Dwarf: Difference between revisions

Dwarf
Race
Pronunciation	Dwoh-rf
Classification	Human
Common Nicknames	Stout Folk (endearing); Fallen Folk (derogatory); Forge Fathers (praising);
Languages	Barrudh
Naming Customs	Old Norse with permutations
Racial Traits
Distinctions	Stout, mountain-dwelling people who show unerring perseverance and skill with crafting
Maximum Age	200 years
Eye Colors	brown, gray, green, and blue.
Hair Colors	Blond, brown, black, red, and (when older) gray or white.
Skin Tones

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Latest revision as of 21:36, 28 September 2024

Secretive and proud, the Dwarves are the only known civilization to live underground in the world of Aloria, building their grand holds with vast tunnel networks that run like highways across the various continents. The Dwarves are equally a very ancient Race, predating many of the modern races in the world, and potentially even the Allorn Empire in having a civilized state structure, though keeping themselves distinctly isolated from the rest of the world. While ignoring most of the woes of the surface world, the Dwarves faced calamity after calamity in the last 1000 years, resulting in a staggering loss of life and a decline of their Empire. In present times, the Dwarves constantly struggle against extinction and the world forgetting about them, too proud to accept being consigned to a footnote in history, but equally pushed into a corner by forces beyond their control.

Core Identity

Playing a Dwarf

To play a Dwarf, is to specifically choose for the backstory of belonging to a race which seems to be facing extinction, but tries to spit into the face of fate and go down kicking and screaming. Dwarven history is full of catastrophe, but far from becoming depressed about it, the Dwarves continue to battle against what most Ailor scholars have already consigned them to, and should the unthinkable become true, they will at least fight to make sure the world does not forget them. To be a Dwarf is to struggle with the constant realization that there are perhaps only an estimated 150,000 Dwarves left in the world, but to also not give room for self pity or just being mad at everyone around them. Being a Dwarf, is not to endlessly complain about the misery that has befallen the Race, but salvaging what can be found out of a bad situation, that which the Dwarves are known for.

Tunnel Empire

The Dwarves once had a vast underground Empire that spanned several continents and could in total sphere of influence even be compared as a rival to the Allorn Empire in its height. Dwarven holds were built primarily on Ellador before it froze over, but also on Northbelt, with partially still existing tunnels connecting all of them, showing Dwarven engineering prowess as they built through solid stone and even under oceans, something even modern civilizations can only dream of. While many surfacers (Dwarves born and living mostly on the surface world) have gotten used to the open air, many of those who once lived underground (or continue to do so in Regalia) are uncomfortable lacking a clear ceiling above them.

Facing Extinction

Possible extinction or Racial integration among Ailor is a constant concern for the Dwarves, and one that has led to many disastrous attempts to reclaim the old homeland, as well as the creation of fringe terrorist groups of Dwarves who inflict their rage on the world. The majority of the Dwarves however are far more focused on attempting to salvage what they can, and mostly finding wealth in what others consider scrap. Dwarves are the perfect salvagers, able to fix up broken and discarded weapons and tools in no time, and even repairing technology mid-combat. Their ingenuity especially shines in moments where odds for them look bleak, giving rise to their sturdy reputation.

Grudge Tellers

The Dwarves have a great deal of grudges, and are commonly known as people who do not forgive, and do not forget. There is a great deal of racial animosity that they have towards the Nelfin Races, with varying degrees for the different types. Dwarves do not care for Suvial, Fin'ullen, or Solvaan, and have a moderate to high distaste for the Isldar, because they frequently clashed with their re-conquest plans. The group the Dwarves hate the most are the Teledden, because of their scheming and backstabbing nature, and because they are largely the reason why the decline of the Dwarven Empire was set in motion. Only the most supreme of hatred among Dwarves is reserved for the Evolist Isldar, once called the Death Isldar, who often worship the Glacial, the mother of all genocide on the Dwarves. This hatred is in spite of the recent greater division in Isldar society, which have seen less extreme factions of the Evolists emerge. Dwarves in general try to avoid being backstabbers, traitors, or swindlers, the truth and honor to their word is immensely important, as are bonds of alliance and friendship. Dwarves can even on a personal level, declare some action as a grudge, meaning that they declare a vendetta against a persona until their crime has been settled. This is sometimes where a Dwarf’s pettiness will shine through, declaring a grudge over a spilled drink, only to retaliate by burning someone’s house down.

Foundry Hearts

The Dwarves are, despite all the attempts of various other Races, unbeaten in the heat of a forge. They have the most skilful hands, the quickest grasp, and the easiest execution of complex forging techniques passed down through the generations. While Ailor and Nelfin may make more aesthetically pleasing items in a forge, Dwarves build to last and endure, and also forge with a purity of metals not quickly equaled by other Races. Nearly all Dwarves have a complex cultural understanding of geology, engineering, architecture, and knowledge of metals and ores that makes them excellent prospectors and explorers of soil riches.

Design

Mental Characteristics

Dwarves are resilient yet adaptable, stubborn yet empathetic, and hardworking yet playful. These contradictions all come together to create the Dwarven mentality of life. Having suffered betrayals and warfare against an assortment of enemies, even to the point where their once-great empire has crumbled to a few remaining Great Holds, Dwarves have an uncanny ability to take whatever is being thrown at them and launch it right back with greater ferocity. Dwarves as such have a very strong survival instinct and look to find ways to maintain their footing in Aloria, lest their Race slip into irrelevance and squander what their ancestors had accomplished. Dwarves are known to stick to their plans and see them carried out, but also know when a plan needs to change for the greater good and can abandon them with a sense of accomplishment and understanding.

Physical Characteristics

Dwarves are known to be the shortest Race in Aloria, with all of their members being shorter than five feet tall. Often mistaken for shorter Ailor, Dwarves tend to have wider frames if they were scaled up to the size of an Ailor, and also have greater development of muscle mass in comparison, especially in their arms and torso. Their skin is known to be tougher than others, with their hands and feet often remarked to have a leathery texture, as if they are callused, yet lacking the hardness that is associated with them in Ailor. Many Dwarves often have semi-exaggerated facial features, such as more pronounced brows, ears, and jaws, though it is also just as common to have very Ailor-like features. Dwarves also grow their hair faster than other Races, with the men often fastening various ornaments to them as a cultural fashion. Dwarves are capable of the full range of skin tone complexions. Dwarven hair colors equally have a large range, from black to blonde and anything in between, while eye colors can be green, brown, blue, or gray. Half-Dwarves are an average height between both parents, but retaining the Dwarven bodily proportions, thus appearing like a stocky short Ailor with more pronounced arms and facial features and body hair. Women Dwarves can grow beards, but many also don’t (or shave).

Heritage Traits

When designing a Character, Proficiency Points allow for a limited Ability selection with Point Buy Packs. Heritage Traits adds free Packs and Mechanics on top of that to help with cultural themes. Free Packs grant Abilities usually, while Mechanics change the way a character functions in Roleplay through subtle, and usually out of Combat ways. In essence, Mechanics just add aesthetic flair that invest in the niche of each culture. Free Packs never raise Proficiency Points, but the character must be able to purchase them normally. (ex. if a character is a certain Affinity that locks them out of a category, they cannot take that specific free pack and must choose the alternative option.) If a Free Pack grants Magic of some type, that Magic can be of any Alignment the character can normally choose, or limited to a select alignment, which will always be written in the Free Pack description.

Mixed Heritage characters (i.e. characters born from two parents of different Cultures) may take one parent's 'Free Packs' and mix and match up to 5 Mechanics from both parents, although some Peoples cannot produce Mixed Heritage children (due to Magical/Fantasy reasons).

Free Packs

Dwarves can choose one Pack from either the Training or Athletic Point Buy categories.
Dwarves can choose one Pack from either Tech or Athletic Point Buy categories.

