The Dwarves of Saga

 Dwarves are one of my favorite races in fantasy literature. There's something about the common Dwarf that captures my heart - the beards, the beer, the mining chants, the tight-knit communities. Above all, I'm always taken by the fact that Dwarves, by and large, are the same across fantasy. There are so many different varieties of Elves (high elves, wood elves, dark elves, moon elves, sun elves, blood elves, sea elves, snow elves, and eladrin, just off the top of my head), but Dwarves are always, well, Dwarves. As consistently present and unchanging as the stone itself. So here are my Dwarves, or at least the Dwarves of a world named Saga. 

The Dwarves of Saga are the world's most important people, at least according to themselves. They are proud, prosperous, with a storied history, and with tenuous relations to those outside of their own clanholds. While Elves dwell in the gloam of their enchanted forests, and Men built grand cities spanning the lowland plains, Dwarves keep to the mountains, both within and without. 

The Clans

While Dwarves do live underground, they also live on the surface. They tend to stick to their mountain ranges, building new clanholds close to existing ones. There are a few Dwarven ports, but mostly along rivers, and these are few and far between. The center of Dwarven society is the clanhold, a city and its surrounding territory, ruled over by a large family unit called a clan. Dwarven clans are all familial relations to one another, though what the Dwarves consider familial relations can be very different from what a Human might expect. While clans tend to be centered on a single direct line of descendency, Dwarves live long lives and keep close ties, so grandparents, great-great-great-grandparents, third cousins twice-removed, adopted siblings, and a whole panopoly of aunts and uncles are considered just as much part of a clan as its matriarch or patriarch. Accordingly, these clans are subdivided into families, to which a Dwarf may belong to multiple. There are also members of a clan that have no other family ties but the clan (often those adopted into the clan), who are known as clanbound in lieu of family ties.

Dwarven Pantheon

The Dwarven focus on family ties extends to their pantheon, which the Dwarves call the Great Family or the Highest Clan. Dwarves even syncretize other deities into their pantheon as far-removed cousins, drinking buddies, or passing acquaintances of their own deities. The names of the deities varies between regions and even among members of clans, but all interpretations share the same place within the Great Family. These include: Great-Grandfather, the Mountain Itself, whose body was given up to make the earth, and who shepherds the souls of the dead in its deepest depths; Grandfather, All-Wise, who taught the first Dwarves the sagas and runes, and who taught magic to the great Sages; Grandmother, the Matriarch of the Highest Clan, who keeps the great hearthfire that is the Sun and brought the first Dwarves together as clans; Father, the Peacebringer, who taught the arts of war and law, and taught that they should be used in service of peace and life; Mother, the Evergiving, the Brightstar, whose beauty shines upon the world and brings great harvests of both crops and ore; Brother, the Fearless, who knows no fear, and who drinks oceans of ale while telling all of his great deeds; and Sister, the Goldenhaired, whose face is stamped on all Dwarven coins and who whispers great inventions in the minds of brilliant tinkerers and mechanics.

Of course, the Great Family is not the only worship that Dwarves partake in. Most sinister among these other faiths is worship of an ineffable and unknowable entity known as the Buried One. Said to have been buried in the deepest part of the world by Great-Grandfather, the Buried One hears the secret, whispered prayers of lost miners, desperate merchants, greiving widows, and any and all who become trapped or buried in the earth. Down, in the depths, bereft of light, with only the echoed sounds of one's own breathing and beating heart, the Buried One whispers promises of riches, power, comfort, and an end to the pain, if only, if only, if only it could be free. Worshippers of the Buried One become quiet, sullen, and withdrawn, eschewing their connections to friends and family, and isolating themselves, often in dark, quiet places below the earth. The Buried One has few temples, carved from deep caves in utter blackness in places where enough of its worshippers can congregate. Its goals are simple: to be free. The manner by which it seeks to achieve this goal is unknown, even to its most devoted followers. It merely bids them to gather more followers and keep the existence of its cults secret, while it plots patiently in the deepest depths.

