Racial Passive — Hardiness: +1 Stamina
Dwarves are a proud and noble people, hailing from the Snowy Mountain ranges, with their capitol city, Snowpeak, being found in the largest of those mountains.
During the dark ages, the dwarves were a republic, with power split between a Monarch, a Senate, and a Supreme Court. This republic lasted for hundreds of years.
From the year 3 to 400, the dwarves lived in a secluded state. While they had settlements south of the snowy mountains for farming, many of those settlements kept to themselves. Dwarves are a very isolationist people, and believe in putting their nation first above all others, even self. This has resulted in them being distrusting of outsiders.
In the year 400, King Thorin was assassinated by the dark dwarves, stealing Mithrus and Ilterendi for themselves. The senate convened to appoint an emergency king, but the entire senate was killed when tunnels from underneath the senate chamber were collapsed by the dark dwarves. This resulted in a power vacuum, and General Lokkhan stepped forward to seize control of a nation spiraling to it's doom.
50 years after the start of the Great War, the dwarves managed to bring those responsible to justice, and returned Ilterendi to the elves. This ended the war, and left the Dwarven nation in ruins, in more ways than one.
The war had completely destroyed all of the farms north of Snowpeak. The soil had been contaminated and ruined to the point where it would take hundreds of years to grow anything other than weeds. The forest of Thrain was a tempting choice to cultivate, but it belonged to humanity. This drove the dwarves further south with their farming efforts. In the mean time, starvation and economic despair gripped the nation. King Lokkhan established martial law to prevent rioting and looting. Under his rule, the nation barely managed to prevent catastrophe.
In the years following his rule, future generals would also be able to barely keep the Dwarven nation afloat economically. Unwilling to admit their vulnerability to the outside world, they kept the true nature of their poverty a secret. Large public works programs for those unable to get jobs were started, involving large digging efforts in Snowpeak to create reserve housing and storage for a longer, harsher war. These tunnels were massive, and carved over the course of hundreds of years.
When humanity offered to create a Confederacy, the dwarves accepted out of necessity. They could not afford another war with the elves at this time, even if they wanted one to avenge the centuries of suffering inflicted to them. This has lead to an ever-bitter distaste for elves among dwarves, who otherwise would be too proud to admit why they hate elves.
In present day, the economic crisis has largely passed, and the Dwarven nation has been returned to one of prosperity thanks in large part to the peace provided by the Confederacy. However, the Confederacy still represents how desperate the dwarves had become, and many would rather see the dwarves strike it for themselves, while a great many other would rather see the Confederacy grow to expand their influence.
Dwarves in present day belong to two political parties. There are the traditionalists, who believe in the old republic's ways, glorifying the past republic as an example of what they should return to, and the militarists, who believe in the current social order of military leadership. Currently the militarists outnumber the traditionalists, and thus the military has been able to retain power.