Mechanics

Dwarves gain +1 Main Defense Stat while another Dwarf is within a 5 block range, which can break Cap up to 11. This mechanic can stack up to a +2 bonus.
Dwarves are barely affected by Alcohol that gets other people drunk, needing insanely high proof, and always being able to keep their drinks down.
Dwarves have perfect vision (night vision) underground and in dark surroundings, needing no light.
Dwarves are masters of the forge, able to perform feats of metallurgy in half the time of other craftsmen. Additionally, any metal item that a Dwarf produces is considered master class when compared to others.
Due to their vast understanding of architecture and metallurgy, Dwarves may gain additional insight from event items that may not be obvious to others (inquire with DM/Event Hoster for opportunities).

Culture

Language

The Dwarves speak a fantasy language called Barrudh, which is not comparable to any real life language. The base for its design is taken from old Norse, but distinct norse sounds are replaced by much harsher tones. For example, the Norse word for War is Krig (pronounced as Kreeg), which is then changed to the Dwarven Kraag (close to the word Crag). This produces a more guttural language with a somewhat norse base, but with a more fantasy like spelling. Most Dwarven Fantasy name generators are good to generate a name, however a couple of gendered names are provided as examples below.

Male Coded Names: Fokuth, Fignam, Khemrul, Affroul, Throdin, Hammoir, Thamrug, Kirem, Barivoc, Girfak, Fovrim, Gotmolin, Dvorun.
Female Coded Names: Thirrsu, Dwothal, Kathil, Barridora, Kursbaer, Gimmora, Krozza, Ranthea, Lodi, Strosshil, Vosdrine.
Dwarven naming customs does not officially support a Unisex or Non binary naming style, but both male and female can technically be unisex.

Magic Chains

The Dwarves have a dubious attitude towards the Occult, notably because there is no real historical context to Magic usage in their Empire. They are not incapable of using Magic, but Magic has a difficult place in their society due to Magic being involved with their greatest collective traumas. Mages simply did not exist for 21,000 years among the Dwarves, until the Allorn agents first used it to convince them to turn on the Dregodar. Somehow, Magic started appearing among their people after it was first used on them by the Allorn agents, causing Mages to be born, and Magic to also be taught to some of them. As the Empire collapsed, Dwarves became hostile to the concept of Magic, and started persecuting their own magically inclined population. As time progressed however, simply killing magically inclined Dwarves became more impractical as their population sharply declined. Instead, since then, the Dwarven elders have agreed to the Magic Chaining policy, where Dwarves who use Magic are tolerated, but only while they have a non-Magic using Dwarf retainer. The Magic using Dwarf is clad in ceremonial robes, and finally has a heavy anti-Magic collar and shoulder guard piece installed kept in place by chains that blocks their usage of any kind of Magic (this cannot be reproduced on other Races, it somehow only works on Dwarves). The retainer is then given a key, which they can use to unleash the chains, which allows the Dwarf to cast Magic freely. The retainer is always trained and drilled into ensuring that the Mage-Dwarf only ever uses Magic in the interest of Dwarven society, or for assistance in the forge, for example by casting fire magic to heat up a furnace. Regalia adopted part of this policy of Mage-collaring in the latter half of the 3rd century AC, but did away with it when Regalians overwhelmingly voted that it was cruel, while the Dwarves continue to maintain their policy to this day. They generally believe that independent and freely operating Magic users are a danger, and that they are in part at risk of being seduced and controlled by the Elven Evil, and other evil Magicness (as they call it).

The Velheim Bond

The Velheim people are considered “Bonded” by the Dwarves, and them in return by the Velheim due to their close cooperation. Since the Dwarves lost most of their holds from the Dakkar invasions, and the spill-over of the Dregodar conflict, the Dwarves were in a near state of collapse, only to be pulled back from the edge by the Velheim in Ellador. The Velheim had been living and trading peacefully with the Dwarves for centuries, though both largely ignored each other, and the Velheim also didn’t take a side during the conflict between the Dwarves and the Nelfin who would eventually become the Isldar. However, when the Dakkar struck, the Velheim sent food and medicine into the Holds, asking for nothing in return (despite lacking food themselves). Then, when things got really bad and around Cataclysm, even while the Ailor towns were under attack by Vampires, they still found time to send soldiers into the mines with the Dwarves to help build defenses against further Dakkar attacks, teaching the Dwarves (who had never fought a war against anyone in pitched siege battles of their cities) how to build defensive structures. The Dwarves eventually answered in kind by sending squads to the surface to protect coastal villages from Vampire attacks, using their inherent immunity to Vampire powers to sniff out parasites and purge them. This shared trauma, but also alliance, was finally solidified when in the fires of chaos in Dwarven society, the god Dáuw was born, supposedly to mundane parents, and led the Dwarven people to unify religiously with the Velheim people, after convincing the remaining elders he was a god in his own right. The Velheim people were apprehensive to accept Dáuw as a god at first, but with the intervention of Halfvel, who approved, news of him spread, and he was adopted into the pantheon. This is the reason why Dwarves can (nowadays) always be found in Velheim cultural festivities, Velheim districts, or generally around Velheim people, and vice versa, because these people share a unique cross-racial bond of friendship and alliance. Many Dwarven cultural expressions have adopted Velheim norms, and vice versa, while many Dwarven children being born are also half-Dwarf half-Velheim. That being said, Dwarves are always sure to protect quintessentially Dwarven customs, so while the two are very strongly related, they are not the same, and never will be.

Religion

Dwarves nearly exclusively follow the Fornoss Religion, though a small minority has converted to Unionism also. Exact data on this is hard to track, because Dwarves in general are spread far and wide over the world. The majority still holds onto the remnants of their subterranean empire. Some have started communities above ground, others have joined Ailor communities, and others yet travel the world. Some of those traveling the world or joining Ailor communities in Regalia have joined Unionism, but Fornoss is still dominant. Dwarven religion was originally called Duindún, a faith in which it was believed that Dragons breathed the fire of life into the earth that birthed the Dwarves, and that those Dragons then turned into Dwarves and became the founders of the various Holds. With the calamities occurring, and the damage done to their society by a Dragon, the Dwarven Race collectively abandoned the faith of Duindún and mass converted to the Fornoss faith. This coincided with the sudden appearance of Dáuw, who proved his godhood, and then led the Dwarven people to join forces with the Fornoss Velheim in particular.

Families

Dwarven families are fairly nuclear (meaning two parents and children) though Dwarves inherently dislike children and find any reason to ship them off to daycare. Dwarven society has a strong daycare system in place where (ironically) Velheim Ailor are paid to take care of the children until they grow old enough to behave in the household, and be taught Dwarven culture and traditions. Dwarves are the only race with a very strong communal elderly care system in place, where elders are moved to retirement and veteran homes where the elderly and war maimed convalesce together. Dwarves have no overt attitude towards same-sex relations or gender-identity, with exact gender identity being already somewhat fluid between Dwarven sexes as men and women and everything in between roughly looks the same.

Fashion

Much of Dwarven fashion has been lost to Velheim fashion out of pure necessity. The Dwarven Empire was once set up in such a way that each great Hold produced something useful for the Empire, and the weaver’s hold was one of the first Holds to go down during the Dakkar invasion. As such, Dwarves had since then mostly used cured leather and hides which put a severe strain on the cattle ranching Hold which was still existing. When the Velheim sent supplies, clothes were some of the most well-used, as Dwarves wore much less cold-resistant clothes from Ellador being much warmer than it had gotten around Cataclysm. Their clothing industry lacked a design for heat resistance (as the tunnels themselves were often quite hot and prone to humidity) so the Velheim clothes became the new norm eventually due to the ease of trade. Dwarven elements still incorporated into the clothes are Dwarven patterns and an overabundance of jewelry and decorative rare-earth metals.

History

The Dwarven Empire has existed for as much as perhaps 20,000 years, making it one of the longest living Empires in the world and also one of the most stable. Dwarves tell tales of the wealthy and massive holds, vast sprawling urban caves and underground cisterns housing millions of Dwarves and spanning continents. Each Hold had a specialty it delivered and Dwarven society lived in communal unity in their disregard for surface dwellers. A curious thing to note was the complete absence of Magic among Dwarves for the better part of history, until Cataclysm at the least. Scholars have speculated that because there was no magic underground and the Dwarves largely ignored surface situations, that the Demons who cyclically invaded during Void Invasions did so blind to their presence.

