The Dwarves of Kalenduurn

The Dwarves of Kalenduurn is a race born and decended from the giants that just as the Titans had roamed the lands after its creation, masters of the underworld and lords of minerals, their heritage can be found all across the realm; be it either through the means of statues, ancient Dwarven artifacts or the large abandoned mines that rest within the world.

Due to many misconceptions of the outside world, Dwarves are often depicted as gold hungry, greedy and hoarders of wealth, in these words there is some truth to be found how ever, they are by far gold hungry and greedy, yes they do hoard a large amount of wealth but that is for perfectly understandable reasons.

Apearance
The Dwarven folk often stands between a length of 4'3" - 4'9" tall where the females never grow taller then 4'5" . Hair color varies between Black, Brown and Ginger at young ages from 0-300 to messy Grey and silverish White on older ages such as 500-800 years old. Their eye colors are restricted to Brown and Hazel with sometimes a grey tint within them.

Many Dwarves are capable of growing beards and are often of a rather hairy nature with the ability to grow a full on goatee within a day, the longer their facial hair gets the harder it will be for them to grow it out, so they take a long time everyday to put in braids within them, decorate them with beads made out of gold or silver, maybe other materials. The females are incapable of producing facial hair, but their pubic hairs are often widely present in their lower areas.

Both male and females are of a stocky and broad framed build, with the males being capable of producing strong muscles that are capable with a bit of training to lift over 800 pounds in weight, but such is understandable as a set of dwarven armour often already weight over 600 pounds, but they will have to compersate this with their own loss of speed. The male reproductive organs are casually sized towards their length, how ever the female mammaries tend to grow larger then is for their proportions this being a bit oversized reaching to a large D cup sometimes.

Clothing and dressing customs
The clothing for Dwarves are often made up out of earthly tints and colors and prefferably more practical work clothing that they can easily repair and find them selves comfterable to work within, when it comes to the females they often wear a low neck showing a good bit of their cleavage while their mammaries are pushed up by a corset, they preffer to wear lighter tints with a long skirt under it or tighs, the male clothing consists of a pair of trausers and a shirt with a belt securing it around their weists.

The more wealthier of the Dwarven kind preffer more flamboyant clothing, such as decorated coats with various patterns within them, jewel encrusted vambraces and so on; It is considered an act of pride if you have wealth that you would show it off, those whom tries to steal from these wealthier men and women's clothing are often found with a painful death.

Dwarves whom work within the mines often wear hardhats with bare chests, or baggy shirts made out of white linnen, a pair of sturdy trousers and dwarven steel capped boots, Dwarven armor is considered to be the heaviest and most durable equipment found in Galmora and is valued highly amongst their kind, sets of armor often weight up to 600 pounds each.

Religion and Worship
The Dwarves of Kalenduurn and the Humans of Cyrian strangely believe in the same gods, this might have to have somthing to do with their related decendance from the giants as they believe in the faith of the divines. Dwarves worship them alot more differently then the humans do however, they create vast underground tunnels that lead them to a large circular room with altars to each devine being within it, but not praying to them they take moments of time where they sit down and simply meditate at the shrines for two minutes at each of the individual gods.

Marriage, Sexuality, Parrenting
Dwarves just like the High Elves marry freely and for love in life but such is only with their own race marriage between other races is forbidden and considered disgusting if one were to marry another race. . Monogamy is practiced and the act of adultery is unthinkable; they seem to marry once or twice in their life times

The Dwarves their wedding ceremonial often consists of a large amount of ale, mead and other drinks with a vast amount of food and many guests ranging from family, friends and often just strangers as well. They see marriage as a celebration that all of the Dwarven race are welcomed in just to celebrate and enjoy the festivities, it goes compared with games such as log hurling, arm wrestling, gambling and friendly duels and brawls between another.

The act of parrenting is often done by the female of the household and the clan mothers, they will take care of the children and raise them till adult hood, all Dwarves are taught to learn a craft from a young age and will be send during their childhood to work and learn under various masters so that they will have a future on a later age, all Dwarves are taught how to read and write as well.

Language and Culture
Dwarves highly value the ties between family members and friends, weaving tightly knit clans. Dwarves particularly respect elders, from whom they expect sound leadership and the wisdom of experience, as well as ancestral heroes or clan founders.

Most dwarven societies are divided into clans built along family ties and political allegiances. These clans are usually led by hereditary rulers, often monarchs of a sort and descended from the founder of the clan. Dwarves strongly value loyalty to these rulers and to the clan as a whole and even objective dwarves tend to side primarily with their kin dispite disputes over the other races that live within the realm of Galmora.

Each Dwarven clan holds one or two specialties within their clan this ranging from blacksmithing to mining. Dwarves tend to avoid overspecialization by sending some of their youth as apprentices to other clans, which brings the entirety of the race together. Because of the long dwarven lifespans these apprenticeships often lasts for decades.

Just like with any other language the Dwarven language was based off the old High Elven language but its traces are long gone due to centuries of development to the point where it became so complex that only dwarves that had been raised from birth would fully understand it.

Death, social behaviour, Politics
Dwarves value ancestory highly and take great efforts into preserving their dead in the sence of large tombs for valued ancestors and crypts for the dead clan members, when a Dwarf dies of old age or any other form depending on their status they will be entombed in a large crypt with a good portion of valuables, armor and weapons that they would want to carry with them into the afterlive with them selves being enbalmed and placed within a crystal casket that is later plated with Steel, then gold and at last in bedrock engraved with a large numbers of runes and inscriptions; while the lesser wealthier dwarves are placed within their own bedrock casket inside clan crypts that sometimes may house over thousands of dwarves depending on the span of the dwarven clan.

Dwarves in social behaviour tend to value the word of their elders above another, believing that they are meant to be guiding them with wisdom and that their expierence will aid the advancement of the clan and the racial progression. They do not often forget the past quickly such as wars and other disputes but some how always seem to end up in a good light with the Humans of Cyrian, such may be linked to their shared decendance from the Hill giants

Dispite racial unity through the means of clans they believe that true friendship can only forged over long periods of times, the difference between an acquaintance and a friend would be about a hundred years and so the chance of a shorter lived race such as a human would be a rare exception.

Politics within the Dwarven society are often heavily influenced by both religion and the higher and more influencual clans within a council that is led by the Dwarven king. The dwarven clans that are within the council often lead large companies or large guilds being devided in the following sections : Military, Civilian, Wealth, protection and industiral.

Dwarven politics often also are concerned about the protection of their crafts and wealth, dispite them most likely being the most richest races within the realms, but they strive to merely increase their wealth seeing how they think that material wealth such as gold, jewels and other rich minerals often do not decrease wealth as quickly as gold, they tend to store more of it to keep their wealth.