Dwarves

Dwarves are a long-lived people who build their great fortresses deep underground. They are stout, bearded, and value practical skills above all else — particularly hitting rocks, hauling rocks, and knowing which rocks are worth hitting.

Lifespan and Maturity

Dwarves age slowly. At forty-six, Borin is considered young. Dwarves don't grow their third chin hair until the age of fifty, which appears to be a meaningful milestone.

Culture

Dwarven society prizes physical labor and practical trades: mining, smithing, and stone-working. Reading is considered a suspicious hobby. The Rumbling Deeps library contains only eleven books, and Borin's enthusiasm for reading marks him as distinctly odd among his peers.

Despite this, dwarves maintain an academy — the Underpeak Academy of Practical Sciences — with formal classes in subjects like Advanced Rune Studies and Mineralogy. They also hold tournaments such as the Ironarm Tournament, where feats of strength and precision are celebrated.

Dwarves drink stonebrew. They prefer ale to coffee.

Education and Craftsmanship

Dwarven schooling takes roughly thirty years, starting with hitting rocks and gradually working up to hitting rocks precisely. By graduation, a dwarf has spent more time with a hammer in hand than most humans have been alive. A mediocre dwarven smith still outclasses nearly any human craftsman — dwarven standards involve folding steel eleven times and complaining that eleven wasn't enough.

Warfare

Dwarves fight heavy — a doctrine bred by thousands of years of underground combat. The dwarven shield wall is one of the most feared formations in the known world. Behind it come war hammers and battle axes. Dwarves who lack the physique for the front line serve in the crossbow corps. Spears and swords are considered un-dwarven.

The Great Forge

The Great Forge sits at the lowest level of the Rumbling Deeps — a vast cavern of blast furnaces, river-powered bellows, and hundreds of smiths organized into tiers of specialization. Dwarven smithing produces common steel as a baseline, with rarer materials like deep iron ore, meteor iron, and magical metals reserved for increasingly specialized work.

Relations with Other Races

Before the Sundering Compact, dwarves and humans lived and worked side by side. Human mages maintained workshops within dwarven fortresses. The Compact ended this arrangement centuries ago, separating the two peoples. Today, dwarves have limited contact with the surface world, though some trade with surface merchants persists.

Notable Dwarves

• Borin — a student, our narrator
• Gloria Sparklebright — princess of the Rumbling Deeps
• King Thrumbar the Adequately Bearded — ruler of the Rumbling Deeps
• Grandmaster Obrak Ironjaw — headmaster of the Underpeak Academy