Recent History
During their final years on Orth, the Dwarves mastered their use of clockwork technology and traded with the Nagi for the necessary alchemy needed to create rockets. They quickly build larger and larger rockets, supplying some for the Imperial Wars. Their final rocket was loaded with almost their entire population and fired into space, their aim to establish a colony on the moon which orbits Orth. Whether they achieved this is unknown but seems ultimately unlikely, though the truth will most likely never be known. As a result, the Dwarven population remaining on Orth is slowly dying out.
General Description
Dwarves are short, stocky humanoids with brown hair, hazel eyes, broad shoulders, short legs proportional to their height and round, bulbous noses. The entire race has waist-length beards from birth, and carry a similar veneration of their hair and beards as the Giants do. It is extremely difficult to tell the male Dwarves and the immensely rare female Dwarves apart, as females tend to be around the same height and build as the males and usually have beards.
The Troll Empire
The Dwarves were full members of the Troll Empire and continue to enjoy their status as Imperial Citizens. Originally, they served on the Council of Equals and grew ever closer in political policy and lands until seeing the benefits of even closer union they were officially subsumed into the Empire. This is recorded as one of only 3 unanimous votes in the history of the clans.
Lifestyle
The Dwarven culture was unique, the clans were nearly entirely male and spent their lives writing books such as A Guide to Rocks or
tinkering with clockwork devices and other engineering marvels which to this day twist the intellectuals of Orth into madness. Upon reaching maturity, a Dwarf would begin to perform these acts to create gifts for the entirely female Rockfolks. If the gift was accepted (usually in the Dwarf’s 70s or 80s, unless particularly skilled), they would form a lifelong bond and the female Rockfolk would exchange her near immortality for the ability to breathe life into the next generation. Occasionally they would pick one of the rare Dwarves who were born female, something which was considered greatly important and a cause for celebration. Male Dwarves are known to grow their beards full, often elaborately style them, and never cut them. Female Dwarves traditionally wear theirs much shorter, and trim off all the facial hair above chin level; however, many female Dwarves will choose to wear their beards in the same ways as the men, making it even harder to tell the males and females of the race apart from one another.
Size Issues
Dwarves are, as the name suggests, rather short, and their height can provide some issues with reach, which is why many Dwarven weapons have long handles. However, their height can also make defense much easier, and this is why Dwarves tend to hold their shields at an upwards angle.
Suicidally Stubborn
Dwarves are famously stubborn and hate the idea of change, and so their society has not changed for hundreds of years. As a result, they are noted as being extremely reluctant to acknowledge the fact that their race is going extinct, and are even less inclined to adapt in any way to it as the vast majority of them find the idea of reproducing with any race that isn’t a Dwarf or a Rockfolk (which are essentially completely extinct themselves) utterly repulsive, despite Dwarves generally being very accepting of other cultures. Even for the very few that do find love outside of their own race, there is the issue that Dwarves have very low reproductive rates, so producing children is extremely difficult. So sadly, it is likely that the Dwarves will be completely extinct within the next couple of hundred years.
Heritage
One's bloodline and paternity is extremely important to any Dwarf. As such, Dwarves have no surnames, with a Dwarven name usually consisting of a given name, the given name of their father followed by the suffix "sson" (for men) or "dottir" (for women), and then clan name.
This creates a small problem due to common Dwarven names and a habit of Dwarven men to name their sons after themselves as this makes such as "Magnus Magnusson" extremely common. As such, to differentiate themselves they will often refer to each other by nicknames in the Dwarven tongue derived from either their physical appearance, a distinctive trait or their individual achievements. A good example of this would be the infamous Dwarf warlord and machinist Hagar "the Red" Olavsson of Clan Ironwood, so called because of his bright ginger hair and beard, a trait which is extremely unusual in Dwarves
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