Overview
Dwarves are stout and hardy, known for their craftsmanship, resilience, and strong family community. Many Dwarves possess the natural ability to be good fighters on account of their muscular frames and semi-aggressive natures or miners due to their affinity towards rock and stone and the treasures that lay within.
Racial Trait
Dwarven Toughness — You have +10 maximum Health, and you suffer no Speed penalty from wearing armor or using a shield.
Unique Facts
- Dwarves have the ability to taste the potency of a crystal. By licking it, they can tell if it is a Mote, Core, Heartstone, or Great Crystal.
History
The Dwarves awoke in the mountains at the beginning of the world and founded Kudrumark there during The Age of Colonization. Around 3,731 BDC they struck gold in their home mountains — the event from which their calendar is still counted — and dwarven history has been a story of digging deeper ever since.
Their deepest strike came in 1,134 BDC, when prospectors of the Dwarves of the Golden Breeches unearthed the first known Resonance Crystal — a Pyrothyst — in Ashban. The discovery ignited The Age of Illumination; dwarven refiners developed the first crystal-working techniques, dwarven engineers built the first Automatons, and Kudrumark became, for a golden millennium, the wealthiest nation on Ardelûn. Dwarves fought in The Erefra War as allies of the Lunarin, and — in the most dwarven ending to a war ever recorded — sold the conquered land to The Marcadian Fathers rather than settle it.
Current Day
Dwarves round off the top 3 most populous races in Ardelûn. The Dwarven Diaspora — dwarves living abroad as smiths, assayers, bankers, and engineers — now outnumbers the population of Kudrumark itself, though nearly all arrange to have their bones shipped home.
Home Reckoning Calendar
The Dwarves and the Dwarven Diaspora measure and track time with the Home Reckoning Calendar. It is measured by the number of years since the discovery of gold in the Dwarven homelands in the Kudrumark (approximately 3,731 BDC); at the time of the current campaign, it is approximately 5,167 HR ≈ 1,436 DC.