Durin

Durin is a Terran country that is located inside an underground world which is currently unexplored by the surface-dwellers. It is a confederation of numerous city-states inhabited by the eponymous dwarves. Each Durin city is built within a dome that can replicate the surface world (i.e., blue sky, sunray, temperature regulator) and is connected by networks of underground railroad tunnels to transfer their resources. The country is also famous for its technologies based on their unique and complicating robotics, unique subterranean biodiversity, and the inhabitants' friendliness.

The Durins have a strong culture of venerating their own birthplace. With their natural instinct as born explorers and their machines, they are able to pioneer the complex underground structures, survey their world, and dig through the rough soil. Hence, expansion of their city is considered a great moment to the Durins. Whenever they choose to abandon the place, they will even refurnish it as a ritual because they strongly believe that mother nature's reclamation and the preservation of the city's memory are totally sacred. On the other hand, they tend to build their cities somewhere between 1,000 ~ 1,500 m beneath the surface for the sake of extracting resources above, and the city layout is always horizontal instead of vertical as a convention.

While the Durin tribes appear to be primitive, there are some areas that make them more advanced than the surface world other than their technologies. Each Durin city-state is govern by a mayor with many crucial decisions made by referenda through popular votes, making it something resembling a proto-democracy. Discrimination or segregation against Infected Durin is nearly non-existent. As a matter of fact, some surface-dwellers tend to view the underground world as a total "utopia."

For generations, the Durins have been isolated due to geographical situations, making them not eager to explore the surface world. But modern Durin historians unanimously agree that their sudden interest originated from a mine expedition. Centuries ago, the industrial representative of a certain Durin city-state discovered a mineral vein just above their city's dome. In order to mine the vein, the Durins built the very first lift within their city. Slowly and gradually, these lifts became a convenient way to reach the outside world, thus establishing their connections with the land-dwellers. Even though nowadays more and more Durins have come out to the surface world, most of them did it only for the sake of curiosity and fun instead of exchanging their culture and technologies.

Thanks to the Durins' peaceful nature, very few wars or bloodsheds have ever happened within their homeland. Despite its outward peace, however, the underground world is never a safe place. Natural disasters such as flooding by underground water, boulder collapses, and even expanding Originium veins are common threats to the Durins. In the meantime, it is even said that an ancient, hidden danger is buried inside the underground world that both the Durins themselves and the surface dwellers are unaware of.

Background & History

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