Dwarfin

Dwarf
The Salt of the World		Kinship	Family, Kin, Kith, Clan
Speed	25	Values	Family, Duty, Tradition
Wealth Bonus	25 sp	Skills	2 Craft Skills, Dwarfin Cant
Height	42 to 54 in. (M)	Trait	Enduring
Weight	90 to 200 lbs.	Talent	Tremorsense
Lifespan	250 years / 50	Tell	Cold Damage
Hair Colors	#635F62	#A3A2A5	#69665C	#6A3909	#5A4C42
Eye Colors	#D0E5E3	#97BABD	#718094	#555567	#BABAC6

Legacy

In the middle years of the Gods War, as Humans were struggling to win against the constantly changing battlefields and keep things right, some of them agreed to work with the Gods and become the progenitors of the Dwarfin.

Enduring, Dwarfin are the oldest of the Demihumans, and the ones who have long been seen as the people who get stuff done. They are full of emotion, loyal once it is earned, and they are considered one of the hardiest of peoples.

Dwarfin often find themselves in crafts and making, repair and construction, hospitality, delivery, and transportation services, and as retainers for Nobles and Patrons. You may note some glaring absences there; even though many a battle was fought and won to open routes, defend camps, establish bases, and more, Dwarfin are not seen as warriors or healers, but rather servants and supports, the useful and often entertaining help. A Dwarf with an axe is likely to be thought a Forester, while one holding a hammer is likely thought to be a Blacksmith. It is true that they do these, and they do them with a facility that can amaze many, but Dwarfin are about as utilitarian as one can get.

Durability is the one of the key aspects to what Dwarfin seek to see, and any family has many, many different items that have been within the family for generations. It isn’t that Dwarfin do not love beauty and fine design, it is that they do not have a purpose for it, a use for it, a way for it to contribute to what must be done.

Many a Noble has asked for finely made weapon that they then take to someone else to decorate, and Dwarfin are rarely put off by this – some even bring in others to do that delicate work.

Their love of Forests and Caverns is legendary, and they prefer the moons above and stars on high above them to the rafters and beams of some homes. Nimble fingered, they are famed for their crafts and their carvings, but it is a Dwarfin party invite that brings the raves.

They are physically built to be tougher, capable of enduring more, and they are meant to be able to stand up to the worst that can be thrown at them in any environment or condition.

They have a strong dislike of Grendels, and many a Dwarfin family will tell tales of an ancestor who fought and endured while completing a task against constant onslaught and attack by hordes of Grendels.

Tradition

Dwarfin life, be it city, town, village, or hamlet, is centered around the Clan and the Hall of that clan. There are twenty-five Dwarf Clans, each with five Kiths among them, each of those in turn with five Kins. This is all that survived the Bleak Journey. No city has all twenty-five clans in it beyond Sibola; most have only three or so.

It is this solid and unbending core of Clans and Halls that lies at the heart of all Dwarf traditions.

Clan halls are where everyone eats, where drink and laughter and song flow freely, where those who are family are found. They are where Dwarfin hold marriages and where wakes are held, and no one wakes the dead to come join the party like Dwarfin. Clan Halls are operated for all the Dwarfin within that Clan – one need not live in that city to enjoy the warmth and hospitality of that Clan Hall to which you belong.

A Clan Hall is surrounded by the homes and workings of those who are members. Like Elfin, Dwarfin tend towards insular and self-contained efforts, to care for those within their community and work collaboratively to resist the foolishness of local nobles. While the War was long ago, within a clan hall, there are still the Old Ways carried on, the logistics of life, though now it is for the benefit of the Clan Hall rather than the once great and noble God’s Army.

One thing all can agree on, though, is that no one has a work ethic like Dwarfin – it is a point of pride for them that when they take on a task, they will complete it, no matter what.

Kinship

For Dwarfin, the soul of their people lies in the remaining Clans that have survived the God’s War, endured the Bitter Road, and found new ways of being in the years since.

The 25 Clans are:

Bluesky	Bonecross	Drumward	Earthrise	Fallstar
Gloamfast	Hardedge	Hardstone	Harrowdelve	Hearthflower
Hearthlift	Highland	Lightbloom	Meadowbell	Moonlight
Nightwatch	Shimmerspark	Standfast	Starlight	Stonecleft
Stormward	Strongsong	Sunlight	Sweethearth	Windswept

A Clan Hall is usually a large collection of buildings centered around one large enough for all the members of that Clan to be present, and sometimes the whole is set aside as a compound. At least once a week, usually in the evenings, one can find every Dwarf in the area within that Clan Hall, from infants to the most elderly among them. They will hold meetings and one rule is that all persons, no matter their age or status, are allowed to speak on matters before the Clan.

Clan Halls are headed by the three most senior Dwarfin of the Hall. Each has a title: Signal, Construct, and Granary. The Titles give a vague idea as to what each of them is responsible for supervising – Signals the knowledge, Construct the buildings and features, Granary the well being.

Halls ask a Pledge – 10% of whatever the person has brought in in the period since the last attendance – of all who attend. They ask it, not demand it, though not giving it is frowned on, especially when some will give over simply a loaf of bread.

