Claykin
Leirdvergur
Overview
Structure & Society
- Hierarchs | Mekwa
- Sentinels | Trophta
- Stonesmiths | Roxjar
- Constructors | Grokar
- Hearthkeeper | Olgrar
- Blessed | Worthiar
- Commoners | Asverath
Few in numbers? No problem
"Aim for the head."
"Ha, funny."
Habitation
Biological Traits
Reproduction & Life Cycle
Food & Culinary Traits
The dwarves are masters of mushrooms. In their caves of stone full of minerals with little sunlight, the strangest, most fascinating and tastiest mushrooms thrive in all shapes, sizes, colours and behaviour. Depending on the dwarven clan, spread across the lands, the clans have specialised in certain mushrooms. For example, some use the Great Yellow Sponge for stews and paints, others the Wobbly Tintling for ... ink, food colouring and cakes/sweets/desserts. Large mushrooms are also popular ingredients, especially substantial in the depths of the burrows. And if you can get a handful of a Red Blinder, you are rich as someone with a large golden bar.
The Claykin dwarves are the only clan which has access to the Batfiend, a black mushroom. Its taste is like other mushrooms, a bit earthy with the taste of the black ink of an octopus. Why it has this taste is not entirely clear, but cap and flesh of the Batfiend are entirely black. It is often used in food to colour it, but you can make a really black writing ink from the mushroom and you can dye your clothes in a dark blue. The colour stays in the fabric for years, even when regularly washed. And you can eat the Batfiend raw, if you like. It does not taste really good, but the side effects are nice.
Religious views & beliefs
The Stonekin believe that there are three entities, managing their lives, the afterlife, their intentions. They believe, that every step in their lives is foretold in something called the "Great Script". The Great Script is managed by an overseer, mostly called "Greybeard". He has a name, but it is forgotten (or locked away, nobody is really sure about either of it). He has six apprentices who helps him to write the Great Script and so help him to write the life of every dwarf there is.
The first entity is the father. His name is Anghalar and he is the god of war, family, everything what is shiny.
The second entity is the mother. Her name is Jurniara and she is the goddess of the crafts, everything that grows and animals.
In death they greet her as an old friend because Death is friendly and kind. She is depicted as a warrior with brown hair and gold in it and a double-handed axe. Death is not one of the two entities mentioned above, she just awaits the dwarves at the finishing line and brings them into the afterlife where they can fight, smith and eat since the dawn of time and the last battle.
Those are the actual and original beliefs in the dwarven culture. Over time every clan developed small differences or an entire phanteon around those two entities. Most of them stick to Greybeard or a variant of him, but in a few cases there are a lot of different gods and entities, depending which clan you visit.
The God of Clay is an undefinied being and often pictured face- and genderless, since clay has no gender. The picture or the statue is roughly dwarven-like, but has no specific traits of a sex and remains unknown. Its voice is genderless also, mostly deep, but it varies, so there is no real evidence of a gender. The dwarves pray to the God of Clay so that their constructs, their houses or their pottery is as hard as it can get, as stable as possible and so protective that its army of constructs is never defeated.
The God of Stone is an identical deity of some kind, but probably male, since its voice never changes. It has the same paradigmas as the God of Clay and the same religious beliefs.
And the last entity is the Goddess of the Forge with different names. She is patron of every smithy in the dwarven kingdom and pretty grumpy when an apprentice is not doing his work correctly.
Tales about the Claykin
"What is that sound?"
"Oh, they are singing again."
"Singing? That does feel like an earthquake."
"It is, if you want it that way. The drums are big and can shake entire mountains."
"Wait, you heard them before?"
"I was at one of their concerts. It was glorious, my ears were ringing for days!"
"Lets shake them up, shall we?"
"Shake? Lets... okay, shake them up."
"Aaaah, look at it, ma man. The glorious army of our clan."
"I see it, ma general. But dontcha think it might be better to fight in our tunnels? See, humans do not like our tunnels."
"But where woulda be the fun, friend? Crushing pesky humans out in the field will break bones and morale."
"This mushroom is really tasty, friend dwarf."
"Aye, the Batfiend. Ink and salt and flesh, aye, it has a good taste. Bats do not like it, don't ask me why."
"They have time, the Claykin. They do not need to reproduce fast, not as fast as the Copperkin or the Magmakin. They rely on their constructs, those warmachines out of clay and stone and magic. They can also feast like the Stonekin. So most of them concentrate on their craftsmanship, on their families, their homes and their food and beverages. It must be a whole different kind of peace when you do not have to worry so much about the future of your kin."
"No, they do not haven the Brass Dye... because they are not the Stonekin, you dumb rubble of a stone! They are Claykin! They have the best liquor!"
Data
- height: 130 - 175cm
- weight: 90 - 200kg
- lifetime: 800 - 1000 years
- Two legs
- two arms
- one brain
- two eyes (with better nightvision than an elf)
- five fingers
- five toes
- humanoid primary sexual organs
"One Claykin is worth 10-15 Orcs on the Battlefield, my friend"
"How do you know? Normally you send your warmachiens."
"We calculated that in the old days when we used to use ourselves as ammunition for the catapults! Its how much the most of us got of them while splattering! What a way to go... Oh I remember Old Fat Tonton, he got 25 of those Bastards an left a crater the size of a house. that man left an impact!"
-Worldanvils: SUMMER CAMP
I laughed harder than I should, thank you! xD