Dwarf

Dwarves, sometimes called Stout Folk, are a humanoid race indigenous to and, common throughout, Ovaicaea. Dwarves are generally stereotyped as a tough, tradition-abiding folk known for their strong legal and martial cultures, industriousness, beautiful craftsmanship. Dwarves are among the most populous and diverse races in Western Ovaicaea. Their long-lived biology, combined with their early establishment on the continent, have enabled dwarves to significantly shape history. Dwarves of the west are responsible for the creation, rise, and fall of numerous empires, kingdoms, and settlements over the course of several thousand years.

Like the elves, dwarves are native to Ovaicaea, though they are not of fae ancestry. It is believed that humans and dwarves, despite humanity's later arrival from overseas, share a common ancestor from a prehistoric time when the continent of Ovaicaea was fused with faraway lands. Anatomically modern dwarves emerged over 200,000 years ago on Ovaicaea. Behavioral modernity was reached some 50,000 years ago, and coincided with the dwarven migration from arctic steppe to the mountainous and hilly south. Initially living semi-migratory lives with cave refuges as perennial shelters, around twelve millennia ago they evolved sedentary lifestyles and developed complex societies, agriculture, and later metallurgy around the same time as the elves of the eastern and western river valleys. Early dwarven settlements and city-states proliferated throughout this period, leading over time to the strong kingdoms and feudal societies we currently see.

Name
The name of the dwarven race is different in various languages. The modern Western Common word dwarf comes from Tudescan dweorh, but ultimately roots from the proto-Dwarven word dwergaz meaning "destroyer", self-referential perhaps to their own aggressive nature. Dialectical variations include twerg in Tolossian, and zwerg in Ripanian. North Dwarven, retaining many archaic features of proto-Dwarven, uses the term dvergr.

The modern West Dwarven term for themselves, however, is Arces. The Imperial Linguistic Institute has published research that may trace it back to an archaic proto-Dwarven word for bear, arkto, which has the same Proto-Dwarvo-Human root as dwergaz: hwrktos, also meaning "destroyer". If this derivation is correct, this indicates a conscious self-affiliation with bears and cave animals, and that while arkto and dwergaz are distinct, they have a shared root and original meaning: "bear-like folk", perhaps referring to their early inhabitation of cave refuges, or perhaps their stout and aggressive nature. For some reason, possibly a superstitious belief that uttering the name of a creature would summon it, archaic dwarves shifted away from referring to actual bears as arkto and began using euphemisms.

Prehistory
The archaic ancestors of dwarves are believed to have split from humans several hundred thousand years ago, and possibly as early as a million years ago. At one point in time, Ovaicaea was fused with another continental landmass. These landmasses diverged, leaving a population of proto-dwarves in Ovaicaea. These archaic dwarves developed stone tool usage, spirituality, art, and various hunting and gathering techniques. Anatomically modern dwarves out-competed other archaic dwarves from around 200,000 years ago. Dwarven scientists, investigating ice cores in the far north, have calculated the dates of recent glacial and interglacial periods, pointing towards a cycle of climactic shift that has severely affected Ovaicaea's history of habitation. The Skyshroud Alchemical College has studied this mostly closely, and they have conjectured that the emergence of modern dwarves coincided with a major glaciation event, and that modern dwarves survived mostly by successfully harnessing fire and taking refuge in cave systems for shelter, while other proto-dwarves failed and died.

Around 50,000 years ago, these surviving dwarves emerged into a highly mobile, nomadic lifestyle in conjunction with the domestication of wolves into early dogs. The retreat of ice sheets allowed them to diversify and spread across the arctic steppe. About 26,000 years ago, another glaciation event struck, which sharply curtailed dwarven habitation in the north. This seems to also coincide with the spread of the giant race across western Ovaicaea, which came into conflict with dwarven nomads. Dwarves virtually disappeared from the Frostfells and mostly came to inhabit cave refugia in the Aendrilad, Ucral, Morningland, and Tethar mountains. There are traces of this in the cultural memory, as dwarven mythology holds that the dwarves were oppressed by the giants and rose up against them, then migrated to a promised land in the southern mountains. The earliest evidence of permanent dwellings can be seen in the dwarven cliff houses in the Tethar range, dating to this period.