Enemies of the Dwarves

As could be expected, when clans find the presence of such cultists in their holds, justice comes swiftly, and priests do their best to cleanse the minds of the afflicted of the maddening touch of the Buried One. In cases where rehabilitation is not possible, death follows swiftly, lest others be brought under the sway of the cult. The cult is not the only enemy for which the Dwarves deal in swift justice, for Dwarves hold a long history of hatred against many other foes, chief among them Elves, Goblins, Trolls, Giants, and Dragons. 

Dwarven rivalry with Elves is such an ancient thing that none among either race can recall exactly what it was that first turned them against one another beyond vague allusions in ancient writings to Elvish arrogance or Dwarven brutishness. The centuries have softened the rivalry to a point where many Elves and Dwarves quite enjoy the friendly rivalry they have, taking it as an excellent opportunity to do stupid things to get one over on each other. Neither Elf nor Dwarf would admit the rivalry to be as amicable as it actually is.

Hatred of Goblins, Trolls and Giants is certainly a more serious matter for the Dwarves. With Goblins and Trolls, the conflicts typically boil down to disputes over territory, fundamental differences in cultures, and a long history of back-and-forth revenge killings which keep the hatred fresh in the minds of each new generation. Giants also share this conflict-ridden history, but the Dwarven hatred of Giants stems from an era where the then-dominant Giant Empire took many entire clans as slaves.

Dragons

More than Elves, more than Goblins and Trolls, more than Giants, Dwarves despise Dragons. Besides the fact that Dragons' predilection towards hoarding gold and nesting in mountains and caves naturally draw them into contact with Dwarves, Dragons represent a great shame to the Dwarves, who are responsible for the existence of Dragons. Though Dragons can breed true with another, they were originally (and can still be) born from Dwarves afflicted with a condition known colloquially as Dragon Madness. When a Dwarf becomes too greedy, they can begin to suffer from Dragon Madness, and will be overcome with a desire to hoard gold. If this hoard of gold is allowed to grow, the afflicted Dwarf will begin to manifest Draconic features - reptilian eyes, a forked tongue, patches of scales, and small horns. As the Madness progresses and the hoard grows, the Dwarf will undergo a final metamorphosis into a Wyrmling. Dragon Madness can be dealt with by keeping the Dwarf away from their hoard. This process can take several months, and the decline of the Madness will not affect the Dwarf's greed, meaning that relapse may occur if the Dwarf is allowed to begin a new hoard. Magic can forestall the onset of metamorphosis, but not cure the Madness. Dwarven society takes steps to mitigate greed to prevent outbreaks of Dragon Madness, while more avaricious Dwarves find other ways to store their wealth, often through investment or more liquid assets, which serves well enough to avoid hoard-building behavior. 

The only other race known to suffer from Dragon Madness are Goblins, who transform into Kobolds, rather than Dragons. Dragons often take Kobolds as servants, as the Kobolds desire little more than to revel in the much more impressive hoards of their Draconic masters, while the Dragons are vain and lazy creatures who love to surround themselves with obsequious servants.

Dwarven Weapons

When the lair of a Dragon is found, nearby clanholds will often send specially-equipped bands in order to track and kill the beast. Dwarves, as in many things, are extremely stubborn when it comes to their weapons, often deciding on a favorite and using it for centuries. They rarely adapt their weapons to circumstance, instead opting to find ways to ensure the efficacy of their weapons in the face of new challenges. In terms of melee combat, Dwarves tend to favor axes, hammers, and war picks, all of which can double as tools if needed. Generally, these weapons are favored as large, two-handed weapons, perfect for smashing through the defenses of their larger foes (Trolls, Giants, and Dragons) while allowing for wide, sweeping attacks against hordes of smaller foes (Goblins and Kobolds). Other Dwarves favor smaller, one-handed versions of such weapons, wielded in pairs or in conjuction with shields. Though Dwarves care little for bows, they are inventors and enthusiastic adoptors of the new black powder weapons developed in some clanholds. These weapons rarely take the form of handheld projectile weapons. More often, black powder cannons, mortars, and bombs are the weapons of choice, employed by specially trained squads of sappers and bombards.

And that's all I've written so far! The Dwarves of Saga are not a monolithic culture, and there are many Dwarven nations and Dwarven enclaves in other nations which have their own blends of unique traditions. These are merely some similarities found in clanholds across Saga, and traits by which many non-Dwarves characterize the Dwarves of Saga.

-Rabbit