though often not for selfish profit: they seek to find dwarven treasures lost to history; to recover land stolen by the enemies of dwarvenkind; or simply to find a fortune to improve their citadels. Many dwarves choose a martial role as a barbarian, fighter, monk, or ranger; some take a higher calling as clerics and druids.

Civilization and Culture

Major Language Groups and Dialects

Most dwarves primarily speak the Dwarven language, although most are also fluent in Taldane. Dwarven shares its runic alphabet with Terran. Dwarven names are full of harsh-sounding consonants, and rarely include soft or sibilant sounds. Honorifics are common in given names, such as "-sun" ("-son"), "-dam" ("-daughter"), and "-hild" ("-wife"). Family names sometimes contain words in Common, such as "gold" or "hammer". Also, the letters Q and X do not appear in Dwarven.

Religion

Most dwarves venerate Torag, the God of the Forge, above all others, although Cayden Cailean, Gorum, and Abadar are also given great respect. Torag's teachings still guide most of dwarven culture and thought, as they believe he will abandon them should they ever fall slack in their duties.

In addition, there is a small collection of gods worshiped almost exclusively by dwarves. These are mostly related to Torag and are generally not worshiped individually. Torag's relations include Angradd, his younger brother; Folgrit, his wife; Bolka, their daughter; Grundinnar, their eldest son; Kols, the middle son; Trudd, Grundinnar's youngest brother; Dranngvit, Torag's half-sister; and Magrim, his older brother. The only god in the dwarven pantheon not related to Torag is the Dark Smith, Droskar, the chief deity of the duergar.

Gladdringgar

Gladdringgar is the dwarven tradition of carving one's personal rune in stone on the deepest cave or tunnel one has explored. It literally translates as the "ritual of toil", although younger dwarves have begun to refer to it as kangreddin, or "wall-making". Dwarves are obsessed with leaving a mark and being remembered, and great respect is given to the dwarves who risk their lives to delve in their race's ancestral home in the Darklands.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

Dwarven civilization is traditionally divided into three groups: the Grondaksen, or underground dwarves, who live in cities beneath the earth; the Holtaksen, or mountain dwarves, who live in cities high in the mountains; and the Ergaksen, or surface dwarves, who live scattered on the surface lands.

Grondaksen dwarves are usually somewhat shorter than other dwarves, and are known for extensive beards that are present even in their women. They believe that the Quest for the Sky was completed just below the world's surface, and rely on contact with surface-dwelling dwarf cultures for news of the world. Grondaksen cultures include the Kulenett, who live in a complex tunnel system beneath the mountains of Geb.

Holtaksen dwarves live in fortresses built among the peaks of the world's mountains. They are the most militant dwarven culture, and frequently war against orcs and giants. They possess a strong cultural desire to relive the glory days of the Quest for the Sky, and are the likeliest dwarves to become adventurers.

Ergaksen are thought of as a homogenous group by mountain and underground dwarves, but do not consider themselves a single culture and only refer to themselves as Ergaksen or surface dwarves when dealing with the other two groups. They descend from those dwarves who scattered across Golarion's surface and intermingled with other cultures, and are defined as a group by their differences from the other two kins than by any strong links between their various subdivisions. Ergaksen cultures include the Pahmet of Osirion, the mercantile Paraheen of Qadira, the dragon-worshipping Mbe'ke and Taralu of the Mwangi Expanse, and the monastic and atheist Vahird of the Eternal Oasis of Rahadoum.

Equipment

At birth, dwarves are gifted with a clan dagger. Selling such a gift at any point in a dwarf's life is considered a taboo among their kin.

The dwarven maulaxe is a weapon that features both a sledgehammer head and a sharp blade. Dwarves also have their own adapted variants of the waraxe and spear-hafted urgrosh.

Stoneplate is armor crafted from alchemically strengthened pieces of shale and basalt rock.

Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals

Dwarves are great lovers of tradition, but with their culture waning and nations of other races rising around the world, dwarven society is becoming more heavily influenced by human, gnomish, and even elven culture. This makes older dwarves quite nervous, as they see the more porous nature of dwarven society today as a prelude to its extinction. Despite these changes, dwarves still spend most of their time crafting, fighting, or building fortifications, mainstays that have not changed since Torag breathed life into the first dwarf.

Dwarven society is traditionally divided into numerous clans. Each clan is associated with a particular gemstone cut in a specific shape; the stone is usually one common in the clan's lands but rare enough to be valuable. These stones are often set in clan members' armor or the hilts of weapons. Due to the dwarves' extensive record-keeping, it is rare for any two clans to have the same stone and cut. Dwarves also forge special daggers in preparation for an infant's birth, which is then used to cut the newborn's umbilical cord. The dagger is given to the dwarf when they come of age, who is then charged with keeping it in good condition. When dwarves marry, they often create sheaths for their partner's dagger bearing their own clan gem.

History

According to their own myths, the dwarves were forged by Torag in ancient times and are to this day sometimes referred to as "Torag's Children". They lived and worked in their forges and cities in Nar-Voth, fighting against the orcs and goblinoid races, and among themselves, for eons.

Quest for Sky

Late in the Age of Darkness (ca. -5133 AR) they followed the dictates of a prophet of Torag to leave their Darklands home and migrate to the surface, an event that would later be termed the Quest for Sky. This massive societal upheaval caused a terrible civil war between the clans that ground the migration to a halt, until they were united under General Taargick. With the Quest for Sky renewed, the dwarves inadvertently herded their ancient enemies, the orcs, before them, and finally emerged onto the surface around -4987 AR. Once they established themselves, they built vast and magnificent fortified cities called Sky Citadels, and crowned Taargick the king of the newly established kingdom of Tar Taargadth.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Dwarves are incredibly hard working, dedicated, and tough, and see other races who do not share these traits as being frivolous at best, and weak and degenerate at worst. Elves are considered to be the ultimate examples of this, in addition to being labelled cowards and weaklings for abandoning Golarion for thousands of years following Earthfall. Half-orcs are generally considered little better than their full-blooded orc relatives and regarded with suspicion.

Lifespan

about 300 - 350 years

Average Height

3 ft. 8 in.

Average Weight

150 lbs.

A Pahmet monk. (Pahmet Dwarves are native to Osirion)