The Khazad

High in the Mithral mountains are lodged the cities of the Khazad Kantones, the Dwarfs of the Ironcrag Cantons. They are an industrious people, gruffly independent and hateful of the Eoten, or Giants, who dwell in the Marches. For long centuries an unending war has simmered, and occasionally raged, between the Khazad and the Eoten, for the most part resulting in an uneasy stalemate, but never a truce.
There are several cantons, each ruled by an elected jarl, and each with its own distinctive character and speciality. It is a largely self-sustaining and closed community, although the Dwarfs do trade with the Yorish of the Duchy of Reme, and with merchants from the Sundered Kingdoms.
To the far north are the Trollheim Khazad, wilder and stranger than their cantonal cousins. These resilient Dwarfs are tribal, making their homes in ice caves and beneath the creeping glaciers. They are linnorm hunters, trollslayers and enemies of the mammoth-riding Jotun, or Frost Giants, who roam the icy tundra. The Trollheim Dwarfs are adept at Rune Magic, but to them there is no more noble a death than to be slain by a foe in a berserk Warhammer-wielding rage.
Another race of Dwarfs exists in the Deeps, far below the verdant forest of Galentaur. These are the Duergar of Nidlhammer, ruled by King Moradin for several centuries. They are aggressive and greedy, dour and ashen-faced, and in permanent conflict with other denizens of the Underdark – the Drow, Derro and Svirfneblin – as well as the Moon Elves and Grimlocks who live closer to the surface.
Some say the Duergar were once the proud Khazad of Hvela, and later Runor, but an enchantment befell them that transformed them into twisted shadows of greed and envy. Others say they were perverted by the Illithids, an alien race of mind-controlling aberrations. Still others say the Dwarfs were driven out by a fire demon. Some fled west and settled the Ironcrags; others went deeper and were possessed by the demon’s unquenchable rage. Nobody knows the truth, of course, for none has returned from Nidlhammer alive.