An interglacial warming occurred between 16,000 and 13,000 years ago, followed by a non-glacial cold snap between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago, before emerging into the current interglacial period. The end of the last cold snap saw, not only the proliferation of dwarves across the western continent as they emerged from cave refuges, but also the extirpation of the giants from western Ovaicaea. This latter event has many explanations, the most frequently-given being the arrival of dragons from the western islands. Dragon bands roamed nomadically throughout the north and west, and often came into conflict with giant villages over territory and resources, eventually driving them out due to their superior natural weaponry and sophisticated hunting techniques. The giants, retreating back into the Frostfells, are believed to have gone extinct, though rumors abound of their continued existence. The extinction of the giants allowed dwarves to fill the niche, and they readily settled the valleys of the Dorei and Athua rivers, and the fertile plains of the Dorath Highlands and the Ucral Plateau. Dwarves and dragons rarely came into conflict with one another, however, and dwarven society was able to flourish. Around this same time, dwarves came into contact with the emerging elven agriculturalists, and the recently-arrived humans. Another branch of dwarven nomads had settled in the far east, becoming the early Shan culture; these interacted with the elven Xia culture, and witnessed a similar development of adopting elven settlement patterns. The Shan would later form an advanced civilization and empire in the Morning Lands.

Dwarven and human contact in the west changed the course of both races' cultures, languages, and societies completely. The pre-proto-Dwarven language blended with the proto-Ucralic language of the recent human inhabitants of the Kaiser valley, creating a creole of sorts that we know as Proto-Dwarven; it bears many features similar to Proto-Aendril-Ucralic and Proto-Gastrin, indicating that the Gastrinian language family may be an offshoot of PAU that diverged before dwarven contact. Nevertheless, the histories of humans and dwarves become immensely intertwined as both cohabited in the same regions, and both adopted elven agricultural lifestyles and developed complex societies, animal husbandry, irrigation, and organized ways of worshipping the gods. Most crucial was the invention of pottery as they emerged from the Ages of Stone.

Civilization
The first dwarven civilization developed in the crucible of this network of exchange and invention, mostly around the Tethar Mountains, with major sites along the shores of Lake Reuz and at the source springs of the Tolossus, Eldun, and Tethar rivers. Other sites later appeared around the northern shore of Lake Kaiser, along the Athua River valley, and in the western Ucral Plateau. These early dwarven civilizations were mostly composed of theocratic city-states, which often competed with one another and fought with human and elven civilizations as well. The crucial shift for all of these was the invention of bronze smelting, often attributed to dwarves. The easternmost reaches of western dwarven culture, the Ucral Civilization, developed into a hierarchical, organized, martial empire that subjugated human tribes and exerted strong pressure on its neighbors. The more westward Tethar Mountains Civilization was more fragmented, but pioneered impressive works of monumental architecture and novel technologies like the chariot and the first magically-enhanced bronze weapons.

Maintaining a bronze-using empire was not easy. This required extensive networks of trade, sourcing tin from elves in eastern Tethar and from human inhabitants of Gestrin Isle and the West Aendril uplands in order to combine with bronze from the Tethar and the Ucral Mountains. As tin reserves dwindled, this precious resource had to be imported from farther afield. The Athua Valley Civilization was crucial, by coming into contact with elven pastoralists in Vilyaafana who mined and traded in tin sources from the West Mountains, and gnomes from Cape Balen that mined it from their hills. These long supply lines brought an exchange of goods, culture, and technologies across western Ovaicaea, but also made these civilizations vulnerable. To the west, both desert and sea elven civilizations were coming into conflict with the powerful, lizardfolk-ruled Salt Marsh Empire. The elven Dunera Civilization, which had exerted a strong influence on both dwarven and human cultures, was under significant threat.