Dwarven Empire history comes to a quick, unexpected, and violent end during the Dregodar conflict. While the Nelfin who fled the Allorn Empire for Dragon Worship persecution had somewhat chilly relations with the Dwarves on the surface, open conflict was unthinkable because the Dwarves had no reason to go to the surface, and because the Dregodar loved building castles high up in the mountains, far away even from the surface ground. It was through the insidious infiltration, manipulation, and demagoguery of Allorn agents using magic and other foul tricks to deceive the Dwarves into thinking that the Dregodar were actually plotting their destruction. Eventually the Allorn agents succeeded, and three wars with the Dregodar over a timespan of about 100 years were the result. The first two wars were largely inconclusive, while the third war caused a calamity for the Dwarves.

At the apex of the third war, the Dwarves threw hundreds of thousands of soldiers into pitched battle in the Valley of the Long Song, where they faced the collective forces of the Dregodar in a pitched battle to protect Aurora, their Violet Dragon. The battle was disastrous for the Dregodar at first, who were unable to defend themselves with their feeble weapons and pacifist attitude against the Dwarves who came with vast engines of war.100 years of preparation had more than equipped the Dwarves for victory, all the while the Allorn agents sat back and wasted no Allorn lives on the destruction of the Dregodar heretics. In a pivotal moment of the battle, Aurora was supposedly slain by a Dwarven Wyvern-killer weapon, but unleashed a massive magical spell that warped Ellador into a hellish frozen wasteland.

The whole Dwarven army was killed by frost on the spot, while all the Dregodar became Isldar. The nearby hold of Rammtuunh which had its gates open to supply the battle also saw its forge die down in a near instant, and all inhabitants freeze to death in a matter of minutes. Recent historical review, following the outbreak of the Isldar Civil War and subsequent discoveries of the true fate of Aurora, have pointed out that it was not Aurora who committed this act of grand genocide, but the Glacial Ordial God who preyed on Aurora’s moment of doubt and weakness about her cause, and invaded her mind, using Dragon Magic to inflict death on the world while holding Aurora’s soul hostage in an undead Dragon’s rotting vessel. This was made worse by the awakening of the Dakkar; fanatical Power Arken worshipers who started a religious war against the Dwarves from the far deep, manipulating their tunnels and giving the Dwarves a rude awakening that they were not the only race living in the deep tunnels by flooding many of the holds with lava and armies of stone-scaled lizard-men. Hold after Hold fell with millions of Dwarves being killed in the process, and several million more afterwards dying of famine and isolation caused by the collapse of the vast network of tunnels.

When the dust of the conflict settled and the final defensive lines held, there were only two holds left: Grebor which was once a cattle farm for the Dwarven Empire, hastily converted to a defensive hold, and Anduin, which once acted as the bureaucratic capital of the Dwarven Empire, but now had ledgers upon ledgers and cabinets upon cabinets of data stored for an Empire that no longer existed, instead melting its desks and boxes into barricades and using the bureaucratic paper as fuel for the furnaces. Both of these Holds are on the southwestern tip of Ellador, and all other Holds, including the connections to them across the oceans, were lost. Some went silent without a word, some died in calamitous manners like volcanic submersion, or mass-slaughter by the Dakkar. The surviving holds are still routinely under attack by the Dakkar, and some even by Isldar who want to keep Dwarven reclaimers away from their territory, but are generally considered stable, even if both barely have 80,000 inhabitants between them left. Many Velheim have also moved in, supplementing both defenders and caretakers of the local economy so that there is a roughly stable position from which the Dwarves could consider reclaiming their empire, but there are still millions of Power seduced Dakkar living in their old collapsed holds, and the Isldar and Vampires also make expansion on the surface hellish.

Trivia

If there would be any type of person who hates the Ordial, it would be Dwarves. There was something so sickeningly evil (in the eyes of the Dwarves) for the Glacial to use Dragon Magic to cause death just to empower herself and for the glee of it, and then further to also lie about it and pretend to be a Dragon all along.
Just because Dwarves and Velheim Ailor are closely allied, does not mean they are incapable of struggling with one another. Dwarves and Velheim both are somewhat ignorant and very stubborn people, so conflicts frequently arise over who has the best warriors and the most honor.
Contrary to popular belief, you can always tell the difference between a short Ailor and a Dwarf, purely by looking at the length of their arms and the size of their feet and hands in comparison to the rest of their body.

Accreditation

Writers	MonMarty
Processors	Okadoka, birdsfoot_violet, FireFan96

Last Editor	OkaDoka on 09/28/2024.

