Playing A Dwarf:

Dwarves live underneath the mountains and hills to the south of the lands Beyond the Pass. Most dwarves are perfectly content below their impressive pyramids and ziggurats. Indeed, they much prefer life underground to the rolling plains and valleys surrounding their homes. The Dwarves seen in Frontier towns are often traders, diplomats, and explorers, with a few scattered communities here and there. If you see one above ground, it’s not your average dwarf; something has drawn them out, be it wealth, wanderlust, or necessity. The Dwarven populace lives in anxiety of Frontier expansion, knowing it is only a matter of time before the eastern war machines bring their trains west, and then south. This makes the average Dwarf you find in the Frontier a little defensive… some might even say trigger-happy. The exception to this is the west coast region of Santaria, where Dwarven mining families take part in the mineral boomtowns that have risen since the war, using their vast expertise underground to not only take part in the profits, but protect their interests back home and keep an eye on the “Easterners”. Santarian Dwarves are less reclusive than their underground peers, but also more aggressive and paranoid. If you as a player want to play as a more “classical” style Dwarf, simply have them be from Santaria.

Dwarves use Enchantment magic, taking the power of underground ley lines and binding it into objects of power, frequently weapons and buildings. Dwarven pistols and ammunition can fell even the mightiest beast with a single shot.

Their politics are similar to the Elves, but more insular. Their dynasties tie to the long-lived Pyramid Kings, who, through merit, leadership, or treachery, have gathered power from the ley lines over the ages, in the form of enchanted items offered as tribute or enchantments directly upon themselves and their families. They fued and squabble like any other nation, but any conflcit between them is a very cold war. To upset the balance of the powers of Escarte would be doom for all of Dwarvenkind.

Life in the Underground is not unlike the frontier, but where unforgiving soil and terrifying monsters threaten the people of the Wyld Country, life below Escarte is one of magical threat. It is a constant channelling of chaos into power, and survival depends on harnessing that power. The ley-lines run deep, and they often do not take well to being diverted. So the channelers harness their natural flows like waterwheels on a river, precariously and precisely maintained. Vast pyramids and Ziggurats dot the landscape of the Dwarflands and many parts of Santaria, channeling the power of the stars and moon directly into the underground flows of magic to help maintain the flow where Dwarves have harnessed magic of great power to some purpose. This power is respected, bordering on worship. The Dwarves have no gods, but many stories about magical spirits that live within everything touched by magic. There is a face in the power of a road, there is a voice in the power of a sword. And Death… she is the beginning and end of every line, her grinning skull adorning many a Dwarven monument.