Around two thousand years before the imperial age, the southern civilizations suffered a catastrophe that is still poorly understood. Along the coastal areas, cities fell to siege by waves of attackers who are still largely unknown, though ancient carvings and tablets indicate that these may have been merrow raiders. Combined with apparent famine, drought, pestilence, and economic disruption, the bronze-using civilizations collapsed over the course of a century. Even the powerful lizardfolk empire in the Great Salt Marsh completely disintegrated, possibly due to sustained conflict with the Dunera-speaking kingdoms to its north and east, and possibly due to deep penetration by these mysterious raiders.

It would be another three centuries before most of these civilizations rebuilt, though the lizardfolk never recovered. The dunera elves were crucial in the re-emergence from this Dark Age in the southwest. In the Ucral highlands, a combined human and dwarven civilization was relatively inured against the worst of the collapse, and mainly suffered economically from the breakdown in trade. They turned to iron as a replacement, developing new techniques of metallurgy and the use of magic to create hot enough forges to smelt iron to make tools, weapons, and armor. This new Iron Age technology base spread widely in all directions. The dwarven Athua Valley Civilization adopted ironworking and spread relentlessly westward, absorbing the nomadic dwarven tribes that inhabited the Dorei Valley.

In the emerging Iron Age, the predynastic Ucral Civilization morphed into the Bergaz Empire, and ruthlessly subjugated the human tribes that lived within its boundaries. By contrast, the Tethar Mountains Civilization dispersed after the mountainous region was overran by human tribes, though it is unknown if they were refugees or conquerors. This left many abandoned structures carved into the cliffs and mountainsides, some of which would see periodic resettlement; one would much later become the Confessor Abbey.

Ages of Iron
The Bergaz Empire in the Ucral plateau became the locus of dwarven civilization for over two thousand years. While not enormously impactful in western Ovaicaea, it exerted hegemony over the near east, able to project its power west into the Athua and Dorei river valleys, north into Vilyafaana, and south into Kaiser. This empire went through cycles of strength, weakness, and near-collapse, as dynastic conflict threatened its unity. Civil wars became increasingly frequent in its middle period (1200 to 700 BE), and human tribes engaged in several slave revolts. The empire undertook a deliberate policy of apartheid and tribal resettlement that geographically divided and isolated the human slaves. Despite its political instability, the Bergaz were famed for their advanced metal- and stonework and pottery, and influenced architecture and art across eastern Ovaicaea. Existing on a fertile plateau and bounded by mountains, the empire was able to produced and export grain, ceramics, wine, beer, gemstones, gold, silver, iron, and lead in impressive amounts, though the dwarven emperors increasingly hoarded precious metals and gems to display their wealth and power. This concentration of material wealth, and reduction in trade with the outside world, led to economic disaster over time, and the empire nearly collapsed in the 8th century BE as it isolated itself and lost access to vital imports in timber, herbs, peat, sulfur, and quartz, as well as loss of tribute from former dependencies.

Around the same time, the dwarves of the Dorei and Athua valleys expanded and formed networks of city-states engaged in trade. Shifting alliances led to continuous warfare between them, fueled by an iron trade sourced heavily from the Skyshroud Mountains. Empires would form briefly in one or the other riverlands, but often would exhaust themselves in a generation, and the region was never fully unified. The conflicts did, however, drive innovation. These western kingdoms had more direct and ready access to river-based trade, and therefore access to gnomish and elven states who provided new goods and ways of doing things, especially in magical techniques. While the Bergaz Empire attained power and wealth through force and crude extraction, the western dwarven kingdoms became dynamic states emboldened by renewed trade.

It is thought that during the early Iron Age, the dialects that had differentiated between the Bronze Age dwarven civilizations diverged fully into their own proto-languages. Old East Dwarven developed as the language of the Bergaz Empire, and many human tribes adopted it and began forming their own dialects. Old West Dwarven became a widespread language of trade, diplomacy, and early heroic poetry in the Athua and Dorei kingdoms by around 1000 BE, though much of the original writing has been lost. The traders and nomads of the lower Sua and Drelawin river valleys spoke a more archaic dialect of Old East Dwarven that gradually isolated itself and turned into Old North Dwarven. These linguistic differences sharpened during the nadir of the Bergaz Empire, and the flourishing of the West Dwarven kingdoms.