» Read more

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 {{Info races
-|image = Dwarf.png
+|image = Dwarfsplash.png
 |pronunciation = Dwoh-rf
-|classification = [[Human]]
+|classification = Human
-|subraces = Humorrin and Aldor
+|nicknames =
-|nicknames = Stout Folk, Mountain Raiders
+*Stout Folk (endearing)
-|languages = [[Common]], [[Dwarven]], [[Northerne]]
+*Fallen Folk (derogatory)
-|naming = Similar to [http://www.behindthename.com/names/usage/scandinavian Scandinavian] found on earth, or typical Fantasy Dwarven names.
+*Forge Fathers (praising)
+|languages = Barrudh
-|distinction = Small, compact humans with incredibly advanced mining mechanics
+|naming = Old Norse with permutations
-|maxage = 130 years
+|distinction = Stout, mountain-dwelling people who show unerring perseverance and skill with crafting
-|body = Often Stocky. Never below Lanky
+|maxage = 200 years
-|height = 4’0” - 4’11”
+|eye = brown, gray, green, and blue.
-|weight = 80 - 120 lbs
+|hair = Blond, brown, black, red, and (when older) gray or white.
-|eye = Blue and grey
+|skin =
-|hair = Blond, red, and light brown, brown
+[[File:Skin1.png]]
-|skin = Pale
+[[File:Skin2.png]]
+[[File:Skin4.png]]
+[[File:Skin3.png]]
 |}}
+Secretive and proud, the Dwarves are the only known civilization to live underground in the world of [[Aloria]], building their grand holds with vast tunnel networks that run like highways across the various continents. The Dwarves are equally a very ancient [[Race]], predating many of the modern races in the world, and potentially even the [[Allorn Empire]] in having a civilized state structure, though keeping themselves distinctly isolated from the rest of the world. While ignoring most of the woes of the surface world, the Dwarves faced calamity after calamity in the last 1000 years, resulting in a staggering loss of life and a decline of their Empire. In present times, the Dwarves constantly struggle against extinction and the world forgetting about them, too proud to accept being consigned to a footnote in history, but equally pushed into a corner by forces beyond their control.
-With a history painted in the blood of their ancestors, it should come as no surprise that the Dwarves were -- and can still be -- some of Aloria’s most reserved and suspicious people. A trait they’ve become nothing short of famous for. Repeated tragedy in their homelands has forced the Dwarves to immigrate into [[Ailor]] society, and -- after centuries of mixed breeding -- has separated the once-monotonous Stout Folk into two distinct subraces with wildly varying views and ideologies. The Aldor and Humorrin represent some of the most divided peoples of the same race. Regardless of subspecies, Dwarves are known as an extremely hardy, adaptable people with strong minds for skepticism and problem solving. Despite continuing hardships, their unmatched adaptability and stubbornness ensures their future survival.
+==Core Identity==
-==Physical Characteristics==
+===Playing a Dwarf===
-In an extremely basic sense, Dwarves can be described as very short humanoids, though upon even idle inspection their proportional differences become apparent. Dwarves are broader than their Ailor cousins by a considerable margin; enough to make them have a comparable weight despite their lacking height. A Dwarf will never grow above five feet in height, and the smallest of them come in at four. Females tend to be a few inches shorter and less broad than the males, but this still makes them stockier than other Human races. A Dwarf’s lifespan is about 130 years, but earlier deaths are common (especially among the Humorrin). Females also seem to live longer than the males on average. Curiously, Dwarves age at a slower rate than Ailor by a tiny margin. They reach maturity at a comparable speed, but their adult years seem to be kinder on them until they reach more advanced ages. If a number were to be applied, it could be said that Dwarves age about twenty-five percent slower than Humans in adulthood. Additionally, contrary to popular rumor, female Dwarves are not capable of growing facial hair.
+To play a Dwarf, is to specifically choose for the backstory of belonging to a race which seems to be facing extinction, but tries to spit into the face of fate and go down kicking and screaming. Dwarven history is full of catastrophe, but far from becoming depressed about it, the Dwarves continue to battle against what most [[Ailor]] scholars have already consigned them to, and should the unthinkable become true, they will at least fight to make sure the world does not forget them. To be a Dwarf is to struggle with the constant realization that there are perhaps only an estimated 150,000 Dwarves left in the world, but to also not give room for self pity or just being mad at everyone around them. Being a Dwarf, is not to endlessly complain about the misery that has befallen the Race, but salvaging what can be found out of a bad situation, that which the Dwarves are known for.
+===Tunnel Empire===
+The Dwarves once had a vast underground Empire that spanned several continents and could in total sphere of influence even be compared as a rival to the Allorn Empire in its height. Dwarven holds were built primarily on [[Ellador]] before it froze over, but also on [[Northbelt]], with partially still existing tunnels connecting all of them, showing Dwarven engineering prowess as they built through solid stone and even under oceans, something even modern civilizations can only dream of. While many surfacers (Dwarves born and living mostly on the surface world) have gotten used to the open air, many of those who once lived underground (or continue to do so in [[Regalia]]) are uncomfortable lacking a clear ceiling above them.
+===Facing Extinction===
+Possible extinction or Racial integration among Ailor is a constant concern for the Dwarves, and one that has led to many disastrous attempts to reclaim the old homeland, as well as the creation of fringe terrorist groups of Dwarves who inflict their rage on the world. The majority of the Dwarves however are far more focused on attempting to salvage what they can, and mostly finding wealth in what others consider scrap. Dwarves are the perfect salvagers, able to fix up broken and discarded weapons and tools in no time, and even repairing technology mid-combat. Their ingenuity especially shines in moments where odds for them look bleak, giving rise to their sturdy reputation.
+===Grudge Tellers===
+The Dwarves have a great deal of grudges, and are commonly known as people who do not forgive, and do not forget. There is a great deal of racial animosity that they have towards the [[Nelfin]] Races, with varying degrees for the different types. Dwarves do not care for [[Suvial]], [[Fin'ullen]], or [[Solvaan]], and have a moderate to high distaste for the [[Isldar]], because they frequently clashed with their re-conquest plans. The group the Dwarves hate the most are the [[Teledden]], because of their scheming and backstabbing nature, and because they are largely the reason why the decline of the Dwarven Empire was set in motion. Only the most supreme of hatred among Dwarves is reserved for the [[Evolism|Evolist]] Isldar, once called the Death Isldar, who often worship the [[Evolism#Ravaal,_the_Glacial_March|Glacial]], the mother of all genocide on the Dwarves. This hatred is in spite of the recent greater division in Isldar society, which have seen less extreme factions of the Evolists emerge. Dwarves in general try to avoid being backstabbers, traitors, or swindlers, the truth and honor to their word is immensely important, as are bonds of alliance and friendship. Dwarves can even on a personal level, declare some action as a grudge, meaning that they declare a vendetta against a persona until their crime has been settled. This is sometimes where a Dwarf’s pettiness will shine through, declaring a grudge over a spilled drink, only to retaliate by burning someone’s house down.
-All Dwarves have three interesting traits owed to their stocky bodies and the hardy lifestyle of their ancestors. Their respiratory systems are incredibly adaptive after evolving to suit the harsh conditions their ancestors endured. This means that Dwarves can extract oxygen from heavily contaminated or dirty air. They’re capable of breathing smoke (even [[Obscura]] smoke) with only minor discomfort, and poison gasses have dramatically reduced effects on them. For example, gas potent enough to knock out an Ailor will only make a Dwarf feel very fatigued. Sadly, Dwarves are still vulnerable to poisons entering their bodies through other means, their immunity stretches only as far as breathable toxins. The stereotype that Dwarves are ‘tough’ is a mostly misplaced one, they bruise and break just as easily as other Human races. However, Dwarves have a curiously accelerated healing rate when compared to other Human races. As a general rule, a Dwarf will spend half as much time in a healing house than an Ailor will with identical injuries. A Dwarf’s wounds will clot fairly quickly, blood forming into thick, protective scabs to shelter open injuries.
+===Foundry Hearts===
+The Dwarves are, despite all the attempts of various other Races, unbeaten in the heat of a forge. They have the most skilful hands, the quickest grasp, and the easiest execution of complex forging techniques passed down through the generations. While Ailor and Nelfin may make more aesthetically pleasing items in a forge, Dwarves build to last and endure, and also forge with a purity of metals not quickly equaled by other Races. Nearly all Dwarves have a complex cultural understanding of geology, engineering, architecture, and knowledge of metals and ores that makes them excellent prospectors and explorers of soil riches.
-Dwarves have an extremely demanding nutrient intake due to this fantastic healing ability, as well as their powerful bodies. Most Dwarves who live even average lives will garner enough exercise to maintain a healthy physique, mostly in thanks to the increased effort it takes for them to move around due to their short legs. Inactive Dwarves, however, will suffer physically. This is most often seen in Dwarven mages of Mage level or above. Any Dwarf who commits to magic of this level or something equally as demanding will inevitably become either incredibly weak and frail or incredibly fat. One case even crippled a Dwarven mage of expert level because of his continued neglect of physical activity. An expanded lifespan means Dwarf mages are nothing to underestimate, but they’re very easy to spot among their kin.
