Dwarves of Davric, escapees from subterranean seas

 

Dwarves, escapees from subterranean seas

Traditions: Divine, Martial

Dwarves are a costal and mountain people their legends tell of sailing starless seas in the Middle and Lower Deeps, and of their battles against the monsters of the Deeps. Those days are long lost, echoes of before the Retreat.

The dwarves lost.  Their warriors fought fighting withdrawal, their ships fighting on the underground seas, their armies holding back the hordes to give their citizens time to flee higher and higher in the deeps.  Thousands were slaughtered, entire clans lost, their names honored. 

Other clans had their names stricken, wiped from the rolls of honor.  Some clans were lost to the forces rising up from the lower deeps, turning their backs on their brethren. These forsaken clans were left to suffer for their betrayal.

When the dwarves broke through to the surface, they emerged in the mountains on the coast of the central sea.  They set up new cities in the mountains and expanded to the coasts. When the empire first came the conflicts were brief, but many of the dwarves welcomed imperial citizenship.

Dwarves of today:

The modern dwarves are still based on clans.  They also retain their system of familial guilds and caste systems.  The Caste system is still in place, but dwarves do recognize talent, a baker’s son with a talent for sailing can become a member of the warrior caste, or a dwarf with sorcerous talent may earn a place in the small arcane caste.

Dwarves still practice worship of their elemental gods, as well as ancestor worship.  Their priests are also the keepers of history and maintain records of bloodlines and legacies. The priest, or basalt, caste is the highest caste in dwarven society, though ‘priest’ is a generalization; Bards, Clerics, Inquisitors and even some Shamans make up the priest caste, as well as adapts and experts.

The granite caste is the next highest. While the dwarven mithral clad ships are all but gone, the dwarves maintain formidable infantry and naval forces. Combat prowess is important in dwarven society and the warriors are highly regarded. The line between the infantry and the sailors is blurred.  The infantry serve on the ships in rotation, and the navy shares with the troops on rotation the profits from their attacks on pirates and slavers.  One legacy from their days living underground is the dwarves have never developed a cavalry tradition.

Almost as respected as the warrior caste is the mining caste. The steel caste delve back into the middle deeps searching for veins of mithral and the rare metals used to make adamantine.  There is ongoing friction in that the miners end up fighting with dokk alfar, duergar and other threats that dwell in the deeps, but aren’t considered warriors with the benefits of the caste.

Next is the gold caste.  This caste consists merchants and skilled craftsmen.  Dwarven alchemists are also part of this caste.  They are, in general, the most travelled of the dwarves and most likely to have questions about the structure of dwarven society.

Below them is the remainder of dwarven society.  The commoners, unskilled labor, and everyone else.  This broad caste is the called the halite caste, sometimes referred to by outsiders as the salt of the earth.

Relations with others.

Dwarves consider any non-dwarves as out-caste, outside the caste system.  Generally the relationship between dwarves and non-dwarves result in the non-dwarf being seen as being a lower caste than their social position allows.  Diplomacy of course overrides convention.  No priest is going to tell the Patriarch of the Church of the Hermit he is lesser than an acolyte!