The Bergaz Empire underwent a revival around 600 BE. New rulers reopened trade, particularly with the elves of the north, and began military campaigns to expand westward up to the Athua river, conquering what is now Ripania, Suatha, Athuasua, and Etusa. Securing access to sources of iron, coal, and silver allowed them to greatly extend the size of the army and engage in widespread internal commerce with the invention of the first metal coinage. This revived empire became the dominant economic and military power of the Near East. In the face of this, the West Dwarven kingdoms broke apart into smaller fortress states and clan territories, forming a mosaic of warlordships along the wide plains and hill country of east-central Ovaicaea.

After 200 BE, many orc hordes fled their homeland in the far eastern steppe under the threat of genocide. The hordes that fled west settled in the Aendrilad Steppe, forming a heartland in the Great Oasis, an inland lake that fed a whole swath of fertile farmland despite the surrounding region being bounded by high mountains that prevented rainfall. These came into conflict with the Bergaz Empire, whose easternmost frontiers relied on the Great Oasis. Existing issues of water pollution from dwarven silver mining and inadequate farming techniques that drained the soil of its nutrients were met with orcish inexperience with settled farming, and the region was plunged into a extended ecological crisis. In the midst of this, the dragons, who had mostly settled in the Dorei headlands, were decisively tamed by a martial and monastic order of Dragon Riders, who cooperated with the gnomish Kingdom of Balendor and the elven freeholds and city-states to form an empire in the West. This state, typically referred to as the Old Empire, acted as a check on the rising power of the Bergaz Empire, and came into conflict over the Dorath Highlands in the early 1st century IA. The resulting war saw the Bergaz Empire decisively defeated, ending its new golden age, and caused the empire to retreat to its heartland beyond the Ucral Mountains. The dwarven statelets of the Dorath Highlands up to the Athua Valley were incorporated into the Empire; the adoption of Soltran elven laws, customs, and written language had a massive and irreversible effect on the development of the western dwarven language and culture. The West Dwarven tongue was progressively influenced by Old Soltran, and would transform into High Dwarven by the 5th century.

By the 2nd century IA, the fertile plateau had almost completely desertified and large parts were frequently subjected to massive dust storms; famine and drought devastated entire towns, and the frontier cities were ravaged with disease. The orcish tribes continued to migrate west, which had a runaway effect; the collapse of the rich eastern farmlands led to mass famine across the Bergaz Empire, which led to massive uprisings, preventing the army from successfully fending off Orcish raids and conquests. Human tribes, long under the hegemony of the dwarves, rebelled and engaged in a mass exodus across the Ucral Mountains, forming a series of kingdoms in the frontiers of the Old Empire by the early 4th century. The Bergaz Empire completely collapsed by the middle 300s, though the exact point is unclear as written records seem to disappear before traces of settlement do.

The Old Empire of the West also practiced slavery, but this declined over time. Some conjecture it was in reaction to the slave revolt of the human tribes, and their rapid migration westward to the frontier. Others, particularly elven historians, conjecture it was out of economic and defensive interest: freeing slaves provided more citizens for military service, and more taxpayers for local lords to exploit. Much of the frontier was now taken up by dwarven petty lordships, and even the elven territories were predominantly expansive freehold estates subject to a lord. A system developed, most intensely in the dwarven-dominated east, of serfdom. The people who lived on these estates would be vassals of the powerful lords, typically as tenant farmers that work the land in exchange for the lord's protection and justice. These tenant farmers would be bonded to the land to ensure a consistent and stable record for census and tax purposes. These serfs were essentially slaves bound to the land rather than to an owner, but were still made subject to the command of the local lord. The legal structure for this was vague, mostly existing out of dwarven customary law. The Old Empire's senate promulgated a law in 313, however, enshrining the legal status of slaves, serfs, and free men, ostensibly serving as the constitutional basis for the system that would later morph into dwarven feudalism.