+==Design==
+===Mental Characteristics===
+Dwarves are resilient yet adaptable, stubborn yet empathetic, and hardworking yet playful. These contradictions all come together to create the Dwarven mentality of life. Having suffered betrayals and warfare against an assortment of enemies, even to the point where their once-great empire has crumbled to a few remaining Great Holds, Dwarves have an uncanny ability to take whatever is being thrown at them and launch it right back with greater ferocity. Dwarves as such have a very strong survival instinct and look to find ways to maintain their footing in Aloria, lest their Race slip into irrelevance and squander what their ancestors had accomplished. Dwarves are known to stick to their plans and see them carried out, but also know when a plan needs to change for the greater good and can abandon them with a sense of accomplishment and understanding.
+===Physical Characteristics===
+Dwarves are known to be the shortest Race in Aloria, with all of their members being shorter than five feet tall. Often mistaken for shorter Ailor, Dwarves tend to have wider frames if they were scaled up to the size of an Ailor, and also have greater development of muscle mass in comparison, especially in their arms and torso. Their skin is known to be tougher than others, with their hands and feet often remarked to have a leathery texture, as if they are callused, yet lacking the hardness that is associated with them in Ailor. Many Dwarves often have semi-exaggerated facial features, such as more pronounced brows, ears, and jaws, though it is also just as common to have very Ailor-like features. Dwarves also grow their hair faster than other Races, with the men often fastening various ornaments to them as a cultural fashion. Dwarves are capable of the full range of skin tone complexions. Dwarven hair colors equally have a large range, from black to blonde and anything in between, while eye colors can be green, brown, blue, or gray. Half-Dwarves are an average height between both parents, but retaining the Dwarven bodily proportions, thus appearing like a stocky short Ailor with more pronounced arms and facial features and body hair. Women Dwarves can grow beards, but many also don’t (or shave).
-Finally, Dwarves also have powerful genes;  more powerful than those of the Ailor. Half-Dwarves will always look more Dwarven than not, and while they don’t inherit the race’s lifespan or slowed aging, they do inherit the above quirks at a lessened effectiveness. Half-Dwarves are an increasingly common sight in Ellador due to the continent’s huge population of Dwarven refugees. Half-Humorrin and Half-Aldor look distinctly different. The latter effectively look like shorter, wider versions of their other parent race. Half-Humorrin become even shorter, wider, and bulkier. They also sport the large, dramatic faces of their Dwarven parentage. As a final note, a half-Dwarf will ''always'' age at the same speed as an Ailor, with an identical lifespan, regardless of parent races.
+==Heritage Traits==
-===Humorrin===
+When designing a Character, Proficiency Points allow for a limited Ability selection with Point Buy Packs. Heritage Traits adds free Packs and Mechanics on top of that to help with cultural themes. Free Packs grant Abilities usually, while Mechanics change the way a character functions in Roleplay through subtle, and usually out of Combat ways. In essence, Mechanics just add aesthetic flair that invest in the niche of each culture. Free Packs never raise Proficiency Points, but the character must be able to purchase them normally. (ex. if a character is a certain Affinity that locks them out of a category, they cannot take that specific free pack and must choose the alternative option.) If a Free Pack grants Magic of some type, that Magic can be of any Alignment the character can normally choose, or limited to a select alignment, which will always be written in the Free Pack description.
-Humorrin appear as the more ‘traditional’ Dwarf, and up until 26 AC, they were the only species of Dwarf in existence. Their facial features are large and dramatic, especially the brow, nose, ears, and jaw. They tend to style themselves aggressively, with braided or wildly-cut hair, somewhat akin to the warriors of [[Nordskag]]. Braids, mohawks, shaved heads, or grown-out hair are all common. Males are also fond of growing out and styling their beards with equal dramaticism. Humorrin lie on the more extreme end of the physical spectrum for Human species, and are capable of carrying around twice their body weight on their backs. Males and females aren’t entirely similar, but they’re certainly not diverse, with universally broad, strong builds. With origins in the Elladorian Holds, their skin is always on the paler side and their hair is always light, with blondes, reds, and lighter browns as the vastly dominant colors. Common eye colors are greys, blues, and occasional greens.
-===Aldor===
-Aldor have undergone centuries of inbreeding with Ailor cultures, and as a result look far more approachable and pleasant than their Humorrin counterparts. They have very similar faces to the Ailor, but mostly maintain a stocky, Dwarven build (Though, naturally, they aren't as wide as the Humorrin). Gender diversity has also been wildly enhanced by mixed genetics. Male Aldor tend to have broader, rather masculine frames, while female Aldor tend to have smaller (but still broad by Ailor standards), rather feminine frames. Physically, Aldor are less impressive than their cousins, and while they can hold more weight than an Ailor, they tend to lose out in shoving matches due to their short limbs. Perhaps the most notable trait of the Aldor is their diversity. Centuries of blending with Ailor culture has spread the Aldor far and wide. They can be found as far as Daendroc or Ithania, and their skin, hair, and eye color vary as much as the natives of these lands. An Aldor from Daendroc can be darkly tanned with brown hair and eyes, for example.
-==Mental Characteristics==
+Mixed Heritage characters (i.e. characters born from two parents of different Cultures) may take one parent's 'Free Packs' and mix and match up to 5 Mechanics from both parents, although some Peoples cannot produce Mixed Heritage children (due to Magical/Fantasy reasons).
-Dwarf mentality varies wildly dependent on the subject’s subspecies, and it can be hard to find common ground between an Aldor and a Humorrin. In their own ways, both species have a strong, directed cynicism about them that leads them to be hypercritical of different ideas. If approached incorrectly, they can be extremely hard to work with, especially if their ideals are opposed.
+===Free Packs===
+* Dwarves can choose one Pack from either the [[Training Point Buy | Training]] or [[Athletic Point Buy | Athletic]] Point Buy categories.
+* Dwarves can choose one Pack from either [[Tech Point Buy | Tech]] or [[Athletic Point Buy | Athletic]] Point Buy categories.
+===Mechanics===
+* Dwarves gain +1 Main Defense Stat while another Dwarf is within a 5 block range, which can break Cap up to 11. This mechanic can stack up to a +2 bonus.
+* Dwarves are barely affected by Alcohol that gets other people drunk, needing insanely high proof, and always being able to keep their drinks down.
+* Dwarves have perfect vision (night vision) underground and in dark surroundings, needing no light.
+* Dwarves are masters of the forge, able to perform feats of metallurgy in half the time of other craftsmen. Additionally, any metal item that a Dwarf produces is considered master class when compared to others.
+* Due to their vast understanding of architecture and metallurgy, Dwarves may gain additional insight from event items that may not be obvious to others (inquire with DM/Event Hoster for opportunities).
+==Culture==
+===Language===
+The Dwarves speak a fantasy language called Barrudh, which is not comparable to any real life language. The base for its design is taken from old Norse, but distinct norse sounds are replaced by much harsher tones. For example, the Norse word for War is Krig (pronounced as Kreeg), which is then changed to the Dwarven Kraag (close to the word Crag). This produces a more guttural language with a somewhat norse base, but with a more fantasy like spelling. Most Dwarven Fantasy name generators are good to generate a name, however a couple of gendered names are provided as examples below.
-Aldor see themselves as a prime argument against traditionalism, and are heavily skeptical of the concept. They value free will and thought over structure and limitations and reject the idea of fate, rarely accepting a sour situation without doing all they can to remedy it. Aldor make fantastic pragmatists, inventors, and handymen, with a curious genetic inclination towards identifying components that gives them a particular edge towards the latter two. Their thought process is immediate and impulsive, with value placed in snap decisions and following one’s whims. Aldor are heavily susceptible to temptation, cravings, and addictions as a result of this, though they often fail to see these as negative things, carefree as they are. Emotionally, the Aldor are generally good empathetics. They recognise the struggles of others with relative ease, and relate with most people easily. Aldor connect with people well, but they’re just as likely to become absorbed in pursuing their own innovations and ideas, throwing aside good manners and other social obligations to become truly free spirits.
+* Male Coded Names: Fokuth, Fignam, Khemrul, Affroul, Throdin, Hammoir, Thamrug, Kirem, Barivoc, Girfak, Fovrim, Gotmolin, Dvorun.
+* Female Coded Names: Thirrsu, Dwothal, Kathil, Barridora, Kursbaer, Gimmora, Krozza, Ranthea, Lodi, Strosshil, Vosdrine.
