Dwarfing Expectations

Sheesh, got to update this more often...

In any event, continuing the theme of major PC races, we turn to the dwarves, who are not to be looked down on. Hah! Sorry. I'll be good.

In any event, while there was a strong temptation to re-use the dwarf culture and gods I created for my last D&D game, I decided not to. The old dwarves were deeply family oriented, with everything being based on clan, relationships, and so on...these dwarves are not. Most don't even know who their parents are. The hyper-militarism gives a lot of good, easy, hooks to hang characterization on, as well as providing any players with a baseline for characterization based on how closely their character clings to the dwarven 'ideal'. As for the similarity to the hobgoblins...that might be simply convergent evolution of cultures, or...it might not. There's some backstory I'm still deciding upon on.

I also like the idea that there are lost settlements, deep underground, cut off from all other communities but capable of being self-sustaining in that wonderfully illogical and forced D&D way. ("There's...uh...mushrooms. And, uhm, meatbeasts that eat the mushrooms. And, erm, there's this fungus which doesn't need light but which gives off oxygen just like green plants and...") (Yeah, and a race which lives in dark caverns is inky-black-skinned, not albino skinned. Bah! My Drow are pure ivory! But that's another thread...)

Anyway...dwarves. Or dwarfs. Whatever.

Dwarves

History
The dwarves are the youngest members of the races who call themselves the Free Peoples, though they claim their history is older than any but the elves. They first entered the annals of history 5,000 years ago, when human miners of the Second Jarialian Empire tunneled into the Kragaz Mountains (these occupy roughly the same area on Arith that the Alps occupy on Earth). The miners, driven by a desperate need for mithral and elemental ore, had tunneled deeper than ever before in history, and found themselves suddenly confronting a dwarven work gang tunnelling upwards.

These initial meetings were tense. The dwarves had little idea there was a 'surface world'; to them, the world was simply caverns and tunnels going endlessly upwards. It took some convincing that the surface was not simple a very big cavern. Likewise, the dwarves had known nothing but war in the entirety of their history; all the other races they knew of were violent, cruel, and brutal. The ideas of 'alliance' and 'trade' were likewise foreign, and initial contacts tended towards violence, if only because the dwarves had been taught that an open hand is always a prelude to treachery. It was a century from the first contact before the first true treaties between man and dwarf came to be forged.

Dwarves are, by nature, as solid and unmoving as the stone in which they live. Their culture has changed little in those past years, although they have gone from a hunted and hated race to a powerful and numerous one, and have spread across the surface of Arith. Forged by the necessity of brute survival, all dwarf culture was modeled on military lines; there is no concept of 'civilian' or 'non-combatant', and with a few individual exceptions, it remains so to this day. All dwarves have a rank; even a newborn is given a position in a regiment, and has caregivers assigned to him. Family means little to the dwarves; one's squad, regiment, or division defines one's social circle.

Dwarves in the Allied Kingdoms area where heavily concentrated in the southlands of Sorvan, or Western Canada/the Northwest. Settlements were found throughout the Alliance, however -- wherever there was mining to be done. So called 'Dwarf Highways' -- tunnels of stone hundreds of miles long, filled with rest stops and supply rooms -- linked the distant cities. The dwarves, paranoid despite centuries of friendship and alliance with humans, never allowed non-dwarves access to these places, except for the rare few who were exceptionally trusted and who had sworn oaths to never reveal their secrets.

A typical dwarf city is like an iceberg -- 90% of it is underground. Each city is surrounded by a ring of border forts and outposts, and often includes a large surface area (mostly worked by non-dwarfs hired for the job) dedicated to agriculture and cattle -- while the dwarves had mastered feeding large populaces on the bounty of the caves, they enjoyed and appreciated 'surface foods', especially since they could assign other races to harvesting them, freeing themselves up for more directly martial pursuits.

The largest dwarf city in the Americas was Kuz Kar Don, located in the mountains surrounding Flat Head Lake (Hog Nar Zul, as the dwarves called it). Dozens of other cities and outposts were located in nearby regions. Large cities were also found in the Rockies and the Appalachians. In every major human city, there was often a 'dwarf town', where those who grew tired of the mountain life -- or who were exiled from it -- would go. As a consequence, humans tended to think of dwarves as surly drunks who were best left alone, as those dwarves most likely to live among humans were those who could least abide the strictures, order, and conformity of mountain life. Human city dwellers were often astounded when they met "proper" dwarves.


Society
As noted, dwarves have a very militaristic culture. While they are not generally conquerors, it has been the case that there have been more than a few "wars of pre-emptive defense". The dwarven mindset is that they are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and any buildup near to their cities represents an encroaching threat. Dwarf settlements are often surrounded by a 'neutral zone' of caves and tunnels which is constantly patrolled, with many traps designed to close off a passage long enough to send word to the city and get a full division of doughty warriors out there to rout the 'invader', who might just be a lost kobold looking for food.

There is little which the dwarves do which does not have some tie to their worldview. Weapons and armor tend to have little extraneous decoration. Jewelery is given as rewards for courage or service -- where a human will have a chest full of medals, a dwarf will have fingers laden with heavy rings. What art there is tends to be statues and reliefs depicting great heroes and great battles. Music is marching cadence or battle tales; children's songs teach weapon usage and the nature of foes. Many scholars have noted the similarity between dwarf and hobgoblin cultures, with the chief difference being the aggressiveness of the latter as compared to the former.

A dwarf will always use his rank before his name. A spouse or child may call a dwarf by their given name without rank; for anyone else to do so is usually a grave insult. The 'outcast' dwarves of the human cities often retain whatever rank they last held and introduce themselves by it; a dwarf who does not give some rank when talking to strangers is a very odd dwarf indeed, and might be insane or dangerous. (Or the product of a multi-generational outcast family...)


The Crush
The Crush caused terrible earthquakes and rifts. Mountains lifted and sank; fissures opened beneath cities, and juts of solid stone materialized in what were once hollowed caves. The great highways collapsed. Most of those who were traveling along them were killed; many were trapped, finding themselves stuck between impassable blockages. A few, fortunate enough to be in an intact rest area, were able to survive and set up some form of sustenance if there was a water source nearby. Many found themselves waiting in vain for a rescue which never came, or were exterminated as other underdwellers, emboldened by the disasters which struck the surface world, moved upwards to see what they could see, and kill who they could kill.

Kuz Kar Don collapsed in on itself, killing tens of thousands, as well as slaying General Mag Har Jal, commander of the Alliance dwarves. Other large cities suffered a similar fate. The only major settlement to survive even partially intact was Joz Nan Don-ek, located in what on Earth was the Black Hills of South Dakota, and, today, the cracked and damaged features of two great dwarven heroes peer out from the mountain alongside those of American presidents. Relations with the Sioux, who have reclaimed much of the surrounding land, remain difficult at best.

A fair number of dwarves have been forced out of the underground, or have had to take over tunnels and mines which were not carved by them. This most problematic in the coal-rich areas of Pennsylvania, where there has been constant strife between dwarves looking to settle and Earthborn humans looking to mine coal, which is now a much more accessible power source than oil. In some places, there have been peaceful settlements; in other places, there is out-and-out war, often with strange periods of alliance when mutual foes such as goblins or orcs attack.