These large estate owners would frequently grant land to temples and shrines, forming powerful temple-states alongside the secular lordships. Dwarven piety was greatly remarked upon by writers of the Iron Age, even as far back as the old kingdoms of the Dorei and Athua valleys that dominated the early part of the era. The Bergaz Empire was virtually a theocracy and magocracy during some phases of its existence, as its emperor served as the highest priest, and was often advised by talented wizards and clerics. The Bergaz temple architectural styles certainly influenced those of the west, as the preference among dwarves would always be to build into existing rock formations such as mountains and hills. Farther west, however, techniques would have to account for plains environments, and dwarves there gradually adopted gnomish styles of timber buildings. The monumental architecture wasn't limited to religious buildings, but also included fortresses, palaces, and bath houses, though temples remained a priority for most dwarven cultures throughout the era. However, the western dwarven proliferation of independent temple states may not have solely been out of piety, but as part of building an ecclesiastical counterbalance to the elf-dominated magocracy of the west coast. The Old Empire was becoming increasingly unstable in the latter half of the 4th century, due to the influx of human tribal kingdoms on its borders, increased conflict between elven and dwarven lordships in the fertile Dorath Highlands, and concentration of power in the hands of the Dragon Riders, who frequently abused their political and legal powers to exploit or massacre innocents. Alongside this, the imperial economy constricted, likely caused by extreme weather events that made seaborne trade difficult, locking the empire out of luxury goods from Gestrin, Mocryae, and Crab Bay. To the east, the orcs were still known to be on the horizon, bringing with them devastation and rumors of plague. The dwarven statelets shifted towards autonomy, seeing the crisis ahead.

Around the late 390s, the Orcs emerged from the deserts and into the Drelawin, Athua, and Sua river valleys, displacing the northern and eastern dwarves to a great extent. In the year 400, the dragons and their riders disappeared, and their great fortress-temples were burned to the ground. The Orc Khaganate raided along the frontiers of the Old Empire, eventually overrunning its defensive positions and conquering it in a massive war between 401 and 412. The Orcs also brought with them a different problem: bubonic plague, carried by dying animals. The Great Plague wiped out a third of the population of the Old Empire, hitting the mountain dwarves the hardest. In the aftermath of this violent catastrophe, the dwarven statelets consolidated into a handful of kingdoms.

Description
Dwarves are a short race, standing from 4'3" to 5' on average, with mountain dwarves a bit shorter. What dwarves lack in height, they make up for in bulk; they are, on average, about as heavy as humans. A dwarf can weigh anywhere from about 160–220 lbs. Dwarven males are a bit taller and heavier than their female counterparts. Like humans, dwarves have a wide variety of skin, eye, and hair colors, typically pale among northern dwarves and deeply tanned or brown amongst hill and mountain dwarves. Hazel eyes are common throughout the race, with blue eyes more common amongst northern dwarves and brown or green eyes commonly found amongst the hill dwarves.

Male dwarves often grow thick facial hair, which in some cultures is used to display social status. Unusually for humanoids, both sexes naturally grow ample facial hair. In some cultures, the majority of women shave their faces, while in others they do not. This hair is typically dark in hue, though among hill dwarves blond or red hair is not uncommon. Northern dwarves are known to take particular care of facial hair, carefully oiling and grooming it, with some adding perfume and ornamentations.

Dwarves are a long-lived race, though not so much as elves, and reached physical maturity somewhat later than humans. A dwarf was traditionally considered an adult once he or she reached age fifty. Dwarves age much like humans but over a longer period of time, remaining vigorous well past 80 years. Most dwarves live to see their bicentennial and a few have lived to be 300.

Society
Modern dwarven society is distributed across several nations and ethnicities. Colloquially referred to as "sub-races", though this term has been challenged, these broad ethnolinguistic groups share within themselves a common language and aspects of culture, even if they persist across several distinct states and societies. The western hill dwarves, for instance, all developed societies based in farming, feudalism, and martial and legalistic discipline, and all speak the West Dwarven language or its dialects. The eastern or mountain dwarves, by contrast, are mostly clannish pastoralists, and have a reputation for being rough and adventurous nomads, and speak a language distinct from the hill dwarves or northern dwarves, one that is most similar to the Ucralic human languages.