-Mentally, the Humorrin are far more notable; with a near-universal distrust for anything that hasn’t been tried and tested for hundreds of years, Humorrin are traditionalists of unmatched extremes. They value unity and stubbornness, and work to maintain strong, close-knit circles of friends, coworkers, or neighbors. Curiously, this communal sense makes the Humorrin oddly accepting of other races and cultures. So long as somebody is in their circle, a Humorrin will accept them without issue. In a way, this makes the Humorrin more racially accepting than their Aldor cousins, who may have reservations about certain races. Unfortunately, Humorrin can become so entrenched in their standard thought process that new, unfamiliar decisions can distress or intimidate them. A Humorrin might take minutes to decide what drink to order at a bar they’ve never visited, and one with a sudden position of leadership thrust upon them can quickly break down into hysterics. Ultimately, a Humorrin will seek to control every aspect of their life in a way that makes it as predictable as possible. Humorrin rarely become bored or depressed simply because they’ve done something many times before. They’re entirely happy to relive the same moment time and time again, or sit in a comfortable silence for minutes on end. This makes the Humorrin famously emotionally stable. They tend to take hardships with little complaint provided they have their communities to rely on. The easiest way to shake a Humorrin emotionally is to disrupt their schedule or community. One of these Dwarves facing snap decisions will quickly become distressed and fearful.
+* Dwarven naming customs does not officially support a Unisex or Non binary naming style, but both male and female can technically be unisex.
+===Magic Chains===
+The Dwarves have a dubious attitude towards the Occult, notably because there is no real historical context to [[Magic]] usage in their Empire. They are not incapable of using Magic, but Magic has a difficult place in their society due to Magic being involved with their greatest collective traumas. Mages simply did not exist for 21,000 years among the Dwarves, until the Allorn agents first used it to convince them to turn on the Dregodar. Somehow, Magic started appearing among their people after it was first used on them by the Allorn agents, causing Mages to be born, and Magic to also be taught to some of them. As the Empire collapsed, Dwarves became hostile to the concept of Magic, and started persecuting their own magically inclined population. As time progressed however, simply killing magically inclined Dwarves became more impractical as their population sharply declined. Instead, since then, the Dwarven elders have agreed to the Magic Chaining policy, where Dwarves who use Magic are tolerated, but only while they have a non-Magic using Dwarf retainer. The Magic using Dwarf is clad in ceremonial robes, and finally has a heavy anti-Magic collar and shoulder guard piece installed kept in place by chains that blocks their usage of any kind of Magic (this cannot be reproduced on other Races, it somehow only works on Dwarves). The retainer is then given a key, which they can use to unleash the chains, which allows the Dwarf to cast Magic freely. The retainer is always trained and drilled into ensuring that the Mage-Dwarf only ever uses Magic in the interest of Dwarven society, or for assistance in the forge, for example by casting fire magic to heat up a furnace. Regalia adopted part of this policy of Mage-collaring in the latter half of the 3rd century AC, but did away with it when Regalians overwhelmingly voted that it was cruel, while the Dwarves continue to maintain their policy to this day. They generally believe that independent and freely operating Magic users are a danger, and that they are in part at risk of being seduced and controlled by the Elven Evil, and other evil Magicness (as they call it).
+===The Velheim Bond===
+The [[Velheim]] people are considered “Bonded” by the Dwarves, and them in return by the Velheim due to their close cooperation. Since the Dwarves lost most of their holds from the [[Dakkar]] invasions, and the spill-over of the Dregodar conflict, the Dwarves were in a near state of collapse, only to be pulled back from the edge by the Velheim in Ellador. The Velheim had been living and trading peacefully with the Dwarves for centuries, though both largely ignored each other, and the Velheim also didn’t take a side during the conflict between the Dwarves and the Nelfin who would eventually become the Isldar. However, when the Dakkar struck, the Velheim sent food and medicine into the Holds, asking for nothing in return (despite lacking food themselves). Then, when things got really bad and around Cataclysm, even while the Ailor towns were under attack by Vampires, they still found time to send soldiers into the mines with the Dwarves to help build defenses against further Dakkar attacks, teaching the Dwarves (who had never fought a war against anyone in pitched siege battles of their cities) how to build defensive structures. The Dwarves eventually answered in kind by sending squads to the surface to protect coastal villages from Vampire attacks, using their inherent immunity to Vampire powers to sniff out parasites and purge them. This shared trauma, but also alliance, was finally solidified when in the fires of chaos in Dwarven society, the god Dáuw was born, supposedly to mundane parents, and led the Dwarven people to unify religiously with the Velheim people, after convincing the remaining elders he was a god in his own right. The Velheim people were apprehensive to accept Dáuw as a god at first, but with the intervention of Halfvel, who approved, news of him spread, and he was adopted into the pantheon. This is the reason why Dwarves can (nowadays) always be found in Velheim cultural festivities, Velheim districts, or generally around Velheim people, and vice versa, because these people share a unique cross-racial bond of friendship and alliance. Many Dwarven cultural expressions have adopted Velheim norms, and vice versa, while many Dwarven children being born are also half-Dwarf half-Velheim. That being said, Dwarves are always sure to protect quintessentially Dwarven customs, so while the two are very strongly related, they are not the same, and never will be.
+===Religion===
+Dwarves nearly exclusively follow the [[Fornoss]] Religion, though a small minority has converted to Unionism also. Exact data on this is hard to track, because Dwarves in general are spread far and wide over the world. The majority still holds onto the remnants of their subterranean empire. Some have started communities above ground, others have joined Ailor communities, and others yet travel the world. Some of those traveling the world or joining Ailor communities in Regalia have joined [[Unionism]], but Fornoss is still dominant. Dwarven religion was originally called Duindún, a faith in which it was believed that [[Dragon]]s breathed the fire of life into the earth that birthed the Dwarves, and that those Dragons then turned into Dwarves and became the founders of the various Holds. With the calamities occurring, and the damage done to their society by a Dragon, the Dwarven Race collectively abandoned the faith of Duindún and mass converted to the Fornoss faith. This coincided with the sudden appearance of Dáuw, who proved his godhood, and then led the Dwarven people to join forces with the Fornoss Velheim in particular.
+===Families===
+Dwarven families are fairly nuclear (meaning two parents and children) though Dwarves inherently dislike children and find any reason to ship them off to daycare. Dwarven society has a strong daycare system in place where (ironically) Velheim Ailor are paid to take care of the children until they grow old enough to behave in the household, and be taught Dwarven culture and traditions. Dwarves are the only race with a very strong communal elderly care system in place, where elders are moved to retirement and veteran homes where the elderly and war maimed convalesce together. Dwarves have no overt attitude towards same-sex relations or gender-identity, with exact gender identity being already somewhat fluid between Dwarven sexes as men and women and everything in between roughly looks the same.
+===Fashion===
+Much of Dwarven fashion has been lost to Velheim fashion out of pure necessity. The Dwarven Empire was once set up in such a way that each great Hold produced something useful for the Empire, and the weaver’s hold was one of the first Holds to go down during the Dakkar invasion. As such, Dwarves had since then mostly used cured leather and hides which put a severe strain on the cattle ranching Hold which was still existing. When the Velheim sent supplies, clothes were some of the most well-used, as Dwarves wore much less cold-resistant clothes from Ellador being much warmer than it had gotten around Cataclysm. Their clothing industry lacked a design for heat resistance (as the tunnels themselves were often quite hot and prone to humidity) so the Velheim clothes became the new norm eventually due to the ease of trade. Dwarven elements still incorporated into the clothes are Dwarven patterns and an overabundance of jewelry and decorative rare-earth metals.
 ==History==
-The origin of the Dwarves is incredibly hard to pinpoint due to the extreme xenophobia and isolation that they subjected themselves to throughout most of their history. As far as nearly every other Alorian race knows, Dwarves literally popped out of the ground. In these early days, Dwarves are thought to have lived in much smaller colonies, with less spectacular, smaller underground burrows as homes. Some have speculated that early Dwarves were nomadic, but evidence for this is hard to come by.
+The Dwarven Empire has existed for as much as perhaps 20,000 years, making it one of the longest living Empires in the world and also one of the most stable. Dwarves tell tales of the wealthy and massive holds, vast sprawling urban caves and underground cisterns housing millions of Dwarves and spanning continents. Each Hold had a specialty it delivered and Dwarven society lived in communal unity in their disregard for surface dwellers. A curious thing to note was the complete absence of Magic among Dwarves for the better part of history, until Cataclysm at the least. Scholars have speculated that because there was no magic underground and the Dwarves largely ignored surface situations, that the Demons who cyclically invaded during Void Invasions did so blind to their presence.
-The first ‘modern’ Dwarven Hold was the [[Ølovomm]] Hold, established somewhere around 700 BC by a group of a dozen or so Dwarven colonies who--in a rare moment of Humorrin innovation--observed the changing world around them and sought to unite themselves in order to remain relevant and successful in the developing world. Each colony’s Elder came together to form the Hold’s council, or “Khazur.” To this day, holds operate on a Khazur of exactly twelve elders. Even though this was never intended to be a permanent system, the fierce traditionalism of the Humorrin has set the method in stone for good.
