Overview
Racial Passive — Hardiness: +1 Stamina
Dwarves are solid and enduring like the mountains they love, weathering the passage of centuries with stoic endurance and little change. They are a proud and noble people who hail from the Snowfell Mountains. Their capitol city, Snowpeak, can be found in the largest mountain in the Snowfell Mountain Range.
Dwarves trace their ancestry back to the founding of their most ancient strongholds in the youth of the world, and don’t abandon their traditions lightly. Part of their tradition is devotion to the god of the dwarves, Duros, who upholds the dwarven ideals of industrious labor, skill in battle, and devotion to the forge.
History
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 and north 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 who stole 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. This incident began the Great War, which fueled a hateful relationship between the Sun Elves and Dwarves.
50 years after the start of the Great War, the Dwarves managed to bring the Dark Dwarves responsible for the instigation of the Great War 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.
Appearance
Bold and hardy, dwarves are known as skilled warriors, miners, and workers of stone and metal. Though they stand well under 5 feet tall, dwarves are so broad and compact that they can weigh as much as a human standing nearly two feet taller. Their courage and endurance are also easily a match for any of the larger folk.
Dwarven skin ranges from deep brown to a paler hue tinged with red, but the most common shades are light brown or deep tan, like certain tones of earth. Their hair, worn long but in simple styles, is usually black, gray, or brown, though paler dwarves often have red hair. Male dwarves value their beards highly and groom them carefully.
Ties to the Confederacy
When humanity offered to create a Confederacy, the dwarves accepted out of necessity. They could not afford another war with the Sun Elves at this time, even if they wanted one to avenge the centuries of suffering inflicted upon 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 have become. Many would rather see the dwarves depart from the Confederacy and live as a free nation-state, while many others 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.