The Pledge is used to keep the Hall operating, and no one starves in a hall, and no one is turned away if they are a member of that Clan. The Signals, Granaries, and Constructs all work for free – no one is paid to lead them, but everyone is paid to do work for them, and ensuring that news travels, that word is heard, that people are fed, that sorrows are grounded – these are the tasks to which a Pledge is made.

A Clan Hall in Akadia may be different in tone and feel from a clan hall in Aztlan, but if both are still part of the same Clan, they will welcome in those who travel. Clan Halls are often used as a basis for the Dwarfin Merchants on the roads.

Clan Halls, as one might expect, are well known for their drum-fueled dances and festivals, celebrations to rhythm and stomping and clapping, often to the offense of those who may be unfortunate to live near a clan hall. Drumming is an art form for Dwarfin, patterned and thunderous, echoing and strong. Teams of drummers may stand forth and perform synchronized drumming, with some holding one beat and others marking different ones that all flow into a particular set of beats that can be used with dance to tell stories or to send messages or to command.

It is said by some that the oldest Halls have walls that still resonate with the sound of drums, and that in places where ancient battles were once fought, you can still hear the drums in the wind.

Dwarfin prize children above many things, and nearly every Dwarf holds a desire to have children of their own. For some reason, Elfin and Dwarfin can fall in love, but the Dwarfin drive for family tends to discourage it as a result.

Perspective

The Clan Hall is like a small, private village, all to itself. Everyone knows each other, everyone helps each other, everyone fights and loves and shares and takes care of one another. Friendship comes close to this but is less reverent. Duty for a Dwarf includes integrity and determination and a willingness to recognize one’s own limitations. It is reliability and dependability, and those are traits they carry with them their whole lives. What works is said to work, and that is good enough. They are not ostentatious people, not given easily to displays or showing off. They are a people who want something to be done right, and it takes a lot for a Dwarf to decide that something new is useful – unless it works far better, in which case it then becomes the new tradition, and is as solid as the old one.

To be invited to a Clan Hall is a grave thing, full of import and seriousness, for there is nothing of larger importance than family, and such an invitation, especially to someone who is not a dwarf, is an honor like no other.

Known for their proclivity towards being gruff, stubborn, and deeply distrustful, they are also some of the most helpful people in the world, and much of this stems from this forgetting, this setting aside of how the God’s War was won through the hard work of people who were not seen and not celebrated except among their own.

Dwarfin can come across as quiet, reserved, even aloof, and they have a unique enjoyment of alcohol, which has a strong effect on them and makes them almost uniformly gregarious and outgoing – much to the dismay of many a Dwarf the next morning.

Dwarfin have a constant sense of impermanence, a need to move, to do, to forge and build; it is an itch they cannot help but scratch, and heavens forfend one try to interrupt a Dwarf who is focused on some project or other. They are infamous for shutting out the world around them.

Stigmas

Their history tends to make people think of them as the cleaners and the makers and they use the Dwarfin need for money to live on as if it is some kind of character defining trait among all Dwarfin, portraying them as greedy and miserly.

Appearance

Dwarfin tend to have strong brows, large noses, heavy builds with thick bones, an assured and ready nimbleness of mind and hand. They tend to have hair types among the type 2 or Type 3 styles most commonly, and they have very slightly pointed, still mostly round ears.

They have strong jaws – some say they did that for the men to support the beards they grow and take great pride in, as a beard is tied to manliness among Dwarfin.

Dwarf Women have massive manes of thick hair. Some have suggested they have almost three times as much hair on their heads as Imperial women. The same way that Dwarf men prize their beards, Dwarf Women will set their hair up in elaborate and complex braids and forms.

Enby Dwarfin will often be cleanshaven and bald but marked heavily with ornate designs both on their face and on their head.

Dwarfin are among the shorter peoples. While Faery and Therians may be shorter, everything else is larger than they are. This lack of height does not slow them, and a Dwarf can achieve work in a far shorter time than most others.

Delicate is not a word used often for them, however – a full grown Dwarf is more dense and heartier than most other men twice their height and equally as broad.

Myth says that Dwarfin were made from the stone and the soil, and that is why they are so hard, tough, and stony looking. In what they no doubt think of as a grand joke, they play it up for outsiders.

Historically, Dwarfin are among the darker peoples in coloring, said to resemble stone or earth, and many a tale will speak about how they gave even Imps a run for their money in those warrens, laying traps and snares and building massive fortifications.

Qualities

Dwarfin were remade to be the logistics masters of the Gods War, able to ensure that entire campaigns could eat and sleep and care for themselves. They handled supply, maintenance, deployment and distribution, health services, engineering, and operational support, defending their stations and carrying their responsibilities out to the last one.

Special

Trait

Dwarfin are an Enduring people, dense and hardy. They gain a +1 to their AC and have Advantage on saving throws against Poison.

Talent

A creature with Tremorsense can pinpoint the location of creatures and moving objects within a specific range, provided that the creature with Tremorsense and anything it’s detecting are both in contact with the same surface (such as the ground, a wall, or a ceiling) or the same liquid. Tremorsense can’t detect creatures or objects in the air, and Tremorsense doesn’t count as a form of sight.

Tell

Dwarfin have a Weakness to Cold damage.

Dwarfin are a sturdy, heavy people with a thick bone and dense muscle structure that makes it shockingly difficult for them to swim, at Disadvantage for actions while submerged.

Notes