+Dwarven Empire history comes to a quick, unexpected, and violent end during the Dregodar conflict. While the Nelfin who fled the Allorn Empire for Dragon Worship persecution had somewhat chilly relations with the Dwarves on the surface, open conflict was unthinkable because the Dwarves had no reason to go to the surface, and because the Dregodar loved building castles high up in the mountains, far away even from the surface ground. It was through the insidious infiltration, manipulation, and demagoguery of Allorn agents using magic and other foul tricks to deceive the Dwarves into thinking that the Dregodar were actually plotting their destruction. Eventually the Allorn agents succeeded, and three wars with the Dregodar over a timespan of about 100 years were the result. The first two wars were largely inconclusive, while the third war caused a calamity for the Dwarves.
-Dwarven population skyrocketed due to Ølovomm’s success, and as the centuries went on, more Dwarves broke off from Ølovomm to form their own Holds in [[Ellador|Ellador’s]] many mountain ranges. The holds [[Skorr]], [[Østrey]], [[Tehl-Humm]], and [[Æthrammar]] were all born over the next few centuries, and operated on a disturbingly identical system to their father hold. In fact, every hold functioned so similarly that a Dwarf could be placed in any of them and live their life with near-complete familiarity, minus that with the populous. Years of prosperity tempted fate, and eventually the Dwarves had their first hostile encounter with another race.
+At the apex of the third war, the Dwarves threw hundreds of thousands of soldiers into pitched battle in the Valley of the Long Song, where they faced the collective forces of the Dregodar in a pitched battle to protect Aurora, their Violet Dragon. The battle was disastrous for the Dregodar at first, who were unable to defend themselves with their feeble weapons and pacifist attitude against the Dwarves who came with vast engines of war.100 years of preparation had more than equipped the Dwarves for victory, all the while the Allorn agents sat back and wasted no Allorn lives on the destruction of the Dregodar heretics. In a pivotal moment of the battle, Aurora was supposedly slain by a Dwarven Wyvern-killer weapon, but unleashed a massive magical spell that warped Ellador into a hellish frozen wasteland.
-The Humorrin were not unfamiliar with the other races of Aloria, but certainly treated them with distrust. The Dregodar had been long-time neighbours of the early Dwarves, but contact was sparse. Traditionally, the Dregodar constructed their temples atop the tallest mountains in the region, which often sat them right atop the Dwarven holds. The Humorrin only considered their lands to be subterranean, however, and it wasn’t until the interloping of the [[Elven Empire]] that the Dwarves were made to consider the threat of the Dregodar. Somewhere around 170 BC, after many months of infiltration and subterfuge, the Nelfin uncovered a laundering scheme devised by the Østrey Elders. The Khazur had long been exploiting the wealth redistribution system for personal gain, an unthinkable act in Humorrin society. Under threat of this secret being revealed, the Østrey Elders agreed to bolster their numbers for attack. The other holds soon followed suit after their brethren, Humorrin and Nelfin marching against the Dregodar in a rare moment of cooperation. Dregodar numbers were massacred, temples were destroyed, and their dragons were butchered. Though early stages of the conflict seemed successful, this falsehood would run its course in due time.
+The whole Dwarven army was killed by frost on the spot, while all the Dregodar became Isldar. The nearby hold of Rammtuunh which had its gates open to supply the battle also saw its forge die down in a near instant, and all inhabitants freeze to death in a matter of minutes. Recent historical review, following the outbreak of the Isldar Civil War and subsequent discoveries of the true fate of Aurora, have pointed out that it was not Aurora who committed this act of grand genocide, but the Glacial Ordial God who preyed on Aurora’s moment of doubt and weakness about her cause, and invaded her mind, using Dragon Magic to inflict death on the world while holding Aurora’s soul hostage in an undead Dragon’s rotting vessel. This was made worse by the awakening of the Dakkar; fanatical Power [[Arken]] worshipers who started a religious war against the Dwarves from the far deep, manipulating their tunnels and giving the Dwarves a rude awakening that they were not the only race living in the deep tunnels by flooding many of the holds with lava and armies of stone-scaled lizard-men. Hold after Hold fell with millions of Dwarves being killed in the process, and several million more afterwards dying of famine and isolation caused by the collapse of the vast network of tunnels.
-By 56 BC, the Nelfin-Dwarf alliance had dissolved due to the latter party’s growing distrust. Alone, the Dwarves continued their offence on the Dregodar and alone killed the last of the Black Scale Mountain Dragons. However, the beasts reincarnation as a Great Ice Dragon spelled disaster for the Dwarves. Hundreds, if not thousands of lives were lost to the dragon’s magic. Though the Dregodar vanished from Aloria after this event, the Dwarves took this loss heavily as it was their first substantial loss of life in war. Unbeknownst to the Dwarves, this series of events is essentially what created the [[Isldar]] Nelfin, as well as gave a large part of Ellador its signature chill. To this day the Dwarves remain mostly unaware of the Isldar, treating them only as outlandish Elves when they rarely do appear in their holds.
-Dwarven history levelled for the next few decades, remaining steady and predictable just as its inhabitants demanded. Throughout and after the war with the Dregodar, holds had continued to sprout up, with the famous holds [[Brühl]], [[Grebor]], and [[Aldruin]] being formed around this time along with a few others. The Dwarves kept their doors sealed throughout the [[Cataclysm]], still fearful and bitter over their interactions with the Elven Empire years ago. Despite their best efforts, doom eventually came from within to shake the Dwarven people.
-The [[Dakkar]] were uncovered in 26 AC in the Hold of Skorr, which had grown famous for its bountiful and astronomically deep mines. The Dwarves of the hold were treated to immediate hostilities, and after years without conflict and no specialized weapons, the hold only held out against the Dakkar horde for three days before the populous was routed or slaughtered. The Hold of Skorr became the first of any Dwarven hold to fall. A year later, a second hold, Fummd, was overrun.
-Dwarven refugees became common in surrounding Ailor settlements. These would become the Aldor over the course of time, but in these early days, they were treated with the same distrust their ancestors had shown the Ailor. The Dwarves and the Dakkar remained locked in a subterranean war for centuries. The next hold to fall was the first to rise, The Hold of Ølovomm, resulting in a massive crash in Dwarf morale.
-Over the centuries, every hold save for Grebor and Aldruin fell, with the most recent victim of the Dakkar horde being the Hold of Brühl in 276 AC. Both remaining holds sealed their mines but took wildly varying approaches to defence. Grebor reluctantly opened its gates, embracing the mentality of the Aldor and flourishing in foreign trade. Many Humorrin left Grebor as a result, while the rest segregated themselves from the swelling non-Dwarf population to maintain their community-centric ideals. Aldruin, after welcoming the refugee Dwarves of Grebor, began fearing for the loss of their own traditions and shut their gates. To this day, Aldruin refuses entry to any outsiders. Parties only leave the hold to trade and raid surrounding Ailor villages. Tensions between the Aldruin Dwarves and the surrounding Ailor grows more by the day. Today, the conflict with the Dakkar has scaled back, but still technically continues. Excursions against the horde are still common in both holds, leaving the Dwarves and the Dakkar locked in a constant, unseen subterranean war.
-==Society==
-Aldor society is practically nonexistent, and they tend to adapt to the society of whatever Ailor they integrate with. They’re quick to grasp social structure and order, even though they may not always agree with it. They blend well with Ailor to the point of accepting them as kin, even though this kindness may not always be repaid by the Ailor themselves. Aldor thrive in large, busy cities where they can indulge their wild, often fleeting interests and muses.
-Humorrin society has a very strong, flat structure. It’s heavily community-oriented, with all participants in the society being seen as equals, provided they can pull their weight. Elders are chosen by the various communities and while respected, their word is more suggestion than law. Chosen Elders have exactly the same rights as other Humorrin, but are generally treated with more respect and gratitude. Humorrin society is so strong that those who leave it generally struggle to identify superiors and inferiors. A fresh trainee may be given a newly-forged [[Greborian Warhammer]], while a hardened veteran may content himself to a simple club. Genders are technically equal within Humorrin society, but this doesn’t stop the males and females from having their preferences. Humorrin women tend to be more ambitious and fierce. They strive to become Elders, engravers, merchants, and so on. Males are far more humble and complacent. They’re happy to be smiths, soldiers, mining workers, and other less illustrious jobs. This isn’t to say that there aren’t male Elders, or female soldiers. This is only a common trend.
-In general, Dwarves make for fantastic allies and team members with their unmatched pragmatism. Both kinds are reliable in their own ways. Sadly, however, Dwarves tend to make extremely poor singular leaders outside of their holds. The Humorrin are far too conservative and tepid towards taking a new direction, while the Aldor often drive their allies to folly chasing one of their fleeting whims or wild plans.
-===Politics===
-The Humorrin political system is a relatively simple one. Every hold must have a Khazur of twelve Elders. If an Elder dies, they must be immediately replaced, and at any time the community that elected a particular Elder can exchange in a replacement if they can agree as a unit. The Khazur essentially serves as a ‘face’ for the Hold; they handle trade deals, immigration, negotiations, and inner-hold disputes. Rarely are the Humorrin politically divided due to their incredibly traditional mindset, so political issues are extremely rare for a Khazur to tackle. When these issues are raised, the most conservative option is almost always taken. Tension is infamously difficult to settle all things considered. Dwarven holds are surprisingly huge, rivalling the size of Human Kingdoms, and difficulties frequently arise when such a large demographic is governed by a council of only twelve. Lashing out against the Khazur is not unheard of, but most Humorrin opt to steel their emotions and continue on in the face of unfairness.
-Aldor practically have no politics of their own, since they lack any sort of unity as a race. Most are politically apathetic and carefree, with a fleeting, critical interest of politicians and their craft. Others may be straight up anarchistic, and work to disassemble or slander political movement simply because they disagree so vehemently with it.
-===Culture===
-Aldor culture is effectively an anti-culture by nature. Aldor are free spirits and innovators at heart, and may defy the culture of whatever homeland they originate from simply because they want to. They follow their cultural cues when it suits them and not a moment longer, brazenly defying the defined and the expected. This isn’t to say that Aldor don’t follow rules, it simply means they’re more logical thinkers than not, and struggle with the concept of doing something just because it’s been repeated for centuries past. Aldor appreciate arts, impulsiveness, and progression. They’re usually the first to call for revolution in any context when displeased, and they make for engaging conversationalists.
-Humorrin Culture is incredibly pragmatic and rigid, with a strong emphasis on each Dwarf pulling their weight. Indecision is looked down upon, with a Humorrin Dwarf generally being expected to take to a trade at maturity and stick with it for life. This culture-ingrained lifelong dedication makes the Humorrin natural masters at their crafts, if not a little jaded or uninspired. Some Humorrin will take to their craft with flying colors, while others will find it unfulfilling and exasperating. Both are expected to follow their choice to the grave. The concept of artists are lost on the Humorrin, who entrust what little decoration they embellish to their craftsmen. In Humorrin culture, beauty is functionality, so only the most functional, critical, and integral items are embellished with the Dwarven Alphabet and script the people consider appealing. Cornerstones of bridges, for example, are often ornately decorated, as might be the central pillar of the Khazur’s chamber. The Humorrin also practice blocky, squared-off tattooing. Traditional Humorrin tattoos always originate from the chest over the heart, as it’s seen as the integral piece of the Dwarf’s body. Proud or successful Dwarves may have their tattoos stretch to their fingertips or knees, but the design will always originate at the heart.
-===Religion===
-Most Aldor nowadays are [[Unionism|Unionists]], [[Old Gods]] worshippers, or agnostic. Humorrin, however, keep to their old ways as always, with continued worship to the [[Dogma of Duindin]]. This obscure religion is loosely comparable to ancestor worship, though the particular focus is on Duindin himself. Nobody truly knows who Duindin is. Most holds’ Elders will speculate, but these often conflict. Some imagine him to be the first Dwarf, others say he was one of the first Elders. All that can be said for sure is that the religion began early on in the Hold of Ølovomm.
-Homage is payed to Duindin through material sacrifice once a month. Traditionally in holds, all Dwarves gather in a massive coliseum-like structure with a central, huge bronze bowl over a forge fire. The bowl is always engraved with a crude history of the Dwarven people. One can find accounts of the Dregodar and Dakkar conflicts on bowls today. Worshippers can (but aren’t forced to) come forward and lay items in the bowl for sacrifice. Typically these are notable tools, weapons, or crafted goods. A smith may sacrifice the hammer he used to forge his finest axe, for example. As the fire is lit, worshipping Dwarves sing in a low, sustained chant as the sacrifices smolder to ash or evaporate. While participation in the sacrifice is not mandatory, it is encouraged that every Dwarf participate from time to time. This encourages detachment from material goods, promoting the communal system the Humorrin follow while simultaneously defying the prospect that Dwarves are greedy.
+When the dust of the conflict settled and the final defensive lines held, there were only two holds left: Grebor which was once a cattle farm for the Dwarven Empire, hastily converted to a defensive hold, and Anduin, which once acted as the bureaucratic capital of the Dwarven Empire, but now had ledgers upon ledgers and cabinets upon cabinets of data stored for an Empire that no longer existed, instead melting its desks and boxes into barricades and using the bureaucratic paper as fuel for the furnaces. Both of these Holds are on the southwestern tip of Ellador, and all other Holds, including the connections to them across the oceans, were lost. Some went silent without a word, some died in calamitous manners like volcanic submersion, or mass-slaughter by the Dakkar. The surviving holds are still routinely under attack by the Dakkar, and some even by Isldar who want to keep Dwarven reclaimers away from their territory, but are generally considered stable, even if both barely have 80,000 inhabitants between them left. Many Velheim have also moved in, supplementing both defenders and caretakers of the local economy so that there is a roughly stable position from which the Dwarves could consider reclaiming their empire, but there are still millions of Power seduced Dakkar living in their old collapsed holds, and the Isldar and Vampires also make expansion on the surface hellish.
-===Economy===
+===Trivia===
-Only the two remaining holds, Grebor and Aldruin, have their own standalone economies. One of which is very weak. The Hold of Grebor has quasi-abandoned its communist ways of old and thrives on foreign trade. In truth, what Humorrin remain in the hold still operate in their traditional way, segregating themselves both physically and financially away from the swathes of other races that have since come to populate the hold. Grebor uses the Regal to promote foreign trade. The Hold of Aldruin has very little spending power comparatively, mostly due to this traditional method of wealth redistribution. Currency is not used, and trade is done through simple bartering of goods. What income the hold acquires is gained entirely from the occasional rare outside trade, or the far more common occurrence of raiding Ailor settlements.
+* If there would be any type of person who hates the Ordial, it would be Dwarves. There was something so sickeningly evil (in the eyes of the Dwarves) for the Glacial to use Dragon Magic to cause death just to empower herself and for the glee of it, and then further to also lie about it and pretend to be a Dragon all along.
-===Combat and Warfare===
+* Just because Dwarves and Velheim Ailor are closely allied, does not mean they are incapable of struggling with one another. Dwarves and Velheim both are somewhat ignorant and very stubborn people, so conflicts frequently arise over who has the best warriors and the most honor.
-Combat has long been part of Humorrin culture and life. The Raiding of Ailor settlements was commonplace in the past, and the modern Dakkar conflict keeps them from becoming complacent. Shields are a favourite due to the race’s small size, generally making them good defenders. On the flipside, more brutalistic Dwarven populations such as the Aldruin Dwarves favour low-defense, high-offence tactics, employing strong, two-handed weapons. Casualties with this tactic are obviously high, but the Humorrin are well aware that they heal faster than most other races they face against. Even if their first assault fails, one can always bet that the Humorrin will be healed and ready for a second attack before the defenders can heal their wounded.
+* Contrary to popular belief, you can always tell the difference between a short Ailor and a Dwarf, purely by looking at the length of their arms and the size of their feet and hands in comparison to the rest of their body.
-Aldor, on the other hand, make for poor combatants. Low mobility is universal across Dwarves, but without the greater strength of the Humorrin, the Aldor are left lacking. However, they certainly shouldn’t be underestimated if allowed up close. Their compact size and greater flexibility than the Humorrin makes them capable wrestlers, especially when faced against more frail races like the Nelfin. Generally, Aldor make up for their lack of combat ability by being great smooth-talkers, diplomats, or quick-thinkers.
+{{Peoples}}
-==Trivia==
-*Dwarf blood is actually a fairly useful alchemy ingredient. In Human species, it benefits and mildly accelerates the healing process when mixed into a salve.
-*Aldor have the capacity to become very talented philosophers, but are also incredibly prone to becoming layabouts, charlatans, and entertainers.
-*While unheard of in earlier years, half Dwarf, half Elf crossbreeds are an emerging rarity in mixed-race cultures. Mockingly or endearingly referred to as a "Dwelf" or "Dwelves", these crossbreeds can loosely be described as pygmy Elves. More accurately, they resemble short, stocky (though considerably less so than the Aldor) half-Elves. Even with the natural height of most Elves, they rarely exceed the Dwarven height spectrum.
-{{Races}}
 {{Accreditation
-|Writers = Plecy
+|Writers = MonMarty
-|Processors = BetaInsomnia, The_Shadow_King3, Aespair, JarlJade, Walrusaur_
+|Processors = Okadoka, birdsfoot_violet, FireFan96
 }}
-[[Category:Races]]
+[[category:Heritages]] [[Category:Human]]